Chapter 18
Her breath short and sharp, her feet stumbling, Luna fled as fast as she could into the cold night, propelled purely by adrenaline. She made the turn onto Nettleton, hastened on up to Foxglove Lane, and didn’t pause until she’d made the corner of Chimeway and Quirklyn Court.
There, at last, she collapsed against a streetlamp, panting hard. Air escaped her lungs in pale, white streams, entirely incongruous with the heat roiling in her veins.
She could still feel the pressure of his mouth on hers.
She could still feel the firm grasp of his hands, the strong lines of his body. The crushing intensity of his passion unleashed.
“Oh!” Luna moaned and pressed her forehead against the cold metal of the lamppost. Tears streamed down her cheeks, freezing even as they dripped from her chin.
Her body shook, like she was going into shock.
Perhaps she was. Perhaps the shock of finally, finally acknowledging what had been building between the two of them all this while was simply too much for her already stressed-out system.
Gripping the lamppost, Luna fought to keep her trembling knees from giving out. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t melt down, not here. Not now. She had to run. Far and fast. Before it was too late. For him. For her. For the world.
“Oh, Green Mother!” she hissed through clenched teeth and hit her forehead softly against the iron post. “Oh, why did you stop? Why did you turn back? You were out! You were away!”
But the moment she’d crossed the threshold of The Arcane Bouquet onto Addle Street, it was like a chain attached to her heart jerked her to a halt.
The idea of leaving him—of her last sight of him being the back of his head, of her last words to him being spoken into that dreadful silence—she simply couldn’t. She should. But she couldn’t.
So, like the fool she was, she’d turned around, halfway determined to open the door, to march back to the counter, and demand that he tell her a proper goodbye.
Only the door had yanked open before she could even reach for the latch.
And there he was.
Staring down at her with the fire of a thousand suns burning in his sad blue eyes.
Luna whimpered, her face crumpling as another surge of tears poured forth.
This was so much worse. So much worse than that silent farewell.
So much worse than wondering what could have been.
Because now she knew! She knew, gods blight it, exactly what they could have been to each other, if she wasn’t hunted, if he wasn’t tainted by his past, if the world in which they lived was a kind and forgiving place. They could have been glorious.
With a little shake of her head, Luna pushed back from the lamp.
Her hand felt quite frozen against the metal—she’d forgotten to put on her gloves.
Clenching her fingers into a fist, she gave the post a sharp smack, just hard enough to hurt.
The pain steadied her somewhat. Drawing her shoulders back, she drew a deep breath.
It was over now. It was done. The worst moment was behind her, that moment of wrenching agony.
That moment when she felt her heart being torn from her breast and dropped on the sidewalk, just outside the flower shop door.
The aftershock was horrible, yes, but not as bad as that initial wrench.
Surely it would all fade into numbness soon.
She would board that train, she would leave Ballycastle. She would never see Mr. Grimm again.
And someday, perhaps, if she was very, very lucky, she would forget that moment of glory they’d shared.
It would no longer have the power to devastate her.
Someday, perhaps, she would be able to accept the black-and-white existence of her life, now that all the color and vibrance had been drained away.
Someday, she wouldn’t remember the sound of his voice as he uttered those three, devastating words: I love you.
Gulping back a sob, Luna propelled herself into motion once more.
Her body shook so hard, she struggled to hold on to the handle of her carpetbag, but she managed to haul it along.
It was light at least, even filled with all her worldly goods as it was.
Far too light. She had considered packing up some of her tea tins to bring with her, a nice little memento of her time in the city.
In the end, she couldn’t bear it. No mementos.
If she had her choice, she would bring no memories at all. It would be so much easier that way.
Pausing at a crosswalk, Luna bounced on her toes, waiting for the light to turn.
Traffic was almost nonexistent at this hour, and she was tempted to simply sprint across.
There was no one to see, no one to care.
It was a long walk to the train station, and she’d like to get there quickly.
Hours stretched out between now and the 4 am mail train, but she’d feel better, safer, once she was tucked into the lounge on one of those cold, hard benches.
The light still refused to turn. Luna bit her lip, glancing both ways. Then, with a determined set of her chin, she stepped down from the curb onto the crosswalk.
As though that one step had triggered something, a large, dark vehicle squealed suddenly around the turn.
It’s headlamps flashed, blinding her, and its tires spewed slushy snow in every direction.
Luna yelped and leapt back onto the sidewalk, heart thudding beneath her buttoned coat.
She’d not yet recovered her surprise, when the vehicle bumped up onto the very curb where she’d been standing a moment before and lurched to a stop.
All four doors flew open. Four tall, shadowy figures in cowl hoods emerged. Figures absolutely writhing with anti-glitter auras.
Terror choked Luna, constricting her breath.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t even register what it was she saw.
Her body reacted on pure instinct. She pivoted, dropping her carpetbag in an unconscious impulse to shed extra weight, and took three flying steps, her boots coming down hard on sidewalk and snow.
Behind her, a fell voice spoke a word in the damned tongue of ancient days.
A streak of roiling energy dotted with anti-glitter motes shot out like a whiplash and wrapped around Luna’s body, pinning her arms to her sides, paralyzing her legs.
She toppled, unable to put out her hands to catch herself.
Her head knocked hard against the sidewalk, and pain shot through her awareness.
Something sticky oozed down her face, a hot pulse.
Somewhere, distantly, through a fog of pain, she heard a voice snarling, “What did you go and do that for? You idiot! She’s no good to Jastira with her skull cracked open!”
Then blood flowed into her eyes, and the world went dark.