Chapter 5 #2
Brian launches into a story about his neighbor’s Christmas light display shorting out the entire building’s power.
Tasha takes over with her own tale of holiday chaos.
Something about a missing gift, and a misunderstanding with her sister.
Mark scrolls through his phone, occasionally showing pictures of destinations for his planned spring vacation.
I try to engage. I try to remember how to be the person who cared about all these things. Six months ago, I’d have been envious of Mark’s vacation plans. Now I can barely pretend to care at all.
Instead, my attention keeps moving to the window, to the street beyond, and the world I’ve been thrust back into without warning or preparation.
My coffee cup stops halfway to my lips. My stomach drops.
Moving with that predatory grace I know so well is a figure that makes my heart slam against my ribs.
His dark hair is peppered with snowflakes.
His shoulders are set, and his eyes scan the street.
Even if his clothing didn’t make him immediately recognizable, there would be no mistaking the lethal elegance of the man across the street.
Sacha.
My world narrows to that single focal point.
The sounds of the diner and my friends fade, leaving only my pulse hammering in my ears.
I’m on my feet and moving before I even think about it.
My water glass tips, spilling across the table top, but I don’t stop.
My friends’ startled exclamations follow me as I push through the crowded diner toward the door.
Cold air hits my face as I burst onto the sidewalk.
“Sacha!”
He turns, his body immediately tensing into a defensive pose before recognition dawns.
For a heartbeat, we simply stare at each other across ten feet of snowy sidewalk.
Then I’m running, slipping on the ice and staying upright through sheer stubborn willpower.
I throw myself against him, my hands finding his face, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the arc of his cheekbones.
“You’re here.” My voice breaks. “You’re really here!” For a moment I can’t breathe.
His hands curve over my shoulders, and his eyes, those impossibly dark eyes, search mine with an intensity that makes my breath hitch.
“Ellie.” Just my name. But the way he says it contains everything he doesn’t say.
“Are you okay? Where did you come from? You must be freezing.” I’m talking too fast, hands still pressed to his cheeks, while I try to ignore the storm of emotions crashing through me at the sight of him. Relief, disbelief, the sick fear that he might still dissolve into nothing.
“I’ve endured worse.”
I want to ask a thousand questions. Where he’s been since yesterday, what he remembers of Thornspire, how he survived the snowstorm. But my mouth won’t work properly, and none of them matter against the single fact that he’s here in front of me.
“Ellie!” Kate’s voice breaks through the moment.
I twist to see her standing a few feet away, my coat clutched in her hands, and her face a mask of confusion and mild alarm.
“What the hell is going on? You just ran out of the diner like—” Her gaze shifts to Sacha, taking in his unusual appearance. “Who is this?”
My hand drops from his face and my fingers curl around his wrist, holding on tight. I don’t care if it gives the impression that I’m scared he’ll disappear if I let go completely.
“Kate, this is Sacha. He’s …” How can I possibly explain who he is? She’s never seen me with him before.
Kate’s eyes narrow as she studies him—the way he stands, how he has one hand resting on my shoulder, his clothes. “He’s … what?”
“It’s …” I cast around looking for something that will stop her asking questions. “It's complicated. He's ... someone I met online. We've been talking for months.”
Her expression changes immediately, turning curious. “You didn’t tell me you were talking to someone.”
“I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. And he wasn’t certain he’d make it here before Christmas. I need to go. I’ll call you later.”
“But it’s Christmas Eve—”
“I know, I’m sorry. But this is important to me.” I take my coat, guilt at lying to her outweighed by the need to get Sacha out of the cold.
Kate looks like she wants to ask more questions, but instead she nods. “I want to hear all about it. You promise to tell me?”
“I promise. After Christmas.” Without waiting for her to say anymore, I pull on my coat, and lead Sacha away from the diner.
“Have you been out in the cold all night?”
“Since arriving, yes. I found somewhere to wait out the storm.”
“My place isn’t far from here.”
Snow starts to fall again as we walk, thick flakes catching in his hair. His jaw is clenched, but he can’t quite hide the shivers that wrack his body, and I pick up our pace, wanting to get him indoors before he catches pneumonia.
Every few steps, someone passes us on the sidewalk. A woman with shopping bags. A man walking his dog. An elderly couple moving carefully on the ice. Sacha’s eyes track each one. A car backfires somewhere in the distance, and he stops dead.
“It’s just a car. Not a threat.”
“Car?”
I point at one parked on the street. “We use them to travel around.”
He nods, but doesn’t relax. This world must feel like sensory overload to him. It’s been bad enough for me, and I lived here for all my life. No wonder he looks ready to fight. By the time we reach my building, his lips have a blue tinge, despite his efforts to hide how cold he is.
I lead him inside, and guide him toward the elevator. He examines it with interest when the doors slide open, and follows me inside.
“It’s called an elevator. It will take us up to my floor.” I push the button, and the doors close, sealing us inside.
I have to stop him from exiting when it stops on the second floor to let an elderly woman inside.
She takes one look at Sacha and clutches her purse a little tighter, pressing herself against the far wall.
I can’t even blame her. She’s sharing a small enclosed space with someone who, even on the verge of pneumonia, could kill her a dozen different ways with nothing more than a thought.
Once it stops on my floor, we get out and walk down the hallway to my apartment. As soon as we’re inside, I turn up the heat, then turn to look at him.
His gaze moves around the room, noting windows, doorways, potential exits … of which there is one. They track over the bookshelves, photographs on the walls, and I wonder how it all must look to him.
In Meridian, I was the outsider trying to understand an alien world. Now our positions are reversed, but unlike my terror, he is showing the same cool assessment he brings to everything.
“You need some warmer clothes,” I say, watching him suppress another shiver. “And food. When did you last eat?”
The fact he doesn’t reply is answer enough.
I go into the kitchen, and open one of the cabinets.
Taking down a can of soup, I empty the contents into a bowl and heat it up in the microwave.
In the three minutes it takes to heat up, Sacha doesn’t move from his position in the center of the room.
Once the timer dings, I take it out and place it on the small corner table in the kitchen.
“Come and eat. I need to run out and get you some clothes. Everywhere is going to shut down for the holidays soon. There’s a store a few blocks over. Stay here and warm up.”
He turns toward me, frowning. “What is that?”
“Soup.” I wait until he’s seated at the table, then move to the door. Before I open it, I look back. He’s studying the soup like it’s a wild animal, spoon in one hand.
“Eat. I won’t be long.”
I slip and slide my way through the snow and ice to the nearest store, grab a cart and move quickly through the aisles, selecting essentials.
Shirts, sweatpants, thick socks. I have to guess his size.
In some ways I know his physical form better than anyone’s, but I’ve never had to clothe him before.
At the underwear display, I stop dead. Of all the insane things I’ve faced—falling into a different world, deserts, towers without doors, shadow magic, and literal prophecies—this has to be the weirdest.
What kind of underwear does a Shadowvein Lord prefer to wear?
The question, aside from his title, is so absurdly normal it makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
I stare at the packages like they hold the secrets of the universe.
Boxers seem too loose, briefs too restrictive.
Boxer briefs might be a good compromise, but which ones?
Black seems appropriate for someone who commands shadows, but maybe that’s too on the nose?
I can’t see him in bright green, or ones with donut patterns, although my lips do twitch at the face he might pull if I presented them to him.
A woman browsing nearby gives me a knowing smile, completely misreading my crisis as a typical girlfriend shopping dilemma. If only she knew I’m trying to clothe a man who can melt into shadows and once fought off Authority soldiers with nothing but a blade made of darkness.
I grab plain black ones, then add boots in three different sizes to hopefully get at least one pair that fits, a heavy winter coat, gloves and a hat.
I don’t bother with sneakers. I can’t imagine Sacha wearing them.
But I do grab a pair of black jeans, and five t-shirts.
The items pile up in my cart as I move toward the checkout.
The cashier barely glances at my purchases, but I find myself constructing cover stories anyway, and then have to remind myself that there isn’t anyone hunting us here. That I don’t need to justify my purchases.
I don’t even wince at the total, just hand over my credit card, pay and leave, hurrying back to my apartment.
Part of me fears that Sacha might be gone when I return, that I might have imagined his presence, or I might wake up from a dream, but when I unlock my door, he’s standing by my bookshelf.
“Clothes.” I set the bags onto the couch. “I wasn’t sure about sizes, so there are options.”
He puts down the book he was flipping through and walks over to the bags, examining each item with the same focus he’d give to maps of Meridian. His attention lingers on the underwear packages, one eyebrow lifting, but he makes no comment.
“Maybe you’d like to take a shower first, and warm up more?”
“A … shower?”
“I’ll show you.”
He follows me to the bathroom, fingers trailing over the countertop as he watches me pull back the shower curtain. Reaching in, I turn on the shower, adjusting the temperature until steam rises.
He watches the flow, interest lighting up his eyes, then reaches out to test the temperature.
“Interesting.”
“The left handle controls heat, the right changes the flow. There are towels on the shelf. I’ll go get you some clothes to change into.”
Steam fills the small bathroom. I should leave. Give him privacy. But my feet won't move from the doorway.