Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Wide and curious.
No longer the same face as the little girl who’d been standing beside her mother a moment ago.
It was the same child who’d peered at me through the car-door window at the rest stop.
Good luck, the little girl mouthed.
I blinked, and she’d morphed again.
Right before the door swung shut behind them.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Pax
Aria’s spirit crushed me in a fucking fist as I stood outside the bathroom in the hallway, doing my best not to lose my goddamn mind as I waited. I would have stormed right in there if I hadn’t known there was a mother and her little girl inside.
But fuck me.
How the hell was I supposed to stand out here when I knew Aria was distraught? I had felt the shift the second we’d stepped out of the motel room fifteen minutes ago. The way the air had gusted with a current of cold.
It was different from the effects of the temperature, though.
It’d been like touching down on Faydor.
It had seemed as if there had been a sudden break. A snipping of the thread of sanctuary we’d managed to find ourselves cocooned in last night, even though every fiber had been frayed, the fabric we were forming so fucking tattered that there was no chance it wasn’t going to fall apart.
Pacing the hall, I listened to the sound of a flushing toilet, then the running of water, and I yanked at my hair to try to tamp down some of the anxiety that lit through me; then I was heaving out a flurry of hot air when the door finally swung open.
“Good luck,” the woman called as she pushed through, leading the little girl out by the hand.
There was no focusing much on either of them. Not when Aria stood in the middle of the bathroom, all the blood drained from her head and her skin so fucking white there was no chance she could remain standing.
It was like she’d just been exposed to the most horrific scene, which was insane, considering the grisly shit we witnessed every night.
The door drifted shut as the woman and child passed, and the second they rounded the end of the hall, I pushed back open the door, feet eating up the space before I had Aria in my arms.
She was shaking.
Fuck, she was shaking so hard.
Terror gripped me by the heart, by the throat, by this desperation. “What’s wrong?”
I angled back, taking her cheek in my hand, bending down to peer into the roiling depths of her eyes. “What happened?”
I was trying to make contact.
To snap her out of whatever had her twisted.
“I . . .”
She couldn’t even form words.
I startled when the door swung open, and an older lady fumbled to a stop in the doorway. I was pretty sure she was wavering between running to the front for help or pummeling me to death with her giant purse.
“Are you okay?” she asked Aria.
Aria managed to nod, and she finally gathered herself enough to speak. “I just wasn’t feeling well, so he came in to help me.”
The woman frowned like she was questioning the validity of it, and I didn’t hesitate to loop an arm around Aria’s waist so I could haul her the hell out of there. By the time we got up front, they were calling our number, and I snatched our bags and drinks, because there was no chance that Aria was going to be able to sit at a table and act like everything was fine.
She kept her head down as I ushered her outside, and we hurried across the lot to where the car was parked. I helped her in, then rounded to my side and slipped into the driver’s seat. I kept glancing at her as she tugged at the end of her sweater like she might be in physical pain.
I reached out and spread my hand over the tight fist she had hers in, hoping I could assuage whatever the fuck was going down, calm her, give her peace, all while losing faith that I had the capacity.
“What’s going on, Aria?” My words were jagged.
“I . . .” She swiveled her attention to look over at me. Agony bled through her expression. “My family.”
She choked on it, and there was so much torment in it that I nearly came apart right there.
My brow furrowed as I lost myself to her grief. “I know, Aria. I know you’re worried about them, but we already talked about this.”
Her head shook. “You don’t understand.”
I was going to respond that I understood perfectly before she was hugging her arms over her chest and a sob was erupting from her throat. “I . . . I thought I heard a voice last night when we were in Faydor. I thought I heard the Ghorl whispering to my father. But it was so far away from where we were that I couldn’t be certain. But I swear, Pax, I swear I saw him hit my mother.”