Page 66 of Dollhouse

“Call if they need anything at all, Noah. I’m serious.”

“I know,” I say quietly, looking at the door that separates me from them. Her footsteps fade and disappear out the front door as I hesitate there.

She’d clung to me before, a broken mess of a woman that I’d scooped off the bed and cradled like loosening my grip might mean she’d slip through it somehow. Gone again like smoke, the way they’d been taken from me before.

They needsolid. Our presence, our dedication to helping them, our love. It needs to be constant and tangible and unshakeable.

No better time than the present.

Pressing the door open, I take in the shadowed room. Night’s fallen around the chaotic revolving door of people in and out of the cabin. The room’s back to basics, a dresser and a bed, save for Molly’s cat tree. She purrs, perched at the top like we never left this place. Her eyes haven’t left Emma since I carried her through the front door.

Mary’s sleep aid must have been stronger than she let on because Emma’s eyes flutter from the bed as she struggles to keep them open. Bo curls behind her, arm thrown over her middle and sandwiching them against the wall. Those puppy eyes of his are all sadness, overflowing with the pain that makes my throat tighten.

His hand twitches back, like the possessive position they’re in might upset me. I shake my head, and he settles. As if I’d ever take away this small comfort from them.

“Em?” I ask, and she blinks heavily up at me. Her arm reaches for mine and I move to the edge of the bed, brushingback her hair as it falls into her face. Careful to avoid the bruising, the lacerations.

The bite mark stands out on her shoulder and my hands turn to fists.

“Sit with me for a minute,” she says, though it sounds almost like a question. Like I might not want to.

“Scoot, Bo,” I say, and they shuffle over to make room for me to slide under the blanket.

Emma sighs, those strawberry blonde eyelashes fluttering against her cheek. “This feels too good to be true.”

“What, baby?” I ask as she nuzzles my chest. Burrowing like she had when I found her. Disappearing into me.

“Safety. I just know with all of us here, we’ll be okay now.”

Her voice is soft, her cheek pressed to my chest and her hand draped loosely around the arm Bo has over her. She couldn’t be more cherished. More loved.

Her breathing evens in mere seconds and I hope the safety carries over into her dreamland. That we could avoid the nightmares for just one fucking night.

Bo watches me and Mary’s right. The light in his eyes is off, the long curls of his hair hardened with God knows what. I know from the surveillance we were able to obtain that Bo put himself in harm's way over and over again to save Emma even a second of pain. The evidence of it is heavy on his body and in the hesitant look he gives me.

I hate it.

Reaching over, my hand weaves into the brown waves, pushing it back from his haunted eyes. Like a dog that’s been kicked too many times, he flinches but refuses to look away.

“You kept her safe.” It’s a simple acknowledgement and doesn’t do any justice with the sacrifice he made.

His eyes drop to her and that understanding between us doesn’t need to be spoken. Bo’s love for Emma runs a lot deeperthan that of a friend. Maybe it had been explored a little before, but shallowly. Now, after this? Maybe the pain just clarified what they have with each other.

“I’m grateful she had you there with her, Bo.” My hand runs under his jaw, lifting his face to look back up at me. He does, swallowing as if he could break from my touch alone. Teeth sink into his bottom lip and seem to shake at the effort of keeping his emotions shoved as deeply as he can get them. “But I’m so fucking sorry you had to be.”

A silent tear betrays him, running down his nose and cutting across his face to the pillow, covered by Emma’s tangle of hair. Still, he says nothing.

But that’s okay. Jesse will be back in the morning with Bo’s things, with Emma’s and Molly’s collected items. We’ll get them the help they need, help him learn how to clean himself while his own wounds heal. With all of us together again, we can figure it out.

His weak voice is unsure, somehow hollow. “Some things aren’t meant to be survived, I don’t think.”

Shaking my head, I tighten my grip on the back of his head, pulling it toward mine. My lips meet the top of his hair and he starts shaking under my touch. “Well, this is, Bo.Thisfucking is, you hear me?”

He finally breaks, a wet wracking sob into the space between us, before he tries to quiet the sound. And that’s how we pass the night. Him holding Emma, clinging to her like she’s the answer to his grief, and me gripping him like he might just off himself if I let go for a second.

The nightmares stay away, and though we’re exhausted when the sun rises, we made it through Hell to get to that next dawn.

THIRTY-FOUR