Chapter 22: The Voice

Thibault's zero was still in her head at three in the morning.

Thibault had stood in that hall with a stranger's child in his house, and the paper had called him a liar to his face.

She had gone to sleep with that line behind her eyes, and the dream came anyway.

White. Cold. A weight on her chest that would not lift.

Margaux tried to scream, and there was no air to do it with.

Her hands clawed at the dark, and snow packed into her mouth.

"Margaux."

She fought the arms that closed around her.

"Margaux. Listen to me."

She was not in the snow.

She was in Julien's bed, in Julien's house, with the lamp on and her own hair stuck to her face.

His hands held her shoulders, firm and careful.

"Breathe," he said. "Stay with me. Don't close your eyes."

She stopped moving.

The words came into her ear low and slow, with the extra time he took over each one.

"In for four. That's it. Look at me. I'm right here, and I am not going anywhere."

Something in her chest turned over.

She had heard those exact words, in that exact voice, with the snow packed against her face.

She had heard them for years, in her sleep.

She had always thought they belonged to someone else.

"Say it again," she whispered.

"Margaux?"

"What you just said. The same way. Say it again."

He hesitated.

"Stay with me," Julien said. "Don't close your eyes. Breathe."

She pulled out of his arms and sat up.

He still held the lamp switch in his left hand, and the cuff of his sleeve had fallen back.

The thin scar ran across his wrist, pale and straight.

"Where did you get that?" she said.

He looked at his wrist.

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