Starting with that fucking arm.
Chapter 16
Cheribelle
Is a Mistake Twice a Habit?
“Ouch!”
I shied away from the small cotton bud Paul had gently swiped over my chin. Funny how I’d fought with a bruised rib but now a bit of alcohol felt like someone was shoving my face into a bonfire.
“I know it doesn’t feel the best, but we really need to get these cleaned.”
“I didn’t see anyone polishingyourface earlier,” I said accusatorily even though I already knew the answer.
The rest of the afternoon and evening went by in a hazy blur. Somewhere in the middle of it, the VanMarche siblings, save for Paul, had disappeared with the arm. Paul had explained they’d all gone to whatever secret place Jackson had been hiding out in.
As for Paul himself, he was either by my side or helping people, forcing the investigators who rolled up to follow him and ask questions around his aiding the hurt rather than the other way around.
I wanted to help, especially with those lingering outside with questions, but I was so thoroughly exhausted and banged up, so I mostly ended up sitting around until the medics could get to me.
Thankfully, I wasn’t grievously wounded in any way. Yes, my ribs were bruised. Yes, I had scrapes everywhere and some contusions around my throat. Andyes,I had yet another skateboard I needed to return.
Provided someone actually found it in that mess of a cathedral.
At least it wasn’t from the same kid.
Yeah, otherwise it might seem like you had it out for him.
“Cherry, I have enhanced healing. Ican’tget infected unless there’s magic or wolfsbane involved. So, unless oracles have a handy skill you haven’t told me about, we need to clean the hundreds-of-years-old dirt out of your scrapes.”
I hated when he was clearly right. “Ew. It’s gross when you put it that way.”
“It is, so let’s get through making sure you don’t get a hundred-year-old infection, yeah?”
I nodded, but I still gave him a dirty look as he gently dabbed at my chin, then just above my temple. “You look like you’re enjoying this too much.”
“I can assure you, the thought of you being hurt because of me and my family brings me not a single ounce of anything remotely akin to joy.”
Even if I wasn’t an empath, I liked to think that I would be able to sense the guilt radiating off him. My stomach sank, and I put my hand over his where it was still cupping my face.
“Hey, I wasn’t hurt because of you and your family. There was a legit assassin, and I decided to get involved of my own volition. And I’m glad I did.”
“The only reason you were in proximity of that assassin was because of my family.”
“Right, and me choosing to lie about being a psychic so I could get involved in your family’s tragedy certainly had nothing to do with it,” I snapped. Normally, I wouldn’t throw myselfunder the bus repeatedly, but I was caught between being frustrated with Paul’s stubbornness to always take the blame for everything, and wanting to comfort him but having no idea how in this crazy situation.
“Cherry...”
“Look, we all did what we thought was best. What else was I supposed to do? Let your zombie brother kill you? Besides, if I hadn’t interfered, then I never would have been able to sense all those emotions trapped inside him, and the most likely theory would be that he betrayed you all.”
The muscles in Paul’s palm flexed, as if they were just as conflicted as the rest of him. “You really think it’s him? And that someone is making him do this?”
“That’s the impression I got, yeah.” I closed my eyes, recalling how I was plunged into an ocean of nothing only to be surrounded by a truly astronomical tumult of feelings and flashes of emotional memories. “It was like everything that made him human—er,shifter—was bound up deep inside him. So deep that none of it could come to the surface.”
“Do you think it’s hypnotism?”
I shook my head. “Hypnotism, at least the non-magical kind, is all suggestion. The person still feels what they feel and has genuine emotional reactions. Glamouring and any sort of enchantment mind control is similar, where it makes the person under the thrallwantto obey—often gleefully so. They would still have their emotions, which would be entirely wrapped around pleasing whoever had them dispelled.”