by Jessa Lucas
I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the sincerity burning in his. It weirdly uncharacteristic and also somehow familiar. “You’re so fucking dire Gilles, I can’t even.”
He stared up me expectantly. “Can’t even... what?”
I shrugged. “That’s the end of the phrase.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t make it up, okay?” I said, this little interaction sort of undermining the whole towering-over-him thing I had going for me.
I cleared my throat as subtly as possible. “Let me lay it out for you, Gilles. Paint a nice picture. Exhibit A: Gilles, sneaking around an emo castle, telling everyone I’m untrustworthy. Exhibit B: Gilles, sneaking around an emo castle as he follows me, telling me to my face I’m untrustworthy. Exhibit C: Gilles, telling me not to go into that creepy ass hallway, and good thing I didn’t listen, because which motherfucking bitch queen lives down there? I’ll let you take a guess.”
The bow was getting a little too clunky for my purposes, so I kicked it aside and planted the sole of my foot on Gilles’ thigh. I slowly withdrew the knife from my boot.
“Exhibit D,” I whispered, leaning in, “Gilles dying, and bargaining with aforementioned very powerful evil queen for a cure.”
His nostrils flared. “You think--” he shook his head. “I answered for why I don’t entirely trust you. And I suggested you not to go down there because if you think I don’t trust you, you better believe I don’t trust—”
“So you definitely knew it was her lair.”
The heel of my boot ground farther into his thigh as I raised an eyebrow in question.
“You’re wrong, Princess. You don’t even have proof. It’s all conjecture.”
“This is what’s going to happen,” I said as I came down on him, straddling him in a sexy but effective form of restraint. “I need something from you, Gilles, and you’re going to give it to me.”
God, I never thought I’d want Gilles, but hate sex was sounding oh so appealing right about now. I held the knife to his jaw, trying not to smile. “So fragile,” I taunted. “Little glassblower.”
Gilles, despite having a blade to his throat, grinned. “Enjoying yourself?”
“You better pray to whatever greater being you believe in that I don’t enjoy myself much more than this.”
I could feel him between my legs. I shifted uncomfortably, my self-awareness interrupting the show for a fleeting moment. Things only got worse with the adjusting, and I nearly lost my composure when the girth of him sparked a whole new series of images in my mind.
Gilles must’ve seen me swallow uncertainly, because he dropped the smile, eyeing the knife still in my hand. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he reached up carefully to my wrist like he thought the gentleness would persuade me to drop it. I thrust my other hand into his chest and he slammed against the back of the chair.
She was coming, and I was letting her.
I leaned in close, whispering into his ear. “Fight your way out.”
“I told you you were stronger than you thought,” he said quietly. He tried to sit back up, but he was immovable against the siren strength catching fire in me. My human was burning to the ground.
A lazy smile came to his face. "This is a side of you I haven't seen yet."
“Well familiarize yourself quickly,” I warned, the siren growing desperate with the build up. I began to move against him slowly and intentionally, watching as his face flashed through a series of expressions, none of them displeased.
“Say no to me,” I murmured into Gilles’ ear.
“No.”
“Say you don’t want me.”
“I don’t want you,” he rasped.
“You could use a little more conviction, Gilles. I don’t believe you.”
He watched my face carefully as my hand made its way to the button of his pants and unfastened it.
“That’s because I’m lying,” he said.
I moved my fingers to his groin and grazed my nails across the leather of his pants. Gilles tilted his head back, eyes closed, and released the faintest moan. His breath pressed hot against my face. He set his hands on my hips, sliding them up underneath my blouse. The siren cried out in triumph as his fingertips dragged along my skin. I smirked at him.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me,” Gilles breathed, “but I know that touching me helps.”
“Oh, you’ve decided to be helpful now?”
“Don’t think I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon,” he said, his fingers crushing into my waist, “so I figure I can either take pleasure in this, or fight it.”
“‘Enjoying yourself?’” I quoted back to him. The nonchalance of his usual demeanor returned as he smiled at me, withholding the obvious answer.
“Let me be very clear,” I purred. “Under any other sans-curse circumstances, I would not be on top of you.” I drew the point of the knife along his jaw, down the line of his neck, and flicked open the collar of his tunic with the tip of the knife, watching his chest rise and fall. “But since we’re here...” My eyes found his. “Let’s make the most of it.”
“Agreed,” Gilles muttered, his eyes suddenly fervent.
And then his lips were on mine, his tongue halfway down my throat in that needy way that makes a gal feel like a body is a poor vessel to properly contain such a height of sensation.
I clung to him as my vision sizzled and popped, my skin erupting into tingles where his hands dug into my waist, his face brushed against mine—
“You decide to kill me with that yet, or can we get rid of it?” Gilles breathed.
“Let’s hope not,” I said under my breath, and the knife clattered to the ground just as his mouth met mine again, lips working furiously against mine.
A monotone engine—
A blurred skyline—
A book, heavy in my lap—
“Cruel Princess,” he sighed against my mouth.
“Shut up, Gilles,” I said again, helping him do the job with my mouth.
A head on my shoulder—
Gilles’ coughing stirred me. When I opened my eyes it was dark outside, but I had no way of gaging just how late it was. I’d been leaning against the extended side of the chair, and I peeked over at him. Still alive— not succumbed to his condition, not maimed by me. Well, that was a relief.
I watched him, his head resting on the window, mouth hanging open as air wheezed in and out of his lungs. I wondered what it would be like to know you were dying. Here I was, setting out to forge a new future and sitting next to someone who didn’t have one.
Gilles’ body was assaulted by a fit of coughs and I didn’t even think before reaching out. Thank god I had my hoodie sleeve clutched over my hand. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d touched a man of my own volition. I’d never wanted to... not when my touch was a disease to their common sense.
Gilles stirred and looked up at me, eyes groggy.
“You okay?”
He cleared his throat and nodded, and I could tell he was still straddling consciousness and sleep. I was shocked he could even sleep on a bumpy bus with a roaring engine in the first place, let alone with coughs rocking through his body constantly.
I moved my hand away slowly, and he looked at it, kind of like a cat who’s not sure whether it wants to be pet or not. I looked down at my lap, feeling guilty.
“It’s fine,” Gilles said, looking me over as he came to a little more. “I might be dying, but I’m not that fragile.”
“Tell that to your reflection.” Gilles was thin— malnourished, like me— and pale.
He offered a croaky laugh. “Just hard to sleep sometimes. Especially on these goddamn buses. Keep slamming my head into the glass every time we go over a bump.”
I nodded, knowing the feeling. Gilles looked me up and down again, slouching into his seat much the way I would think a cute rebellious guy in class would, and the line of his mouth curved up a little.
“It was sweet, you
ng seafarer. To check on me. Don’t worry.”
“Seafarer?”
“Yeah. Saylor...?”
“Oh.”
“It’s okay, it was a bad joke. I didn’t want to say seaman in case you heard—”
“Yeah, got it.”
I kicked my knees up and huddled into my hoodie. Really, it was fucking ridiculous how cold I always was. My eyes trailed along all the other misfits and nomads scattered in the seats, trying not to feel ashamed of myself. First the humming, and now the touching-without-a-second-thought-ing? God. I’d already had one close call with the guy.
“I think it’s a nice name, even if it does sound kind of made up.”
I crinkled my nose. If I’d been smarter, I would’ve cut ties completely with my birth name. For some reason, I’d never been able to.
“Relax,” Gilles said, misreading my sour expression. “No need to be a princess about it.”
“Oh, I’m a ‘princess’ now?”
“Princess— I like it. Has a nice ironic ring to it.”
“H’okay, whatever floats your boat.”
“You do, sailor. Ahoy, matey.”
I frowned at Gilles, bemused. “Why do you keep trying to give me a nickname?”
He shrugged. “False affection, I suppose.”
“False affection? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gilles’ eyes found the window, where the highway sped past in a blur of concrete and navy sky, scattered pulses of yellow streetlights. “I guess one could say I’m not so great at... caring.”
“Is that why you actually ran away?”
“Sure.” He paused a moment, and then: “Yeah.”
I found myself grinning at him knowingly. “I so have you pegged, Gilles. It’s not that you don’t care. You care too much. It’s just that caring hurts.”
Gilles laughed, and I smiled at the sound until it turned into a croak. God, it was the worst sound, like he was choking for air. I reached out and patted his back, handing him what was left in his water bottle. It satiated the coughs, but it was only a matter of time before he’d need more.
“Thanks.” He frown-smiled at me like he was amused by just how mom-like this strange homeless girl was turning out to be. “Why’d you run away?”
I felt my expression freeze. “I’ll tell you if you tell me why you’re really running away.”
“You found me out. I care too much.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything! Be vulnerable with me, dude.”
“It tells you everything.” Gilles looked at me seriously for a moment, and I wasn’t sure how to respond with all that weird sincerity suddenly in his eyes. “Fine,” he finally said. “An unpleasant vulnerability for the demanding princess: the truth is, I hate being on this bus. But it feels a lot like life. We’re all caged birds, and death is just going to set us free.”
“That is some morbid shit, Gilles.” I folded my arms over one another.
He shrugged. “You wanted the truth. That’s mine.”
“I’m not judging you, I’m just, like, stating a fact.”
“Tell me, do you think I’m a sick person?”
I stared at Gilles for a second as his mouth quivered with an oncoming smile, and I finally burst into laughter, trying to keep my voice low. He started laughing too, our hushed giggled aware of all the sleeping ears around us. “That’s not funny,” I said.
“You’re laughing. Come on, your turn now. Why’d you run?”
I swallowed. Now that it came to it, this chance to be real, to admit even a partial truth about my past—
I couldn’t make my mouth open. I wanted to explain how I’d come to sit on this bus with him; the desire to be honest was wound up in me like a spring. But the truth wasn’t any easier to confess to myself, even with the years I’d put between me and all the things I’d left behind.
I looked at my hands as they shook, feeling Gilles follow my gaze. I self-consciously tugged my sleeves down farther.
“You know what, it’s okay,” Gilles said. “It was dumb for me to even ask. You wouldn’t make a very good assassin if you gave away your alias, right?”
I looked up at him, not quite sure how to respond. He raised his eyebrows slowly, his look dead serious. “It’s cool. But you really should work on your game face--”
Cue the coughing.
I dug around in my backpack with a hand, extracting my own battered water bottle. I unscrewed the lid and handed it to him, watching him helplessly as he gulped it down.
The guy was dying. He was all alone on a bus... and he was dying. There was a growing dissonance in me. How could I be both the woman who’d killed and the one who pitied the dying?
“I should try to sleep,” he muttered, breath still labored. He looked so tired, eyes drooping, heavy bags underneath them.
“Gilles,” my eyes wandered awkwardly as I tried to make sense of my next words, but before I knew it, the offer was out of my mouth. “You can lean on my shoulder if that helps. I mean, if you want.”
I felt so awkward as he considered me, those tired eyes somehow bright and vigilant despite everything. Gilles shifted, leaning over and resting his head against my shoulder. His body heat blanketed me and even though it wasn’t touch, it felt close enough that I held my breath and rested in the feeling of this small intimacy.
“Are you afraid of it?” I asked softly. “Death, I mean.”
For a beat, he didn’t answer. And then he finally said, “Not so much.”
“I’m terrified,” I admitted.
“What’s there to be afraid of?”
“Easy to say for someone who doesn’t deserve hell,” I mumbled, not sure he heard. “I’m not a good person, Gilles. That’s why I ran away.”
“What’s a person like you done that could screw you over so bad for the afterlife?”
I didn’t know if I was a person. I didn’t know what I was. I shoved the images of their faces deeper to the compartment of forgotten relics Erin Greyson had left behind.
“All things considered, you seem average-to-better on a scale of shithead to saint. The afterlife is bull anyway. This is hell,” Gilles said, and I adjusted my chin to catch a glimpse of him, my cheek pressing against the top of his head. “Being stuck in a body on a bus to nowhere is hell.”
“You chose to be on this bus,” I pointed out.
“Aren’t the worst hells the ones we choose for ourselves?”
I frowned. “I think I’d be afraid of the nothingness just as much, though.”
“Existence is exhausting. Nothingness— to me, right now— sounds like a nice long sleep. Not on a bumpy bus.”
I chuckled quietly.
“Thanks, Sera,” Gilles said.
“Sera, now?” I asked.
“Sure,” he muttered, sounding half asleep but the undertones of his usual humor still ripe in his voice. “Sera. Like Seraphim. You have something burning in your eyes.” My heart pounded furiously for a moment. Had Gilles seen the monster light up in my eyes earlier? Before I could go into ultra-panic mode, he said sleepily, “Or cause you’re my death angel or whatever.”
“I’m not your death—”
“Shhh, I’m trying to sleep, Sera,” he hushed. And then, a smile in his voice, he said, “By chance, would you know anyone who could hum me a lullaby?”
I smiled wryly to myself. After a moment, I lay my head against his. “I happen to know a lullaby. Just one.”
I began to hum again— the only song I ever hummed. It seemed to play in a never-ending loop in the background of my mind, a tale of forgotten origin. My father used to tell me my mother loved to sing. I liked to imagine the tune was a gift she’d given my subconscious, long before I could remember her breathing life into it.
But who knew. What I did know was that I’d reached for this man and indulged in music in front of him. I didn’t know why he was different, but as I released the song from its leash and allowed my vocal chords to roll over a familiar path, I felt her— the inhum
an part of me— sway along to the music.
As Gilles’ breathing leveled out, the song faded and we both dozed off to the ups and downs of the road.
I dreamt of the ocean and its sand, of a tall tower at the edge of a shore... and of something shimmering— not the surface of the sea, but something crystal, something like glass—
“Sera.”
I opened my eyes, breathing in deeply through my nose. “Yes?” I blinked, trying to contextualize my surroundings. The bus. Gilles. The road speeding past.
We were stopped. Some people were standing, filing off the bus.
“Time to go,” Gilles said. I nodded and reached sluggishly for my backpack. When I stood, he looked away.
“You coming?”
Gilles frowned at me. “This is your stop, not mine.”
I sat back down. “I’m not going to leave you, are you kidding me? If you’re going to ride this bus til your dying breath, then I will, too.”
“This isn’t really a ride or die kind of situation for you, Sera.”
“It literally is.” I inclined my head to him, popping my fingers anxiously. I couldn’t leave him, but it’s not like I could save him either.
“Get off the bus. Before I get so sickly that you watch me wither away.”
“Oh wow, I’m convinced now.”
“Seriously, get off the damn bus, Sera. I won’t be the end of your line. Los Angeles is too important.”
“Come with me,” I urged.
Gilles shook his head. “There’s nothing for me where you’re going. Go assassinate some evil dictators, slay some dragons. Whatever.”
“You are such a nerd,” I said, my voice breaking a little despite the jab.
His eyes crinkled up, his dorky-ass smile joyful as it proved my point. Gilles laughed, and then patted my sleeve with as much awkwardness as was to be expected between the two of us. “This is your journey. Go do it, before you make a big mistake and do something we both regret.”
“Like what?”
“Like falling for a dying man, Sera.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not—”
“You would.” Gilles grinned. “All of this? Come on. You’d have no chance.”
He moved his fingers, pushing them underneath the sleeve of my hoodie and gripping my hand. I stifled the gasp, suddenly terrified of what his direct touch would do. “Get off the bus, Saylor,” he hissed.
