Reckoning (33 page)

Every inch of good feeling I’d managed to scrape together ran out like water from a busted glass. “He’s leaving?”

Was it possible for her to look any
more
uncomfortable? She actually wouldn’t meet my eyes, looking down like the floor was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world.

“Nat.” I crossed my arms over my stomach. “Please.”

“He might already be gone.” She still wouldn’t look at me. “He didn’t want you to see him, thought it would be easier—”

Oh, no. No. Shit all
over
that
. I was past her, suddenly, grabbing
for the doorknob. It wasn’t locked, so I yanked the door open and ran out into the hall. The
touch
lit up inside my head, and I swear I could taste his blood again, sliding down my throat. Moonlight and that strawberry incense, and something that wasn’t an identifiable taste. It was just
him
, my Goth Boy, and I pounded down the corridor, hearing shouts behind me. Nat, and of course Benjamin and the others.

It didn’t matter.

I just
ran
.

Have you ever had that dream where you’re running, but you can’t move fast enough? Where the entire world is wet concrete, glorping around you, while you’re searching for something and knowing you won’t ever find it? Heart pounding, stitch grabbing your ribs with clawed fingers, the breath tearing in and out of your lungs while everything around you is suddenly, eerily slow?

But I had the
touch
, and I burst out the front door of the Schola just as the black SUVs were rousing themselves. Two of them, just starting to pull away.

“
No!
” I yelled, skidding to a stop. “
NO!
”

The brake lights popped on. They sat there and idled for a few seconds. My hands were fists at my sides, and my cheeks were wet. My hair was probably an unholy mess, and my feet throbbed. Of course—I was only in socks. Goddammit.

“No.” I stared at the cars. The
touch
settled, feathers brushing up and down my entire body. “No. Please, no.”

The second SUV’s engine cut off. The back passenger door opened, and he slid out slowly.

Like an old man.

Black jeans, black T-shirt, boots, no long black coat now. Instead it was a hip-length leather jacket, probably borrowed from Shanks.

My sock feet crunched in gravel. I was off the steps in a heart-beat, and he met me halfway. I grabbed him like he was a lifering, and I realized the yelling was me.

“
No
, goddammit, you can’t
leave
, not just like that, you just
can’t
! You
can’t
just leave me!”

“Calm
down
,” he began, but I ran right over the top of him.

“Calm down? I don’t
think
so! What the hell are you thinking? What the
fucking
hell is
wrong
with you? You can’t just leave me here and ride off into the sunset, for fuck’s sake! What do you think you’re—”

“Dru.” He tried to untangle himself, but I held on grimly. “Come on. Take a breath. Let me explain.”

“I wish you
would
!” I yelled. I grabbed the front of his jacket and actually
shook
him. His hair swung, I shook him so hard. “I wish you goddamn well
would
explain, for once!”

“Dru.” Sharp, now. “Shut up.”

I did. I held onto his jacket and planted my feet. Stared at the notch of the top of his sternum, where the collarbones met it. Coppery skin on his throat, vulnerable because he’d just shaved. There were two little red marks on his throat, but I didn’t want to look at them. They were right over his pulse, and I’d put them there. So I just stared at that notch instead.

Silence. It was a beautiful summer morning, and my heart was on fire and cracking at the same time.

“Is it because I suck blood?” I said, finally. In a very small voice. “Because that’s disgusting. I know.”

His fingers curled around my shoulders. It was his turn to shake me, twice, my head bobbling a little bit. “No. Dru, dammit, look at me. Look.”

I looked up.

His eyes were still green. But there were huge dark circles under them, and his jaw was set. He looked like he was in pain, and his cheeks were hollowed out.

He looked awful.

But the corner of his mouth tilted up slightly, and there was a shadow of the Graves I knew. He let go of me long enough to dig in his coat pocket, and when he pulled out a battered pack of Pall Malls I wasn’t surprised.

I let go of him. He lit up, inhaled deeply, and offered me the smoke. I shook my head, my nose wrinkling, and the small smile got a bit larger.

Just a bit.

When I was just about to grab him and start screaming with frustration again, he lowered the cigarette. Twin dragons of smoke curled out of his nostrils. “It’s not you.” His shoulders hunched. “Cliché. Sorry. I wanted it to be easier on you. Because I . . . there’s some things you can’t fix, Dru. You’re great at fixing things. If anyone could do it, you could. But you can’t do this one.” A long pause, and he swallowed, hard, his Adam’s apple bouncing. “You can’t fix me. I’m broke.”

“You’re not making any sense.” The rock in my throat made it hard to talk.

“Sergej.” His face twisted for a moment. “He was
inside my head
, Dru. It wasn’t the vampires that burned your grandmother’s house. It was me.”

I just stared at him, my mouth ajar.

“Christophe caught me. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t fight
him
off. Not all the way.”

“But I . . .”
I fixed that! I cleaned it away!

I wanted to yell it. But deep down, I knew better.

You can scrub and scrub, but sometimes something doesn’t just go away. It . . . it stains you. Like finding your father’s ambulatory corpse on your back step, and shooting him over and over because he means to kill you.

He was a zombie, right? He would have killed me.

But he was my
dad
, and I’d done that. I’d
done
it, and something inside me was yanked sideways. There wasn’t any going back, and there wasn’t a way to feel clean again.

Maybe it was the
touch
telling me this. Frustration swamped me, hot and harsh. “It’s
my
fault.” My hands twitched. I wanted to grab him again, but I restrained myself. “If I hadn’t—”

“Don’t
.” A subvocal thunder slid out of him, a wulfen’s warning growl. I froze. “Don’t you
dare
. Sometimes shit just
happens
, Dru. It’s not your fault. It never was.” He tossed the cigarette, a flick of his fingers sending it in a perfect arc. The sunshine beat down on both of us, the dead dyed-black mass of his hair swallowing it.

When he took my shoulders again, it was gentle. He drew me forward and slid his arms around me, and I hugged him. He was too skinny, feverish–hot with a
loup-garou
’s heightened metabolism. A thin sick tremor ran through him, like a high-voltage wire right before it snaps.

“Listen,” he said into my hair. “I’m only gonna say this once, so listen good.”

I nodded, breathing him in, my face in his chest. Squeezed my eyes shut.

His breath was a warm spot in my wet hair. The breeze swirled around us, full of the green growing of summer and cut grass. “I’m coming back. But I got to fix myself. The wulfen, they’ll help. But here’s the thing, Dru. I’m not worth you.” He took a deep breath, and the way his arms tightened made the protest die in my throat.
“But I’m
gonna
be. I told you before, but you didn’t understand. Hell, you might not understand now. But you’ve got to trust me on this one.” His arms tightened. “You have got to let me go. Can you do that?”

It’s not fair!
I wanted to stamp and scream and hit something. Instead, I swallowed, hard. Had to try twice before the words would come. “Do you promise? To come back?”

“I promise.” He sounded sure, at least.

“Do you
swear
?” So I was five years old again. So what?

“I swear. I . . .” He tensed, and I felt him swallow convulsively, too. “I’ve got to be worth you, Dru. I’ve got to get strong, so nobody can use me like that again.”

“Please.” There was nothing else I could say. “Graves.
Please
. . .”

But when he stepped back, I let him go. It tore inside me, way down deep where all the worst hurts settle. He took another step back, the gravel crunching, and when I finally looked back up at him, it was a shock to see.

The tears trickled down his cheeks. His eyes were red-rimmed, but his jaw was set. He opened his mouth, shut it. Opened it again, and what came out shocked me even more.

“I love you. Okay? I promise.” Another step back, his green gaze holding mine. “Hey.” His throat worked, like he was catching the words halfway and pulling them back. “Dru. What’s that short for, anyway?”

I actually
felt
my heart break. It cracked right in half, and a sobbing little laugh that sounded like a cry came out. Got caught at the back of my palate, right where the bloodhunger lived. I forced it down.

“I’ll tell you when you come back,” I managed. It was all I could say.

I guess it must have been the right thing. Because he turned on one heel and headed back for the open passenger door, head up, stepping like he was walking on quicksand or something that might throw him at any moment.

He grabbed the door. But just before he got in, he looked back over his shoulder, and that soundless flash of communication passed between us.

Once, in Dad’s truck in a snowstorm, I’d clung to him. Because we were both wrecked, and when you’re wrecked, the only thing you can do is hold onto whatever you can.

Hold on
hard
.

We were still shipwrecked, Graves and me. But that look told me everything. He was still holding on. As hard as he could.

It just wasn’t enough.

He ducked down, the door slammed, and the brake lights flashed. There was a pause, but then the SUVs rolled away, bumping up onto the paved drive. Two cars meant guards. He’d probably get wherever he needed to safely.

I stood there and watched as they receded down the Schola’s long driveway. The trees arched over, leafdapple shade like water pouring over the cars, and my fingers itched. For the first time in a long time I wanted to draw, and I knew
exactly
what I’d draw. I’d try to capture the way the leaves held the sunlight, the red of the brake lights crimson dots, like fangmarks.

What I couldn’t draw was the way my heart finished cracking and fell, and the feeling that took its place in my chest. A kind of emptiness, like a church in the middle of the week, full of murmuring space.

Sometimes you do grow up in an instant. I think that was the first moment I started thinking like an adult.

And I hated it.

Hiro laid a
pair of my sneakers on the table right in front of me, his jaw set and his dark gaze level. His face might have been carved from caramel wood, and he winced a little if he moved too quickly.

I didn’t want to think about it.

“I don’t get it.” I sat, numb all over, in the high-backed wooden chair, my arms crossed defensively. “Why do I have to do this?”

“They’re envoys,” Bruce said again, patiently, his dark eyes worried. He magnanimously refused to note that my face was tear-streaked and I was visibly shaking. “The Maharaj wish to see you—”

“So they can have another crack at hexing me to death? Or poisoning me? I don’t
think
so.” I pulled more tightly into myself, leaning forward a little. The long mirror-shiny table in the Council room was just the same; the silver samovar glinting against the wall where food was usually arranged looked like an old friend. “Can’t
you
just talk to them? Like, you’re the one who’s really in charge. I’m just a
figurehead.”
And it’s probably a lot safer for everyone that way too. You know what the hell you’re doing. Mostly
.

Bruce spread his hands. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in a white button-down that was less than perfectly pressed. His dark hair was messy, and his proud Middle Eastern face was about as close to haggard as a model-attractive
djamphir
could get. “They think you may be . . . one of theirs. Or related, somehow.”

“Great.” If I hugged myself any harder I was going to crack in half. “I don’t give a good goddamn what they—”

“Milady.” Hiro, softly and respectfully. But the single word cut through what I’d planned on saying. “Please. Listen.”

I wiped at my cheeks with the flat of my right hand. The rock in my throat didn’t get any smaller, no matter how many times I tried to force it down. “Fine.” I sounded ungracious, to say the least.

“Thank you.” He stood, slim and straight, his gray silk high-collared shirt unwrinkled and his eyes, as well, shadowed with exhaustion. It was the first time I’d seen that, either on him
or
on Bruce, and I suddenly wondered where the rest of the Council was. “Milady, you are able to do . . . certain things
svetocha
are not traditionally able to do. We were unsure where these talents came from; the
djinni
-children may believe you have some strain of their blood from your . . . human . . . side.” He took a deep breath, half-flinching again like his ribs pained him. “The Maharaj have severe prohibitions against harming a female who can use their particular sorceries. The fact that you were attacked, that you
were
harmed, creates a very large problem for them. A . . . debt, if you will. And that debt is a way we may pressure them into abandoning their former neutrality against, as well as their recent alliance with, the
nosferat
. This is an opportunity. One that is exceedingly rare, one we must press, and one we must ask you to accede to.”