Race the Darkness by Abbie Roads

nightmare and don’t know what’s real anymore.” She spoke against his chest. “What’s wrong with me?”
    He leaned his cheek against the top of her head. “Nothing, baby. Nothing that time won’t heal.” For the first time since he woke up with supercharged hearing, he actually wished he could connect with her frequency and hear her thoughts. Not for himself, but for her. The urge, the desire to be inside her head to slay her fears, was a visceral need vibrating through his heart.
    â€œGran used to say that when we got out of there, we’d need time to heal from everything we’d been through. She said the world had kept going without us, and we’d be behind and have to work extra hard to catch up and be normal again.”
    â€œYour gran sounds like a smart lady.” Xander owed himself a high five for that one.
    Isleen’s body went still as porcelain, but her heart overcompensated— duh-dum, duh-dum . The cadence was fast, the kind of fast that strolled along with fear. He flashed through their conversation, but couldn’t fathom the reason.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” he asked, tightening his hold on her. Whatever it was, he was gonna make it go away.
    She swallowed, the sound verging on humorously loud, but nothing about this situation was funny. “I’m scared to ask. Afraid of the answer. Xander—”
    God. The way his name rolled off her tongue captured him. Utterly and completely. If he was being honest, she’d owned him from the moment he had found her. The pisser was he didn’t mind. Hadn’t minded one moment of sitting next to her hospital bed, hadn’t minded watching over her while she slept.
    â€œâ€”I’m so tired of being afraid.”
    Reality check. All his pink-pansy thoughts needed to be filed in the not-now-and-maybe-not-ever bin. More than just her body needed to heal. Her mind needed to mend. Part of that process was going to be adjusting and assimilating to her new reality. The hardest part was going to be packing up the past and placing it on a shelf in the back of her mind.
    â€œWhatever it is, just ask. No matter the answer, I’ll be right here with you.”
    Isleen wrapped both her arms around his waist, gripping him like she was either bracing for a blow or worried about being pulled away. “Gran?” Her voice was a whisper of sound that no one except him would’ve been able to hear. “Is she… Is she…”
    â€œShe’s alive.” Goddamn it. He should’ve thought to tell her first thing. Showed how much he knew about dealing with people—zero, zip, and zilch.
    She ripped out of his embrace and aimed her gaze at him. “Really?” Hope charged through her—a visible entity squaring her shoulders and making her sit up straighter, bolder. Her features transformed from soft and scared to triumphant survivor. She was stunning. Radiant. Magnificent. All the words of beauty he could possibly think up. He’d do anything and everything to keep her looking this way.
    â€œReally. Gale is stable. She’s got some serious cuts and bruises, but nothing is broken. The major concern seems to be her cognitive deterioration. She’s not talking. But then you haven’t talked until today. So maybe…” He owed a two-ton-sized thank-you to Row for not being able to mind her own business or keep her mouth shut. Otherwise, Xander wouldn’t have known anything about Gale’s progress .
    Sadness washed away some of Isleen’s brilliance as she spoke. “She hasn’t been right for a long time. At first, she couldn’t remember the names of basic things like food, or colors, or my name. Then she couldn’t remember things that had just happened. Then she couldn’t remember me, or where we were. Those times were a blessing, an escape from our reality. The most horrible thing, the thing that hurt beyond everything