House of Slide Hybrid

by Juliann Whicker

  Lewis lay on his side with one hand stretched above his head like he was reaching for me. When I got to his side, I dropped to my knees, pushing the hair out of his eyes to see his face. His skin felt like silk under my fingers, the smooth planes of cheek, the pulse I could feel beating when I rested my hand on his throat gave me an indescribable sense of relief—of being in the right place with the right person, and nothing else mattered, except of course the fact that he wasn’t moving.

  “I think he’s burned out,” Ash said, one step behind me.

  I had a vivid recollection of demon men and burning, being torn apart by throbbing headaches and wished desperately that Old Peter could set all of this straight. I swallowed as I reminded myself that Old Peter was dead because of me and that Lewis would probably be dead if I didn’t do something soon. I tried to breathe while I stroked his cheek, trying to think up a plan but the air was so heavy with the demon man scent that I couldn’t think, could barely bite back the scream that clambered in my chest.

  Ash knelt beside me and grabbed Lewis’s wrist in his fingers to take his pulse. Lewis’s hand twisted, grabbing Ash’s wrist in return even though the rest of him seemed limp. Ash got this weird look on his face, then blinked and nodded like something made sense. “More are coming. We’ve got to get out of here, somewhere safe.”

  Had Lewis managed to communicate with Ash like Grim had done with his runes? More were coming. I nodded but the breathing thing wasn’t going so well and neither was the planning. What was I supposed to do with a burned out Lewis? I had to take him home and hope that my mother or Grim could think of something to help him. His skin was so hot, his breathing raspy and dry, like every breath was a struggle through the heat that burned him.

  “We can’t go back to Sanders,” Ash said. “Lewis showed me the others that are coming. He was tracking this demon man.” He took his time swallowing. “Apparently we’re very lucky to be alive but we won’t be if we don’t get out of here fast.”

  Where else was there to go? Would running in a random direction as fast as we could be any better while Lewis struggled to breathe, struggled to keep his heart beating?

  Ash dropped Lewis’ hand, now as lifeless as the rest of him, before he ran back to the car. When I realized what Ash was doing, I had a moment wondering whether or not he’d flipped out and was about to leave me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I could not force my hand to pull away from Lewis, to leave him there dying even if all the demons in the world were coming for me.

  Ash pulled up close enough that I could feel the heat of the engine before he turned off the car. For those moments that I sat beside Lewis, I felt more peace than the weeks I hadn’t seen him, peace in spite of the fact that once more I’d brought him to the ground.

  It wasn’t the time to think about that, not when Ash and I had to somehow get Lewis into the passenger seat of the car. He may have been smaller than the demon man and my uncle but he was still hard for a barely alive Cool boy and a girl without a fury to move. I kept my arms wrapped around his waist while Ash grabbed his legs until finally we were all in and Ash took the wheel, apparently firmly planted in this reality even if his hands shook.

  I sat on the passenger’s seat with Lewis while his head lolled on my shoulder. Jammed between Ash and Lewis, I felt Lewis burn, the heat of him soaking through me, heat that had taken him somewhere I couldn’t reach him.

  I smoothed his forehead, tangling my fingers in his silky auburn hair while I studied his eyebrows, the emptiness of his face as he lay unresponsive on my ugly black coat. He couldn’t die. He looked peaceful, his face relaxed before his eyebrows drew together and he groaned. I wrapped my arms tighter around him, closing out the world, the possibility of ever letting him go.

  When I opened my eyes I saw Ash concentrating on the road away from where we’d come, skirting cows where they had stopped running, staring stupidly at each other and us as we drove through them. I didn’t want to think about the idiocy of this whole thing and yet Ash was doing better.

  I should have found another way that didn’t put both of us in danger. I should kept myself safe so that Lewis wouldn’t take another hit for me. I gasped around the pain lodged in my chest. Even with him unconscious and burning, even if I could see his skin become chalky, could feel the struggle as his lungs worked for air, it felt so good to have him with me. I shouldn’t feel like that, not when he was so close to gone, not when he might leave me forever at any moment.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Ash, forcing my focus on something else.

  Ash answered in the same enticing low voice that made me lean closer, almost distracted me from the way Lewis’s lips were turning pale.

  “I saw something when Lewis grabbed my hand, a camp where we should be safe and get help for Lewis. I don’t think we’ll be able to make it to Sanders without running into something really bad.”

  “So where is this camp?”

  He looked uncomfortable, like suddenly he was expected to have answers when he’d just woken up to this reality. “West? I didn’t get specific instruction from Lewis, just general directions. I should be able to sense it when we get closer. I think it’s a good place to go since Lewis was thinking about it when he grabbed my wrist, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure he thinks it’s a good idea. He’s not coherent.”

  “He’s not coherent? What does that mean? He’s unconscious, obviously not coherent.” I tried to keep my voice calm and level, but Lewis was in my lap, my responsibility to keep safe when I had no power, no ability, nothing about me that could guarantee his survival. We had to find safety fast. We had to find Hotbloods, someone like Old Peter who could fix Lewis the way that Old Peter had helped me. I needed to know what to do in case of an emergency. I didn’t even know CPR. Would CPR help him? I rested my lips on his temple, ignoring the heat of his skin. His chest rose and fell steadily. Breathing wasn’t the problem.

  Ash shook his head. “I’ve got bits of scenery, a direction imprint and people who might help or might hurt,” he shrugged. “Most of his mind and will is focused on you. With how much he’s consumed by the bond...” He broke off, and I felt frustrated by the knowledge of his soul, drawing him towards me, towards danger because of something stupid I’d done without thinking, trying to help, trying to save him in the warehouse. What if this camp was another trap, something that should help but instead hurt him worse?

  It should have bothered me that Ash knew about the unfinished bond, that he could sense it, but who even slightly aware of soul stuff could miss it? It was my fault, so I shouldn’t be relishing the way his skin felt under my fingers, shouldn’t have felt relief at the weight of him on my leg, stomach.

  “Maybe,” Ash said slowly, “We should drive as far West as we can before we run out of gas, fill up and then stop at a Motel for the night. I don’t want to be driving in the dark when the really scary stuff comes out. I wonder how the demon man found us. That’s disturbing.” He didn’t sound scared but he was right. The idea that the creature and others like him had known where we were going to be made my breath catch.

  I nodded because the plan was a plan and I didn’t have anything else, not that I would have trusted any ideas I had. We wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t had a brilliant idea about freeing cows, but Ash sounded actually coherent, reminding me of how much I’d missed hearing him while he was off in that world. I was glad to feel the strength of him beside me. I knew somehow that as long as he was able, I could count on him to be my friend.

  I leaned my head against the back of the seat, eyes closed, pressed against Ash’s arm while Lewis’s weight pressed down on me, heavy, too hot, and so still. He wasn’t made to be still and silent. He was a fire, burning, consuming, so alive that I couldn’t help but borrow some of that life when I was with him. I ran a hand over his shoulder, down his arm to his hand where it lay on my knee. I touched the scar over his thumb, feeling the roughness of his callouses, the silkiness under it. His heat ebbed, leaving his extr
emities cold.

  I squeezed the fingers, rubbing to restore circulation, willing his heart to beat the hot blood, to keep beating, to keep alive his brilliant flame. He had to keep burning, to keep beating. He couldn’t burn out like just another Hotblood who lost control. He couldn’t be left empty, cold, when my whole life was based on being strong enough to be with him. He had to wait for me to be that person that could protect him the way he was always protecting me. I couldn’t lose him, not when I’d barely learned how to live, not when he’d given me his soul so that I could know what life felt like.

  I wrapped my arms around him while I pressed my face against his back, the scent of his shirt reminding me of warmth, of sunshine on leaves, of wind and ashes. It seemed to me that if I held onto him tight enough he couldn’t go cold and die, like I could hold him in this world with me by sheer will.

  “How are the tattoos going,” Ash asked suddenly, like he’d just remembered that I’d been getting them.

  His words jarred me.

  “Fine,” I answered, glad the word didn’t come out a sob. I felt like I was sobbing but I was as still as Lewis was. I had almost forgotten why I was getting tattoos but here was the answer. I turned my face against the thin fabric of his t-shirt, feeling the texture, wanting to remember forever the heat and strength beneath the fragile fabric. He had to survive this so I could finish tattoos, so I could be trained and dangerous, so I could protect him from the terrors of my world.

  I relaxed as I breathed in the scent of him, unable to resist the effect of my soulmate on my well-being. I held his hand, refusing to relax that while the rest of my body softened, curling around Lewis in a space too small for both of us.

  I must have slept because it was dark when I woke to the jolt of Ash pulling into the parking lot of a seedy looking Motel. The lights of the town seemed far away from the beige two story where it hovered on the fringes. Ash sat for a second, his face lit strangely by the streetlight before he turned to me.

  “We’re going to need cash for a room. Do you have money?”

  I shook my head mutely.

  “Maybe Lewis has some in his pocket.”

  I stared at Ash while I tried to force myself to sit up, to untangle myself from Lewis. I hated pulling away, hated that I was disturbing Lewis, however unresponsive he was as I shifted him, trying to get access to his pockets.

  I twisted then slid my hands down his sides and into the pockets of his pants. My heart was pounding and I could feel the heat in my cheeks when I fished the wadded up bills out and handed them to Ash. He nodded then got out of the car, leaving me alone with Lewis. I slid my hands down his sides again, noticing how the heat was still there, in his body, even though it was gone from his hands and arms.

  I rubbed his arms, feeling a rising panic as I waited for Ash to return. I stared at the face in the darkness, a face that I knew even if I could barely see the shadow of his cheekbone, the line of his eyebrow. What would it be like to never see those burning eyes again? It had been hard enough to refuse to see him when I’d been getting tattoos for his own safety.

  Ash broke me out of my thoughts when he came back, sliding into his seat then handed me a room key before he brought the car to life. “Did you see anything or anyone unusual?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. I should be thinking about how to protect him now, not getting panicky about him burning out, not when there wasn’t anything that I could do about it.

  The next few minutes dragged as we waited until the road was empty and Ash said that it was clear so we could take Lewis from the car into the Motel. We had Lewis pinned between us as we maneuvered him out of the car, across the sidewalk and through the door. It took some fiddling to get the door open, then when we got to the bed Ash pushed and I pulled. When Lewis went over I went with him, trapped beneath his weight and warmth.

  “Ash, help,” I squeaked, wriggling but going nowhere. If I didn’t manage to escape his weight pretty soon, I would stop trying.

  “You’re really soulmates, right?” Ash asked as he sat on the edge of the other bed to take off his shoes. “Touching you should help him. What’s it like?” he asked, looking curious and a little bit embarrassed.

  “Heavy,” I said, not sure what he was asking.

  “I mean, he’s your soulmate and you have that unfinished bond, but you’re not…” he frowned like he didn’t know what he was asking any more than I did.

  “Ash,” I said while the weight of Lewis pressed me into the old creaky mattress. “Can you please help me?”

  “Oh, right,” he said shaking his head like he’d forgotten that Lewis was on top of me for a minute. He may have been firmly in his body but he was still Ash, still Cool. He grabbed Lewis’s shoulders, pulling him beside me so that I could easily slide out from under the leg and arm that were still draped over me if I wanted to. I took a deep breath and smelled only Lewis. I didn’t want to move further away and Ash had given me the perfect excuse not to.

  “You really think that being close to me is good for him?”

  He nodded. “The two of you are practically one person what with the soul stuff and then the bond. How can you stand it?”

  I stared at him, feeling weird about being so close to Lewis while Ash stood there, but not willing to move. “My dad took it away from me. I know it’s hard for Lewis, but I’m fine.”

  He frowned then leaned closer like he was checking out the buttons on my shirt before he straightened up with the frown etched deeper between his eyebrows. “That explains it.”

  “Does it? Great.”

  “We should talk about this, but it’s hard to put into words. Right now I need to be focusing outside, around, you know?”

  I nodded because I did know. He was somehow looking at me and focusing on the soul sight at the same time. Tricky.

  “So, maybe I can take a bath, to concentrate and cloak us from the people who are after us. I concentrate better in water. It’s good that you’re blocked off from Lewis, you know, makes things less awkward.” He actually blushed then.

  “Whatever you say,” I said, shifting until I was curled around Lewis, my cheek resting on his chest.

  He shut the door firmly behind him leaving me alone with Lewis who I tried to ignore. It was like ignoring being burned alive, or ignoring a grizzly bear charging you, or like ignoring my soulmate who I didn’t begin to understand but who felt like home.

  I slid my arms around his neck hoping that Ash was right, that somehow Lewis could soak up my strength, that I could help him instead of putting him in harm’s way. I felt safe, warm, and worn out. I’d been running on hysteria ever since I’d seen Ash drift off. I hadn’t really relaxed since I’d gotten tattoos but there in that out of the way motel I felt the tension ease from my shoulders. The gentle rhythm of his breath, the weight of his shoulder and leg pushed the stress out of me, and I drifted again.

  When I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I was, but I felt better than I’d felt in a long time. I sighed and shifted closer to the warm body beside me until with a gasp I sat up, remembering that I was curled up beside Lewis and the rest of it, the cows, the demon man, and Ash losing it came back to me.

  The motel looked even worse in the light of day, and I wondered how I’d missed the smell of stale sweat and mildew, a combination that was even lovelier than cigars and gunpowder. Of course, I hadn’t noticed much besides Lewis’s warmth and weight. I brushed his hair back off his forehead tentatively.

  I studied his face, touching the skin gently with my fingers as I searched for signs of improvement. I wanted to memorize the feel of his skin with my fingers, skin so warm, so soft while his face was so young and innocent looking that I could see the boy in him. My fingers jerked to a stop and I stared at him, at his soft mouth that looked like the mouth of a sleeping angel. His lips were pale, his skin cooling the longer I was away from him. Was he absorbing my warmth? I shivered at the thought that he’d have to rely on me when I couldn’t remember to bring a coat for a
nyone.

  “If you’re awake we should probably make our next move.” Ash’s voice jolted me out of my fascination with Lewis. I turned and saw the lump under the brown blanket on the other bed where Ash was. “I cloaked us from two more demon men and four others who are after you or Lewis. I don’t know which because if you dip into people’s minds they’re more aware of your presence. The demon men have backed off, they’re not really comfortable day-timers, but the others are still out there looking for us. Do we have a plan yet?”

  He kept his head under the blanket, like he didn’t want to move. He sounded good though, not too tired even though he’d been up all night. I remembered my dad and how he hadn’t needed much sleep. It was probably a Cool thing.

  “A plan, right. Um, I’m not really good at plans. You’d think I’d be great since I’m half Wild, but dragging you out to free the cows was probably an indication that someone else should do the planning.”

  Ash sat up so the blanket fell off him. He looked at Lewis beside me, like maybe he could do the planning.

  “Do you have any ideas, Ash?” Apparently he wasn’t an in-charge kind of person even if he knew more about pretty much everything than I did.

  “We’ll need food. I’m good but when Lewis comes to…” he didn’t have to finish that sentence. I could remember when I’d had the fury and how hungry I’d been. Of course, I’d always been hungry when I’d had his soul. “If we could contact Hotbloods, they could get us something for his fury. I’ve heard of some bad side effects.”

  “Yeah, like death,” I said, turning back to Lewis to check him. He looked better than the morning in the Hollow House so that was something.

  “I’ve heard of brain damage,” Ash said, once more getting my attention.

  “Where will we find Hotbloods? Are there any clans near here?”

  Ash shook his head and looked uncomfortable. “Only the Hybrid camp I already mentioned. It’s part of the directions I picked up on Lewis when he touched me, like he was running through various scenarios and that one was stuck in his head at the moment that he burned out.”