Page 68 of The Blood we Crave

But she’s learned to hide so well behind them that she can’t even find herself anymore. It’s why she struggles to face what she is in the mirror.

“My father is still very much in prison, darling phantom.” My voice is bitter as I step closer to her sitting frame. “Even if he wasn’t, your fear of him is unnecessary.”

Dead eyes roam my body before a scoff rocks her shoulders. “Says his son.”

I don’t want to question why it’s only her that causes this eruption of energy inside of me. Why this molten fiery feeling pumps through my veins at her reply. My eyebrows crease into a deep V.

“So you’re cursing me now? For the father I had no choice in being born to? I never thought you were like all of them, those sheep out there”—I toss my head towards the window—“who will eat whatever scraps of information are thrown their way, true or not?”

“Do not put words in my mouth, Thatcher.” Her jaw tightens. This bitter, cold version of Little Miss Death unsettles me. And I’m never unsettled.

“You’re his son. You have nothing to fear but an awkward reunion. I’m the girl who sent him to prison.”

Her truth wafts between us. The consequences of what my father had done to her mother that night directly resulted in his arrest. After years of flying beneath the police radar, Scarlett Abbott was his undoing.

I had let her be his downfall.

She had survived him. Had seen everything he’d done to her mom. Had seen me.I’d never understood why Phoebe Abbott was the only woman my father hadn’t dismembered. Henry had a particular routine, yet not in that moment.

He was arrested shortly after they’d found her inside the home. After she’d told the police everything. Everything expect me, she’d never told them I was there.

“I am not afraid.” She exhales. “I knew he would eventually come for me. I’ve been ready for a while.”

Lie.

She is terrified of my father. I felt it in her shoulders moments ago, the way her body shook in my grasp and she disassociated from her body. A tactic the mind will force the body to do when re-experiencing severe trauma.

It’s a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.

And I watched her physically shut down after seeing that leg. Saw her mind shield itself the only way it knew how—disconnect and hide until all the monsters were gone, till the quiet she found inside that closet came back and she was able to come out. To no longer hide.

Several steps forward leaves me directly beside her, my fingers reaching up to rub against the green silk ribbon in her hair. I feel her chest seize at my closeness, her hands balling into little fists at her side.

“That’s why you sneak away to these dusty little spaces, isn’t it? You don’t have to hide from what scares you inside of them.” I tilt my head, not sure why I asked out loud when I know the answer.

Warmth spreads across her face, pink burning her cheeks, and I can see the emotions twinkling back in her eyes, raw, unfiltered emotion pouring out just for me. Because of me.

Something permanent sits in my chest, the decision that I think I’d do anything to prevent Lyra from going into that dark place inside of her head alone ever again.

“They are the forgotten places. I’m the forgotten one. These are the only spaces I feel like I belong.”

My thumb drags along the seam of the fabric, catching one of her curls, and I feel just how smooth it is beneath my touch. So warm, so her.

“He is not coming for you, Lyra. Henry is still behind prison bars, and if he wasn’t, I assure you, he would never get close to touching you.” My fingers trail down from her hair to the curve of her neck. “Not a single graze on this pale skin.”

A shiver that I feel in my hand runs through her body, her head tilting in order to give me access to her delicate throat, giving herself up to me so freely, with so little effort.

“How can you be so sure?”

“The only person who gets to make you bleed is me,” I murmur. “Your suffering. Your fear. Your blood. It’s all mine, pet.”

My thumb creeps across the flutter of her pulse, feeling it spike at my touch. All of her is so reactive to me; down to the veins and arteries beneath her flesh, they move for me. Her heart beats just for me.

“You want to build your walls, darling phantom? Shield yourself inside these haunted spaces? That’s fine,” I tell her with a nod, my thumb pressing into her neck deeply. “But you make sure I’m inside before you shut those doors. You can shut the entire world out. Not me. Never me.”

A shaky breath slips through her lips, her body leaning into my touch.

“Never you,” she whispers quietly, “Never, my angel.”