Reckoning (5 page)

Except Graves and me, we’d been stranded out in the black. Out in the place you can’t get back from and you just have to deal with. “You can’t mean that,” I whispered. My arms were around my knees. I was curling up into myself like a fern, or like he was shouting at me. My heart was triphammering.
Wait. Let’s go back a couple seconds here. Did he really say what I thought he just said?
“Graves—”

He flung out one hand, like he was blocking a dodgeball. “Bullshit. I
do
mean it. Best thing that ever happened to me, Dru. What was I gonna do—try to go to college with no money? Work my way through and hope someone would throw me a bone or two?” A swift snarl passed over his features, and his hair stood up in vital springing curls. “No way. This is my chance to be good enough. I’m taking it. You’ll see. You’ll just
see
.”

He dropped the sleeping bag. It hit the floor and keeled over, and he turned on his heel. Bare feet smacked the worn floorboards,
and it took him less than a half second to undo the lock on the door. He plunged out into the morning, and the door slammed shut behind him. Shivers rolled through me, first hot, then cold.

What. The hell. Just happened?

A soft sound alerted me. I looked up, and there was Ash, crouched easily on the pulldown steps that led to the loft. He cocked his head, and greasy hair fell in his face. He was barefoot too, and he’d somehow lost his shirt. His narrow chest was dead pale, and muscle flickered under his skin.

Wait a second. Just hold on one goddamn second. Graves said he . . . did he actually say
that?
Did he say what I think he just said?

We looked at each other for a long time, the Broken and me. It occurred to me that he was waiting for something. For me to make the world settle down.

Except everything was still spinning around me, and if I didn’t hold on, I’d be flung off. I hate that feeling.

I’d been spinning since Dad died, in one way or another.

But Ash was counting on me. Examining me solemnly, his face like a child’s. Wide open, and scared, and utterly trusting all at the same time.
You’re going to make the bad stop, right?
That’s what was painted all over him, from the way he crouched to the wide eyes and his mouth just a little bit agape.

“It’s okay.” I tried to sound steady. “Everything’s all right.”

“Awwight.” His mouth worked loosely over the word. I’d shot him in the jaw with Dad’s silvergrain bullets, and some of the silver was probably still in there, buried in the bone and preventing everything from changing back and forth right. Or, even scarier, the silver had worked its way out and now I had the thought that he was free of Sergej’s hold but somehow still Broken, and I didn’t know enough about how to fix him.

Every single problem I’d forgotten about while sleeping came crowding back. First on the list was breakfast.

I felt like falling asleep on the loveseat had twisted the world off course again, just a fraction. I wasn’t complaining, but I wished Graves would’ve waited until I’d had some coffee and I could
think
before he laid that on me.

Did he just say what I think he just said?

Ash slid down a few more stairs, slinking bonelessly on his hands and feet like a cat. “
Hon
gwee.” He nodded vigorously. “Hongwy.”

Great. He’ll have a three-year-old’s vocabulary by the end of the week. Stellar
. “Yeah. I was just thinking about breakfast.”

It hit me sideways.

Graves. He’d really said that.

I love you
. That was good, right? Good, hell. It was outright
great
.

Except every time things got better with him, I ended up even more hopelessly confused. I groaned, gingerly got up from the love seat in case I’d stiffened up overnight, and found out I hadn’t. “Outhouse first,” I amended. “Then breakfast.”

Ash actually let out a crow of delight. Then he was out the door too, quick as a flash. Which would leave me to make breakfast alone.

Did he really say he . . . loved me?
Maybe it wasn’t hopeless. Maybe I could learn to say the right thing the next time he laid something like that on me. Maybe I had a chance.

Wouldn’t you know, I found out I was grinning. Ear to ear, despite every single problem crowding in around me.

Grinning. Like a total fool.

I brought the ax
down cleanly, with a terrific
thwack
. The log split. I didn’t even need a wedge; it was child’s play to get the freshly sharpened ax blade going fast enough. The wood was well seasoned, but it was the
aspect
flickering through me that did most of the work.

I was getting used to this new body. Hips a little bit wider, chest-works definitely a little bigger—the two sports bras I had were not going to cut it after a while; I had overflowing cleavage you could lose a quarter in. I’d managed to buy two pairs of jeans in a new size yesterday, T-shirts in medium instead of small, and every piece of clothing I’d ever owned before was
so
not going to fit me now.

But all that was kind of made up for by the fact that my hair was behaving, silky curls lying down—and the fact that I was now strong as any of the boy
djamphir
. Reliably strong, the
aspect
simply stepping in like clockwork instead of needing rage or bloodhunger to fuel it.

Hallelujah. I didn’t have to get mad or suck someone’s blood to use superstrength. It was a frigging miracle.

The only mirror in the house was a polished piece of metal
hanging near the kitchen window, where Gran would check her hat before she went to town. It was enough to show me that I didn’t have anything huge stuck on my face, but the changes I’d seen in hotel bathrooms, thankfully, didn’t show up much.

Graves didn’t say anything else, but I caught him looking at me every once in a while. When he thought I didn’t notice.

Ash, of course, was oblivious. I don’t think how I looked mattered to him in the slightest. He darted in, scooped up one half of the log I’d just split, and balanced it on the ancient chopping block. Then he hightailed it back to the woodpile and watched.

I drew the ax up, smoothly, inhaling, and let out a sharp
huff!
as I brought it down.
Got to do it with the breath, Dru. Ain’t no other way
.

Gran’s voice was a thorny pleasure. Any moment I expected to see her striding into the meadow, clicking her tongue at the long grass she’d take a machete to every once in a while. She’d descend on all three of us and put everything to rights, toot-sweet, with not a second to spare or a long gray hair out of place.

Ash darted in again, put the unchopped half of the log up, and leapt back with an armful of stovewood. I brought the ax up and down again. Like riding a bike.

Bright mellow sunlight poured over the meadow, showing a sheen of sweat on Ash’s arms. He was bulking up a bit, the steady calories doing him a lot of good. Gran always said fresh air was good for anyone, too.

After we had enough wood to last a week, I set Ash to stacking it and stamped inside.

“You’re handy with an ax.” Graves was up to his elbows in soapsuds, scrubbing the dishes.
I’ll clean
, he’d said.
You go out and get some sun
.

I’d bit back the acid comment about Gran revolving in her grave
to have a boy wulf cleaning her house, and just gone and done it. Right now, though, I was kind of wishing I’d stayed inside. Pumping bathwater was going to be a bitch.

“Got to be, in these parts.” I grabbed a bottle of distilled water and cracked it, took a long pull. “I’m going into town in a bit, now that we know the house is still sound and we can stay here a couple days. We need more supplies.” I waited for some sign that he was willing to talk about something else. Something a little more personal.

I know enough about boys to know that they get uncomfortable with that sort of thing. So I figured I’d just . . . let it rest. For a little while, at least.

And, well, discretion’s the better part of valor, right? Except I was pretty sure the word for waiting until he said something else wasn’t discretion or politeness. It was flat-out cowardice.

He hunched his shoulders. Worked at the cast-iron skillet like he wanted to scrub it into a wafer. I was going to have to season it again before I could use it.

“This is pretty cool.” He glanced out the window. “You could hide up here for a while.”

That’s the idea
. “I guess.” I stalked over to Gran’s hassock, grabbed my black messenger bag. It still smelled like vampire blood, and I was damn lucky to have it. I’d hung the long slightly curving wooden swords—
malaika
—safe in their leather harness, on a peg by the front door. The funny thing was, that peg was just right.

The
malaika
had been my mother’s. They looked like they belonged there. I couldn’t remember what might’ve hung there before, and that bothered me. I thought I’d remember everything about Gran’s.

I settled down at the kitchen table with a fresh legal pad, the atlas I’d picked up, and Dad’s little black address book. All his contacts were in it. One of them at least had been
djamphir
. The rest, who knew?

I had Dad’s billfold, too. Mom’s picture was missing, but given recent events, I was lucky to have this much left from him. It made me wonder where the truck was. Christophe had told me it was in storage somewhere; I’d always figured I’d pick it up later, somehow. If I needed it.

I set the address book down precisely, looked at the legal pad, and uncapped a blue Bic.

“What are you up to?” Graves glanced back over his shoulder. I’d managed to get all of us some jeans and T-shirts, nothing fancy but serviceable. The dark blue shirt strained at his shoulders. Boy was no longer a medium, that was for damn sure.

We’d both changed so much.

“Planning. This is short-term. Anyone who goes digging through paper will find out Gran’s property’s in trust for me, with a couple investments paying the taxes. Someone will eventually track us, or figure out I’ve gone here to lick my wounds. We can’t stay here past fall, and that’s if they don’t find us first.”

“They. The vampires, and . . .”

And the Order. Staying with them is about as safe as a sack of snakes for you, and I’m not sure I like it much either
. “And anyone else. So I need short, medium, long-range, and contingency plans. You think this stuff over before you have to.” I stared at the blank paper. “Dad used to say that.”

“Your accent’s getting thicker.” He rinsed the skillet, working the pump like he was born to it. “It’s cute.”

Did that count as being willing to talk about something emotional? A reluctant smile pulled at my lips. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall down. Awkward silence reigned in the kitchen. He kept washing, the white bar of a dish towel over one shoulder.

I flipped idly through the book. Dad’s crabbed, neat handwriting,
in different pen colors. I found Augustine’s name and address and numbers, with the inked cross Dad used to mark a safe contact.

There were other hunters. How many of them were
djamphir
—or something else? Could I still trust them? Would they know what I was now that I’d bloomed? Would any of Dad’s friends or contacts sell me to Sergej if Dad wasn’t around?

It was a horrible thing to think.

There were a handful of people I could trust. Less than that, because the only ones among the living were up here with me. Christophe . . . maybe I could trust him, since Leon had been lying about him selling Graves to Sergej. But still, Christophe and Graves’d “had words,” Graves said.

Words about me.

I glanced up at Graves’s broad back as he finished rinsing a plate. Looked down again just as quickly, stared at the blank legal pad. “Can I ask you something?”

His shoulders stiffened. But he sounded easy, relaxed. “You bet.”

Chill, dude. I’m not going to ask you to repeat the
L
word. I know boys hate that
. “Outside the gym. The night you disappeared. You and Christophe. What exactly did he say to you?” I had the Cliffs-Notes version, so to speak, but I wanted . . . more. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”

“He had a group of
djamphir
buddies with him.” Graves set the plate in the rack, gently. Put his hands down on the lip of the utility sink, dropped his head forward. His hair curled over his nape, but you could still see the vulnerable-looking spot there. “He asked me if I thought I was any good for you. I said I knew I wasn’t, but I was all you got and I was stepping up. He laughed at that, and we got into it. Kind of . . . well, a shoving match. Guy stuff.” He let out a long,
harsh sigh. “It ended up with things getting serious. He said I wasn’t doing you any good. That you deserved better.”

Oh, Jesus
. I tasted burnt metal, swallowed hard. My fingers tightened on the blue Bic. “Graves—”

“I told him that you deserved better than a creepy little fuck like him, too. That was about it. I went for a run to cool off and the vampires nabbed me.” He pulled the plug on the sink; on either side, framing the window, were shelves holding the sum total of Gran’s china. There was a gleam on the windowsill, a random reflection of sunlight.

We’d have to keep washing like mad to make sure we had clean plates. All the pots and pans were hung around the stove, and Graves straightened. He started hanging things up, each in the correct place. Which meant he’d been watching me.

Soapy water slipped down the mouth of the drain. The gurgling was loud in the silence between us.

“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said finally, grabbing the edge of the sink again and holding on for dear life. Muscle stood out under his T-shirt. “
He
broke Ash.
He
could’ve broken me. I could be even more dangerous than that Anna chick. You shouldn’t have come to rescue me.”

He
meant Sergej, and I could see Graves’s point. But still. All the breath rushed out of me; I had a hard time finding enough to talk with. “I couldn’t leave you there.” If I let my head hang any further I’d snap my own neck. My mother’s locket was a cool weight against my breastbone. “You wouldn’t break, either.”