James 35 #3
My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. I want everyone to disappear. I want five uninterrupted minutes alone with Rosabelle.
I’m starting to feel like I can’t breathe again.
My arms are beginning to protest from being locked in the same position for too long.
Rosabelle weighs nothing, but I’ve been holding her like this for over an hour now, and I’m still a little lightheaded from the effort to heal her.
I shift her higher against my chest, my hands flexing.
I’m getting anxious to set her down somewhere safe.
This day has been exhausting.
“Hey, what happened to your hand?” Kenji says, breaking the silence. “Are you bleeding?”
I follow his eyes to the minor cut on my palm. It’s not bleeding anymore, but it looks a little aggravated. My head is suddenly killing me.
“I’m not bleeding,” I say, frustrated. “It’s nothing. I cut my hand when I was pulling the glass out of her throat.”
At that, there’s another round of quiet.
Heavy stares.
“It hasn’t healed yet?” says Adam.
“It’s healing,” I snap.
“All right,” Kenji says, tearing his eyes away from me. He takes a breath and looks at Nazeera. “Let’s go.”
“What?” she says, startled. “Where?”
Kenji crosses the room, takes her by the hand, and leads her to the door.
Adam and I look at each other.
Oh shit, he mouths.
“Wait,” says Nazeera. “Kenji—wait—where are we going?”
Kenji grabs her shoes and hands them to her.
“We’re going to look at your house,” he says.
“If a blast was able to penetrate the sphere, it had to have been cataclysmic. We need to find out what happened.” His voice drops an octave.
“And then I’m going to show you, for the millionth time, how to back up your house to the shield. ”
“Now? But it’s dark outside—”
“Right now,” he says, stepping into his boots.
“But—”
He grabs her jacket off the hook and hands it to her. “Put this on.”
“Kenji—”
“I should’ve done this years ago,” he says, frustrated. “I always wondered how the hell that house was still standing. You don’t even know how to change a light bulb. I don’t even know how you’ve been living in that death trap—”
“She doesn’t live in it,” says Adam, joining them at the door. He grabs his own jacket off a hook. “The whole place feels haunted.”
“I know how to change a light bulb!” she protests.
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you changed one?”
“I don’t—” She glances nervously at the rest of us. “I don’t remember.”
Kenji only seems to get angrier. “Where do light bulbs come from, Nazeera?”
She frowns, like this must be a trick question. “From the store?”
“The store?” Kenji stares at her. “Is that the name of the establishment that sold you light bulbs?”
“Go ahead, Nazeera,” I say to her. “Tell him the truth. He already knows the answer.”
Kenji crosses his arms.
“Oh.” Nazeera bites her lip. “I, um, well, I usually borrow them from other people.”
“All right, that’s it, put on your coat,” Kenji says. “We’re leaving.”
“I’m gonna head out, too,” says Adam, fighting a laugh as he shrugs into his jacket. “I want to check on Alia and the kids.” He looks at me. “We’ll swing back around in the morning, though.”
“Wait,” says Nazeera, panicking. “We can’t all leave. What about Juliette and the baby?”
“Warner is here,” Adam points out.
“And the girls are upstairs with them,” Kenji says. “They’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be here, too,” I add. “I’m staying.”
“You,” Kenji says, turning to me with a scowl, “need to get rid of the body and go take a shower.”
“Yeah,” says Adam. “Seriously, bro. I’d kill you if you came near my newborn looking like that.”
“Obviously, I’m going to take a shower,” I say, exasperated. “I just need to put Rosabelle down first.”
“Let me know if you change your mind about that tarp,” says Adam, clapping me on the back.
“Fuck you.”
Kenji cracks a smile, then nods up at the staircase.
“Tell Warner I said we’ll be back, okay?
” He opens the front door and a rush of cold air sweeps into the front hall.
He hesitates then, looking at Nazeera as if to say something, but the words seem to die in his mouth.
He stares at her just a moment too long.
Adam clears his throat, then zips up his jacket.
“It’s after midnight,” he says lightly. “You sure you two should be out together this late? Without a chaperone?”
Kenji stiffens.
Nazeera looks sharply away.
“Nothing happened,” Kenji says, but his voice is tense.
“Nothing is different.”
“Sure,” says Adam.
Kenji shakes his head, guides Nazeera out the door, then glances back at me and Adam only to offer us a presentation of his middle finger. The last thing I hear is the sound of Adam’s muted laughter before the door swings shut behind them all with a resounding slam.
I flinch.
Rosabelle gasps.
She goes taut in my arms like a wire tightened, and I feel this movement in my blood, heating me from the inside. Her hands tense and release against my body, and when her eyelashes flutter my heart pounds in nervous anticipation.
Slowly, she lifts her head.
Turns her face toward mine.
When she opens her eyes my knees nearly give out.