Stay with me, always.

Chapter 36. The Key

"Were the handcuffs really necessary?" Mother dropped her fork at my question, it was just the two of us enjoying dinner tonight, Father had a meeting and Eudora was probably busy planning out the next twenty years of our lives.

She swallowed her food, "You know I didn't want to do that darling, but it's a precautionary measure," she told me, I picked at my plate, no longer hungry. "We're treating her like she's an animal," I said quietly, she sighed, "Well, she certainly attacked you like one," she said, reminding me of our little fight. I got caught off guard if I'm being honest, I had been in a lot of fights for one lifetime, but never with a girl.

Titus was usually my opponent, but he was out of commission since our last fight and I didn't really have the energy to fight anyone else these days. Soarynn had been right about one thing, we should leave the fighting for the arena. "I take it you visited her," she added, I nodded, "Tiberius said I should try to talk to her." She hummed, "She doesn't do much talking does she?" I shook my head, "Will she ever be the same?" I asked Mother, looking at her from across the table, her eyes welled up with tears, "Oh, Coriolanus, I hope so, but we have to come to terms with the fact that a part of her died in that arena," she sniffled.

So she really was gone, if Mother had given up hope, then it really was a lost cause. We both managed to keep it together through the rest of dinner, Mother deciding to go to bed early after the day she had. That makes two of us, I thought as I trudged into my own bedroom.

I didn't lock the door since Soarynn was rendered immobile for now, I felt awful about that, but there was nothing I could do at the moment, we just couldn't trust her to not lash out at us. Will I always feel this way around her? I wondered while washing my face, I mean, we had to get married to each other, and we couldn't just pump her full of sedatives to calm her down. We had learned firsthand what happened when we gave her any sort of drugs.

It was odd to be sleeping in my own room again, I had grown accustomed to sleeping in Soarynn's but now it was out of the question. I crawled into bed, ready to put today behind me, it hadn't been awful, but it hadn't been great either. I was just drifting off when I heard a scream. My eyes shot open, our house was very quiet unless we were having a party, but maybe I imagined it, after all, I was tired.

Deciding it was nothing, I closed my eyes again. Another scream. Something was up, I got out of bed, slowly walked into the hallway, there was no one out there, not even an Avox, and they certainly weren't making any noise. Maybe I was going crazy.

I turned on my heel to go back to my room when I heard a blood-curdling scream coming from Soarynn's room. I ran to her doors, ripping them open, Petunia flew out of the room, and I turned my head just in time to see her flying down the stairs. I looked back into the room to see Soarynn jerking all over her bed, screaming, crying, and shaking, all with her eyes closed. She was having a nightmare. Night terrors were probably a better word for what she was having, nightmares were for children.

I hesitated for a second, but then I ran to her side, grabbing her arms, "Soarynn, Soarynn it's okay, you're having a bad dream," her eyes flew open, and she gasped for air, her hands grabbing my wrists. She blinked, taking in the dark room, and me right next to her, she sniffled, cautiously looking around the room as if something might be hiding in here. I don't know what came over me, but I grabbed her, pulling her body into my chest, inhaling the scent of her hair, vanilla. I thought she'd push me away, but she relaxed into my hold, burying her face in my neck. "It was just a bad dream, there's no shadow monsters coming to get you," I whispered into her hair, her hands clutched onto my shirt, I heard a sniffle, then a sob. I hated it when Soarynn cried.

When she first came to live with us, she cried a lot. Sure, she missed home, but there wasn't much to miss in my opinion. She cried when she scraped her knee on the sidewalk, she cried when Mother went on a lady's retreat for two days and left us with Father–I cried for that one too–She cried when she broke her arm when we were running around in the gardens and she fell from climbing on a statue. And she cried during the Games, but at least that was expected, still, I always feel so helpless when she cries.