48. Zeke
Forty-Eight
Zeke
It was disconcerting knowing Azzie was a house away... Feeling her presence.
Then again, most of what was going on in my head was what I would’ve called unnatural not that long ago. I was betrayed by a god, locked in a house by a siren, and fought an imaginary battle that left very real scars. Using fireballs.
Every time I rolled over those thoughts, I wanted to laugh at the madness of it. The magic I’d used bothered me, but Finn’s lies hurt more.
He saved me. He almost killed Azzie.
If he were here, would he have answers about what happened to me in there? About what I’d done in the fight and why? About what I’d seen?
Those weren’t good enough reasons to forgive what he did, but knowing that hadn’t stopped me from looping on the thought circle for the last few weeks. The reality of the situation was enough to keep me away from Azzie. As strong as the pull was, I needed to process on my own.
I’d tried reproducing what I did in the test —teleporting… magic… summoning visions of people out of thin air—but hadn’t been able to do any of it. I’d reached out to Tania, but hadn’t been able to get in touch with her.
I even called Astrid.
“Hey, Doomsday, what’s up?”
“Hey, Red. Random question.” I could beat around the bush, but Astrid had a sense of when I was holding back. She always had.
“Sure. Shoot. Not literally.”
I gave a tight laugh. “Cute.” This would sound weak, but if I hesitated, it would sound even worse. “I heard a new-to-me song the other day, “Siren” by Savatage.” Over the last few months, Davyn had introduced me to a whole new world of metal in music. Mostly because I overheard it and wanted to know what it was. The new band names sent me down a lot of rabbit holes listening to classic songs. “It’s got me wondering, what are sirens like in paganism? Do they test people?” The unusual references in the songs also gave me an excuse to ask Astrid about her religion. She assumed I was just curious. I was also looking for another perspective on a world I knew was real.
“Sirens are really more of a Greek thing,” she said. “And I don’t think that I’d call luring sailors to their death a test so much as… I always thought of that as some sort of vengeance thing on the sirens’ part.”
“As in down with the patriarchy ?”
“Don’t know. Maybe.” Astrid sounded thoughtful.
“Then you don’t know if their songs were ever about real events? Possibilities?”
Astrid clucked. “I don’t have a clue. You draw some interesting conclusions sometimes, Doomsday.”
She had no idea.
“Are you all right?” She prodded.
This was where it was time for me to end the call. Before she dug too much. Before I gave the wrong things away. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’m losing my mind.” That was the last thing I wanted to tell a therapist.
“I know very few people as in control of their sanity as you are.” Astrid was kind. “And if it helps you feel any better, nut jobs don’t tend to question their sanity.”
A short chuckle escaped my throat. “ Nut job . Is that your professional terminology?”
“Sure. Let’s say yes.”
I needed to end the call. “I still worry.”
“Fear— worry —doesn’t make you wrong, it makes you smart. As long as you don’t let it rule your life, fear keeps you safe,” she said.
Right. “Thanks. I should go.”
“Zeke.” She rarely used my real name, and it made me pause. “Diego wants to know when we’ll see you again. I want to know too.”
“I’m not sure.”
“You promised you wouldn’t hide away again.”
I withdrew from the world when Mom died. All the way up until Finn found me.
Now I was thinking about Finn again. Fuck . “I’m not. I promise. Talk soon.” I hung up before she could say anything else.
It had been a couple of weeks since that call, and I hadn’t uncovered any new information on my own. I was tired of being stuck in a limbo of no answers, and just as tired of fighting the pull to Azzie. Seeing her would offer solutions to both.
Instead, like so many days before, I was at the anvil in my forge, Korn blaring from the speakers around the room, and heat blasting from the furnace a few feet away. The rhythm of the hammer, its weight as I struck steel again and again, kept my thoughts from drifting too far.
I shaped and folded the metal, heated it, then shaped it some more. As with so many of my pieces, I had no idea what I was making, but I couldn’t stop my mind from drifting back to the test. To Azzie. Finn. Even Davyn.
My material was small and curved, but too round dense to be a blade. even one of the throwing daggers Azzie loved. It was becoming an S shape, rounded at one end, and a flat surface on the inside curve of the other.
A wave of comfort washed over me, like aloe on a sunburn. She had just walked into the room.
I had limited time to work with my piece while it was hot, so I kept my attention focused on the steel. I hooked it over the horn of the anvil, and used a smaller hammer to shape it.
She took a seat on the other side of my worktable in her usual spot. The music and hammering made it impossible to speak, but her lips didn’t move, so I didn’t stop either one.
Despite there being no conversation, there was a comfort in having her here. I finished shaping my design, and held it up to examine it.
Azzie cocked her head, brows raised in question.
I studied it for a moment, and my laugh broke free. I shut down my forge, clicked Pause on my phone, and the music vanished, leaving an odd silence in the room.
“What’s so funny?” she asked. “What is it?”
It was rough, and needed to be ground and refined. It also wasn’t a complete object by itself. “Half a nail clipper. For animal nails.”
Understanding spread across her face, becoming a smirk. “As in, for bear claws?”
“In theory it’s big enough, but I wouldn’t use it for that.”
“But that won’t stop you from showing it to Davyn and telling him what it is.” Her amusement was tangible. Beautiful.
Kiss her. Claim her. Soothe the empty ache .
I shook my head, more to clear out the mental voice than in disagreement. “It won’t, no.”
Our laughs died quickly, and the silence returned. It was tempting to turn the music on again. “We need to talk,” I said instead.
She nodded and folded her hands as she rested them on the table in front of her. “Yeah.”
Azzie chewed her bottom lip. “So… how’re you?”
“Fine.” I wasn’t fine. Apparently neither was she. But the real answer was too complicated to give as a response to such a simple question. “You?”
“Good. I’m good.”
Uh-huh.
“I’m sorry about Finn,” she said.
Bitterness surged up my throat. She got to keep her guardian.
Guardian . Weird fucking word to pick.
I couldn’t find a reply that would keep this conversation from ending before it started.
“Yeah,” Azzie repeated, despite me not saying anything, and punctuated the word with a sigh.
“What happened? In the house? With Tania?”
Finn’s actions were responsible for what happened to him. As much as it would be easier, I couldn’t blame that on her.
I love you, Zeke . Finn’s voice was distinct—a memory I’d held back until now.
Azzie’s chest rose and fell with a silent sigh. “It was a test.”
I clenched my jaw. Was she dismissing my question?
“I’m not trying to be flippant.” She met my gaze. “And I think you may know as much as I do, but on a really basic level, the test is like any other I’ve sought out—it’s meant to push the participant past their limits, and see what they’re—we’re—capable of.”
“But it wasn’t real.” I knew better, because there were things I’d seen that were real.
Azzie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Real enough to learn from. Real enough that truths came out. About all of us, not just Fi—” She clenched her jaw. “I don’t know what happened to you before we found you, or what you saw. I faced my biggest fears, and I’m still terrified by the same things. I think I failed.”
“Fear doesn’t make you wrong, it makes you smart. As long as you don’t let it rule your life, fear keeps you safe.” Thanks for that wisdom, Astrid.
Azzie’s half-smile was back. “That was wise.”
“I’m a wise guy. What did you see?”
“A life where the prophecies weren’t about me.” The vagueness of her answer didn’t sit well with me.
“Which meant a world where you and Davyn were fucking?” I hadn’t forgotten that revelation, though I wasn’t jealous the way I expected to be. Because it happened as part of her fears?
I didn’t know. There was the resentment that Davyn was here and Finn wasn’t, but?—
“What did you see?” Azzie’s question kept me from spiraling into the same thoughts I’d been stuck in for weeks.
“Before we found each other? Not much. Bits of my past.” Some of the rougher bits, but not the worst. “Snippets of people I didn’t recognize, that didn’t linger long enough for them to mean anything.” Possible futures.
Where did that come from?
“Finn meeting with Lugh the night before our birthday,” I said. “That Lugh set this test up for you. That the whole thing was a manipulation and Finn knew it.” It hurt to talk about the betrayal out loud. Especially when I was forced to admit, “That he’s been lying to me since we met.” None of this was new, but saying it again hurt.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded sincere.
But she usually did, regardless of what she was saying.
I didn’t want to talk about Finn. “I can’t do any of the things I did in there.”
“Neither can I. Except feel where doors might be. Hide my weapons. But I could do that before.”
She didn’t know she could do that before, though, and both of those things were bigger than the nothing I’d run into.
“Something changed down there,” I said. Duh . “A lot of things changed, I know. But something changed in me. It was like a knob was turned, and I can’t figure out what it did. I think Tania knows, though.”
“I’ve tried to call her,” Azzie said. “Tried to go back to her bakery. She’s not there.”
“I tried to call, too. No answer.”
“We’ll get answers.” She didn’t sound any more certain than I felt.
“I do know one thing.” Wait. I did?
Yes. Since she’d showed up today, my thoughts had calmed. Order had returned. It wasn’t just having her close, though being next to her soothed and excited me, but it was knowing that we were speaking again.
She raised her brows in question. “What?”
“We need each other. In more than just a physical way.” Not that I could discount the sex. “And maybe that’s why the prophecy wants one of us dead—because we’re stronger together.”
This time Azzie’s smile was full and real. “We are. It’s true.”
“So we need to stick together.” As I talked, I walked around the table, to be closer to her.
She slid from her stool, putting her within arm’s reach. “Yes. I agree.”
Good.
Fuck. Now . The voice was impossible to ignore this time. Did she hear that? Her expression didn’t give anything away, and the voice was definitely in my head, but the beat of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck was loud enough I was surprised it was only meant for my ears.
Azzie stepped closer, stopping near enough I could tip my head and claim her mouth, but she didn’t reach for me. “What now?” she asked.
Fucking as a conclusion to every conversation wasn’t a healthy relationship, and Finn was right about one thing—I barely knew Azzie.
But she and I had time to learn, and she radiated the same tension and need that thrummed through me. It was like when we fought side-by-side—we were in sync.
“Now this.” I gripped the back of her neck and crushed my mouth to hers.
She let out a hungry, almost primal moan, and pressed back.
At the contact, the moment my skin met hers, any restraint I’d practiced over the last month was gone. I needed her, all of her. To feel her. To melt into her. To be one with her.
Bedroom . My mental push to blink us there didn’t yield a result. I stumbled back instead, yanking her with me toward my bedroom.
The stumble was so much like the first day we met. Our mouths crushed into each other, and desperation surged inside.
But there was so much more between us now. And much more to come. The idea of exploring that was comforting.
The need to fuck now was overpowering.