Page 56 of Hush, Little Baby

Now we’re in the same car as last night, and the sky outside the windows isn’t dark anymore, but it’s not really morning either. The world is a blue-gray blur of empty streets and early lights, the kind of hour where everything feels paused between one day and the next. I sit in Nikolaus’s lap because he put me there when we got in, and I didn’t fight because fighting feels very far away.

Also, because the car is strange and the airstrip is coming, and everything keeps moving whether I want it to or not.

Nikolaus has one arm around my back and one hand resting over my blankie, where I clutch it to my chest. His thumb moves back and forth over the worn fabric, not touching my skin, exactly, but close enough that I can feel it.

Constantine sits across from us, phone in hand, watching me sometimes when he thinks I don’t notice.

He and Nikolaus seem pleased.

Not in a smiling, laughing way, because nothing about this morning has been easy enough for smiling. But there is a looseness in their shoulders that wasn’t there earlier. A relief I don’t fully understand until Constantine says, quietly, “At least he’s staying settled.”

Nikolaus’s arm tightens around me, just a little. “Yeah, we really lucked out on timing.”

“It’d be great if he stays like this until we’re back.”

“Even if he doesn’t, it’ll be fine. I doubt we’ll need to use what we talked about.”

They are glad I’m like this.

Small.

Quiet.

Manageable.

The thought should make me angry enough to claw my way back to myself, but it doesn’t.

Instead, I press my cheek into Nikolaus’s shoulder and listen to him murmur, “That’s it, baby. You’re all right. You’re going to love your new home. I even have a special room ready just for you, with a nice big crib and toys and board books. We’ll change anything you don’t love about it, and add anything you want, because I want it to be absolutely perfect for my baby boy.”

His voice is soft and so nice.

Too nice.

The kind of nice that wraps around my brain and gives it a hug.

And I would be lying if I wasn’t already yearning for my very own playroom.

I know what he’s doing, maybe. I’m not completely gone. Some part of me can still point at this and call it manipulation, can still understand that Nikolaus likes me this way because I am easier to move, easier to comfort, easier to keep. Some part of me knows that every soft word is also a leash.

But the rest of me is pressed against his warm chest in the back of a car, and my head feels too floaty to care.

“Doctor is confirmed for the house,” Constantine says. “He’ll be there when we land.”

Nikolaus’s fingers slip into my hair. “Good.”

No, not good, I want to say. I don’t want to deal with a doctor on top of the whole being kidnapped thing.

My fingers tighten in the worn fabric of my blankie, bunching it up, and Nikolaus’s hand immediately stops moving through my hair.

“Hey,” he murmurs, tilting his head enough that his beard brushes my temple. “What made you make that face, little one? What is it?”

I don’t answer because I can’t. The words are in me somewhere, but they are too heavy to drag up. I only squeeze my eyes shut and burrow into his shoulder, hoping that if I hide hard enough, maybe the doctor can’t find me. Maybe New York can’t find me. Maybe the whole world will get distracted and forget to keep happening.

Nikolaus makes a soft, understanding sound that I hate a little because it makes it seem like he understands even without my words.

“You don’t need to worry about the doctor,” he says, voice warm and low, like he’s telling me a bedtime story instead of discussing a medical examination I did not agree to. “He’s only there so that Daddy can learn how best to take care of you. No one is going to hurt you. No one is going to make you do anything frightening. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

That should not help….. and yet….