Page 51 of Bound By Threads
Lottie smiles softly at Mom before turning to the rest of the room. “I don’t want anything to happen to them. I just want to be around people who don’t ask me to bleed for them.”
Dad nods, respecting her decision. “It’s late, and you need rest. We’ll handle it if they start anything else, and we’ll make it clear that any power they were used to having doesn’t apply here.”
Mom presses a kiss to Lottie’s temple again. “No one touches you again. Not without consequences.”
I move finally, pulling her up to stand and keeping her hand in mine.“Are you staying?”I sign to Oscar.
“Where else would I go?”he stands, following us out of the room like a silent shadow and follows us up the stairs until we’re standing in front of Lottie’s room.
Lottie turns to face us.“I’ll see you both in the morning.”She gestures, nodding her head in goodnight, but I stop her before she can shut the door in our faces.
“Not so fast. If you think I’m sleeping away from you tonight, you have another thing coming…” I brush past her, ignoring the hitch in her breath, before I think too much into it and pull the duvet covers from the closet. Throwing one to Oscar and grabbing the spare pillows, we set up camp on her bedroom floor, close enough to her bed that I can hear her breathing without being a tripping hazard for her in the morning.
Chapter27
Lottie
“So… they’re back?” Emma asks, her voice calm. Much calmer than the chaos I can feel shredding me apart from inside my chest.
I nod.
“Words, Lottie. Remember?”
My throat feels like it’s closing in on itself, but I manage, barely. “Yeah. They’re back and trying to demand answers.” My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. It’s rough, ragged like the truth scraping up the inside of my throat, trying to claw its way out is shredding my vocal cords, or maybe it’s from four years of disuse.
I grip the glass tighter, the cold pressing into my palm, sharp and grounding.I’m not there.I focus on it—anything but her—anything but the conversation I know is coming.
The birds outside, wings slicing through the air like they’re trying to flee from something. The slow ticking of the clock… every second dragging me closer to the end of this session, and yet it never feels fast enough. Emma’s soft breathing, the scribble of her pen on paper.
The hideous artificial yellow of the walls. Too bright. Too clean. Too cheerful and new, like it’s trying to erase everything ugly that is said in this room.
I’m not here. Not really. I just wish I were somewhere else. Somewhere, none of them could find me.
Emma sighs. I see her adjust her glasses from the corner of my eye, the same way she always does when she’s about to say something she doesn’t think I’m going to like. She always leads up to it, a careful question here, a gentle nudge in the right direction there. I don’t hate her… she’s nice, but the pity I can see shining in her eyes when I even get close to talking about that night is more than I can bear. “No one has any right to the answers. How are you feeling after being cornered?”
Feeling like I’m suffocating under the pressure of all the secrets.
I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a dam, and the cracks are starting to show. Years of silence, years of finally feeling like I can walk to class without having to look over my shoulder for them, and now they’re back.
Digging.
Demanding.
Like they deserve something from me… like they didn’t watch me shatter and scream and just leave me there.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I breathe through my nose, taking a deep breath and pushing the word out with all the air in my lungs, barely a whisper. “Overwhelmed.”
But it’s not enough. Not even close.
I can’t describe what it felt like to see Roman’s face again and feel my entire body freeze. Or for Crew’s words that have always felt like knives wrapped in velvet, and definitely not for the look in Elijah’s eyes—a mix of pity and betrayal.
They spit venom at me like I owe them an explanation, like I wasn’t the one who had tosurvive.
Emma’s quiet for a while.No scribbling or talking, just silence. She watches me from behind her glasses with the same frustrating softness she always does, like she’s afraid if she speaks too loud, I’ll break… which fair.
I did once, and it took me weeks to even walk back through that door. I sat in the waiting room day after day, Claire by my side, my hand clutching hers so hard I could swear I felt her heartbeat merge with my own. Then Archer came home. A few soft words, and his calloused hand in mine, and I was walking through the door to the session like I had been before.
He’s my safe place, and right now I wish he were here.
