Page 43 of The Words Beneath the Noise

Silence.

I lay there in the dark, cold seeping into my bones, and let myself want something I had no right to want.

Sleep, when it finally came, was shallow and full of ghosts.

But for the first time in months, not all of them were accusing.

Some of them, impossibly, looked like hope.

I woke two hours later,drenched in sweat despite the cold, Danny's name still caught in my throat.

The room felt like a coffin. Walls too close, ceiling too low, air too thick with the smell of my own fear. I needed out. Needed to move, to run, to do something with this body that would not stop shaking.

I pulled on my boots and coat and slipped out into the night.

The grounds were quiet, snow muffling everything, the world reduced to shades of grey and white. I started walking fast, then faster, then running, boots crunching through the frozen crust as I pushed myself toward exhaustion. Past the huts, past the manor, past the lake where Art and I had sat under the stars. Out the gates with a nod to the guard who knew better than to question where I was going at this hour.

The cold burned my lungs. Good. Pain meant alive. Pain meant present. Pain meant not trapped in the mud of Normandy with Danny's blood on my hands.

I ran until my legs screamed and my chest heaved and the panic had nowhere left to hide. Then I walked, breath coming in great white plumes, following the lane toward the village without any real destination in mind.

The Crown and Anchor materialised out of the darkness like a memory I had not known I was chasing.

I stopped outside, staring at the dim glow leaking around the blackout curtains. Art had come here. Had walked through that door into whatever waited on the other side. Had found something worth risking everything for.

Maybe I needed to understand what that was.

The main bar was nearly empty, just a few old men nursing pints in the corner. The barman looked up when I entered, assessed me with the quick efficiency of someone who had learned to read trouble.

“Kitchen's closed,” he said.

“Not here for food.” I approached the bar, keeping my voice low. “Looking for the back room. Someone told me there might be... entertainment. Tonight.”

The barman's expression did not change, but something shifted behind his eyes. “Someone told you, did they?”

“Friend of mine. Comes here sometimes.” I hesitated, then took the gamble. “Dark hair, talks too fast, probably knows more words than anyone needs to know.”

A flicker of recognition. “Pembroke's friend, are you?”

“Something like that.”

The barman studied me for a long moment. I held his gaze, letting him see whatever he needed to see. Finally, he nodded toward a door at the back of the room.

“Knock twice. Tell Margaret that Arthur's omi sent you.”

Arthur's omi. I did not know what that meant, but I filed it away and crossed to the door. Knocked twice. Waited.

The woman who answered was perhaps fifty, steel-grey hair, eyes that had seen everything twice.

“Yes?”

“Arthur's omi sent me.” The words felt strange in my mouth. “I am a friend. I think.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You think?”

“I am trying to understand some things. About him. About...” I gestured vaguely. “This.”

Something in her expression softened, just slightly. “First time in a place like this?”