embroidery | mav & nai

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

How cruel it was to make her swallow those screams, to memorize the way they tore into her chest instead of finding freedom in between bloody lips. She was perfectly still, but not numb - watching with wide eyes as the needle glinted in low light with every stitch. A picture of compliance, as quiet and powerless as she'd always found herself. Only this time it was not by her own hand.

It hurt at first but with the amount of her own blood sitting heavy in her gut, the nausea long since overcame the stinging sensation.

Naomi tries to close her eyes, to be anywhere but here. She searches a cloudy memory for those little bits of light - for the way Clara's skin felt beneath her palm or how precious Maverick's smile was because she'd only ever seen it a handful of times.

But the floor is cold beneath her and all is dark except for the needle glinting in low light after every stitch. The rope around Cleo's neck groans under the dead girl's weight and Naomi is alone with it. Whoever Whatever it is.

Somewhere, she realizes, a sink is leaking. A steady drip in tune to her heart's thrumming. It's almost soothing, gentle enough that she lets her eyes go unfocused. She is not safe but she is so tired. She'd clung to this stubborn sense of control for long enough. There's no fighting the inevitable.

Naomi doesn't fear the agony, she fears the aftermath.

---

She wakes under a shower of sewing needles. Twinkling in between evergreens, their fallen leaves sharp as they worm their way under her shirt. For one, precious second, she forgets everything. It's ignorant bliss, confusion is so much sweeter than the tang of dried blood stuck to the back of her throat. There's no murder and no murderer, just a lost little girl trying to remember why she'd wandered into the woods.

Then she opens her mouth, or she tries to before it starts burning. She feels the thread dig into raw skin, shifting ever so slightly as the wounds are torn deeper than even before. It's all instinct then, the panic that tries to force breaths from between those sealed lips and the way she gags on the fresh waves of blood trickling down her throat. Try as she might, she can't stop hurting herself.

Naomi lays there long enough to watch the sky change colors, trying to remember what it's like to move her fingers. Tears leave a sticky trail down her cheeks and all the sobs that can't escape have her feeling like she's suffocating. It's an agonizingly slow process - an eternity before she finds the strength to prop herself up on her elbows.

And she wants to scream, she wants to scream more than she's ever wanted anything.

It's hopeless.

A while later the lavender light of dawn is blurred by relieved tears as she finally forces herself into a standing position. She almost lets her lips curve into a smile, but she knows better by now.

She takes one step forward.

And she falls.

So she starts all over again.

The mouth of the forest is too close to be this far away. Feeling doesn't return to her limbs peacefully, the sensation is uneven. Like fire ants erupting from beneath her skin. Naomi considers more than once whether it's better to lay down and die out here, with freedom a few feet away.

She takes one step forward.

And she falls.

So she starts all over again.

It's bright, too bright, by the time she clears the trees. Her palms are scraped, more bruise than skin. Her gait is still uneven but steadier than it had been ten minutes before. Mist cools her irritated skin and it's odd how she still cares that her makeup must have run. That her favorite lipstick was a wonderful crimson that she'll never be able to stomach wearing again.

And, god, when she catches sight of Maverick she's more horrified than relieved. Because she's wasted this whole fucking year trying to look strong in front of him. To prove that he couldn't hurt her so he'd stop tearing them both apart because he seems to like the pain.

There's a part of her that considers running away instead of toward him.

But, like a moth to a flame, she can't help but crave the way it burns. She might even need it right now.

For all the time she spent biting her tongue in his presence, it's ironic how much she'd be willing to tell him right here and now with her hands tangled in the hem of his shirt and her knees sunk into the mud in front of him.

If only she could.