Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Elodie
The physical pain has left my body, but my glim didn’t touch the adrenaline still jangling my nerves and the emotional anguish pealing through my chest.
For the first few seconds as Salvatore hurtles out of the basement room, I can only press my face against his broad chest and will away the memories.
My efforts don’t work. The images play on a loop: the panic of suffocation, the blaring agony of the bullet cutting through my back, the heady rush of magic. The woman lying bleeding from the injury that had been mine, whole and then head severed with the hiss of a blade and a flash of eerie light.
I didn’t want anyone else to die because of me. I’ve tried so hard to keep all the horrors from my old life out of this one…
Cole’s harsh voice cuts through my jumbled thoughts. “You have to put it back. If they see—”
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but Salvatore’s arms tense around me.
A thrum of magic flows out of his body with the deeper resonance of a glim rather than the tickling of external ephemera.
I lift my head and realize that we’re somehow in the lane behind the dance club. I don’t remember any doors opening. How—?
“There,” Salvatore says, his own voice gruff. “Now let’s get her the fuck away from these pricks. My car’s closest.”
As he jogs down the lane past the backs of the neighboring buildings, I shift in his arms. The tackiness of the bloody fabric against my skin makes me grimace, but nothing beneath my clothes is hurt. “I’m okay. You can put me down.”
“Not a chance, a shíorghrá. Not until I know you’re safe.” He glances down at me and dips his head to brush his lips against my forehead. “Did she bring you there? Were there more of them?”
I push through the chaos in my head. “No. I came on my own, trying to find out more about the people who drew in Kenneth and Grady—”
And my dad. That knowledge stalls my words before I can gather myself again. “She found me there. She wanted to kill me.”
That shouldn’t come as a surprise considering how many other murder attempts I’ve faced in the past several weeks, but the acknowledgment sends a shudder through me.
Salvatore’s hold tightens, but it’s Byron’s voice, steady but taut, that reaches me next. “Why did you come alone? Any of us would have helped you.”
I swallow hard, the horror in his tone wrenching at me alongside all the guilt that gripped me earlier this evening.
“I just… I wanted to get it over with if I could. Get through this problem so you can all have some space from each other. I know how hard it’s been for you—it’s not how any of you would have wanted to start a union. ”
For a moment, there’s no sound but the ominous thudding of my matches’ feet as we veer out of the lane and across a street.
Salvatore sucks in a sharp breath. “You’re the one they’re trying to murder. You’re the one who has it hard. None of us wants to lose you, Elodie. That’s what matters the most.”
He says it so emphatically that tears prick at my eyes. As I blink them back, he comes to a halt by a plain dark gray car. His arms flex with indecision.
“Here.” Cole’s voice, even rougher than before. When Salvatore turns toward him, the professor has his arms outstretched. “We’re all going together. We need to know everything that happened, and we can’t talk here. Just drive.”
The mafia heir balks with a clench of his jaw before handing me over like I’m cargo. Delicate cargo, but still.
In the space of a heartbeat, I’m passed from his brawny embrace into Cole’s lean arms. The other guys are throwing open the car doors. The professor clambers into the back seat, bringing me with him.
His piney scent wraps around me, making it even harder to think. He hasn’t held me this close… ever, in this reality. The rapid thump of his pulse carries to my ear where my head rests against his chest.
As Salvatore guns the engine, I squirm on Cole’s lap. “I can sit on my own.”
His grip remains firm around me. “But you don’t need to.”
The rasp of emotion in his voice stills me. I force myself to relax against him, my feet bumping the door with Salvatore’s hasty jerk of the wheel.
Cole tucks my legs closer against him with a gentleness that’s as unexpected as everything else about this embrace.
His hand moves to adjust my dress: drawing the skirt farther toward my knees, tugging at the neckline to bring the blood-drenched bodice farther up, quick and careful so the motions couldn’t be mistaken for a caress.
“She’s going to need new clothes,” he says to the other guys. “She can’t—”
His hand passes by my chest as he lowers it, and his fingers twitch alongside a break in his voice, even though he hasn’t touched me.
A skitter of alarm passes through my veins, but then he’s resting his hand on my knee again with no further sign of agitation. “She can’t go home like this.”
Salvatore grunts. “I’ll take care of that too.”
Asher speaks softly from the other side of the back seat. “Are you sure you’re okay, Elodie?”
The first thing that bursts out of me is a choked guffaw that probably only makes them all more worried.
I’m not okay. Not even a little.
But we can get into that once we’re having a proper conversation. He mostly wants to confirm that I’m not dying.
“My glim threw all my injuries at that woman,” I say. “Nothing’s damaged other than my dress.”
Byron shifts in the front passenger seat. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve got that place downtown,” Salvatore answers. “Faster and safer than going back to the Raiths’ house.”
Cole’s head bows over mine, his warm breath grazing my ear. As the car jostles around another bend, he hugs me a little closer.
His voice drops to a murmur that’s only for me. “I’m sorry. So fucking sorry. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
I’m not totally sure what he’s apologizing for, but the teary burn comes back into my eyes. I thought he’d be even more angry with me after this new mess.
My head finally sinks against his shoulder just as Salvatore swings us down the ramp into the condo building’s garage.
As soon as the car stops, I push the door open. Salvatore springs out before I’ve gotten to my feet, but he lets me stand on my own, simply blocking me from the view of anyone else in the garage who might glance over.
My other matches fill out the human shield around me, ephemera humming with their presence to conceal us. Byron takes my hand.
I follow Salvatore to the elevator without stumbling, but I’m tensing against the wobbles that run through my legs. Maybe it’s a good thing he carried me from the club. Moving on my own is waking up more shock in my body than I realized I’d feel.
The woman’s severed head flashes behind my eyes again. I clutch Byron’s hand hard enough that he glances over at me with concern darkening his gaze.
I can’t say I’m mourning the loss of her life. She was going to kill me.
But the fact is that I’m responsible for her death, any way you look at it…
I was hoping I’d left that part of my life behind. I guess it was na?ve of me.
Maybe I should just be glad she didn’t sprout two new heads in that one’s place, hydra style.
The moment we walk through the condo’s doorway, Salvatore hustles toward the bedroom. “We’ve got extra clothes stashed here. I’ll find something that should fit okay.”
I waver on the smooth hardwood floor, afraid that sitting anywhere will leave blood imprinted on the furniture. My dress has already stamped a bloody smear across Cole’s dress shirt. No doubt Salvatore has a matching splotch.
The professor catches me looking and gives a slight shake of his head, his eyes stormy. “It doesn’t matter.”
He shouldn’t be walking around looking like that either, though. “Cole needs a new shirt too,” I call, and propel myself toward one of the other doorways. “I’m going to get cleaned up in the bathroom. Toss the clothes in.”
I’m not sure I’d want to strip down in front of all my matches—one of whom has generally seemed to resent his attraction to me and one of whom I can’t let touch me—in any circumstances, but I’ve also got no way to hide the scars on my chest at the moment.
The last thing I want to do right now is explain the remnants of my past crimes and my attempts to contain my glim.
For once, Salvatore follows my instructions to the letter.
I hear the squeak of the hinges while I’m hidden behind the shower curtain giving myself a quick scrub, and when I emerge, my bloody dress and bra have vanished.
A pair of jeans, a blank navy-blue T-shirt, and a sports bra wait on the counter.
The clothes fit a bit loose, but I can’t imagine there’s a huge selection here. I give my hair a hasty rub with the towel, square my shoulders, and march out to face the conversation ahead.
Salvatore pauses where he was pacing just outside the bathroom. As he smiles at my arrival, my gaze slides past him to my other matches.
Byron and Cole stand poised at opposite ends of the living room, their heads swiveling toward me. Asher pokes his head out of the kitchen area with a tentative smile of his own.
He walks over carrying a steaming mug. “I thought maybe you could use something comforting to drink… There were instant cocoa packets in the cupboard.”
The gesture is so sweet and so like the Asher I knew that my eyes well up for the third time in the past hour.
As I accept the mug, Byron strides over and tucks his arm around my waist. “Come sit down. You’ve been through a lot. We all want to know everything that happened, but you need to recover too.”
I let him guide me to the sofa where he sits us down, still with his arm firm around me. Making a statement about his devotion after Salvatore and Cole already carted me around?
Asher sinks down at my other side, watching intently as I bring the cocoa to my lips. Salvatore prowls a little more before flopping into the armchair opposite us.
Cole stays on his feet, his stance rigid as if he can’t imagine sitting.