{"id":3646,"date":"2018-06-29T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T04:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3646"},"modified":"2018-06-28T17:11:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T21:11:42","slug":"forty-one-02-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3646","title":{"rendered":"Forty-one – 02"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said quietly, reaching with his free hand to brush his fingertips over his son\u2019s hair. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d Hecate said, her voice firm but not unkind. \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have snapped at you like that. It was uncalled for and I apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all right. I think I\u2019d do the same thing in your position.\u201d Thom closed his eyes for a moment. Hecate bit her lip, reaching up to press the back of her hand against his forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re burning up,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n

Thom swallowed and shook his head. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can I not?\u201d Hecate exhaled a sigh. \u201cYou\u2019re family and Marin and your son need you. This fever\u2019s been going on for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thom just nodded. In the distance, they could both hear the faint sounds of screams, the sound of the ground rumbling, drums, of rifle reports. The thought crossed Hecate\u2019s mind that perhaps they should go below\u2014Neve and her twins were sure to be there, along with Angie, Tala, and her twins. At this point, though, she wasn\u2019t sure she\u2019d be able to get both Thom and<\/em> Lin down\u2014it would be one at a time, even if she could somehow convince Thom to go, which she strongly suspected she wouldn\u2019t be able to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThom,\u201d she said gently, \u201cwhat are you not telling anyone about this?\u201d<\/p>\n

He shook his head again. \u201cDon\u2019t press, Hecate,\u201d he said, his voice almost too quiet to hear. \u201cBetter for everyone if you don\u2019t. Just leave it. Some questions no one wants to know the answers to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her jaw tightened. And some questions you <\/em>have to learn the answers to in order to pick up and keep going.<\/em> \u201cThen you do know something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSuspect only,\u201d Thom said quietly, staring at the fire. \u201cThat\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen what? What could be so awful that you don\u2019t want to say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething she and I saw a long time ago,\u201d he said. Were those tears glinting in his eyes, or was it just her imagination? \u201cSomething both of us hoped wasn\u2019t real.\u201d<\/p>\n

He meant Marin. She knew that. Her stomach flipped over onto itself.<\/p>\n

What could be so awful that they\u2019d both fear it being <\/em>real?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Hecate’s point of view.] \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said quietly, reaching with his free hand to brush his fingertips over his son\u2019s hair. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean\u2014\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s okay,\u201d Hecate said, her voice firm but not unkind. \u201cI … 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":[240,293,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,149,148,168,147,165,158,200,146],"class_list":["post-3646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-41-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","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-WO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646","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=3646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3647,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions\/3647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}