From storm and shadow, p.27
From Storm and Shadow, page 27
He scooted to the edge of the bed and stood. “I’m not mad at you.”
“But you’ve been avoiding me.”
He let out a short laugh. “I’ve just been really busy.”
“But … you’re always really busy. This …” She waved to the space between them. “Something is different.”
“Well, it’s …” He pushed both hands through his hair, his gaze landing somewhere past her. “I guess things would have to start changing now. They can’t exactly stay the same.”
“What? Why? What are you talking about?”
“Because …” There was color in his cheeks now as his eyes returned to hers. He rubbed the back of his neck. “If you and I are seeing other people … I mean, if we’re getting close to other people … then our friendship can’t stay the same. I mean, it would be weird. Inappropriate. If you’re dating someone, or if I’m dating someone, then that’s the person you’re supposed to be closest to, right?”
Silver blinked and shook her head. What the heck? This was like reading a book and discovering she’d accidentally skipped a page. Skipped an entire chapter. She was definitely missing something. “What are you talking about? Are you … dating someone new?” A gaping hole opened up inside her at the thought.
He frowned. “I … I meant you and Jerryn. But also—”
“What?” Relief and confusion collided inside her.
“I mean … people are talking about it. He asked you out? You guys are together now?”
She was so confused. Did Ash seriously think something like this would happen and she wouldn’t tell him about it? She’d never dated anyone before. If she suddenly said yes to someone, it would be a big deal. Of course she would tell him. “No, it’s—he asked me to the Liberation Day Ball, and—”
“Okay, that’s great, because … Odette and I are going together, so at least now—”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah.” Ash gave her an uncertain smile. “Cool, right?”
No, not cool. Definitely not cool. But Silver couldn’t say that out loud. She couldn’t say anything. She was half convinced she’d wandered into a dream. “Wait, just …” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Just backtrack a bit. You’re saying that you and I can’t have the friendship we’ve always had because I might be growing closer to someone else, and you might be growing closer to someone else?” Holy crap, since when was there something going on between Ash and Odette? How had she completely missed that? “I mean, what about Kellee? You were with her for months, and our friendship didn’t change.”
“Well, yeah.” Ash let out a soft laugh. “Exactly. Why do you think things didn’t work out with her? She was never comfortable with me having two close friends who are girls. And I didn’t want to stop being friends with you guys, so I told Kellee we obviously weren’t right for each other.”
Two close friends who are girls. Silver had always thought she was Ash’s closest friend, but maybe he’d spent more time with Odette than she’d realized. Maybe they hung out alone together, the same way Silver and Ash did. Maybe Odette had been here, in his bedroom, alone with him. Maybe he’d been alone with her in her room.
Bitter jealousy, hot and entirely unexpected, burned through Silver’s veins. She was so startled she took a step backward. She didn’t want to think of Odette like that. Odette was her friend. She didn’t want to be jealous of her. Ugh, how did this become such a mess?
“I’m just … a bit confused, Ash,” she said eventually. Her voice was small, defeated. This wasn’t her. She never sounded like this.
Ash sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at the floor. “I guess …” He let out a long, slow breath. “I guess this had to happen at some point. That you and I would start moving in different directions. That we wouldn’t always be as close as we’ve been in the past.”
No, no, no, no! That was not what was supposed to happen! But now that this had all gone so completely sideways, Silver had no idea how to turn everything the right way up again. Perhaps it wasn’t even possible. “So you’re … fine with all of this?” she asked carefully. “This is what you want?”
He looked up at her. “Well … if this is what you want, then of course this is what I want.”
Okay. That was not what she’d asked, but she felt stupid trying to ask again. And if he was happy with Odette, then she didn’t want to take that away from him. She didn’t want to make him feel guilty about it. “Um … yes?” she said eventually, though none of this was what she wanted.
“Okay, great,” Ash breathed, looking somewhat relieved.
No, not great, Silver wanted to shout. Not great at all! “Um, yeah,” she said instead, feeling suddenly, horribly close to tears. Which was ridiculous. She didn’t cry. Not often, anyway, and certainly not because of Ash. He was the one who made her feel better when something was wrong. And this? This was all wrong.
She cleared her throat. “I, um … need to finish some homework.” She gestured over her shoulder as if said homework was sitting in the passage behind her. “So … I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Twenty-Six
NOW
* * *
The music weaves around us, through us, beating in time with my heart. Ash’s fingers slide into my hair. He’s so close still, his lips beside my ear and his whispered words landing softly, so convincingly, in my muddled brain. Stay. When all of this is over … please stay. I could. I could stay here forever. If I allowed myself to, I could sway the rest of my life away with him. Nothing else seems important.
I blink. Something about that thought scares me, and the fear is enough to clear a fraction of the haziness from my mind. Other things are important. Stormsdrift is important. Ash’s family is important. Isn’t that why we’re here? We’re here to steal the … the …
I blink again and shake my head. “Ash, we … we need to focus.” I’m breathless. Lightheaded. I can barely think with him so near. With the intoxicating magic of this place threading its way through every thought. I tilt my head, my mouth so close to his skin that I’m a mere breath away from pressing my lips to the side of his neck. My eyelids beg to slide shut. “The … ice,” I whisper. “Icicle. Crystal.” That’s what we’re here for. With an enormous amount of effort, I force myself to take a deep breath and step backward.
He catches my wrist, his fingers warm against my skin, just above the leather cuff with the moonstone. “What happened, Silver?”
“What?”
“What happened?” he repeats, his voice low, earnest. I was expecting to see hooded eyes and the same sluggishness I’ve been trying so hard to fight off, but his gaze is clear. “There’s a gap. A space of time. Between when you fled the Guild and when you decided to start a new life in the human world. Approximately a year, as far as I can work out. What happened during that time? Where were you?”
My heart pumps blood in a galloping rush through my veins, clearing the remaining cobwebs from my mind. Is that all it takes to fight the magic of this place? Terror? Adrenaline?
I stare into Ash’s eyes, so warm, so intense. Tell him, some inner instinct urges. Tell him, tell him, tell him. Perhaps I can. Perhaps I’m brave enough. And if I tell him, and he understands, then maybe … maybe I can stay.
“Eleven months, two days,” I whisper, my mouth suddenly dry. “To be more precise.”
“Okay,” Ash says. “What happened?”
I shake my head. I can’t have this conversation here, in this room that makes my brain feel like it’s been tossed around and then put back inside my head at the wrong angle. Before I can change my mind, I grab Ash’s hand and tug him through the crowd. I realize belatedly that I should be going slowly, not drawing attention by rushing out of here, but I guess it’s too late for that.
We reach the edge of the dance floor, and I pull him past the bar and back into the passageway with the private rooms. I aim for the first open doorway—there’s no door at all, in fact—and let go of Ash’s hand once we’re inside.
I realize then, at the sight of the soft blue light and tiny specks of neon blue floating in the air, that I recognize this room. Water runs down all four walls, and a stream travels from one side of the room to the other, tumbling over rocks and broken branches. The floor is earth and grass, and it smells real. Fresh. There’s no door, but I know that if I press the little metal flower set into the wall beside the doorway, a sheet of water will come down, sealing us off from the rest of the club. I saw Riven do it when I was last in here.
This room is one of those that patrons pay extra to use, and once upon a time, back when I was the Diamond Knife, Riven hosted a private fight in here. A friend of his had taken a liking to both me and the Pink Lynx, and he paid a small fortune to see us face off against each other. I could have beaten her in under a minute, but that wasn’t what Riven’s friend was paying for. So I gave him a good show, dodging and dancing across the room, somersaulting over the river, sending magic streaking past the walls to create impressive arcs of water. And then, when I grew tired of throwing magic around and twirling out of the Pink Lynx’s reach, I let her knock me out.
I shut my eyes for a moment, blocking out the violent memory. This room is so serene, so calming. Why did Riven make us fight in here?
I turn to face Ash. He hasn’t said a word yet, which I assume means he’s waiting for me to talk. My fingers can’t stop fiddling anxiously with things, first turning my ring around and around, and then moving to the leather strips on my bracelet, twisting the beads and pearls as I try to figure out where to start. The next thing I know, silver-white hair is tumbling over my shoulders. My fingers freeze. My eyes dart down to the bracelet and the pearl I’ve unintentionally squeezed too hard. Wonderful. I’ll have to redo the enchantment before we leave this room.
“So … uh …” I force my hands to my sides and look up again, deciding to begin with the worst, because if Ash can’t forgive me for that, then there’s no point in telling him the rest of it. “What if I told you I killed someone?”
He pauses, watching me closely, then says, “I would tell you I’ve killed someone too. More than just one someone. It’s kind of unavoidable when you’re dealing with dangerous fae creatures and criminals on a near daily basis.”
A humorless breath of a laugh escapes me. “I don’t mean like that.”
“Then … what do you mean? Was it self-defense? Were you helping someone else?” He’s so damn noble. He doesn’t even question that my motives might have been anything other than pure.
I inhale a shaky breath. I will be brave enough to tell him the truth, dammit. “Not like that either.”
“Okay.”
“And it was more than one person. And I wanted them dead.”
“They were bad people, I assume? They must have done terrible things if you wanted them dead.” Still he refuses to see me for what I truly am: the very opposite of everything I always dreamed of being. “I think you’re going to have to be a little more specific,” he says. “I can’t really be sure what you’re getting at otherwise. But I feel like you’re trying to say that you’re a terrible person because you’ve done terrible things, and maybe—for some people—that’s true. But for you?” He shakes his head. “There’s no way.”
I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve him. He’s far too good for me. Of course, at the heart of it all, I’ve only ever wanted to be exactly what he’s describing. But looking back, knowing everything I know now, it was never going to be that way. I was never going to be that way. And I don’t think Ash is capable of seeing that.
I push my shoulders back and look past him through the doorway. “We should go back to the Gold Floor and do what we came here to do.”
“Wait, hang on.”
“My head is clear now. As long as we’re quick once we get back out there, we shouldn’t be affected by the magic.”
“Silver. You’ve barely told me anything. I still don’t know what happened or what you went through.”
My eyes snap back to his. “I am a monster, Ash.”
“You’re not a monster.” He moves closer, lifting both hands, and before I know it, his palms are cupping my face. Out here, away from the intoxication of the Gold Floor, his nearness is startling. But his touch … it’s warm, reassuring. I don’t want to step away. “Whatever you did to survive,” he says gently, “it was because you had no other choice.”
I shake my head and push his hands away as I step backward. “I think this conversation is over.”
“That’s it? You refuse to tell me? You refuse to trust me?”
I don’t look at him as I answer. “That’s it.”
“What happened?” he demands, and it isn’t anger, it’s something more like desperation.
The memories rise like a tidal wave—pain, sweat, blood, death, and red, always red—but I beat them back down into the shadows. I step around Ash, aiming for the doorway. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“So nothing has changed then,” he says, and the hardness in his voice brings me to a stop. “Not since the moment I found you and you tried to run from me. You’re still running.”
I’m still running, and I still can’t look at him. “Correct. Nothing has changed. We’re going to go back in there, steal that crystal, and then we’re parting ways. I’m going off on my own again while you take that thing back to Stormsdrift and use it to destroy the door.”
“And then what? What am I supposed to do after that? Carry on with my life as if nothing has changed? As if I don’t know that you’re out there somewhere, very much alive?”
“Yes!” I swing back around to face him. “You can …” I gesture helplessly around me, searching for an answer. “I don’t know, get back together with Odette.”
His head jerks back as if I’ve just slapped him. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. She’s … she’s amazing. She’s clever and funny and a talented guardian, and … and beautiful.” I feel sick to my stomach even as I’m saying it, but that doesn’t change the fact that I mean it. Ash deserves to be with someone like Odette.
“Stop. Silver. This has nothing to do with—”
“I mean, she’s basically perfect.”
“She’s not perfect.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, does she have some tiny flaw that means she isn’t good enough for—”
“She isn’t you!” he shouts.
I stare at him. He stares back. I hear nothing but our heightened breaths and the whisper of falling water and his words ricocheting around my brain.
She isn’t you.
She isn’t you.
He finally breaks eye contact, turning away with a shake of his head. “Just … forget it. Forget I said that. Forget everything else. Silver, I just …” He looks at me, and his shoulders lift in an almost helpless shrug. “I just want my best friend back.”
Something about the way he says this—as if it’s possible, as if it’s a request I could actually grant but I’m simply choosing not to—makes anger flare inside me at the unfairness of it all. “You think I don’t want her back too? Your friend is gone, Ash! That fun, carefree, daring girl you grew up with? She’s gone and nobody is ever getting her back!”
“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty damn clear. You’re nothing like her. You’re so angry and you hate everyone—”
“I HATE MYSELF!” I roar. Then I slam my palm against the metal flower set into the wall. A sheet of water crashes down, closing us in, and I clench my fists, open my mouth, and scream and scream and scream. I keep going until the scream becomes a desperate chest-heaving sob and my body starts to shake. “Do you have any … idea … what it was like,” I gasp, barely able to breathe now, “watching the people you love … literally … cut down … in front of you? And I did nothing!” The last of the air is squeezed from my lungs, and I fight against the convulsive sobs and as I try to draw more breath. But it’s all too much now.
I curl in on myself. My legs lower me down, and then I’m on my knees on the grass, my shoulders shaking and my chest shuddering. “I hate—I HATE—myself … who I am … and what I’ve done.” The shuddering sobs won’t stop, and tears keep streaking down my face. I lean forward and press my fingers into the grass. Into the dirt. “They gave up … their lives. And then I became … everything … they hated. Everything you hate.”
Ash’s hand is on my shoulder. Then he’s on the ground beside me, slipping an arm around my back and pulling me against him. I don’t fight it. I wind my arms around him and press my tear-stained face against his shoulder, and for the first time in years, I hug him.
He doesn’t tell me everything’s okay. He doesn’t ask me to elaborate. In the end, all he whispers is, “I will never hate you.” And maybe it’s true. Maybe he would forgive me if he knew everything. Maybe he would understand. But I will fall apart completely if I tell him now.
I don’t know how long we sit there, but eventually my sobs subside into shuddering breaths. “Tell me about your family,” I whisper.
Ash lets out a confused laugh. “What?”
“You know I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t want to know anything. I want to know every detail. Every single thing I missed.” I carefully extricate myself from his embrace, sniffing as I swipe my hands beneath my eyes. “Are Flynn and Holly still together? Is Connor still the biggest pain in everyone’s ass?”
Ash lifts one hand, smiling as he gently brushes his knuckles across my still-damp cheek. “Flynn and Holly broke up about a year ago, but it sounded like it was for the best. I think they grew up and grew apart.” He lifts his other hand and sweeps his thumb delicately beneath my eye, making me wonder just how much mascara mess is currently streaking my face. “Connor and Rosie broke up, and then Connor did this all-out, grand-gesture proposal, and now they’re forming a union.”
“What?” I sniff-laugh in surprise. “Connor’s getting married?”
