Three Days To Dead (12 page)

“I love you, Evy,” Wyatt whispers.

I do not reply.

Certain my death would come soon and on swift feet, I had felt no shame in allowing the seduction. Not that night. The shame consumed me a week later as I sat on the bottom stair of a dank library service stairwell. My body had lied to Wyatt, faking love when all it craved was sensation. Touch. One last hurrah before I died.

A perfect moment for both of us, if he’d let me stay dead.

“I’m sorry, Wyatt.” My voice echoed, harsh and piercing. I longed to pull out of his arms, put as much distance between us as possible, but found myself immobilized. Not by his embrace, but by my own emotions. I had felt alive during those intimate moments. Alive and wanted and necessary, able to face anything the Dregs threw at me. In that dank library stairwell, I wallowed in shame.

“Sorry for what?” Wyatt asked.

“I shouldn’t have slept with you.”

A ripple went through his body, and I felt it keenly.
Not quite a shiver, but close. I wanted to take back those hurtful words, erase them from his memory. I saved him the trouble of pushing me away and stood up, untangling his arms from my waist. Two steps took me to the stairwell door. I pulled the knob. His hand slammed against the door and pushed it closed again. I yelped.

“Don’t run from me, Evy,” he said.

He grabbed my wrist. Instinct kicked in. I twisted my hand around, stepped to the left, and reversed the grip. Drew his arm up and behind his back, effectively pinning him face-first to the door. My free hand squeezed his shoulder. I’d snapped necks from this position, killed dozens of Halfies with a single, pointed blow through the heart. I didn’t want to hurt Wyatt. Far from it. I just needed room to think.

“Don’t do that,” I hissed into his ear. “Ever.”

“I’m sorry.”

I let go and moved to the other side of the tiny space. He stood still for a moment, then slowly turned around. His jaw was clenched, his mouth drawn into a straight line. The sight of him, so grim and desperate, deflated my anger.

“This was Tovin’s idea of a happy ending?” I asked. “Me dying, you putting yourself on the line to bring me back, and for what? To stop a war in a world that doesn’t want us here? That wouldn’t give a rat’s ass if we both keeled over and died? Is that what we’re fighting for?”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, I’m not fighting for this world. I’m fighting for you, because against my better judgment, Evangeline, I fell in love with you. With your sparkle and energy and wit. With the way
you used to cut your own hair, even though it was never straight or even. With the look on your face when you drank hot chocolate. For everything you put into doing your job and never got back from it.”

His words cut like glass, right through a tough exterior I’d spent years erecting. I wanted to melt into the floor. Hide from his emotional soul-baring. Put the genie back in the bottle and pretend it had never come out.

But he wasn’t letting that happen. “I love you,” he said. “I didn’t know if you loved me, and now I don’t think you did. But that’s okay, because I never asked you to. Everything I did was my choice, and mine alone.” He started to add more, then stopped, searching for the right words.

“I’m not who I was before, Wyatt.” I was of two minds about his confession. The old part of me wanted to derail his love fest right then and there. The new me—the part of Chalice Frost that remained alive and attracted to Wyatt, the part that felt the invisible power tethering Wyatt to the magic of the Fey—rebelled. So many things warred against the me who wanted to let myself care again.

“You may look different, but you’re still you,” he said. “I wasn’t in love with your blond hair and blue eyes, Evy. It’s what’s inside that makes you who you are.”

“It isn’t enough if you’re not attracted to someone, too.”

His eyes narrowed. They roved up and down my borrowed body. I shrank under his scrutiny, unused to such a blatant perusal. “You’re right,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “I suppose I was a fool for thinking otherwise.”

Was that an insult? He quirked one eyebrow, telegraphing disappointment, disinterest. I bristled, fists balling by my sides. I covered the distance between us in two measured steps, intent on smacking him across the face.

He reached up, wrapped both hands around my neck, and kissed me so hard our teeth clashed. I responded, mouth and body surging against his. Hands tangled in my hair, roamed down my neck, across my shoulders. Our tongues danced, teasing and tasting.

I wanted to stop; I also wanted him. Unlike our first time, when I invited him into my body for his own pleasure, I now wanted him for mine—if it was really mine at all. My skin burned where he touched. I craved his scent, his taste, in a way I couldn’t explain. Could barely control.

I broke the dizzying kiss and stepped back. I couldn’t help noticing the slight bulge in his pants, or the curious glimmer in his eyes. I didn’t know what was me, what was memory, and what was Chalice. Too many people’s emotions in one head. And now wasn’t the time.

“I do love you, Wyatt,” I said. “I always have, but not romantically. I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise.”

“And now?”

“Now?” How much of love was physical attraction? I didn’t know, but my lips still burned from his kisses. My heart beat faster at the sight of him, red-cheeked and out of breath. I remembered how it felt to have him inside of me and something new—and entirely Chalice—wanted him there again. “Now? The things I crave aren’t appropriate for a public library.”

“What’s changed?”

Everything. Me, him, the world. We weren’t the same people we’d been, even five minutes ago. As my memories returned, I would continue to evolve. Into someone who battled against foreign desire and fought for duty above self. One who would be dead again in fifty-something hours. One who would leave him again.

“Evy?”

He stood toe-to-toe, drilling me with his intense gaze. I looked down, unable to drum up any of my previous levity. All I felt was consuming sadness—heavy, palpable, and suffocating.

“We should go,” I said. “We’re running out of time.”

I opened the service door and fled into the bright third-floor corridor. Wyatt followed at a distance, and we did not speak again until we returned to his car.

*    *    *

“Chalice!”

The stranger’s voice bounced off the building behind me. I froze in place, fingers brushing the door handle. On the other side of the car, Wyatt tensed. We both turned in the direction of the library.

A boy in his late teens jogged down the sidewalk, his long brown hair flowing behind in tangled strands. He wore baggy jeans and moved with all of the grace of a newborn foal. He stumbled once, but kept going, intent on me.

“Hey, Chal,” he said, putting on the brakes. He almost overshot me.

“Hey,” I replied, not a clue who the kid was. Damn Chalice for having friends.

“What happened to you yesterday?” He had a high, nasally voice that, I imagined, became quite irritating after long-term exposure. “Dude, Baxter was furious when you didn’t show, and then he got all worried, ’cause you’re never late.” He eyed the bandage on my forearm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I am now,” I said, holding up my arm. Lies tumbled out of my mouth. “Grease fire in my apartment. My, um, brother, Wyatt, over there was visiting, and he wanted to make stir-fry. He sloshed the oil and it got me, but then I had a bad reaction to painkillers at the hospital or I would have called. Tell … uh …” What name had he said? “Tell Baxter I’m sorry.”

The kid cocked his head to the left, analyzing one of those sentences. With my luck, Chalice was an only child and everyone knew it. He’d call me on it, and I’d have to fudge another lie.

“Tell Baxter yourself, Chal; he’ll be there when you go on-shift tonight,” he finally said.

I bit the inside of my cheek to stifle relieved laughter. Yeah, that was going to happen. “Right, sure. Look, I hate to be rude, but I really have to go.”

“Yeah, okay.” He shrugged one shoulder, seeming unbothered by my abrupt dismissal. He looked across the car and offered Wyatt a half-assed salute. “Dude, your sister’s awesome.” He turned and continued his wobble-legged journey down the street.

After he managed to put about twenty feet of distance between us, I turned and placed my palms flat against the top of the car. “That was somewhat surreal.”

“Brother?” Wyatt asked, still ghostly pale from
his summoning exertion, but seeming less likely to be bowled over by a strong wind.

“It slipped out. At least I didn’t say that I missed my shift because I was dead and hadn’t made my four o’clock resurrection appointment yet.”

“His expression would have been priceless.”

“Why couldn’t I have woken up in the body of a homeless person that nobody knew? This has the potential to become very, very complicated.”

“I think we’ve passed that mile marker already. You said you met Chalice’s roommate. Now we know she has a job somewhere, so people are bound to recognize her.”

“Not to mention the suicide report that some city cop has probably filed away with Chalice’s photo in it.”

He blew air through his lips, eyebrows scrunching. “We need to make you disappear, Evy. Get Chalice Frost erased from the system.”

“You’re thinking of this now?”

“I’ve been a little distracted by other details, like tracking you down and tending to your self-healing wounds. If you’d come back where you were supposed to, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

I rolled my eyes.

He mimicked me, and then said, “We need to get this done so we can keep focusing on your memory.”

He was right. Hoping that Chalice Frost’s former life wouldn’t become a problem had been idiotic. We should have dealt with it right away. Time to correct a mistake. I just didn’t know what to do about Alex Forrester, but knocking him out cold and locking him in a closet for the next two days sounded promising.

I opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat. “So how do we do this?”

Wyatt turned the key and the car engine roared to life. “I need to stop by a bakery.”

I stared.

He winked. “Trust me.”

I balanced the bakery box in both hands, careful to not drop and ruin the expensive treat inside as I ascended the rickety metal staircase. Wyatt led the way up, taking the steps two at a time. The interior of the service stairwell smelled of forgetfulness and disuse.

We had returned to downtown. Wyatt had left me in the running car while he ran into a bakery and, moments later, returned with a white box. I hadn’t opened it, but a sticker on the side said “CSCK—Cherry Top.” Given the shape and weight of the box, I silently translated that into “Cheesecake—Cherry Topping.” I had kept my questions to myself, even when Wyatt drove us back toward Mercy’s Lot.

Halfway there, he had said, “You know, you’re showing amazing restraint.”

“With what? The cheesecake?”

A tiny smile. “No, with not asking me about the night you died. And who else was in the room.”

“You’ll tell me when I need to know something.”

“Fair enough.”

After reaching the outskirts of Mercy’s Lot, he had parked in front of an abandoned potato chip factory and said we needed to head to the top level.

Six flights up I smelled it. Faint at first, and then gradually stronger—the eye-watering stench of fermented sugar. I felt like I was walking into a distillery, and that clued me in as to who we were visiting.

Gremlins are the cockroaches of Dregs. They live short lives in the dark (eight days is the record), reproduce like bunnies, and are hard to kill. They are also hermaphroditic. On the fourth day of their lives they produce and fertilize litters of twelve, which are fully grown within twenty-four hours. Gremlins are as notorious for causing havoc with machinery as they are for having a sweet tooth. Existing almost entirely on a sugar-based diet, their waste created the alcoholic smell that permeated the upper floors of the factory.

I’m still waiting for some brave soul to start marketing Gremlin Piss Schnapps.

Flexible as putty and ugly as sin, the eighteen-inch-tall creatures didn’t fear the Triads. Instead of death and destruction, they specialized in causing trouble and occasional mayhem. We had no reason to hunt them. Their only natural enemies were gargoyles—as a crunchy snack or sport hunting, I didn’t know—and their own brief life spans.

On the seventh level, I began to hear the scuffling sounds of small feet racing back and forth. They knew we were there; it was only a matter of seconds before they sent an emissary. Gremlins did not speak to outsiders en masse. They rarely showed their full strength, and given the size of the factory (and the stink), there
could easily be thousands of gremlins breeding in the shadows.

We reached the eighth floor. A reinforced fire door blocked the top of the stairwell. Wyatt banged his open palm against it.

“Ballengee be blessed,” he shouted. His voice bounced off the enclosed space, and I clutched the bakery box closer. More scuffling preceded a single set of footsteps.

A lock turned on the other side of the door. Wyatt pushed. The tiny creature scrambled away and disappeared. I followed Wyatt into a haze of odor so thick my eyes watered. It felt heavy against my skin, like a fog of liquor fumes. I held my breath, but it did no good. The stink was everywhere, seeping into my pores, so strong I could taste it.

We stood on the upper balcony of a catwalk that overlooked a cavernous production area. To my left was a row of offices, the doors gone and glass broken out of every window. The open area below caught my immediate interest. Hundreds of gremlins scurried about on those multi level floors. Dozens of nests, made of cardboard and shredded debris, dotted nearly every available space. The din of their chatter and daily activity sounded like faint machine-gun fire—constant and sharp. Huge metal vats (likely old deep fryers) were filled with pools of amber liquid.

“They certainly took the term, ‘ piss pot’ to a literal level,” Wyatt said.