ears.
“Please, please stop talking about spankings.”
“You’re the one who brought them up.”
“You have no idea how much I regret that now.”
We continued walking, and he patted my arm.
“Just think about what I said.”
“I’m trying not to.”
He chuckled again.
“About the choice we made to allow Merdon to try to help you. We’d been trying and failing. You know you were sick, honey. You still are. And if you let yourself reflect on it, you’ll see that you were taking your pain out on others, and that’s not okay. Now, I’m not just talking about Merdon. I’m talking about Emily, too. That girl has stuck with you through thick and thin, and how have you repaid her?”
He wasn’t scolding me in that same tone Mary had used. He was compassionate and softly spoken, all while patting my hand reassuringly.
“And what about Shax? That boy would have done anything for a scrap of your affection. You knew it, and what did you do?”
I swallowed hard, hating the way James was gently forcing me to see myself. Lifting my gaze, I focused on my house ahead and wished I could just shake loose of his hold and run for it. But, I couldn’t. I couldn’t be that past version of myself that he was painting for me.
He paused at the end of my sidewalk and released me.
“Look beyond yourself, Hannah. Everyone is struggling in some way. Your pain isn’t special or new. That doesn’t mean it’s not real or that you have no right to feel it. It means you’re not alone.”
Turning, he lifted an arm.
“Any volunteers to give an old man a lift home?”
Several fey stepped out of their hiding places to offer their help.
“Fyllo, come on over here. I appreciate the ride,” James said as the fey jogged over and gently lifted the old man. “We’re having lunch at my place if you want to come in. Just don’t take a shower first. Mary’s been having issues with dropping her fork when you fey are sitting around the table in towels.”
I shook my head and went inside, not knowing what to think about James’s talk, mostly because I was just so damn tired of feeling guilty for everything. Mary had thought the worst about my fight with Merdon because of my past actions.
Yes, I’d used Shax. I’d known it at the time I was doing it and had told myself I’d been doing him a favor by giving him attention. Hadn’t I hurled similar words at Merdon at one point? I’d treated all the fey like that. But, James was right. They were good people. I had always known that on some level. But, I’d let myself justify my actions because I’d been so fucked up in my head.
Hell, I still was. My skin crawled with the need to move, to escape all these awful feelings. I was angry, confused, guilt-ridden to the point of breaking, and…alone. Unwanted. Mean.
Standing just inside the door, I looked around at the empty house and knew I didn’t want to be there. I tugged off my boots and carried them through the house only to put them on again at the backdoor. I let myself out and headed for the nearest wall ladder.
No doubt, I had some fey trailing me. I didn’t turn to see who it might be. I didn’t want to see a fey I recognized and think about all the ways I might have wronged him. I also didn’t want to be told to go home.
So I climbed the ladder and took a seat on the wall, letting my legs hang over the outside edge. Nothing moved out among the trees even though the snow around them was well trampled. It wasn’t comforting that the infected weren’t out there. Quite the opposite, actually. I shuddered at what changes might be happening that we weren’t witnessing.
The cold of the metal underneath me slowly leached away my warmth. I began to shiver lightly but made no move to get up. I wasn’t ready to return home. Instead, I lost myself in the company of the wind and trees.
“You’re facing the wrong way if you’re here for a good view of the sunset,” a familiar voice said long after my toes had gone numb.
I looked over at Brenna, who was jogging atop the wall toward me.
“Not here for the view, just the solitude. No offense.”
“None taken.”
She also didn’t take the hint because she sat down beside me.
“What I saw this morning wasn’t pretty,” she said.
I turned