Storykiller (27 page)

Already, in her room
with the doors and windows closed, Tessa felt claustrophobic. She grabbed her jacket off the hook in her closet and took a piece of paper out of the pocket.
Robin’s address. He’d given it to her ‘in case of emergency.’
Tessa didn’t think this qualified, but she hoped he’d be glad to see her anyway. Tessa put her jacket on, opened her window, and crawled out onto the roof. She was on the ground in seconds and feeling better with every step she took away from the house.

When she showed up on Robin’s doorstep an hour later, he didn’t seem that
surprised.

“Tessa,” he said, smiling a little. He stood there, shirtless, his eyes sleepy and his hair even more aggressively rumpled than usual. Tessa tried to swallow her delight. He ran a hand through his hair and reached for a white t-shirt nearby. He stepped back to let her inside while he pulled the shirt on.

“Hi,” Tessa said, turning her body and edging inside. His apartment was a giant warehouse loft with soaring ceilings. Not one of those fancy refurbished places, this was rough, and Tessa liked it all the more for its roughness. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn the building was condemned. The concrete floors had paint splatters and gashes, and at least twenty of the small, leaded windows that made up most of one wall were broken, letting in the sound of the rain, making it feel almost like they were outside. In one corner of the space was a bed covered in disheveled blankets, a lamp sitting on the floor, and a pile of well-read books, partially toppled over. There was also a flat screen television, a video game console, and some games scattered on the floor. Next to the television were two guitars, one electric, lying next to an amp. A single reading chair was piled high with discarded clothes and in a corner a beat-up rather intense looking motorcycle leaned against the wall. By the front door was a makeshift (probably illegal) kitchen with two stools and a small bar table, and beyond that,
a door, which Tessa assumed was a bathroom.

The rest of the enormous space was basically a gym. There was a pommel horse and free weights, a heavy bag and a gymnastics mat, as well as a wall of brutal weapons. Most impressive, however, was the full-sized archery range that took up more than half the apartment and included a variety of targets in all shapes and sizes. A complicated system of ropes and pulleys descended from the ceiling and Tessa stared at it, trying to understand what she was seeing.

“You want something to drink?” Robin asked, stretching his draw arm as he watched her.

“Water?” she asked. He nodded and turned to the small fridge in the kitchen. She looked at him and he tossed her a bottle, uncapping one for himself. Tessa caught it and pointed it at the ropes. Before she could ask, he volunteered.

“You wanna see?”

Tessa nodded and heard a whirring behind her as he flipped on a good-sized generator on the floor. In a moment, it was as if the whole room was spinning. Targets moved throughout the thirty-foot-high space, juking back and forth, up, down, and across,
creating three-dimensional moving targets. Tessa smiled.

“Amazing.”

“You want to try?” he asked, a now familiar glint in his eye as he picked up a bow off of the counter. “A target that doesn’t move, like, say, a tree in someone’s backyard is one thing,” he said, winking at her slyly. “
This
is a whole other game,” he breathed, stepping next to her, his mouth so close she could feel his breath on her neck. Tessa put her hand on the bow.

“I feel like we need stakes, then,” she said.

“Ah, the confidence of youth,” he said clucking his tongue. Tessa edged back from him.

“Scared?”

He shook his head, “Not at all.”

“Then for every miss, we have to answer a question—truthfully. A modified truth or dare, if you will.”

Robin pursed his lips and then nodded once, “All right.”

Tessa smiled. “Age before beauty,” she said, handing him the bow. Robin scrunched up his nose at her but took the bow. He loaded an arrow and released it all in one fluid motion. It stuck in the heart of a thick dummy moving toward them high across the ceiling. He nodded to a second bow on the wall. Tessa picked it up along with an arrow, her hands shaking slightly and, she hoped, unnoticeably. Tessa wondered why she let her mouth get her into such trouble? She had just challenged Robin Hood to an archery contest. She shook her head at her own stupidity
.

Tessa raised the bow and pulled back on the arrow, aiming for a target that slid to the left against the back wall. She released the arrow and prayed. The thwack told her, even before she could examine it, that she’d hit the target. But when she did examine it, she realized it was bang on center. Her mouth broke into a wide smile. Robin smiled despite himself and eyed her.

“It seems we have a game here, Miss Battle.”

For the next ten minutes, they took turns shooting and never missed. Finally, Tessa put her hands on her hips. “Rule change!” she said, exasperated. Robin raised an eyebrow at her. “From now on, we shoot at the same time, at the same target, whoever gets the better bull’s-eye gets to ask the question.”

“All right,” Robin said again, raising his bow. Tessa did the same next to him.

“Dummy number three,” she said, “Between the eyes.” Robin nodded, and they both drew and loosed their arrows at the target in perfect unison. Both stuck true, but Robin’s had better placement.

“Damn,” Tessa cursed and turned to him, waiting for his question.

“Do you really hate it?” he asked, lining up another
shot but not releasing an arrow.

“What?”

“Being the Scion. Because you’re really, really good at it,” Robin said, turning to her and relaxing the bow.

Tessa chewed her lip.

“No lying,” Robin said, his voice a tease.

“No lying,” Tessa echoed. “I wouldn’t lie, it’s just not a simple answer. I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would,” she admitted. “I mean, I miss my boring old life, and I spend a lot of time hating what all of this is doing to me, and I really hate the idea of things being decided for me, but I would be lying if I said it was
all
horrible. There are definite perks,” she said, deliberately not looking at him, and then added, “Also, the fighting feels,
natural
?” she added, a question heavy on the last word. Robin nodded.

“I understand,” he said. “It’s in your blood, just like mine.” Tessa turned away and Robin called out the next target. This time, Tessa’s arrow had better placing than his. By millimeters. Robin sucked in a breath and turned to face her, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

“Do your worst, my lady.”

There were so many questions Tessa wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever get another shot given his skill. In the end, she went with the question that beat in her heart the hardest. She thought of that moment between them in her yard, so close they were almost one, and there was only one question she wanted to ask.

“Why didn’t you kiss me?” she asked, blinking at him and trying not to look away. Robin’s eyes fluttered in surprise; he clearly hadn’t expected the question.

“I—”

“No lying,” Tessa warned. Robin dipped his head.

“Marian,” he said, and the word hit Tessa like a bullet. It was the first time he’d said her name, and he said it with a reverence that made Tessa feel she was doing something very, very wrong in even being there with him. She stepped back half a step almost unconsciously. He noticed and winced. “It’s not—” he began, raising his hand as if to calm a frightened animal, “—It’s complicated, Tessa.” Robin looked at her, his expression a mix of both confusion and longing.

“Can you try to explain it?” Tessa asked, picking at the place where the string met the wood on her bow.

“I don’t know if you can understand,” he said, and then, before she could object, “You’re a Mortal, or at least mostly Mortal. You’re not Story the way I am, you weren’t created as I was, so you don’t, you don’t understand the compulsion. Marian and me, it’s—”

Tessa cut him off with a raised hand, “Please don’t say complicated again.”

“Well it is,” he said, putting the bow down on the counter. “I haven’t seen her in nearly a century. It’s her choice as much as mine, but she’s in here, Tessa,” he said, putting his hand on his chest. “She’s in here as powerfully as the day we were born. And I don’t know that there’s room for anyone else, no matter how much I want there to be. And I do want there to be. I’ve wanted it more in the last few days than I’ve ever wanted anything. But I can’t tell you that it matters. I don’t know if it’s something I can do anything about, and it’s just…well, it’s never been an issue before,” he was speaking so truthfully, so passionately, it was hard for Tessa to stay cold.

She looked at him skeptically, her mind reeling. But damn if he wasn’t convincing. If he was lying, it was the best goddamn lie Tessa had ever heard. And that was the thing, Tessa didn’t even know if he
could
lie. He was a hero, right? Wouldn’t he be compelled to speak the truth about something like this? He mentioned compulsion, wasn’t that part of it? Wouldn’t Robin Hood feel
compelled
to tell the truth?

“That’s pretty good,” she finally admitted. Robin looked at her blankly. “You did a good job of explaining it,” she said, shrugging, and then added, “But does it have to be all that right now? Can’t it just be this? Can’t it just be us seeing if there’s anything here first?” Tessa stepped closer to him and linked her fingers through his. Robin looked at their hands together.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“And maybe you won’t, but you’re a romantic hero, love stories always have hurt in them, right?” Tessa smiled at him, trying to lighten things.

Robin shrugged. “I wouldn’t really know, I mostly get happy endings.”

Tessa laughed, “Then no wonder you’re scared.” She leaned forward into him. Their bodies pressed together lightly in places, and Tessa swore she could feel his heart beating inside her. She tilted her head up to him. She wanted to melt into him, everything inside her was crying out for it. But she was resolved. She knew she had to let him make the move. She had to wait for him to decide, it was important that he choose. Even if that meant he never kissed her. And there was a sudden and empty ache inside her at that idea.

His hand found her neck, and she shivered as he drew his thumb across her jaw. When his lips finally touched hers, it was as if he was tasting her, tentative at first, sweet and tender, like finding his way in the dark. Tessa sighed involuntarily. He pulled back slightly and smiled and then tasted her again, more hungrily. This time there was no reservation, no hesitation, just the pure decadence of giving in to what you’ve wanted since the moment you saw it, the excitement of finding out it tastes even better than you imagined.

Everything was so perfect in that moment that Tessa thought she might just be Fiction too.

Every day that week, Tessa helped Micah and Brand with research in the afternoons. Trying to find Dr. Frankenstein, trying to figure out what he might want, what the master plan might be. Brand was eclipsing them all when it came to the research; his mind absorbed the Stories they read like a sponge, and he made connections as if he had been born for this life. More than once, Tessa thought that “destiny” had all gotten it wrong and Brand should have been The Scion. It was hard to tell what was just Brand and what was his Story gift, but it didn’t matter anymore, they were one and the same now.

In the evenings, Tessa escaped to train and patrol with Robin. And it was then that she felt at home. Like maybe destiny
did
know what it was doing. She got better everyday, making fewer mistakes, learning what did and what didn’t come naturally for her. What didn’t come naturally, she and Robin worked on until she felt confident. What did come naturally was
a lot.

They also spent a good deal of time making out.

As a result, Tessa was some giddy version of herself she never would have recognized a few weeks ago. As tough as Tessa pretended to be, as aggressive as she played, she’d never had a boyfriend before, and though she’d kissed a few boys in her travels, she was less experienced than she would ever let on. But with Robin everything felt so right. Like the fighting, it felt natural. It felt like she
should
be with him. Like she had just been waiting for this moment in her life for everything to snap into place.