{"id":3513,"date":"2018-02-21T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T05:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3513"},"modified":"2018-02-20T19:52:12","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T00:52:12","slug":"thirty-three-04-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3513","title":{"rendered":"Thirty-three – 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBut you don\u2019t want to ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n

I winced at the certainty in Thom\u2019s voice\u2014in part because he was right, but mostly because I wished he hadn\u2019t realized<\/em> he was right. He sighed into my hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cMar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGods and fucking monsters<\/em>\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said, his voice gentle and faint. \u201cNo, Mar, please. Please, don\u2019t run from this. What if it\u2019s all connected?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to hell it\u2019s not,\u201d I said, my throat constricting. \u201cGods, Thom, I can\u2019t even begin to fathom what that would mean. It\u2019s too\u2014it\u2019s too much space, too much time<\/em>, too many factors. How? How the hell could it be connected\u2014and who are we thinking\u2019s connected? Her to Menhit and Anhur? Her to Leviathan<\/em>? Something or someone else?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was crying, now, the tears stinging in my eyes, on my cheeks, and I could taste the salt of them on my lips and against my tongue. My throat was so tight that it was hard to speak, my heart trapped in some sort of vise.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust leave it be a little while longer,\u201d I begged in a whisper. \u201cPlease, Thom. Just\u2014leave it be.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stayed quiet for a long time, stroking my hair. I felt him swallow. I hugged him a little tighter, squeezing my eyes shut.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if you\u2019re wrong?\u201d he finally asked, his voice barely more than an exhaled breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cPray I\u2019m not,\u201d I whispered into his shoulder. \u201cWarnings or no, dreams or no, we have to pray I\u2019m not. Phelan and Seamus know. They know she attacked me during that fight. They know she\u2019s out there, they know she\u2019s a threat. None of us have talked about connections.\u201d It was, of course, a conversation that I\u2019d been trying to avoid.<\/p>\n

I was just too afraid, but at the same time I trusted them. I trusted them to be vigilant, to make sure we\u2019d be ready. Despite what both of them may have said or felt to the contrary, they hadn\u2019t failed us yet.<\/p>\n

All I could do was pray they never did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.] \u201cBut you don\u2019t want to ask him.\u201d I winced at the certainty in Thom\u2019s voice\u2014in part because he was right, but mostly because I wished he hadn\u2019t realized he was right. He … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,284,14],"tags":[150,171,170,152,149,148,168,147,165,158,200,146],"class_list":["post-3513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-33-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-marin-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thom-ambrose","tag-thomas-merlin-ambrose","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-UF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3515,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513\/revisions\/3515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}