“And that makes him a part of a drug cartel?” he snapped. Then, with a lowered voice, “Shame. I don’t need two jealous men on my hands.”
So much for him listening to me. That was fine. I hadn’t expected him to. He cared about Jeremy, I knew that. I could take care of Jeremy on my own. And really, maybe it was better Terric didn’t know about it.
I smiled. My eyes were still closed.
“What?” he said.
“Jealousy is for people who know they can’t hold on to what they want.”
“My statement stands,” he said.
I opened my eyes, rolled my head so I could see him. “No. I can’t lose you, Terric. Not if I tried. Which is pretty much my default mode, come to think of it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why is that, Shame? Why do you insist, still, after all these years, to close me out?”
I sat up, put a little weight on my feet. Nothing popped, split, or bled. So I stood. Managed it well enough. Took a step toward the bathroom. And another.
Ouch.
“You’re not even going to talk about it?” he asked.
I paused, put one hand out on the wall to keep my balance. “Talking doesn’t seem to be our thing.”
“It needs to become our thing. We’re a part of each other’s lives. Whether you want to acknowledge that or not.”
I turned so I could see him.
“Lives?” I shook my head. “Deaths. That’s what we’re a part of, Terric. Each other’s deaths. When we’re together, one of us always gets hurt. The more we are together, the more we hurt each other.”
He watched me for a moment. “Tell that to your healing feet.”
“Jesus.” I pushed away from the wall and made my way to the bathroom. “You’re impossible,” I said too quietly for him to hear.
He answered me anyway. “No. I’m right.”
Found the bathroom. It was depressingly clean and color-coordinated. Started the shower, stripped, and stepped in the water. Saw something bright out of the corner of my eye. Eleanor, sitting on the sink.
“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for waking me.”
She floated up so she could peek over the top of the shower door and down at me. I didn’t care that she would see me naked. We’d been together for so long, she’d seen me do many worse things than bathe.
She pointed at her neck about the same spot where Eli stabbed me with the needle.
“It hurts,” I said. “Feels like someone sewed a golf ball under my skin.”
She pointed at her chest.
“That hurts too.”
Shook her head, disappeared, then faded through the shower door so she was standing in the shower with me. The water rushed through her, but didn’t stir her hair, or dampen her glowing skin. She pointed at my heart, and pressed just the tip of her finger there.
“My heart?”
She drew the letter T, her cold touch leaving goose pimples across my wet skin.
“Don’t,” I said, pushing her hand away, even though my hand just passed right through her. “He’s the last thing I want to talk about.”
She stepped back and eased through the door. I scrubbed my head, face, and body. Tipped my feet so I could see how bad off the soles were. Bruised black and purple-red, lots of long cuts from heel to toe that were scabbed and not weeping, thanks to Terric. What had I done? Walked across glass?
I washed the cuts as gently as I could, then rinsed and got out.
Pulled a towel that was folded on the edge of the sink and rubbed my head.
Good. God. It was the softest towel I’d ever touched. I shut out everything but that sensation—soft cotton drifting across my skin—whisking the water away.
If it was wrong to have carnal feelings for a towel, I didn’t want to be right.
Terric had an eye for luxury. Lived his life like it was worth doing right.
Maybe he had something there. We were all going to die. Might as well savor whatever time we had.
Maybe it was the towel, maybe it was thoughts about mortality, but I found myself thinking about Dessa and smiling. Terric said she’d dropped me off. So she’d been following me.
Who knew I’d have the hots for a ferret-smuggling stalker girl with an overactive desire for revenge?
If she’d dropped me off, then that meant she’d approached me when I was out of my mind and devouring all the life around me.
Correction: stalker girl with an overactive desire for revenge and a hell of a lot of guts.
She’d been with me when I was dangerously uncontrolled. I could have killed her. And yet I hadn’t. Or at least I thought she was okay.
She also hadn’t come inside with me so we could ask her what Eli said she knew: namely where the hell he, or his Soul Complement, was being held prisoner.
If Dessa was making it a point to keep an eye on me, she should be nearby. It seemed strange that Terric hadn’t found her yet. Maybe she had a lead on Eli and was following it.
Great. She might be walking right into a situation that would get her killed.
I looked around for the clothes he said might fit me. Spotted a folded gray T-shirt, a heavy brown sweater, and faded blue jeans. A belt was set out next to the jeans. Not exactly my colors, which were, by the way, black, but better than being naked.
I shook out the pants, put them on. A little long, but not by much, too loose at the waist. Belt took care of that. I shouldered into the T-shirt, fit me fine, then the sweater.
Everything smelled like Terric. The colors looked like Terric.
I toweled off the mirror. Got a good look at myself while brushing back my hair.
Dark green eyes a little bloodshot. Needed a shave. The bones of my cheeks and jaw were squared and prominent. However, even in the bulky chocolate brown sweater, I looked like I could kick ass and take names.
Not my colors. But not bad.
I looked around for socks. Nothing. Then I pissed and left the bathroom.
Terric was on the phone. Pacing. Couldn’t tell who he was talking to.
I started looking for my shoes. Remembered I’d come over barefoot. Crap.
Terric stopped pacing. Glanced over at me. One look at me and he paused a second in his good-bye, which made me grin.
Damn straight I was worth looking at.
He pocketed his phone. “I know it’s only brown, but damn, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in a color, Shame. You should wear colors more often.”
“I do wear colors: black, coal, ebony.”
He smiled. “Sit. I want to look at your feet.”
“This foot obsession you’ve got going?” I said. “Unhealthy.”
I sat in the nearest chair and propped both my feet up on the coffee table. Realized something that had been nagging me. “Your place smells like cigarette smoke.”
“Does it?”
I took a deep breath. “A bit.”
“Hm.”
“Why? Did you take up smoking?”
“No. Jeremy smokes.” He sat on the couch, bent a bit so he could see the bottom of my feet. It really was sort of weird having someone stare with such interest at my heels and arches. “I’ve told him not to, but.” He shrugged, then put his hand on my ankle, firmly.
“That’s—” I started.
“Don’t,” he said.
So I didn’t. But if I had finished the thought it would have run along the line that Terric hated when his things smelled like smoke. And after that it would have gone down the path that his house didn’t look like he lived here anymore.
The things that always made it feel distinctly his, things like his photography, his collection of hardbound books, and the wall that used to display the pictures of all of his many—and I do mean many—brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins, were gone. Wiped away. Replaced with the abstract art. Changed.
Jeremy had made Terric change for him. Or maybe Terric had done it willingly.