Dreamweaver

By Sage Marrow

Harvesting the essence of dreams so that it can be used in a variety of ways for Spinning comes naturally to Enea. It's nightmares she has difficulty with-well, nightmare essence and her own body. From birth, she has battled an impediment that wages a battle between mind and body as the frequency of nightmares targeting her, threatening her life

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sage Marrow
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781087887968

Book preview

Chapter One

The dream drifted to me easily, silk on my fingertips, whispering in the starlit air. I burned a vibrant orange through the vascular network of my arms, melding from brightest flame at my fingers to a sunset glow near my shoulders; this light was the standard reaction to any Harvester’s essence-gathering, but despite having seen it countless times, I still loved the way my skin glowed.

I didn’t listen too intently as I gathered the threads of the dream I drew forward. It didn’t pay well to intrude on the privacy of others. My job was to gather up their dreams, not invade them, and with careful precision, bind them into the essence beads that I chose to wear braided into the dark twists of my hair. Once the essence was captured, the glowing on my arms would fade, the beads would settle like warm little lanterns, and the hunt for the next dream would begin from anyone on my Registered Giver list. There was compensation from the government for willingly allowing the Harvesting of one’s essence, but I wasn’t sure the recompense was worth the loss.

That was my specialty: dreams, the only kind of essence I could Harvest. It was a lonely job, requiring me to wander my assigned city through the night in the darkness, high above roads and buildings as I cruised along on my vaporbike. The first time I had driven it, nervously eyeing the spiraling mist that resembled wheels, clutching to the steering bars for dear life, I had wondered for the umpteenth time why I couldn’t have been given the ability to Harvest like most of the others who worked for the Registry, and grumbled. Dayja didn’t have to roam the night and draw dreams from people’s heads, careful not to wake the sleeper, or the dream would be lost. Dayja got to work in a cozy office in broad daylight, speaking with people, drawing out their stories—and Harvest the essence of their tears. Good and bad, happy and sad. As Harvester Tearcatcher, Dayja didn’t have to cling to a vaporbike every night and try very, very hard not to notice how far away the ground was.

Though the sad tears feel very rough, she had once confessed to me, wrinkling her nose. She kept her black, coiling hair cropped close to her head, which left her elegant-featured face completely exposed, and I could read the disdain written there perfectly. She twitched her fingers as if she could fling off the memories of her gathering. Coffee skin, black coiling hair, and brown eyes were the only thing my fraternal twin and I had in common. While she was tall and lean, serene and too mature for her age—annoyingly so—I was shorter and plumper, my hair twisted into braids that I tied up high at the crown of my head and let cascade down my back, and I fought with glasses that liked to slide down the bridge of my nose, alongside a temper that sparked at the slightest whiff of injustice. Dayja may have only been twenty minutes older than me, but there were many times that people thought she was my older sister by years and that she couldn’t be eighteen like me. It was irritating. It was unfair. 

The brace that clung to my lower right leg, belting my foot into correct alignment so that I could walk properly in my ankle-length boots, didn’t help matters either. People watched Dayja with respect. They looked at me with dismissive pity.

Now, on my countless journey Harvesting, settling this particular dream into place was as simple to do as merely thinking about it. I had Harvested hundreds of dreams in the year that I had been employed by the of Division of Harvesting, a subset of the Division of Essence. Of course, employed was the generous term since Dayja and I didn’t have a real choice in the matter. Instead of a no-strings-attached payment for returning our gathered essence to the Registry, we were given an allowance for food and board and other necessities. We were wardens of the government. Orphan charity cases. Chancellor Kaya Allones liked to think she was helping, taking such a personal interest into our wellbeing, but I hated being tethered to her Division of Essence. For life. 

The life of a Harvester.

Blowing out a slow breath, watching it coil in front of me in the cold air, I lifted my left wrist to poke my solarband awake. It emitted a reluctant dim light, and I pulled up the Registered Giver list and scrolled for my next target, mumbling under my breath at the unfairness of working at night when my solar-dependent tools would bleed their stored power away like water from a cracked cup. The solargun on my belt was nearly dead too. 

Cold tendrils crawled up the base of my neck, stretching across my scalp, and I stiffened.

Not again. I growled as I twisted around on my vaporbike, squinting as if that would help me see better in the dark. Prodding my solarband brought forth a weak flashlight that hardly aided in revealing anything. But then, what I suspected was coming wouldn’t be very visible anyway. I shook my solarband, setting it to sleep mode, and whipped around to grasp my handlebars, pulling them roughly to drive towards the ground. I needed a flat surface to stand on. Now.

The cold was intensifying, causing the air I moved through to crack, particles of ice scratching against my exposed neck above my Harvester uniform jacket and my cheeks below my goggles. Almost there, I chanted to myself, my jaw aching as I clenched my teeth. Almost—

The nightmare hunting me snatched hold of me then, sharply wrenching me from my seat. My vaporbike sputtered and crashed in an unholy tangle of metal and steam, skidding with sparks across the road. I hardly had the time to register that it was probably broken to hell before the nightmare’s tendrils clung to my skin, pulsating, freezing, trying to draw out my essence. This nightmare wrapped its arms around me and squeezed. Struggling to move, I tried to pull my solargun from its holster, spitting out phrases that would have had Dayja paling and scolding me had she heard them.

Dreams were my specialty. I could manipulate them at will. Nightmares however, I couldn’t touch without consequences. They were not my essence to Harvest. 

Which was totally unfair because other Harvesters were left mainly alone by the ugly side of their essences. No such luck for the Dreamweaver, though. 

When I cleared the gun’s barrel, I pulled the trigger, watching with satisfaction as the nightmare recoiled from the solar blast that hit it. My feet hit the ground at a sharp angle that sent pain shooting up my right leg, nearly buckling the ankle, and I staggered, righting my solargun again. But the tendrils returned with a wicked snap that tore my footing from beneath me, sending my back crashing into the cobblestone and my right wrist jarred as it caught the bulk of my landing. Pulling the trigger of my gun only gave me a dull clicking sound and I cursed. The solargun had died on me. 

Stupid, useless—!

The nightmare coiled around my wrists, hauling me down the road like a sack of grain. I spun as it twisted around me, clawing at the deep green fabric of my uniform, my eyes filling with dirt and the tattered pieces of dried leaves. Grabbing hold of the base of a lamppost, I wrapped my arms around it; the nightmare swirled across my skin, hauling on me for all its worth, screaming a high-pitched ruckus. 

My solarband had a communicator built into it. One tap and I could ping a message to my fellow Harvesters. Straining with effort, I brought my wrist to my right hand, managing to touch it, bringing the band to life. 

45th south on Quest Street, I gasped out. My grip on the lamppost slipped to my cramping right fingers as the nightmare redoubled its attack. Rainwater from swollen puddles, old newspapers, leaves and twigs, made a cacophony of debris around me, choking the air I breathed. Nightmare rogue—agh!

My hand was yanked loose. Freezing tendrils burned across my legs, slipping under my clothes, finding access to my skin and digging its horrid frost deep into my core like a burrowing rodent seeking something to eat. Which, if it managed to draw out any of my essence, it was going to do.

A sudden, blinding flare of light whizzed over my head. The nightmare spun to the side to avoid its stream, and I all but hurled myself headfirst in the opposite direction, managing to rip myself free save for my left foot. A second solar blast sang past, hitting the nightmare dead center, and it shrieked, flailing, letting me go. Scrabbling backwards like an undignified crab, chest heaving painfully, I managed to haul myself to my feet, still facing the tendrils as it rebounded and screeched my way.

Move aside, stupid! came Cay’s impatient shout, and he bolted forward as I obeyed, though I tossed him a dirty look. His arms glowed red—bright cherry at his fingers, to molten burgundy at his shoulders—when he came into contact with the nightmare essence, drawing it piece by piece into the beads that were sewn into his jacket. Within mere moments, the storm of trash the nightmare had gathered around itself settled to the road and Cay stood with a satisfied smirk as his vascular light dimmed, the nightmare now contained. I hated how easy it was for him to combat what I couldn’t.

Hardly worth the effort for it, since I had to blast so much of it away. He gave me a disgusted glance over, his silvery eyes narrowed. With skin darker than mine, he almost blended into the night, except for his stark white curls that he tied into a spraying knot atop his skull. Nice going, dumbass.

You’re the idiot, I retorted automatically. Not my brightest response, but I was winded, aching, and only managing to stay upright with my body bent double, hands braced on my knees. Cay knew full well that I couldn’t do much against a nightmare. Just like he couldn’t manipulate dreams. But he had it easy, since dreams were pleasant and left him alone; they weren’t sadistic essence-hungry little bastards. 

Rolling his shoulders back, Cay studied our surroundings, noting the curious onlookers who had paused on corners, or who stared our way through their windows. Non-essence users were safe from nightmares—at least, in a physical sense—and they were probably wondering what my problem was. Good to know you give the Division such a positive image, Pell.

Shut up.

Where’s your bike?

Jutting a thumb over to my right in answer, I groaned as I straightened up. Managing a few hobbling steps, I sat down on the curb of the sidewalk, rubbing my right leg. Its sharp throbbing made me hiss. 

Cay gave a tsking sound of scorn. It looks like a crushed tin can.

Just go get it, jackass.

He crossed his arms, lifting his chin. This is the thanks I get for saving you?

"I’ll show you thanks in two seconds you empty-headed—" My solarband pinged and Dayja’s frantic voice floated out, cutting me off. 

"Enea? Enea? Are you okay?"

My expression must have wrinkled into a look of disdain, being spoken to like a child by my sister, because Cay barked a hoarse laugh at me. I swiveled away from him, so I didn’t have to look at his stupid self. Yeah, I’m okay. Wanna meet me here? I could use some help with my bike. 

Is it your leg? Your arm? Is the nightmare—?

Molt took care of it, I ground out. I’d rather chew up and swallow gravel than thank him, so I kept my back to him. Anger roiled like hot coal in my gut at the concern she voiced over my stupid leg and arm. I could feel my right arm stiffening by the moment as I held it to my side, the muscles spasming tighter and tighter. Driving my vaporbike would be impossible. Just hurry, ok? I sent my solarband to sleep, not interested in any response she’d give, and set to cleaning up the lens of my glasses, pointedly ignoring Cay. Thank everything decent in the world my glasses had come out of the attack alright, if a little scratched up. Nothing I couldn’t get fixed. 

I could hear Cay fidgeting from foot to foot. Anxious now. Excited. She coming?

Go away.

Answer me.

Leave.

You owe me now, Pell.

I don’t owe you pennies, you bag of brain-dead cells. 

Cay huffed an offended breath of air, and I could hear him turning away, scanning the crowds that were slowly starting to disperse. I glared at a particularly nosey old lady who watched us from her windowpane, shoveling something that suspiciously looked like popcorn endlessly into her mouth from a yellow bowl she held as she watched with delight. Probably hearing everything. It was disheartening how non-essence users, the dim-veined as they were called, found those of us who Harvested to be so amusing. We didn’t get much of the respect that Spinners got; we were the errand boys to their majestic work.

Or maybe it was just me who didn’t garner much respect. 

The rumble and billowing mist of a taxi steamcar rounding the corner made me jerk my gaze up, and I gathered myself to stand. Cay shielded his eyes from the car’s bright light beams, stepping back as Dayja emerged with haphazard abandon, leaving the vehicle before its rumbling engine had even stopped. As she flung her door wide open, it smacked into Cay in her haste, and I grinned with unabashed glee. Then my sister was rushing towards me, her hands touching my bruises and cuts, her voice nearly hysterically shrill over the angry scolding from the taxi driver shouting about safety regulations before he zoomed off.

What happened? Dayja demanded to know. How did the nightmare break free? What hurts? Can you walk? Oh, En! And she crushed me to her in an embrace that may have partially cracked my spine in several places. We’ll get you to Daneon. He’ll fix everything.

Cay cleared his throat, trying to draw my sister’s attention his way like a sad validation-seeking magnet. Nice to see you, Dayja.

It worked, and she released me, leaving me to haul in air as she spun around. Did you capture it, then? Is it gone for good?

Cay patted his jacket with an all-too-smug smile that made me want to hiss at him. His essence beads clicked beneath his fingers. I have it.

Thank you, Dayja said. She turned back my way, missing his elated reaction, while I scowled over her shoulder in response. I knew all about his crush on my sister. He looked at Dayja the way I looked at chocolate covered toffee. I wished he’d just ask her out already, so she could shoot him down in a glorious blaze of rejection, but he wouldn’t. He was too scared of his family. Not that I could really, secretly, blame him, since his sister was a she-devil.

Let’s get your vaporbike. Dayja set a hand to my arm, then bit her lower lip, looking a little lost. Where…?

I’ll grab it, Cay offered, setting off immediately into a run.

Dayja gave me a concerned pat on the back. Don’t scowl so hard, En. You’ll wrinkle prematurely.

When the jerkface rolled my vaporbike towards us, it clanked ominously, wobbling side to side despite his best efforts to steer it straight. The mist wheels sputtered pathetically, the bike itself sounding like it was a coughing hag dredged from the sewers. Dayja’s eyes widened at its crumpled frame, her head snapping to me, to the bike, and back.

Don’t say it. I wrenched my arm from her grasp and limped forward, my dumb right foot thumping heavily as it landed. I didn’t want to hear her exclaiming how beat up my bike was, how damaged I was. How weak. Let go of it, slimeball, I all but snarled at Cay, who shrugged and let go of my bike to cross his arms instead, warming his fingers underneath his armpits. I barely managed to catch the steering bars with my left hand before the whole machine tipped sideways. Dayja scuttled to the other side to help take hold, biting her thumbnail in her customary nervous habit. 

I gave a sigh, giving a murderous glare to my bike. I can’t drive it. 

Dayja paled. What?

I can’t drive it. My arm’s useless right now. I didn’t have to explain further as my twin instantly looked to my right side where my arm was curled against my ribcage, locked there in a spasming muscle grip that pinched and ached and burned. My leg was hardly doing any better. I knew she saw it trembling like a flame before a breeze. You’re going to have to do the job.

She immediately squeaked in protest. Enea, I can’t—I don’t—let’s just call a taxi—

Well then, you’re gonna have to leave me and go get Daneon and bring him here to heal me. My bike will get stolen if we leave it in this zone. It had taken me six months of pay to save up for the dumb thing to begin with so I could do my job properly instead of being forced to climb buildings like a thief. We couldn’t afford to get a new one.

I’m not leaving you alone. She turned to Cay, clutching at the essence beads dangling from her neck. Can’t you—?

Nope, Cay instantly interrupted. It seemed his infatuation with my sister had its limits. I’m not playing messenger boy to Nallat just so he can have his chance to shoot me.

The grin I gave was purely sinister. That would make my dreams come true, Molt.

Cay bared his teeth at me, dropping his fists to his sides and taking a step forward. I saved your sorry ass tonight.

And she’s very grateful. Dayja held a hand to his chest, halting his advance, and pierced me with a sharp look that clearly stated, Shut up and don’t argue with me. I settled back, muttering to myself, trying not to wince as the pain in my leg grew worse every second. Satisfied I was withdrawing my assault, Dayja served Cay such a smile that he immediately stood frozen to the spot. I knew if it were daylight, we’d be able to see a blush darkening his cheeks. Really, thank you. I’ll drive her. She seemed to regret her decision the next moment as she looked at the vaporbike that sputtered between us. We’ll manage.

 Suit yourself. Chay set his hands into his pockets, whistling as he walked away, his cheerful demeanor driving needles of annoyance into my skin. 

Dayja saw the look I held at his retreating back. Don’t even think it, En.

What?

Don’t act innocent with me. I know that face when you’re scheming something devious.

I’d never.

Dayja rolled her eyes. Do you need help to get on the bike?

That sobered me, and I shifted my malevolence away from Harvester Mindbreaker and his ridiculous swagger to my crumpled-up transportation. With my right leg quivering uselessly, I was leaning heavily on the bike with my left hand, with Dayja bracing the weight of the bike against her hip to keep both me and the machine upright. 

Hang on a moment. I shifted myself around by hopping on my left foot until my butt met the vaporbike’s seat, then jumped backwards into place while Dayja braced the bike. Taking her offered hand with my left one, I pulled myself around to face forward. Alright, help me lift my leg over. Dayja carefully gripped my leg around its brace and lifted it up and over, cringing in sympathy as I hissed in pain.

Don’t worry, Dane will get you good as new, my twin said. She slid herself into place in front of me. 

I could hear the warble in her voice, and I patted her shoulder, trying to sound confident as I said, You’ve got this. I hoped she didn’t see me grip the handlebar at my side in a white-knuckled grip of terror.

I’ve got this, she repeated dully, setting her hands in place on the steering bars.

She almost had it.

But in fairness to her, she was driving a pummeled piece of machinery barely hanging by a thread, so I didn’t blame her when we crash landed with an ear-splitting bang outside the aged, familiar house on the edge of the capital, Knox City. My poor bike gave up the ghost in a jumble of parts, Dayja tumbled one direction, and I skid the other way through the wildflowers in the field. Dirt filled my nostrils, and my already sore body swore at me indignantly from the new battering it took. My lighthelmet zapped out of existence and my glasses went flying with nothing to hold them in place. When I stopped moving, I took in three shaky breaths before I allowed myself to lift my head, watching the stars spin drunkenly and the vague outline of my sister trying to gather herself to her feet.

Not my best landing. Dayja swiped at her pants, trying unsuccessfully to brush away smears of mud as she hurried my way, bringing her solarlight awake. You alright, En? She bent to retrieve my glasses in a tumble of broken plant stalks and offered them to me.

Wonderful. I let my head flop back down, holding my muddied glasses to my chest, and spat out flower petals from my mouth. I could hear the rasping of a front door opening and the subsequent squeak on the ancient porch as someone stepped out from the house.

Tell me who you are, or I’ll blow you to the next life without blinking! a gruff bass voice roared. A solarlight flared to life from a bulb above the doorway, revealing the hulking figure of someone aiming a long barreled solargun our way.

Dayja waved weakly in the warm glow as she sank to her knees beside me, completely nonplussed at the threat. Hey, Aro. Sorry about destroying your field. Can you move, En? She instantly stopped trying to lift me when I hissed at her as pain spiraled through my body. Okay, that’s a no.

Dayja? Enea? Aro’s heavy steps announced his descent of his front stairway. If I had the energy to look, I knew I’d find the mountain of a man in his fuzziest robe and bunny slippers thundering our way with all the grace of an angered elephant. What’ve you been up to? What’s happened? Then he gave a rough gasp as he drew near enough to see me in the beam of Dayja’s flashlight. Enea, my baby girl, what happened?! Then Aro was next to me, his giant hand settling on my stomach, the wildness of his salt-and-pepper beard beneath his bandana obscuring the stars above. He leaned down to look closer, his brown eyes watering alarmingly. What happened?! Who did this? Who do I kill for harming my baby?!

I’m ok, I assured him through a wheeze. Just bruised up. I need Dane. Can you carry me in? As much as I hated to have to ask for help, Aro was the only person in the world who I could do so without feeling too terrible about it. Though he wasn’t related to me in any way, he was as much a grandfather to me and Dayja as he biologically was to Daneon. Taking someone into your home with open arms tended to have that kind of positive influence in their life.

Of course, sweets, here we go. His forearms slid carefully beneath my shoulders and knees and, with a swish of the world around me, and a grunt of pain, I was aloft in his arms. His massive strides had Dayja jogging to keep up with him as he approached the house.

I didn’t need my glasses on to know that the second person who stood on the stairs, watching us in the glow of the porchlight, was giving me a look that by all rights should have set me on fire. I could feel Daneon’s furious glare like pinpricks on my skin.

What now? he drawled out, sounding about a thousand years old. The number of times he had healed me after some disastrous event was too high to count and I was probably prematurely aging the guy from all the stress I caused him. Part of me should have felt guilty about it, but that was difficult to manage when Dane got all domineering about how I should live my life.

I fluttered my eyelashes obnoxiously with a sickly-sweet smile as Aro climbed the front stairs. Even if Dane was a blurry blob among other blurry blobs around me, I could imagine his deepening scowl as I said, Your triumphant heroine returns.

In a voice of doomed acceptance, he replied, You mean my relentless nuisance.

Be nice to my baby girl, Aro demanded, pushing past the front door. Follow me, Dayja, honey. Let’s get you both healed up. Daneon!

"Alright, I’m coming, I’m coming, she’s just such a pain."

Sticking my tongue out like the mature woman I was past Aro’s bulk, I heard Dayja gasp at Dane’s responding impudent gesture. Oh, yeah, I had pissed him off.

I grinned. This was going to be fun.

Chapter Two

Settling into Aro’s and Daneon’s home was like entering the embodiment of mixing masculinity with effeminacy. While Aro may have been a criminal bounty hunter for the Division of Law in his pre-retirement life, the stone-faced façade that the rest of the world saw melted into fluffy comforts and puffy indulgences within the walls of his home. The very man that wrongdoers trembled at the mention of was a giant who loved to collect feathers, to bake, manicure his nails, crochet fuzzy socks and adornments, and most of all, dote on his robocat that he had merrily named Poppy Muffin.

His grandson, on the other hand, firmly kept anything with feathers, glitter, or puff balls attached to it out of his room, which was a carefully organized shrine to his work as a healer. Shelves of well-worn texts lined one wall, with sparse furniture throughout the rest of the receiving room attached to his actual bedroom, among them a carefully cleaned bed for his patients, belying the hours that he spent there aiding whoever sought his Spinning ability. Given his well-known skillset, he was often called on by the local hospitals to attend to difficult healing cases, but there was certainly no display of his wealth within the modest, comfortable house.

Dayja took my glasses from me, heading towards the kitchen presumably to clean them for me, while Aro set me onto the patient bed as carefully as if I were made of porcelain, muttering apologies when I, despite my best effort, grimaced with the ache of movement. Forgoing the overhead bulbs, he switched on a solarlamp, bathing the room in a sleepy light, then bustled off hurriedly, his footsteps trailing off towards the kitchen. In his place, Daneon entered my fuzzy vision, his hands and arms held aloft as he dried them after scrubbing them.

Care to explain what happened this time? he asked me casually. Too casually.

Narrowing my eyes at his tall, indistinct form, I said firmly, Nope. As if I was going to let him know about my complete failure tonight. I mean, having to be saved by Cay? Dane would never shut up about it for the next hundred years. I could tell he was watching me carefully, but I couldn’t read his expression as he stood for a long, silent moment. 

Whatever he may have wanted to say he held in. Instead, he let out a grunt and turned away, with his broad back solidly set in my direction. You know the drill.

I did. Thankfully, Dayja entered the room as if on cue, placing my newly scrubbed glasses into place. My beautiful sister was brought into focus, and she wordlessly took my offered hand, helping me to remove my boots, socks, and the outer layers of my uniform. She leaned my leg brace carefully against the bedframe. Beneath my discarded clothes, my tank top and body shorts I now wore made the already cool room feel much colder and I shivered. I was not, I reminded myself, embarrassed in any way about the state of undress in front of Dane. He had healed me so many times before, this was just as normal as rain during a storm or sun in the morning. I was one patient among thousands to him. Who knew how many half-naked, or totally naked, people he had cared for? Even young adult women like me, my brain went on traitorously, all alone with him here, who would no doubt do their best to persuade him from his professional demeanor into something more playful.

I was not going to wonder about that.

While Dayja sat at the head of the bed, my head on her lap, Dane shoved his stool over with a deft kick before settling into place. Now that I could see Dane properly, I found comfort in the familiarity of him sitting next to me, currently in sweatpants and a sleeveless hoodie, watching him curl his long body my way, his caramel-colored eyes dancing this way and that as he looked me over clinically, efficiently. If he was tired from my waking him from sleep in the earliest hours of the morning, he didn’t show it. His long black hair was in several small braids, tied into a hasty half-up bun, with strands brushing against his chestnut skin. In pictures I had seen before, I was often struck by how closely he resembled a younger Aro with his trimmed beard tracing the edge of his jawline and framing his mouth. It was always with great disgust that I was forced to admit that he was handsome as hell.

I glanced to my twin, who brushed a twist of my hair from my face, smiling serenely at me, and thought sourly, gut coiling tightly, of all the times I had heard people mention what a beautiful couple Dayja and Dane would make, if they would just get together, wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Wonderful, my mind echoed dully.

Show me what you can do, Dane ordered crisply, breaking into my thoughts.

Obligingly, I clenched my jaw and tried my best to make my body obey, only managing to twitch my right foot and unclench my right fist. With a disheartened shrug, I found it hard to meet his gaze again, even though I could feel it like the faintest whisper of a touch, and I tried my best not to feel like an utter failure.

Dane’s mouth pinched tight. Whoever it was got you pretty good, didn’t they?

I scowled and spat at him, "Yes, thank you for your observation, Spinner Bloodthreader, I am very aware I got my ass handed to me."

Dayja’s fingers were soft against my cheek,