Chapter 56
Chapter Fifty-Six
Luna and Loba used each of Marisol’s thighs as a headrest while she sat on the floor, her back against the bend of the enormous white sectional. They’d whined at the door for nearly an hour after Elena left, as if they’d known she was leaving to meet danger head-on. Now their snoring was soothing Marisol more than she was comforting them.
“Alright, Sprite is not exactly a replacement for lime juice, but it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” Zuri announced, walking in from the kitchen with two tall glasses of something fizzy. “Just pretend it’s a take on a mojito.”
“I don’t know if we should be drinking alcohol when?—”
“This is exactly when we should drink, Bambi.” Zuri offered her one of the glasses and wouldn’t move until Marisol relented and took it.
Instead of sitting on the couch like Marisol expected, Zuri sat on the floor close enough that there was only a sleeping dog between them. She complained and grumbled and cursed about her legs falling asleep but Marisol saw through her protestations. Luna lifted her fawn-colored head before rolling backward and trading Marisol’s lap for Zuri’s.
Marisol wanted to ask her what she was supposed to be doing. To ask how they were just supposed to sit there without knowing what the hell was happening. But she couldn’t bring herself to sound so weak.
“Have you identified where you draw power from?” Zuri brought her straw to her lips. “In your body?” With her free hand, she rubbed Luna’s chest.
“Are you trying to distract me?” Marisol took a sip and tried not to react to the overpowering burn from the rum.
“Obviously,” Zuri said and set her glass down next to her. “But I still want an answer.”
Marisol smiled despite herself. In her life, she’d never encountered a kinder heart wrapped in more barbed wire. She wondered how long it had taken Elena to fall for Zuri, but had no doubts why she’d obviously never gotten over her.
After another sip and failed attempt to hide her grimace, Marisol went inward. She’d been paying attention to her body in new ways. Doing what she could to gather usable intel.
“It starts as… a faint buzz in the middle of my chest.” She pressed her palm to her sternum like that might trigger it. “Kind of like when all the blood rushes to your hands or feet and you feel a million little pin pricks under your skin.”
Zuri drank while she listened. “And then what?”
Marisol closed her eyes and willed herself to remember the sensation. It was so wired into her body, it was like explaining what it felt like to have nails or hair. It just was. “Then it kinda shoots up the middle”—she motioned over her chest—“and over my shoulders down to my scapulas.”
“That’s good progress. You can’t connect to your power until you know where it lives.” She put her glass down when it was half empty, and Marisol wondered if she’d put as much rum in hers. “It will be helpful to know next time you get period cramps,” she joked unexpectedly.
Unable to stop the flush, Marisol’s skin turned hot.
“Oh, Jesus, Bambi, you’re a fucking nurse. Don’t tell me you’re squeamish about?—”
“No, it’s not that, it’s, um…” She winced, self-conscious at being an anomaly in so many ways. “I’ve never felt cramps.”
Zuri’s dark eyes widened and she reached for her glass again. After she’d taken down another gulp she asked, “Are you fucking with me?”
“No headaches either,” she admitted with a shrug, “but I always chocked that up to being well hydrated. You know, most adults are chronically dehydrated and that leads to?—”
“Yes, I’ve seen the memes.” Zuri’s smile was wry and warm and prevented Marisol from rambling. “I can’t imagine never feeling pain.”
“Oh, I’ve felt plenty of pain,” she corrected. “I guess just none that my body produced on its own.”
Looking at her like she was a science experiment, Zuri emptied her glass of everything apart from the rattling ice. “What’s your first memory of feeling pain?”
Instead of responding, Marisol let the booze loosen her up. “What’s yours?”
Zuri’s eyes ignited at the unexpected resistance. “Drink at least half of that,” she said, flicking her gaze to Marisol’s glass, “and I’ll tell you.”
Marisol laughed. “Are you trying to get me drunk, Ms. Benitez?”
“Do you want my answer or what?” The ghost of her smile lingered on her lips.
With two hard pulls and an unavoidable shake of her shoulders, Marisol complied with the request. “Let’s hear it then,” she said, shocked when rum-scented fire didn’t shoot out of her mouth when she opened it.
Apparently satisfied with Marisol’s effort, Zuri leaned her head back on the couch and looked up at the high ceiling. “I was probably six or seven,” she guessed. “My grandmother had this vanity table thing across from her bed, and I was obsessed with all the makeup and powders and fascinating shit she had in there that I couldn’t touch.”
Marisol chuckled. “The Holy Grail of playing dress-up.”
Zuri rolled her head to one side to face her, voice soft and expression softer. “My favorite was this round powder box thing.” By the way her gaze drifted, Marisol knew she was picturing every single detail of the box. “It was powder blue with these tiny naked cherubs on it.” She offered a lopsided smile. “Relatives of yours, maybe.”
“Maybe the closest thing I’ll get to a family portrait,” she joked.
Rather than laugh, Zuri’s expression flickered like she’d regretted making the joke. Marisol had no interest in suddenly being some fragile thing, and she didn’t want to darken the moment with her Orphan Annie luck.
“And the pain came…” Marisol gestured for her to continue the story.
Zuri understood that Marisol didn’t want to be pitied and continued as if they hadn’t hit a speed bump. “I have to mention this box was from… Spain ,” she said with the same exaggerated awe as if it had once belonged to Marie Antoinette. “And I had been fascinated by this thing since I moved in with her when I was four.”
“She raised you since then?” Marisol had noticed that Zuri never talked about her parents, but she hadn’t realized that she’d been raised by her grandmother too.
“The modern tragedy.” Zuri held her emotions in a steel grip. “Addiction is a real bitch.” She looked away when she added, “I don’t remember my mom’s funeral, but I’m sure there wasn’t even one for my dad.”
Marisol’s heart tore right in two. She wanted to reach out to ask if she wanted to talk about it, or give her permission not to talk at all, but then Zuri was back to the box and the moment was lost.
“So one morning she was in the middle of her beatification ritual,” Zuri’s eyes brightened again, “curling her hair when the phone rang. The second she was out of the room, I bolted off the bed where I’d been playing with a Barbie or some shit, and went right for the powder box.”
Vivid images played in Marisol’s mind. She couldn’t conceive of Zuri as a kid. As anything other than an unmitigated badass.
“I put that powder all over my face.” She laughed. “I looked like a weird ass little ghost, but I was living my big girl fantasies.”
Marisol laughed; the idea of Zuri wholeheartedly reveling in anything was a gift.
“All too soon, I heard that receiver clang against the base?—”
“And panic ensued?”
“Panic was an understatement,” she agreed with more joy than Marisol had ever seen her express. “Little kids are definitely known for dexterity, especially under pressure. Trying to get the fluffy white thing back into the box and get the lid back on in a hurry, I hit the curling iron she’d left on the vanity.”
“Oh no.” Marisol had forgotten that her question was about the first time feeling pain.
“Yup. Right in my lap. Burned the absolute fuck out of my thigh.” She chuckled. “Which wasn’t nearly as bad as the hell I got from my grandma.”
“Did it leave a scar?” Marisol’s gaze traveled to where Zuri had dropped her hand to her hip. She’d seen her naked so many times and never noticed any scars.
“Not a big one.” She pulled down the waistband of her leggings to reveal a faint discoloration low on her hip. Over time, the mark had obviously traveled north as she’d grown.
Leaning over the sleeping Luna, Marisol couldn’t resist the urge to press her lips to the pale line on Zuri’s tanned skin. And then her fingers were at the nape of Marisol’s neck, nails gently scraping her skin in an affectionate gesture.
“If I’d been there,” Marisol said when she looked up, chest tight and skin on fire, “I would have tried to heal you.”
“Then I wouldn’t have learned a valuable lesson,” Zuri said as softly as the fingers running through Marisol’s hair. “I wouldn’t have learned to avoid the things that burn me,” she added, making it clear that she wasn’t talking about a curling iron.
“Do you need a scar to remind you of that?”
“Some lessons are tempting to forget,” Zuri said quietly, attention never leaving Marisol’s eyes.
Her gaze was a weighted blanket, heavy around Marisol’s chest and shoulders. It was safety and comfort and warmth. It was the heat spreading in her chest. It was the courage to ask, “Do you ever get used to this? Waiting for Elena and being scared out of your mind that she’s not going to come back?”
Zuri looked like she was going to lie, eyes searching Marisol’s face, a heaviness in her heart that Marisol felt in her own chest. But she sighed and reached for Marisol’s glass and dropped the protective act. “No. Not ever.” Straw between her teeth, she drained the rest of Marisol’s drink.
“Is that why you didn’t work out the first time? Or part of the reason, I mean?”
Zuri put the empty glass next to hers on the floor and took another deep breath. “A normal person would probably say yes.” She sighed. “But not really. I mean, I don’t love this shit, but she’s taken care of herself for a long time. There’s not a lot in the ocean that can get a Great White, you know? Odds are always in her favor.”
“Is that how you see her?” Marisol’s head was light from the rum. “Like a predator?”
“That’s who she is, Bambi.” Zuri was saying more with her eyes, but Marisol couldn’t divine her thoughts. “She’s a fucking vampire. Her love is violence.” She paused as if waiting for Marisol to say the second half of some well-known refrain. “But people are violence too. We kill what we eat. We destroy each other, ourselves. She can sustain herself without killing?—”
“But what she’s out doing tonight?—”
“She wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t necessary,” she said, like she hated giving Elena credit for temperance. “I honestly don’t mingle with her crew, but the only one of them who has ever expressed joy in killing is Sofia.” Zuri chuckled. “And if Elena told you about some people Sofia had erased from society, you’d be all for it.”
“I doubt it?—”
“There’s a lot of ugly, babe. And some people are willing to get their hands dirty taking out the trash.” Zuri’s tone sharpened, but only for a moment. “But Elena is fair, and she cares about her bloodsuckers.”
“And you,” Marisol added.
Zuri’s soft lips flashed a little smile. “And you.”
“Not the way she cares about you,” Marisol admitted before she could stop herself. Freaking rum .
Sitting up straight, Zuri cocked her head to one side. “We have history. That changes things,” she admitted. “But there are very few people she’s allowed into her home.”
“Yeah, well, she wasn’t going to leave me to die with some killer looking?—”
“She would,” Zuri said without an ounce of hesitation. “Even though her body looks twenty-eight, her heart has known an unfair amount of loss. Give her time and she’ll show you. It takes her a long time to open up. I’m not sure how vulnerable she is even with herself. But trust me, she wouldn’t gamble on you if she didn’t feel something worth the risk.” Zuri’s eyes were the depths of the darkest ocean, the mystery of the Mariana Trench, when they held Marisol’s gaze. “And neither would I.”
“I feel so out of your league,” she confessed because she couldn’t seem to find the off switch on her stupid mouth. “Both of you. When this is over, you’re going to realize that?—”
“That you’re stupidly brave and smart and generous and probably the kindest person I’ve ever met?” Zuri quirked a brow. “Such hideous qualities. Definitely going to realize those are dumb.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, and I should also add that it somehow feels like the three of us should have been together all along. Yeah, that’s easy to find wherever?—”
Body hot and heart racing, Marisol leaned over Luna and captured Zuri’s lips in a kiss. An objectively terrible kiss that was all teeth and her own smiling and the effervescent pressure building in her chest.
Before she could pull away, Zuri cupped her cheek and kept her forehead pressed to hers. “I’m not a warm and fuzzy bitch, okay? That’s not going to change. But stop doubting your place here,” she whispered. “You are so very wanted. You are where you fucking belong.”
Tears ambushed the backs of Marisol’s eyes and her hands shook under the weight of Zuri’s words. Words she seemed to believe so much that Marisol had no choice but to do the same.
“I’ll try,” Marisol breathed.
“You will,” Zuri demanded and kissed her again.
Behind them, the door swung open a nanosecond before the dogs woke out of their snoring and darted for the door. Walking in alone, Elena was covered in streaks of blood. It thrust Marisol back in time. Back to when Elena was unconscious in the ER and didn’t look anything like an apex predator. Fear shot through her body, turning her veins to ice.
Scrambling to her feet, Marisol regretted the booze when her legs didn’t move as quickly as she demanded. A second behind Zuri, she reached Elena at the edge of the open kitchen before it flowed into the living room.
Around her, the dogs were whining and Zuri was inspecting Elena from top to bottom. When there was no injury to find, Zuri grabbed her face and said, “You’re such an asshole,” before kissing her.
“We were so worried,” Marisol said when Elena reached out for her. “How much of this blood is yours?”
“Not enough to matter,” Elena replied, voice hoarse and tired.
When Elena kissed Marisol, she felt it square in the center of her chest. It wasn’t the end she’d been fearing. It was the blinding promise of something new.