Fin lifted his hand like he might touch me, but then settled it back down, thinking better of it. “I’ll take care of it. He won’t be alone.”
The silence stretched between us and I hugged the blanket higher to my chest. “Well, goodnight.”
After a minute, he sighed heavily, lumbered off the couch, and went back to his bedroom alone.
I ignored the tears tracking down my cheeks and lay down. I’d taken so many naps on this lumpy old couch and as it settled around me, I sighed. It felt like home being here in a way my apartment never gave me. I needed to be here. Something deep inside told me coming home was the right choice.
I felt the bond between Fin and me.
I let my shields go and brushed against the connection, checking it was still there. If he felt me do it, he didn’t respond. So, I lay there with my anger, and my grief, and let sleep carry me out of it for a while.
But sleep wasn’t in my future, it seemed. I blinked my eyes open and found myself flat on my back on the blue mats in Fin’s training room.
“What the fuck?” I said out loud, staring up at the white ceiling.
“You always did have a way with language,” a familiar voice said from beside me.
I glanced over to stare at the Captain.
He wore a plain black t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. Otherwise, he looked exactly the same as he had when I’d last seen him, alive.
No, this wasn’t real. It felt like a sending. I peered around the room, afraid to sit up, afraid to breathe. How could he be initiating a sending if he died? I saw him die.
Fear clawed through me. Had we run away from the house and left him there alone, bleeding out slowly?
I clawed at the mats, trying to lever myself up, but even in my dreams my muscles were sore, and it took me a minute to sit up.
“Take your time,” the Captain said.
I burst into tears.
Chapter Two
“OH SHIT, ZOEY, DON’T cry. This may come as a shock to you, but I’m not great at dealing with female tears,” the Captain said.
My sadness turned into laughter as I stared into his face. “Yeah, you are definitely the type to be manipulated by tears.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve known plenty of women who pull th
at move ruthlessly, dropping big fat crocodile tears at a moment’s notice.”
Neither one of us needed to mention the fact that I was one of those women who could put on a show if I needed to get my own way. But I wasn’t doing that now. I wanted to hug him and tell him how sorry I was that he was gone. Especially knowing how much Fin was hurting.
I didn’t hug him though; I gaped at him, trying to think of something to say. Anything that might convey how much it hurt to know he wouldn’t be there when I woke up.
He stared back at me, like he was perfectly comfortable to spend time in my company for however long we had.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, unable to sit still in silence for long. “You’re not alive, are you? I feel like I would know if you were alive.”
Come to mention it, while this felt like sending, it also had a dreamier quality about it. Like a sending, but through a fog.
He smiled. “No, I’m definitely not alive. This is just a lingering part of my magic and my consciousness that connected to you the last time we had a sending.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Not only did I not know how much time we had, I also couldn’t think of a proper way to actually apologize for him dying. Right beside me, right beside Fin.
He raised his eyebrows in question
Fuck, we couldn’t just sit here looking at each other.