“In the car,” he said again, stepping toward me in a rush of blood and panic.
“No,” I tugged my mask off and flung it at him. “I need to walk.”
Lies. What I needed was to make sure those kids got away.
“Goddammit, Threx,” he snapped. “Blade’s bleeding out in the backseat, and I don’t have time to babysit your shit. Walk when we get home.”
“No.”
“THREX!” Wolfe lunged, grabbing me by the shoulder, but I spun, pressing my gun flat against his chest.
“Get Blade help,” I snarled, pressing it harder. “I’m taking a fucking walk.”
He stared at me, jaw tight, reading my eyes to see if I’d actually do it.
“Fine, asshole,” he ground out, turning away. “Enjoy your fucking walk.”
When the sound of tires dissolved, I moved in the only direction a wildling would go: toward food, taking the squares on the sidewalk three at a time. I was only half-real. The sounds of engines were just exposition while I searched for tiny bodies shoving food into their mouths. I must have handed that kid like five hundred bucks.
I checked the bakery, Moe’s Chicken, and the roasted duck place at the end of the row. No kids. But they wouldn’t eat inside. Daphne and I never did. We hid because it never felt safe to eat it. After being so hungry, it always felt wrong. Like a sensation you had to defend, or a secret that someone would take from you. Daphne was the only one who knew what it was like to be starving enough to lick the pavement or consider eating rocks. Even the impenetrable Wolfe learned to be a monster with steak in his mouth.
I pushed farther, not caring that the rain had become a weapon as I searched every dark alley, every absent corner, but found nothing. They were gone.
Fuck.
Gone was good, though, Threx. Gone meant safe.
But was I?Safe?Never.
I turned up the slope, feeling the slosh as I trudged up the pathway that led to Capitol Hill. It was the only direction my body knew to go, and suddenly I was sprinting. There was no rhyme or reason to the landmarks, only the way everything bled together as I tore past them, leaning into the sound of my breath, my heart, the burn in my knees as I took the incline. It was all I could do not to die in the goddamn street before I screeched to a halt, taking the air in my lungs with it.
Of course, my body would lead me toher.
Daphne’s light was off, the window of our two worlds closed and forgotten… Boarded up like the room I just escaped from, but never left.
Something inside me ticked, and I lunged, grabbing the fire escape and hauling myself onto the busted scaffolding that reeked of tetanus. I scoffed, madness tipping me over the ledge.
Just get in there, I told myself, burying the scream in the sick of my throat.
I needed her. The sound of her heart. The feel of her body. The edge of her breath. But more than that, I wanted her, here, selfishly, fucked up and all mine.
Shit. Damn. Fuck.
My drenched hoodie whipped in the wind, slamming me back against the red brick beneath her window. There was poetic justice in the fact that I might die trying to get into a room that didn’t even lead to her, but I didn’t care.
Dying would be a present.
Dying would mean done.
I made a face when her window slid open, because of course, she wouldn’t lock it. That shit pissed me off. You try so hard to keep someone safe, and they just leave their goddamn window open, as if to say,fuck you, Threx.Fuck you.
My head was still reeling when I tumbled into the smell of her, toppling over some shit of the life she’d built without me. In anabsent sweep, I took in the pictures pasted on the walls and the dirty laundry she left folded… well, not folded; she was messy as shit… crumpled into balls beside her nightstand.
I didn’t think twice when I reached for her dresser, yanking the first drawer clean out and dumping it onto the bed. I paused, reaching for the second and the third until there was enough of her to drown in.
Then…
Then…