Chapter Twenty-Four #2
He catches Evander’s chin and pulls him close, pressing their clammy foreheads together, and for just a second they are fused, conjoined in their anguish, the dark between them thinning until the shape of Laurie is almost enough to hold on to.
Their mouths are so close, the salt on Evander’s tongue brushing Laurie’s lips.
Hunger stokes, soft at first, and then it brightens, a flame licking up a wick, and Evander reaches for it because this feeling is easier to hold on to than the abyss of despair that has eaten through him nonstop since Byron Lennox-Hall died.
Slowly, Laurie starts walking backward, leading Evander deeper through the tunnel while exposed bricks and rough-hewn beams scrape at their skin.
The air feels stagnant, throttled with dust, the floor uncomfortably damp.
Panic is a beast in Evander’s chest, pounding fists against each rib until they buckle, and he clenches the key so hard the teeth bite into his palm.
Ahead, the tunnel bends in a sharp angle.
An odd bioluminescence seems to come from the walls, bathing them both in a sickly shade of green.
Mushrooms, he realizes, as Laurie brushes a hand against the walls and lifts it to show the crumbling fungi clinging to his fingertips.
He’s pretty sure redcaps are not meant to glow, but he’s so grateful for the shred of light, he doesn’t care.
Laurie’s voice has an odd strain to it. “I don’t understand why things grow in Hazelthorn the way they do.
There’s this old family story about how some ancestor a hundred years ago did terrible things to buy this piece of land, and then after he built the mansion, he found his wife having an affair with the gardener.
He killed them both and buried them under the roses and then built a wall around them so he wouldn’t have to face what he did. ”
Nothing in Evander wants to hear this, but maybe it’s part of the puzzle. He fits the key into the pocket of his pajamas and then presses his fingers to the spongy wall, watching the glow smear on his skin.
“But he couldn’t take the guilt, so he dug them back up and—found rubies.
” Laurie’s face is shadowed and impossible to read.
“Guess he forgot about his guilt because he kept testing it. Again and again. Back then, you could drain a cup of your own blood and get a ruby the size of your fist, but all he could think of was how much more you could get if you spilled more blood. He killed his staff for bucketloads of rubies. Then his enemies. Then he started on his kin. And here we are today. The bloody legacy of the Lennox-Halls’ greed and how it always outweighs our guilt in the end. ”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Evander is surprised at how vicious the words seethe between his clenched teeth.
“All you’ve ever done is lie to me. You mess with my head like it’s a game and you move me around like I’m some puppet, but the strings are sewn into my throat.
You think I’ll always trot after you, believe you, do anything for you.
” He’s breathing too hard, each word carved from him with a hot knife.
“And you think I’ll forgive you now because you rescued me? ”
“No.” Shadows cover half of Laurie’s face, his eyes reduced to black opals in the gloom. “You should hate me. Why do you think I’m shitty to you? I … I need you to hate me.”
Molten rage fills Evander’s chest. “I do.”
“Good.” Laurie’s eyes flick to Evander’s bandages, to the old scar that nearly split him in two. “You can do it, you know.” The pause in his voice is pure agony. “Have your revenge. Do whatever you want to me.”
Evander tastes copper and rage and a darkness so black it blots out the sun, and it is like the moment in the garden.
Where he held the rock.
And Laurie was on the ground, terror melting down his face.
“I’m not insulting you with an apology.” The yearning in Laurie’s voice is almost unbearable. “So take it out of my skin if you want. Actually, I want you to. I want you to feel as if we’re even.”
This is what he’s used to: running his mouth and wearing the consequences in bruises.
It’s on his face even now with that swollen cheekbone.
If pain is a language of bruises, Laurie has worn his so long under his skin that he’s found comfort in the pattern and his bored, disinterested facade is to hide just how much he hurts.
Evander takes a step forward, waiting for the flinch, but Laurie only tilts toward him, and something about it makes Evander even angrier.
He snatches Laurie by the throat and slams him backward into the bare brick wall, mushrooms dislodging in a waterfall of vivid, luminous green.
Breath punches from Laurie’s lungs in a small gasp, but he doesn’t try to jerk free.
His body softens, bends, and it ignites something so feral in Evander that he can’t think.
“That’s the worst you can do?” There is a wheezing, breathy quality to Laurie’s words, pain stitched beneath the layers. “That’s pathetic, Evander.”
Evander.
The name of an imaginary friend.
A hurricane crashes through Evander’s ears until he can feel it wrenching apart every bone, every ligament, even tearing at the soft skin of his gums. His mouth aches.
“Say my real name,” he snarls, “you absolute coward.”
He digs his fingers so deep into Laurie’s throat that he feels the bend of his trachea, the trapped, muffled gasp unable to escape.
The fissuring rage in his head grows louder and louder, while thorns fill his mouth and black petals blossom behind his eyes, and he cannot think think think beyond this—
He crushes his mouth to Laurie’s.
There is a small noise of surprise on Laurie’s lips. Evander eats it. His fingers splay out underneath Laurie’s jaw and he thinks, maybe, survival instinct will kick in and Laurie will pull away. But he doesn’t. He leans in and Evander kisses him even deeper. Harder. Ravenous. Desperate.
A soft moan escapes Laurie and his mouth opens, his fingertips daring to rest on the bare skin between Evander’s bandages and waistband, close to the edge of his scar.
Not allowed. Evander forces Laurie’s neck backward, the arch of his delicate throat so beautifully vulnerable it makes him feel torn apart in unmanageable, feral ways.
He is so, so out of control.
He needs to stopstopstopstop—
But there is something growing inside him, something all up in his throat, and there is no line between him and the end of the world.
He sinks his teeth into Laurie’s bottom lip.
There is nothing gentle about it.
This is evisceration. This is flesh parting and blood vessels severing with a meaty, slick snap. This is tongue playing with jagged, torn flesh as he drinks down the trembling sob that slips from Laurie’s throat. He bites down harder.
Blood explodes in Evander’s mouth, slicks his teeth, runs down the back of his throat, hot and salty and sweet. He leans in so hard he can feel the bend of Laurie’s ribs.
Soft wetness runs down Laurie’s cheeks.
He has gone perfectly still.
“Evander.” He can barely get the word out.
There is so much blood in Evander’s mouth as his tongue probes at split flesh. It is bliss, it is ecstasy, it is—
hungerhungerhunger
“Evander, p-please.” Laurie’s shaking fingertips touch the underside of Evander’s jaw. There is no fight, no struggle, nothing but that one word, trembling under all the blood.
He is scared.
Evander lets go.
He takes a step back, wiping his mouth, his chest moving raggedly. Blood smears up his cheek and he tries to wipe it again, but there is a dizzying, sick impulse to put his tacky thumb in his mouth and lick it.
He does.
Laurie is watching him with eyes like blown-out cavities in the dark.
He sinks halfway down the wall, his arms wrapped around his stomach, and all Evander can think is how he looks like a flower stem bending just before it’s picked.
Laurie’s mouth is a mess of red, his lower lip swollen and ragged as blood clots on his chin.
The way he looks at Evander is terrible.
It is awed horror.
Evander licks his lips, tasting copper and Laurie and veneration. He feels so much calmer, steadier, stronger.
What did he just do?
what the hell did you just do what did you just whatwhatwhat—
It’s ready on his tongue, the excuse. That wasn’t me. Instead, he sounds careful and calm as he says, “We can keep going. You said you had something to show me.”
Laurie nods slightly and pushes to his feet, but he cups a trembling hand over his torn-up mouth to hide the damage. “This—” He swallows. “This way.”
Evander is breathless as he follows, but doesn’t know what scares him more: Wondering if the garden has sunk hooks so deep inside him that it’s made him monstrous.
Or if it didn’t force him at all.