Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-five
My hands are covered in Luke’s blood.
I force myself to my feet and pause as a wave of dizziness passes. I can’t remember when I last ate, or what. Some car snack, probably. But hunger is the last thing I feel.
I leave Luke with his freshly sutured shoulder and cross the hall into the small bathroom.
With a toilet straight ahead, a counter and sink to my right, and a shower to my left, I start stripping off my clothes.
They’re stuck to me, layers of sand and sweat and grime fusing them to my skin.
I crank the shower as hot as it will go and undo my two braids, which were falling apart anyway.
The spray is scalding. Using a bar of soap I take from a small ledge, I lather it in my hands. Luke’s blood soaked through my clothes and stains my side. My nails scrape at my flesh until it’s raw and red. The water washes the blood off my face from where he cupped my cheek and kissed me.
A kiss I can’t stop thinking about.
Was it just a goodbye kiss? A kiss of regret? Had he thought about kissing me before that moment? How often? Did he only think about kissing?
When I step out of the shower, I still feel covered in blood.
But after wiping away the steam on the mirror, my skin is the same light olive shade it’s always been.
A color that turns sickly in the winter when my summer tan takes a hike.
Now is no different. Paired with my bloodshot eyes and the fading red burns below them, thanks to Badulf’s ichor, I’m the one who looks inhuman.
Maybe I am.
The fear that I’m running out of time to return to the overworld wraps a fist around my heart.
Moira’s words play in my ear. Sometimes we can’t help what we become.
Am I becoming part demon? But I feel human.
Equal parts like I might throw up and blow away with a strong breeze. Tired, despite being wired.
I find a washcloth and wet it with warm water.
In order to get the full view of Luke’s wound, I cut his shirt off earlier.
As I reenter the room, my eyes travel down the tanned expanse of his torso.
To no one’s surprise, he is sporting plenty of definition in the abdominal region, along with a fine trail of hair leading to his belt.
I wrench my gaze away as guilt swarms my gut for letting my eyes wander when he’s in such a vulnerable state.
Instead, I focus on the faded white lines littering his body.
Scars that seem significantly older than the one on his throat, leading me to assume they’re from the adolescent years he spent running and being hunted.
A flash of anger burns through me—I wish I could pop every asshole demon and monster that ever made him afraid.
Much gentler than I was with myself, I wash away the blood on him. The motion soothes my spinning mind as I fall into a rhythm of wiping the red from his skin, rinsing the cloth under the faucet, watching the pink swirl down the drain, and repeating the cycle.
I try to keep my touch light as I rub at a smear on his forehead, but his eyes spring open, fingers circling my wrist to stop my movements.
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
I hadn’t realized how far I was leaning over him, but our faces are only a few breaths apart.
This is the closest I’ve been to him since he kissed me.
It would be too easy to close the gap and initiate a second.
My hair hangs around us like a cage, half-dried tendrils escaping from where I tucked them behind my ears.
I meant to braid it again after showering but was too focused on cleaning him up.
“Hey,” I say, the word too casual for everything we’ve endured in the past twenty-four hours.
“Hey,” he echoes, voice faint and raspy. I reach for the glass of water I prepped on the nightstand, but his hold tightens, keeping me in place. His eyes are bright, too bright, like a light bulb before it burns out.
I press my palm to his cheek, the same thing he did to me before crashing our lips together. His skin is cool and clammy. My other hand goes to his chest, right over his heart. It beats erratically beneath my touch. “I think you’re going into hypovolemic shock.”
He blinks at me. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’ve lost a lot of blood. Too much. It means you’re dying.” My voice rises and I finally escape his hold to grab the first aid kit.
“I am not dying,” he says with as much force as he can muster, which isn’t much.
I find what I’m looking for: a needle syringe I passed earlier. “What blood type are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? How do you not know your own blood type?”
“Why?”
“Because if we’re a match, I might be able to pull off the most janky blood transfusion ever.” I hold the syringe up. “But giving you my blood won’t work if we’re not the same type.”
“I don’t want your blood.”
His voice is finite. Mine is broken, caught on the edge of a sob. “I’m trying to save you.”
“You already have.” He pushes my hand toward the nightstand in an attempt to make me drop the syringe. The simple movement has his eyes rolling with exhaustion, a pained groan slipping out.
“You can’t die,” I tell him, fierce as a threat.
“I won’t,” he promises. His lids flutter shut. “I just need to rest.”
“What you need is blood.”
He forces his eyes open. “What I need is for you to stay.”
I suck in a breath. He can’t possibly mean it in the way my body interprets, heat spiking my bloodstream. But then he repeats it, softer yet, “Stay. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
There is something bigger behind those words, something that gouges at my heart. I’ve felt so alone since my parents died. A fathomless ache that has only briefly ebbed when I’ve been with Krystal. But being with Luke the past few days is the least alone I’ve felt in months.
“You’re not alone. You have me,” I tell him. I wish I could believe he wants me to stay because he wants me, specifically, here with him. But I’ve been by the bedside of patients on the brink. The simple truth is no one wants to die alone.
But he’s not dying, or so he says. Not yet, anyway.
“Besides,” I continue, my impulse to turn everything into a joke rearing its head. “You’re kind of my only ticket out of here now.”
His brows pinch together. He knows there’s something wrong with my words. That I shouldn’t be here. But he doesn’t have the strength to make sense of it.
Unable to help myself, I wipe away the last streak of blood on his forehead.
He gazes up at me. “You look like an angel.”
The words are as reverent as a prayer, as if maybe they were supposed to only exist in his head and not find my ears. But now that they have, I can’t unhear them. He said them in a subconscious slur, as if he’s drunk. Like they’re words he won’t remember, come daylight.
But I sure will.
“I’m no angel,” I tell him, meeting his half-lidded gaze.
“Liar,” he says with an air of affection. “You’re named after one.” He finishes the thought before I catch up to it. “Aren’t you, Gabriella?”
My brain short circuits. “What did you just call me?”
“Sorry,” he murmurs, eyes fluttering shut. He’s fading. “I’m sorry, Brie. For everything.”
And then he’s out cold again, leaving me reeling.
It shouldn’t be a surprise he knows my full name.
There’s plenty of paperwork around the office that likely has it.
The guy probably knows my Social Security number for crying out loud.
But nobody calls me Gabriella. Nobody except my parents.
Everyone in my old life called me Gabby. Brie was my chance to be someone new.
But am I, actually? I just sutured a wound like it’s second nature. I drove in the dark, something I haven’t done since that night. And I’m feeling again, that deep stomach burn that I thought was gone for good. If only it wasn’t the banished brother of the fucking devil making me feel like this.
Luke’s chest rises and falls, expression peaceful for once.
I stand, needing to get some of my jitters out.
I take in the rest of the room now that I’m not bent over Luke stitching him up.
It’s simple, with chipped plaster walls that are a dark maroon shade.
On the far wall are pieces of paper—drawings.
There are dozens stuck with peeling tape.
Most done in crayon, and the better ones in colored pencil.
Those seem newer, though all boast yellowed edges, the lines on the paper faded.
All are monstrous and gruesome. Of creatures with multiple appendages, or claws or fangs or all of the above.
Some are furry, some have scales, some are animals.
Somehow, I know he and his brother drew these images as children. This was his room.
The Polaroid picture pinned to the dusty lampshade tells me I’m right.
It looks ancient, like something you’d find at an estate sale in an old album box.
In it are two young boys, no older than ten.
They’re not identical, but they’re unmistakable as brothers.
The picture is black-and-white, faded sepia with age.
They share the same nose and dark hair. I can only tell that the boy on the right is Luke thanks to his dimples.
But the other boy looks so…normal. Not like a devil-in-the-making.
Even his toothy smile is innocent against Luke’s mischievous grin.
I drag a rocking chair from the corner of the room to beside the bed, curling up on it. Resting my head against the back, I stare at the photo until sleep pulls me down into its ruthless, nightmare-ridden embrace.