“Now that scares me,” Stark said.
“What scares you?”
“Chicks’ purses. Or at least all the weird stuff you people keep inside of them.”
“Us people? Jeesh. We’re girls, and purses just have girl stuff in them.” His normal-sounding guyness was making me smile.
“There’s no just about purse stuff,” he said. And I swear I felt him shudder.
I laughed out loud this time. “My grandma would say that you’re a conundrum.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“A conundrum is something that’s puzzling, even kinda paradoxical. For instance, here you are this macho, dangerous, warrior guy who can’t miss anything he shoots at, but you’re totally squeed out by girls’ purses? It’s like they’re your spiders.”
He chuckled. “My spiders? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I don’t like spiders. At all.” I shuddered like he’d just done.
“Oh, I get it. Yeah, purses are my spiders. Really big spiders you can open up and they’re filled with a whole nest of baby spiders.”
“Okay! Okay! You’re totally grossing me out. Let’s change the subject.”
“Sounds good to me. So…I think you have to be touching whoever you’re sleeping with for this to really work.” His voice sounded weirdly intimate coming from the darkness beside me.
“Yeah, sure.” My stomach felt all fluttery, and not just because we’d been talking about spiders.
His sigh was heavy and long-suffering. “I’m telling you the truth. Why do you think it doesn’t keep him away if you’re just sleeping with a roommate? You have to be touching. A guy and a girl. I guess a guy and a guy would work, too, if it was like Damien and his boyfriend. Or even a girl and a girl if they were into each other.” He paused. “I think I’m babbling.”
“I think you are, too.” Actually, babbling was usually what I did when I was nervous, and it was refreshing to meet someone else who was a nervous babbler.
“You really don’t have to be scared of me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Because you know I can kick your butt with the elements?”
“Because I care about you,” he said. “You were starting to care about me, weren’t you? I mean before all of this happened to me.”
“Yes.” On one hand, right about then was an excellent opportunity for me to mention the little fact that Erik and I were supposed to be back together. And maybe even say something about Heath. (Or maybe not.) On the other hand, I was trying to somehow fix the kid’s humanity, or lack thereof, and it probably wouldn’t help for me to be alclass="underline" Hey, I’ll sleep with you and act like I care about you, but I kinda have a boyfriend. Or two. And besides all that, I needed to start being honest with myself. Erik had seemed so perfect for me; he’s who everyone thought I should be with. Then why have I always liked other guys, too, and that’s even before he started acting all insanely possessive? It wasn’t just Heath I’d been drawn to, but Loren and then Stark. The only thing I could think was that something must be missing with Erik, or else I was just turning into a nasty skank. I mean, really. I didn’t feel like a nasty skank. I felt like a girl who liked more than one guy.
He shifted on the bed beside me and I tried not to jump when I felt his arm lift up. “Come on over here. You can put your head on my chest and go to sleep. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
I pushed the Erik problem from my mind, and figuring I might as well—I mean, I was already in bed with the kid—I slid over. He put his arm around me and I tried to relax against his side with my head kinda awkwardly resting on his chest. I kept wondering if he was comfortable. Was I too heavy? Was I too close to him? Not close enough?
Then his hand lifted and found my head. At first I thought he was going to move my head (because it was too heavy), or maybe even strangle me or whatnot. So it surprised me when he started to stroke my hair like I was a skittish horse.
“You have really pretty hair. Did I tell you that before I died, or did I just think it?”
“You must have just thought it,” I said.
“I would tell you that you looked really hot today when I saw you naked, but that probably wouldn’t be appropriate, being as we’re in bed together but not doing anything.”
“No,” I stiffened, getting ready to pull out of his arms. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
His chest rumbled under my ear as he chuckled. “Relax, will ya?”
“Then don’t talk about seeing me naked.”
“Okay.” He caressed my hair silently for a little while, then he said, “That Raven Mocker hurt you pretty badly.”
It wasn’t a question, but I still said, “Yeah.”
“Kalona doesn’t want you hurt, so he’ll be in for some shit when he gets back here.”
“He won’t be getting back. I killed him. Burned him up,” I said simply.
“Good,” he said. “Zoey, would you make me one more promise?”
“I suppose, but you don’t seem one hundred percent happy when I keep my promises to you.”
“I’ll be happy if you keep this one.”
“What is it this time?”
“Promise me if I become a real monster like them, you’ll burn me up, too.”
“That’s not a promise I feel comfortable making,” I said.
“Well, think about it because it might be a promise you’ll have to fulfill.”
We were silent again. The only sound in my room was Nala’s soft snoring from the foot of my bed, and the steady beat of Stark’s heart under my ear. He kept stroking my hair, and it wasn’t long before my eyelids started to feel incredibly heavy. But before I fell asleep I had one more thing I wanted him to hear.
“Would you do something for me?” I asked sleepily.
“I think I’d do almost anything for you,” Stark said.
“Stop calling yourself a monster.”
His hand stilled for a moment. He shifted slightly and I felt his lips against my forehead. “Go to sleep now. I’ll watch over you.”
I drifted to sleep while he was still slowly stroking my hair. Kalona didn’t once enter my dreams.
CHAPTER 25
Stark was gone when I woke up. Feeling majorly refreshed as well as starving, I stretched and yawned, which is when I found the arrow lying on the pillow beside me. He’d broken it in half, which immediately caught my attention. I mean, I’m from a town named Broken Arrow. I know what the symbolism of an arrow snapped in half means—peace, an end to fighting. There was a note folded underneath the arrow pieces with my name printed on it. I opened it and read: I watched you while you were sleeping and you looked completely at peace. I wish I could feel that. I wish I could close my eyes and feel at peace. But I can’t. I can’t feel anything if I’m not with you, and even then all I can do is want something that I don’t think I can ever have, at least not now. So I left this, and my peace, with you. Stark.
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked Nala.
My cat sneezed, “mee-uf-owed” grumpily at me, jumped from my bed, and padded to her food bowl. She looked back at me, purring like crazy.
“Okay, yeah, I know. I’m hungry, too.” I fed my cat and thought about Stark while I got dressed for what I was sure would be a very weird school day. “Today we’re getting out of here,” I told my reflection firmly after I’d used the flatiron to semi-tame my hair.
I hurried downstairs and arrived in the kitchen just in time to grab my favorite cereal, Count Chocula, and join the Twins, who had their heads together and were whispering and looking annoyed.
“Hey, guys,” I said, sitting next to them and pouring myself a huge bowl of chocolatey deliciousness. “What’s up?”
Keeping her voice pitched low for my ears only, Erin said, “You’ll see what’s up once you sit here for just a few minutes.”
“Yeah, observe the pod people,” Shaunee whispered.
“Okayyyyy,” I said slowly, adding milk to my cereal and watching the kids around us with what I hoped was utter nonchalance.