Glow (The Plated Prisoner, #4)

by Raven Kennedy

Despite his glare, he looks like he’s about a second from tipping over. “I stay with her.”

“I don’t mean die physically, but mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.” She presses a hand to her chest, thumping it twice. “You can’t contemplate or settle or thrive when you’re living like that. I was dead and running, just trying to keep up with survival. Just making it one day. People don’t get that, you know? If they’ve never lived like that. It’s one day. A whole slew of one-day-at-a-times, just getting through, squeezing by. Always running, never expecting anything else.

“You took my belligerence and tossed a uniform in my face. You met Osrik’s kill drive and decided to give him your sword. You saw every jail cell that couldn’t hold Judd and, instead of tossing him in another one, let him keep the keys. This time, you found your goldfinch and watched her leave her cage. She’ll open her eyes, just like you got the rest of us to do.”

I let out a sigh and drag a hand down my face. “Does no one actually listen to my orders?” Ryatt gives me a scowl and then stalks into the kitchen. “Not when your orders are stupid,” Judd answers jovially.

To say I’m taken aback is putting it mildly. The idea that he would stay with me makes me feel oddly vulnerable. He cocks his head. “Where else would I be if not with you?”

That’s the thing with trauma to the body—it shows up instantly. In breaks and bruises, in burns and in blood. But the trauma on the inside, that’s harder to see. It creeps around your mind, poisons you with disquiet. It can hit you out of nowhere, debilitating and ruinous. There are no marks visible for those. None, save the shadows in your eyes.

Maybe none of us truly know our own strength. Not until the world has hacked away at us. But the point is, we aren’t strong because of our trauma. We were always strong to begin with. We just needed to figure it out for ourselves.

You never notice what’s keeping you balanced until you realize you’re not standing straight anymore.

“Where are we going?” I ask him again. “Such impatience.” I roll my eyes. “Like you’d let me lead you somewhere without telling you where it was.” “Oh, Goldfinch, I’d follow you to the end of the world and tip right off the edge, all because of a crook of your finger.”

But if you’re ever doubting, just stop and listen to the voice in your head. So long as the voice is yours and not his, then you know you’re beating the bastard.”

Use your rage to complete your courage.”

“Anger can do a lot of things,” he goes on, thumbing over the sharp tips of his spikes. “It can drag you down, make you bitter. But if you wield it another way, it can be a stepping stone for your determination.”

I’m not sure how he can say that. Then again, he rots people. Probably not the best judge of good versus bad.

shake my head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re good. You’re—” “No, Goldfinch,” he interrupts. “I’m good to you. But I am every bit the villain that I warned you I was.”

but for what it’s worth, I am glad that you’re here in this world with me,” I say quietly. His eyes soften. “Oh, Goldfinch. I would’ve found you in whatever world you were in. In whatever life.”

“One person’s pain doesn’t negate another’s. Our heartaches are not competition, but the bridge to empathy. So that we can look at one another and know that on some level, we understand. That’s one beautiful thing about grief, I think. That sometimes, we can find someone in the world to look at from the other side of the bridge of our torments and know that we are not alone.”