Page 30 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

Now

I scanned the dim hallway. Did Sparrow wait behind one of the other doors, ready to pounce the moment I passed by?

My gaze moved to Joshua’s door, and even though he was somewhere downstairs, hiding inside his gatekeeper, I hoped he was okay. I hoped he got to play in the snow one day.

Smoothing my hands over the shirt and jeans I put on, I ventured to the stairs.

At the bottom of the landing, I panicked when I faced the direction I’d gone in with Joshua. The unsteady banister shook beneath my tight grasp on it. I squeezed my eyes shut, unsure of where to turn, but not wanting to go that way again. I couldn’t handle facing Sparrow’s wrath if I were wrong.

I recalled the rooms Joshua and I passed on our way to the basement door. None of them seemed to be in use. With that in mind, I turned left.

The smell of something hearty hit my nose, and my stomach cramped. I picked up my pace, my hunger overriding my need for caution.

The old-world style kitchen came into view after turning a corner, the ornate mahogany cabinets sparkling as if recently polished.

I stopped short at finding Sparrow hovering over a stockpot, stirring its steamy contents with a long wooden spoon.

Elliott couldn’t cook, not well anyway. Something else that made him and Sparrow completely different.

He set the spoon on a dish off to the side.

The voice in my head shouted for me to announce my presence, warned that Sparrow catching me watching him would trigger his rage.

But there was something about seeing him be domestic, something about the way his shoulders hunched, and the way he sighed before hanging his head that made him seem…

human. I wasn’t ready to give up this version of him. Not yet.

Sparrow rubbed at his nape, and seeing his long, delicate fingers do something other than torment me warmed my heart.

He stretched his neck from side to side, the movement causing the end of his braid to brush across his back.

The combination of it all softened him, and I wondered if his hard stare had softened too.

The ring of keys situated firmly at his hip served as a reminder of who he was, and what he’d do if he knew I’d witnessed this vulnerable moment.

As much as it hurt me to do so, I retreated around the corner, coughing loudly before re-entering the kitchen.

Sparrow stood with his spine straight, the exhaustion in his eyes nearly eclipsed by the invisible walls guarding them. Did he sacrifice sleep so that Joshua could play? Who else did he sacrifice for? Who else was he protecting in this house?

“You said to meet you here.” I wondered if maybe I’d misheard him because he didn’t look pleased to see me. I folded my bandaged hands behind my back, then thought better of it before clearing my sore throat and letting them fall to my sides. “I can go back up if—”

“Sit,” he ordered. I looked at the stools at the island, then through the archway into the dining room. I took a gamble and headed for the dining room.

The two place settings situated across from each other made it easier to determine which of the twelve seats I should take. I chose the one facing the rotting china cabinet. It provided a partial view of the kitchen.

Scooting my chair under the table, I held my hands in my lap, not wanting Sparrow to see them shake. He cleared the archway, carrying two steaming bowls. He placed one in front of me before taking his seat.

Sparrow watched me with a displeased expression when I made no move to eat. I willed my hands to still before removing my silverware from the cloth napkin and stirring the stew with my spoon.

I blew on a piece of beef before bringing it to my mouth. I considered that he could be poisoning me for a brief second before taking a bite, deciding I was too hungry to care. Having an appetite at all proved my body’s need for food outweighed my anxiety.

“It’s good,” I said, resisting the urge to grab the bowl with both hands and drink straight from it. “When did you learn how to cook?”

Sparrow ignored my question, spreading his napkin over his lap before leaning over his bowl.

He scooped up a spoonful of stew but stopped before it reached his lips.

He flicked his eyes up, catching me gawking at him.

I guessed something as simple as his eating shocked me, too.

It was hard to imagine the same thing that sustained me, sustained him, that without food and water, he wouldn’t survive.

It seemed his level of cruelty should operate on batteries or immortality alone.

Would I also find out that he had a heart?

As if sensing he’d be revealing a fatal flaw, he leaned back, pushing the bowl away.

Sparrow didn’t realize that revealed more to me than eating ever would.

He cared about what I thought. He cared about my impression of him, as hard to believe as that was while my body throbbed from all he’d done to me.

Maybe he wanted those thoughts and impressions to center around fearing him.

I ate a few more bites of meat before coming up for air.

“Why did you ask me down here?” I was going to ask why he’d invited me to dinner, why he’d cooked this delicious meal for me.

But that would’ve implied he’d done something kind for me, something beyond ensuring I stayed alive long enough to get what he wanted from me.

In some weird way, it all felt like an apology.

But I didn’t think pointing that out would’ve gone over well.

“What did he tell you?” He was all business. I’d been about to ask who and when, but figured the matter of Joshua would’ve been more important to him than Elliott or Quentin.

“You don’t know?” I assumed he likely didn’t, given my exploration with Joshua. The little I’d read about gatekeepers suggested he should have, though.

“What. Did. He. Tell. You?” Sparrow hated being questioned.

“Tell me why you don’t already know first.” I don’t know where my boldness came from, but I wanted to understand what level of consciousness they shared. I needed to remember I had leverage here as well, even if my bruises stated otherwise. He wanted something from me, or I’d be dead.

“I should have.” It didn’t please him to admit that. His jaw hardened, but he remained seated, keeping his hands off me.

I nodded as though his answer made perfect sense to me when it didn’t. It was an answer, though. A small win.

“Nothing, really. He’d been happy and then… That’s all, really.” I didn’t want to say Joshua was scared. Something told me Sparrow wouldn’t have enjoyed hearing that I knew what fear looked like on him, even if he wasn’t himself at the time.

“His fire engine came apart. He asked me to fix it. So I did.”

Sparrow narrowed his eyes. “What else did he say to you?”

“Tell me what you meant by ‘I should have?’”

Sparrow’s hand fisted on the table, prompting me to answer his question, even though he hadn’t answered mine.

“He said nothing else. Asked me for nothing else. He continued to play with his toys while I sat with him.”

“So why were you two trying to enter the basement?”

“How do you know that?” If he didn’t know what we were talking about, or that I’d even gotten into Joshua’s room, then how did he know we were near the basement? We’d made it upstairs by the time he took over again. But Joshua felt him coming before then. Or felt someone coming.

“Someone’s coming.”

Was he unaware of Sparrow too? Of Elliott?

“How do you know we were near the basement?”

“I felt his panic,” he bit out.

I averted my gaze, once again regretting involving Joshua. I knew he was afraid, even after I said I’d protect him. He went with me anyway, which spoke volumes about how innocent he was, and how badly he wanted to go outside and play.

Feeling Joshua’s panic didn’t explain how Sparrow knew we were near the basement. But Joshua had been to the basement before and feared going again. I assumed Sparrow somehow knew that, making it easy to deduce what had made Joshua fearful again.

“I won’t hurt him,” Sparrow whispered. My eyes snapped up to meet his, seeing a hint of the compassion Elliott always kept there.

I believed him. I believed he wouldn’t do anything to make Joshua sad or more afraid.

If anything, I was the one Joshua needed protecting from.

Maybe that was exactly what Sparrow was doing when he tied me to the chair.

“He said his parents were in the basement. Why would he say that?”

Sparrow gave me a look equivalent to an eye roll. “Tell me, does that make sense to you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Exactly. He’s a child. There’s nothing down there. It’s dank, decayed.” He made me feel like I was a child for even asking.

“Why are you always so tired?” I asked next, trying my hand at something that did make sense. I’d asked him before, but maybe this time he’d answer me.

Aside from when he launched into a full-blown rage, his body language never gave much away—except for when I’d watched him unnoticed in the kitchen.

If I got anything but anger from him, it was in the tiny tells that were barely there.

Something shifting in his gaze, his fingers tightening, a slight muscle tic in his jaw…

It was the same now as he watched me with a pointed, calculating stare, as if wondering just how much to tell me.

“A switch can’t be held back forever. I can hold off for a long time, but eventually the pressure builds up, and my brain takes over.”

“So, since you can’t always hold back the switch, you make sure you control the environment.” I understood why Joshua had been locked in his room. “Are there others?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“One other… at the moment,” he gritted out, obviously reaching the end of his rope.

At the moment. My mind reeled as I struggled to decipher the meaning behind his words.

“Why are you telling me all this?” Asking why he was being nice to me didn’t feel accurate.

He wasn’t being nice. If anything, he was barely tolerant of me.

“And why did you bring me my things?” I’d been so nervous when I got down here, forgetting to thank him for that.

I still didn’t have my phone or laptop, but he’d given me what mattered most, even if he didn’t know it.

He fell silent again, his features blank. I ventured a guess.

“Because he would have wanted you to,” I breathed, then followed his stare to the bandages on my hand. Because you’re sorry, I didn’t say.

“You believe me, don’t you?” My breath came faster. “You believe everything I told you upstairs tonight. You believe everything I’ve said since I got here. You know I love him.”

“Finish eating,” he ordered, unwilling to admit anything, “then pick up from where you left off.”

I did as he asked, then told him about the months leading up to Elliott’s birthday party, then filled him in on our first day of school. For the most part, Sparrow listened without interruption, only stopping me when I skipped over the events that happened after we got home from school.

“Wait,” he said. “What happened when you got home from the first day of school?”

My palms grew sweaty, causing one end of the bandage to peel up. “What makes you think something happened?”

“Because you meticulously recounted every second of your time together but then chose to skip over that particular part. Why? What happened?” he demanded, as if assuming the worst. As though he thought we’d hurt Elliott during that time gap.

He was right, we had, and I hoped telling him about it didn’t cost me.

“We had this oversized patio chair. It was like a bed, really. It could be reclined into one. On rainy days, the three of us would cuddle up on it, under the protection of the patio roof.”

Sparrow’s frown deepened like he didn’t get what about that would make me hesitant to share it.

But this part was only meant to demonstrate how close we were to each other.

To explain the type of proximity we craved, to show how addicted we were to being under one another’s skin.

I told him this because I hoped he’d appreciate how Quentin and I felt when we thought we’d ruined everything.

“Thunderstorms made Elliott nervous. They felt violent to him; they made him flinch. Quentin and I got to feel like superheroes by protecting him from them. After a while, the loud, rumbling sounds excited him, because he knew we’d be there to hold him tighter.

He knew we wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

” I smiled, the move making my face hurt.

“He was one of us, a part of us, and we felt sick whenever he was out of our sight for too long. He ended up going through the woods after we got home from school.” I stopped to explain to him what that meant.

“He ended up spending the night there too—at least that was what we thought he’d do.” I exhaled, pressing down on my leg to keep it still. “But Elliott came back, and we thought we’d lost him for good.”

“What did you do?” Sparrow asked, his grim expression telling me he’d revoke his unspoken apology if my answer didn’t please him. “Why did you think you’d lost him?”

“Because he got a glimpse of who Quentin and I truly were to each other,” I whispered, “and it scared him.”