Page 33 of Heat Unwritten
Inside the bedroom, there was a sound.
It started low, a rustle of linens, followed by a sharp, wet intake of breath. Then came the groan, a jagged, friction-heavy sound that vibrated through the wood and straight into my spine.
It felt like someone had hooked a fishing line into my chest and yanked.
"Ah... nnngh."
The sound of pain. Not the terrified screaming of the crisis, but the deep, grinding misery of the aftershocks. The withdrawal cramps. Her body was trying to restart a system that had been offline for who knew how long, and the engine was misfiring.
I closed my eyes, tipping my head back against the doorframe.
I sat there.The thought replayed in my head on a loop, years old and rotting. I saw the gymnasium, the microphone stand next to me, and her shaking. Silence.
Not this time.
"Tessa," I said.
My voice was low. I didn't knock. I just let the baritone rumble of my chest travel through the wood, a localized earthquake meant only for her.
The sounds inside paused. A held breath.
"Go away," she whispered. The defiance was there, but it was paper-thin, tearing at the edges.
"I can hear you," I said softly, staring at my hands, hands that were too big, too useless when it mattered. "The cramps are hitting."
"I have... I have pills," she gasped. "I took them."
"Stabilizers take forty minutes to kick in on a system this stressed," I recited, the medical data Anders had relayed to us earlier sticking in my brain. "You're in the gap."
Another sound from inside, a thump, like a fist hitting the mattress, followed by a high, keen whine that twisted my gut.
"Let me in, Tessa," I said. "I have the heating pad from the kit. I can help."
"No!" The refusal was sharp, panicked. "You promised! You said... you said you wouldn't touch me."
"I won't," I vowed, leaning my head closer to the seam of the door. "I won't put a hand on you. I’ll just set up the heat and leave. Or I can apply the pressure. You know the weight helps."
"I don't want your weight!" she cried out, though the sentence ended in a sob. "It's too much. Everything is too much. My skin hurts. The quiet hurts."
The quiet.
I remembered that. The silence of the auditorium. The way the lack of sound amplified the wet slap of her tears hitting the floorboards. Silence wasn't peace for her; silence was a spotlight. It was the vacuum where the monsters lived.
I shifted my weight, reaching for the tablet Anders had left on the hallway console table. I swiped it open, ignoring the barrage of frantic emails from the agency, and navigated to the file structure.
The Alpha’s Oath. Draft 4.docx.
"Okay," I rumbled. "No touching. No weight."
I cleared my throat. I dropped my register, finding that sweet spot in the lower octave, the 'narrator voice.' The voice that paid my mortgage. The voice that millions of strangers used to fall asleep, because it sounded like a foundation that wouldn't crack.
"Chapter One," I read, the words resonating in the narrow hallway. "The wind off the Iron Sea didn't moan; it threatened. It tore at the banners of Highkeep, stripping the silk to ribbons, just as the Council had stripped Lady Charlotte of her titles."
"What are you doing?" she whispered, closer to the door now.
"Reading," I said, keeping the rhythm steady, rolling the vowels. I paused the story though. "You know," I added, my tone lighter as I tried to distract her, "the studio is already asking whowe should cast for the dual-narration release. They’re chasing Isobel Gretan. I spent half the drive up here trying to do an impression of her, you know, that way she has of making even a description of the weather sound like a confession."
I cleared my throat and attempted a hushed, velvety lilt that was entirely too high for my register. Tessa gave a small, shaky breath that might have been a laugh if she had the strength.
