Lili St Crow - Betrayals

Would I jump on Graves? Would my teeth get long and sharp, and would I want to put my face in his throat and drink?

My chest hurt. I hugged myself harder.

“Come on.” His tone gentled. “What are you doing? You keep shoving everything down like this and you’re going to give yourself an ulcer or something. I’m here, okay? I’ve taken everything this place could throw at me. I’m not going anywhere.”

That just made me feel worse. He was here because of me. Great. “Do you ever want to go home?” I had to fight to keep the words steady. My chest hurt. It was the same old pain, the breathless feeling of sitting in a hospital corridor once Gran was dead, just repeating over and over, My dad is coming, he’ll take care of it. He’s on his way. And hoping it was true.

Praying it was true. But this time I was left behind for good. There was nobody coming to get me.

Not in any good way, at least.

And the sooner I started dealing with that the better. But oh God, the thought scared me, way down deep.

He was quiet for a long few moments. “Shit no,” he finally said. “Look, I don’t know if you caught this, Dru, but I don’t have a fireplace and picket fence to go back to. I was homeless, okay?”

I’d suspected, but it was a different thing altogether to hear it out loud. “You had—”

“That room at the mall? Fuck, what kind of kid lives in the mall? Here at least there’s enough food. There’s a bed I earned, and I’m keeping it. Nobody’s trying to peddle my ass or beating me because he’s drunk.” He inhaled sharply, blew the air out. “At least here, there’s rules. Werwulfen and vampires I can handle. It’s the adults back in that other world I can’t. They… At least here the evil has reasons. It’s not just…” He searched for the word, his face twisting in on itself for a second as he struggled to articulate. “It’s not just senseless.”

What happened to my dad was senseless. I didn’t say it. How could you say something like that to someone? “You wanted to be a physics professor.” My throat had closed up; I could only whisper.

“Yeah, well, things change. Now I want to be here.” Another long, seconds-ticking pause. Dust danced in one fading gleam of gold coming through a low window, following long lazy swirls down to the ground. “With you.”

I stared at the motes suspended in the air, all dancing to music nobody could hear. I read somewhere once that dust could even be bits of exploded stars, falling to earth. How far does a bit of star-stuff fall and float before it gives up and just gets pulled into any planet’s orbit?

Did it matter?

The sun slid below the edge of the horizon, and the Schola sighed, settling into itself.

“I don’t know who I am anymore.” The words were throttled halfway out, died in the library’s silence. I expected the world to crack open and the sky to fall once I said it.

Nothing happened. The library still held its breath, and Graves still stood there looking at me.

“Nobody does, Dru.” It was the same quiet, oddly adult tone he’d used that first evening, sitting in the mall and asking me just how bad everything was and if I needed a place to sleep. “It’s called growing up.”

The whirling inside me had gone down a little. I could finally unreel my arms from around my chest. I pushed my hair back. The curls felt weird, not frizzy but silky, clinging to my fingers. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” Was he blushing? “I’m never going to live it down that a girl knocked Bobby on his ass defending me. Jeez.”

Something tight-sprung inside me eased a little bit. The rage retreated. There was enough room to breathe, and I took in a sharp deep lungful. “Well, next time I’ll let him mess with you. Happy?”

“Yeah, well. I had him handled, but still. Anyway, you wanna take half these books?”

The world was seeming manageable again. How did he do that? “What for?”

“Well, if you’re so interested in rehabilitating Broken werwulfen, these seem like a reasonable place to start. Haven’t you been in here before?”

“Once or twice.” But you’re right, this is a good idea. Dad always said research is what saves you.

Yeah, right on schedule, the most uncomfortable thought in the room was moving into my head and calling it home. I should start charging uncomfortable thoughts rent. Except what would they pay me in? Probably something even worse.

“You’ve been going to class more.” He separated the stack into two equal piles, and it was official. He was blushing. High flags of color stood out on his face, so deep they were damn close to maroon. An ugly bruise was spreading up his jawbone, too.

I’d thought he was half-ugly before. Unfinished-looking. It was hard to believe. “Yeah, well, nothing else to do.” I took the pile he pushed toward me. “Doesn’t it bother you? That I… well, that I wanted to… suck his blood?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. The silver earring winked mischievously at me, catching a stray gleam of sun. “Nah. You wouldn’t, you’d have stopped yourself.”

I wasn’t so sure, and I opened my mouth to tell him so.

“Besides,” he said, flipping open the first huge leather-bound book with a thump, “it’s kind of hot.” A smile hovered around the corners of his mouth, fighting to stay hidden.

What? I stared at him for a few seconds. My jaw had officially dropped. “You’re insane.”

“Pot calling kettle, anyone? Start reading.”

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to concentrate, but I did. The sensitivity in my mouth retreated, and after a little while I couldn’t smell the blood anymore. After another while I could actually read the page in front of me without the tears welling up and making all the words blur. I made like I was brushing dust off my cheeks, when I was really smearing hot salt water over them.

Graves didn’t say anything about me leaking. But he didn’t turn a page for a long time either.

When it was time to go to his last class of the night he walked me back to my room first, carrying a double armful of books that we piled on my bed. I finally fell asleep with one of them propped against the headboard, and slept all the way through until morning’s faint blush against the sky.

I could have slept longer, but I had something to do.

I took a shower, braided my hair back. The hall felt weird. I stood on my side of the door, my hand spread against its chill heaviness, and felt someone outside listening intently. It was the same feeling I used to get right before I told Dad a certain motel or house wasn’t safe.

He’d never argued.

So that left just one option. I didn’t like it, but it was better than sitting around moping.

Weak sun slid through the stamped holes in the iron shutters. I pushed them as wide as they would go, struggled with the window. I had to walk a fine line between wrenching it open and trying to be quiet about it. A drench of cold air heavy with the promise of rain flooded through, and I glanced down into the dead rose garden.

The paving-stone paths looked very hard from up here.

It was a long way to fall. I swallowed, hard. Wish I had a rope. Jeez.

But if Christophe had done this, I could too. The worst that could happen was a broken leg and a bunch of questions, right?

I’d never broken a bone before. And those questions had teeth. Everything here had teeth.

This is a stupid idea, Dru.

But I was going to do it anyway. With someone watching my door, I had to. I couldn’t take the chance of anyone, friendly or otherwise, following me. And I had to know if it was possible to escape the Schola during the day.