because I wanted to kill you, but I couldn't go through with it. I almost did, but I stopped. I settled for scaring you instead. Then I made you think your cell was dead because I wanted to give you a ride home. When I came inside your house, I picked up a knife. I was going to kill you then.' His voice softened. 'You changed my mind.'
I sucked in a deep breath. 'I don't understand you. When I told you my dad was murdered, you sounded genuinely sorry. When you met my mom, you were nice.'
'Nice,' Patch repeated. 'Let's keep that between you and me.'
My head spun faster, and I could feel my pulse beating in my temples. Pd felt this heart-pounding panic before. I needed my iron pills. Either that, or Patch was making me think I did.
I tilted my chin up and narrowed my eyes. 'Get out of my mind. Right now!'
'I'm not in your mind, Nora.'
I bent forward, bracing my hands on my knees, sucking air. 'Yes, you are. I feel you. So this is how you're going to do it? Suffocate me?'
Soft popping sounds echoed in my ears, and a blurry black framed my vision. I tried to fill my lungs, but it was like the air had disappeared. The world tilted, and Patch slipped sideways in my vision. I flattened my hand to the wall to steady my balance. The deeper I tried to inhale, the tighter my throat constricted.
Patch moved toward me, but I flung my hand out. 'Get away!'
He leaned a shoulder on the wall and faced me, his mouth set with concern.
'Get-away-from-me,' I gasped.
He didn't.
'I-can't-breathe!' I choked, clawing at the wall with one hand, clutching my throat with the other.
Suddenly Patch scooped me up and carried me to the chair across the room. 'Put your head between your knees,' he said, guiding my head down.
I had my head down, breathing rapidly, trying to force air inside my lungs. Very slowly I felt the oxygen creep back into my body.
'Better?' Patch asked after a minute.
I nodded, once.
'Do you have iron pills with you?'
I shook my head.
'Keep your head down and take long, deep breaths.'
I followed his instructions, feeling a clamp loosen around my chest. 'Thank you,' I said quietly.
'Still don't trust my motives?'
'If you want me to trust you, let me touch your scars again.'
Patch studied me silently for a long moment. 'That's not a good idea.'
'Why not?'
'I can't control what you see.'
'That's kind of the point.'
He waited a few counts before answering. His voice was low, emotions untraceable. 'You know I'm hiding things.' There was a question attached to it.
I knew Patch lived a life of closed doors and harbored secrets. I wasn't presumptuous enough to think even half of them revolved around me. Patch lived a different life outside the one he shared with me. More than once I'd speculated what his other life might be like. I always got the feeling that the less I knew about it, the better.
My lip wobbled. 'Give me a reason to trust you.'
Patch sat on the corner of the bed, the mattress sinking under his weight. He bent forward, resting his forearms on his knees. His scars were in full view, the candlelight dancing eerie shadows across their surface. The muscles in his back heightened, then relaxed. 'Go ahead,' he said quietly. 'Keep in mind that people change, but the past doesn't.'
Suddenly I wasn't so sure I wanted this. On almost every level, Patch terrified me. But deep down, I didn't think he was going to kill me. If that was what he wanted, he would have done it already. I glanced at his gruesome scars. Trusting Patch felt a lot more comfortable than slipping into his past again and having no idea what I might find.
But if I backed out now, Patch would know I was terrified of him. He was opening one of the closed doors just for me and only because I'd asked for it. I couldn't make a request this heavy, then change my mind.
'I won't get trapped in there forever, will I?' I asked.
Patch gave a short laugh. 'No.'
Summoning my courage, I sat on the bed beside him. For the second time tonight, my finger brushed the peaked ridge of his scar. A hazy gray crowded my vision, working from the edges in. The Hants went out.
Chapter 24
I was on my back, my cami sponging up moisture beneath me, blades of grass poking the bare skin on my arms. The moon overhead was nothing more than a sliver, a grin tipped on its side. Other than the rumble of distant thunder, all was quiet.
I blinked several times in succession, helping my eyes hurry and adapt to the scant light. When I rolled my head sideways, a symmetrical arrangement of curved twigs poking up from the grass solidified in my vision. Very slowly I pulled myself up. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the two black orbs staring at me from just above the curved twigs. My mind worked to place the familiar image. And then, with a horrific flash of recognition, I knew. I was lying next to a human skeleton.
I crawled backward until I came up against an iron fence. I pushed through the muddled moment and recaptured my last memory. I'd touched Patch's scars. Wherever I was, it was somewhere inside his memory.
A voice, male and vaguely familiar, carried through the darkness, singing a low tune. Turning toward it, I saw a labyrinth of headstones stretching like dominoes into the mist. Patch was crouched on top of one. He wore only Levi's and a navy T-shirt, even though the night wasn't warm.
'Moonlighting with the dead?' called the familiar voice. It was rough, rich, and Irish. Rixon. He slouched against a headstone opposite Patch, watching him. He stroked his thumb across his bottom lip. 'Let me guess. You've got it in your mind to possess the dead? I don't know,' he said, wagging his head. 'Maggots squirming in your eyeholes… and your other orifices, might be carrying things a bit too far.'
'This is why I keep you around, Rixon. Always seeing things from the bright side.'
'Cheshvan starts tonight,' Rixon said. 'What are you doing arsing around in a graveyard?'
'Thinking.'
'Thinking?'
'A process by which I use my brain to make a rational decision.' The corners of Rixon's mouth pulled down. 'I'm starting to worry about you. Come on. Time to go. Chauncey Langeais and Barnabas await. The moon turns at midnight. I confess I've got my eye on a betty in town.' He gave a catlike purr. 'I know you like them red, but I like 'em fair, and once I get into a body, I intend to take care of unfinished business with a blonde who was making eyes at me earlier.'
When Patch didn't move, Rixon said, 'Are you daft? We've got to go. Chauncey's oath of fealty. Not ringing a bell? How about this. You're a fallen angel. You can't feel a thing. Until tonight, that is. The next two weeks are Chauncey's gift to you. Given unwillingly, mind you,' he added on a conspirator's grin.
Patch gave Rixon a sidelong glance. 'What do you know about The Book of Enoch?'
'About as much as any fallen angel: slim to none.'
'I was told there's a story in The Book of Enoch about a fallen angel who becomes human.'
Rixon doubled over with laughter. 'You lost your mind, mate?' He welded the outer edges of his palms together, making an open book with his hands. 'The Book of Enoch is a bedtime story. And a good one, by the looks of it. Sent you straight to dreamland.'
'I want a human body.'
'You'd best be happy with two weeks and a Nephi's body. Half-human is better than nothing. Chauncey can't undo what's been done. He swore an oath, and he has to live up to it. Just like last year. And the year before
