Chapter 9

• Noah perched on the windowsill and watched her. Shaelan was checking her throat and ankle again. He didn’t know what she was putting on it, but the stench he’d be able to taste for days at least. Everyone had come back except Calum—who was on the phone. Noah was trying to avoid the sad looks Kobie kept giving him, so he watched Emersyn instead.
• She was doing a good job hiding how freaked out she was right now, but Noah saw every nervous twitch and how she flinched when anyone in the room moved. Tomorrow it would hit her, the fact that she was really free. If he remembered right, the nightmares held off for about a week—right after the exhausted sleeping phase wore off.
• He hoped, for her, she was spared them. How anyone could make a new life and put all that out of their mind, he didn’t know—but he wished it for her. The nightmares and fear of sleeping to go away. He hoped for his mind to let it go and not fill his head with thoughts of worthlessness and defeat. Those thoughts came to him hundreds of times a day, and functioning like they weren’t happening was draining, emotionally and physically.