by Sarah Fine
All I’d ever done was take from him, use him to get what I needed. I’d been merciless, even when he asked me for mercy, when he asked me to spare him from the closeness he’d known would make things harder for him. Had I listened to him? No. I’d expected him to endure it all, just because he was the strongest person I’d ever met.
I closed my eyes against the tears as I dug through the pantry, wondering how I was going to open a can with one hand. Finally I found a can of fruit cocktail with a peel-off top and grabbed it eagerly. With a spoon tucked between two of my fingers, I carried the bounty back to Nadia.
“You need to eat something,” I said softly. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but you need to. I’ll feed you. All you need to do is open your mouth.”
It took me ages to get the can of fruit into Nadia. When the last gray-green grape disappeared into her mouth, I put the can aside and nudged her back onto the cot. “You can sleep now, and I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
I did my best to disguise my panic over her near-catatonic state. This was not quite what I had expected. I’d thought she might snap out of it when she saw me, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on her at all.
I covered her with a blanket. “I’ll be just outside.”
When I emerged from the room, Malachi was sitting on the couch, his head in his hands. I knew he was aware of me, but he didn’t move or look up. He was probably furious. He probably hated me. But I couldn’t help it—I wanted to be near him. I took a few steps toward him, waiting. Finally, he spoke.
“Everything is done. But…I couldn’t find Sil’s body. I think he escaped.”
“Oh no,” I whispered, swaying in place. I’d had the chance to kill him and hadn’t taken it. My fault. Again. What consequences would this latest mistake bring? “Are you going to hunt for him?”
“Yes. But not tonight.” He raised his head and looked at me for the first time. His eyes were shining with pain, and mine welled up at the sight.
“I’m so sorry, Malachi, for everything.” I could barely get the words past the lump in my throat. I wanted him to hold me, to comfort me, but couldn’t ask it of him. I couldn’t ask it of him ever again.
“You don’t have to be sorry. Ana and I made our choices. I can live with those choices.” His voice was flat. Dead.
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. If she comes back through the Gates, she’ll be spotted and retrieved by the Guards, but she will…not be the same. I’ll find out if she’s been seen when we get back to the Station.” He hung his head again.
I wanted to offer him an ounce of what he offered me. Just a tiny bit of comfort. But I was afraid to try because he might see my efforts as selfish, given my past behavior. I clenched the fist of my good hand.
He stood up, looking way too big for the room. I stared at the floor, unwilling to meet his eyes. It was too painful, all this wanting, all this wishing, all this knowing that I was not what he needed. That I wasn’t good for him.
He unbuckled his breastplate and stripped it off, then did the same with the rest of his armor. He set everything next to the couch. I kept my eyes on his boots as they moved toward me. His fingers nudged my chin, lifting my face to his.
“Hey, how are you?”
Miserable. Hurting. Needing you. “I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. Let me see your hand.”
“It’s fine.” I stared at the front of his shirt. It was easier than looking at his face.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said quietly.
I took a few steps back. His warmth was too much. Too much to be close to and not lean into.
He sighed. “Lela, I’m trying here. Please don’t do this.”
“Do what? I’m going to go take a shower,” I mumbled. I fled back to the bathroom as quickly as my bruised legs would carry me. I didn’t try to stop my tears. He was being too nice.
I peeled off my ruined clothes and cringed when I caught sight of the slashes across my belly. There were three of them, each several inches long, all oozing blood. The skin around the wounds was an angry red, swollen and tender. My left hand bulged and seeped with blisters, surrounded by charred skin. Those spots were numb, though, so at least they weren’t painful. I wasn’t a doctor but knew enough to realize I was in bad shape.
I turned on the faucets. Maybe just cleaning the wounds, along with the rest of my pathetic carcass, would make things better for the moment.
But my wounds were so painful that I repeatedly had to lean against the wall and take several breaths to keep from passing out. And then the helpless tears kept coming, so I sat on the floor of the shower, curled into a ball, thinking about Ana and Malachi and what I had done. By the time I finally stepped from the tub, I was shivering and weak, and did not feel much better. I put on some old, baggy flannel pajamas I’d dug out of one of the drawers. It took several minutes to fasten the buttons.
When I opened the bathroom door, Malachi was sitting on the floor just outside. I almost stumbled over him. He was on his feet in front of me with amazing speed.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” I said, feeling selfish again. “You must have needed a shower at least as badly as I did.”
“I went to another apartment and took a shower.”
I stared at the tight navy-blue T-shirt that covered the expanse of his chest. He was close enough for me to collapse into him. Ah, God, it was so tempting. His voice snapped me out of my trance. “You don’t look good. Are you going to let me take a look at your hand?”
“No.”
His response came from between clenched teeth. “Why?”
“Because I’ll be fine until we get back to the Station with Nadia. Did you get hurt?”
“Nothing serious. Just a few scrapes. But I’m worried about you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t have to worry about me. I got what I came here for, and we’ll be out of your hair as soon as we can get to the Judge. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
He took my face in his hands. “Please. You know I can’t stop worrying about you. And I don’t know how to give you what you need unless you tell me.”
“You don’t have to give me anything. You’ve given me enough. Too much.” I tried to pull away, but his hands tightened, preventing me from escaping.
“Then I’ll tell you what I need. Will you listen to that? Are you at all interested?”
I met his eyes, embarrassed that I hadn’t bothered to ask. “Yes, tell me what you need.”
His forehead touched mine. “I need you. I need you safe and well and whole. I need you to be okay, because that’s the only thing that will keep me from going crazy right now. And I need you to let me look at your hand.”
Without another word, he picked me up and carried me to the couch. I didn’t fight him. How could I argue when he put it that way? I didn’t really believe this was what he needed, but at that exact moment, I didn’t have the strength to tell him so. He set me down gently, and his hand closed over my left wrist.
Very carefully, he opened my curled fingers. I was paying close enough attention to hear his breath hitch. He got up and returned with a small satchel, from which he removed bandages, scissors, and various other supplies. I turned my head away as he went to work.
“How did this happen?” he inquired casually, with the tiniest tremble in his voice.
“There were these big bowls of incense near the table they used as their altar or whatever you call it. They were trying to get me on the table, and I threw the embers at them. It was the only thing I could think of at the time. Kind of regretting it now, though.”
He rubbed a sharp-smelling ointment onto my palm with the lightest of touches. I took a few deep breaths to keep from passing out from the pain.
“You amaze me.”
“You admire my capacity to injure myself or to take a beating and keep going?” I turned my head to try to read his expression, but his head was bowed.
“Both. Things must
have been desperate if you had to do this to yourself. They got very close, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. I’d be in the Mazikin homeland right now if you hadn’t set those explosions off when you did.”
Malachi began to wind gauze around my hand. “Several Mazikin came out of the warehouse shortly after you went in. They spotted us setting the charges, so we had to silence them. One of them must have slipped past us and found Ibram—and I guess he had a small army with him. All hell broke loose after that. I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. I thought there might be more time.”
“It’s all right. I thought there would be, too. But it took Sil only a few seconds to spot me and only a few more to figure out I’d just been with you.”
Malachi froze in the middle of taping the bandage closed over the back of my hand. “What?”
“They said they could smell you all over me.”
“I…I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the ceiling.
“Why should you be sorry? I was the one who insisted you touch me, right? I’m not sorry about it. I can’t be, even if I try.” I want your scent on me every day from now on. I shook my head to clear it. “It kind of got them agitated. Especially Sil and Juri.”
Malachi looked down at me, over my body and all the damage that had been done, and his expression filled with a new horror. “Juri?”
“I think Sil moved up the timetable for resurrecting him when he saw I was there. When Juri saw me…you know. He seemed to think I was his property. But he also seemed pretty eager to get back at you.” I shuddered and stared at Malachi’s face, letting it block out the memory of Juri’s.
Malachi’s eyes were dark with something I couldn’t quite read. “That was Juri in a new body, wasn’t it? He ripped your pants. He was trying to—”
I couldn’t bear to hear the word come off his tongue, so I interrupted. “Yes.” I looked down at my hand, still throbbing but now neatly bandaged. I swallowed. “Did I kill him?”
He laid a hand on my cheek and then buried his fingers in my wet hair. He looked at me with this sad sympathy. “Yes.”
I took in a sharp breath. I had killed a man. I smashed his face with a hunk of cement. I made his heart stop beating. And I…I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel triumphant. I didn’t feel sorry.
Malachi’s fingers tightened in my hair. “Did he…before you…”
“No, he didn’t….”
His shoulders sagged as some of the tension drained from them. “Good.”
I looked at him cautiously. “And if he had?”
He pinned me with an intense stare. “It wouldn’t change how I look at you at all. But if I ever meet him again, I will make him suffer for what he tried to do.”
He smoothed a hand over my hair. “Lela…” He sighed and shook his head. He was silent for a full minute before he said, “I was afraid I’d never see you again. When Nadia came out and you weren’t behind her, I panicked.”
I chuckled hoarsely. “The great Malachi is capable of panic?”
He leaned over and kissed my cheek. His jaw scraped against my skin as he whispered in my ear, “Where you are concerned, it appears I am capable of just about anything.”
Chills raced up my spine, along with total confusion. I couldn’t understand why he was being kind after I had screwed everything up so badly. He drew back to look in my eyes, and his expression was crystal clear. He was seeking permission, begging me to invite him in.
Guilt and sorrow and love and need and regret all tumbled through my mind. I didn’t want to think anymore, especially as his breath skimmed over my skin, but I didn’t want to make yet another mistake. So many things were my fault. Sil escaping. Ana dying. And Malachi seemed to be paying for all of it.
“I made so many mistakes tonight. I am so sorry—”
I said those final words against his lips and swallowed the rest as he kissed me. My mind went blissfully blank as his mouth moved with mine. No pain, no more fear. Just him. Just him and me and an open Countryside, heaven, and all the time in the world.
“I don’t need apologies,” he breathed against my mouth. “I need this.”
I wrapped my arm around his neck and pulled him closer. His hand stroked across my ribs and slid down to my belly.
I gasped with pain as it all came crashing back.
He jerked up, panting. His eyes widened as his gaze settled on my belly. I looked down and winced. Three narrow trails of blood stained the front of my pajama top.
Malachi’s face took on that diamond-hard expression again. He unbuttoned my top, briskly knocking away my feeble attempts to stop him. He sucked in a breath through his teeth when he saw the wounds. His hand flexed over my hip, firmly holding me in place as I tried to turn away. “Is this what I think it is?”
I cringed at his tone and the deadly look in his eyes. I nodded. His eyes flashed with rage. “You should have told me about this immediately.”
“It could wait. I had to get Nadia settled, and you had more important things to do.”
He cursed as he dug through the satchel and pulled out another tin of ointment. He opened it and proceeded to smear its contents all over my bare stomach, scratches and all. He was less gentle this time, and whatever he was spreading on my skin stung like a mother and made me hiss from the pain.
He glared at me, but I didn’t miss the glint of worry in his eyes. “Why do you do this to yourself? Don’t you remember what I told you about Mazikin scratches? We have to go. Now.” He stood up.
I grabbed his hand. “No. Nadia’s sleeping. She needs to rest.”
“And you need Raphael as soon as possible.” He tore his hand loose and stalked around the room, gathering our belongings.
The idea of trekking through the city right now was overwhelming, and I knew Nadia needed to sleep. She had looked so tired. “Look, I need to rest. Please.” He continued walking, strapping on armor with every step. “Just a few hours. I got pretty beaten up today. Malachi.”
He froze in his tracks and turned to me. “You have two hours. Then we’re going.”
“You aren’t staying?”
He fastened the remaining buckles with a wrenching tug and was fully armed within a few moments. He went to the door and yanked it open, not bothering to turn and look at me.
“No. I need to go kill something.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
A FEW HOURS LATER we were trudging south along the cobblestone road. When Malachi had returned to the apartment and woke me up, the look on his face confirmed that he was still furious with me. Now I was doing my best to pretend like I wasn’t in horrible pain, because something about it put him in a homicidal mood. As a result, my teeth ached from swallowing back the whimpers and groans that tried to escape with every step.
I held Nadia’s hand. She was unlikely to keep walking without being led. Malachi strode silently by my side but had not looked at me since we left the apartment. We reached a major intersection, and he turned left. I followed his path with my eyes and looked up to see the dark tower looming in the distance.
I froze. “No.”
Malachi looked over his shoulder at me. “This is the quickest way. We’ll be back at the Station by nightfall.”
I shook my head as my hand tightened over Nadia’s. “She can’t go through the tower. She won’t make it.”
“You must see Raphael soon.” Malachi closed the distance between us in less than a second and laid a hand across my forehead. “You’re already starting to run a fever. This infection is serious, and it will kill you.”
I took a step back and shook him off. “There’s no choice. Just get us there as quickly as possible without going through downtown.”
He grasped my shoulders. “It will take almost two days to go around. You may not have that much time.”
“What are the odds I’ll get to the Station alive if we go around downtown?”
“Less than twenty percent.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh ye of little faith. I thought I amazed you, but obviously you don’t give me much credit.” His grip on me turned steely, letting me know I was sorely testing his patience. “Fine. Twenty percent. Now, look at Nadia. Look at her.”
He did his own eye roll but complied. Nadia stared straight ahead, not paying attention to our conversation. Her pupils were pinpoints once again. Tears stained her face. Malachi looked back at me, but his rigid expression gave nothing away.
“Tell me the odds she’ll make it through the tower. Look me in the eye and tell me that freaking monster building won’t eat my friend,” I said harshly, though all I wanted was to fall into him, to comfort both of us in the face of this hopeless situation.
He shook his head stiffly. “I’ve already lost Ana,” he said hoarsely. His hands slid from my shoulders to my neck, resting there lightly, his thumbs brushing my skin. He lowered his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “If I lose you…” He abruptly released me and turned his back. He marched straight ahead, taking the route that would allow us to avoid downtown—and the dark tower. I followed with heavy feet, weighed down by my tainted victory.
To pass the time, I spoke to Nadia, urging her to recall the times we’d had together. I babbled on and on—about the first time she took me to Newport and made me eat a quahog, about the time she’d tried to teach me one of her cheers and I’d fallen on my ass, about the time we should have been studying for a history exam but spent the evening trying to build a model of the Eiffel Tower out of Twizzlers. I kept looking for a sign, any glint of growing awareness, any hint she was coming back to herself. But she remained unreachable. Tears seeped constantly from her eyes, and the only time she spoke was to ask when it would end. My chest throbbed with anger and fear every time those words left her mouth. This was not how it was supposed to go.
Malachi set the pace, and it was brutal. He didn’t ask us to run, but he didn’t allow us to take breaks either. He allowed me to stop briefly to force some water down Nadia’s throat, but that was it. His expression was cold and his voice was icy. He did not make eye contact.
