Her face paled instantly—eyes wide with immediate, though imagined pain.
“No,” she breathed. “No one could ever hold a candle to him. I’d rather just be alone than watch idiots try to fill the gaping hole in my heart.”
“You would never love again?”
“He taught me how to love. Without him, love is just a scam—a stupid, trite word that has no meaning to me.”
“You’re sure? You couldn’t learn to live without him?”
Farrow shrugged softly, her eyes trying not to tear up even at this fictitious scenario. “What would be the point?”
“You couldn’t make a life for yourself? Make a home?”
“Alik is home to me,” she answered bluntly.
Creed nodded slowly, not even trying to hide the tears as they stung his tired eyes and slipped down his cheeks to his scruffy beard.
“Now do you understand?”
Farrow swallowed her tears. “Yeah, I guess I do.” She found herself wanting to look anywhere but the heartbroken soldier…the pain was so clearly wrapped like a noose around his thick throat, and there was nothing Farrow could do to ease its chokehold, however much she wished she could.
The silence between the two metahumans was as comfortable as battle-worn soldiers sitting side by side on the edge of a mountain contemplating the fragility of life.
“I’ll come with you, let me just get my shoes on,” she started back toward the room she shared with Sloan.
“I’ll be fine, Farrow. Go back to bed. I’ll be here when you wake up. Even if I don’t belong with these good people anymore, I’m staying while they let me. At least I feel closer to Meg when I’m surrounded by her family.”
“We’ll figure this out, Creed,” Farrow nodded reassuringly.
Creed shrugged. “Something’s gotta give,” he repeated her words to her.
Turning, he walked out the door, locking it before he pulled it shut. With reverence few would understand, Creed tucked the chain he always wore neatly inside his shirt. Dangling at the end of the chain was a small platinum band engraved with the words: “My dream came true.”
My heart is hers, he chanted in his mind like a mantra as his feet hit the graveled pavement rhythmically. He opened his heart to her empath gift just as he did every night, hoping somehow, someway, she would find him across the miles and soothe his heartbreak.
Instead, the image of her painted harlequin clown face smiling through the tears danced across his mind’s eye.
Chapter 68 The Oasis
Margo moved to get up when she heard the back door close and Farrow return to her room. Carefully, she transferred herself from the bed to her wheelchair, then looked back at the two sleeping souls still on the bed. Theo had brought little Danny into their bed after he’d fallen asleep with Maze for the second night in a row. Margo knew Maze loved Danny and she felt a little guilty for separating the two, but she so loved snuggling with her youngest in the middle of the night.
She had just unlatched the wheel locks when Danny sat up and rubbed his big blue eyes. “Mommy?”
“Go back to sleep Danny,” Margo whispered over Theo’s soft snores.
“I had a dream,” he said climbing to the edge of the bed and sliding down on his belly to the floor. He turned to lean into Margo’s open arms then climbed easily to sit in her lap.
“Did you? Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I dreamed how to make it so your legs would work again.”
“Oh, sweet Danny. Please don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not worried, Mommy.” His innocent, sleepy eyes looked up into his mother’s. “I just know how to fix you now.”
Margo was using both hands to push her wheelchair out of the room so they wouldn’t disturb Theo with their discussion. Danny clung to Margo’s neck like a baby monkey—balancing so he wouldn’t fall off as she leaned forward moving the chair.
Thinking these were just the dreams of a little boy, she absently kept the conversation going. “And how would you do that, little one?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before because it makes sense.” Margo was still amazed to hear the little boy speak so fluently after his months of silence. She smiled at the big words he wielded casually.
“Think of what before?” Margo turned the corner past the hallway and reached up to turn on the kitchen light. Both mother and son had to squint for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the brightness.
“Water. Mommy, I need you to get in lots of water. Then I can fix you.”
“My sweet boy, you’ve drenched me in water before and look what you’ve done! I can wiggle and feel some and I even put some weight on my feet a couple of days ago. Your gift is beautiful, but my injury is just too severe.”
“I need a lot of water, like a pool or a lake so I can touch the ground. Yes, Mommy—can we go to a lake today?”
“Honey, it’s fall. The water is too cold.”
“Please?”