RORY
For so long, and to come in the dark—when she occupied his mind, haunted him like a ghost he had let down, as if summoned by his thoughts and the thing crying out in his heart... How could he possibly trust it?All the years it had been that voice telling him to never open the door, that voice scolding him for wanting to look behind the blinds, that voice keeping him alive.
But everything had changed, hadn't it? The rules were different now. He had ridden into the dark—and survived, because someone had opened the Temple doors to let him and Jigano spill onto the floor like a blood-stained, near-dead mess. He was alive because someone had opened the doors to those knocking and screaming in the dark...
What she said made sense. Hadn't he done much the same, gotten lost in it, only he'd stayed on the farm?
Ella woke next to him, blinking her large, kind eyes. Her ears cocked to the sound of the voice coming through the door, a whine building in the back of her throat. She rose, Rory's hand still tangled in the longer fur of her neck, whining again as she nosed the wood and wagged her tail.
Could it be..?
Could he trust her? Could he trust his neurotic, anxious dog to know what was real or not?
She tapped the door, a sound from his childhood, a perfect trap. How much could a monster know, anyway? He wanted so desperately to know, and the answer was so close (would it matter if he wasn't alive to remember finding out?). He was cold and desperate and hungry and tired and lonely and family always came back for each other—except for Merla who had walked into the barrier and died, as they all did.
"Karlia," he whispered as shaking spread through him with the adrenaline, feeling sick as his fingers trembled on the lock, "is it dawn yet?"
as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
