41. On Drugs with My Boyfriend
On Drugs with My Boyfriend
SNOW
The street’s empty except for me, The Seven, and Brexley. Just us and the streetlight buzzing and my own breath sawing in and out.
I keep waiting for it to switch off. The part of me that wants him. I keep waiting for what he is to reach in and kill it cleanly, the way it would in any woman with sense left in her head.
One just took a bullet to protect Red, and now she’s gone.
Any doubt I had that The Seven were behind what was happening to my friends is gone.
It’s him. It’s been him this whole time.
I want to hate him. I want to scream at him and hit him and beg him to tell me why, but even a partial dose of that sedative turns my blood to lead.
I’m still conscious though, unlike Brexley.
"Where..." My tongue drags through the word. "Where are they taking her?"
One grunts as he pushes onto one elbow. Blood slicks his hand where he clamps it to his side. His face is waxy and pale beneath the streetlight.
"To a facility that can help her."
"She doesn’t need help." I try to move toward him, but my arm gives out. My shoulder hits the wet pavement. The impact rattles through my teeth. "Who has taken them?"
He simply shakes his head. He’ll never tell me.
Brexley lies a few feet away, huge and silver and still breathing. Smoke curls off his burned muzzle. His paws twitch once, claws scraping the street.
"Is Four dead?" I whisper.
One’s face collapses. He presses his bloody hand harder to his side, but his other hand goes to the center of his chest. His fingers claw at his shirt.
"He’s gone," he says.
My throat closes.
Four’s red eyes. His wicked smile and the way he called me baby. The way his heat met mine, reckless and wild, like we were both made of the same dangerous fire, burning too bright, too fast, daring the world to try and put us out.
And now he is gone.
Snuffed out like he had never existed at all.
Gone.
"I couldn't let them hurt her," One says. "I would never let anyone hurt your friends."
I believe him.
That’s the worst part.
Do I believe him because I love him? Because I do. Past the place where it makes sense.
I should be able to kill this feeling.
I should be able to look at him bleeding on the pavement and feel nothing but rage.
Instead, I want to press my hands over the wound and hold him together.
I think of the men who left him here, bleeding out on the street, like he’s trash. And I can tell he’s not even surprised. He expects it.
But he couldn’t let them do that to Red. He threw himself in front of a bullet for Red. His blood is spreading across the pavement, and I want to stop it. I want to help him.
"Then take me to them," I say. "Please. Take me where Red is. Where Ariel is. I’ll go with you. I won’t fight. Just take me to my friends."
His eyes shut.
For a second, I think he’ll say yes.
His jaw flexes. His throat moves. The conflict cuts across his face so clearly, I could trace it with my finger.
Then he shakes his head.
"I can’t."
"You can."
"I can’t." His voice breaks on it. "But I won’t let what happened to Rosie happen to them. Or Carolee. I swear to you, Snow. They’re going to be better soon."
Better.
The word should make me sick.
Instead, the hope on his face does me in.
The raw need in it. The terrible hope. The boy inside the man, bleeding on a Boston street, still reaching for a cure that would make him lovable.
Normal.
He wants it the way I want magic.
The realization slices through me.
"I want to be good enough for you," he says, barely above the hum of the abandoned street. "Maybe one day, when this is over, you could find a place deep down inside you that can forgive me."
My eyes burn.
"Is it better? One power ripped from your body, do you feel more lovable? Do you feel more worthy?"
His expression is pained, features twisting as if something inside him is tearing loose.
The pale white of his eyes fades as different parts of him flash through—blue, green, and purple, a violent flickering betraying the riot inside.
Grief ripples across The Seven's face in waves, not just his own but layered, colliding, as if every version of him is screaming at once.
"Will your mother see it that way?" I ask.
As his eyes light, I realize too late I've said the wrong thing. The same sad resolve has returned.
That's exactly what he thinks. One part of him has been killed off, and his mother will see it as an improvement.
"She's wrong," my voice is hoarse as it cracks. "I love you," I whisper, and hate myself for it. "I hate you. I love you."
One’s breath shudders out.
He drags himself closer. Every inch costs him. Blood smears beneath him, dark and glossy. He reaches Brexley first, grabs the wolf by the scruff with a shaking hand, and hauls him farther from the street. Then he gets to me.
His arms come under me with careful strength, and my body betrays me instantly, aching, reaching, melting into the familiar hold before I can stop it.
I lean into him without thinking. His scent wraps around me, warm, sharp, achingly him, and I inhale it like I’ve been starving, like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the world.
"You’ll be safe here until the drug wears off," One says. "It won't be long."
"Don’t go." My tone is begging, and I mean it. After everything, I need him. I want him.
His mouth trembles.
He leans over me and presses his lips to my forehead.
Soft.
Tender.
And then he's gone.