Page 57 of A Silence So Divine

“It’s six o'clock. We need to leave in fifteen minutes,” I tell her gruffly, peering over her head and toward the bed. Creed is sprawled out like a starfish with sheets twisted around his body. My jaw ticks once, twice. I look back at Eden.

“Okay,”she replies, pivoting and heading towards her bathroom. On her way past the bed, she stops and grabs Creed’s foot, tugging until he rouses from his slumber.

With a dramatic harrumph, he sits up on the bed. Eden is already behind the closed bathroom door, and his gaze falls on my form in the doorway.

“We’re leaving?”He asks. To my dismay, I nod.

I gave into his insistence on accompanying us because I knew Edenwouldbe anxious if it were just the two of us.

Being considerate is a pain in my ass.

A shit eating grin paints my brother’s face before he jumps up. Bolting past me to get to his room, I realize he’s clad only in boxers.

I have to count backwards from one hundred on my way to the kitchen.

By the time we’re piled in my truck, thirty seven minutes have passed. Side eyeing Eden in the middle seat, she gives me an apologetic grimace.

It’s about an hour drive to the Refuge, so I roll the window down and allow myself a cigarette as we kick up gravel behind us. I’ve tried to quit countless times, but it never sticks. Instead, I limit myself to one a day. With the way my hand trembles, I’d consider this a good time as any.

Eden tightly twists her hands in her lap, the tips of her fingers tingeing violet. Eyes as wide as moons, complexion ashen, she stares out the windshield. The moment she brings her fingers to her mouth, I’m slamming on the brakes.

Creed asks what’s wrong, but I’m too busy lifting Eden out of the truck in time for her to vomit along the yellow lines of the road. Cheeks hollowing, I inhale the smoke to stave off my own gag reflex.

Hands on her knees, the poor girl sobs and chokes, saliva creating a tether from her mouth to the pavement.

My fingers twine in her hair, holding it in a mussed ball at the base of her skull.

“It’s alright,” I mumble, my cigarette dangling from the corner of my lips as the smoke hovers around us. Begrudgingly, I spit it to the asphalt and stamp it out with my boot.

Raising back to full height, she turns to me with a mess of snot and tears dripping from her nose.

“Hold on.” I reach into the truck and rifle through the console. A worn bandana is shoved to the back and I snag it, handing it over. With trembling fingers, she lifts it to her face.

Shame colors her cheeks. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

When she offers the bandana back to me, I pinch it between my fingers and toss it into the weed swarmed ditch.

“Are you alright? We’re not far now,” I ask, glancing back to the truck where Creed watches on.

Her eyes become shifty, darting around her surroundings. Despite my need for punctuality, I lean against the wheel well.

When her eyes meet mine, they’re glistening.“I can’t,”she says. And I know that she isn’t referring to getting back in the vehicle.

Heaving a breath, I step forward and brace her by the shoulders. If we’re going to do this, I need her trust. Somewhere along the way, her safety has climbed my priority ladder.

“You can, and you have to. I’ll be right there with you. Creed, too,” I murmur, my voice as gentle as it’s ever been. It’s new,being a patient man, but hell if I’m not trying. “I’ve trusted you enough to tell you everything, haven't I?”

She blinks.

“Now it’s your turn to trust me. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.” My hands travel lower, and I rub soothing circles along the inside of her bicep.

A single pink tear blooms on her lash line, and I catch it before it falls.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

The confession comes with a heaving chest. Curling her lips past her teeth, I flinch at the silencing bite.