The sleeping pallet was folded up, its felt corpus thick and mottled due to the cheap collection of fibers that had been woven together to form its weight.

Given its size, it took up the whole of the interior, as if the box had been precisely made for the purpose of storing the thing.

Z took the blanket out. Holding what he had slept on for . . . God, years and years . . . he found himself remembering when he had put it away, first in the closet in his bedroom, and then in this box that he’d gotten from the office, and finally down here. He’d been determined to turn his life around. He’d lost the female he had bonded with—

No, even worse, he’d told Bella to leave.

And yet even after she was gone, he’d decided to try to better himself. To learn how to read and write. To stop being so brutally angry.

Destroying his mistress’s skull, which he had slept beside since he had killed her, had been part of it. So, too, had been starting to sleep in a bed.

Little had he known that he had been preparing for Bella’s return. And it was only after she had returned and, by some miracle, taken him back, that he’d realized what he’d been doing. He’d been afraid he’d fail, however, and that was why he’d had to set her free. After a century of hating himself, he’d had no reason to believe he’d be close to worthy—

Z twisted around with a jerk. “Hello?”

There were a couple of footsteps, and then Mary, Rhage’s shellan, stepped in between the open jambs of the storage unit. The female was not vampire, but neither was she human anymore, really. The Scribe Virgin had taken her out of the continuum of time, the result of a bargain Rhage had struck to save Mary’s life from her terminal cancer. In return, the brother had to live with his beast for the rest of his nights, and you know what? He seemed very satisfied with his choices—and Z could totally get it. Mary was a bastion of calm and reasonable, the perfect foil to Rhage’s out-there.

“Hi.” She smiled as she ran a hand through her short brown hair. “I hope you don’t mind that I followed you.”

Z looked down at what he was holding. “I used to sleep on this.”

There was no need to fill her in on anything or provide any context. The two of them had spent hours together, sorting through his past, talking things over, reframing when and where they could. Mary was not just a stellar social worker; she was also very wise and very caring. She had helped him so much.

“You slept on it for a long time,” she said as she leaned against the jamb. As usual, she was wearing well-washed jeans and a cozy sweater, the enormous gold Rolex on her wrist not fitting her no-makeup, unfussy-brunette-bob vibe. But she always had Rhage’s watch on.

“Any particular reason you decided to revisit that blanket tonight?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” For a moment, he hoped she would fill in the answer—because dollars to donuts, she was well aware of why he was here. But he should have known better. He had to do the work. “Maybe it’s because of what happened to Balthazar.”

“Seeing someone you live with that close to death is really upsetting.”

“It’s also what he said when he came around.” Z filled her in on the demon comment. “He was looking right at me when he spoke.”

“Did you feel as though it was a message specifically for you?”

“I did.”

When he didn’t go any further, she prompted, “And do you think that your mistress has returned from the dead to haunt you?”

Z thought that over for a moment. Logically . . . ? “Well, no. But that’s exactly where my mind went when I heard the word ‘demon.’”

“Makes sense to me.”

He looked back down at the folds of the pallet. “But you know . . . it’s not just that.” He thought about Nalla running toward him in the bedroom. “It isn’t all gone. What I think about myself, my insides.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“The . . . filthy part.” He glanced over at her. “What the voice tells me, you know, about what I really am, what my family fails to see.”

“What do they fail to see about you?”

“How dirty I am.” His voice became small. “How . . . filthy I am.” Before Mary could say anything, he cleared his throat. “But I mean, we’ve been through all that already. We’ve spent how much time talking about what was done to me by that female?”

Only silence came back at him. Which was frustrating as fuck.

“Why isn’t it gone?” he demanded. “My life is good. I’m in love, I have a daughter. Everything is good.”

“Yes, it is.”

“So what the fuck?” He frowned. “And I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get all pissy with you.”

“It’s totally understandable. I’ve been a resource for you, and I’ve done what I can to help. If you want to direct that animus to me, I can take it.”

“But you can’t make it go away.” He motioned next to his head. “This fucking shit is always going to be with me, huh. No matter how much better I get.”

Mary came across to him, kneeling down and meeting his stare levelly. “When was the last time you felt the need to come down here?”

“It’s been . . . well, not since I put this box away.”

“And when was the last time that voice in your head kept you up during the day?”

“I dunno. Guess a month, maybe longer.”

“And your last nightmare?”

“October.”

When she just stared at him patiently, he rubbed his face. “Okay, fine, it’s getting better. Compared to the every-waking-minute it used to be. But goddamn . . . I just get exhausted retreading the same territory. The same pain. The same weakness.”

Mary nodded. And then said, “You know, I have a theory about injury and healing. It’s just anecdotal, from my own personal experience with trauma—which, granted, is nothing measured against your own.” She shifted around to sit cross-legged, like she was prepared to stay for however long he needed her to. “In my opinion, souls are no different than limbs. If you break a leg or an arm, it’s going to hurt when it happens, sharply and unbearably. Therapy is like what you do to set the bone properly in a cast and monitor its mending. It’s the physical rehab, the stretching, the follow-up X-rays. But the limb is never the same. On rainy days, the joint aches. If you run a marathon on it, it will be sore. Maybe the healed part isn’t quite right. Souls are the same. There are different marathons we run, whether it’s the day-to-day interactions with our spouses or the people we work with. Maybe it’s an event like Balthazar getting hurt. Perhaps it’s an anniversary of a bad night—or even a good one, like a holiday or a birthday. These are the marathons our souls run, and sometimes, where we have healed aches. Or worse. And that is a nonnegotiable part of being a survivor.”

Z stroked the felt with his hand, feeling the coarse nap. “I guess I thought the work was over.”

“It’s never over. If we want to be conscious in our lives, in ourselves, the work is always necessary.”

“Physical therapy forever.”

“So that you can function better and feel better and be healthier. You can’t undo the injury, but you can always work with what you have.”

“I wish I didn’t have to.” He looked back at her. “Shit. That sounds lame.”

“No, that sounds very human.” Mary shook her head with a little laugh. “I mean vampire.”

Silence eased into the space between them, and in the back of his mind, he thought that Mary’s ability to be comfortable in the quiet was one of the many reasons she was the right therapist for him.

Taking a deep breath, he returned the pallet to where it had been and placed the lid back on top. Then he pushed the box into its previous position.

He stayed where he was for a couple of heartbeats. Then he got to his full height and offered his dagger hand to his brother’s precious shellan.

“Care to hit Last Meal?” he said as he helped her to her feet.

“I want you to keep something in mind.” She stared up at him. “You know all the hours we’ve spent together?”

“Yes?”

“Were they so bad?”

“You mean, did I like them? No. I’m sorry, but that would be a no.”

Mary shook her head. “Not what I asked. Were they so bad?”

“No.”

“Could you do it all over again? Like from the start ’til this moment right here?” She pointed to the concrete between them. “From when we first met down here to now?”

He thought about the conversations. Some had been like pulling teeth. Some had been kind of easy. Others had wiped him out emotionally. One—or no, two—had actually made him vomit.

A few they had even laughed through.

“Yes,” he said. “I could do it all over again.”

Mary put her hand on his forearm. “Then you have exactly what you need to continue to heal and survive and thrive. If you can look me right in the eye, and say, yup, I got this. I can continue talking. I can keep learning about myself and my place in the world. I can express my doubts and fears, in a supportive environment, and know that I’m not dirty. I am not filthy. I was abused. I was a victim. And none of it was my fault—nor did it change the purity of my soul or the depth and beauty of my heart. If you can keep working those tendons and ligaments and joints? You will be okay, no matter how many times you feel as you do tonight.”

Z took another deep breath. “You know, I try to say those words in my head. When I get like this, when I doubt . . . what I am inside.”

“Good.” She patted his arm and dropped her hand. “Someday, you’ll believe them.”

He considered his chaotic, nasty thoughts. “How do you know that for sure?”

She leaned in and kept eye contact with him. “Because, my friend, they’re true.”