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“I’ll make sure of it,” Saul whispered against her lips, then eased back and picked up the plate again, this time positioning it on her lap.
Anarchy’s face lit up with relief, but as she dashed toward him, Jasper held his hand up, stopping her in her tracks. “Sit down, Archie. Just give me a couple minutes to make sure I’m where I need to be.” He gave Connie an apologetic smile. “I’ll buy you a new trash can.”
“Goddamn it, Jasper.”
“Better the trashcan than something flesh and blood,” was his reply.
Wow. People were more entertaining than the ones she watched on TV or in movies. Caera watched Anarchy, noting how the woman quivered anxiously as she sat on the edge of the chair, ready to leap to Jasper’s side with a single word. She had a very expressive face, her thoughts emblazoned in her eyes, in the lines of strain around her mouth.
How much disruption had this development caused in her life, Caera wondered. Archie was in love with Jasper, and now part of his history had crashed into the life they were building. Would it—would Caera—cause problems for them?
Saliva filled her mouth.
Her existence ruined people’s lives, didn’t it?
Darius, the man she didn’t know but somehow owed her life to, would have paid a dear price if the woman in her memories found out about what he’d done.
The nameless woman who’d had Caera dumped on her doorstep—what kind of chaos had she suffered through with a troubled, unwanted kid under her roof?
Meredith and Samuel had upended their world, moved away from their families and broken tradition to take her far away from her Virginian roots and keep her safe, only to end up hating her for not being the perfect child they’d dreamed of.
Saul…fuck, Saul. He’d gone to a friend’s cabin for a vacation, and ended up being saddled with the fuck-up she was. Stuck with her, the woman with voices trapped in her head and demons in her dreams, who woke up clawing at her own skin and screaming about things she couldn’t remember.
Her breath hitched, shuddering out.
“Excuse me,” she whispered, passing the plate back to Saul and ignoring his concerned look, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll take—”
“No. No, it’s okay. I’ll find it.” She almost threw up as she stood, stress and panic squeezing her from all sides. “We’re back in civilized company, Saul, you can’t carry me around all the time anymore.”
“Sure I can.” He straightened, frowning at her. “Something switched, Caera. What’s going on in that head?”
“Nothing,” she insisted brightly, too brightly. Bile stung her throat.
“Everything okay?” Connie materialized beside them as though Saul had summoned her telepathically.
“Can I please use your bathroom?”
“Yeah, of course. You don’t have to ask.” Connie gave her arm a quick rub. “Just turn left in the hall, and walk to the end. The bathroom door’s wide open, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.” Hesitating, Caera stood on her tiptoes and kissed Saul softly on the cheek, avoiding meeting his eyes. If he looked in hers, even for a second, she knew he would do that weird mind-reading thing and see what they were up against.
What she couldn’t win against.
Trying not to hurry, to give away her pain, she walked as nonchalantly as she could from the room, turning left. But instead of going to the bathroom, she fell back against the wall, tilting her head back as a silent scream of anguish came close to escaping.
Counting to five, she lectured herself that it was the wrong thing to do, it was the right thing to do, until she didn’t know either way. But when she hit five, she had to go with her gut.
Praying no one saw her, Caera darted across the open doorway toward the front door, trembling as she shoved her feet into her sneakers, grinding them in without undoing the laces.
Wishing she could tell Saul she was sorry, that this was for the best—for everyone—she opened the door and stepped out into the night. It welcomed her with chilly arms, luring her deeper into its embrace, and she went without a fight.
She hurt people, simply by breathing.
The battered trash can on the other side of the drive was proof that she had caused Jasper pain, pain he’d had to come out here to relieve so that he wouldn’t infect anyone else with it.
That’s all she was doing, she told herself as tears dripped down her cheeks. She was taking herself into the dark so that she didn’t infect Saul and his friends with the curse that clung to her no matter what she did.
