"Do you miss it?"
I turn away from the window, from where I can see Nate outside, standing by Robbie. All I get is a very good view of his back, so I can't see his expression. But I can definitely read Emmi's, as she sits on the bed I'd slept in only hours before, her face sombre. "What's that?"
"Do you miss – you know ..." She pauses, eyes dropping to Dog who lies on the blankets at her feet. "Do you miss the way everything was? Before it became like this?"
I catch one final glimpse of Nate before I release the tiny bit of curtain that isn't attached to the plank of wood nailed to it. "I do," I admit finally, voice low. "But I try not to think about it."
Her blue eyes, so much like her father's, follow me as I sit down on the bed beside her. "I never got to see it," she says. "I want to."
My brain tells me to abort, that I should keep my hands to myself, but what does my brain know? I reach out and push Emmi's hair behind her ear. "One day you will," I say. "One day the world is going to go back to how it used to be."
It takes a good forty five minutes to get Emmi to go to sleep after that. She knew and I knew that it's a bit ridiculous to get her to try and sleep, considering it's well into the morning and she's wide awake after everything that's happened. But I insist and never leave her side as I proceed to tuck her into bed, pushing the blankets right up under her chin so she's comfy and warm.
After my admission of missing what used to be, I get the feeling Emmi does yet doesn't want to talk about what had happened, so in the end I stay seated on the bed beside her and tell her more about the world before, because as I'd worked out, she was about six months old when the world went to hell. She knows next to nothing about life before then. So I allow myself this brief window into the past, of what life had been like for me growing up.
Emmi particularly likes the idea of Barbies, how cool it is that she can practically be anything, from a nurse to a doctor to an astronaut. So I promise her if I ever come across one, I'd give it to her.
"If I find one," I say to her, as I notice her eyes grow heavy, "you can have it."
I leave her only once I know she's fast asleep. I slowly get off the bed, careful not to move too much, before I give Dog a quick pat. "Look after her," I say to him, but he's fast asleep as well, curled up next to Emmi, enjoying their close proximity.
When I close the door behind me, when the only sound in the house is the creaking floorboards beneath my feet, do I hear the lone gunshot from outside.
It only took Nate forty five minutes to put Robbie down.
It's hard not to feel anything when someone breaks through the walls you've put up to keep yourself sane. I've gone so long without feeling, and trying not to feel, that suddenly, it feels as though all my fail-safes are cracking, and are just about to crumble if only a finger were to touch them.
I feel sick and light-headed. I need to find a safe spot to hide, to let the walls come down and be swept away by the tidal wave of feelings, emotions, and memories of everything I've successfully locked away for seven years.
The hallway upstairs and the dead guy slumped against the wall flash past me; the stairs rush at me in a blur and I stumble down them, avoiding the faces peering out from the photos nailed to the wall. My boots very nearly get caught in the rug that covers the steps, but the balustrade is my very good friend and helps to keep me upright.
There's a wide doorway to my left, right at the foot of the stairs. I lurch in there, into the dark room, stacked high with books, with little but well-worn furniture. A piano sits in the corner, and an old fireplace takes up the back wall. But it's the centre of the room, dominated by two recliners and two couches that face each other, that grabs my attention. As does the corpse lying on one of them, the blood dripping from the wound in his temple, drip, drip, drip, as it pools and collects on the cream rug beneath him.
Corpses and blood don't affect me as they used to, but the sight of him, of his pale skin and the brightness of his blood, makes me ill. I drop onto the couch opposite him, and I just ... break.
It's hard to explain myself, especially why I've come to feel this way. But I guess in a sense it shows that I'm still human, that I still have my humanity intact. I still care.
My head hurts, throbs, and my vision blurs as I cry, and it doesn't matter whether my eyes are open or closed; the memories hit me like a physical blow. All I can see are the good memories, and they are much worse than the bad, for they dredge up the familiar emotions of love, of happiness, that have since been taken away from me. The grief of losing everyone and everything is far worse than the deaths themselves. It leaves me longing for a time that I can't get back, and a longing for people that exist now only in my memories.
And it hurts. It hurts because I will never see them again. It hurts because I can't create new memories with them, and it especially hurts because I'll never see Thea grow up.
And it hurts because this world is cruel, far crueller than it had been. There's no future. There's no–
"Charli."
Nate stands before me, blocking the corpse from view. Even in the shadows I can see his blue eyes, the hurt that's there, the pain of what he's done. He dominates the space just as the bruise on his cheek dominates his face. It's blue and purple, and it's only going to get worse. I should feel bad, but he deserved it. He deserved–
"Don't call me that," I mumble, and I wipe at my eyes. I wipe at my checks, I wipe everywhere, but they continue to come back damp. I can't let this asshole see me cry.
Nate kneels before me, his boots making an undeniable squishing sound. I look at him between my knees and realise that I'm curled up in a ball, hugging my legs to my chest, feet propped up on the edge of the couch. Maybe he can't tell I've been crying. Or maybe he just thinks I've been crying waterfalls.
"Charlotte," he corrects himself. He pauses, gaze intense, eyes scrutinising me. He watches me through my legs, like he's waiting for me to say something. But I don't. "I'm sorry," he says at last.
For what, I'm not sure. For not giving me my gun? For almost getting me and Emmi killed? For being an arrogant prick? For–
The thought itself makes me want to throw up. But I don't, because that would mean I'd be throwing up on Nate – which in itself is embarrassing and horrible. But I do taste bile at the back of my throat, and it's disgusting.
Nate gently grabs my legs and hooks his hands just above my ankles. He slowly pulls them down, and when my boots hit the rug, he leans forward. His knees fall onto the rug between my legs with a soft thud, kneeling, the outsides of his jeans touching the insides of my own. His hands search mine out but only find my wrists, and he pulls them away from my face, coaxing me to open up to him.
He doesn't say anything, but I've never seen his face so open and honest. And he deliberately holds my wrists so I can't hide, so I can't turn away. Even without words, I know he's apologetic. Despite being arrogant, I know he's sorry for shooting at me, for preventing me from running away, for being physically violent in retaliation to me being physically violent; for not being there to protect me, for not allowing me to protect myself.
His face, his words, this situation is not ideal. I'm already weak and vulnerable, and this only adds to my confused feelings and emotions. And his presence, which is so far into my personal space that I can't just throw him back out, is overwhelming.
Vulnerable and confused, I feel my bottom lip quiver, and that's it. I'm so far gone over the precipice that I don't know whether I can recover. I close my eyes and cry, heaving sobs ripping through my chest like the knife through that creep's gut.
And Nate reaches for me, his hands letting go of my wrists and snaking around me, and he pulls me to him. Warm, strong, safe, I lean into him, my legs on either side of him, one of his arms around my back, the other pressed against me, his hand grasping the back of my head and holding me to him. It's a strong but gentle grip, and his calloused fingers tangle in my hair.
My tears soak his shirt, but his body heat is warm and enticing and comforting. So I stay against him, ignoring the world, ignoring everything but his arms around me.
And then I pull away from him, slowly, though my muscles and mind scream for me to jerk back and get as far away from him as I can. Warning bells go off in my head, telling me this situation is dangerous, that I'm crossing over into dangerous territory. Which I am, definitely. I'm breaking all the rules, for Nate and for Emmi, and I don't know why they're so special. I know that forming relationships is a recipe for disaster, yet I've toed the line since Nate tried to kill me yesterday afternoon. Yesterday. It feels like I've known them for much longer than that.
"He wasn't going to kill us," I whisper, as I tear my gaze away from Nate's. I take a deep breath, feeling little bits of me break off and fall away. I stare at my bloody hand. "Well, not right away. He was hoping to get lucky."
Nate leans back on his heels. "Fuck," he says, and he rests his hands on the couch either side of me. He watches me again, his gaze finding mine, before he takes all of me in. His eyes roam over my body, assessing, to make sure I'm not lying to him for his benefit.
"No," I say quickly, before he can ask any questions. Speaking it aloud only makes me realise how close I came to what that creep wanted. "I made sure Emmi couldn't see. He wanted me, not her."
He ducks his head, swears some more, and runs a hand over his face. "Did he do anything to you?"
He looks at me again, and I almost don't answer him. Whether he'll get angry, whether he'll get violent, whether it will hurt him, I just don't know. I don't know him well enough. I don't know how he will react, even when I'm in such close proximity to him. But right now, looking at him, seeing the hurt behind his blue eyes, I feel compelled to speak.
More tears slip down my cheeks. "No, thank god. I ... I um, I have a knife stashed in my boot. I slashed his guts." I wipe my face, and though I continue to look at him, I can't bring myself to look into his eyes. Instead I focus on the nasty bruise blooming on his cheek. I deliberately aimed for it because I knew it was already damaged.
"Jesus." Nate pauses, unsure how to continue. "Did Emmi ..." When I don't answer, as I wipe my cheeks with my fingers, he gently grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. I've never wanted to avert my gaze more than I do now, but he forces me to look at him, this pull between us magnetic. "Did Emmi see?"
I shake my head. "No."
His shoulders relax ever so slightly, but his hold on my chin doesn't. "Thank you," he says quietly, voice so low and so deep I'm surprised I even hear him. Maybe that's what he was hoping, that I hadn't heard him, because I know he's not the type of person who thanks people very often.