Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
On the walk back to Avery’s, I keep my eyes on the ground and my hand in Leo’s. I’m safe from the bracelet, at least for the time being. Rime is so far ahead of us, he’s no longer visible. But that means he’s also no longer available. It’s up to Leo and me to defend ourselves should we have to.
Downtown, I cower under my hood and grind my teeth, waiting to be accosted by Burdock and Juniper. Would they mercilessly take out innocent Subworlders to get to us? Can Leo fight with so few tall trees around? Will I have to help him push roots up through the asphalt and concrete?
Neither Leo nor I breathe until we cross the threshold of Avery’s front door.
Rime is there, still working his feet out of his muddy boots, while Avery, Aaron, and Liv hover on the edge of the living room, talking and watching.
One look at me and Liv goes sheet-white.
I don’t need a mirror to see what a horrific sight I am, it’s written all over her face.
I expect her to recoil, but instead she rushes to me, chin and lips moving, but no words coming out of her mouth.
“I’m okay,” I assure her, resisting her hug but letting her take my hands.
“You’re freezing,” she says, tears collecting on her lashes. She snatches Leo’s hands next, silently thanking him with her eyes.
Normally stoic Aaron flinches in sympathy when I push back my hood and reveal the blood crusted in my hair. “Rime told us what happened,” he says.
Leo scans the room. “No sign of Topaz?”
Everyone shakes their heads.
“Where’s the bracelet?” I ask, already feeling the claws of Ember’s energy.
Avery jerks her head toward the kitchen. “In the freezer.”
A laugh burbles out of me. I’m pretty sure I’m coming unglued.
“Hey, it’s worth a try,” she says with a shrug. “I use the freezer all the time for spells. It slows down or stops unwanted energies.”
Not a half-bad idea. I just hope freezing it will keep it from corrupting her food.
Leo takes my hand. “Can you feel it?”
“Yeah, but I can harness.” He needs to conserve his energy, because in the warm light of Avery’s living-room lamps, I have a full view of what I couldn’t see in the dark: Rime is covered in bruises, scratches, and bites. I point to him, delaying Leo from healing my torn-up hands. “Heal Rime.”
Neither man argues with me. Rime takes a seat right there on the floor by the coatrack and lets Leo do his work, his pale lashes fluttering in relief as his scratches and bruises vanish and his teeth-torn skin knits together.
Interestingly, Leo avoids the dagger cut on Rime’s middle finger.
Nor does Rime ask him to heal it. It’s his penance, I realize.
A tribute to the dead and a restoration of nature’s balance.
Topaz must’ve done the same ritual over the bodies of the coyotes she killed, and now she wears the Hello Kitty bandaids as her atonement.
When Leo finishes, Avery orders him and me to the shower. “I’ll make you some tea.”
Rime stands and boldly declares, “As soon as Topaz gets back, we’re leaving.”
Leo whirls on him. “What? No. We can’t just go running off without a plan.”
“Now is the plan,” Rime snaps. “Burdock and Juniper don’t even know we have the damn thing. It’s time to take it and run.”
My stomach sinks. Now’s the time to go on the lam.
Without me.
“Run where?” Leo demands.
“Anywhere!” Rime growls. “Anywhere away from here. We get in the car and drive—north, south, east, west.” He points in random directions that I’m pretty sure are way off target. “What the fuck does it matter?”
“It matters a hell of a lot if we’re not driving toward a ley line! It matters if we have no place to sleep or—”
“We don’t have time to sleep!”
Leo throws up his hands. “But I’m the only one who can drive!”
Rime’s nostrils flare. He paces in a circle, raking his filthy hands through his hair. Right now his emotions are louder than Ember’s. He’s despairing. Unraveling.
Leo appears to recognize this. Lowering his voice, he states, “When Topaz gets back, we’ll plan out a route. As fast as we can.”
Rime huffs, his mouth a hard, flat line, but he says nothing more. He grabs his boots and throws open the front door. “I’m sending out scouts for her,” he declares and slams the door behind him.
Hands on his hips, Leo turns to me. He’s as upset as Rime. Upset for Rime. But he takes a deep breath and asks, “How are you feeling?”
I fake a smile. “Cold?”
“Betts,” he scolds with a sigh. Nodding to our friends, he leads me to Avery’s room. “Do you need calming?”
“I’ve been harnessing.” While reading Rime’s emotions, dodging Liv’s, and shoving aside my own. “I actually think the freezer might be working, because it’s not that bad.”
We agree to start a cycle, an energy exchange. I harness for a few minutes, feed him the energy, then let him calm me. Over and over again, as long as the bracelet is here.
Once he’s replenished and I’m composed, we head for the shower. Unfortunately, the instant we enter the bathroom, my eyes land on my reflection in the mirror. Leo grabs my shoulders and tries to turn me away, but I wrench out of his grasp.
“Holy shit.” The mud and damp, the blue lips, none of those bother me.
But the blood? There are splatters on my shoulders and a swath in my hair, like someone threw dark red paint on me.
Brown-red speckles, as large and as random as my freckles, dot my cheeks and nose.
My face is a horror movie poster. “It’s all over me. ”
I’m a fucking Jackson Pollock of blood.
“Stop.” Leo yanks my sweatshirt over my head, balls it up inside-out, and tosses it behind the under-sink cabinet.
A wail escapes my chest, pushing its way up until it bursts out of my tight throat, high and thin.
“Shhh. It’s okay.”
“He’s dead,” I stammer. “Rime had to k… kill him. B… because of me.”
“But if he hadn’t—” Leo can’t bring himself to say it. “A chroí, I almost lost you.” He pulls me to him, dirt and blood and all. “When I realized you had fallen in the river, I lost my mind.”
I sob, even as his lips crash into mine.
How many times had I nearly died? How many times had he been in danger, too?
He jumped into the river to save me. He would’ve given up the bracelet if it meant River would spare my life.
And I can’t blame him, because if the situation were reversed, I’d do the same.
With one arm around me, he starts the shower, and while the room fills with steam, he undresses me.
I watch, relieved, as he piles my bloody clothes on the floor and kicks them out of sight.
He whips off his t-shirt with one pull, but his heavy, stiff jeans require my help.
I slowly push them down, careful not to snag the hairs that make damp swirls on his sticky skin.
He enters the shower first, then takes my hand. The moment I step over the side of the tub, he lets go to take hold of my face. “Don’t look down.”
I swallow, obeying as he steps closer, forcing me to back up, inch by inch, into the stream of water. I startle when it hits my cold, clammy skin, and bite my lip as it pelts my head, drenching my hair. He pushes the soaked lengths over my shoulders, but not before I see them: the rivulets of red.
His firm hands lift my head, cutting off my whimper. “Eyes on me.” I lock on the gold flecks flashing in his irises. “You’re okay. I’m going to heal your neck.”
His fingers are lighter than a whisper, but oh god, the sting. It’s rug burn. It has to be. From River strangling me with my hood.
Through his clenched teeth, Leo hisses his fury, but the warmth of his hands is as reassuring as an embrace.
“Shhh, you’re okay.” Trusting me not to look away again, he steers me, angling my head back just enough to soak my face.
Like he’s stroking silk, he brushes the stains from my forehead and cheeks, my chin and my throat.
“My beautiful girl,” he whispers. “My rebel violet.”
My hands slide up his wet chest, feeling his ribs expand and deflate with every breath. Feeling his heat. He’s alive, and so am I. I grab him behind the neck and kiss him, answering his tenderness with force.
With a groan, he leans back. “No, not yet, a chroí. Let me finish, then I’ll give you whatever you need.”
I chew my bottom lip and squeeze together my thighs as he twists to retrieve the shampoo, his wiry, taut muscles stretching and flexing. I need him to give me all of himself. I need his body and his heart, for however much longer I can have him. A night, an hour, minutes.
“Turn around,” he softly commands.
I do, sighing as those strong, tender hands work up a lather in my hair, from the top of my head to the ends dangling nearly to my waist. Finally, he urges me back around to face him, and with a gentle nudge of my chin, tips my head back into the stream.
“It’s safe to look now,” he says as the suds run down my back and legs. But I’m not interested in looking at anything other than him.
He lathers his hands and slides them up my arms, down my back, over my hips. Once I’m washed and rinsed, I slip around him and force him under the stream. He exhales as the water coats him, his pebbled skin becoming smooth in the heat.
“You’ll get too cold out there,” he says, pulling me tight against him.
One-handed, he washes his hair, the bubbles running down his chest and collecting in a pool between his ribs and my breasts.
I sink my fingernails into his back as he plays with the lather, circling one of my tight nipples with his thumb.
Hands grasping at slippery, slick skin, our lips meet in a greedy kiss.
I whimper as his hardness grazes my stomach, ignoring the voice that warns, Slow down.
This could be your last time. In an hour, he could be gone.
In an hour, he could be gone forever.
Fighting tears, I force my lips to form words. “No, no,” I pretend to scold, somehow managing a smile. “You’re not done washing yet.”