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"Like what?" Chubs pressed

Oh God, I couldn’t even talk about it I physically could not speak Not about the hundreds ofabout theto scrub the floors of the Mess Hall after an Orange told a PSF to walk in and open fire on every other soldier he saw there My stomach turned violently, and I could taste it, the metallic bitterness of blood Smell it I remembered how it felt to scrape it out from where it was packed painfully under my nails

Chubs opened his mouth, but Liam held up a hand to shut him up

"I just knew I needed to protect es, too There was so with them With us It was the constant chatter, the flood of everyone else’s feelings and thoughts, I think Eventually you learned how to block some of it out, to build up a thin wall between your mind and others’, but not before everyone else’s poisonous thoughts were in there, staining your own So outside of their own heads that they couldn’t function right when they finally had to return their own

"So now you see," I said, finally, "what aher head, looking distraught at the suggestion Chubs rubbed at his eyes, hiding his expression Only Liaht in the eye And there was no disgust, or fear, or any of the thousand other ugly eine where we’d be without you, darlin’," he said, quietly, "and then ot"

TWENTY

THAT NIGHT, WE SLEPT IN THE VAN, each sprawled out on a seat I let Zu have the rear seat, and stayed up front next to Liam I felt uneasy in the silence, and sleep didn’t come easy, even when I called to it

Soive into the fuzz covering er down the back of my neck I rolled over onto my other side, and Lia to yourself," he whispered "You okay?"

I proppedthe sleep away fro the cracked windshield like a filed itself and went streaking down the glass, it was like a tear in the fabric

Looking out into the forest was like searching so, but inside the van, everything was sharp The lines of the reclining seats, the dashboard knobs--I could even read the tiny printed brand naht, I could see every bruise and cut on his face, so-since scarred But what held my attention wasn’t the bruise on his cheek--the saiven him a few days and lifetiht up, curling around his ears and against his neck The storm had turned its color to a darker shade of honey, but it didn’t lose any of its softness It didn’t make me want to reach out and touch it any less

"What?" he whispered "What are you s to s a full minute after Liam had closed his eyes and leaned into rabbed my hand before I could pull back and tucked it under his chin

"Nope," he whispered, when I tried to tug it away "Mine now"

Dangerous This is dangerous The warning was fleeting, banished to the back corners of ood it felt to touch hi to need it back eventually," I said, letting hi the stubble on his chin