Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 85

"You should take her some food."

Thorne stared down at the plate of food Cinder was holding—fried eggs, bread, and jam.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean no," Thorne growled. "You take it."

Cinder set the plate down on the counter of the mansion's kitchen—the Lunar mansion they had broken into to use as a resting point while they recovered. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thorne."

He shook his head. "I can't."

"Can't what?"

Thorne took a step back. "Did you see her, Cinder?"

Cinder said nothing.

He ran a hand over his face. "She looked at me like...like she was terrified of me."

"She didn't know it was you," Cinder explained gently. "Whatever Aimery did...he probably made her hallucinate. We don't know what happened."

"We know he tortured her."

Cinder sighed and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. Thorne knew she was thinking back to when they had first arrived at the mansion. When, after Cinder fixed the water damage her cyborg leg had sustained, they had patched up Y/n. The amount of wounds littering her skin was incomprehensible.

Luckily, Cinder and Iko were able to heal a majority of them easily. Thorne wasn't an expert in the area of skin grafting, but whatever the two girls had done had rendered most of her skin smoothed over.

Except for the deepest wounds.

Except for that brand on her chest.

When Thorne had discovered the letter "A" resting beneath her collarbone, white-hot fury suffocated him. He had never remembered feeling such a powerful rage. The others had to practically restrain him to keep him from storming the palace on his own.

Even now, just thinking about it, he saw red.

What had that monster done to her?

"I know," Cinder muttered. "But distancing yourself is only going to make things worse. Both for her and yourself."

Thorne sighed. She didn't understand. If he went back into that room...he'd hurt her even more. Or he'd say something that made him look like an idiot.

In the desert was when it had first started. That night, where he and Y/n were forced to share a bed. Where she told him she felt useless. He wasn't able to see her at the time, but he could feel her. The warmth of her skin. The bed dipping as she fidgeted. Her hitched breath.

But it was when he got his sight back that things really changed. When they were on the Rampion, organizing the bins of junk in the cargo bay. Cress had just disappeared into the galley with her arms full of canned food, and his gaze swept the room—and landed on her.

Y/n was sitting there organizing utilities into a toolbox—her hands were greased and her hair was messy. Her (e/c) were focused on the task in front of her.

She had never looked more stunning.

The wind was knocked out of him. He wasn't sure what was happening. All he knew was that he could not look away. Seeing her, after days of not...something flipped.

From then on, things were different. He found himself obsessed with the smallest things. How she looked while examining her fingernails. When she stretched, the curve of her neck. The slip of her spine. The determination that made her (e/c) eyes like fire when she talked about her brother. The scowl that would find a home on her face when she was thinking or sparring or plotting. Sometimes he wished he could kiss away the frown on her lips.