Chapter 63 Parenting 101

Chapter 63 Parenting 101
Sable POV

The penthouse feels entirely different than it did the last time I was here.

Drazen bypasses the living room. He carries Nera’s body out through the sliding glass doors onto the massive rooftop terrace. The wind whips high above the city, biting and cold, but he doesn't seem to notice. He lays her gently on the stone pavers, then turns back inside to set Sera on the couch.

The little girl pulls her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. She still hasn't blinked.

I grab the trauma kit I left by the door and walk over to Drazen. His left arm is hanging at an unnatural angle.

"Sit," I tell him, pointing to one of the barstools.

He complies in silence. I cut the ruined sleeve of his dress shirt away with trauma shears. The skin around his forearm is heavily bruised, the bone visibly fractured beneath the muscle. He doesn't flinch when I align the break. Neither does he make a sound when I pull the fiberglass splint tight and secure it with
heavy medical tape. His eyes stay locked on Sera.

"I have to take care of Nera," he says, his voice quiet.

I pack up the supplies. "I'll help you."

Drazen works in silence. Using a heavy landscaping shovel from a storage closet, he clears the soil from the largest planter, digging deep into the earth. His splinted arm restricts his movement, but he doesn't stop until the trench is wide and deep enough.

I wrap Nera in a clean, white linen sheet from the master bedroom. When Drazen finishes, he lifts her wrapped body and lowers her gently into the dark soil.

I hear the sliding glass door open.

Sera walks out onto the terrace. She is barefoot, her oversized jacket hanging limply off her small frame. She walks to the edge of the planter box and looks down into the earth.

She doesn't scream the way she did in the lab yet thick, heavy tears simply spill over her lower lashes, tracking through the dirt and dried blood on her cheeks, dripping off her chin onto the stone tiles.

I drop to my knees beside her then pull her
into my chest, wrapping my arms tight around her trembling shoulders.

I look down into the grave. Nera was the only elder who didn't look at me with disgust. She taught me the few things I know. She didn't deserve this.

"I will find the woman who did this," I whisper into the cold wind, the words tasting like metallic iron on my tongue. "I will make her pay, Nera. I promise you."

Drazen picks up the shovel. He fills the earth back in, burying the keeper of his history in a patch of stolen dirt above a human city.

Jonah arrives two hours later.

I had to bypass the building's lobby security to sneak him up the elevator. He walks into the penthouse carrying a discreet black medical bag. He doesn't ask about the blood on my clothes or the grim silence hanging over the
apartment.

I lead him to the guest bedroom where Sera is sitting in the center of the queen-sized mattress, staring blankly at the wall.

Jonah approaches her slowly, keeping his movements predictable and calm. He checks her vitals, shines a penlight into her unresponsive eyes, and gently inspects the raw, torn skin on her forearms where the forced scales have partially retracted. He applies a thick layer of burn ointment and wraps her
arms in bandages.

Sera doesn't react to the sting of the ointment. She just lets him move her limbs like a doll.

Jonah packs his bag and motions for Drazen and me to step out into the hallway. Once we're out, he pulls the bedroom door partially shut.

"Physically, she's going to be okay," he says, keeping his voice low. "The burns are superficial, and her heart rate is stabilizing."

"But?" Drazen asks, reading my partner's grim expression.

"But she's in a state of profound dissociative catatonia," Jonah replies. He looks between the two of us. "Her mind is completely shattered. She witnessed a brutal murder, endured electrocution, and knows she was betrayed by someone she trusted. Medicine won't fix the night terrors that would follow and I can't prescribe a pill for this."

"Then what do we do?" I ask, my chest tightening.

He slings his bag over his shoulder. "She needs something else to distract her until she's ready to let go. She needs to feel unconditionally safe, or she will never come back from that dark place her brain retreated to. She doesn't need doctors right now, Sable. She needs parents."

He leaves shortly after, taking the elevator back down to the street.

The penthouse falls into a heavy, suffocating silence afterwards that I break when I take a shower in the guest bathroom, scrubbing the dried blood off my skin until it turns red. I borrow a clean t-shirt and sweatpants from Drazen's closet and start making a pot of tea in the kitchen.

Drazen is sitting at the marble island, his splinted arm resting on the counter as he stares at the city lights through the glass walls.

Just then a bloodcurdling scream shatters the silence.

The ceramic mug immediately slips from my hand, shattering against the floor. Drazen is out
of his chair before the pieces even settle. We sprint down the hallway and burst into the guest bedroom.

Sera is thrashing violently on the mattress, tangled in the heavy duvet. Her eyes are squeezed shut, her mouth open in a continuous, ragged shriek.

"Sera!" I scramble onto the bed, grabbing her flailing shoulders. "You're safe. Wake up, you're safe."

Her eyes snap open but she doesn't see the luxury bedroom, she is still trapped in the lab. She throws herself at me, burying her face into my stomach, her small fists gripping my t-shirt with bruising force, her entire body shaking in violent spasms.

Drazen drops onto the edge of the mattress. He reaches out, placing his large, uninjured hand against the center of her back. He channels a steady, low pulse of his body heat directly into her shivering frame.

Sera lets out a broken hiccup as she releases one hand from my shirt, reaches blindly sideways, and grabs Drazen's sleeve. She pulls him down until he is forced to stretch out on the mattress beside her.

She refuses to let go of either of us.

I lie down on the opposite side. The bed is too small for a man of Drazen's size, leaving us cramped and pressed together. Sera curls into a tight ball directly between us, her face buried in his chest, her back pressed against my stomach.

I pull the duvet over the three of us.

Drazen’s arm drapes heavily over Sera’s side, his hand resting inches from my waist. The shared grief and this new responsibility of keeping this child alive charge the air in the small room, pulling at the bond.

We don't speak, we just lie there in the dark, forming a shield around her until her breathing finally slows. Meanwhile the bond is going haywire.