That wasn’t affection. That wasn’t satisfying. This was.

Oh, God, this is so fucked up.

“You are anxious.”

She opened her eyes, hugged him tighter. “Just thinking. Good anxious. I . . .”

“I will sedate you.”

“No!” she blurted. “You can sedate me in a few minutes, but I just . . .” She tried to push through that sense of shame. He isn’t human. He’s not going to judge this like a human would. “I feel safe here. I feel like this is helping.”

That was true, wasn’t it? One of the hallmarks of PTSD was a loss of a sense of safety. Ampersand was, aside from the Similar Brako, the most powerful being on the entire planet. His entire body was effectively its own city fueled by some unfathomable matter/ antimatter core that was capable of generating enough power for every major city in the country combined. Sometimes it was overwhelming to think about all the things she did not know about this body he inhabited. And here he was, in bed with her, telling her, I will help you, I will treat your illness.

“I don’t know when you’ll be back here,” she said. “I just want to enjoy being here a little while longer.”

“A part of my study was intended to be therapeutic. If this is therapeutic, then we shall create a schedule, and I will come here every night.”

She pulled away, looked up at those luminous amber eyes inches away from her own. “You will?” This is so fucked up. Why do I like this? I should be with a human. This is so fucked up.

He ran his long arachnoid digits over her scalp, and she shivered. “I will arrive two hours before your scheduled sleep time, and I will stay here with you until you sleep.”

She thought her heart might burst from gratitude, and she hugged him. “Yes, yes, I’d like that.”

She pulled her face back into his midsection, the “chest” for lack of a better word, where a collarbone would be on a human, and closed her eyes. She tried to plug that little spring of shame that kept burbling up, and he continued caressing her head, the back of her neck, then the top of her back.

Please don’t stop.

She allowed herself a few minutes before she looked up at him and said, “You can sedate me now.”

He put his four forefingers together, so like the forelimbs of a spider, and that syringe-like device appeared. “This will make you sleep deeply. You will not have nightmares tonight.”

At that, she nearly cried. He could have given her a billion dollars, a private island, a full scholarship to the best school in the country, all the praise that the masses were heaping on her father, folk hero and soldier for truth; there was nothing she wanted to hear more than you won’t have nightmares tonight.

He injected the sedative into her, a warm sensation followed by darkness that took a few minutes to take effect. I love you, she thought, not for the first time as she drifted off to sleep. I love you, I love you, I love you.