Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-six
It’s still dark out when I wake.
I reach for my phone to check the time before remembering I gave it to Krystal. Krystal. My heart aches at the thought of my friend. I hope she’s already back in the overworld getting help. If I cling to nothing else, it’s that.
I fell asleep with my contacts in, so it takes a few good blinks to clear my burning eyes. When I can finally see, the first thing that registers is the empty bed in front of me.
Empty as in, no Luke.
I launch out of the chair, joints cracking with the movement.
Every part of me is sore, and to make matters worse, I have a crick in my neck.
But it doesn’t stop me from bursting through the closed door of the bathroom.
The shower is on and steam billows out around me.
Tripping over discarded apparel on the floor, I catch myself against the counter.
I stare at the jeans and boxers before lifting my gaze to the shadowed body behind the shower curtain.
“Luke?”
He can’t be up and about. The guy was on the brink of death. There’s no way—
“You could have knocked.”
I’m tempted to rip the curtain out of the way just to see if he’s really here or if I’m eternally trapped in a nightmare that’s getting weirder and weirder. My mouth opens, but only a pathetic squeak comes out.
He pokes his head around the curtain. Exhaustion mars his face, but it is him. “Hi, Brie.”
“What are you doing?” I glance between the open door leading to the bed he was dying on a few hours ago and him, alive and—well, not thriving, exactly, but alive.
“I’m taking a shower,” he says simply. Despite the casual tone, his words are edged with pain. “I was trying not to get your bandages wet but I don’t think I did a great job.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m so relieved I have a head rush. Or maybe that’s the steam mixing with the fact I have yet to put food in my body.
“Sorry if I scared you by not being there when you woke up.” He disappears behind the curtain and I try not to track the shadow of his body as he continues showering. I can’t see anything specific, and it’s not like I’m looking.
Much.
“Sorry I barged in here.” I start to leave. “I’ll give you your privacy as long as you promise not to keel over in there.”
“Stay.”
Stay. That word I was so sure he was only saying hours prior because he was delirious from blood loss. But here it is again when he’s somehow, miraculously, lucid.
“Please stay,” he amends. “Do you mind wrapping my wound again once I’m out?”
He sounds…hesitant? No—unsure. Like he doesn’t want to overstep by asking this of me. As if there are any barriers left between us.
“Of course not.” I close the door, shutting us in the bathroom.
The shower turns off and my breath sticks in my chest as he reaches for a towel hung on a hook. I turn around to face the sink, which isn’t much better because of the mirror, though it’s fogged. I left the first aid kit on the counter so I busy myself by pulling out the necessary supplies.
“You can turn around,” he says. “I’m decent.”
Nothing about this feels decent.
I face him anyway. He stands with a white towel around his waist, water droplets falling from the edges of his hair onto the cracked tile in soft plinks. The bathroom is so small we’re nearly chest to chest.
“I don’t understand how you’re standing right now,” I tell him, carefully removing the wet bandage from his shoulder. I’m pleased to see it’s only minorly spotted with blood.
“You did a good job patching me up.” He glances at the precise row of stitches before his eyes come back to me. “Thank you.”
“I could have done the world’s best job patching you up and it still wouldn’t explain this.” I gesture to him standing. “Was it the balm? What’s in it?”
He hesitates, then nods. “It’s a remedy my mother taught us how to make using beeswax, oil, and calendula. All very rare in the underworld, but not in the overworld. But don’t sell yourself short. If I was still bleeding, it wouldn’t have helped as much.”
I flush, wishing I could put some distance between us so I could breathe. With no other choice, I back up until my butt hits the edge of the counter and sit on it. It would help if I didn’t still need him within arms’ reach.
Realizing this, he steps into the gap between my knees. The act is innocent, one meant to make things easier for me. It does anything but and completely negates the space I desperately need. I swallow, trying—failing—to refocus.
“How does it look?”
His shoulder. He’s talking about his shoulder.
“It’s already healing,” I observe. Finally getting my shit together, I start going through the motions of redressing it. I smear antiseptic across the sutures and he sucks in a breath. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” he grits out. His tired eyes drink me in. “How are you?”
“I’m”—how am I?—“alive.”
He huffs. “Obviously. I mean, how are you doing?”
I shrug, enraged I feel the press of tears again. Have I not cried out every ounce of liquid in me by now?
“I was scared,” I whisper past the lump in my throat, focused on the gauze I’m holding in place while tearing off a piece of medical tape with my teeth. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“So did I. At Beliar’s.”
I still can’t look at him. “Is that why you kissed me?”
He’s silent for a few beats. “It’s why I kissed you then, in that moment.
I knew I was marching off to near-certain death.
Maybe I should have been more frightened.
But all I could think of was how your mouth felt against mine in my dreams, and how dying without knowing what kissing you was really like seemed like such a waste. ”
In my dreams. I meet his dark gaze. “I thought you don’t dream.”
“Not until you.”
His words destroy my resolve. “Were you dreaming about kissing me in the motel?”
He stiffens, caught. “Among other things.”
Warmth tidal-slams my belly. I look up at him through my lashes. “And did the kiss live up to your wildest imagination?”
He holds my stare. “Far surpassed it, actually.”
I break away before the fire in his eyes incinerates me. My body is burning, like the room is a sauna and I’m trapped in its suffocating heat. “I figured the blood loss was clouding your judgment.”
“Maybe a bit,” he admits. “If I was thinking clearly, I would have made sure it was alright with you first. I am sorry for that.”
“Of all the things you have to be sorry for, that’s not one of them.”
“Then let me be sorry for everything else. Starting with the truth about my brother.”
I refocus my gaze on bandaging his wound. “Why did you keep that from me?”
“I wasn’t completely sure he was the devil. Things were complicated when I left.”
“When he banished you, you mean.”
Luke flinches, though from my words or me tightening the gauze, I don’t know. “Right.”
It’s quiet as I finish. He moves his arm and winces, but doesn’t back up. Now that his shoulder is wrapped, I have nothing to pin my gaze on but his own.
“We’re alone here?”
His question feels like a swift kick to the backs of my knees, crumbling the cliff edge of restraint I’m clinging to. “Sure are.”
“You met Moira.”
I nod. “Your mother.”
“Yes.” He hesitates before adding, “Did she say anything about me?”
“Just that if you made it through the night, you’d be fine. I guess she was right.”
He grimaces. “ ‘Fine’ is a stretch. Where is she now?”
“She took Krystal, Poppi, and Yasmine to Santa Monica Pier, where she said there’s an entrance to the overworld. They should be there by now. I hope.”
“So should you.” Luke’s disapproving gaze sears into me. “Why didn’t you go with them?”
“And leave you here? You were going to die.”
“I wasn’t going to die,” he insists. Which, sure, is easy to believe now when he’s standing here very much alive. But a few hours ago? Not so much.
“I know you’ll get me back.”
His expression is conflicted, like he wants to assure me he will, but can’t. “Brie, I—”
“I know,” I cut him off.
“You have no idea what I’m about to say.”
“You’re about to tell me that I should stay here while you go face off with your brother. The devil. That I should go by myself to the pier and return to the overworld before the eclipse.”
He blows out a frustrated sigh. “Is that so bad? That I want you to stay safe?”
“When are you going to get it?” I ask him quietly. “I have nothing to lose. I made sure I wouldn’t have anything to lose ever again after leaving my hometown for good. And the only person who crept past those walls is hopefully on her way back to her family.”
“The only person?” He asks it like a dare.
Something’s different. Maybe it’s our kiss. Maybe it’s the heat seeping off his skin and into mine. Maybe it’s the damn towel. Maybe it’s the way I wish it wasn’t there at all.
I evade his question. “I’m not going to leave you. We’re a team. And the overworld is my world, too. I made it this far. We can finish this together. We can save the world. Both of them. It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but isn’t it the truth? We could be heroes.”
His eyes flutter shut. It feels like a victory, until he opens his mouth. “I’m no hero.”
“Krystal would disagree. So would Poppi and Yasmine. Madeline was my fault, not yours.”
“No.” The word flies out of him. His hand is on my chin, tilting my head up so I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “That wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. Do you understand?”
Startled, I nod. I don’t know where to put my hands, so I place them on his chest. His eyes are so dark I want to dive into them to see everything lurking beneath the surface. I want to know Luke inside out. With a start, I realize it’s because I want him to know me inside out.
It’s a scary thing, to know and be known. More to lose. But I already almost lost him, and I can’t pretend it wasn’t terrifying all the same.
“I love Thai takeout,” I tell him before my nerve makes a run for it.
“And the rain, especially during a steamy Florida afternoon, because it’s warm and weird and perfect.
My favorite flowers are purple coneflowers.
They popped up every spring in our backyard at home and my dad and I used to complain that they looked freaky, but my mom loved them, so now I do, too.
Before I ever thought about becoming a doctor, I wanted to go to film school.
Being a producer or screenwriter seemed so cool. I love movies and—”
I dig my teeth into my bottom lip, realizing I’m rambling. Luke looks down at me with an intrigued expression. A nervous laugh shoots out. “Sorry, that was so random. I just was thinking about what you said in the van about wanting to know me, but—”
“I don’t think I’ve tried Thai food, but I bet I’d like it.
” His voice is deep and genuine. My palms on his chest track the rumble of each word.
“I love the rain. As I made my way east toward New York, it was my favorite companion. I’ve never thought much about flowers, but when I woke up in the overworld, I was in a field of poppies and they were the brightest colors I’d seen in my life.
When I close my eyes, I still see them and can’t believe they were real.
That any of the beautiful things natural to the overworld are. ”
My heart hiccups. His hips are perfectly slotted between my knees. The front of his towel is mere centimeters from the place I’m warmest.
He hotly holds my gaze, continuing. “I never used to dream about what I’d be when I grew up because I wasn’t sure I would. When I did, management came easy to me, but I don’t think I’d call it a passion. What I really love is a good spreadsheet.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “The words ‘what I really love is a good spreadsheet’ should never leave the mouth of a human. Ever.”
He grins, amusement dancing in his eyes. “You’ll be sick to know the best part of my weekends was analyzing the data from the weekly report.”
I pretend to gag, but it loses impact because I can’t stop giggling. They’re overtired, what-hour-even-is-it giggles, but giggles all the same. “Disgusting. Diabolical. Borderline masochism.”
“Maybe I also enjoyed the brief interactions with you required to receive said report.”
That sops my laughter up, swiping my breath. “Oh? Enjoyed them so much you couldn’t remember my name isn’t Brianna?”
A throaty chuckle escapes him as he drops his head between us, shaking it. “You really thought I didn’t know your name?”
I shrug, the movement casual but the tension crackling between us absolutely feral. “Nobody else really knew me, besides Krystal. Why should you?”
His head lifts. “Because I wanted to. Maybe even before I realized it. The name thing was juvenile. I don’t know where it came from. I just wanted a reason to talk to you.”
My head tilts so my hair falls over my shoulder. He tracks the movement hungrily. “And now you can’t get me to shut up.”
“Wouldn’t want to even if I could.”
“No?” Now that I know what his mouth feels like on mine, I crave him. I hate that there’s still space between us. The fear of nearly losing him can only be quelled by feeling him everywhere. “I’m kind of tired of talking, personally.”
“And what would you rather do?” he asks, a husky edge to his voice.
Gabby wouldn’t be honest. But even though pieces of her still live within me, a truth that’s more evident by the day, I’m grateful I’m not her anymore. I’m me. No longer afraid to take what I want and survive a cross-country road trip through hell. So far, at least.
He’s not waiting for an answer—and I don’t intend to give him one. Not verbally, anyway.
Instead, I kiss him.