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“Just fuckinghurry,” Traps urged, not able to take another second of her tragic wailing.
“This is going to feel strange,” Fetch warned lowly.
Traps grunted when heat pinched his navel then slowly spread through his body as Gretchen’s wails seemed to get louder, longer, more painful than ever. What the fuck was he doing, how was this helping?
“Handy…” Fetch whispered, his breaths shuddering out of him. “Get ready. Incoming.”
The warning dropped Handy to his knees like he’d gotten punched in his stomach. His free hand shook next to him in the air as he seethed and growled, then slowly made a fist.
“She’s got it,” Handy warned through a growl as they waited. “Holyshit, she’s returning it. And it’s fuckinghuge.”
“I’ve got him,” Fetch said back. “Send it to me.”
Whatever he sent through hit Fetch hard enough to produce a sharp warbling in the air. “Brace yourself, brother,” he breathed around the metallic growls.
Neelo wasn’t sure how to brace other than planting his feet apart and holding tighter to the rope linking them. The moment he whispered his, “Ready” a huge fire-blast hit his veins followed by a dense flood of Gretchen’s pain. A chain of anguished memories flowed through the ropes connecting themuntil each breath he took was like fighting for his life. He wasn’t just seeing her life, he was living every moment. Every few seconds he was thrust into moments of raw agony until finally he stood in a memory where his sweet Gretchen was just a little girl of around six. The first thing that stole his breath was feeling her pure heart. She was such agoodchild. So very quiet. So very careful. No one worried about her because she never asked for anything. Never wanted to be a burden. She just wanted to be the best daughter, to help with the day-to-day burdens of her large family. She didn’t show her needs even though she had plenty—all aching and unspoken. She was lost in the noise of the household, overshadowed by younger siblings, twins born right after her, needing more care, more attention, while his sweet Bee-shjoo made herself even smaller, more invisible.
He heaved through the painful hole in his chest as his guts twisted through her memories. He saw Marcy, her older sister who was supposed to look after her but never did. Not out of cruelty, just ignorant neglect. He watched Gretchen try and open up only to get cut off every time. There was always something or someone more interesting happening. His heart shattered as he watched her at family gatherings, trying so hard to join in, her voice getting quieter as others laughed, talked over her, until her words were just... gone. Faded into the background.
Just like her.
Neelo growled on the sharp, bitter craving to be seen. To beneeded. To bewanted.Every attempt to connect with somebody met with indifference.
She wasinvisible. And to feel it was suffocating him.
“Stay with it, brother,” Fetch urged, his voice low and tight, struggling with the weight of it too. “She needs you to stay with it.”
The memories rushed forward again, relentless. Her birthdays... God, her fuckingbirthdays. Neelo watched her pour her heart into everyone else’s celebrations—spending days preparing, making handmade decorations, crafting personal gifts—always going above and beyond, hoping they’d notice, hoping it would matter, hoping they’d return the gesture. But when her own birthday came around, it was last-minute and barely remembered even with her reminding them weeks ahead. A bitter sob choked him as the memory of a forgotten birthday gutted him. She got biscuits for a makeshift cake. No candles, no decorations. The agony intensified when he listened and watched the laughter and chatting, but none of it was withher. Never withher. And still, she smiled, she thanked them, she forced herself to act grateful whiledyinginside, dying to be important to them, special to them.
Neelo clenched his fists as Gretchen’s pain echoed through the ropes and tore him to pieces. This wasmorethan neglect, it wasabandonment. Bit by bit. The part that slayed him was howlongshe tried. Howlongshehoped.Hoped to be seen, to matter. But they fucking never saw her. Shenevermattered. And ithurtworse than anything Neelo had ever felt.
“She’s been…invisibleher whole life,” he barely whispered, choking on the realization. “And shetried…sofuckinghard.”
Fetch’s grip tightened on the rope, feeding more of the pain through to him.
“She hid behind her books,” Neelo gasped around the agony. “Pretended everything was fine.” Neelo dropped to his knees as he held on to her with all his strength. “She hides behind masks, that’s how she’s survived,” he realized, his voice breaking. “That’s how she survived being fuckinginvisible.”
The weight shifted inside him as something heavier than all the loneliness and neglect crawled through the linesconnecting them. A shadow, lurking in the back of her memories.
“It’s multiplying,” Handy grunted, his voice strained as the backlash power pulsed through them.
“We’re almost there,” Fetch breathed, his voice shaking with the effort of whatever he was doing while Gretchen’s cries came like jagged shards of glass.
The pressure in Neelo’s chest built to unbearable when it came. That horrible fucking day shegaveup. Stopped hoping anyone would see her, anyone would care. That moment she stepped into isolation and locked herself away, therealGretchen. She would remain there, his sweet Bee-shjoo, trapped in a place she called Nowhere. Unreachable.Utterlyalone.
“I have to break through,” Neelo whispered, his voice raw. “I need to go to her, she needs me!”
“You will,” Fetch growled, tightening the ropes around Neelo’s waist and the ones connected to Gretchen. “We’re almost there. She’s still pulling us in.”
Gretchen’s pain surged through Neelo, her cries guttural, ripping out from a place so deep he could hardly breathe through it. She was a little girl lost in the dark, pleading for someone to find her and save her. It stretched on and on, rising and falling in waves of despair.
“Now!” Fetch ordered. “This is the center of her darkness.”
Neelo’s body trembled from the onslaught of emotions still crashing through him. His hands shook in the ropes as her pain fought to drown him. He swallowed hard and breathed deep, calling to her, “Bee-shjoo.” He closed his eyes and sent all his love, all his strength back through the rope. “Iseeyou, Bee-shjoo. I’m here, my love.”
The rope pulsed beneath his hands, but Gretchen’s sobs didn’t stop. If anything, they became more frantic.
“She’s buried too deep,” Handy muttered, grimacing as he held on. “She can’t hear you.”
