Oh my God. She was saying good-bye. Agitated, I came to stand before her, not knowing what to do with my hands. “I am not dying!” I said, finally sitting down on the edge of the nearest chair and taking my hat off. “I can come back for visits and stuff.”
Her jaw was clenched. “I know.”
She looked at me, and I suddenly realized that this was for real. My eyes filled, and there was a sudden lump in my throat. I wanted to touch her shoulder, but her body language said not to. “I can visit.”
Ivy’s eyes were just as full, but neither of us would let a tear fall. “Let me say this,” she whispered. “Will you just let me say this?”
I put a hand to my middle to try to get it to stop hurting. “Why are you saying good-bye?” I whispered.
She lifted her hands and let them fall. “Because I can’t follow you,” she said suddenly. “I started on this trip two days ago, and it wasn’t until Arizona that I realized I wasn’t doing a damn thing. I was driving, sure, but you don’t need me. You never really did!”
“Yes, I do,” I said quickly, but I shut my mouth when she shook her head.
“Not like I want you to. You’re moving fast, Rachel. And vampires are slow. It’s like you’re from the future, and you’re here trying to yank everyone forward so some of us have a chance to survive what’s coming. You’re leaving Jenks and me behind.”
Anger flared, but it was at the universe, not her. “This demon thing wasn’t my idea!”
“I’m not talking about the coven and shunning. I’m talking about you changing everything.” Ivy crossed her legs and gripped her biceps, looking vulnerable. “The Weres, the elves, the vampires. You’re stirring everything, like a catalyst, and you’re leaving us behind. It’s okay. We’re not mad. Sad maybe, but not mad.” She let go of her arms and met my eyes. “I knew ever since you sealed that room in the tunnels that you and I weren’t going to work even if you woke up some morning and wanted it to. I felt the power of what you could do. I saw it. I saw the fear in Edden’s eyes. It only made me love you more.”
I blinked fast. “And you don’t think I need you? After that? Ivy, it was your soul that protected me.”
She nodded, hiding her face as she wiped her eyes. “You’ll do better once you let us go. Jenks and me both. We’ll be okay.”
My head was shaking in denial. “I’ll beat this, Ivy. I always do.”
Her chin came up. Eyes black, she snapped, “What if you do? You think we can drive back to the church and go on like nothing happened? It won’t work. I can’t pretend anymore that one day you’re going to wake up and be anything different from what you are right now. I’m not talking sex and blood. I’m talking about you and change. How you make it happen and how you adapt to it. Your mind lets you. Jenks and I…we can’t.”
“Ivy.”
“I never had a chance,” she whispered.
“Ivy!” I said louder, and she focused on me.
“I never had a chance,” she said again. “But thank you. I’ve seen what it’s like to be normal. Been a part of a family, even if I was on the fringes.”
I reached over the space between us, touching her. “You’ve never been on the fringes.”
She looked at my hand on her, smiling almost. “I’ve never been in all the way, either, and don’t start thinking that you did me wrong. Hell, Rachel, if I’d gotten all the way in, I would have self-destructed, destroyed myself. You knew that,” she said, and my hand fell away. “I don’t…I didn’t have a way to cope, to accept that I deserve good things. But I feel good right now.”
She smiled, looking at the ceiling as she wiped her eyes again. “Do you know I’d never remembered feeling good before you? Kisten was safe, but you felt good, even when you weren’t around. Even when you were out doing stuff. Even when I was out with one of my blood partners, and I knew that when I came home…” She hesitated. “I knew that you would be there, or would be back soon, and you wouldn’t look at me and hide your disgust at what I am but would let me work it out. You were like a warm finger touching my thoughts, pushing the black down and not letting it rise up. Keeping me sane. I’ve felt good so often that now I can recognize it even when it doesn’t come from you. I can feel good about other people.”
My chest was tight, and I could do nothing but look at her miserable, happy face. Maybe I should let her go.
My expression must have shown my thoughts, because Ivy smiled even as a tear leaked out and she wiped it away. “I wanted to say thank you before Jenks and Trent get back and things start to happen. I know I can find the good again, now that I know what it feels like. I can recognize it. Keep from destroying it.” She touched my knee, and I blinked back my own tears. “I can’t ever repay you for that. It’s more than I ever thought I’d find. Thank you.”
“You’re killing me, Ivy,” I croaked, throat so tight it hurt.
“Payback is hell, isn’t it?”
I tried to say something, failing.
“Just say you’re welcome,” Ivy said, standing up to look out the window at nothing.
There were lots of things I wanted to say, and none of them was “You’re welcome.” I wanted to say that I was going to lick this. That nothing was going to change. That this was just a bump. But when my gaze focused past her and found the blocky gray shape of Alcatraz, I didn’t know if it was true. Feeling a sense of mild panic, I stood.
Ivy turned. Looking at me, she leaned in and gave me a hug. I held my breath so I wouldn’t start crying, so I didn’t breathe in her soothing vampire scent, but I knew it was there. My arms went around her, and I had a fleeting thought that she felt small for such a big person.
Reluctantly Ivy let go and dropped back. “I hope you get your shunning rescinded. I hope we drive back, taking our time and actually sleeping. I hope that nothing changes. But even if we can make all those things happen, let me go. Right now. I need to move on and find something good that I can hold on to.”
I stared at her black eyes. She’d come a long way. We’d never have been able to have this conversation last year. “But—”
She leaned in, taking my face in her cool hands. “This is good-bye, Rachel.”
I knew what was going to happen, and I let it. Ivy’s lips met mine, and my eyes closed. My heart gave a thump. Her lips moved against me, tasting lightly of coffee. All the tension that had been winding up in me unraveled in a rush of endorphins, followed by a spark of adrenaline, glowing through me like pixy dust.
For the first time, there was no fear from her vampire teeth, no worry of the promise of ecstasy and danger she held. She was just Ivy, and her hand slipped to my waist, pulling a ribbon of feeling through me. My blood rose, pounding, responding to her touch. She smelled like incense and soap. She held me to her without binding, without promise, only passion in her embrace. Her mouth was soft, unbelievably soft.
Blood humming, I felt her tongue whisper against me and her grip quiver against my jaw as the scent of her tears lit through me. Salt and blood. Oh so close, and my own closed eyes spilled over as my body ached. She began to pull away, I realized I was tasting what I could have had—but now was gone. And it hurt.
Feeling it, Ivy let go. I blinked, trying not to cry. Even as she stood there, I’d lost her. Even though she’d never been mine, now she was gone. I didn’t want anything to change, but I couldn’t stop it. She was right, even if everything went perfectly tonight, nothing would be the same tomorrow.
“You’re not leaving me,” she said, her eyes damp. “I’m leaving you.”
The knock at the door shocked both of us, and I stifled my jerk when Ivy turned to it with her vampire-quick reflexes. I wasn’t thinking, the heat of that kiss still aching. She looked at me, her soft smile the last thing I would have expected from her right now.
“I’ll get it,” she said, motions like an old jazz song as she drifted past me in a wave of happy vampire.
“Damn it, what’s wrong with you, Ivy?” I said, shaking.
“Nothing. I feel good. Hell of a good-bye kiss.”
Good-bye kiss. God, she had me in the ever-after already. “Whoever it is, don’t let them in,” I said, wiping my eyes. “And we’re not done talking here.”
“Yes, we are,” Ivy said as she looked through the peephole. “It’s your mother. And some guy with red hair.”
“Robbie?” I jumped up and started for the door. “Let me see,” I said as I got close, and she shifted away.
