Chapter 13: Nolan’s Hands
1340 Words
Viene’s POV
The mark flared without warning, alone in my room, with no one close enough to blame for it.
I doubled over on the edge of the bed, one hand pressed to my collarbone, the other gripping the sheets hard enough that my knuckles went white. It had never done this without one of them nearby. That was the part that scared me most — that it didn’t need Nathan in the room anymore to remind me it was awake.
“Viene.”
Nolan’s voice, from the doorway. I hadn’t heard him come in.
“I’m fine,” I said, the same lie I always reached for first.
“You’re not.” He crossed the room fast, dropping to his knees in front of me without asking if he could. “How long has it been doing this?”
“A few minutes. It won’t stop.”
“Where’s Nathan? Neil?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t call for anyone. It just started.”
“You should have called for someone.”
“I didn’t have time to think about who was closest. It just hurt.”
He didn’t push that further. His eyes stayed on my face, reading whatever was there instead of arguing the point, weighing something he didn’t say out loud.
His hand came up toward my shoulder, hesitated an inch away, the way it always did before he touched me. This time I didn’t wait for him to finish asking.
“Please,” I said.
That was all the permission he needed. His hand closed around my shoulder, warm, steady, and the burn under my skin dropped so fast it was like someone had turned off a switch.
I gasped at the sudden absence of pain.
“Better,” he said. Not a question.
“Better.” My voice came out thinner than I meant it to. “How do you do that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve stopped trying to understand it. I just know it works.”
He didn’t let go. Neither did I ask him to. His thumb moved slightly against my shoulder, an absent motion, like he wasn’t fully aware he was doing it, and the calm spreading through me went deeper than just the mark settling. It reached into muscles I hadn’t realized were clenched, into a tightness behind my ribs I’d been carrying since the ceremony circle.
“This isn’t just the mark,” I said slowly. “This is more than that.”
“I know.”
“Then why does it feel this good?”
He didn’t answer right away. He still didn’t pull his hand back.
“You should ask me to stop,” he said.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I don’t fully understand what this costs yet, and neither do you, and wanting something doesn’t make it safe.”
“You sound like Neil.”
“I sound like someone who’s watched what happens after. You haven’t seen that part. I have.”
“After what.”
“After I let go. You’ll see in a minute.”
“Then don’t let go.”
“I have to eventually.”
“Not yet.”
“Viene.”
“Not yet.”
He exhaled, slowly, like he was arguing with himself more than with me, and didn’t say it a third time.
“Because it isn’t free,” he said finally. “Nothing that calms you down this fast comes without a cost. I just don’t know yet who pays it.”
“Maybe nobody does. Maybe it’s just what it is.”
“I don’t believe that. Do you?”
I didn’t. Not really. But sitting there with his hand on my shoulder and the pain gone and my whole body finally quiet for the first time in days, I didn’t want to argue the point either.
“Stay a little longer,” I said.
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can feel exactly how much you need this right now, and I don’t know if I’m giving it to you or taking something from you to make it happen.”
“That’s not how it feels from here.”
“It never does. That’s what worries me.”
He stayed anyway. Minutes passed, maybe longer, neither of us speaking, his hand steady on my shoulder while the quiet in my chest held. I let my eyes close. For the first time since Miel had said the words that broke everything, I felt something close to safe.
Then Nolan’s breathing changed.
I opened my eyes to find him paler than he’d been a minute ago, a thin sheen along his hairline, his hand starting to tremble faintly against my shoulder.
“Nolan.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s nothing.”
“That’s my line. Don’t use it on me.”
He almost laughed at that, a short breath through his nose that didn’t quite make it all the way to a real sound. “It takes something out of me. Every time. I just don’t let it show until it’s over.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you needed it to stop hurting more than I needed you to worry about me.”
That landed somewhere I wasn’t prepared for.
“Let go,” I said. “Right now.”
“You’ll go back to how you were.”
“I don’t care. I’m not doing this to you again.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me either.”
“I’m not deciding anything for you. I’m asking you to stop hurting yourself to fix me.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Make it that simple. Let go.”
He pulled his hand back slowly, as it cost him something physical to do it, and the second contact broke, his shoulders dropped, some tension leaving him that I hadn’t noticed building until it released. He braced one hand against the floor as he needed it to stay upright.
“See,” he said, quieter now. “Fine.”
He didn’t look fine. He looked like someone who’d been running and had only just been allowed to stop.
“How many times have you done this,” I asked. “Before tonight.”
“Enough to know what it does to me.”
“And you never said anything.”
“Saying something wouldn’t have stopped either of us from doing it again.”
That was probably true. It didn’t make it hurt less to hear.
“Go rest,” I said. “Please.”
“I’m not leaving you like this.”
“You just told me you can’t keep doing this. So leave. I’ll manage.”
“I don’t like either version of that sentence.”
“You don’t have to like it. You just have to walk out that door before it happens again.”
He looked at me for a long moment, like he was weighing whether to argue, then nodded once and pushed himself up off the floor. He left without another word, closing the door softly behind him like he didn’t trust himself to do it any other way.
I sat there in the sudden quiet, waiting for the peace to hold.
It didn’t.
The mark came back worse than before, a violent surge that doubled me over again, sharper and angrier than it had been the first time, like it resented every second Nolan had kept it quiet and meant to make up for lost ground all at once. I pressed both hands against my collarbone and bit down on the sound that wanted to come out of me.
This was worse than the original flare. Worse, enough that I understood, finally, exactly what he’d been trying to warn me about before I begged him to stay anyway.
Whatever Nolan gave me, it hadn’t been free.
Somewhere down the hall, I heard him.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD