Chapter Eleven
………………………….
Ily
AIRY, BUBBLY, FLOATY…
Uh-oh.
I blinked as my fingers dug into the exquisitely soft bed, clinging tightly as if gravity would let go of me at any moment, and I’d drift around the room like an untethered balloon.
The mental picture of me bouncing off the ceiling and rolling down the curtains made me giggle.
Oh God—
Slamming a hand over my mouth, I tried to stop the rapid rising of inappropriate humour. My arms throbbed where they bent at my elbows, a reminder that bruises covered most of me.
I hadn’t dared look in the foggy mirror to see how bad I looked. Then again, the soft spinning in my head didn’t really care.
The sharp savagery of agony had gone.
Buh-bye…won’t miss you…don’t come again.
Dropping my hand, I sighed into the sugary softness of peace.
I liked this room.
No painting of that demonic goblin murdering a unicorn. No four-poster where Henri almost bound me with his tie. No wall where he’d kissed me and punched me right in the stupid, traitorous heart.
I rubbed my chest, needing to delete that first and worse contusion.
The whole organ was black with pain. The arteries and veins blue from his kiss. Every pump was a reminder of the ache in my soul every time he looked at me.
He scolded me.
The way he yelled at me downstairs…the emptiness in his eyes…the nastiness in his voice.
God—
Okay, so the pain wasn’t completely gone.
The cluster of bullets Kyle had fired where my bullseye used to be, shared their pain directly with the very thing Henri had pulverised.
Even when he’d cut me and commanded me, he’d never spoken to me that way before.
I hope he’s okay…
I frowned.
He was mean, and you’re worried about him?
The room swirled as I nodded.
Krish sometimes used tetchiness in lieu of pain. His anger came from an inability to express whatever feelings consumed him. When words failed him, he sank deep within.
I hope Henri’s not sinking…
My fuzzy eyes locked on the closed bathroom door.
He’s been in there a while.
Maybe I should check.
I flinched.
He’ll just yell at me again…
The urge to curl into a little ball came swiftly, followed by a morbid giggle.
Keep it together, Il.
The fuzz in my head cleared a little.
I sighed.
God, what a mess.
What an awful, agonising mess.
The giggles were back.
I snorted.
I snickered at how absurd everything was. How I was a thing not a someone. How I’d almost died in a cave today.
I helped toss a body over a cliff—
A loud laugh spilled free.
Oh no.
Henri appeared from the bathroom. His left side looked like a scribbly, abstract mess—as if an artist had squirted every pigment of purple and blue onto him, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to paint. A few other smudges marked his bare chest, leading my eyes down to the white towel clinging valiantly to his narrow hips. The V of his cut muscles pointed directly to the bulge between his legs.
My stupid heart fluttered.
My greedy body hummed.
He’s so pretty.
Pity about his soul, though…
I scowled.
He’s not ugly inside.
At least…not all of him.
I swooned against the pillows.
He carried Peter all the way home.
He stabbed someone for me.
He protected Mollie and Rachel.
I wanted to hug him.
He’d done all that while bleeding and hurt.
And then, he yelled at me.
I huffed and blew hair out of my eyes.
My gaze landed on his face. On his hollow severe cheeks, clenched jaw, and thick black eyelashes.
It isn’t fair.
He was like a Venus flytrap.
Dressed up with pretty petals but with poison waiting deep within.
I laughed as I pictured myself as a hapless fly, landing on his petals for an innocent sip of nectar, only to be devoured.
Good grief, I thought this stuff wasn’t supposed to make me hallucinate?
Henri shot me a sharp look as he padded closer toward the bed. His eyes searched mine as if making sure I was okay. But he didn’t say a word. Not a single one.
His unspoken question echoed in my ears; I answered him anyway.
“I’m feeling great!” I nodded sharply, confidently. A slight twinge all over but nothing like before. I never wanted to feel that way again. The excruciation of so many bruises. The needling pain in my side.
No, thank you.
Another wave of softness descended as Henri sat carefully on the bed.
The mattress rocked a little under his weight, making it feel as if I lay upon a giant fluffy marshmallow.
My heart squeezed as I studied his drawn face. No light in his eyes. No aliveness or awareness or need.
He’s not sinking…he’s drowned.
Raising my arm, it hovered on its own accord. So light. Featherweight and flimsy. I tried to reach for him. To give him touch. To give him something to cling to.
But he reared back as if I’d tried to strike him.
I recoiled, wincing in preparation for another scolding.
When nothing came—when he merely opened a tub of cream and shifted closer—I let my stupid heart guide me. Just like I always did. Just like I probably shouldn’t.
With a quick breath, I pressed my hand on his thigh.
My fingers burned with his strength.
The towel around his hips slightly damp and cool.
So many things surged through me.
Needs, fears, desires, trepidations.
I laughed because I didn’t want such feelings.
I giggled because my feelings were absurd, and everything about this was crazy.
He cut you.
Stole you.
He’s hurting…
I squeezed his quad. “It’s okay…”
He stiffened and sucked in a tattered breath.
The tension in his leg turned to granite.
I snickered as I squeezed him again. “You’re made of stone.” I poked at his rock-hard stomach. Cold. Unyielding. “Actually, I think you’re an iceberg.”
His eyes remained locked on mine, cataloguing my every move. Yet he still didn’t speak.
An image of the Titanic floated into my head. I was the Titanic. I crashed bow first into the iceberg that was Henri. I sank into crystal-blue water where penguins swam and polar bears dived and cute fur seals—
Stop it.
Swallowing hard, I blinked past glittering icicles and refocused.
The fantastical images in my head left, but the soft candyfloss feeling remained.
I like this feeling.
Henri needs some.
It’ll help…
“Here.” I threaded my fingers through his on the tub of cream. “I don’t like that you’re unhappy.”
He shot to his feet. “Merde, you really don’t handle your drugs well.”
Finally…he speaks.
I smiled and nodded.
That was the key.
The only way he could come back from the shadows in his eyes.
“Come back.” I opened my arms. “Talk to me. You’re usually so chatty.”
His eyebrows swooped up; a flush covered his neck.
Swallowing hard, he scooped some goo from the tub and gingerly sat beside me. “Remove your towel.”
I shivered.
Couldn’t help it.
A lash of heat.
A lightning fork of need.
It bolted down the energy line from the top of my head to the base of my spine. It simmered unwanted in my core.
Oh no, no, no…
I could cope with spacey. I could handle a few daydreams. But uninhibited desire? Elevated sex drive?
No way.
Squirming a little, I shook my head. “You know what? I think I’ll stay wrapped up. I’m fine like a burrito. See? Burrito is my new identity.”
He looked borderline unhinged as his gaze dropped to my chest and his teeth ground together. “You’re not fine. You look like a morbid Christmas tree. Open your damn towel. That isn’t a request.”
God, why?
Why did his curt command rush through me like the worst kind of aphrodisiac?
It shouldn’t.
It really shouldn’t.
But it did.
And it always had, and if the spacey feeling just faded for a moment, I’d have enough strength to crawl onto his lap, remove both our towels, and kiss him.
I moaned and licked my lips.
A kiss.
Yes…I’d like that.
He owed me one after scolding me so meanly.
“Why did you yell at me?” I asked, tears suddenly brimming. “You’ve never been that cross with me before.”
His nostrils flared.
I waited for him to answer.
He didn’t.
I hated his silence.
I hated his pain.
I hated that he’d drifted to a dark, dark place I couldn’t reach.
With a sharp inhale, he reached for the folded ends of my towel and spread them open.
“Hey.” I batted his hands away.
Too late.
Cool air licked my highly sensitive skin.
Another flush of peculiar numbness and want.
I relaxed into it.
My body floated down and down, spiralling deeper and deeper until I hit a shadowy, silky bottom.
Sleep cloyed at my eyelashes, sudden and immense, making me smile with relief.
Sleep was better. So, so much better than lust.
“That’s it, just…relax,” Henri whispered.
I sighed as something comforting soaked into my skin. The barest-there strokes. The gentlest touch. The way he touched me reminded me how Krish would hold his drink at dinner if Mum forgot and gave him a glass cup instead of his preferred plastic one.
He’d hold it as if he’d break it just by breathing.
He’d cradle it as if it were the most precious, wonderous thing. Nothing else existed for him. Just him and that cup—half terrified of breaking it, half mystified by its fragility.
That’s how Henri’s touching me.
Like I’m a cup.
I giggled for no apparent reason.
“Jesus, that stuff is strong,” he muttered under his breath. His fingers traced over my ribs, adding a thick layer of cream.
My entire body turned ticklish.
My giggle became a laugh. “Stop. God, stop!”
“Fuck.” Ripping his hands off me, he shook the bed with his horror. “I didn’t mean…” He sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. God, I’m—”
“For what?” I frowned.
“For hurting you.”
“Hurting me?” I shrugged. “No, you tickled me.”
That seemed to make him worse.
His face flushed.
His pulse pounded in his neck.
He spiralled; I reached for him. “Hey…it’s okay. Talk to me…”
Swallowing a groan, he leapt to his bare feet.
He paced and refused to look at me.
I’d felt many things for this man. Most of them were not very nice, and some far, far too intense, but in that moment, all I felt was panic.
The stranger from the cave kept smothering the man who’d asked me to play along with him. The man from the bar who’d made my very soul shiver drowned beneath a blackened murderer. “Henri…”
“Don’t,” he hissed.
“What’s happened—?”
“Be quiet.” He raked a hand through his hair, unable to hide his shaking. With effort that etched his eyes with stress lines, he sat back down and painted another bruise on my hip.
He kept his eyes trained on my injuries. Lips pursed. Chest heaving. His insides screaming so loudly he deafened me.
You need to get him to talk…
Doing my best to ignore the creeping fear that he was slipping away, I scrambled for something to say. Something he’d find interest in. Something that would cease his descent into whatever nightmares he fought.
I came up blank.
My mind danced with sparks.
Yes, sparks!
Blurting, I said, “My wand.”
His forehead furrowed. His grey eyes flickered to mine. But he didn’t speak.
My mind filled with memories of that day. A happier time. A safer time. Those happy feelings bubbled over, and I found myself doing exactly what he’d said I would: I willingly shared a piece of who I was in order to bring him back to me. “I was nineteen when I got my tattoo. I got it the week after I passed my gemmology degree.”
I waited for him to ask for more details.
He didn’t.
Instead, he hyper-focused on another bruise, and another, and another. Making a personal vendetta against them as if by removing them he could erase everything that’d happened.
“I got a wand because Krish drew me a picture when I went to sit my exams. He said to imagine my pen was a wand, and it would write all the correct answers.” I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. “It worked. It brought me luck. And I decided I wanted to keep that luck with me forever.”
No response.
Yet I had the sense he was listening…clinging to every morsel I gave him.
“You might say that my luck didn’t work. That it ran out, and that’s how I ended up here.”
Nothing.
His lack of conversation and the wrongness of his silence forced me to continue filling it.
“But luck works in mysterious ways…” I closed my eyes for a moment, tapping into that endless knowing within me, letting it guide what I said. “I think…I think my luck drew me here. Drew me to you. To the jewels. I think—”
“Enough,” he snarled. “Stop it.”
I didn’t flinch this time at his scolding.
I saw it for what it was.
Agony.
I overflowed with druggy forgiveness.
He’d killed for me. Twice.
Because of him, I hadn’t been raped or mutilated.
He’s good.
Peter was right.
He saw that light.
It’s still there.
I pointed at the dinged-up watch on his wrist, needing to make him snap.
His eyes followed my finger, his shoulders stiffening.
“Why do you get all sad when you look at your watch?”
He gritted his teeth and moved farther down the bed, smearing cream on my thighs.
No reply.
I longed for his secretive whispers.
I craved for him to speak.
“Tell me,” I urged.
Nothing.
“I gave you a piece of my past—”
Still nothing.
“Do you miss her?”
His eyebrows flew into his hair. “What?”
Finally.
I kept digging, deliberately stabbing him with memories.
“Your mother. Do you miss her?”
He choked and shook his head. “How…how could you possibly know she gave this to me?”
The drugs in my system made me float. “My magical powers of deduction?” I winked. The room spun. My heart thudded sleepily, making my tongue far too loose. “Someone you loved gave you that watch. I can tell because that love lives in your eyes when you look at it. It can’t be your dad, and you said you haven’t had much success in relationships, so…it must’ve been your mum.”
He bared his teeth. “Shut up, Ilyana, before I lose my temper.”
Do it.
Lose it.
You need to break.
He couldn’t keep bottling everything in.
Gagging on his darkness.
The softness in my head arrowed straight at his discomfort. I didn’t try to second-guess. I trusted the nudges inside me. “You’ve missed her your entire life, haven’t you? There’s no difference between missing someone alive or missing them when they’re dead.”
“Fucking hell.” He glowered as if he wanted to smother me with a pillow. “Shut up—”
“Or what? You’ll hurt me?” I giggled. Even to my ears, I sounded a little—a lot—crazy. “You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid. Not sure I could handle anything else.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he snapped through clenched teeth.
I laughed again, finding everything freaking hilarious and horrible. “But you will hurt me again.” The drugs chose that moment to swarm me. “You’ll hurt me because that’s your loooove language.” I shrugged with an unbecoming snort. “Your love language is pain.” I burst into peals of giggles. “Wonder if there’s a love bible for a sadist? Lesson number one on how to show affection for your slave: whip them until they’re moaning for you, then kiss them stupid.”
I moaned with need, then laughed and laughed and laughed.
If I didn’t laugh, I’d try to seduce him.
And I wasn’t that far gone…yet.
Unfortunately, Henri did not find me the least bit funny.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
So tortured.
So beautiful.
So wrong.
“Come closer and kiss me,” I murmured.
Ily, stop it!
I didn’t care.
I wanted his lips on mine.
I needed his body filling, stretching—
“Please, kiss me.”
He shot to his feet and latched his hands behind his neck. “I can’t be around you when you’re like this.”
Poor man.
Poor tortured monster.
“I’ll kiss you and make it all better. How about that?” I drifted around on my cloud made of GHB. “You’re so hopeless, Henri.”
He staggered.
I struggled to focus on his stony face.
I frowned. “No, wait. Am I the hopeless one?” I tried to make sense of the syrupy swirls in my head. “After all, you’re the one who stole all my hope.” I sighed with a relieved, happy chuff. “Buh-bye hope.”
I waited for him to speak.
I’d grown so used to him chattering away with his confessions.
I didn’t know how much I’d miss it when faced with aching quietness.
I drifted again.
Mollie popped into my head. Behind her, Victor’s stronghold went boom, thanks to one of her bombs. Then Rachel was there, grinning and dancing, her pregnant belly almost ready to pop.
I stiffened.
“She can’t have her baby here.”
“What?” Henri dropped his arms, raw panic carving his face as if I’d lost my mind.
“Children weren’t allowed in here.” I couldn’t look at him, remembering Victor asking him to exterminate Rachel. “But now, thanks to you making Victor keep it, he’ll probably decide to breed all of us.”
Tears bloomed.
Fresh laughter bubbled.
I didn’t know which would win—sobs of horror or peals of inappropriate delirium.
In the end, they cancelled each other out, and I tried to roll onto my side to curl into a ball.
I started to crash—
Henri clamped a hand on my shoulder. “Stay on your back.”
My nervous system tried to warn me a bruise existed there, but the magic of drugs said…who cares?
My eyes tore open, locking on his. “You…you won’t expect me to have a baby too, will you?”
“Fuck, Ilyana.” His face shot ghost white. “No, of course not.” He stumbled away from me, pacing the bedroom and raking cream-smeared fingers through his hair.
I tracked him for a little while, but he made me dizzy. “Oh, good. Because if you ever got me pregnant, I’d jump off the parapet.”
His feet slammed to a stop.
Marching back to the bed, he loomed over me. He panted as if he’d run a four-day race. He looked utterly in pieces. “Y-You’d kill yourself rather than carry my child? You hate me that much?”
“I’d kill myself so our child never knew horror.”
He winced.
Another wave of numbness.
I sank into it.
The sensation of lightness promised me the ability to float right out the window and soar all the way over the sea back to Krish.
A pinch in my heart.
The only pain I could still feel.
Krish…
God, I missed my older brother.
I missed the way he used to say my name. The way he’d say it in that special wonderful way, reminding me how loved I was.
Love.
The exact opposite of hate.
Love…that was the biggest monster here.
The hulking elephant in the room.
I could never hate you, Henri…and that’s the problem.
“Ily—” His hand grabbed my chin, his fingers gripping hard. “Open your eyes.”
Ily…
Whenever he used my name, it made me feel all itchy inside. Squirrelly and snarly because he didn’t know what it meant. He mocked everything he wanted with his tone.
I had an awful feeling that each time he said my name, it only magnified the curse between us.
Oh, that’s sad.
Cursed to always say the words but never earn them in return.
My eyelashes fluttered open.
He needs to know.
It might help.
Or it might destroy him.
I couldn’t tell how he’d react if he knew what he said each and every time he called me Ily.
Would he find it funny or get mad?
Would he scream at me?
Hurt me?
With eyes far too heavy, I caught his stare.
He still didn’t look like him.
He’d transformed into a colder, crueller, dead-eyed version of the man I’d fallen hopelessly in lust with. The puddle of golden light from the bedside lamp avoided him, allowing all the shadows in the room to cling to his body.
Darkness beneath his eyes. Blackness along his jaw. Shadows swirled over his skin like moving tattoos.
Licking my lips, I tried to pull my chin out of his tight hold.
When he didn’t let me go, I slurred, “Do you prefer calling me Ily or Little Nightmare?”
He didn’t answer the question, but he did let me go.
Sitting heavily on the bed, he rubbed his hand on the sheets as if his fingers stung from holding me.
I felt his anguish.
I patted his knuckles with commiseration.
“You know…Ily isn’t really a name.” I sighed with all the love I had for my brother. “Krish misread the note my birth mother left pinned on my baby blanket.” Hot tears prickled before fading beneath love again. “It was just a short note. A scribble really.”
Henri didn’t speak but he did go achingly still.
His palm suddenly tipped up and captured my fingers, fisting me in a painful handhold.
I didn’t know if he squeezed me to make me stop or squeezed me because he needed to know. Either way, this story would probably shatter him.
I’m sorry…
I recited the words scribed on my heart. “You’re perfect. But I’m not. And you deserve perfection. I.L.Y.”
Henri choked.
For a second, it looked as if he believed that sentence was about him—not the final parting phrase of my birth mother—but then his forehead creased, and he licked his lips. He whispered ever so quietly, “I.L.Y?”
“Krish read the note and in his six-year-old brain, he smushed the acronym together.”
Shadows gathered tighter around him. “Acronym?”
“It gives away my mother’s age. Shows she was probably a teenager stuck in a very bad place.”
He swallowed hard. His voice scratchy and raw. “What does it stand for?”
The fact that he didn’t know.
That he’d probably never been given those three little words even as a child.
Tragic really.
Terrible definitely.
But in the end, I’d been right.
Love was his greatest weakness.
Not me.
He thought it was me because each time he used my name, he mentioned the very thing that petrified him.
A surge of sleepiness.
A cloak of foggy night.
I snuggled deeper into the bed as I yawned. “I.L.Y.…it means I Love You.”
Henri leapt to his feet. “Quoi?” (What?)
“I love you…” I struggled to stay awake, a heavy anchor on my mind.
“You mean every time I use your name, I’m saying I fucking love you?”
“Yep.” I nodded, the room swimming.
Yep.
What a strange word.
What are words anyway?
How did someone come up with letters and then squish them into a language?
Do we even need language?
I knew what Henri was feeling most of the time without it. I sensed him. Some people said they even saw auras. Perhaps our ability to speak got in the way of our truth because the truth was there for all to see if we just opened our eyes instead of our ears.
I skipped out of time.
I fought the undertow of rest and forced my gaze open.
Aww, poor guy.
He looked rather freaked.
I giggled at the way he strangled the tub of cream, eyes wild, legs braced. “It’s okay, Hen.”
Now he looked really freaked.
It was kind of adorable.
“Hen?” he coughed.
“You know…like the chicken.”
I pictured him with feathers, scratching around in the dirt.
Oh God.
New laughter built. Pressure bubbled in my belly, desperate to release.
“My name is Henri,” he said slowly, scarily.
“Hen.” I nodded.
“No. Not Hen—”
“Cluck. Cluck.” I couldn’t contain the mirth much longer. “Aww, don’t be mad. You’d make such a cute chicken. Wait…” I split into laughter. “A male chicken is a cock.” I lost control over my giggles. “You’re a cock.”
He made a whimpering sort of noise as if I’d well and truly ruined him.
“Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!” I lost it.
He groaned so deep and low, my entire body reacted.
Need roared.
Desire poured.
My laughter threaded with reckless, ruthless lust, and I shattered.
I either needed him to kiss me or go far, far away so I could break.
I didn’t know why I laughed anymore.
Everything was ridiculous.
Everything was hilarious.
If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry, and I really didn’t want to cry.
But oops, there went the tears.
People had died today.
Blood had been shed.
Pain had been given.
Peter might not wake up.
Rachel is pregnant.
And I’m in love with a broken beast.
I laughed.
And laughed.
I laughed until I cried.
I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe.
And then…I passed out.