I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
He is nothing and no one.
He is not convinced.
There is nothing beautiful or even remarkable about him.
Will he let his daughter see who he is? Someone so desperate to be loved that it left him nothing at all. He isn’t even angry. He has outgrown his bitterness. He has outrun all of the things that set him into motion in the first place and yet, he still walks. Because the habit is ingrained so deeply into his DNA that he would not recognize himself without his restless need for movement, without the hum of kinetic energy in his muscles.
How can he be honest with her about who he is when she so completely loathes him already? But he nods because he feels no inclination to disturb the equilibrium they have found, this brief glimpse of peace as they stand there in the cold, their hearts beating in unison, their daughter sleeping at their feet. They do not know that she dreams of blood and pain and destruction. Or that she is not hungry because the mouthful of his blood had been enough to sustain her.
She continues and he lends her his full attention. He listens intently to the things she says and the way she says them. Her throat tight, the edges of her voice quivering. He swallows whatever impulse he has to speak and lets her finish.
He had not saved her in the way she thinks he had but he does not open his mouth to argue. He just nods and he presses another kiss sweetly against her cheek. He exhales a shuddering sigh and allows her to bury her face in the heat of his neck, the tangles of his mane. He grits his teeth and he nods, his own throat tight.
“I’m happy to be whatever you need me to be, Adna,” he murmurs. Perhaps he should tell her that she saved him, too. But he doesn’t have it in him. ”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
