Chapter 5 #2
“Warwick?” Ash called to him.
Warwick pushed off the wall, heading for the door, but instead of stepping through it, leaving me in peace, he slammed the door in Ash’s face, closing us in the tiny room.
My chest clenched, sweat beading my hairline as his massive frame towered over me, choking me in his shadow, stealing more of my air.
“Kovacs . . .”
“Get the hell out,” I seethed. I couldn’t take anything more.
Especially him. Because deep down, all I craved was to hear his voice skim up the back of my neck through our link, easing the panic building in my chest, the feel of him keeping the pieces of my broken soul together.
The fact I yearned for it, needed it, tapped at a raw nerve of resentment and fury.
He didn’t budge, his stony expression gazing down on me, taking me back to how he had looked at me at Halálház.
Detached. Cruel. Empty.
Like I was nothing.
It lit the fuse in my body, detonating through my bones.
“I said, get the fuck out!” I screamed, my palms shoving at his chest, creating more fury when I didn’t move him an inch. The power to take his energy and use it against him was gone. All the magic I hadn’t even realized stirred in my veins was burned up, leaving soot marks inside and outside.
We were no longer on equal footing. I was also not the girl I once had been. I was stripped to the bones, burned, and left in a heap of fiery anger.
“What are you waiting for?” I seethed, pushing at him again. “You are finally free. You got what you wanted all along. The link is broken. So go!”
A rumble came up his throat, his body moving closer to me. Caging me in. Trapping me.
And the sickest thing was I wanted it. I wanted him to hurt me, to make me feel something other than grief. To slam me up against the wall and fuck me until I forgot how to breathe. To think. To move.
Make me forget.
Except forgetting would take away my most prized possession.
Anger.
I bared my teeth, inching up on my toes, getting close to his face. “Don’t tell me this isn’t exactly what you wanted?” I growled.
His nose flared, but he didn’t respond.
“Right?” I spat.
“Yes.” His low, harsh growl barely constructed a word, but it hit my chest like an arrow.
“Good.” I nodded, a malicious smirk upping my lip. “We’re both free now.”
“Princess—”
“Don’t fucking call me that.” I sneered. “I’m not some spoiled, fragile girl. I am a monster just like you.”
“You are nothing like me.” He moved closer; our bodies pressed together.
“You’re right. I’m worse. You may enjoy death, but I am it. Everything I touch crumbles into ruins. Everybody close to me dies. I’m like the fuckin’ plague.”
“Don’t say that,” he growled. Grabbing my arms, he slammed me up against the wall, the strike of pain spreading through my body like wildfire. It felt good. Anger made you feel alive.
“Why? It’s true. Admit it, I’ve done nothing but wreak havoc on your life since I entered Halálház.”
“You think my life wasn’t like that before you?”
“Only of your making. This is all me. Look around you. Look at the lives I’ve destroyed. Where are Eliza and Simon now?”
Warwick jolted at their names, the muscles in his neck plucking like violin strings.
“Get the hell away from me and never look back.”
“Think it’s so easy, princess?”
“Yes,” I snarled. “Because we both got what we wanted. We can finally walk away. No hard feelings. Free of each other.”
“You want to be free of me?” His hands tightened around my biceps, his hips pushing into mine. Desire flamed into more resentment as his hardness pressed into me.
“Be honest, Farkas. Without that connection, you’d feel nothing for me. You think you would have looked even twice at me at Halálház? Saved my life in the Games?” I snorted sardonically. “You’re not the type to stick around for happily ever after. So don’t pretend you were ever going to.”
His jaw cracked together, his lids lowering, and he stared at me, expressionless. His silence broadcasted everything he didn’t say.
It had never been about me. His interest was because of the connection, and now it was gone. I rolled my jaw, my anger gliding into the darkness. I wanted him to hurt as much as I did.
“Exactly what I thought,” I derided. “Now get the hell out. Go back to Kitty’s and fuck your nymphs and sirens. I couldn’t give a shit.”
“That really what you want, Kovacs?” He snarled back, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look right at him. “I don’t play games. So be certain you mean what you say.”
“Yes.”
No. But I let that word get drowned in my anger.
He watched for a long moment, my resolve refusing to break.
Rage burned through his eyes before he pushed off me. “Fine.” His shoulders expanded, shaking his head slightly, and without a word, he stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
A sob hiccupped in my chest, and I struggled to fight it back.
I couldn’t stop it. The tsunami barreled down on me, my body sliding down the wall, and I crumpled into a ball.
My heart broke into a thousand pieces for my mother, my father, for Killian and Zander.
For Eliza and Simon and all those we lost tonight.
For letting him walk away.
For one moment, I had a taste of what had made me different. What I was.
The power of the in-between. I always thought of gray as a blend of black and white, but it wasn’t. What I had felt tonight was a mix of all colors of life and death.
Now I wasn’t any hue.
I was nothing.
“Seems extra gooey and crusty around the edges.” A voice stirred me from my moment of peace, my nose tickling. “Like a pie.”
Chirp!
“Ooohhh, apple pie does sound good. This even has chunks in it, like fruit pie.”
Chirp! Chirp!
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t force you to try it.” Opie’s voice rang in my ears, cracking my salt-encrusted lashes apart, my head instantly pounding. “So, that’s a no on it tasting like pie, huh?”
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
“Not even pecan?”
Chirpchirpchirpchirpchirp!
“Ugh . . . .” Jerking my head back, I batted at my face with a groan. I wasn’t ready to surface into reality and longed to surrender back into nothing, where for one second, I could breathe.
“Master Fishy!” Opie’s palm tapped on my cheek, splinting my lids more. “You’re awake.”
I didn’t want to be. When I had finally fallen asleep, my body was so wrung out that my sobs turned into whimpers. Nightmares and imaginary screams for help kept me from truly letting go. Sometime during the night, I climbed onto the cot, curled into a ball, and succumbed to it all.
My tired eyes scanned over Opie, the tiniest spot of happiness in my grief, taking in his outfit.
He’d dissected pieces of a lifejacket, and the bright orange weather-resistant material was wrapped around him like a long dress.
The black buckle was cinched around his waist and up around his throat like a halter neck.
What I recognized as the boat’s seat cushions was made into a sailor-style hat.
Floatation foam covered his feet. Bitzy had more of the seat cushion textile designed into a onesie.
With floatation foam for a belt and a smaller sailor hat as if they were ready to sail away to some tropical island.
“You okay, Fishy?” Opie tipped his head, concern written on his face. “Bitzy said your nose tastes extra salty today. And you smell less fishy.”
“So gross.” I sighed, but there was no energy behind my words. My body felt heavy, worn, and achy, all my energy sucked out of me. I felt wrong. Itchy in my own skin, but I had no strength to move. “Less fishy?”
“Yeah.” He tapped at his nose. “I couldn’t smell you today, which worried us.” He motioned to Bitzy, who looked away. “Right, Bitzy?”
Chirp! She flipped us off, and something in that comforted me.
“See? She said she was totally worried about you.”
I huffed, “Sure, that’s what she said.” I rubbed at my face, feeling the grime coating my skin. “Glad you guys are okay.”
“We sub-fae are far smarter than they like to believe. We know when and where to get in and when to get the hell out. And necromancers . . .” Opie shivered. “Yeah, no thanks. They are scary. So boney and creepy.”
I tucked my hands under my cheek and licked my split lip. “And one of those is my mother.”
“Master Fishy has a mum fishy who’s a bonefishy who controls dead fishies?”
One eye squeezed together, his statement doing aerobatics through my sluggish brain. “Um . . . yes?”
“Wow.” Opie’s eyes widened.
Chirp! Bitzy plunked down on my pillow, sucking on the tips of her fingers.
“Bitz says you even taste less fishy.”
My lids shut, and I let out a shallow groan before I pitched myself up, my muscles quaking with the effort. Never had I felt so weak before. Even after getting my ass kicked in training, I’d only be in the clinic for moments before I’d bounce right back up and head back to training.
Now my entire body didn’t just hurt; it seemed anemic.
Is this what it feels like to be totally human?
The thought vaulted into my head. All the times people eyed me with shock when I’d pop up and head to the mat from the hospital unit.
Caden used to tease all the time. “You are like fire, Brex. People try to put you out, but you come back with a roar. You amaze me.”
I never thought about why I recovered so easily or why I moved as fast as I did. I just did. It was my normal. Now, with every crack of my bones and every stinging wound still cutting painfully deep across my flesh, I understood how different I had been.
Because now I felt . . . human.
Still fully clothed and dirty, my boots hit the floor as I twisted to sit up. Pain wrenched across my nerves, and I paused, sucking in sharply. The simple movement had me wanting to lie down again. It was tempting, but I needed to speak with Andris. We had so much to go over and discuss.
“You all right?” Opie’s little hand patted mine.