Marienne is remarkably quiet on the ride back to the Sanctum. The only thing I get out of her is, “No,” after asking if there’s a particular song she wants to hear on the drive.
I chalk it up to her being upset about Shaun’s note and leaving her sister—maybe even about the news of my trip to Dallas. She didn’t seem to like that a whole hell of a lot.
I don’t bother her about her silence, though. I care how she feels, but I’ve never been the prying kind. Sometimes people just need a minute to themselves.
We’ve just unlocked Room J on the Sanctum’s quiet residential hall when she says, “Hey, do you want to come in and sit down for a minute? I need to tell you something.”
If it weren’t for her solemn tone, I’d be exultant she asked me to stick around. Still, I say, “Sure.” Whatever’s on her mind must be important.
She nods and leads the way into the room. We both take a second to look around; I’ve never actually been in any of these private rooms before. It’s pretty nice—not huge, but not limiting, either. There’s a full-sized bed, a nightstand, a dresser with a TV on it, a bookcase, and a desk and chair. A few lamps and an alarm clock, a closet and a bathroom.
“Not bad, huh?” I ask, putting her bag on the floor by the dresser.
“Yeah, it’s nice.” She puts her stuff down, too, and takes her coat off. Then her fingers immediately start in on her hair. “So, sit?”
I go to her desk chair and sit. We look at each other, and I wait patiently for her to speak.
She clears her throat, crosses her arms, walks toward me but looks down at the floor. A frown creases her forehead, and she opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again. After a few seconds, she mumbles, “Um.”
“Take your time,” I tell her gently.
“No!” she snaps. Then quickly, “I’m sorry, I don’t—it’s not you—this just has to be said right now.” A humorless laugh leaves her. “Oh, who am I kidding? I should’ve said this a long time ago. I’m just a sissy.”
I try not to smile. “No, you’re not.”
“Oh, but I am.” Her grimace deepens and her voice grows softer. “It cost me so much the first time around.... I haven’t wanted to give up anything else, especially not you, but I have to say it.”
My amusement dimming, I lean forward in the chair to study her. She looks like she might be trembling, but I’m not quite close enough to tell.
Why? Why would she have to give me up?
I wait, and wait, and wait some more for her to tell me what’s wrong.
Finally, she looks up at me, her eyes misty. She really does seem determined to see this through, but she still struggles to get the words out. “I turned Light because—because I—”
She looks so uncomfortable that I consider telling her she doesn’t have to do this. But I know she believes otherwise, so I don’t say it.
Her right foot taps a nervous beat against the floor. “I was reading text messages,” she gets out, “and my car went off a bridge.”
A frown comes onto my face, but before I can fully process that bit of information, she sucks in a breath to keep talking.
“I’d never texted while driving before because I’m a very cautious driver. I believe in people handling cars with care. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I was extremely upset because I’d just found Rafe cheating on me with Audrey and I left the party and I didn’t want to talk to him, but he wouldn’t stop trying—”
She suddenly grabs her head with both hands and lets out a noise of frustration.
“Jesus Christ! No! That’s not the important part! Rafe is not the important part! What’s important is that no matter how much I like you, you deserve to know that my parents were in the car with me while I was fucking around and not paying attention, and when my car went off the bridge and hit the ground, they fucking died!”
The wild words ring out around the room.
I blink, my brain moving slowly all of a sudden.
I look at her and she looks back, now very visibly shaking, tears getting ready to spill out of her eyes. Her breathing is unsteady as she waits for me to react to her confession about the night she became like me—the night that, in the back of my mind, I’ve considered to be a blessing.
But for a minute, I don’t really know how to react. I don’t know how to process what she’s said.
At length, she stumbles out, “Ok-kay, Gabe, if you have to go, just—just do it. I unders-stand.” She wipes at her cheeks, which are wet now.
The details finally click together in my head, and I fully understand what’s going on.
She got her parents killed because she was being an irresponsible driver. That’s why her sister hates her, why she doesn’t have a car, why that poem from last night made her so sad. It’s probably why when she’s fighting she goes from being the Marienne I know to a girl who’s so turbulent with pain and anger that she can lay a guy like me out on his ass.
“Hey, look,” she whimpers, “don’t sit there and—and ponder how terrible I am. Just get it over with. Please.”
And she thinks her being honest about it means I don’t want anything to do with her anymore. That’s why she thinks she’s giving me up. She thinks the truth is too much for me.
I try to tell her I’m not going anywhere, but all I manage is a soft, “I....”
When I can’t figure out how to finish my sentence, she sobs weakly, “I get it.” She takes a step away from me, then another.
I shake my head. “No, I—hold on—”
Her breathing quickens as more tears slip down her anguished face. “I appreciate—” she gasps out, “—you not telling me to my face how sickened you are—” she puts a hand over her heart, “—because Claire did that and it hurt—so—goddamn bad.”
I stand up. “I would never do that to you.”
“But you don’t have to try to be nice,” she chokes out. “I beg you not to try to be nice. Just leave and that’ll be that and—”
“Okay, do you actually want me to leave?” I ask over her.
“Of course I don’t! I just don’t want to stand here and be handed some line like, ‘I think I need some time, Marienne—’”
“Why would I say that?”
“Because I’m a l-life ruiner.”
“No, you’re not.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Yes, I am! Ask my sister!”
“No, you’re not,” I repeat loudly, “and I don’t give a fuck what your sister thinks!”
“Well, would you share some of that with me?” she yells. “Name your price, Gabe! I’d give anything to be able to disagree with her!”
I stare at her, suddenly at a loss for words. Part of me empathizes with her and can understand how she feels that way about herself. But she can’t possibly think I feel that way about her, too. She hasn’t ruined my life. She’s made it better. And that leaves most of me wondering how she can hate herself when I think she’s so amazing.
She stares back at me for many long seconds, and then a soft, wry sob of a laugh huffs out of her. And I know that just like every other time I couldn’t figure out what to say, she thinks I’m thinking the worst about her. Even when everything I’ve said and done before speaks to the opposite.
Her fingers brush at her cheeks and she murmurs, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you. I just want you to know what kind of girl you’ve been spending your time with.” She shakes her head and hunches her shoulders. “She’s not all music and trick-or-treating and poetry and…and whatever. She’s an idiot and a murderer.”
Her hands fall limply to her sides. She gives me a long, miserable look, like she really thinks this is goodbye, and then she turns away from me.
And I’m suddenly right behind her, taking her arm in my hand, turning her back toward me. She barely gets out a startled gasp before I kiss her so insistently that she dips backward. My other hand catches her waist before she falls, and she grabs my jacket with both hands as I pull her back up.
Then we’re steady and she’s kissing me, too, her fervor matching mine.
Even though I figured that’s what she’d do when this moment came—and even though this isn’t romantic and I didn’t plan it out and we weren’t so much as smiling before—I feel like I could just melt.
It feels exactly right.
I don’t indulge myself for long, though; after a few more seconds, I drag back so I can look at her. My pulse is running wild.
Still, I manage to inform her carefully, “I’ve been spending my time with Marienne Rose Connor. She’s cute and hilarious and so beautiful and tough and smart….” I take my hand off her arm to lay my thumb on her bottom lip. “That’s you. That’s who you are.” I shake my head. “So I appreciate your honesty, but for me, one mistake doesn’t eclipse everything else. I don’t see you the way you do.”
She looks up at me timidly, her still-damp eyes ringed with red. “But…it was such a bad mistake, Gabe.”
Her lips brushing against my thumb makes me want to kiss her again.
Ha—again. Why exactly was it so hard for me to do it last night?
“It happens,” I tell her. “Listen to me, okay? If you were a monster, you wouldn’t...” my eyes rove over as much of her as they can with her being so close to me, “...you wouldn’t look like this. You wouldn’t look anything like this.”
A nearly inaudible laugh leaves her, drifts unbelievably lightly against my thumb. “You’re too kind,” she says, even as some of the distress seeps out of her eyes.
“Am not. Everything I said is true.”
“Are, too.”
One corner of my mouth turns up. “I am not, but if you want, we can agree to disagree.” The smile fades back down, and I regard her intensely. “Believe me,” I beg her. “Trust me. Trust what I’m telling you.”
At first she just returns my look, but shortly, she smiles a little bit, too.
It falters when she whispers, “Gabe, I’m...I’m really sorry. I mean, for yelling at you and everything.”
That’s it. My thumb is officially causing trouble. I move it to her cheek, my fingertips to her temple. “I forgive you.”
Her eyes soften. She swallows hard, like that really means a lot to her. “Thank you.”
“Mmhmm.”
She falls silent and looks up at me, seeming to take in the details of my face. Her gaze touches my mouth more than once. I wonder if she knows how alluring she is, even after training this morning and freaking out just now. Her ponytail is a little mussed, her cheeks a little pink. And God, does she feel good under my hands, even though only one of them is actually touching her skin.
But that’s not all I find attractive about her. She’s also unpretentious—she’s sweet. She felt like she had to be honest with me even if it put her happiness at risk. That kind of selflessness gives her an understanding of the fragility of things, of the real possibility that her being responsible for herself might mean losing joys she holds dear. And that’s mature of her—kind of inspiring, even. Many people would rather live a lie than make the necessary sacrifices to preserve their well-being and that of those they care about.
God only knows what she was envisioning in her head. Evidently, it had a lot to do with me being disgusted by her and leaving her, and perhaps then Beatrix and Wes would’ve sided with me, leveling everything Marienne knows about life in the Lightforce. Maybe she would’ve had to find a new Defender trainer because we wouldn’t want to spend time with her anymore. Or just move to another city and try to start over with the thin hope that any friends she made there wouldn’t react like we did.
I’m as wounded by that line of thinking as she had been.
I look down at her now and feel glad I told her I’d never treat her that way. It was so true. Her showing me what she’s hiding on the inside even though she doesn’t like it only makes me like her more.
My admiring her is interrupted when she murmurs, “I think you’re beautiful.” She lets go of my jacket front, which I realize she’s been grasping all this time. Looking rather shy, she curls her fingers along the edges of the pockets instead. “It’s unfair how beautiful you are. And you’re so much more…. You crack me up and you teach me things and you’re good at being Light.”
Halcyon warmth creeps into me, drifts along every inch of my body.
“Thank you for being so good to me,” she goes on. Her gaze absently drops away to random points between my eyes and collarbone. “Sometimes I don’t think you even know you’re doing it. It’s just you. You are just…good.”
I drop my face closer to hers, deciding this is too much.
“I’m also about to kiss you again,” I warn her lowly. “This is your chance to get away.”
She inhales softly, then shakes her head. She tugs me closer by my jacket pockets and mumbles, “This is your chance to get away.”
Fuck no. I’d say it out loud, but the only thing my mouth wants to do is get back on hers.
This time we kiss more slowly, more deliberately.
It’s so good.
My senses have time to register more than just the fact that she’s with me on this—like that her height, though shorter than mine, is pretty perfect. Her lips taste faintly like fruity lip balm. She smells kind of like sweat, but also like vanilla.
I move my one hand from her waist to her back, and I hear her breathing turn a little unsteady when my other fingers leave her face to slide up into the underside of her ponytail. I feel a shiver dance through her, and her lips leave mine just barely…and then she moves closer yet to wrap her arms securely around my waist. She fits our mouths back together.
And I am all hers.
I’m hers in a way I’ve never belonged to anyone else.
I don’t know what I ever did to earn this. Enigmatic as it is, I don’t want to question it. I just want to fall into it, into her, and not resurface until I absolutely have to—until the outside world can’t stand our absence a second longer and yanks us back. I want to be this warm and at peace and enraptured for as long as I can be.
That’s not nearly long enough, of course; eventually, it has to end.
When it does, she barely breathes out, “Just wow,” and gives me a look that says I’m not the only one who is disappointed it’s over.
I curve my hand around the back of her neck and murmur, “I know.” Then, “Go out with me again. Tonight.”
“Okay. Where?” Her voice is so soft that it makes those two ordinary words sound gorgeous.
“Anywhere.” I don’t care where we go or what we do as long as I’m with her. Less willingly, I add, “Think about it, okay? I need to go for now. Need to stop by my house before I meet up with Janssen and Wright.”
“All right. I hope a wayward Light person wanders across your path.”
“I hope you do okay unpacking those bags bursting with your belongings,” I tease her. Then more seriously, “Also that you feel better about everything soon.”
The corners of her mouth turn up. “I’m feeling a little better already. You and your too-kind ass really know how to cheer me up.”
I can’t help laughing, and that brightens her smile, and that is always a good sign.
And unbelievably, it turns out she was on to something: after I’ve gone home for a shower, I convene with Janssen and Wright, and we find a white Radiance huddled in an empty corner of Barnes & Noble.
He’s sitting on the floor with a graphic novel in front of his face, but it’s not lifted high enough to shield his eyes from my view—eyes that, luckily, are warily following a Hellion perusing the literature a few aisles over. Well, really, I guess it’s more likely the Hellion is perusing the two teenage girls standing a few feet from him, who are looking at books.
I consider this lucky because Gathering is a bit easier if the new Light person has already noticed the Hellions. Sometimes they don’t think we’re completely out of our minds if they’ve seen the perplexing creatures with their own two eyes.
The guy lowers the novel to turn the page for pretend-reading purposes, and I see that for only the third time in the past eight years, we’ve found a guy who can’t be more than a few years older than me.
Even though that means he’d probably relate better to me, I can’t let this opportunity pass my new Gatherers by. We decide I should spark it off myself and then call them over to take control of the situation while I observe and make sure everything goes well.
While I head over to the guy, Janssen calls Wes to let him know about the Hellion.
I can’t say I know a whole hell of a lot about graphic novels, so when I get to him, I go with the only conversation-starter I’ve got.
I cross my arms, slide a look over to the Hellion, and murmur, “He’s a scary bastard, isn’t he?” And he is. He’s tall and milk-white with thick black liquid steadily dripping from his drooping eyes. Hard muscles stand out on his bare arms and chest, and metal spikes protrude from various points on his body, even out the sides of his neck and through the legs of his pants.
“What?” the guy tries to ask casually, but I can’t be fooled.
Indeed, when I look at him, I find he has lowered the graphic novel again to regard me with both hope and disbelief.
I nod toward the Hellion. “That man over there with the spikes all over him.”
The guy gets up off the floor, glancing between the Hellion and me. “You can see him?” he asks slowly. “I mean…you see how…well, how fucked-up he looks? It’s not just me?”
I shake my head and assure him, “It’s not just you, man. Trust me.”
“Holy shit,” he whispers. “So, dude, why doesn’t anyone else look worried?”
Awesome. He really is one of the ones who are willing to listen to me. “They’re just normal people.”
The guy’s eyebrows go up. “And…we…are not?”
I chuckle. “Not anymore. So, look, my name is Gabe and I’ve got all the answers you need, but I’m training a couple of new guys—long story—and I’d like for them to talk to you, too. That okay?”
“Uh…” he runs a hand through his dirty-blonde hair and inhales deeply, “…yeah, dude, okay. As long as someone tells me what the hell I’ve been going through lately.”
“Oh, we will. Don’t worry about that.”
“Sweet. And I’m Trenton, by the way.”
I tell him sincerely, “It’s good to meet you, Trenton. Let me grab these guys.”
Their first official encounter with a new Light person goes smoothly. Trenton is an open-minded guy and he gets along with the ever-serious Wright as well as he does with me and Janssen. He receives some of the information with a look of shock on his face, but mostly he seems to think this new side of his life is incredible. He even thinks our Light marks are awesome, like Marienne did.
We learn that he is twenty-six and saw his first Hellion a week ago, when he left the hospital after a nearly fatal night of partying. After that sighting, he shut himself into his house for three days, scared out of his mind. Then he decided he couldn’t stand being cooped up and went a couple of places, determined to ignore the Hellions if he saw any. He’d nearly walked right into the one in this bookstore, but since the creature was eyeballing the teenage girls, Trenton was able to hurry away and hole up in this corner without raising any suspicion.
Commendably, Janssen and Wright say everything that needs to be said. They include the responsibilities of us Light people and end with our obligation to give him time to think everything over. He agrees to meet them back here tomorrow.
Then we notice the Hellion has wandered away, and Trenton says, “Oh, thank God he left.” He holds up the graphic novel. “This wasn’t even the piece I wanted. I found it lying around and was on my way to the collection when I saw that creep. Now I can get what I really want and get the hell out of Dodge.”
Janssen and I laugh while Wright nods politely. Then we bid Trenton goodbye, and he hurries off.
Janssen punches the air victoriously. “That was somethin’! And what a nice kid.”
“You both did very well,” I say proudly. “Your speech was great.”
“Aw, thanks, son. You taught us right.”
Wright agrees, “That did go very well. Good job.”
After Wes drops by to kill the Hellion, the three of us decide to hit up a few more places around town. As is tradition, we don’t spot another white Radiance for the rest of our time together. They’re in a good mood, though, so we part ways for the evening feeling optimistic about Trenton.
When I arrive to pick up Marienne, she’s cleaner and much cheerier than she was earlier. Her mood improves even more when I tell her about Trenton, and she says she wants to treat me to something fun. We agree that we should eat something, so we go by Chipotle again. Then we somehow end up at the bowling alley.
I haven’t been bowling in probably ten years. She said she’s done it more recently than that, but she’s as bad at it as I am. It’s hilarious, and we have a great time. The place is full of lights and music and people (normal people, that is) and laughter. And, of course, our abysmal scores make our sparse triumphs all the more exciting. On one of her turns, she knocks down more than two pins, and she’s so happy about it that she throws a hug on me. And I’m so happy about the hug that I lift her off the ground and spin around as I hug her back. And that makes her laugh, which I love.
Then a Hellion walks through the front entrance and I have to call Wes again. That leads to extending a bowling invitation to him and Beatrix, and that turns out to be entertaining for all new reasons. Once the Hellion has been taken care of, Beatrix confidently bets me fifty dollars she’ll have a higher score than her husband at the end of our game.
Then Wes kicks all of our asses, and I get fifty free dollars from his wife, who can’t stop laughing even though she’s trying to be mad.
It’s a damn good night, even when some inebriated guy trips and spills his entire beer on me as we’re leaving. I finally realize Marienne’s smiles are brighter and happier for me than for everyone else—that’s the difference I was unable to place before.
And to top it all off, she kisses me despite my being damp with beer the second we’re shut into my car.
*
Late the next afternoon, after Marienne is done training and letting Dr. Roterra take some blood from her, she and I go to Grove Lane. After a minute of deliberation, we decide to walk around and see what the rest of the neighborhood is like.
We’ve only made it to the end of the driveway in front of her usual house when Janssen calls to say Trenton is joining the Lightforce.
I tell Marienne after I hang up, and she gasps and holds out a hand for me to take. “Congratulations!”
I grab it and grin at her. “Thank you, but the other guys did all the work.”
“They did all the work you taught them how to do,” she corrects, not unkindly. “It’s a success for them because they got someone to join, and it’s a success for you because you trained them for that all by yourself. See? I told you you’d be great at it!”
What a compliment. And that’s on top of the news about Trenton, plus Marienne being with me in the first place.
It makes me really happy, and I feel grateful for it, for her.
I pull on her hand as I step toward her, bringing us chest-to-chest. A smile flashes onto her face, and even though it’s glorious—even though it makes me smile, too—I spare only the smallest moment for it. Then I steal a kiss from her.
Well, it’s not that stolen, truthfully, despite my intentions. Each time I kiss her anew, my body hums her name a little bit more, and it’s hard to give up.
It’s especially hard when she can’t seem to kiss me back without having both of her hands on me, like she wants to keep me firmly where I am for as long as she can. Right now, the one that isn’t wrapped in my hand drifts up to my waist, and I can feel it like there’s not a jacket, a hoodie, and a long-sleeved shirt under those fingers of hers. It has me curving my free hand against her cheek as I continue kissing her, not ready to let go of her yet.
I wonder if she feels this way about me.
When I finally draw back from her, I decide to ask.
“How do you feel when I’m kissing you?” A cold breeze drifts through and flings a piece of raven hair across her forehead, so I move it for her.
As unusual a question as I know that is, she doesn’t look bothered by it. She studies me while she contemplates it.
Finally, she says, “I—I feel special, honestly. And overwhelmed, in a good way.”
I decide those are good ways of describing how I feel. I nod in agreement.
“What about you?” she wants to know.
“Both of those, and….” I take a few seconds to sort the rest out in my head. “And happy and distracted.”
She gives me a smile, which turns into a breath of laughter. “I dis—I distract you from things, or you’re distracted while you’re kissing me?”
A laugh leaves me, too. “Okay, the first one, obviously.”
“You sure?”
“I’m absolutely sure.”
Before I know it, she’s caught me up in another kiss, wrapping her lips around my bottom one. The gesture is soft and innocent and it makes my breathing stutter. Warms my skin against the freezing air. Makes me think something in the universe has either gone horribly wrong or gone right by complete accident, because I am utterly colorless compared to this girl. I don’t think she’s even trying—no, I’m pretty damn sure she’s not trying—and she still just—
“Tell me how tall you are,” she whispers against my mouth.
“What?” I barely get out.
“How tall are you?”
What does that matter right now? “Um.” I lay my hand over where hers is on my waist.
“Hmm,” she muses. “Either you don’t know your own height or I really can steal your attention just like that.”
I’m puzzled for a moment. Then I figure it out, and I lean back to give her a look.
She chuckles, seeming both flattered and embarrassed.
I shake my head and say with mock-melancholy, “There I thought you were kissing me because you like me or something. But it was all a ruse!”
She laughs more. “No, that is what I was doing it for.” A few of the inches between us disappear again when she leans closer. Like it’s a secret, she whispers, “The test was just an excuse, Gabe. I believed your answer in the first place.”
I laugh, too, and kiss her on the cheek. “I am six feet and one inch tall.”
I feel her smiling under my lips. “Good to know.”
“And you?”
“Not quite five and a half feet.” She pulls back enough to look up at me. “I hope you’re prepared to get stuff off the highest shelves for me and whatnot.”
“Nope,” I tease her. “You better learn to jump.”
She laughs. “Oh, yeah, much better idea. I’ll work on it. Ready to walk around?”
“Sure. I want to see if any of these other houses have playground equipment I can claim.”
Marienne snorts and steps back from me. The air feels downright arctic as it fills the space she’d just been standing in, and I can’t help a shiver.
We mosey down the street from one ruined, blackened structure to the next, our hands still knotted between us. There’s a rusting metal swing set in one backyard, a trampoline and a swing set in another, and one yard just extends way back and ends in a forest. Something about a cluster of the trees looks unusual to me, so I stare for a few seconds, trying to figure out the incongruity despite the distance. Then I realize what it is.
I look at Marienne. “Do you see that back there?”
She peers in that direction and shakes her head. “I don’t know. What does it—?” A little gasp cuts her words off. “Hold on. Is it a tree house?”
I smile at her. “I truly think it is.”
She smiles back excitedly and we start toward the shaded, snow-topped tree house. Once we’re a few paces from the forest, we stop and she breathes out, “Oh, man. I’ve never even seen one of these in real life.” Her head is tipped back so she can look up at it. “Have you?”
“Nope.”
“Well, this one meets my expectations. It’s ours now.”
I chuckle. “Okay, but you know we’re not going up there, right?”
“Oh, I know. You said you want to claim some playground equipment, so I was just helping out.” A gust of wind whirls up from behind us, and she hunches her shoulders against it. “Holy….” She usually keeps her hair up after training, so it’s up now, and I’m sure the exposed skin on the back of her neck does not appreciate the icy wind. She reaches behind her head, ostensibly for a hood, but nothing she has on right now has one attached to it.
I walk over until I’m behind her, hopefully blocking the wind. “Does this help at all?” I ask.
She peeks over her shoulder at me and smiles. “Yes. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She turns to look at the forest again, and her hands reach back toward me. I take both of them in mine, and for a little bit, we just stand here together and listen to the nothingness of this snowy, abandoned neighborhood.
It’s amazing how she (and I, thanks to her) can see the beauty in something most people don’t appreciate at all.
“We can walk up a little closer,” I tell her at length, “if you want a better look at it.”
“Yeah, okay. I wonder how big it is.”
“Only one way to find out.”
I let her lead me leisurely toward the massive trees, her hands still in mine. We drop it down to one hand once we start into the woods and pick our way across the frozen ground until we’re standing under the tree house.
“And,” I say slowly as we look up at the excellent view, “it’s pretty damn big.”
“Jesus. How many kids did these people have to…?” Her words trail off, and after a second, her hand tightens around mine.
She stares alertly up at the tree house.
“What?” I ask, my voice lower than before.
She speaks more quietly, too, her eyes still stuck on something up there. “I…don’t know.”
I carefully step up against her to try for her vantage point. My eyes search for whatever has caught her attention, but only when I’m directly behind her and bent down a bit can I see it.
“The hell is that?” I murmur.
She shakes her head in a silent, ‘No idea.’
We step forward simultaneously so we can try to get a better look.
The entrance to the tree house is a good-sized circle at the top of a fancy wooden ladder someone attached to the trunk. Looking up through the circle and a little bit back from it, I can detect movement, but it’s not a person or an animal. It’s just…well, it’s just blackness, and it looks like it’s writhing. Like extremely dense black smoke, but unlike smoke, it’s not moving around freely. It’s just sitting in that one area.
And it doesn’t sit well with me, whatever it is.
I whisper to Marienne, “I’m going to climb up there, okay? You stand right at the bottom of this ladder where we can see each other.”
“Okay,” she whispers back.
She grips my hand as we tiptoe forward, working on being extra-quiet even though I think we’d already know if there was something up there we didn’t want to attract to us.
I let go of her hand and start up the ladder, and she says, “Be careful.”
“I will. Don’t move.”
The ladder looks kind of old, but it’s of good quality and it doesn’t give me any trouble as I ascend it. I keep my ears open for even the tiniest noise coming from above me—boards creaking or muttered words or anything like that—but I hear nothing.
That does a little something for the tension in me.
But then I reach the top of the ladder and get a good look at what’s in the tree house, and the tension zips right back into me.
I throw a mystified glance down at Marienne, then look back at my deathly quiet surroundings. There really are no people or animals in the open room. There isn’t even any stuff—no toys or empty snack wrappers. The only thing in the whole gigantic space is the tall rectangle of twisting blackness looming near the wall not too far in front of me.
It’s several feet wide, and the top of it grazes the high ceiling of the tree house. The shape hovers off the floor a few inches, and each edge shimmers faintly like the whole thing is a mirage; though I don’t know what it is, I feel pretty certain it’s not an illusion.
But I don’t dare go toward it, so I just look from where I am for a minute. I inspect the pitch-colored interior and find I can’t see through it no matter how much it shifts.
The thing is fucking creepy.
After another minute of me not having any ideas about what it could be, I get a picture of it with my phone and decide to get back down to Marienne. I tell her what I saw and show her the picture.
She’s as perplexed as I am.
“It’s floating?” she asks.
I nod. “Floating.”
“And you didn’t hear anything coming from it?”
“No, nothing. Not even a hum. The whole place was completely—”
I shut up when a thud sounds from above us.
Instinctively, I grab Marienne and swing her away from the entrance.
Rhythmic clunks move across the floor of the tree house now.
She whispers anxiously, “Gabe?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper in response to her real question: ‘Why do those sound like footsteps?’ The whole place was empty a mere minute ago, except for that strange black…
…door.
I realize all too late that’s what it is.
And we don’t make it to a hiding place before whatever came through it leaps down from the tree house and sees us.
My blood runs cold as my brain tries to process the thin, pallid Hellion standing right where we’d just been.
A hoarse voice escapes him. “Well, what do we have here?”
I snap to attention, and my mind clicks into Defender mode. I position myself between him and Marienne, and in a matter of moments, I’ve assessed him and how this encounter is about to go. It will be brief and it will end with him dead, of that I’m certain.
I start toward him to get it done. If he came through that door with no warning, so might another. He needs to die, and Marienne and I need to leave.
He tilts his head to peer behind me at her. “You sure are pretty,” he croons in that voice of his. He slowly runs his repulsive black tongue over his lips, then looks at me again. “I’d say to remember not to bring your girlfriend out to a place like this again, but...” he smiles at me, baring his rotten teeth, “…there won’t be a next time for you. Or for her.”
It’s written on his face that he thinks I’m stupid. Just some guy trying to be a cowboy for the girl I have with me. He thinks he’s about to make quick work of me and then do what he wants to her.
But while he was checking her out, I was swiping my dagger out of my jacket and behind my back. Years of being Light—of dressing and undressing with my dagger and slaying Hellions bigger and more menacing than this one—have made me very quick, very surreptitious. If only he had been smart enough to keep his eyes on me.
The distance between us shrinks to mere feet. I duck down to make him think I’m planning on going for a low shot. He bends down, too, and does exactly what I hoped he’d do: lunges at me. But all he manages to land on me is a hand—one hand on my left arm.
With a violence that only surges up in me when I’m fighting a Hellion, I swing my right hand out from behind me and drive my already unsheathed dagger up into his flesh.
His scream pierces the air and hurts my ears, but I don’t stop. I sink my blade into every place on him I can reach, and there are a lot of them. The more I stab him, the more his flesh breaks up, the more he instinctually switches his attention from me to himself. He looks up at me once, though, roaring in fury and agony as his stomach and legs fail him. He reaches up toward my head to do who knows what. And while his arms are lifted, I shove my dagger into his heart.
His eyes widen for the briefest moment, and his bellow trails off. Then he’s dead.
In two-point-two seconds, I’m back with Marienne, who’s as ready to run as I am.
“What the fuck just happened?” she asks as we bolt for the tree line separating us from the backyard.
“That thing in the tree house is some kind of door,” I tell her as I stuff my dagger back into my jacket. “I don’t know where it goes or how it got there, but the Hellion had to have come through it. There wasn’t a goddamn thing in that room while I was up there, and then suddenly there he was.”
“And you’ve never even heard of anything like this?”
We break out of the woods and tear across the snow. “No, I never have.” And I’m not about to keep it to myself. It’s too big. We need to talk to Grayhem.
“Should we tell Grayhem?” she asks.
In spite of the circumstances, I can’t help a smile. If I weren’t determined to get us the hell out of Grove Lane as fast as possible, I’d take the time to slow down and smile at her.
Instead, I say, “My thoughts exactly.”
“Let me just say,” she announces as we turn onto the actual street and run toward my car, “I’m pretty fucking mad that the only tree house I’ve ever had in my life has some kind of demonic portal chilling in the middle of it.”
Now I laugh.
It’s unbelievable how she can lift my spirits in a situation like this.
I vow to her, “I’ll build you a normal tree house one day.”
“What? You know how to build stuff like that?”
“Not at all. It’s the thought that counts, though, obviously.”
She laughs, too. “Well, I promise to love whatever wobbly tree house you craft up for me, but if I fall out of it and break my ass, you’re in trouble, mister.”
I abruptly decide we’ve run far enough away to pause for ten seconds.
My feet slow to a stop. Hers immediately do the same, so I grab her by the hips, yank her to me, and confidently take her mouth with mine.
In a second, her hands are on my shoulders and she’s pressing herself even closer to me. We kiss avidly right here in the middle of the street, like we don’t have important, unpleasant news to deliver to people. Our lips part because we’re a little winded from everything, but neither of us seems to be able to stop at drawing air—our tongues meet, and a groan leaves me at the same time that she breathes a moan into my mouth, echoing bliss through my whole body. I wrap one hand around the back of her head and give her a deeper, bolder kiss. She gives it right back to me.
I commit these moments to memory. I commit her mouth to memory. And the way her hands feel gripping my shoulders. And the way she looks at me when I drag my lips from hers and lean back.
I tell her breathlessly, “I would never send you up into a wobbly tree house.”
She laughs in kind, and I love the way it sounds.
After a second, we step apart and grab hands and take off running for my car again.