Chapter Seven
“You’re not frozen. This won’t work.” I should want this to work. But some part of her was balking. Save the world, sure. Don’t hurt the lover.
Lover? Don’t you have to love someone for him to be a lover? Or make love? We had some sex. We need to finish that. We got interrupted. Where did I put my phone?
“Yeah, well...” Brax caught Penny as her head swiveled in a woozy circle, confusion clouding her expression. “You’re heating back up.”
“There’s the phone.”
“That’s my phone, God knows where you threw yours. Ah, there it is.” Brax grabbed it off the floor and thrust it into your hand. “I’ll be back. Where’s my coat?”
“Whoa, whoa! Where are you going?”
“To build an effing snowman, what do you think?” he said with a forced bit of edge to his voice. “Gotta get colder. There’s a thing I never thought I’d say.” He smothered a sigh. “Don’t worry. You’re my antifreeze, aren’t you?”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No! Not like that. I don’t want you to go out in this,” Brax protested.
“I’ll put on a coat. I’m coming with you. It won’t hurt me. It might help.”
“Penny, stop, you feel hot, but you’re still human. You’ll get frostbite in seconds in this.”
“Didn’t you tell Mr. Minegold it was pointless to argue with me?” Or did I dream that? My brain works better when I’m touching him. Gotta hold onto him. In more ways than one.
brAX SIGHED. WHEN THEY came back, there wouldn’t be sex.
She wouldn’t sweetly accept His presence without an argument, an insult, or a denial.
Wouldn’t be this fun, strange, blend of affection and honesty.
She’d be cured, and he’d be glad. She’d probably avoid him, blushing like mad whenever they were forced to cross paths, if she didn’t hide from him or kill him.
His heart fractured like a thin sheet of ice on impact. “No bloody point at all. Let’s go.”
Penny bounded to her closet, and he grabbed his pants but ignored his boots.
Freeze faster if your extremities are exposed.
She wrapped a faded green jacket around her that barely covered her rear.
She stepped into boots and marched out of the room while he was calling for her to put on pants or a hat, something.
She ignored him, striding down the hall.
He groaned and yanked a stupid-looking knit cap off of her desk, and one of the many torn pieces of note paper.
Penny. Brax. Hearts next to their names. He crumpled it and stuffed it in his pocket. It was a nice truce while it lasted.
“WAIT. I HAVE AN IDEA.” Penny skirted her hand under his open duster and rested it on his bare chest as he strode into the hall and to the door that led up the stairs.
“All right.” Gotta hurry. He didn’t like the look of her at the moment. Even adding a single layer of clothing was causing sweat to pour down her brow, trickling over her eyes as she wiped her face with her sleeve.
“It’s your blood that has to freeze in the ‘desolation.’ Can—can you just put the blood outside? Not y-you?”
“I dunno. I s’pose it’s worth a try.”
“I have to drink frozen vampire blood. Or chew, because you can’t drink a frozen anything, it’s solid. Only, I’m burning up so it’ll melt and that’s just... stupid. Who thought of this?”
“Someone who wanted the bloody world to end, because no one would do this shit.” Brax rummaged in his pocket and produced a worn flick knife. “Gimme a cup or bowl, then.”
PENNY WENT BACK INTO the apartment with wobbling steps and returned, unsteadily handing him a mug and wondering why her head was swelling again. Why her fingers were slipping on the ceramic. Why he had to catch the cup and grab her by the elbow, too.
“Are you okay? You don’t look like you’re feeling quite yourself.”
“I am myself. I’m Penny, and you’re Brax.
You’re my... friend. I’m supposed to protect my friends, especially since most of them can’t see what’s out there in the shadows, but my friends think I’m nuts, and I don’t have friends like I used to.
Except you. You’re my new friend, and I’m letting you get hurt for me.
..” Why wasn’t her voice working? Why was he so far away?
The knife and cup clattered to the floor as he snagged her before she joined them. Up in his arms and out the door, where sleet was now falling. “Watching you burning up hurts. Don’t wanna hurt me, do you, baby?”
“Nuh-uh,” she agreed faintly.
“Then let me get you better. I told you, it won’t hurt. Promise. Wanna seal it with a kiss?”
“Mmhm.” Her limp arm gained strength as they stood in the gray, wintry world outside.
The sleet wasn’t soft or snowy; it was hard and sharp like tiny stings.
Brax’s lips pressed to hers, and she slid down his body, separating.
He’ll never get cold if I stand with him, heating him up.
She pulled back with a sharp nibble, scraping over his lower lip, bruising him, breaking the skin. Marking him.
I want him to stay mine.
The gesture reminded them both of something. “Penny?” He looked at the concern on her face and knew it was mirrored on his own. The fleeting thought had apparently crossed her mind, too.
“I bit your lip. I tasted blood. Your blood. I’m still sick.”
“Maybe it wasn’t frozen?”
“Maybe it wasn’t enough?
“I don’t know how much I have to give. An’ I can’t get any more at the moment.” He looked uncomfortably at her. “We need each other. This is so damn backwards, a human needs the vampire’s blood, the vampire can’t bite her. We need each other.”
“I-it’s been a long time since someone needed me like I needed them,” Penny whispered.
Her hands came to her waist and nervously fiddled with the belt holding her coat shut.
Underneath, she was naked and grateful for the freezing rain on any part of her exposed skin.
She was considering taking it off and rolling in the snow, only this wasn’t snow, it was thick, opaque ice, sleet adding slushy, crunching layers to it with every second.
Didn’t they roll in the ice and snow in Sweden?
Or Switzerland? Someplace with saunas and naked people running in snow and ice?
brAX HATED EVERY SPIT of ice against his neck, feeling any warmth he’d gained rapidly seeping out of him, toes first. Frostbite was practically guaranteed, and vamps didn’t grow back toes.
He hated the creeping mortification of his otherwise undead body.
But, he loved the way her eyes slowly climbed to his, waiting for—what?
Rejection? That was his bit, not hers. “Same, Penny. You an’ me, we’re the reliable sort, aren’t we?
I looked after Marietta whenever she needed me to, and God knows, it was pretty often.
She had a way of making enemies, but I was always loyal.
She never even knew that her little errand boy was stealing from her.
Sneaking her clients away, claiming he could give them her curses and her little bags of mojo to ward off evil—all for less. ”
“So even when you killed him, you were protecting her?”
“Yeah, not that she saw it. Just like you, protecting people, even though they can’t see the need.
That’s us, isn’t it? Get the job done?” His hand fished into his duster pocket and retrieved another knife, this one long and sharp, strapped into a black leather sheath.
“The sooner it’s started, the sooner it’s done. ”
“I won’t turn into a vampire?” she whispered.
“No. That’s only if you’ve got no blood left to speak of, and I give you a little of mine, what’s infected.
You’re whole and healthy—well, living and not dying at the moment.
Your soul wins this game of roulette.” He shook the coat off and let it puddle into the white-gray land, bare feet finding a sticking purchase on the frozen ground as Penny stood unsteadily, watching him.
He noticed that a cloud of steam emanated from her.
Not just when she spoke, like warm breath creating clouds of mist, but as if her whole body were generating enough heat to stand against the sub-zero temps.
“The sooner we start, the sooner you’re better.
I want that, Penny. Do you get that? How much I want you to be all right again? ”
“Want what’s best for me?” she winced as the knife passed from hand to hand, moving toward a resting place against his forearm.
“Yeah, of course.”
“My parents said that meant locking me up. Drugging me. Friends said that meant leaving me. They said it was best to be normal, to pretend.” She swallowed. “That’s what’s best, they said. Wh-what do you say it is?”
Brax hesitated. But why? He knew. He really did. “Bein’ happy. Bein’ with someone who loves you, helps you, won’t leave you, won’t change you—well, not unless you want to change, too.”
SHE REPEATED HIS WORDS slowly in her head, over and over.
The ice left a wet, silver sheen on his bare chest. Slowly, the white tracks under his skin turned pale blue across his shoulders and deep plum on the back of his hands.
“That sounds good. I like that. I’d change, start to believe there were good monsters. And you’d change...”
“To be one of ‘em. It’s a sort of spitting in the devil’s eye, and I think I like that,” he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which were creased at the edges, as if she couldn’t see the pain.
“Glad.”
Penny watched him struggling, realizing that “glad” was a lie.
Watching him suffer was nothing short of agony.
Soon his fingers wouldn’t form a fist. Soon his mouth would be frozen over.
Even burning up, she could feel that the weather was off, was worse.
She’d never known cold like this, all-pervading, all-consuming, as cold as the fires of hell are hot, leaving no warmth.
“Desolation. This is it.” Penny looked around, wondering why ice was coating him, but not her.
“Without you, there is desolation,” Brax gasped out, voice broken and uneven, as if it were getting harder and harder to speak.