by Laura Legend
She shivered again and tried to assess the situation. Part of her wanted to check. Was there anything under those cushions? Was there just a vast emptiness waiting beneath their cracked leather, waiting to swallow her up? But the other part of her just wanted to toss the thing onto the street and buy a Barcalounger instead.
She held her hand out over the couch and swore she could feel a draft of cold air coming from beneath the cushions.
Cass bit her lip and steeled herself. She took hold of one corner of one cushion and lifted it up just enough to steal a look underneath. An impossibly black abyss seemed to yawn open beneath the cushion. She dropped the cushion and backed away.
Shit. Have some guts, Jones, she taunted herself.
She steeled herself again, took two steps forward, and was about to reach for the cushion a second time when a heavy hand pounded on her apartment door, rattling the whole door in its frame.
Chapter 3
Cass silently slipped past the many wooden arms of her wing chun practice dummy and into position next to the door, snagging the modified version of her mother’s katana from the kitchen counter as she did. She calmed her nerves and settled into a fighting stance, sword raised.
The pounding came again.
She waited without answering.
Whoever was in the hall turned the knob back and forth, rattling the door, testing it, but the door was dead-bolted in three places.
Cass took a deep breath and held it.
“Cass, I know you’re in there,” Zach called. “You’ve barely gone out in weeks. Open the door already!”
Cass deflated like a balloon, releasing the air she’d held in her lungs. She’d have cut him in half if he’d come through the door. She was relieved. And, then, embarrassed. She had been keeping to herself and she had been avoiding Zach. She wasn’t sure if, even today, she could handle seeing him.
“Cass,” Zach called again, his voice muffled by the door.
She still didn’t respond.
“I brought bagels and coffee,” Zach baited her, his voice much softer, as he rattled the paper bag in his hand.
Cass hesitated. Then her stomach rumbled, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the wall—when was the last time that she’d eaten? She slid back all three deadbolts in one motion and swung the door open.
“That’s my girl,” Zach started to say, still standing in the door, but stopped mid-sentence when he saw her standing there, barely dressed, sword in hand, with deep black circles under eyes.
“Cass—”
Zach gently shut the door and put the bagels and coffee on the counter. Cass kept herself at an angle to him so that she wouldn’t have to meet the concern in his eyes. How could she explain any of this to him? How could she explain any of this to herself?
Zach sat on a barstool and took her hand, gently pulling her toward him. He reached to take the sword out of her hand but, without meaning to, she recoiled, and almost nicked him with the blade.
She backed up a couple of steps.
“Alright,” Zach said. “Why don’t you hang on to that thing for a minute while we settle in.”
Zach circled the island of counter space that separated the living room from the kitchen and opened a bunch of cupboard drawers looking for clean plates. Nothing. The sink, though, was full of used plates. He pulled two small plates from the pile, let the tap water warm for a moment, wiped them clean, and set them out with bagels.
“Sorry,” Cass said, pulling up a barstool. She ventured a smile.
Zach beamed back, his smile as wide and crooked as ever. He ran a hand through his black hair. The morning light flattered his dark complexion. He slipped off his leather jacket and, in a t-shirt and jeans, pulled up his own barstool.
Zach took a small bite and then watched Cass, in two quick bites, devour half of hers.
“I brought coffee, too,” Zach said, “to remind you that we both have jobs. At the same place. At a coffee shop. And Java’s Palace isn’t the same without you.” He paused. “And from what I can tell, it will definitely be without you from now on if you call in sick again. Today is a non-optional workday.”
Cass hung her head and stuffed the rest of the bagel into her mouth. She chewed slowly, her cheeks full of bagel.
Zach took another bite of his own, his bicep flexing in the tight t-shirt.
Cass raised an eyebrow. “Have you been working out, Zachary Riviera?”
Zach blushed. “No,” he said. “Maybe a little.”
She waited.
“Fine,” he confessed, “I’ve had a lot of time to myself while you’ve been locked up in here. Time to train and reflect. And repeatedly lift very heavy things with my arms. Over and over. Not thinking about you. At all. What was I supposed to be doing?”
Cass smiled and punched him in the arm. He started to protest but saw an opening and switched gears.
“Now you owe me,” he said, grimacing and rubbing the sore spot on his arm. “And you’re going to have to leave the apartment to make it up to me.” He looked her in the eye. She lasted for a couple of seconds and then looked away.
“I don’t know how to do it, Zach,” Cass said, tossing her plate into the sink with a crash. “I don’t know how to go back to living a normal life. I barely knew how to be normal before I learned that the world was filled with vampires and that I’m . . . whatever it is that I am.” She could feel the crush of hopelessness constrict her breathing, bringing her up short. She rested her hand on the pommel of her sword, reassured by the weight and balance of it.
Zach put his hand on top of hers.
“You weren’t meant for normal, Cass,” he started. “You were never meant to live a normal life.” He squeezed her hand. “But that doesn’t mean that you weren’t meant to live. You still get to have a life. It will just have to be . . . an abnormal one.”
His tone was dead serious but his eyes sparkled with mischief.
Cass tried hard not to smile.
“Believe it or not, my life hasn’t been especially normal either. You’ve seen enough to know that I’m not exactly the feckless barista you may have thought I was. I’ve seen things, Cass. Like you, I’ve done things that I can hardly believe myself. But at the end of the day, we’re still just people. We still have to sleep at night and shower and use the crapper. We still have to eat bagels.”
He pulled her reluctant fingers free from the hilt of the sword and then set the sword aside on the counter. Cass’s eyes followed it there. Zach took her chin and pointed her face at him. He looked straight into her weak, wandering eye.
“Come back to us, Cass,” Zach said. “Come back.”
That direct appeal was more than Cass could handle. She fell forward into him, squeezed back tears, and hugged him fiercely.
Zach held her for a long time, drinking in the scent of her and not kissing the nape of neck, until she whispered in his ear: “Okay.”
“Excellent!” Zach exclaimed, holding her at arm’s length and tugging the strap of her camisole back into place. “Now, the first order of business,” he continued, pinching his nose shut, “is to get you into the shower.”
He spun her around and marched her in the direction of the bathroom. She playfully complied.
“Fine,” she said, taunting him. “A shower it is.”
And with that, Cass stepped into bathroom, turned her back to him, pulled off her camisole, set the hot water running and the steam rising, and, with the back of her foot, only partially shut the bathroom door.
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