I let one last look pass between Finn and me before I settled my fingers around my blade and gave in. He nodded once. I closed my eyes and dissolved into the light.
Chapter 22
Cash
“I wish you’d stay at my house, or at least let me or Finn stay here with you,” Emma said, smoothing the comforter on my bed for the millionth time.
I put my hand over hers to stop it, and her eyes drifted up to meet mine.
“Em,” I said. “I’m going to be fine. I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight anyway. You heard the doctor. He said I have a couple of weeks.”
“Why won’t you let them help? Operate? Something.” Her voice dissipated into a pained whisper. “Anything.”
I looked across my room at Finn, who was leaning, arms folded, against the doorframe, watching us. He looked tired. I rested my elbows on my knees and sighed.
“Finn, will you tell her?” I said. “Tell her it won’t do any good.”
He pressed his lips together and averted his green eyes to the stain on the tan carpet where I’d spilled paint a year ago.
“You don’t know that,” Emma said.
“He’s in an expired body,” Finn said softly, as if the tone behind the words would make it any better. “There is nothing anyone in this world could do to change that.”
The thought of being alone should’ve scared the crap out of me. But being surrounded by people whose eyes only reflected the fact that I was going to die scared me even more. Fear swirled around in my veins, mixing and melding with the last bit of life that flowed there. Black and red. Death and life. My lungs made an attempt to keep up but it just resulted in me coughing until my stomach twisted into tense knots. When it subsided and I could breathe again, Emma was curled up beside me rubbing circles on my back. A tear slid silently down her face, leaving mascara tracks on her cheeks.
“I love you, Em,” I whispered, squeezing her knee. “But I
need
you to go. I just want to close my eyes and forget that this is happening. Even if it’s just for a night. Besides, I’m sure Anaya will be back soon.”
“You trust her?”
I thought about that. I thought about all the reasons I shouldn’t, and still, I found myself saying, “Yes. You should, too.”
It only took a flick of my eyes to the shadow demon swirling up the leg of the nightstand to get Emma’s attention.
“They’re here, aren’t they?” she whispered. “The shadows?”
I nodded. There wasn’t any use denying it. Finn crossed the room, his eyes following mine to the nightstand.
Breathe
. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, then exhaled. I had to keep it under control. If I could keep them at a minimum, this wouldn’t be as bad. One I could handle. If a swarm of the things decided to show up, I was screwed.
“How many?” Finn asked.
“Just one.”
For now
.
He nodded, stepping back to the center of the room, beckoning me to follow. “All right. Enough of this. Get up.”
“What?” Emma and I said it at the same time.
“Trust me,” he said. Those should have been the two words that kept me in place, but my curiosity got the best of me. I slid off the bed and stood beside Finn.
“Now what?”
“Get the shadow to come over,” he said. “There’s still only one, right?”
I nodded, feeling sweat break out across my bow. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”
“You’re not helpless, Cash. Open your hand and focus on the power there. If you’re a shadow walker it will be there. You just need to tap into it.”
I flexed my hand and looked up at the shadow that was inching closer with each frantic beat of my heart, like it was being lured in by my panic. It finally got close enough to wrap around my ankles and I couldn’t stop myself from shaking.
“It’s okay,” Finn whispered. “What do you feel like you could do?”
“Finn…,” Emma interjected, sounding worried.
I held up my hand. “It’s okay, Em.”
I narrowed my gaze on my fingers and a blue shimmer sparked from the tips. The shadow slithered up the leg of my jeans and without a second thought, I reached out and closed my fingers around its neck just like I’d seen Noah do. A screech rattled my eardrums and the shadow twisted under my grip. It sizzled under my skin but it couldn’t get away, turning from smoke to sludge under my touch. When I couldn’t stand the pain anymore, I released it and it slithered out of the open bedroom door.
Finn stared at me, wide-eyed. “Did it work? You were able to grab it, right? Force it into a corporeal state like you did with Anaya?”
I opened my trembling palm and we both stared at the angry red burn. My fingertips were blistered and my palm looked like raw meat. I swallowed. “Yeah. It worked.”
“That’s…unreal,” Finn breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You haven’t?” I gaped. “Then why the hell did you have me try it?”
“I was part of the afterlife for over seventy years and never met a shadow walker,” he said. “But I heard stories. That they could force any kind of spirit out of elemental form. Souls, shadows…why do you think everyone wants you so badly? You’re powerful, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.”
As much as my palm hurt like hell, I laughed, the sound part relief that I wasn’t completely helpless and part terror that I seemed to have one more thing in common with Noah. I still didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. God, I wished I could talk to Emma about this, but I didn’t have a doubt that if I did, Finn would know about it by morning.
“Is it gone?” Emma spoke up, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle as she searched my room for something she’d never see.
“Yeah.” I smiled and my shoulders sagged in relief. “It’s gone.”
Emma’s phone started to ring in her pocket. She slid her finger across the screen to silence it and groaned. “It’s Mom. I’ll text her and tell her I’m going to be late.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Seriously, I’m good now, guys. And I give you permission to wake me up ridiculously early as long as you promise to bake me something.”
To be honest I doubted I would have been able to keep anything down, but I knew it would make her happy if I sounded like my old self.
Emma watched me for a thoughtful moment and then leaned up to plant a soft kiss on my cheek. “Call if you need anything. I don’t care what time it is.”
I nodded and waved to Finn as he grabbed Emma’s hand and led her out the door.
After they were gone, I lay in bed, listening to the ragged sound of my breaths. They sawed their way out of my throat before dragging back in. The room was so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of me. Good. If the shadow demons were here, I didn’t want to know it.
I couldn’t get Anaya out of my head. Out of my bones and veins and everywhere in between. I couldn’t shake that memory. Was it real? Had that really been me, with her? God, she’d looked…she’d
felt
so alive. I could still taste her, and the memory didn’t even belong to me. Or did it?
My bedroom door creaked open and I tensed, fighting the urge to curl into myself under the heavy blankets. But when a breath of warmth entered the room, like a spray of invisible sunshine, I relaxed.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Em,” I said, watching Anaya’s shimmer appear in the dark doorway. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I’m not here to babysit you.” She stepped into the room, skimming her fingers on the doorframe, and stopped once she was inside. The door clicked shut behind her. I sat up and cleared my throat. I didn’t need her of all people seeing me like this. Weak. I took a deep, ragged breath, pushed the blanket off me, and stood up.
“Did you see what I saw?”
Anaya’s gold eyes lit up as they trailed over my bare chest. My heart was starting to pound. It felt good. It felt alive. I took a step closer.
“Y-you should lie down,” she said quietly.
“Answer the question.”
She looked away. I took another step closer. Close enough to feel her warmth sparking off my skin. Close enough for those sparks to catch fire and blaze through my veins. My chest. All the places that made me weak for her. Only her. My heart was a jackhammer in my chest having her this close.
“Anaya,” I whispered through the aching need that had taken up residency in my throat.
“Yes?” She didn’t look at me. Instead she held her golden gaze on the half-open window, her profile like a work of art shimmering though the dark. The curtains glowed, brought to life by moonlight and a breeze that smelled like fresh-cut grass. I touched her chin with one fingertip and turned her face toward me.
“Tell me it was real.” I let my fingertip smooth across her jaw, down to her collarbone. A line of blue sparks trailed after my touch, stitching Anaya back to life. “I need it to be real.”
Anaya just looked at me for a moment while my fingers found their way into the braids that covered her neck. Then, slowly, she nodded.
“It was real.” She placed her open hand on my stomach and a sound escaped her throat, almost a whimper. “We…we were real.”
That was the only signal I needed. After all of the waiting. The wanting. I slid my hand up into her hair more firmly and kissed her, pushing her back until the closed door stopped us. Until there was just my weight against her. Her softness beneath me. The sense that every ounce of Anaya was filling up the empty hole in my chest. Anaya gripped the waistband of my shorts in her fists, opened her mouth beneath mine, and everything dead and dying within me roared to life. My right palm slammed into the door behind her to keep my balance and I lost myself in the warm sensation of her lips. The taste of her tongue. Her fingers brushing the bare skin of my abdomen. She whimpered and suddenly she was pressed against me, knee to chest. Jesus…she was going to kill me. And I didn’t care. Anaya’s fingers slid up my stomach and I couldn’t contain the moan that left me. I needed more of her, but one nagging little thought kept interrupting perfection. Was it me she wanted, or Tarik?
“I’m not him,” I gasped, forcing myself to pull away from her mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to form a coherent thought other than
what does she look like under that dress?
“What?” She looked dazed, her gold eyes creating a glow around our faces in the dark.
“I mean, don’t do this because you think I’m Tarik.” I took a deep breath and looked down at her lips. “Do this because I’m me. Because you want
me
. Not because you want who I used to be.”
Her eyes lit me up. Drinking me in. Considering. One of her hands slid up my chest. She spread her fingers out over my sluggish heartbeat and closed her eyes.
“I want
you
,” she whispered. “I wanted you before I knew.”
I wanted her, too. I couldn’t remember ever wanting anyone as much as I wanted Anaya.
I closed the space between us slowly, letting her lips draw me in with their next breath. Heat bloomed in my mouth, slid down my throat. I couldn’t get enough. I pulled Anaya against my body, wondering how someone who wasn’t alive could feel warmer than me. Maybe that just showed I was more dead than alive at this point. I didn’t care.
I stumbled backward, tripping over my discarded jeans in the floor, keeping Anaya pressed against me all the way. The backs of my knees hit the edge of my mattress and my pulse pounded a little harder. I was never nervous when I had a girl this close to my bed. But Anaya wasn’t just a girl. She wasn’t a girl at all. She was…everything. I kissed her harder, needing to be closer to her than I’d ever been to anyone. Heart pounding out of control, knowing I was this close to having her after wanting her for so long.
“You even taste like sunshine,” I whispered against her lips, pushing the white strap of her dress down her shoulder.
“Cash?” Anaya mumbled, sounding worried. She pressed her palm to my chest. I realized she wasn’t breathing anymore. Wasn’t kissing me back. I pulled away.
“What? What did I do?” I gasped for breath, trying to focus on Anaya and not the way the room was spinning out of control. I could hold it together. I would hold it together. For her. For this.
“Your heart…”
My eyes followed her gaze to where her hand glowed against my bare chest. My heart thudded, slowly, erratically, under her touch. I sucked in a breath. It felt like I was breathing through a straw. She frowned and dropped her hand to the blade at her hip, rubbed her thumb across the handle.
“You need to sit down,” Anaya said, pushing me back onto the bed. She sat down beside me and ran her fingers through my hair as I tried to catch my breath. Tried to right the room that was spinning around me like a top. I felt sick. I buried my face in my palms and breathed into the hollow of my hands.
“This is so not what I pictured when I decided to try to get you in my bed,” I said, my words muffled by my fingers. Anaya laughed and kissed my shoulder, her lips leaving a little imprint of heat on my skin.
I looked up at her, trying so hard not to be angry. To not be humiliated. It wasn’t working.
“Sorry,” I said, wishing I could kick my ass into gear and kiss her again.
Anaya shrugged and swept a few braids off her shoulder so she could tilt her head to look at me. “That was my first kiss in over a thousand years. I should probably pace myself anyway, don’t you think?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe in pacing yourself.”
“Maybe you should.” She grinned. “Look at you.”
I took as deep a breath as my lungs would allow and pulled her onto the bed with me. Her braids spread out like a halo across my comforter, shimmering even when there was no light to reflect from them. I leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her jaw. Heat sparked across my lips.
“I’m okay,” I said, cursing my body for being weak. “We don’t have to stop.” Every nerve writhing under my skin was begging me to just give up and collapse. I couldn’t do that. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t what I wanted to be. I didn’t realize I was still, face buried in the warm hollow of Anaya’s neck, until she placed her hand on the back of my head. Moisture blurred my vision.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’re not.” Anaya slid off the bed and I scrambled to sit up. “You’re not okay,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You have no idea how close you are. I can
feel
it.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters!” Anaya’s fingers balled up into tiny fists at her sides.