Chapter 51
Bastian
PRESENT DAY
I’m on my fourth bourbon when the floodlights in my backyard snap on.
I jerk back to the present, alcohol sloshing over my hand, my heart pounding like I’ve just sprinted a mile.
My home’s exterior motion sensors are calibrated to ignore wildlife, but in this blizzard, a tree could have tripped the sensor.
Or, it’s Ezra.
I set down my glass and stand, my jaw hardening as I glare into the white-out beyond the sliding glass doors.
Christ, I’m glad he came. The smell of lavender and blood and mildew is so strong I could puke. But once I’m done with him, there will only be blood.
The poker is where I left it, propped against the fireplace. Though ornamental, it’s made of heavy iron. I would know—Melissa nearly caved my fucking skull in with it.
I wrap my fingers around the handle as I stride toward the sliding glass door.
Beyond the window, snow falls in a curtain, blurring the edges of the world. But the floodlights illuminate a swathe of white.
And standing in that light, like something out of a religious fever dream, are two figures.
They’re holding hands.
I laugh.
Because obviously I’m hallucinating.
Reliving Billy’s last moments has finally driven me mad. My brain has conjured the two people I can’t stop thinking about just to torment me some more.
One of them sways, nearly falling, and the other catches them and yells, “Rooke!”
So not a hallucination, then.
Kai and Haven are in my backyard, in the driving snow, clinging to each other like a modern day Hansel and Gretel stumbling upon the witch’s house.
The thought makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Am I the witch in this scenario? The monster who lures lost children inside with promises of warmth and sweetness, only to devour them?
Or am I the huntsman? The one who arrives too late to prevent the horror, but just in time to save what’s left?
The cold slams through my black Henley when I slide open the door.
I don’t care.
I’m rushing over to them, poker forgotten, bourbon forgotten, crossing the yard like the two broken creatures in my floodlights are the only things that exist.
“What the hell is going on?”
Kai is wearing the same clothes he wore to the restaurant, but they’re filthy. The bottom of his slacks are soaked with mud, sweat and melted snow forming dark patches on his shirt.
He’s not wearing a jacket because he gave it to Haven.
But that’s not why I’m struck immobile.
Blood.
It’s everywhere. On both of them. Their hands, their faces, their clothing.
I can’t tell who it belongs to, but from the way Haven nearly fainted just now, I have to assume it’s hers.
Until I notice how Kai’s favoring one leg, and the stain spreading down his other thigh—too dark for snow or sweat. I glimpse flesh through a rip in his slacks.
I close the distance between us, my hands going to Kai’s shoulders. He flinches at the contact, then sags against me like he’s been too scared to fall apart until now.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” he rasps.
Haven doesn’t react to my presence at all. She’s staring straight ahead, her eyes glassy and vacant. She’s drenched, shivering violently, and there’s something wrong with the way she’s standing—like a marionette with half its strings cut.
“Get inside,” I growl.
Kai takes one step before his legs give out. I catch him—catch them both—before they topple to the snowy ground.
I sling my arm around his waist, the other dragging Haven to my side. She comes willingly when I tug her forward, both letting me guide them into my home.
The cold from their bodies seeps into mine, like I’m handling a pair of frozen carcasses. If I don’t get them warmed up, that’s exactly what they’ll be.
“They came to you first. They need you,” Good Wolf says. “This is what you wanted.”
“They came to you because they didn’t have a choice.” Bad Wolf chuffs angrily. “That’s not love. That’s survival.”
I get them inside, forcing them to perch on the edge of the coffee table nearest the fire. Then I hurry back to the sliding door and shut it against the furious storm outside.
Haven stares silently into the tranquil flames, shuddering violently every few seconds. Kai stretches out his injured leg, hissing as he peels back the torn fabric by his thigh.
“How’d you get that?” I snap, knowing I should prioritize first aid, but too desperate to know what fresh hell these two have gotten themselves involved with.
“Got shot,” Kai mutters through clenched teeth.
“Shot? Who the fuck shot you?”
Kai huffs out a laugh, then winces. “Ezra.”
I was halfway to my bedroom’s en-suite bathroom to fetch the first aid kit. I stop, spinning back to face him.
“Did you say Ezra?”
He grimaces at me. “It’s…complicated.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I mutter, hurrying into the bathroom and snatching the red kit out of the cabinet. I grab the cashmere throw off my bed on my way back to the living room.
Kai is pushing hair out of Haven’s face when I come back, tilting her head to peer into her eyes. I hand him the blanket, and he tosses it around her shoulders, wrapping her up like a burrito.
A shivering, dissociating burrito…covered in blood.
“Is she hurt?” My stomach tenses at the thought that there might be a bullet lodged somewhere inside her body.
“I don’t…I don’t think so.” Kai tries to resist when I push his shoulder to straighten him up so I can get to his leg. “Seriously, Rooke, it’s fine. We need to make sure she’s—“
“She’s not the one bleeding onto my Aubusson rug,” I snap as I zip open the first aid kit on the coffee table. “Now take off your fucking pants.”
Kai tries to laugh, but the sound is too pained and strangled. “Jesus, buy a guy a drink first.”
When my gaze slides up to his eyes, his attempt at a smile fades.
“Pants.”
He tries to stand, but his legs wobble too much. I grab his belt, yanking it open with two swift tugs, and ease the slacks down his legs.
“That blanket was for both of you,” I tell him when he shivers violently.
“She needs it more.”
I shake my head, but I don’t argue. Kai’s at least lucid—talking, breathing, being a cocky shit.
Haven is a silent, unmoving ghost haunting my peripheral vision.
Kai’s injury isn’t as bad as I feared. The bullet clipped his thigh, leaving a shallow trough through the flesh. It needs to be cleaned and bandaged, but the bleeding has already slowed enough that I doubt he’ll need stitches.
“This is going to hurt,” I warn him.
“Good.” When his eyes meet mine, they’re swimming in guilt. “I deserve it.”
I focus on cleaning the wound. Applying pressure. Then bandaging his thigh tight enough to stop the bleeding.
“She’s been like this since—“ Kai cuts off, carefully observing her.
“Her mind is protecting itself from trauma it can’t process.”
“Dissociating?” Kai says.
“Correct.” It’s wrong that I feel a stab of pride, but I don’t give a fuck.
“Is she going to be okay?”
I look up at him. “A lot of that depends on her.”
“But you can help her, right? You know this stuff. Psychology. Trauma.” His voice cracks. “Please, Rooke. I can’t lose her. Not like this. Not after everything.”
I finish tying off his bandage and rise to my feet. Haven is still staring at nothing, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, hands opening and closing on empty air.
She looks like a child.
The corpse of a child.
Trapped in the liminal space between the living and the dead.
Like Billy had been that night.
Haven, however, isn’t begging me to drag her into the light.
She’s waiting for someone to tell her which way to go.
Her lips are still tinged blue, and her skin is much too pale for my liking.
I slowly cup her icy face in my hands, my thumb tracing over the tacky blood splattered over her skin. “Come back to me, sweet girl.”
Her eyelids flutter, but her gaze is focused a thousand yards away.
“I need to check that you’re not hurt, okay? Then I need to get you into some warm clothes. If you want me to stop, blink twice, alright?”
Might as well be talking to a mannequin.
I take a slow breath and carefully peel the blanket away from her shivering body. The fire is baking my back, so I’m not too worried about exposing her. Better to get it done now so I can take off her wet clothing and—
I’m busy peeling Kai’s jacket off her shoulders when I see the splashes and sprays of blood coating her clothes.
She’s soaked in blood.
My heart’s not racing anymore—it’s hammering.
I do my level best not to let my sudden fear show, squeezing my hands into a fist to stop them trembling.
“You said she wasn’t hurt,” I grit through my teeth.
He flinches when I turn to glare at him. “That’s…not hers.” When I just keep glaring, he sighs. “Ezra—”
He cuts off at Haven’s whimper.
“We’ll discuss this later.”
I peel off Haven’s blood-soaked coat and examine every inch of her to make sure none of the blood is, in fact, hers before wrapping her in the blanket again.
She’s not injured, but she’s still much too cold.
“Can you walk?” I ask Kai.
“Yeah.”
“Turn on the shower. We need to get her warmed up.”
Kai winces as he hobbles out of the room, but he doesn’t utter a word of protest. He needs to rest, but there won’t be any of that happening until he knows Haven is okay.
I lift Haven from the coffee table, cradling her to my chest as I carry her to the shower.
Kai nods when he sees me, his hand outstretched to the gentle spray of water.
I set her down and make sure the water is lukewarm before we strip her down and guide her into the shower.
She stands under the spray, unresisting, as we wash the streaks of blood from her face and neck and hands.
There’s still some blood caked under her nails and trapped in her cuticles, but Kai and I wordlessly decide that she’s clean enough, and bundle her out of the shower so we can towel her dry.
We don’t speak, but we neither fumble nor bump into each other—moving methodically, efficiently, like we’ve trained for this moment our entire lives.