For the Hopeless

Chapter 18: She, Savior

"Talon, maybe you should go upstairs," Dameon told the boy gently, watching him from his spot by the doorway. He sat on a chair, the chair that Tawny usually used during her silent vigils, and his dull, empty gray eyes wouldn't leave Bailey's pale face. "You know your presence can't be good for her."

"It saved her life, didn't it?" the boy retorted, though his tone lacked any form of real argument.

"It did, it did," Dameon said, nodding in spite of the fact that Talon couldn't even see him, focused on Bailey as he was. "But it's not helping her now. The threat is gone, and all you're doing by staying with her is giving her sad dreams." It sounded so childish, so unlike him, but it had the desired effect.

Talon turned from Bailey, eyes wide with guilt and worry. It was the first show of real emotion Dameon had seen from him in...well, a long time. "Sad dreams?" he said, voice raspy and growing raspier. "I'm giving her sad dreams?"

Dameon nodded wisely, crossing his arms over his chest and looking very serious. "Yes, sad dreams. She won't sleep well with you here."

"I never meant to give her sad dreams," the boy said solemnly, and the legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he got to his feet. "I only wanted to keep her safe." He paused, looking down at her with that same solemn look. "Like she kept me safe."

"Like she kept all of us safe," Dameon whispered, and the boy nodded. He reached out to touch her cheek, but he thought better of it and turned away.

"Like she kept all of us safe," he repeated in a fragile whisper of his own, then walked past Dameon and out the door. The door to the attic creaked open, then squeaked shut, and Talon was gone. With him went that air of sadness, of suicidal sorrow, and Dameon felt like he could breathe again. He loved the kid in his own way, they all did, but he was just too much.

"I wonder how he feels," Tawny's small voice asked from the door a few moments later. "He and Hayden were sort of close. He...He liked her. He liked her a lot." Dameon turned to find her delicate face peeking around the edge of the doorway, her fingers gripping the frame as if she were scared to be here and had to hold herself in place.

He smiled. He had to. "Did he, now?" he said in the same gentle voice he'd been using with Talon, as if they were both skittish animals that needed to be brought out of hiding. "Did he think about her a lot?"

"More than I thought about Bailey," she whispered, staring past Dameon to the woman lying on the bed, her face all pale and bandaged, "and that's saying something."

"Did she like him?" he asked, genuinely curious, though he was careful to maintain his sweet tone.

"Sort of," she answered as she stepped through the doorway and into the room, a frown of concentration on her face. "She liked him more than she liked the rest of us, but not by much. She didn't really feel for him like he felt for her."

"Understandable, considering what he is and what it's done to him," Dameon remarked, eying her curiously. She crept closer and closer to the bed, almost like a gazelle tiptoeing to the water hole, and her intense focus on Bailey wouldn't wane. "How did she feel about Bailey?" he asked slowly, hesitantly. "Did she harbor any ill will toward her?"

At that, tears sprang to Tawny's eyes as if out of nowhere, and she collapsed onto the chair beside the bed, her rightful place. "Not that I noticed," she said, but she was already sobbing, and the words were nearly unintelligible. "I didn't notice." She buried her face in her hands, her tiny body rocked by sobs in a way that looked incredibly painful, and Dameon frowned.

"It's not your fault," he whispered. "It's nobody's fault." She shook her head violently, body still jerking painfully, and Dameon left the room without another word, simply closing the door behind him. She doesn't need me right now, he thought. They don't need me right now.