Instinct

14. The Search for Nowhere

The first thing Stephanie was aware of, were the piercing squeals of young children. Immediately after bolting upright, being yanked out of her shapeless dreams unceremoniously by the noise, she forced herself to relax. This was a different world. It wasn't, she recognized with a sense of déjà vu, the time in which people were snatched out of their homes, forced to their knees and shot in the back of the head. Not now, and hopefully never again.

No, instead, it was Christmas morning. Stephanie ran a hand through her hair, knees tucked up against her chest as she slumped forward with the remnants of sleep pressing on her back. Her muscles felt like they had been torn up and stuck back together with industrial strength glue: uncoordinated and stiff. After rubbing the grit out of her eyes, she resolved to get up and venture downstairs.

It was still an effort, to remember that she could do what she wanted, that she wasn't confined to this room. But she did it with a gradually waning sense of anxiety and dread each morning. It was better than what it had been.

Still, creeping down the staircase, it was hard not to try to be unobtrusive, purposefully invisible, unheard. It still felt like, if she didn't tread carefully enough, this whole tear in reality would stitch itself back up, that this carefully contained peace would fall away from underneath her and she'd wake to darkness and white walls and the stink of despair.

In being yet undiscovered, the fog of wakefulness still hanging over her, she could see into the living room, see the small gathering of beautifully wrapped gifts in the center of the room despite the lack of a Christmas tree. Stephanie could see the delighted face of little Marie, Amy's daughter, as she opened one, carefully peeling away each layer of paper as if she were afraid of tearing it open.

She saw how everyone was so at ease with each other. So at home. So friendly and inclusive and so achingly happy that she knew at once that she could not be a part of it.

Here she was hanging in the doorway like an image of the past stuck in someone else's future, and wondering how she could feel so out of place, so alone. Hadn't that always been the problem? And yet it continued to punch the breath out of her each and every time she was snapped back to the stark reality that she had willed out of her mind.

It was the pack that she had craved for so long now that it felt completely surreal and alien to finally have it surrounding her. But the bonds that these people felt, that tethered them together, did not extend to her, not in any way that mattered.

Or maybe it was just another flaw embedded deep in her genes. Perhaps no matter where she was, she wouldn't find peace. Too much had been taken from her, too much had been damaged beyond repair. Maybe she expected miracles.

Whatever it was, it didn't matter.

Brennan caught her eye from where he was leaning against the wall in the living room, his eyes underlined by dark smudges and lines bracketing his mouth. Misery threatened to choke her as she stood there; a hand pressed to her throat against the steadily expanding stone there, and struggled not to show it. It didn't work.

The ease melted off his face and she turned away, frustrated with her warring emotions, and stood in the kitchen, bracing herself against one of the wooden chairs. It wasn't two seconds later that Brennan entered, his face creased in concern.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

Stephanie bit the inside of her lip hard enough to draw blood and make her flinch. "I can't stay here anymore," she said, surprising them both.

Beyond the energetic noise emanating from the living room, quiet hung between them. She could feel him appraising her, taking in her still too-thin body, her tired eyes from days of wrestling with nightmares, but she kept her chin up and her eyes on him.