The Immortal Game (book 1) (8 page)

“Please,” he whispered.

She nodded slowly, but the movement felt disconnected from her body. She maneuvered his feet carefully and closed the door, blocking the light outside. She turned on the table lamp next to the couch and went back to him.

She watched as the cut on his face got smaller. She surveyed the wound in intervals and watched the bullet in his chest move closer to the surface. After a time she lost sight of it and peered in to get a better look. Her attention was yanked away by a sharp pain in her knee.

“My god.” It was a whisper to the dim room. She picked up the peeled metal that had been inside Ash. Her eyes darted back to the wound. His body had driven it out.

She put a blanket over him, careful not to cover the wound, and pushed back to the wall. She propped herself up against the cool white-painted wood and watched him.

Her mind drifted, full of dark images. Ash injured. Ash
shot
. And something even darker than that. Oppressive warnings. And snakes.

She jerked, sometime later, and hit her head against the wall. There had been a sound. She scrambled to Ash and leaned over his face.

The wound on his cheek was gone. The dried blood flaked away. The gurgling had stopped and his breath had fallen into an even but shallow rhythm. His eyes opened and then fluttered closed.

She gasped. The blue she expected was gone. They were bright red.

He moaned.

“Ash.” she croaked. “Tell me what to do.”

His eyes closed again. He swallowed hard. His face contorted in pain. She put her hand on his cheek where the cut had been. His face relaxed, but frantic electricity ran off him. The connection she usually felt was there, but it was weak.

She kept her hand on him, hoping to smooth away his hurt. She didn’t know why it helped, but she knew it did and was sorry she hadn’t thought of it sooner. He slipped into unconsciousness again, his mind, like her, wanting to spare him from the pain.

…

Weak grey light came in through the curtainless windows of the front room. Ruby opened her eyes, and sat up next to Ash. He was still unconscious but he seemed more peaceful now. Her hand rested on his shoulder and the energy that came off him was strong and smooth.

There was a pool of dark red blood surrounding him. His blue Henley was ripped and bloody. It was the same shirt he had worn when they went rock climbing, when they had ordered dinner. It was the shirt he was wearing when he kissed her.

She looked to the wound on his chest and let out a relieved breath. There was only a depression and a hideous purple bruise where the bullet wound had been. The cut on his cheek was a memory.

She shook her head. It was impossible. But she had seen it with her own eyes. An emotion, maybe relief, but stronger, welled in her. She bent and kissed his lips, feeling bold.

His eyes fluttered open. A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

Her body produced an odd soft sound, a combination of a laugh and a cry. She kissed him again, but he was already gone, back under a wave of unconsciousness.

In the bathroom she washed the blood from her hands and looked at her reflection in the old mirror with the silver gone from the edges. Her hair was tangled on one side. There was dried blood on her face and dark circles under her brown eyes, the same color as her father’s.

Would she see herself like this often?

A rugged and lonely life on the front treating war casualties seemed less appealing this morning. Not because of seeing Ash’s injuries. She was a doctor’s child, and even if she had never been in an operating room, or even taken a CPR class, she had certainly heard it over the dinner table; the guts, the gore, the poor prognoses.

What made that life uncertain today was the feeling she had when Ash came, stumbling and half-dead, into her house. At that moment something inside her had broken. The part of her that thought she would never get to see him again, never get to talk to him again, never get to feel that sense of him again. It was the moment she thought she had lost him.

She looked back to the mirror, back into her brown eyes; the same as her father’s. But they were different too, weren’t they? Maybe they were bigger, or less honey like, or maybe they were just hers.

People leave, she reminded herself. It’s what they do. Her mother and her father had both left her. And Ash would too. Not today, it seemed, but someday. Even if they were really
together
, even if they got
married
, even if they both lived a hundred years. He
would
leave. Or she would. Eventually one of them would die. And she would be alone. Again.

She shook her head and tried to clear these senseless thoughts. She hardly knew the man.

Marriage!

She snickered out loud and bit her lip hard. It was the same sore spot she had bitten before she jumped off a bridge with only Ash’s encouragement pushing her over the edge.

…

Ruby made scrambled eggs. Ash would need protein to rebuild cells, she reasoned. She sat on the couch in the front room, her own plate in her hands, and tried to ignore the blood on the floor, but she had no appetite at all.

Instead of eating she watched him. At first he just slept. When he twitched, there was a sound, not quite a moan, softer. His eyes opened, and then closed again. Minutes later he stared at the ceiling, either already aware of where he was or unconcerned about waking up in a strange place.

“Ruby?” he said. It was no more than a whisper.

She sat by his head and stroked his stubbly cheek. He breathed a deep satisfied sigh and her heart felt like it might break open.

When he opened his eyes again she saw that they were no longer bright red. They were still bloodshot, but the blue shone through and she felt like she was looking at him again, not Ash possessed by a demon.

“Thank you,” he managed.

She laughed nervously. “For what? Exactly?”

He closed his eyes without answering.

She felt foolish. Her own emotions were too strong. “What can I do?” She tried to sound composed. “Should you eat? I made eggs.”

“Ambrosia,” he whispered. His eyelids flickered closed when he tried to open them.

“I made eggs,” Ruby repeated, wondering if he heard her.

His throat worked up and down. “Ambrosia,” he managed.

“Ambrosia?” she said, puzzled. “You want an Ambrosia Bar?”

He remained quiet, resting from the effort of speaking. She stood and searched the familiar room with her eyes.

“Will you be okay?” she asked.

He nodded, a small movement of his head.

She went to her room and pulled sweatpants and a sweatshirt on over the boxers and T-shirt she had worn to bed. She ran back down to Ash and kneeled beside his unmoving form. The depression in his chest was hollow, and the bruise was puffy and dusk colored.

She began to stand but felt his hand on her arm in a shaky attempt to tug her back toward him. Warmth surged inside her. She kissed him and felt his lips curl up in a weak smile under hers. His eyes remained closed.

“I love you,” he said, the words pushed out of his lungs like a breath, barely audible.

She jerked back and stared at him as one might look at a viper in the quiet pause after it’s struck. An unexpected chill ran through her at the thought of Ash and snakes. A hiss of a word;
perilous
.

His eyes were closed though. He hadn’t seen her reaction, hadn’t waited for a response.

“Ambrosia,” he whispered.

…

Ruby ran to Athenaeum, only a few blocks away. Would Sage even be there? Dawn was still breaking over the city skyline across the river.

As she approached the building her heart sank. There were no lights on inside. She peered in through the plate glass windows, between the words painted on the glass: Used and Rare. All she saw were chairs tipped up onto tables and rows of books quiet on their shelves.

She turned with her back to the window and let her head fall with a thud onto the glass. She gave out a little cry, as much from frustration as from pain. She looked up to the green awning above her and wondered if she should wait until…when? Should she go to the grocery store and get some kind of muffin or something? But Sage was Ash’s sister, and his request had been specific. Maybe he wanted the comfort of his family’s food. It was crazy, but what wasn’t at this point?

Her mind raced through her options when a pale grinning face appeared in the window to her right. She gave out a gasp of surprise before she recognized Langston.

“Let me in,” she demanded, and then tempered it with, “Ash is hurt. He wants Ambrosia Bars.” It sounded stupid, even as she said it, but it was true, and Langston was his brother.

Langston’s smile dropped. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to let her in. She thought that he might turn his back and walk away. But he did open the door. He turned the deadbolt and left it to swing open on its own. He was in no rush.

Ruby hurried in and headed straight for the counter. She hoped the case of Ambrosia Bars was full. She would take them all, every last one.

Sage stepped out from the kitchen wearing a flour-dusted apron and holding a large baking tray on her shoulder. “Ruby. You’re early.”

Ruby smelled the warm Ambrosia Bars before she could see them. “I need those.”

“Yeah, okay.” Sage lowered the tray to the counter, but she kept her eyes on Ruby. “Just a minute.”

Ruby imagined what she must look like. Had she managed to get all the blood off of her? Was her hair still a mess?

“It’s Ash,” Ruby said. “He’s …”
Hurt
was what she was going to say, but he was getting better. “He wants an Ambrosia Bar.”

“All right.” Sage let the word hang in the air. “He can come get one.” Sage looked beyond her.

Ruby could feel that Langston was behind her before he even spoke. “He’s
hurt
.” He said it like it was an obscenity.

Sage’s eyes flew back to Ruby but her voice remained calm. “Where is he?”

Ruby wasn’t sure if she should tell them or not. They seemed irritated. It made her mad. Ash needed their help, even if it was just to put an Ambrosia Bar in a bag and say:
Tell him we’re pulling for him
. But in truth she thought maybe
she
needed their help. Ash was getting better and she didn’t know why.

Her eyes swung from Sage’s look of annoyance, to Langston’s look of outright hate, and back again. She got a chill and was suddenly frightened. They’re siblings. But
what
are they? The thought shocked her. Could they hurt her? Would they? Did she know too much? It sounded like something from a B movie, and she didn’t
know
anything.

“Take us,” Sage said.

Ruby found her courage. She needed to protect Ash. “Why?”

Sage’s face softened. She looked Ruby in the eye. “We want to help him.”

“He wanted an Ambrosia Bar,” Ruby said, as if she were negotiating the delicate handing off of information for Ambrosia Bars.

Sage smirked. “Yeah. I bet he did.”

…

The sun was higher now and the morning brighter. There was a chill in the air. Ruby directed Sage and Langston the few blocks to her house. A paper bag full of Ambrosia Bars swung from her hand. Langston’s long legs walked faster than Ruby could keep up with. He looked back at her often, obviously annoyed.

On the front porch she turned on the pair and looked them each in the eye. She wanted to remind them that this was her house. Ash had come to her, not them. They looked back at her with blank stares and unrivaled boldness.

She prepared herself for the sight of Ash’s limp body on the floor and opened the front door. The blood was still there, dark and puddled, but he was not.

She looked up when Langston pushed passed her and headed for the rose-colored chair that sat across from the couch. Sunlight came in through the window behind it. Ash was sitting there. His face was drawn and pale. His eyes were bloodshot and they had deep brown hollows around them.

Langston said something to Ash that Ruby couldn’t quite make out. She was still taking in the fact that he was healed enough to sit up.

Sage took the bag of bars from Ruby’s limp hand. She walked between Langston and Ash. “Here,” she said to Ash. “This will help.”

He took the bar from Sage, chewed it in one bite, and swallowed it down. He closed his eyes and groaned with satisfaction. Color came back into his cheeks and filled in the hollows beneath his eyes. When he opened them, the red was gone. He looked at Ruby. She forced a smile, stunned by the transformation.

Langston was still talking in a low and annoyed tone. Sage cleared her throat and gave him a pointed look. She turned to Ruby. “Thank you, Ruby. He’s going to be fine.” She turned her attention back to Ash. “It’s time we get back.” Her tone was flat, matter-of-fact.

Ruby’s mind raced. Her eyes darted around the room, to the blood on the floor, to Langston standing near Ash, his eyes furious, to Ash bringing another of Sage’s bars to his mouth.

“But …” Ruby hesitated. She searched the scene again. “I need some answers.”

The three of them looked at her in surprise, as if watching Ash heal on her floor overnight, waking to want only an Ambrosia Bar, and having his brother and sister berate him instead of being worried, were the most natural things in the world.

Sage turned to her, her spiral curls swinging, and shrugged. “What questions?”

Ruby looked into her flat grey eyes and swallowed. She glanced at Ash. His cheeks were rosy. His eyes were once again a radiant blue. “Well …” She looked back to Sage, and then at Ash again.

“I’m telling her,” Ash said. He looked first to Sage and then to Langston. “She has a right to know.”

Ruby got a shiver. There was something. Something big. She knew it of course, but Ash was actually admitting it. There was something to be told.

“A
right
?” Sage laughed and then became stone serious. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“
She
gets to know. She
must
know.” Ash looked at Ruby. “I love her.”

Ruby’s heart rose up into her throat. She tried to swallow. She tried to breathe.