Tear You Apart (11 page)

VIV WOKE TO THE SOUND of the lawn mower at six thirty in the morning.
Henley. God
. She’d been asleep for maybe an hour, and her head felt like it was packed with mud. She hadn’t even bothered to change. Once the horseman had dropped her at home, she’d collapsed into bed in her starry-night dress and passed out before her head hit the pillow.

My dress …

There was something troubling about that thought. And as the fuzziness cleared from her head she realized it was because she wasn’t wearing one.

She was naked, and her sheets were covered with ashes.

The magic dress had disintegrated.

Last night, Viv had thought the fairy’s ash-to-dress transformation was a cute trick. Now her skin was covered with sooty black smears, and her bed looked like someone had burned a bonfire’s worth of stuff in it. She couldn’t go back to sleep like this. She itched and her bed was disgusting.

She forced herself to get up. Pain shot through her feet when they touched the floor; they were so sore she could barely walk on them. She dropped to her knees and crawled to her en suite bathroom, then into the shower, where she turned on the water and tried to fall asleep for a few more minutes.

When the water turned cold she woke up and shut it off. She wrapped a towel around her body and then crawled back to her bedroom and lay down on a patch of carpet that didn’t have ash all over it—and passed out.

“Viv. Viv! Are you drunk?”

Her eyes fluttered open. She
wished
she were hungover, instead of aching and exhausted because she’d spent the night in a place renowned for destroying people’s shoes. It was too hot in her room. She felt sick. And Henley was there, kneeling over her, shaking her.

Oh, and she was naked. Except for the towel.

“Stop,” she whined, closing her eyes and hoping he would be gone when she opened them.

“What’s wrong with you? Did you try to burn your bed? Viv—
wake up
!” He jostled her shoulder and the towel slipped open. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, but she screamed at him, anyway. Something on the politeness scale between
go away
and
please die
.

“Don’t yell at me! I thought you were poisoned. You weren’t moving and—”

“And what? What were you going to do if I was? Call Regina and congratulate her?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I would do,” he snapped.

“I am not in the mood for this,” she muttered, fixing her
towel and getting to her feet—which was a mistake, because her feet hurt like hell. She winced and doubled over, grabbing on to Henley to try to relieve some of the pressure. “Ow. Ow ow ow.”

Henley’s whole face changed. He went from snarling to being her best friend again. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Is Regina home?”

“No, no one’s here.”

“Can you—” Her teeth clenched as pain shot through her legs. “Can you carry me downstairs?”

He picked her up and cradled her against him. Now that she was off her feet, they didn’t hurt. She adjusted her towel so she wouldn’t flash him, and he pressed his head against hers and said,

“You’re scaring the shit out of me, Viv.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Can you just take me downstairs?”

Henley set her up on a chair in the kitchen, with another chair in front of her so she could prop her feet. She felt worn-out and nauseated, but also relieved just to be there with him while he took care of her, or tried to. He got her a Coke and then rooted around in the cupboards, looking for breakfast. Viv could have told him not to bother. There was no food in the house except Regina’s protein bars, some orange juice, Coke, vodka, and a bowl of red apples on the kitchen table.

Viv took an apple from the bowl and held it up. “
An apple a day
—she used to say that to me when I was in middle school. Like it was clever.”

“Yeah, I remember you bitching about it.”

“She also used to tell me not to let that dirty boy in the house.”

Henley gave up on one barren cupboard and moved on to the next. “I know—she always made sure I could hear it. Your stepmom’s not the most subtle person in the world.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad? I don’t see why you don’t hold that against her.”

“I guess I’m too forgiving of people who treat me like crap,” he said, holding her gaze.

“Touché.” She bit down on the apple. The crunch was a satisfying coda to her statement—she thought so, anyway.

Henley’s hand was almost to her mouth when she spit the bite onto the floor, unchewed. “What were you going to do?” she asked with a smile. “Reach in and pry it out of my throat?”

“If I had to.” He looked embarrassed and a little annoyed. She tossed the apple into the bowl and flexed her sore feet against the chair. He turned away to continue searching through the cabinets, and she figured now was as good a time as any to confess. She focused on the broad expanse of his back and tried not to lose her nerve.

“So … I went somewhere last night,” she said. “I got an invitation. To the nightclub in the underworld.”

“The club where …”

She nodded. “Where the Twelve Dancing Princesses go to dance. That’s why my feet hurt.”

“What did you do there? You went by yourself?”

She could see him turning it over in his head, trying not to get nervous, to wait for all the facts. His muscles tensed and his eyebrows furrowed and he looked a hundred times more serious than he should ever have to. But Henley was always like that. Always wary, as emotionally jumpy as a rabbit. Physically,
he was a rock, but inside, it was like he was burning up all the time.

“Did Jewel invite you? Who invited you?”

“Don’t get mad,” she said.

“Don’t tell me not to get mad. Just tell me.”

“I’m just saying, because—I know you’ll get mad.” She’d never been shy about pissing him off on purpose—but this was different. This was something he definitely didn’t want to know, and she didn’t want to tell him. But she didn’t want to lie to him, either.

Her lips formed the words a couple times before her voice cooperated. “My prince invited me. He lives in the underworld.”

“You’re lying.” The furrow between his eyebrows got deeper. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. And I thought you should know.”

Henley wasn’t looking at her anymore—he was staring out the window at the massacred garden—but she could see him in profile. She’d always liked his face. He’d had that same frustrated expression when they were kids—except back then it had showed itself when he struck out playing baseball, or when Rafe Wilder said Viv looked like a boy and Henley was struggling not to punch him in the face. Although Rafe still said stuff like that.

“So is he twisted like you thought he would be? Or do you like him?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t think he’s turned on by dead girls or anything.”

Henley’s hands curled into fists. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it. “Do you want me to …”

She laughed. “What? Do I want you to kill him instead of me?”

“I wouldn’t kill you, Viv.” He closed his eyes and let his forehead touch the windowpane. “Although God knows you deserve it.”

She laughed again. “Thanks.”

She believed that he wouldn’t do it right now. She didn’t believe he would feel that way forever.

Henley let out a sigh and grumbled something about the garden while Viv poked at the bitten, slowly browning apple with her finger. Then he said, “You’re not going back … are you?”

“Of course I’m going back.”

“And what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do while you’re figuring out if you want to date this guy?”

The sick feeling rose up in her again. Leaving Henley—choosing someone else—meant losing him.

“Whatever you want,” she said. “I don’t own you.”

“Yes, you do, Viv. You know you do.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THERE WAS NO RIGHT THING to say after that.

Henley moved around the kitchen, rechecking the fridge and the cabinets, not meeting her eyes. He finally gave up with a frustrated “There’s no food here.”

“We could go out,” Viv said.

“I guess.”

She sent him upstairs to get her clothes—a summery red dress, sandals, underwear. The dress was new, and she cut the tags off with a knife she found in the cutlery drawer. Maybe it was more accurate to call it a dagger. It had a jeweled handle, like it should be used for fantasy role play.

“What is that?” Henley asked, coming up behind her.

“One of Regina’s prized possessions, I guess. I don’t know. Is it fancy enough to cut out a heart? I can’t picture her cutting a lime with it.”

“Give me that,” he muttered. She gave it up gladly, and he took it and wrapped it in a dish towel.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“What do you mean, what am I going to do with it? I’m getting rid of it. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

They took his truck. Henley tossed the dagger into the back, along with the loose mulch and gardening tools, and she didn’t ask him how or when he’d dispose of it.

He was still wearing his grass-stained work clothes, but neither one of them felt like stopping at his house so he could change. They went through the drive-through at a burger place and then just rode around for a while.

The drive had a doomed, depressing feeling, even though they were just cruising the outskirts of Beau Rivage. It felt like he was taking her to the airport and they didn’t know when, or if, they would see each other again.

“I’m sweating my ass off in here,” Viv said, to break the silence.

“Tell me where you want to go.”

She bit down on her plastic straw. “Drive us off a cliff.”

Henley popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a road map. “Find a cliff. Maybe I will.”

She didn’t reach for it.

“That’s what I thought.”

In the end, they went to Jewel’s place, because—although neither one of them said as much—they were afraid to be alone. Jewel was more Viv’s friend than Henley’s but, unlike most of Viv’s friends, she didn’t grate on his nerves. Jewel was the Kind Girl in a Diamonds and Toads curse. She’d been nice to the right fairy and now gems and flowers fell
from her lips when she spoke, sang, or even made out.

At nineteen, Jewel already had her own luxury condo with a view of the shore. She sang in Curses & Kisses with Blue, Freddie, and Rafe, and probably would have been living in a starving artist’s garret if not for her curse. The nonstop supply of gems enabled her to do whatever she wanted, so long as she didn’t take her freak show outside Beau Rivage.

Jewel came to the door barefoot, wearing a camisole and pajama shorts. Her dark brown skin was free of makeup, but all her jewelry was in: a row of colorful gemstone studs in each ear, and a diamond stud in her nose. The jewelry was her trademark; every stone had come from her curse. Her brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, and a single pink streak showed on one side.

“Surprise,” Viv said. “Uninvited guests.”

“You guys look like somebody died.” Jewel’s voice was throaty and had grit to it. She had a good
piss off
voice. That was why Viv loved her singing. When Jewel sang that you’d ruined her life and she’d make you sorry, she sounded like she meant it.

“Who died?” another girl called from inside the condo. Luxe. Jewel’s girlfriend.

Luxe was a Kinder, meaning her curse had taken center stage when she was a kid, and she’d never stopped being the brat she’d been during her glory days. She had all the attributes that went along with her Goldilocks curse: butterblonde curls, the charm of a sociopath, no regard for other people’s property. And she complained about everything—but she was cute, and Jewel had this theory about artists and tumultuous relationships: that if she didn’t have a
frustrating girlfriend, she’d run out of things to write about.

Viv was not a fan. “I didn’t know you had company,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Jewel gave her an amused half smile. “If you want to know that, you should call first.”

“Do you want us to go?”

“No. Get in here.”

Viv and Henley followed Jewel inside. The condo’s floor plan was open—the living room and kitchen were right there when you walked in. Shot glasses filled with rubies, diamonds, and other precious stones decorated every flat surface.

“You guys want anything?” Jewel asked, heading toward the kitchen. The light from the wide back windows caught the gems in her ears and made them sparkle.

“A shower,” Henley said.

Jewel pointed down the hall. “It’s all yours.” He headed to the bathroom and Viv went with Jewel into the kitchen, grateful to have a chance to talk to her alone. Her feet were still sore, so she sat down at the breakfast bar and let them dangle.

“What happened this time?” Jewel asked.

“I don’t even know how to start talking about this.”

“You never told me who died,” Luxe called out.

Luxe was sprawled on the couch in front of the TV, her T-shirt pushed up to show her stomach, her skirt short enough to give all three bears a heart attack. Wet flower petals clung to Luxe’s cheek and neck, and the couch cushions were littered with gems—a sure sign that Jewel and Luxe had been making out. They made out all the time.