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It’s the middle of a terrible night, and I am sitting in one of the worn-out chairs in Cyn’s kitchen. Candlelight illuminates the familiar space as I watch her pace up and down in an endless loop, her breathing growing more rapid by the minute.
“You’re panicking,” I point out.
“I know,” she snaps. Seconds later, though, she stops to look at me, flashing half a smile, strained and tired as much as apologetic. “I know,” she repeats, a little bit softer this time. “What else am I supposed to do? He’s gone. We should be out there looking for him.”
I take a sip of my lukewarm peppermint tea. “We have been out there searching. For days on end. Alyssé and Lynire took over for the night, remember? You know we can leave it to them for a while. We’re not giving up. The search is still happening. But we do need to rest.”
“To hell with rest,” Cynthia scoffs. “I don’t need rest. I need Calren back.”
I sigh and pat the chair standing opposite mine. Despite her restlessness, Cynthia steps closer, and finally lets herself sink onto the seat with a heavy sigh.
“Your tea.” I pushes the untouched cup towards her, the liquid within long cooled down to a tolerable temperature. “You might not technically need rest, but at the very least, you need to prevent this tea from going to waste. And to water your plants, maybe.”
Cyn snorts joylessly, but grabs the cup without further protest. She takes a few sips, staring off into nothingness as if the answers she so desperately needs might just lay there, lost somewhere beyond the here and now. We sit in silence for a long while.
When she finally speaks again, her voice almost breaks under the weight of her words’ implications. “I can’t stop imagining what she’s doing to him.”
Neither can I. Without realizing, I raise one hand to the spot between my collarbone and the crook of my neck, rubbing an old scar that suddenly starts to itch. I can’t speak my mind; not now. With Cynthia, I usually would, and without thinking twice, but right now, it would be cruel to say what I am really thinking. Right now, she needs the sliver of hope and optimism she so often represents to other people.
“We don’t even know if she has him.” It’s a gentle reminder of the last hope we can possibly hold onto. “He could be anywhere in the world, for any reason.”
But Cynthia vehemently shakes her head. “He would never leave. Not without letting me know.”
“Something else might have happened,” I suggest. “You never know. It doesn’t always have to be the worst case.” But I am well aware that the chances are slim, at best. There’s always hope, of course, but this time …
Having come to the same conclusion, Cynthia shakes her head again. “My gut says it is her, though. It can’t be anything else.”
“Your gut, or your fear?”
“Both.” For a brief moment, her gaze lifts to meet mine, and the sheer torment in her eyes is almost too much to bear. It’s the frantic expression of someone who has already lost and suffered too much; someone about to face a truth that might send them far beyond rock bottom. I know the feeling all too well. “You can stop with the denial and the hope and the bullshit, Cae. We both know what happened. And what it means.”
“We don’t know for—”
“Stop it.” She slams her cup onto the table, not hard enough to break it, but enough to spill some of the tea over her hands. “I’m not arguing with you about the off chance that he might have just gotten lost in the woods or something when all signs point to that fucking maniac.” A flood of Spanish curses follows, spilling from her lips so quickly even I have trouble catching all the words in our shared native language. “She has him. I know it. It’s a fucking race against the clock, and we’re sitting here doing nothing. Fuck resting. Fuck this tea and fuck my plants. We’re wasting time he doesn’t have.”
She stands up so abruptly she almost knocks over her chair in the process. Without looking, she briefly pats all the spots where she keeps her knives hidden, then grabs her cloak from behind the kitchen door and disappears into the candleless night.
Getting Cynthia to rest when someone she loves is in danger is like trying to pray an earthquake away; you can always try, but ultimately, it is and always will be a hopeless endeavor.
“We will find him, Cyn,” I call after her. “We will get him back.”
“We have to.” Her voice is so quiet in the darkened hallway I almost don’t notice how much it’s trembling. “I can’t lose him, too.”