The Ugly Luna

CHAPTER 12

ELLIE

The valley has gone orange by the time I finish with the burn on bed nine. Millie sends the photo first and the question underneath it, the way she's been doing all day. I zoom in until the screen goes grainy.

Don't debride it. Cool water for twenty minutes, then honey, and keep the dressing loose. If the blisters open on their own, leave the skin where it is. It's a cover.

It's ugly.

It's supposed to be ugly. Send me the same photo tomorrow morning.

I've been on this couch since noon. Teo brought breakfast up, and then lunch. My thumb has started to ache at the joint. Eleven cases.

The door opens.

Adrian steps in and stops just inside it. His shirt is dark at the collar, and he's brought the cold in with him. My chest does the same stupid thing it always does.

He looks at me. I look back. Neither of us says anything. He crosses to the bathroom and shuts the door, and a second later, the water starts.

I go back to my phone.

The shower runs for a long time. When it stops, the silence in the room feels louder than the water did. I keep my eyes on the screen and type out a dosage I could recite in my sleep.

He comes out with a towel around his waist, dresses, and sits on the edge of the bed to pull on a shirt.

"Have you eaten?"

I don't look up.

He waits.

"I haven't," he says. "If you haven't either, eat with me."

I look back down at my phone.

The mattress shifts as he stands. His footsteps come across the wood floor, and then he crouches down in front of the couch, bringing his face level with mine.

"How long are you going to do this to me?"

I lift my head, holding his gaze. I say nothing at all.

My phone chimes in my lap. I pick it up and tilt it away from him before I look. Millie, with a video and nothing typed under it. The thumbnail shows a boy holding his wrist up to the camera, the dressing still on. I don't play it.

He runs a hand down his face. I hear him swallow.

"Ellie." His voice comes out lower than before. "Talk to me. Please."

My ribs go tight.

Please. He doesn't ask for things. He tells people, and they move.

I want to answer him. I keep my eyes on my phone instead.

He thinks I'm a girl sulking about a toy that got taken away, and if he waits me out, I'll come around and eat my dinner.

It isn't about that.

I explained myself to him. Twice. He took it all and gave me back a handful of words. I've seen it. Up close. I know exactly where it leads.

Where does it lead, Adrian? What does any of it have to do with me?

He is carrying something. I'm not stupid, and I'm not cruel. I know it costs him. But he decided, on his own, without asking me, that I should get the order, not the reason.

We've known each other for a few days. I understand that. I'm not owed his whole life this soon.

I am owed a sentence that makes sense.

And if I take this one lying down, if I fold now because he said please in that voice and my chest went soft, then that's what we are. He commands, I comply, and he explains nothing. We build the rest of it on top of that. Ten years from now, I'll be the Luna who found out things afterward.

No.

So, silence. It isn't a tantrum. It's the only thing I have that he can't overrule.

He parts his lips when my phone chimes again.

His eyes drop to it. He doesn't say anything about it.

"Your father called a meeting over the rogues."

I lock my screen.

"I'm going to Moon Wolf tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?"

I wait for something to stir at the thought of going back to that hellhole, but nothing comes. And I'm not surprised.

It's not like I've been missing that damp little room with the window that never shut properly. Or the pack that bullied me for ten years, and my sorry excuse for a father.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see what Bailey and Clara's faces do when I walk back in there with Adrian beside me. And I can get my mother's manual while I'm there.

"You don't have to," he adds.

I look at him, then I nod.