Poison Kissed (28 page)

31

It wasn’t dark anymore.

And my head hurt, like I’d scraped acidsoaked steel wool in there.

Situation normal.

My pulse thudded, sluggish. Light flickered, blurry at my vision’s edge, and I groaned and forced my eyes fully open.

Ivy leaned over me, grinning, her face a swollen mess of purpling cuts. Candlelight lurched grim shadows across her face, the cavern’s ceiling looming. “Awake, naughtyblue?”

I scrambled to sit up, to get away from her, but I couldn’t move my limbs. I opened my mouth, and cold magic like cobwebs clogged my throat. I struggled, my muscles jerking. My chest heaved. I could breathe okay. My heart still beat, my blood still warm. But she’d enspelled me, or drugged me with some tragic fairy compulsion that cast me in invisible glass. I couldn’t move.

The grimy floor pressed cold into my back, and bile frothed in my throat, the sick memory of grasping spriggan fingers. I choked, straining to speak. “What you doing to me?”

“You stupid or something? Need the rest of your song. Making a spell.”

Laughter spasmed my lungs. “There’s none left, Ivy. You already took it. Calm down and we can talk about th—”

“Oh, but there is. Some left, y’know.” She placed a clammy finger over my lips, her silver eyes swimming molten with giddy fae magic that hadn’t been there before. “No nasty snakething to save you this time, skyhair. Open up to me.”

Ozone stank in my nose, the rich thunder of her twisted spells. Tears blurred my vision, and my headache flared to full-scale agony. But tiny hope flared in my heart. Was she telling the truth? Did some remnant of my song remain?

Horrid memories of her sharp shadowy fingers ripping my brain to shreds piqued my dread, and I gritted my teeth on a sick stomach. “No, Ivy, listen. You’ll kill me. I need it—ah!” A cry ripped from my lips, the first sickly crunch of her invisible teeth into my mind.

I struggled furiously, and my muscles twitched wildly like electric shock, but I was helpless. I screamed, my spine afire, and she scrambled around in my head like an angry child in a toybasket, tossing images and memories and tortured emotions left and right.

In the deepest, safest corner of my brain, a tiny golden seed stirred, and murmured a forgotten snatch of symphony.

I jerked, surprise searing my nerves bright like arcweld.

The golden kernel sighed and sparkled, and I grabbed at it, desperate, hope hacking sharp teeth at my veins. If something did remain of my song, she wasn’t getting her grubby hands on it. I’d die first.

Or second.

Either way, I wasn’t giving up.

“Caterpillar!” The real Ivy slapped my cheek, her anger flaring green in a filthy aura. “Stop wriggling. You’re spoiling it!”

“Wait,” I gasped, stalling. “One question. One question and I’ll go quietly. I promise.”

“Question, schmestion,” she muttered, sniffing at my lips. But she did pull back a little inside my head, her shadowy claws not digging quite so deep.

I sucked in a grateful breath, girding my strength as best I could, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Why’d you hurt my mother?”

She tapped her claws on my teeth. “You
are
stupid. To tease the serpent man, of course. Now sit still.”

My lips writhed back from her creeping touch. “But Joey didn’t know her. Why torture an innocent woman?”

“Because he cut my face and laughed about it!” Her spit flecked, splashing my face. “He tortured
me
! Pretends he’s got honor and conscience and never does anything wrong, but he’s an evil nasty horrible snake and he hurt me and I’ll hurt him back over and over and again until he says he’s sorry!” Her face crumpled in tears, and she pecked me cruelly with her nails like a mocking raven’s beak, stabbing my arms, my breasts, my face.

I struggled to avoid her, to save my eyes. It wasn’t right. The Joey I knew didn’t delight in torture. “But why?” I gasped. “Why did he cut your face?”

Ivy gnashed her tiny teeth at me, and laughed.

And behind her, emerald serpent eyes glinted at me from the dark.

My heart leapt. I tried not to look. Not to give him away. But my throat caught tight, my lungs straining for air, and I let out a helpless little gasp.

Ivy whirled, wings scything, and dived for him, and in the dark his eyes winked out.

My heart gabbled cold, and inside my head the golden kernel wailed an ear-shattering warning. I couldn’t see. Where was he? What was she doing?

Invisible sounds tortured me. Glass broke. Skin scraped on concrete. Teeth grated like a scratched blackboard. And Ivy lumbered into the light, dragging my beautiful, thrashing black serpent by his long spiked tail.

Icy razors ripped into my heart, and I didn’t know if it was terror or rage. Had he followed me? She wasn’t strong enough to hold him before. What the fuck was he doing, getting himself caught like that? If he’d come for my sake, I’d really kill him this time.

Joey squirmed and scythed, raking the glass-strewn floor, his sharp tailfins slicing into Ivy’s flesh. Bright greenish blood gushed from her slashed palm, dripping hot and thick over the snake’s tail. But she didn’t let go, dragging him across the floor to dump him in a slithering black pile at my feet.

He writhed and fought, slashing at her with sharp fins, curling in on himself to strike with those long glossy fangs I loved. But she spat a spell-sparked curse at him, green smoke hissing from her teeth to curl around him in a sticky magical web. “Be still,” she snarled, and though venom dripped hellgreen from his mouth and his fins quivered with frustrated rage, his spine shuddered like a seizure and he couldn’t strike.

Couldn’t shift. Couldn’t move. Like me. Trapped.

Ivy giggled, and shoved his shining black flank with her pointed foot. “So tell her, snakypet—Oh, I forgot. Can’t talk, can you?”

“Let him be.” My voice vibrated steelsharp, errant harmonics twanging like broken piano wire. Her malicious smile poured dread into my heart. My bones clanged cold. I wanted to block my ears, shout out so I couldn’t hear what she’d say.

“It was because I tricked you, snaky, didn’t I?” Ivy grinned in triumph. “Yes indeedy, I did. Tricksy old me. Told you I could cure you of this
slimy
.
Pukeworthy
.
Monster
.” With each word, she poked a vicious claw into his quivering black nose. “And you believed me! What a laugh! And you did frightful things, didn’t you, pet? You hurt and stole and killed so I’d give you your poxy cure. And I lied all along! Ha! Good joke, eh?”

Joey’s eyes flooded dark with unknowable serpent emotion. Ivy’s sticky web still trapped him from throat to tail, but he struggled to turn his head, look away from me with eyes that couldn’t swivel or close to block me out.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

Ivy giggled and smiled at me brightly, but then her face crunched in a deadly scowl. “But
he
didn’t think it was funny. Oh no. He had to go and hurt me. But it was just a trick!” She clawed at her ruined face, rage staining her eyes black. “Just a stupid giggly trick and you cut my face
again,
you nasty nasty nasty . . . Ohh, I’m gonna make you hurt.” Her wings flailed in windy rage, drowning out her words. She dived on me, talons outstretched like an evil goldplated angel, and plastered her sugarsweet lips over mine.

Her teeth banged in, bursting my lips. Pain spiked, but I barely felt it. I was too numb.

I’d been so fucking stupid.

All those months of circling each other like hungry panthers abruptly made sense. He wasn’t standoffish for ego’s sake. He didn’t hide his serpent for caution, or because he was too in control to care.

He loathed the very idea of himself. He couldn’t bear me to see, to feel, to touch him.

And I’d demanded he show me, right when his defenses were weakest.

No wonder he’d shoved me away.

Ivyjuice flooded my mouth, angry, bitter like dead grass. Cruel shadow-knives slashed into my head again, slicing into my deepest consciousness, and the tiny golden music in my mind shrieked and twisted like a cat-gnawed mouse, trying to get away.

Ivy thrust her tongue into my mouth, raping, hunting for the elusive magical spark that made me who I was. I didn’t care. Torrid guilt crushed me breathless, and weakly my limbs shook, the last remnants of fight shocked out of me.

My stomach churned, sick with bile and fairy spit and my own acid selfishness. God, I’d so blindly misused him. He’d told me all the truth he could, bled his heart out on the floor at my feet, and I’d been too wrapped up in my own self-inflicted misery to listen.

He’d given me everything he had. And like a needy, spoiled little princess, I’d thrown it back at him.

If I died now, he’d never know how much I regretted it.

Fresh fire lit in my muscles, and I clamped my jagged teeth around Ivy’s tongue and bit down.

Poison squirted, my swollen sacs emptying into her mouth. She screeched, a wild ululating cry that split my ears like ripe pumpkins, and tore herself away.

Rich fairy blood spurted over my face, sweet like nectar with her madness. The invisible steel bands that pressed me down dissolved, and I whiplashed my screaming limbs and landed shakily on hot bare feet.

She wailed, clutching her bleeding mouth, and a melody-sharp cackle erupted from my throat. Now she had two wounds. One from me. One from him. Seemed only fair.

I crouched, flexing my aching thighs for shaky balance, and beckoned to her with two bloodspattered fingers. “Like that? Want some more? Kiss me again. I dare you.”

Ivy wiped frothing blood from her toxin-swelled lip, her face contorted in pain and fury. “You nasthy liffle rath. Why you gottha be tho mean?” And she dived for her table, where rainbowglass scattered jewelbright in a tumble of rusted metal forks and broken containers. She scrabbled through the wreckage and came up with a bubbling green vial, which she uncorked and upended into her mouth.

Her throat bobbed, swallowing. Emerald fire glazed her eyes, the stolen spellcraft glittering like stars.

Stocking up on powers. Next time she kissed me, I might not be able to hold her off.

I flung myself at her, rage flowering in my muscles, a pale shadow of my old strength but invigorating still.

My body crashed into hers, flinging her off balance. I rolled clumsily to the floor, missing petrified Joey by inches. Ivy flared her wings and caught herself, and before I could react, she grabbed another spell and swallowed that, too. Her wingbones quivered scarlet, rage or lust or some other stolen emotion, and between her fingers, eerie flame crackled.

My skin bubbled cold. What new threat did we face? What strange power did Ivy harbor now?

On the floor, Joey shuddered and tried to shift. Muscles pulled along his side, scales writhing and melding with white human skin, and I glimpsed a faint flash of his hair, silhouetted jagged against flickering candlelight. But Ivy’s woolly green webspell held him fast, and with a final thrash and an evil greensplashed hiss, he gave up.

Ivy cackled and threw the empty glass tube away. It smashed on the floor, and she dived for me, her wings’ ragged holes swiftly repairing themselves on some blackhearted enchantment.

I dodged, but she was too quick. She grabbed my throat, stinging claws digging, and rammed my back into the wall, squeezing my breath away.

I gasped, trying to kick my way free, but I couldn’t connect. She was too agile, balancing on her wings and a seething updraft of hate. Her swollen cheek deflated as I watched, infection’s red veins vanishing, leaving only angry cuts still bubbling fresh with snakerot. Her gaze swirled violet, boring into mine, and the shock dizzied me like vampire hypnosis, sick and hot and terrifyingly welcome. Her voice glided into my ears, seductive like fairysweet honey with the new magic she’d swallowed, making love to me like flesh on flesh. “No more fighting. Give me your songs, pretty.”

Hot fleshscent rolled on my tongue, and those insidious shadow-fingers forced one last time through the cracks into my skull. Her foul hypnosis swirled ugly in my aching brain, and my belly filtered warm and sensual with the crushing need to obey.

I choked and struggled, straining until my throat bled for those last lost chords, but they crumbled to ashenbright dust in my mouth.

Despair crippled me. I couldn’t fight this. I didn’t want to. It hurt too much.

Grimly, I squeezed my eyelids shut, trying to break her hold, but horrid compulsion sprang them open again and her gaze ripped into mine, inescapable, unstoppable.

An appalling pulling sensation gripped my blood, like all my body fluids dragged toward her on invisible clamps. My heart galloped, unable to compensate, and my feet flushed cold without blood. Sweat sprang. Tears leaked from my eyes and sucked across the air toward her. Spit spilled from my glands and flowed onto my chin. My stomach juices churned and climbed my gullet, eager to get out, and between my legs wetness flowered, a cold slimy splat that crawled and spread and disgusted me.

My head throbbed, dehydrated. Blood trickled warm from my nose, and I gasped out my last wet defiant breath. “Fuck you.”

Ivy’s mad golden eyes swirled with dangerous inspiration. “Don’t think so, pretty. Give up already, or I’ll snap your precious boyfriend’s snaky neck.”

Joey thrashed and spat, glossy skin quivering over muscle ripped tight. The spell’s relentless grip contorted his spine into unmakeable shapes, but he couldn’t break free.

“No!” Horror clawed my guts with iron. Ivy flung me aside, tittering with glee, and I fought like a maddened wasp to break free of her spell, to run to him, but too late.

She’d already grabbed him. Two hands, smoking with spellcraft and caustic hatred.

Joey wriggled and snapped bloodbright jaws, his spiked tail quivering, but her claws dug in, cutting his tough black skin like paper.

I watched, helpless, as she shoved her slender knee beneath his middle. And with a sick crunch of bone and sinew that ripped my ears bloody, she cracked his spine in two.

32

Joey’s eyes glazed cold, like frost crackling on a window.

My guts spasmed, fear-iced air forcing down my throat.

Bloody flecks hissed from his tongue. His fins quivered, shedding venomdrops like rain, and the whole back end of him flopped limp.

“Oops. Silly me. Did I break something?” Ivy giggled, and dropped him, her greedy shadow-fingers reaching for my soul. Pain slashed, melting my bones, scouring my muscles to gunge. Her claws dug deep, grabbed at last the glowing golden melody like evil metal pincers and started to rip it free.

But Joey’s angry, helpless gaze burning my skin thrust cold determination worthy of a serpent deep into my heart. My abused nerves sparked alive with indignation and bloody stubbornness.

He wouldn’t die for me. Enough people had died for my cowardice already.

After all that had happened, the least I could do for him was fight her for a moment longer.

Long-suppressed emotion shook like quartz crystal in my heart, and shattered.

My lonely melody sputtered and flared brighter like a hungry candle. I opened my mouth, spellcharged air sucking deep into my lungs, and I sang.

A deep, pure, shattering glissando of rage.

It swelled and rolled, filling my lungs and mouth and ears with sweet exultation, and my blood caught fire.

My golden melodyseed burst in dazzling supernova, scorching Ivy’s fingers to the bone. She screamed, a deathly howl of agony and surprise that was totally drowned out by my stunning harmony.

Victory and long-lost vibration stroked delight deep into my blood. Oxygen rushed to my spellslashed brain, better than any spell or faesweet drug. Instinctively, I stretched my rusty vocal cords, and for the first time in so long, the note rippled and broke into a perfect, awful, hellish chord, relentless multiplication building a ladder of destructive frequencies, climbing octave after octave in a shining cascade of spelldrenched death.

Yes.
Warm honey gratitude spilled into my belly, and my nerves responded, electric wonder sparkling along my limbs, jerking my tendons tight and my reflexes ever sharper. And the sounds, oh god, the sounds, full and swelling and beautiful in my ears, every breath and twitch and tiny mote of movement pinpointed in three dimensions for me to consume.

But it wasn’t only music that filled my senses. My skin sparkled with alien spells, all the drugmagic that had been sprinting around in Ivy’s blood pouring into me, mine to exploit. Flame rippled along my forearm, some fairy’s stolen baublefire, and green envy zinged sparks between my fingers.

My deep undulating vibrato stretched the unearthly sound to the finest quality. Louder, louder until the concrete above our heads shuddered and cracked with a deafening rumble. Clattering footsteps and fairy wails filtered in as Ivy’s creatures panicked and fled, or rolled over, too out of it to care.

Rocky shards rained, and Ivy swooped at me, ragged wings flapping, her sharp fairy teeth gnashing for my throat. “Look what you’ve done!”

I just twitched away—Christ, it felt so good to
move
—and pitched my rage higher.

Harmonics blazed like gunfire, raking the air raw, and she thumped squawking into my shimmering wall of sound and fell back.

I laughed, music dripping with poison from my tongue, and the metal table shuddered and warped. God, it felt good, this sinister melody surging through my veins, my muscles at knife-edge response, this warm dark feeling of
me
.

I’d missed her, my beautiful dark muse. And she’d missed me. I could feel it, the way she caressed me inside, stroked my eager flesh, vibrated in my fluids like a lover’s tempting touch.

I whirled, my balance light and perfect. Ivy perched over Joey on the desk’s twisted edge like a dusty golden bird, gripping with broken claws, her wings curled menacingly. “You want him? Come get him.”

I longed to let Ivy have it, open my lungs all the way and sing spine-crackling retribution until my throat bled and the treacherous fairy cow melted into a quiver of bleeding jelly.

But I’d no time for useless vengeance. Not while the ceiling was about to cave in on us. Not while my heart lay broken and nerveless on the glass-tinkled floor.

More rock showered, a dark crack splitting apart in the ceiling, the smell of dust and ancient bones. I risked a glance at Joey, who lay quivering like a long black coil of hate. He tilted his elegant chin up at me, just a fraction, and the tiny movement stroked thick in my ears, fragrant from his warm menthol skin.

I danced in slow motion across the shuddering floor, edging toward Ivy. Glass crunched under my bare feet, the sound of my skin slicing a sweet harplike ripple. Rock cracking, dust clouding in my eyes. Another step closer, feeling with my ears for Joey’s hissing breath. “We need to get the fuck outta here before it falls in, lady, and I’m not leaving him.”

Her gaze darted to the cracking ceiling. “And I won’t let him go. Not without your spell! Stalemate, pretty. What ya gonna do?”

Despairing, I stared at him, his sleek black body thick with dust and rocky shards. He flashed me a glance that shone like starlight with apology and rich minty memory, and my heart sputtered.

So green, his gaze. Normally so cold, hard, unknowable. Only now, it wasn’t. He’d let me through. His compassion slashed my bruised soul like sweet razor melody, and I knew.

The normal world, where people chatted and laughed and acted nice to each other? It wasn’t for me. I lived in a darker, richer place, where danger coiled in the gutters and dripped like bloody scarlet sunset through dusty windows.

But that didn’t mean I’d sacrificed my honor. I didn’t have to become a murderer, a liar, lose the last scrap of conscience that made me whole.

He’d taught me well. Never break your promises. Always follow through on your threats. And sometimes, when what’s at stake is big enough, risk everything to prove your point.

No matter how deeply you fear you won’t measure up.

Some things are just worth dying for.

I stalked one last dancer’s step closer, crude vibration swelling threat in my throat. The ceiling cracked wider, and a jagged rocky chunk shuddered and gave way. It thudded onto the desk, crushing it effortlessly to crumpled metal in a rain of dirt and pebbles.

Ivy screeched and darted backwards on hovering wings. “Shush, you silly blue thing. You’re making a mess!”

Wild conviction sparkled goldenblack rivers on my breath. I hit another shrill high note, sliding up the octave on warm oily confidence so long lost. Magic thrilled in my throat, rippling the air with ineluctable vibration, and the rock above her gave an almighty groan, and fell.

The earth shuddered. Thunder tore my ears. Dust exploded, pebbles and rockshards flying, and Ivy disappeared under a rain of dirt and tumbling debris.

The air hummed, evil fairy magic writhing in protest at its absent mistress. Green light glimmered and popped, and with a sick crack and a puff of sugar-stinking smoke, Ivy’s spell broke.

In a shiny black flash, Joey shifted.

I tumbled to my knees in the rockpile at his side, my destructive song’s echo fading. My feet stung and bled, and jagged broken glass sliced painful welts into my knees, but I didn’t care.

His eyelids fluttered closed, dust caking his pale lashes. Raw scarlet bruises mottled his spine, and furious snakeflesh writhed under the skin over his ribs, his spine curling in pain or the last useless jerk of paralysis.

I cradled his head in my dusty lap, brushing rocky shards from pale hair. Guilty tears throttled my vision gray. I shook them away, and my throat crackled, dry from misuse and fear. “Joey, talk to me. C’mon.”

Around us, rock still shuddered and threatened. I’d done some real damage, and now it was too late to stop it. I didn’t care. If I’d let Ivy break the only person I cared about, I’d just stay here and die.

I buried my face in his hair, that wonderful minty scent dusty and wet with my tears. His skin felt cold, clammy, no warmth in his blood.

My heart quailed. I couldn’t be without him, not now. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d lied to myself about going to Sydney. Working for anyone else felt like treason, and I’d done enough of that already.

“C’mon. Wake up. Shift. Do what you need. I don’t know how to help you.” Frantically, I tried to recall what he’d done in the shower, how he’d healed himself. But I couldn’t remember anything but the way he’d felt against me, inside me, the soul-rotting despair in my heart when he’d pushed me away.

His chest heaved, but no air sucked into his lungs. Blood spilled from his mouth, dark and oxygen-starved. He still didn’t move. Just convulsed like a sparkle overdose, his limbs jerking on random electric shock.

I tried to sing bright summer into his ear, a tingling magical melody to strengthen and revive him, but my voice quavered and broke, the spell flying apart like smashed glass to tinkle on the shuddering floor.

Despair glutted my stomach cold. I gripped his hair under a thickening rain of dirt and rocky shards, and pressed my cheek to his, his skin’s sweet friction on mine no longer a pleasure, but a dark threat of loss. Tears leaked onto my face, smearing in the dust. “I didn’t mean what I said. I didn’t get it. Please, don’t fucking give up. God knows I deserve it, Joey, but don’t give up on me.”

My voice shimmered, crystalline with unspoken emotion, and golden glitter tumbled like sparkle on my breath.

I blinked. What the hell?

Strange, heartbreaking melody pealed in my throat, rich with honey and mint. It warmed my soul, that song, like a hot bubblebath or a crackling fire on a deep winter’s midnight. And as I watched, a tiny spellwarm halo shimmered and brightened around us, glowing like golden fairylight.

His skin sprang alive with sudden sweat, heat rolling off him in a wave. His body jerked in my arms, and his spine made a sickening crack that ricocheted like a gunshot.

A bloody, tortured groan ripped from his lips, and I choked on a howl. Surely, I’d failed him. Poisoned him. Drained him to death with my fear, just like I’d done to my mother.

He gave one final bone-shaking shudder, and air rushed hard into his lungs.

Spellshine dazzled, golden. Glossy snakeflesh rippled in his back, mingling in a blur with glowing white human skin. Ribs contorted. Sharp black spines grew and subsided. Tendons twisted and stretched and contracted, pulling his muscles into grotesque and alien shapes. His limbs flexed, impossibly lithe and jointed, and with a final twist and tortured heave, he slammed back into his human body.

He coughed, venom-tinged blood splattering my thighs, and his eyelids fluttered open.

Slowly, he focused on me, his lovely fierce-green eyes bloodshot, and warmth glowed in my heart like long-lost sunshine.

The dust made him blink, and something foolish and wonderful caught in my throat. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. I just stroked dusty hair from his face and grinned like a lovesick idiot.

He swallowed. “Ceiling’s falling, Mina. Can I get up?”

“Sure, boss.” The words stuck, strange in my mouth.

And we pulled each other up, clinging hands and entwined limbs and warmth.

The rock surrounding us rumbled, and I choked on dirt, the old fear of dark spaces closing in on me like water.

He tugged me toward the main tunnel. “Outta here.”

But glimmerwhite caught my eye, and I turned. In the corner, something groaned and struggled under a rockpile, and a long dustcaked hand emerged, fairy claws raking the air for freedom.

I hesitated, my heart thudding in the thick air. Ivy lied to me, tricked me, tried to kill us both. Stupid to let her live.

But I was done with blind revenge. I couldn’t just leave her here.

“Wait.” I slipped my hand from Joey’s and crawled into the dust, gritty pebbles scraping my palms.

Ivy stared, her pretty face caked in bloody dust and blood. Bleak despair shone dully in her gaze, and her wings jerked weakly. “Pumpkins,” she mumbled, drowsy. “Tasty. Where’s the ketchup?”

A big hunk of concrete crushed her straining belly. I shoved it aside with a flex of magic-ripped biceps. Rocks tumbled, revealing her battered body.

I waited for her to heave in a dust-choked breath, flap her wings, get up.

But she didn’t. I touched her chin, and her golden head flopped limp, her breath hissing away. Dead.

The ground tilted, splitting beneath me with a deafening crack like gunfire. I staggered, off balance, teetering toward the darkness. Joey caught my hand, and together we dived out onto the platform.

Behind us, the ceiling thundered down, shaking the floor like world’s end.

The crash echoed, rolling up and down the empty tunnel like a storm, and faded to silence.

Dust clouded. A single electric light flickered and buzzed. I coughed and rolled onto my back, my eyes stinging. My lungs ached like I’d held my breath for days. Which, in a way, I had.

Joey crawled up and offered me his hand, his lean naked shape in golden silhouette. My magicsharp gaze trailed over the lines of his muscles, that pale perfect skin. Even coated in dust and blood and broken glass, he was magnificent.

My skin warmed.
Even?
Who was I kidding?
Especially.

I took his hand and levered upright. My bloody footprints scarred the dust.

Joey arched his eyebrows, an elegant dusty smear. “You okay?”

He’d only just started asking me that. I didn’t know what to say. “What? I mean . . . yeah. Thanks.”

“Good. You got plans this afternoon?”

“What?” My brain couldn’t keep up. Not with him standing so close, naked, his hand in mine.

“This afternoon. Now, in fact. You doing anything?”

I flushed. I’d imagined being far away from here, and remembering my gutlessness stung me raw. But now I was stronger. Now, I knew what I wanted, and I wasn’t afraid. I loaded a half smile and aimed it at him. “Didn’t have much lined up.”

“You do now. My place, an hour. You know where it is. Two four eleven.”

“Huh?”

“The alarm code. It’s two four eleven. Let yourself in.” He slid his hands along my jaw and kissed me, for a few precious, dizzying, far-too-short seconds. And then he whirled and dived for the tracks, his body slipping smoothly into its glossy black skin before he hit the ground and whiplashed away.