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I drop my head, the shame of it all weighing me down. “She flinched away from me.”
And Goddamn, does that hurt to say out loud.
“When?”
“When she first woke up…” I take a breath, reliving the moment for the hundredth time. “She was rolling over at the base of the stairs, and I reached for her. Because I didn’t think she should move. And she flinched.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’s scared of me!” I shout the admission.
Nero is silent for a second, “She’s not scared of you.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Easy,” he replies. “Savannah is your match.”
My match.
Heavy emotion wraps around my heart.
If only that were true.
“And I mean,” Nero continues, “I’m sure there’s all sorts of other weird shit you guys do that I don’t want to know about.”
“Fuck off.” I reach out and end the call.
CHAPTER87
Savannah
My bare feetpad slowly down the hall.
Today is the first time in the week since the attack that I’ve stepped foot outside of my bedroom and not found Ginger sitting in a chair, in the middle of the hall, telling me to go back to bed.
Taking that as a sign that I’m recovered enough to finally wander, I continue to the stairs.
Between long bouts of sleeping, I’ve been walking laps around the bedroom, so I’m not too unsteady on my feet. But the stairs…
I shove away the urge to be sick at the thought of the stairs.
If I can sleep in that bed alone for a week, I can walk down these stairs.
Except I wasn’t completely alone.
King never came to bed. King never came to see me at all.
But every night someone would come to the room and put Duke inside. Shutting the door behind him. Giving me a protector.
It had to be King.
I don’t know why he’s been avoiding me. Since he won’t talk to me, or even get close enough to look at me, I can’t ask him.
But if there’s one thing I know about King, it’s that he takes safety seriously. And since I’ve had a week to dwell on it, I’d bet all my worldly goods that he’s staying away because of guilt. Out of some misplaced sense of failure. And he’s probably twisted that around until he’s convinced himself that I hate him.
But that’s stupid.
He’s stupid.