desire to talk to him or explain to him what was going on inside that head of hers, he was under no obligation to stay. He could go back to his own boxcar, shower, and sleep. He hardly needed her to do such simple tasks.
But this was what love was. This was what it would do to him. Leave him standing there at her bathroom door, wishing he could pluck his aching heart out of his chest and slap it against the wall.
Again.
Whatever.
But she was in pain. And because she was in pain, he was in pain. Idly, he debated how much of it was because of his Sponsorship of her, and how much of it was because he loved her.
Either way, he knew he hated it.
Truly, and entirely, hated it.
But there was nothing to be done about it in the moment.
He fed his strings through the lock of the door, using them to press up on the pins and twist the metal. It wasn’t a complicated lock to pick. Clicking the door open, he was already halfway into his rapid-fire speech as he slid it into the pocket recess. “I should be quite cross with you for locking me out, Cora. You didn’t even offer me anything to drink, or if I would like to bathe before you—or with you—and now you’re ignoring me? I can’t imagine that’s a very nice way to treat the man who—”
He paused.
He expected to see a beautiful naked girl standing in the shower. Maybe startled. Maybe angry.
What he had not expected was to see Cora balled up in the corner of the shower…fully clothed. Her knees tucked to her chest, her arms hugged around them, her head down, face hidden behind a curtain of dark, wet hair.
She was sobbing.
Lazily swirling around her on the white tile, was blood. It flowed from her skin and clothes as the stream of water diluted the substance that caked every inch of her and sent it slowly spiraling down the drain.
And the water was set to cold.
His rant died. As did his desire to leave. He began peeling off his own clothes, tossing it all aside, until he was only in his underwear. It felt strange to be naked when she was not. An odd compulsion, but one he couldn’t deny. He turned the water up to a reasonable temperature and stepped inside. Flinching at the blast of cold water against his chest, he knelt on the tile beside her. “Cora…”
She didn’t respond. With another long sigh, he slowly pulled her arms away from her legs. As she wailed and tried to pull away from him, he shushed her gently and insisted. Bit by bit, she went limp.
She is the avatar of an eldritch creature that could destroy us all. But she was vulnerable. Wounded. And she hadn’t shown any of that to the others. Only to him.
She trusted him. At least a little.
For better or worse.
He began to peel her soaked clothes off her, balling them and tossing them into the sink. They were ruined, but there was no reason to make a mess if he could help it. Finally, the water was warm, and she was properly undressed for the situation.
Reaching up, he gathered the soap and a cloth and began carefully tending to her. The scrap of blue fabric was almost instantly stained dark purple by the amount of red that he was wiping off her skin.
At least she had stopped crying. But her empty stare at the wall in front of them made him equally concerned. The vortex in his heart hurt no less than it had a few minutes before. She was simply too tired to keep sobbing.
For once, he had no wiseass comment to make. He tended to her dutifully, shampooing her hair, rinsing her off. He flicked off the shower and, gathering her up in a towel in his arms, he sat her on the edge of the sink. He began to dry her off.
“Cora.”
She stared blankly at his bare chest.
“Cora, look at me.”
Silence.
He crooked his finger under her chin and tilted her head back. Finally, gray, exhausted eyes met his. He ran his thumb along her jawline. “Speak to me.”
“I don’t know what I am anymore.”
“How is that anything new? You haven’t known what you are for—oh, however many months it’s been since you arrived, now. This is nothing more significant than what happened when you set foot in here that very first night. To you, at any rate.”
“I