I tried to listen, but the panic was too deep. There was no surface, no light.
One of Jaesung's hands found my fingers and slid behind them, drawing my hand from my face. It rattled in his. He pulled, and my arm stretched stiffly until my fingers pressed into his chest.
His palm found my face, and he smoothed my hair back. A moment later, a knee insinuated itself between my ankles, and he was there in front of me, leaning in so close it blocked out the sensation of light through my eyelids.
"Helena. Talk to me. Tell me what's happened."
I sucked in a gasp, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue hard against the roof of my mouth to keep the breath held. For a second, it worked. My diaphragm spasmed again. I let out the breath, sucking in a few more sharp gasps.
Both of Jaesung's hands were on my face now, holding my head up, keeping my face tilted toward him. I forced my eyes to open. And there he was, close as he'd been earlier, when I'd thought my life had never been so good. But now?
Morgan wouldn't find me. Or Eamon. Or Rodolfo or Zenia or Cai or my mother. If they weren't dead they soon would be. All because of the Guild and Gwydian. And me. I shuddered and said the only thing I knew Jaesung would understand.
"I don't think they're coming."
Heat swelled in my eyes. I sensed the rising tide and could not hold it back.
"Shit." Jaesung pulled me up to my knees. Then, like I'd known they would, his arms closed around me. The wave inside me broke. I collapsed into him, a limp, ragged body sobbing into the warmth of his chest, sobbing like I hadn't let myself in years, like you only did in the arms of a person who had you anchored tight.
And God, he did. The harder I sobbed the harder he held, until the shuddering of my stomach barely registered against the tightness of his arms. The world fractured and crashed, and I forgot about being brave.
When I could breathe again, his arms slackened and he pulled me to my feet. We climbed the stairs, crossed the empty room, and continued up to the third floor. I didn't resist when he opened his door and pushed me inside. I stood in the darkened room, ignoring the walls and the bookshelves and the desk. All I wanted was to sink back into him. Weakness was addictive.
He stepped around me, but his fingers stayed on my arm as he drew back the dark covers on his bed. I didn't even wait for him to say it. I climbed in, scooted toward the wall, and waited for him to climb in behind.
He drew up the covers instead. I heard the creak of a chair, the thunk of first one shoe, then the other. His belt clicked and hitched from jeans. There was an unzipping hoodie, the snap and clatter of him setting his watch on his desk, and then a lighter click. Glasses, maybe.
I listened to him take off socks, shirt, jeans. Heard a drawer open, and more fabric sounds. Probably one of his multitude of patterned pajama trousers.
My head throbbed, pressure hot and thick in my sinuses. I’d forgotten how miserable it was to cry.
Jaesung’s footsteps were light on the carpet. The mattress shifted as he sat. He leaned down, clicking something by the floor.
“Jae?” I managed the word, though my voice was heavy.
“Hm?” I heard him lift an alarm clock from his side-table and click through the hours.
“Can you stop being nice to me?”
The clicking ceased. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean stop being nice to me. Doing things for me. Birthday stuff or tea or waking me up for snow or… Can you not do that?”
He was silent a beat, then the clicking started back up. He didn’t answer again until it was set, and returned it to the side table with a clunk.
Then he stretched out over the covers, propping himself on an elbow behind me.
“Why wouldn't you want me to be nice?”
Because I didn’t deserve it. Because I couldn’t stay. Because I wanted to.
“Just… I can’t handle it right now. It makes it harder to keep myself together.”
There was a light tug at my hair, and I realized he was pulling the tie from the end of my braid.
“You don’t have to keep yourself together. After what you’ve been through, and knowing they’re not coming to get you…I mean, it would be weird if you didn’t fall apart.”
“I can’t,” I insisted, scooting toward the wall and turning my head so the loose end of my braid pulled from his hands. “I can’t fall apart. I have…. There are things I can’t tell you. About what happened. About what’s happening. I didn’t think I’d be here this long.”
That’s when I noticed the lines of heat radiating through the blanket. For just a moment, I thought it was a spell, and the fear halted me mid-sentence. Then the pattern of warmth wrapping me up made sense.
“Is this an electric blanket?” I asked.
“It might be.”
I let out a sigh that was half despair, half resignation. “I’m in the middle of telling you not to be nice to me, when you brought me up here to be nice to me.”
“I can turn it off.”
“No.”
He chuckled at my back, fingers returning to my hair, combing out the thick plait.
“You’re being nice,” I warned.
“Nah. I’ve got a hot girl in my bed—this is totally self-serving,” he said. I let out a huff and closed my eyes again as his fingers worked their way up to my scalp.
“I guess I'm vulnerable right now,” I said.
“See? I’m an asshole.” He said the words softly, with his thumb sweeping along the skin behind my ear.
“Is the asshole sleeping on top of the covers? Because it’s twelve degrees. I will tell Krista to make that moron jar.”
“It’s not twelve degrees,” he said, but a moment later he had peeled back the covers. He slid into bed behind me, and the weight of him tipped me back. I resisted only slightly, holding myself still as he adjusted his long limbs on the full-sized mattress. His hand found my back beneath the covers, rubbing my spine between my shoulder blades.
“You’re being-”
“Selfish,” he interrupted. I wanted to protest, but speaking was getting harder and harder with his fingers working their way up my spine, rubbing away tension. I opened my eyes again and glanced at the window at the foot of his bed. It framed a navy sky and the edge of the building next door.
So little separated us from danger. Just a pane of glass, some brick, a few centimeters of sheetrock and wood. So little to keep out the things we feared.
A pinprick of light streaked over the visible patch of sky. A meteorite. It was strange to think that, no matter how my life had changed in the past hour, the world raged on, impassive and inexorable. And no matter what horrors happened to me or the people I loved, it would keep going.
In the great scheme, I didn’t matter. And now that Gwydian had re-enslaved my pack, neither did much else.
Jaesung’s hand on my back felt dangerous. His warmth, seducing me toward the center of the bed, was a siren song. Instinct dueling with desire. I needed to figure out my next move; I needed to do that without a warm, solid complication against my back.
His hand slid up to my elbow, fingers tracing down to my wrist until his arm rested around me. Without meaning to, I spread my fingers to accept his. Long, strong bones, short nails. He had beautiful fingers.
I leaned back, and he met me, rearranging himself against me like that was what he’d wanted all along. Body warm, solid. Then his face nestled into my hair, and his breath blew out against my scalp, and I was, for the first time, enveloped by another person.
I felt drunk. Sad and scared and drunk with the delirium of being safe. I wasn’t, of course, but every beat of Jaesung’s heart against my back told me that lie. The long thigh he pressed between mine knocked away the protest that he couldn’t protect me. His rough chin nestled against my nape, his long arm drawing me tight, and the toes that curled up under the arch of my foot all conspired to build a fantasy where everything would be okay.
I didn’t need a fantasy. I needed
a plan.
But my chest ached. My heart was ragged and spent. Just for tonight, for the few hours while the Leonids were in the sky and Jaesung’s weight pressed against my back, I wanted the lie. Because tomorrow I'd have a plan and it would not involve staying here.
Chapter Nineteen
The following day passed in a haze of overly bright smiles from Krista. Sanadzi, though absent due to final wedding preparations, sent a text mostly comprised of hearts and exclamation points. It wasn't hard to guess that Jaesung had told them no one was coming for me. If anyone noticed I slept somewhere other than the couch that night, they said nothing.
I applied myself to scrubbing kennels and hefting bags of dog food, avoiding eye contact with anyone who looked like they might want to start a conversation.
Last night's despair had been a hurricane, blowing through my insides and scrubbing them raw. There was nothing left intact, just the wreckage of feelings I'd once been able to name, broken and buried half-deep in the sand. Still, the day after a hurricane was always clearer than the ones before. My heart might have been that ravaged coast, but my mind felt sharper than it had in ages. I no longer questioned what I had to do.
The wedding was coming fast. Spare time vanished into pre-addressing thank-you cards or sorting seating placards. Even I’d gotten roped into tying white and green ribbons around tiny vials of bubbles. It was the perfect distraction. Everyone would be so busy with preparations, there wouldn’t be time to worry about me.
I trudged down from my post-work shower to find the furniture pushed toward the middle of the room and what looked like a large blue raft inflating in the corner. Krista had unloaded video games and DVDs from the shelf and jammed an end table between it and the raft. She'd moved the rug into the corner, as if to define a separate room.
My pulse jumped. Making a separate room was exactly what she was doing. I forced a breath in past my pulsing throat, hating the swell of gratitude threatening to complicate my trajectory. At the sound of me on the stairs, she twisted around and waved me over.
"Grab that fitted sheet," she said, gesturing to a pile of linens in one of the displaced armchairs. "So? I was talking to Sanadzi about trying to get you something more permanent bed-wise, and she offered their air-mattress. We're thinking wire shelves or something to give you a wall and some storage?" She dusted off her hands, shoving her sleeves back up her tattooed arms. "It's not as good as a room, but it would have a little more privacy…."
She trailed off, watching me with apprehension in her bright blue eyes. She was trying very hard to show me I had a place here without mentioning my family. Sadness plucked at my heart, but I sent it away, finding the barest of smiles to reassure Krista.
"Thanks," I said. "I meant to say it before, but I'm not good at that. The whole 'friends' thing is new."
The apprehension in her gaze transformed, and for a second I feared she'd throw her arms around me. True, I'd spent the night with a boy wrapped around me, but I still wasn't ready for spontaneous hugs. Luckily, Krista was not the indiscriminate hugger Sanadzi was. She took the sheet from my hands.
"It's cool. I can tell you're sort of overwhelmed by everything so don't worry about offending me. I won't be mad because you don't react like, you know…."
"A normal human being?" I offered, snagging one corner of the sheet and stretching it over the edge of the mattress.
"I hate using the word 'normal'. It assumes a standard mold everyone should fit into, and anything outside that is flawed. I mean it's fine for you not to react like everything is okay and you've had a happy, suburban life."
I winced, thinking of my assumptions about her, and what Jaesung had told me about her girlfriend. "Have any of us?"
Krista stretched her part of the sheet to the top corner of the mattress and glanced up at me with a grin. "Right? I mean, I fit the suburban thing, and mostly the happy thing, but I'm a five-foot-ten orange-haired lesbian with the Goblin King tattooed on one arm. Life has not been without challenges."
"I can imagine," I said, though I really couldn't. "Also, sorry. I didn't know until last night, about Alina."
Krista's grin slipped a degree, but she nodded. "Yeah—it sucks. But," the smile hitched back onto her face as she shoved the last corner over the edge of the mattress. "You'll get to meet her at the wedding! They said she was doing well enough to leave by then."
I tried to act enthusiastic, as if I really would meet the woman who had such a large part of Krista's heart. Either it was convincing or, as Krista had said, she didn't expect a normal reaction from me.
I helped her finish making the air mattress and rearranging the chairs, couch, and coffee table in the center of the room. It gave the whole second floor a studio-apartment vibe, with the bed in one corner and the living room and kitchen stretching down the length of the room.
I hated having to leave.
"We should go get you a few things," Krista said. "You need an electric blanket, and maybe some of those cloth shelf boxes to put your clothes in. And a lamp."
I considered protesting, but the shopping trip would give me a decent excuse to buy another duffel bag and pick up a few things I might need for the road.
Despite her propensity for glitter and grunge, Krista had a flair for picking out things I liked. I'd been afraid her idea of an acceptable blanket might have laddered holes with safety-pins or rainbow unicorns. Or both. Instead she found a comforter in a pale gray that wouldn't look too odd in the main room, and the bedside lamp was a stack of graduated glass globes beneath a white shade.
"So you can have a snowman all year," she teased. I rolled my eyes, but twin spikes of longing and regret pricked my chest as she tossed cardboard organizers into the basket. These things would be useful to them even without me, but I hated making them believe I’d stay.
I was jealous of the Helena Martin they thought existed, the one that would get to sleep on that air-mattress and fill these boxes with clothes and sketchbooks. The me that would turn on that lamp over the picture of my parents and feel the ache of missing them turn bittersweet. The me that would build a new life with a new family.
"Hell's bells, hello?"
I snapped back to reality, my hands resting on a pile of plastic-packaged sheet sets. Krista presented two packages, both of them holding electric blankets. One was the same cream color as the cloth boxes, and the other, a blue-gray plaid. I pointed to the plaid, which Krista added to the cart.
"So," she began, pacing toward the end of the aisle. "Tell me to mind my own business if you want, but…."
I tensed, my mind going to Jaesung's body warm and heavy against my back. She would do the thing I’d feared upon slinking downstairs that morning. I gripped the handle of the shopping cart, realizing I'd have to lie to her—not about what had happened, but how I felt about it.
"Why did you run away?" she asked.
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I'd thought Krista would stay in the realm of superficial for a while. There was every possibility Krista knew I'd told Jaesung some of it, but I wasn't sure how much I wanted to tell her. Whatever pain she had in her past, there were no scars on her back.
"I had to leave," I said. "My parents are dead and the people in charge of me were...they didn't treat me well. Me and others."
She nodded, looking down at the silver sequined pillow she'd pulled from the shelf. "I thought it might be something like that." She picked at a bedraggled bit of wiry thread poking from the shimmering discs. "So, what happened to your people? Why aren't they coming?"
I swallowed and shook my head. "It was my cousin. He's not... he can't come."
Krista tossed the pillow into the basket. "I know it's not the same, but you have a place here. You're not stranded. Like, we're weird around here and all, and you're probably wondering what the hell I even know about you, but I'm a good judge of people, and I think you fit here. With us."
I closed my eyes, in case the sincerity in her voice reflected in her face. This was exa
ctly what I'd been trying to avoid—the kind of moment I would ask myself about later. Whether I might have fit with them, and had a real home.
I could sense her about to say something else when her phone erupted into sound. She snatched it from her pocket. I looked around for an escape—somewhere to be besides the home-goods aisle.
"Seriously?" she said, following my turns toward the front of the store. "Yeah, no—I've got the SUV. Sure. Yeah, text me the address and we'll head over."
I glanced back, curious despite myself. She seemed to be cataloguing something. "Yeah, I think we've got it all. How bad did they say it was? Could it walk?"
A dog. I inhaled deeper, holding my breath and pushing toward a rack of hats, gloves, and bags. Another rescue, then. Or was it another setup? I clenched my teeth and reached for the handles of an army green canvas duffle, ignoring the bird stenciled along the side in favor of the bulging side pockets. Part of me wanted to beg off—to use this opportunity to return to the rescue and pack my things—but the knot of fear in the back of my throat made it impossible to ask. If this was another setup, I needed to be there to protect Krista.
We went through the checkout line, where I dropped another two-hundred of my stash on items I wouldn't get to use, and drove west under blossoming street lights and frosted buildings.
Ten minutes later, the town had morphed from well-lit brick edifices to the corrugated tin and cinderblock of non-gentrified back streets. A familiar tension hardened my limbs, sent my gaze skipping around dark corners and likely spy holes.
We pulled up next to an unused lot between two boarded-up buildings. I slid from the passenger's seat, touching my back pocket for the ridge of my knife. I saw no magic circles like I had at the lake, but that didn’t mean there weren’t Sorcerers, or even just the garden-variety criminal. Or maybe I was being paranoid, and this would be a normal rescue.
While Krista retrieved her supplies, I squinted into the lot. A flickering street light set the chain-link fence’s silhouette across the snow, and from what I noticed through the grid of wires, the far side of the lot ran up against the back of another cinderblock building.
Unleash (Spellhounds Book 1) Page 17
