Page 58 of Borrowed

The living room was worse.Half the ceiling had collapsed.One of our old bunnies, blackened and split open, sat limply in the ashes, the bones frozen in the flame’s rage.

Trumpet.Or maybe Delila.

They looked the same when the fire got to them.They screamed the same.

“I forgot the cross,” I said, breath hitching.“It’s still on Mother’s neck.”

Toby appeared then.Or maybe he always had been, perched in the dark like smoke, eyes glowing through the bandages like cinders.The butterfly fluttered near his wrist, wings charred and perfect.

His smile was small.

Tender.

“Lay down, Sister.”

I did.I kneeled before him like he was my God.

Right where the coffee table used to be.Right where Mother told me to sit still while she left to take Toby upstairs.Right where I stayed, frozen, listening to Mother pray and Toby cry.Because good little girls were supposed to be quiet.

Now, I wasn’t a little girl anymore.

I was Toby’s.

He came to me and pressed his mouth to the soft skin of my neck, right where the cross lay inside Mother.

“This is where we were born,” he said.

“And where we’ll burn again?”I whispered.

His fingers curled in mine.

Tight.Possessive.

Burned.Warped.

Holy.

Toby stared at me like he’d starved for years, and I was the last beautiful thing left in this rotting world.His hands trembled.

Not with fear.

With need.

His voice was rough.Cracked.“You’re mine.”

I nodded.My lips split in a smile.

“I always was.”

He surged forward.

No warning.

No hesitation.

And slammed me into the floor.

The ashes billowed around us like smoke reborn.His mouth crushed mine.