Author: Jennifer Wilson
Category: Young Adult
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I COULDN’T SLEEP that night. The bed was too soft and my thoughts were too loud. Mouse’s deep breathing told me she was sleeping soundly beneath me, but Triven was too quiet. His silence gave away his wakefulness, but he said nothing.
“You should have taken the bed.” I whispered. A low chuckle responded.
“You shouldn’t have underestimated me.”
I stared up into the black nothingness above me listening to him breathe.
“Why am I here, Triven?”
He was silent so long I wondered if he had fallen asleep.
“You have a right to be here just as much as any of us.”
That was not the answer I was looking for. “I mean why not let me die in the streets, why save me?”
“Does it really matter why you were saved?” He shifted in his cot.
“To me, it does. Nobody here helps anyone else without expecting something in return.”
“But you didn’t when you saved Mouse.”
My chest tightened. “That’s different.”
“No it’s not. There is still good in people. Sometimes it’s hard to see past all of the pain and cruelty, but there are still good people out there. I saw good in you.”
I rolled away from him not wanting to talk any more.
“I’m not so sure.” I muttered to the wall.
When I awoke it was with my usual stifled scream, my hand pressed hard to my mouth, my legs thrashing in the tangled sheets, my chest heaving with panicked breaths. It took me a minute to realize where I was, and that I was not alone. There was a faint light in the room now. In the murky cast, I could see Triven propped up on his cot with a book in hand and a concerned look on his face.
I pulled my knees to my chest and buried my face. “Sorry.”
“Do you wake like that every morning?”
I turned my cold gaze upon him. “Do you ever sleep?”
He still looked sympathetic despite my coolness. “Rarely. The nightmares make it hard to sleep sometimes.”
I defrosted a little. Nightmares were a natural part of life in Tartarus. I kept my head pressed to my knees, unable to meet his eyes. Instead, I stared at his hands.
“Yes… I wake up that way every day. Every night I dream of my parents’ murders and every morning I choke on the screams of my past. I watch again and again as my parents shove me in a sewer drain to save me. I watch, trapped, as the Ravagers kill my father and rape my mother, before killing her too. I can still smell their blood, hear their screams echoing in my mind. I wake up every day knowing I was too weak to save them.”
I never told anyone that. I was not sure why I was telling him now.
“Mine are of my father. He burned to death in a fire started by the Ravagers. We should have all died in it but he saved us. I remember him shielding my body from the flames. The smell of his skin as the fire engulfed him. He threw me from a window to save me. The fall broke my arm but I survived. I watched him burn from the pavement below. His fiery silhouette is still seared on my retinas every time I close my eyes.”
When I finally looked up at him, it was his turn to look away. We were both damaged. No one escaped Tartarus unscathed. Mouse stirred beneath me and we both shifted our focus to her. Was she still unscathed? The way she whimpered in her sleep told me she wasn’t. Something had happened to her too, but her story was her own. I wasn’t sure she would ever be able to share it.
She whimpered again, her tiny hand trembling. I leaned down and squeezed her hand, reassuring her she was safe. She quieted almost instantly.
No. No one escapes Tartarus unscathed.