STITCH
I GOT THE FIRST-AID KIT from the bag in my room and flew up the stairs three at a time. I was afraid Dane might disappear.
It was strange, but I wasn’t as surprised as I should’ve been about what was happening in the corn. When Katia turned to the Dark Spirit, she was enraged, fueled by loss and heartache. I felt for her. In her darkest moment, Katia did whatever she felt she had to do to protect her people, her way of life, but in doing so, she created a monster she could no longer control.
When I saw Dane standing by the window, right where I’d left him, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry about tonight.” He stared straight ahead over the dark water.
“You were trying to protect me,” I said as I inspected the cut on his shoulder.
“You don’t understand. I almost led you right to him.”
“But you didn’t,” I said. “Next time, you won’t let go.”
His jaw muscles tensed. “There can’t be a next time.”
“Dane, please, I just ha—”
“It’s too dangerous.” He cut me off.
He shifted his weight, and suddenly, I understood. A wave of guilt washed over me. It was wrong of me to ask him to do this in the first place. If we were caught together . . . God, I couldn’t even go there.
I set my kit on the coffee table and lit another lantern, hanging it on the iron stand. “Why did you want me to tell you what I said in Caddo at the wreathing ceremony? Why did you want Coronado to hear it?”
Dane took an unexpected step toward me. “I wanted to show him that you’re not Marie . . . or a pawn in his sick game. I may have his blood, but I have Mendoza blood, too. I wanted him to see us as human beings. Love can be a powerful thing.” His eyes locked on mine with an intensity that made me lose my train of thought. I couldn’t stop thinking about his mouth so close to mine, the way he held me in the corn.
I cleared my throat as I maneuvered one of the chairs in front of the table. “Have you ever been in the Larkin lodge before?”
“Why would you ask me that?” His body went rigid, his brows knitting into a hard line.
“Brennon said you had a lot of intention offers.” I motioned for him to take a seat on the chair.
“Oh.” He let out a gust of pent-up air. “That.” A coy smile played across his lips as he began to unbutton his shirt. “Well, if you’re trying to ask me if I’ve ever taken anyone else into the corn and then gone over to their house to play doctor, the answer would be no.” He shrugged out of his shirt.
I had no idea what my face was doing, but inside it was complete hormonal anarchy.
He sat down in the chair. I adjusted the lantern so it would shine directly on his left shoulder, then sank to the edge of the coffee table, carefully nestling my knees between his. I tried to concentrate on the contents of my kit—vials of various medicines, sutures, dressing, and a sparkling scalpel—but I couldn’t keep my eyes off him for more than a few seconds at a time.
“You’re lucky,” I said as I doused a gauze pad in antiseptic. “You’ll need a few stitches, but it looks like a clean cut.”
He followed my eyes and laughed. “Lucky? I’m an idiot. I think I fell on my own knife and then lost it in the corn. That’s what I get for trying to impress you.”
“Is that what happened?” I tried to play it off, but it felt like there were sparklers going off in my chest.
“You can’t make a wreath but you know how to use all this?”
“My mother wanted us to be able to take care of ourselves. And Rhys—” I chuckled. “Not so good with blood. We joked that she was preparing us for some kind of apocalypse, but maybe it was just Quivira.”
He studied me as I cleaned the cut. “What was it like for you . . . growing up?”
“We always thought our mom was a little crazy, the way she talked about this place, but we loved her so much, it didn’t matter.”
“What about friends . . . hobbies?”
“I played sports, Rhys played chess,” I said, tearing off another piece of gauze from the kit. “It sounds weird, but it always felt like I was waiting for something—waiting for my life to begin.”
I wasn’t sure if his legs were narrowing in on mine or if mine were spreading farther apart, but when our legs touched, a shivering ripple rushed beneath my skin.
I tried to focus on preparing the sutures. “Aren’t you the slightest bit nervous that a seventeen-year-old girl is going to stitch you up?”
“I think I’m in good hands.” He stroked his thumb against the side of my knee. “Tell me. What does it feel like when you disappear into your visions—the conduit memories?”
“Like standing on the edge of a precipice . . . sort of like the feeling I get when you touch me.”
The corner of his mouth curled into a smile.
I looked down, a deep blush creeping over my cheeks. I couldn’t believe I just said that. Pull yourself together, Ash.
I started to prepare an injection of a local anesthetic, but he shook his head.
“I don’t need that.”
“It’s just lidocaine.” I held up the bottle, but he didn’t even glance at it.
“Okay,” I said as I set it aside, pretending not to notice his touch. “It’s going to hurt like hell.”
After taking a deep breath, I inserted the suture needle into the edge of his torn flesh, pulling it all the way through to the knot at the end.
He hardly flinched.
“You said you’ve been seeing memories of Katia and Marie. Can you tell me about them?”
It still felt strange talking about this, but there was something about Dane that made me want to open up. “I saw Coronado’s face when he found out what Katia’s blood could do. I saw Coronado talking Marie into telling him where to find Katia and Alonso on the summer solstice. But the memory that sticks with me the most . . . the one that haunts me . . . is when I saw my mother and father in the sacred circle. Katia cut into my mother’s palm and said, ‘A vessel at last.’”
He flinched.
“Sorry.” I held the wound shut with a lighter touch and kept stitching.
He looked down at my legs. “What about your knee at the field?”
So he did notice. “At first I thought it was because my mother pricked her finger when she was giving me the last protection mark, but I think the same thing might be happening to my brother. The cut on his lip at the shinny game—it closed up almost immediately.”
“That makes sense.” His shoulders relaxed again. “When Nina walked the corn, she was pregnant with you and your brother. You have some of Katia’s blood in you, too. My guess is when Katia came to get your mother in New York City, it ignited something in you as well. You’re twins. The smallest trace of an immortal’s blood can be very potent.”
“You’d think all of this would bring Rhys and me closer together, but I’ve never felt more distant from him.” I sighed as I tied off the last stitch. “He’s always had a bad feeling about Quivira. I’m the one who wanted to come. Even now, with everything that’s gone down, something about being here feels right.”
“Does he have any idea what’s happening to him? What’s happening at Quivira?”
I shook my head. “Just being here freaks him out enough. If he knew what was really going on with the corn . . . or with me . . . he’d . . . I don’t even know what he’d do, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Rhys agreed to stay until tomorrow—he doesn’t know we can’t leave.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth, I guess. I don’t think I have any other choice.”
“You’re a good sister,” he said as I put a butterfly bandage over the sutures. “The separation you’re feeling . . . sometimes people distance themselves from things they know they’ll have to say good-bye to one day.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re a conduit, Ashlyn. Deep down, Rhys must know what that means for you. It would be difficult watching the person you love . . . disappear.”
It took me aback. Even Dane knew I was doomed. He knew it better than anyone.
I pretended to reorganize my supplies. “Why don’t you leave Quivira?” I asked, desperate to change the subject. “You’re the one person who can walk the corn. You could start a new life . . . leave all this.”
“And go where?” He tilted his head, like he was amused.
“Anywhere. I’ve got money. You can have it.”
His smile faded as he eased his hands over my knees. “Maybe we could go together. We can bring Rhys and Beth, too.”
I felt my heart pick up speed at the thought . . . at his touch. “What about Coronado? Won’t he be waiting for us?”
“Not if we time it right. At dawn on the summer solstice, he’ll be watching the eastern perimeter, because it’s the closest entry point to the sacred circle. We could leave from the old stables on the western edge, slip through their fingers.”
For a moment, I got caught up in the idea, Dane and I escaping from all of this, starting life anew; then a crippling thought washed over me.
“I can’t leave my mom here.”
“Then I’ll stay,” he said with such sincerity, it made me ache. “Besides . . .” He leaned forward, his hands slowly moving up my thighs. “I always felt like I was waiting for something, too.” He slipped his hands beneath the hem of my shorts, pulling me toward him. “Maybe that something was you,” he whispered, his lips hovering mere centimeters from mine . . .
“Ash!” The front door slammed open. My brother’s voice cut through the atmosphere like a hatchet.
Dane pulled away.
“We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Beth grinned, her warm brown eyes twinkling in the lamplight, completely clueless as to what she just walked in on.
“As you can see, I’m fine.” I closed the medical kit with a little too much force. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me right now.
“What’s he doing here?” Rhys asked without looking at Dane. “I told you to stay close. You’re supposed to be at the bonfire.”
Dane stood. “I was just leaving.”
Rhys looked down at the blood-soaked gauze. “What happened?”
“I fell. It’s nothing.” Dane pulled his shirt back on.
“Funny.” Rhys squared his shoulders. “You don’t strike me as the clumsy type.”
Dane smiled at me. “Thanks for a memorable evening.”
He stepped outside and my brother slammed the door behind him.
“That’s it.” Rhys glared at me through his disheveled bangs. “We’re leaving.”