Kitten.
Cody rocked and rocked and tried to be brave. If he was brave, maybe the older, smarter part of him would come back. Maybe Kitten would come back too.
His head knocked against the wall of the tiny room and hurt but Cody didn’t stop. Cody didn’t know how long he rocked. A long time, maybe.
Then he heard something. Footsteps. Someone was walking on the other side of the door that would not open. Not little footsteps like Kitten. Big footsteps. Footsteps that belonged to a man.
Cody rocked and rocked. He wanted to go away. Far away. Fast, fast, fast.
The footsteps got louder. Stopped. The door clicked.
Cody held still. He held still in the dark and didn’t scream. He was too scared to scream. Too scared to move. He didn’t want the door to open. Didn’t want anyone to find him.
But the door did open. And standing there, so big, too big, was the Snake man.
“Aren’t you something, Cody?” he said in his snake voice. “I don’t know how you survived. A death for a death is the price. Why aren’t you dead?”
Cody couldn’t talk. Cody couldn’t tell him that the older, smarter part of him had done something, something special with the magic in the coins, something special with the magic in the little bone. He couldn’t tell him that the older, smarter part of him had found a way so they wouldn’t die. And he couldn’t tell him that the lady with magic inside her had made him all better again.
“You don’t know, do you?” the Snake man asked in a sorry voice that was not sorry. “Well, maybe we’ll find out together.” He smiled, but it was only on the outside. Inside he was hating. Hating Cody.
Maybe if Cody sang a song the Snake man would go away.
“Snake man, Snake man, bake a cake man.”
But the Snake man did not go away. He reached into the little room. Cody wailed, wishing the older, smarter part of him would come back. He wasn’t brave all alone. He was too small to be brave. Too small for anyone to hear him. Too small for anyone to care.
Chapter Fourteen
There is something wonderful about silence, about blackness. For one thing there is no pain. For another there is no fear, just gentle drifting and casual ignorance of reality’s harsh light.
But silence cannot stretch on forever. Sounds punch their way through, muffled at first, a man’s voice, a name. My name. And the sound of my name carries so much more—it tells me who I am, and that I am not dead just yet.
I wonder if I’m breathing. Inhale.
Air, light, sound, taste, smell, and pain—hells, the pain—chew the silence to shreds and I am awake.
“Damn it, Allie, breathe. C’mon, babe. I can’t do this. You can’t do this to me.”
I opened my eyes—okay it took a few tries—but I finally got them open. I felt like I’d just spent the last month in a meat grinder.
“There.” Zay’s voice was shaking, his words coming out too fast. “Good. Good. Don’t give up. Don’t go away. Stay here. Good. Good.”
I blinked. I was going to open my eyes again, honest to goodness, but the silence was so easy, so soft, so empty.
Zay swore and dug his hands into my ribs, sending off shock waves of pain. “No. Fuck it, Allie. Come back to me.”
If I had fallen into a vat of hot mint, I couldn’t have felt more permeated with the sting of it.
Ow.
The darkness skittered out of my reach, all of its soft, welcoming nothingness covered by a warm, wet layer of mint. And the mint flowed toward me, gently forcing me to step back, to turn, to remember I was not breathing and that was bad. To take a breath.
I opened my eyes.
Zayvion’s face, ashen-green, sweat glittering in the tight black curls across his forehead and running wet lines down his cheek, hovered over me.
“Look at you and those beautiful eyes. Good job, babe. You’re doing really good. Take another easy breath. Perfect.” He smiled. “I am Grounding the hell out of you, Dove. You need to let go of the magic, let it rest, let it fall back into the earth. Can you do that?”
Oh sure. And after that maybe I’d show him my amazing high-wire trapeze act.
“Just keep looking at me.”
I blinked, but this time I could open my eyes again.
“Good. I’m going to talk you down into a trance, all right? I’ll be right here. You’ll be safe. You’ll be warm. Comfortable. You’re safe with me.”
I listened as he droned on, and every so often reminded me to breathe. And then he guided me to feel every part of my body from the top of my head to the soles of my feet and told me to exhale and envision all of the magic pouring out of me into the ground.
I did. And I was awake. For real this time.
Zay was still above me, still sweating, still shaking, and still looking a little sick around the edges.
“Hey,” I tried to say. It came out breathy and all vowel.
“Hey,” he said. “How are you feeling, babe?”
Oh, like I could do cartwheels uphill.
“Bad,” I said. “Turd.” I’d meant to say “tired” but it didn’t come out right. Zay didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s okay. That’s good,” he said. “I’m going to help you sit, then get you to bed. Ready?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. The room spun. Eventually I figured out it was me moving, sitting up, and not the world doing a lazy Susan.
Smart, I are.
Zay sat there with me, anxiously brushing my hair away from my face until I looked back into his eyes again.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Help me up.”
With him doing most of the heavy lifting, I was on my feet and, with his arms supporting me and his voice a constant babble of encouragement, I was across the living room, down the hall, and lying back thankfully, so very thankfully, on Zay’s bed. The strange thing was I didn’t have on any clothes.
He fussed with my pillows, and I realized some of the moisture on his cheeks wasn’t sweat. It looked like he had been crying.
“Zay?”
“I’m here.” He lowered closer to me.
“What’s wrong?”
His face went blank, still, frozen. Then he hung his head. “Nothing,” he said. He laughed, choked, then looked back up at me. “Everything’s okay.”
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “Zay. I don’t remember.” I hated saying it, but I had a really bad feeling I had missed out on something big.
“You were shot. Do you remember that?”
I remembered pain. I remembered terror. Anger.
“Right here.” Zay gently cupped my left side, just beneath my ribs. “I think the bullet went all the way through, but I haven’t gone looking for it yet. You bled pretty hard.”
“Bled?” It seemed that unless Zay had stitched me up or cauterized the wound, I should still be bleeding.
He nodded. “You healed. Like you did to Cody, I think. Magic closed the wound. Does it still hurt?”
I felt his finger brush downward from the top of my rib cage, lost feeling for some time, then felt his finger again toward my hip bone.
