THE SANDMAN ☞ TRAVIS STOLL

TWELVE

THE HOTEL ROOM IS somehow too small and too large, all at the same time. It doesn't help that Valerie's powers seem to take up half of the room, Travis's long legs taking up the other half.

They'd spent most of the afternoon in the penthouse, Valerie catching up with her sisters and mother, and Travis trying to keep up, before excusing themselves to freshen up before dinner. And despite the fact that Travis bombards her with questions—Where are we going? What's the dress code? Did I make a good first impression?—Valerie stays silent in the hotel room.

Until, finally, she stands from the lounge chair and crosses the room to her bags. "I'm going to shower. Dress casually." She says, grabbing a bundle of black fabric from her duffle. She kicks off her boots as she stalks towards the bathroom, casting one last long look over her shoulder.

She strips out of her clothes when the bathroom door is shut and locked behind her, black jeans hitting the floor, closely followed by her Black Sabbath sweatshirt. The large scars on her thigh and hip, as well as the tiny ones scattered across her entire body, look raw and fresh in the bright light of the room, and she turns away from the mirror, feeling the brand on her shoulder pulse like a second heartbeat.

She's had trouble hiding the fact that she can feel her father's presence, breathing down the back of her neck. She's felt it since they crossed the bridge into Manhattan. It's a miracle Clara—sensitive, full-of-Sight Clara—hasn't called her out on the dark cloud hiding just behind her back.

Valerie steps under the spray of hot water, forcing her thoughts to switch from one horrible track to another:

The thing that she refuses to acknowledge, refuses to name, has been building up inside of her chest all day, threatening to bubble over and spill out.

And after seeing Travis be with her every step of the way today, from driving her here despite his trauma from this city, to talking to her sisters like he's known them for years, she's never wanted to admit to something more in her life.

She's spent the past decade and a half shoving down the possibility of her loving someone other than her family, other than Alyssa. She's spent so long ignoring the idea that she is capable of love, capable of being more than the ruthless right hand of her father.

Over the past several months, Valerie Greenwood has found herself wanting to make the right choices—wanting to reverse the hurt she's caused, wanting to stop being her father's favorite knife. She's felt emotions that, up until quite recently, she's never felt before, never really even heard of outside of books and movies. Guilt, fear, panic, compassion, worry.

Her emotional repertoire had always consisted of two feelings—anger, and casual, humorous indifference. These new feelings are terrifying, nearly paralyzing. Intoxicating, something she wants to keep feeling over and over again.

She feels human, for the first time in her life. She feels like a person, not just a shell created for destruction and torture.

As she pulls on a black v-neck shirt and a pair of faded black jeans, she vows that, sometime over the next two weeks, she'll own up. She'll admit to the secret she's been keeping for most of her life, even if it's the scariest thing she's ever done.

She opens the bathroom door, sending the steam from her shower into the hotel room.

And Travis is there, at the door, standing just an inch or two in front of her, so close that she can feel his breath fanning over her face.

"Hi," he says lowly, and she feels her resolve crumbling by the second.

She swallows. "Travis.' Her voice cracks, so quietly that she barely hears it.