HAVEN ✓

Twenty-Three

I am screaming.

It screams back. It is a high-pitched, aggressive sound, threatening to bust my eardrums. It is a sound that could cause a heart to seize, breaths to suspend in lungs. It is an all-consuming, all-encompassing screech that freezes the very blood in my veins.

"Sophie!" Luke yells from somewhere behind me. His usual deep voice is strained and high-pitched. Terrified. I am an ice sculpture, frozen in place. My fear has petrified me—I cannot even blink.

Feet rooted to the ground, I couldn't move if I wanted to, even as the monster leans in so close. I can smell its rotten breath, mouth still open in a wail. The teeth glisten, coated in foamy saliva. Then it crouches, the muscles in its legs bundled, and leaps. It sails over my head and only when I hear its clawed feet land behind me can I bring my limbs to move. I whip around, my eyes huge and tearful, mouth agape. I cannot believe what I'm seeing.

The creature is standing between me and a bare-chested Luke, its scarred arms spread wide and grotesque back to me. My eyes flick from the bony spine to Luke's rain-slick arms, which are pulling his bow taught, an arrow pointed straight at the creature's skull.

But it doesn't flinch. Instead, it lets out a hiss, pulling its gums back over its teeth, jaw opening impossibly wide.

With a quick slip of fingers, Luke releases his arrow. Forty pounds of power and a needle-sharp tip of steel sinks into the beast's skull. The sound of splintering bone causes my stomach to lurch in time with gravity as the monster falls to the ground, where it lies still and grotesque.

Luke moves quickly, dashing around me to the cave entrance. My eyes are glued to the ghastly thing before me, and I'm shocked into silence, but I hear his footsteps echo in the cavern, searching. Soon enough, he returns. I can hear his shoes skid to a stop on the packed dirt cavern floor.

Ripping my eyes away from the monstrosity on the ground, I take a shuddering breath as I look up to meet Luke's eyes. His image is distorted through my tear-blurred vision, but I focus on the solid humanness of him. There is a split second of awareness before he tosses his bow to the ground and crosses the room, eating up the distance between us in four long strides.

My next breath is squeezed from me when his arms wrap around my trembling shoulders. I sob into him as Luke hugs me tightly against him, holding me like something precious. A treasure. And despite walking for days in the woods, he smells so good. I can't help but bury my face in his chest, his warm skin against my cheek.

At my response, his arms slide lower, now around my back, but never letting me go. I don't complain, instead wrapping my arms around him, hugging his strong body to mine.

It is grounding.

I sigh, and one of his hands comes up to stroke my rain-soaked hair. I can feel his fingers trembling—he must have been as terrified as I was, and in this embrace, we both realize that we need each other. It is a need that both surprises and thrills me. It's like the feeling was there all along, just below the rippling surface, and just a glimpse of the entirety of it.

For the next few breaths, I focus on his caress and the staccato rhythm of his heart. Slowly, my other senses become clearer as well. I can smell the dry, dusty room. I hear the rain pounding against the ground outside. I can feel Luke's presence all around me. We stay just like that until my heartbeat slows and my tears are dry. Then, and only then, does he remove his arms from around me.

But he doesn't go far. Taking my face into his hands, he levels me with a look so shaken, so pained, I almost can't see the relief behind his eyes.

"Sophie," he croaks. I watch him lick his lips and clear his throat before continuing. "I was supposed to keep you safe."