Stacia Kane: City of Ghosts

“Ain’t need for thanks. All right there, now? Got the City locked up an all?”

“Yeah. New doors and everything. They had some already made, I guess. Elder Griffin said—” She hesitated for a second, anticipating pain in her wrists, but none came. They’d removed the Binding the second they’d left the City. She hadn’t fully allowed herself to wonder if part of the reason they’d been in such a hurry was because they hadn’t realized what kind of power it would give her, any more than she had until the moment she used it. Anyway, the end result was the same. No more marks, no more Binding. “Elder Griffin said they had some spares waiting just in case, so really it was just the wall that needed to be repaired.”

“Any of them ghosts get free?”

“A few, we think. It’s hard to tell because so many of them were absorbed. But we’re pretty sure only a few got out. And we’ll find them. They might have to pay a few settlements, but that’s nothing compared to what might have happened if we couldn’t use psychopomps, or if Baldarel had managed to absorb all the ghosts and take over. So … it’s not that bad, really.”

He nodded. “Aye, cool then.”

“Yeah.” She bit her lip. Was that why he was in her kitchen, in her apartment? Just to find out how the situation had resolved itself?

He had a right to ask. A right to know. That didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Hey, you want a beer or something?”

“Aye, be good.”

She fled to grab two beers from the fridge and set them on the cracked countertop. A threadbare dishtowel hung off the door of the unused oven, its sole purpose to protect her hands from the rough edges of the bottle caps. She used it now, flipped off one cap, reached for the other beer—

“Thought you was dead.”

She glanced back at him. He hadn’t moved. Well, they might as well talk about something, right? Even if that subject was a bit odd for him to pick. “Yeah, actually, I was kind of worried a few times myself, I mean—”

“Naw. Ain’t my meaning.” He cleared his throat; it didn’t seem to help much, because when he spoke his voice sounded dry somehow. Strained. Still the same deep gravelly rumble she knew so well, but … tense. She realized she’d never, not once in the entire time she’d known him, heard him sound scared or nervous until that moment. Her heart gave a little crank as she opened the other beer and turned to face him.

“Thought you was dead when Lex come found me, dig. An us tryin to give you the ring up, you ain’t answering … drove around hours, we did. All that time I had the thought you was dead. An finally catch you, pulled up on that curb an you there so white, so fuckin white , Chess, all bloody an weren’t moving. Thought it again.”

He paused. His eyes flashed toward her for a second before turning away again, so fast she could almost have believed she’d imagined it.

“I ain’t … Shit. Ain’t liked it. Thinkin you gone.”

“I knew you’d find me,” she said softly, not wanting to interrupt but feeling the need to reassure him somehow. To say something. She knew how that felt, to look at someone and think they were gone. Would never forget seeing him on that broken sidewalk with his eyes closed and his chest silent and still, and how it had felt like her soul had been ripped from her body as well.

“But I weren’t so certain, aye, an it … Fuck. I ain’t good on this shit, aye? Ain’t can say it up right. Fuckin killed me thinkin you dead, is all. Thought seein you with—with Lex weren’t even so bad, not—”

“I’m not with—”

He shook his head. “Ain’t sayin you is. Saw you with him, knew you gave me the truth. Just had the thought I better see you with that, aye? Than be gone. An you …” He took a deep breath, slow and loud, while Chess’s entire body buzzed.

“What you say me, dig. ’Dyou mean it? True thing?”

Fuck.

It was one thing to be brave when the world was tumbling down around her ears and she was pretty sure she was about to die. It was another to be brave when he leaned against her door and her hands shook ever so slightly and she knew— knew —that this changed everything. Not just everything between them, but her life. That telling the truth would mean giving up privacy and security; that she might get hurt. Would get hurt, the way her luck ran.

Fear tempted her: say no, end the conversation, send him away. But she couldn’t. It would destroy him, and she couldn’t stand the thought of doing that again. It would be a lie and she’d told enough of those, especially to him.

She took a drink, swallowed hard. “Yeah. I mean it. True thing, Terrible.”

He didn’t move. Neither did she. Should she go to him? What was she supposed to be doing? Panic fluttered in her chest and she fought it down.

“Wanna believe you,” he said finally. “Been … been missin you hard, aye. But I ain’t for certain I can.”

Shit. She wished she could say she was surprised, but she wasn’t. Couldn’t blame him, either. She’d have a hard time trusting herself, too; hell, she did have a hard time trusting herself.

It seemed to take a very long time to cross the sticky linoleum floor of her tiny kitchen, still clutching the beers in her stiff fingers. She watched herself stop a foot or so away.

“I never got to tell you what happened.” She wanted to look up at him but couldn’t, aware her face was flaming. “The night you got shot, I mean, the night at that house. I didn’t know what was going on, I was on the ground, and I saw you. You weren’t moving or anything, and a psychopomp was coming for you …”

She shook her head. “I killed it. Oliver Fletcher tried to stop me but I held the gun on him, I almost shot him too, because … because I couldn’t stand it if you died, and I didn’t care if they executed me for it—”

His hand cupped the back of her neck, pulling her to him in one quick, forceful movement; she barely had time to register it before his lips met hers.

No anger lurked in that kiss, none of the confusion she’d felt from him before. It was like the first kiss at Trickster’s, like the second on the rooftop: just the two of them, with nothing in between. Nothing in the way.

Both bottles fell from her hands; dimly she heard them land, heard foam spread across the floor and felt it licking cold on her bare feet. She couldn’t have cared less. She wound her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, solid and warm and real. His hands fisted in her hair, pulling it back so he could stroke his fingers over her collarbone, sending little shivers through her.

He lifted his head to look at her. Giving her his eyes, giving her what was behind them. “You know I do, aye? Love you right, Chessiebomb.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, shit, Terrible, I really love you—” She didn’t wait to finish the sentence, not when his face was so close to hers, when she could kiss him instead of talking.

Words were inadequate. No matter how good they sounded, or how good it felt to say them, there were other ways, better ways. It might take a while for him to trust her again. He might not ever forget about Lex; hell, she knew he wouldn’t, knew it would probably come back to bite her on the ass one day. Could feel it lurking there, another dirty secret to add to her store of them, another shame to stockpile in her soul.

But he wanted to try, wanted to be with her. And she had to try. Was desperate to try. If that meant she was barreling toward another painful episode in a life full of them, it was nothing new, right? Because there was still the chance, the off chance, that she wasn’t. That she could finally do something right. And if anyone could give her hope, it was him.