Xander took me in his arms. Her tried to get me to stand up, but I was inconsolable and I wasn’t able to get out of my fetal position on the wet ground.

“Can you take the dog out of here before he hurts himself on the glass?” said Xander to someone.

I was vaguely aware that I could hear Miki going insane at the mess, and I had a massive headache, most probably fueled by the choking that would not subside with the noise.

“Make it stop,” I croaked at Xander.”

His face paled and a small still sane piece of my mind managed to realise how bad this could sound to him.

“The noise,” I promised.

“Dad?” said Xander way too loudly.

Regis had probably gone to fetch himself a pair of shoes or something—it was hard to tell with all the tears in my eyes—he walked gingerly in the bathroom and picked Miki in his arms and left us.

“You need to get up Mila, there’s glass everywhere here.”

“She wants to kill me,” I said in between sobs. “She said the word ‘kill’ right in my ears after she choked me.”

Xander looked horrified, but he focused on getting my naked ass off the floor.

I vaguely realised that he had no shoes on.

“You’ll hurt your feet,” I said still crying.

“It’s already done,” he replied. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Now you’re hurt,” I whined falling apart again. He had to hold my weight, or I would have fallen on the floor again.

I tried to get a grip on myself, I’m usually good with emergency type situations, good enough to have thought that I could be an EMT or something like that, but now that I had someone to rely on, I was falling to pieces.

The knowledge kicked my mind in the metaphorical butt, and I straightened up, and let Xander guide me to the bedroom.

I don’t know when he grabbed towels, but he had one in his hand and he was trying to dry me up, making slow careful stoke on my skin.

“MOMMY!” screamed Eloim, from the other side of the door, coming in our direction.

“Not now,” said Xander loudly.

“I’m taking him,” said his mother. We heard Eloim whine and cry and it was heart braking, but Xander was right, neither of us could properly take care of him right now, and it was better for his parents to do it instead.

“I need a first aid kit,” he said again loudly.

“On it,” I heard his father say.

It took a few minutes during which Xander continued to dry me up, looking very disturbingly at my neck. He brought a few clothes too.

Regis brought in the kit, and Xander tended to a few wounds I hadn’t seen. Nothing big, but he gave each his full attention.

My crying slowed down. Every sound that came from somewhere out of my immediate notice freaked the hell out of me, and I tried to calm my nerves as best I could.

Xander sat next to me when he was done, and I downed a couple of glasses of water while he took a few pieces of glass out of his soles.

“You need help with that?” I asked.

“I’m fine.”

He clearly wasn’t. It’s pretty hard to see under your own feet.

I went to the side-table, and took the lamp closers, then I took his foot and the tiny pincers and went digging for glass shards in his skin.

It took me a while, and we stayed this way in silence.

After a while, I put his foot down, sure I had taken them all out of both feet, and looked up at him. We said nothing, what is there to say?

We hugged for a while, it was the only communication form that made sense, we spent a long moment just breathing in one another’s sent, slowly, reassuringly, the rhythm of his heartbeat slowing mine, but eventually we had to get over ourselves and check on Eloim.

Regis was on a rocking chair moving back and forth with an uncontrollable Eloim in his arms, Miranda was walking back and forth until we went down the stairs.

And rushed to us about to ask about what had occurred and spotted the marks on my neck instantly in horror, but I put my finger against my lips and pointed at Eloim. She understood and withheld her questions for now, but I knew she would hound us later.

Xander’s parent’s had been informed of the situation, it had been hard to ignore this as the first major incident had been inside the walls of their homes to begin with, but neither of us had gone into details about everything.

When Eloim spotted us, he disentangled himself from his grandfather and rushed to us.

He was incoherent for a while.

Regis moved from his chair, Xander sat in it, and put me across his lap, with Eloim pressed against both of our chests, on top of my lap.

As his sobs slowly subsided, he managed to tell us that the scary-faced lady said I would die.

I don’t think any of us had heard her talk before now, at least, Eloim had never talked about it. I felt a chilled ran between us that had nothing to do with thermodynamics and everything to do with fear.

Xander rocked us for a while, he hummed something that didn’t sound like any song I knew, but it was soothing, he had a good voice, I could imagine him doing the same with baby Eloim every evening before putting him to bed, and after the massive dose of adrenaline that I had been given with that disaster of a shower, I felt myself crash slowly and a few minutes after Eloim’s breathing slowed to a constant rhythm, I felt myself drift away slowly, my body heavy, with each sway of the chair and the warm heat of Xander’s body until darkness took over.