by eden Hudson
It made sense. Tough had done what he had to do to save his brother. Death was the only release outside the will of the fallen angel—all the articles said so. But being this close to it… And Tempie… My head started spinning again.
Then I heard a man’s voice, raised like he was arguing with someone.
Harper opened the bedroom door and leaned into the hall.
“Should you go check on him?” she asked whoever was out there. “Seriously, if he tears up my room—”
“Check on who?” I asked. “Is Tough okay?”
Harper shut the door again.
“He’s fine,” she said. “I told you Tough killed Colt—but I think God brought Colt back to life. Like a miracle.”
I didn’t have the energy to ask her to explain any better. The point was Tough had ‘visited death upon his brother’ and a ‘holy champion’ had risen. Jax surely knew that that fulfilled the prophecy, so he must be talking to Bailey about something else.
“I need to see Tough,” I said. Talk about mental disorders. What I really needed to do was cut my losses and walk away before I ended up like Mom or, like, dead.
“No,” Harper said.
Two loud bangs shook the bedroom wall. Harper swung around.
“Go check on your brother,” she yelled.
Tough knocked again.
“Go, or I’ll crucifix you,” Harper said. “Desty needs to gather her thoughts so she can tell you to go stake yourself. You almost killed her. She hates you, you jackoff.”
“I do not!” My head started to drop again, but I hooked my elbows on my knees and grabbed a handful of hair on either side to keep my head up. Apparently being stupid-in-love outdid common sense and blood loss. “I don’t hate you, Tough. I mean, what you did—that was really—but—”
Either Tough was knocking on the wall again or my heart was trying to make me go deaf. My fingers slid through my hair. I felt Harper’s hands push me backward. My head hit the pillow. A burning needle stabbed through my stomach above my bellybutton.
“Ow.” I tried to swipe it off. My hand made it about halfway there before it fell back. “What…”
“It’s a blood charm,” Harper said. “I had Scout pick it up. It’ll help you recover faster from being fed on and keep you from going anemic. If you were serious about staying with Tough, I’d tell you to get something more permanent, but this’ll work for now.”
The effect was almost immediate. I felt wired, like I’d had too much coffee without eating. The charm was still hot. I lifted my head and looked down my stomach at the little glowing red stud.
“Is that a grenade?” I asked.
“Scout said she thought it was appropriate,” Harper said.
“A hand grenade.”
“She said back in World War I they used to test recruits in boot camp by throwing dummy grenades into a crowd to see if any of them jumped on it to contain the explosion.”
Nice. A stab at me for being a wuss.
Harper must’ve seen what I was thinking in my expression.
“Just be glad I didn’t let her stick around to tell you in person,” she said.
Yeah, thank God for small blessings. But the charm was making me feel better—physically, at least. I sat up and only shook a little. While I watched, the fang marks scabbed over and the bruise around them lightened.
“You’re going to need to hear that lecture sometime,” Harper said.
“Probably some mental help, too,” I said under my breath. “Can I see him now?”
“No.” Then Harper called over her shoulder, “And if you hit that wall again, Tough, I swear I’ll have someone come in and bless this entire house.” She pointed at me. “You’re bloody, weak, and half-naked. You two need to get this through your thick skulls—vamps are predators. Letting Tough come in here would be like hanging some steaks on a baby and setting a werewolf loose.”
“Fine,” I said.
Tough knocked, softly this time.
Harper sighed.
“I’m not trying to be a bitch,” she said. “You can’t be like this around him anymore. Maybe it was okay to be weak where you’re from, but it’s not here. Weak equals prey. NPs back home messed with you all the time, didn’t they?”
Not just NPs. Weak nerds occupy that lucky class that gets picked on by people and non-people alike.
“Yeah.”
“And your sister protected you from the worst of it?”
I nodded. Except when she was with Dad, or skipping school with her boyfriends, or later, locked in our room with her music cranked, dreaming about fallen angels.
“Unless you’re going to go join her and Kathan, you need to grow up,” Harper said.
I nodded again. Then I cleared my throat and raised my voice—“Tough, go away.”
There was a shifting in the hall, like someone putting their weight on a different foot.
“Please, Tough,” I said. “I need another shower. Then you and I need to talk.”
Tough
I dug a couple shirts out of my laundry basket and held them up for Colt.
Gray or blue? I asked him.
For a long time, he just stood there staring.
Something wrong?
Colt flinched and snapped out of it.
“No.” He took the gray shirt and pulled it on. The bottom of the tattoo on his left arm still stuck out the sleeve, but having the cross covered helped. I could even look at it without getting knocked on my ass—“will not leave you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the house of—” I had to stop reading there, but I remembered how the verse ended.
Guess it depends on who the “you” is, I thought. Some guys got resurrected. Other guys could commit suicide-by-vamp and damn their eternal soul to Hell and No One would lift a fucking finger. It was pretty hard not to be jealous of shit like that.
“What?” Colt asked.
You got some new tats, I said.
He gave me a suspicious look. “Yeah?”
Yeah. My head was killing me. I tried to massage some of the throbbing out of the spot where my skull connected with the back of my neck.
“That’s it?” Colt asked.
What else would there be?
“I don’t know… What about them?”
Nothing. It was just something to say.
Colt shook his head. “Everything leads somewhere.”
Where would it lead? I say you got new ink, you say yeah, then I say let’s go downstairs so we don’t have to talk to each other anymore.
For another couple seconds, Colt watched me like I might sucker punch him. Finally, he relaxed. I squeezed the back of my neck and wished that the bass in my head would either stop pounding or pick a tempo and stick with it. To top that off, my hands were starting to shake again. I needed a drink.
Let’s just go downstairs, I said.
***
When we came down, Harper and Desty were too occupied with what they were doing to look at us.
“You’re still not counting fast enough,” Harper said. “Start again. Go.”
She had her arms around Desty’s waist and she was leaning over Desty’s neck like a vamp drinking. For a minute I just stood there staring at them. Desty looked so hot with Harper holding her that way. I knew Harper wasn’t a vamp, but I knew what she’d be feeling if she was one and she was drinking out of Desty.
Then Desty’s legs gave out. Since Harper was so much shorter than Desty, all she could do was slow down her fall. My throat went dry and I started to move. Harper flashed her crucifix at me over Desty’s shoulder. It held me off, but just barely.
“Keep your feet under you,” Harper coached her. “If you end up on the ground, he’s going to be on top of you before you can move. Then—”
“Then you’re dead,” Desty interrupted like she’d heard that a hundred times already. She was still hanging in Harper’s arms, but now she had her feet on the floor.
“You know, if you don’t want to take thi
s seriously, Scout’s pretty keen on getting Tough to be her protector,” Harper said.
“I am taking it seriously,” Desty said. “Sorry, I just— When do I stand back up?”
“Go ahead,” Harper said, still staring me down with the crucifix.
When Desty stood up and turned around to face me and Colt, she got all self-conscious and started adjusting her shirt and pushing her bangs out of her face.
“Hey,” she said. “Um, the lesson’s over. We were just practicing. Or whatever you want to call it.”
“Hey, Colt,” Harper said.
“Hey, Harper.” Colt nodded at her. Then he looked at Desty.
“Hi,” she said.
“Uh, hi.”
You guys are making me feel awkward, I said. Colt, this is Desty. Introduce yourself so I don’t have to go find some paper.
“Yeah, sorry,” Colt said. “Desty. Tough told me you guys were together. I’m—I’m—” Suddenly Colt’s heart was going a hundred miles a minute. He tried taking a breath, but it got caught in his throat. “Dammit—just four—it shouldn’t be this hard.”
Harper shot me a look like What the hell? I don’t know what she was expecting from Colt, but I guess crazy hadn’t been on the list. The guy had spent the last thirty-six days getting his head fucked with and he’d just come back from the dead—the least she could do was cut him some slack.
But Desty walked around behind me and over to Colt’s side.
“I know who you are,” she said. “Colt, right? It’s nice to meet you, um, formally.”
“We met before?” he asked.
“Sort of. While you were—”
“With Mikal?”
Desty nodded.
I could feel the heat swamp Colt’s face and hear him grit his teeth. His cheeks turned dark red and he glared down at the floor.
“We didn’t talk or anything, so it’s not like you should remember me,” Desty said. “Really, it’s not a big deal.”
She held her hand out—not like for a handshake, but like you’d do so someone could hold your hand. Colt looked at it for a second. As soon as he took her hand, I could hear his heartbeat calm down.
Desty’s my girlfriend, I told him. I didn’t mean to sound territorial, but that’s how it came out. I guess maybe I’m the jealous type after all.
“Yeah right,” Colt said, but it didn’t look like he was talking to me. He was looking at the window. “I’m the last guy he’d have to worry about. Give it a rest.” Then he scratched the back of his head and looked at Desty. “Sorry. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s okay,” Desty said. She smiled at him. “You’re actually doing a lot better than most of the castoffs I’ve read about.”
“Yeah, I remember reading some stuff about the effects fallen angel essence has on human brains,” Colt said.
“I actually meant—” Desty looked from me back to Colt. “You haven’t tried to— I mean, you’re not trying to think of a way to kill yourself right now, are you?”
“Not right now,” he said.
Desty didn’t know whether to laugh or not, which was kind of the way it went with Colt. Sometimes he was joking and you couldn’t tell. You had to know him, and even then it wasn’t easy.
“All right,” Harper said. She crossed her arms and looked at me. “So, what now?”
I really wanted Colt out of the house. If Harper and Jax both knew about him coming back from the dead, then Scout knew, and maybe the Witches’ Council did, too, since Jax went to bother them about some prophecy or other. It was only a matter of time before it got back around to Mikal.
Couldn’t hurt to hide Desty out, too. By now Kathan had probably figured out that I wasn’t giving her up without a fight.
The cabin would probably be the best place. It was west of town, stuck way back in the sticks. The couple who’d owned it had been killed in the NP-Human Conflict and didn’t have any kids, so after Kathan burned down the farmhouse and killed Dad, Sissy moved us out there. Colt had still been living there when Mikal enthralled him.
I checked out the window. The shadows were getting long and the temperature was probably dropping below boiling. Before too long, the sun would be down and we could go.
“Out to the cabin?” Colt asked.
Is the arsenal still there? I asked.
“Unless Mikal had somebody go and confiscate it all. It’d be like her to leave it, though.” Colt shrugged. “Hell, she could’ve had me take her to it and load it up for her. I’d never know.”
“You’re talking to each other,” Harper said. I could hear the skin of her arms rub together as she twisted them tighter around her stomach. She looked at Colt. “You can hear Tough.”
He nodded.
Harper threw her hands up.
“That explains it. That explains everything,” she said. “I knew God wouldn’t bring him back crazy. He would’ve been all right—totally okay—if God had really brought him back.” She pointed at me. “You made him a zombie.”
Bullshit! I wished I could’ve yelled it at her. She saw the miracle happen, she got to feel it, she should know. No one would recognize the real thing like the guy who had to stand by watching it and knowing he never got to feel that kind of love or power again. Just remembering it hurt. I shook my head, hard.
“Prove it,” Harper snapped, cocking her body at me. “Give Colt an order.”
Colt locked eyes with me.
“Try it,” he said in that voice that always reminded me Colt was a stone-cold Soldier of Heaven all the way down to his bones.
Take it easy, Commando. I’m not going to give you an order, I told him. Harper’s just freaking out.
“I won’t have a damned zombie in my house,” Harper said.
Desty tried to help. “Harper, Colt’s not a—”
“How would you know?” Harper said. “He hasn’t started to decompose yet.” She looked at me. “I don’t want him here, Tough. If Jax was home you know he’d vote with me.”
I kicked the coffee table so hard that the corner stuck in the wall. All of Jax’s games that we’d picked up earlier went flying again.
Harper didn’t back down. She pointed back and forth between me and her.
“One of us—who is not me—had damn well better fix all these holes in my house.”
I went into the kitchen to get the shopping list and pen off the fridge so I could write her a note.
I’m taking Colt and Desty to hide out. When Jax gets back, you and me and him are going to talk. As a last minute thought I added, And don’t fucking call my brother a zombie again.
Desty
The worst place to ride in a pickup truck is the middle, especially in a stick shift. There are some exceptions—when your boyfriend is driving, for example. But when your boyfriend’s brother is sitting on the opposite side of you talking to himself while your boyfriend glares out the windshield, the middle goes back to being the worst place to ride.
“Maybe brain damage,” Colt said. “But the tar would still— You heard him. She didn’t leave me. She wouldn’t. She wasn’t done yet. It was close, but not—”
Tough glanced across the cab at Colt. That look was an easy one to read—I used to see it in the mirror when I got up in the morning. He was telling himself he could take care of Colt, that it wasn’t as bad as everybody else thought.
Trying to be subtle, I swiped my bangs out of my eyes and studied Tough’s face, looking for differences between the living him and the undead him. Vamping had leeched some of the red tones from his skin and the fluid loss had brought down most of the swelling and bruises around his eye and face. His lip was still split and the cut across his eyebrow hadn’t healed.
Those were never going away. Tough was going to look beat-up and beautiful forever.
“Shit!” Colt punched the arm rest on his door.
Tough exhaled and stared out the windshield. It was that time of night when it’s still too light out for headlights to do any good but too dark to hav
e your headlights off, when you can’t really see anything that well. Tough looked like he was concentrating really hard on watching the road, but if he clenched his jaw any tighter his teeth were going to crack.
I reached over and touched his leg.
Tough moved too fast for me to see—almost too fast to feel. He grabbed my hand like somebody clinging to a lifeline.
“Tough,” I started. But I wasn’t sure what else to say.
He didn’t look at me, just sucked his teeth and let go.
“No, I don’t mean…” I picked his hand back up and laced my fingers through his. When I was a tween, I’d gone through the same romance-is-angst phase every anti-social nerd does. Stupid, borderline abusive, he-didn’t-mean-to-hurt-me crap. But Tough drinking my blood wasn’t the same thing. Tempie might’ve thought I was being naïve about the connection between me and him, but I wasn’t. Tough and I understood each other. We needed each other. “I don’t want to break up with you. I like you, Tough. A lot. Maybe even—” I sighed. “This isn’t how I pictured this conversation going down.”
Tough’s eyes flicked over at Colt, probably thinking the same thing.
“I don’t want to leave,” I said. “I mean, I want to stay with you. Leaving—I can’t yet anyway because of Tempie. I don’t know what to do about her. I don’t want her brain to corrode but…” But I really didn’t want to be Kathan’s familiar, incest-porno-polygamy aside. I was enough of a doormat without having an actual physical need to make someone else happy. “Tempie says it’s all about power, but I don’t want power. I just want everything to be okay again.”
Tough put his arm around the back of my seat and leaned over to kiss my cheek. He got it. Probably better than anybody. I snuggled closer to his side and put my head on his shoulder. His cool skin felt good in the summer heat.
Then I remembered earlier in the hallway, when I’d first felt how cold he was.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I pulled away from him.
“But if you ever mesmerize me again, I’m gone,” I said. “Promise me. Swear.”
Tough looked me in the eyes and nodded, once.
