“Can I touch you?” The question popped out of my mouth before I thought what it would mean.
“Yes.”
My stomach gave a nervous flip. Touching him probably wasn’t a smart idea. Yet, I couldn’t resist.
I stepped closer to him and lightly set the tips of my fingers to his cheeks, ignoring the burn in my back.
Tiny rough stubble poked my fingers. Whiskers. A tingle started in the pads of my fingers and sparked through my hands and up my arms. I started to pull away, but he caught my hands and took control, sliding my fingers down to his mouth. The first touch of his lips caused my heart to stutter.
“Please let go,” I said, firmly.
He did.
Instead of pulling away, I continued what he’d started. I traced the curve of his lower lip then top. He held still, letting me explore the strong line of his jaw, the smooth ridge of his brow, and the slope of his nose. Once I had an understanding of his features, I dropped my hands to my sides.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“To see how you’d react.”
“Why?”
“Who’s the one who likes why now?” he asked.
I could hear the humor in his voice.
Eleven
OLIVIA…
I stepped away from him and sat on the bed nearest the window. He sat across from me and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as he studied me. I was used to scrutiny. His felt different, though. Any hint of resentment, impatience, and calculation—all a Blake specialty—remained absent from his body language and tone of voice. Even their Elder Winifred had displayed a few of those traits. Not this one.
“Your name’s Jim, right?” I asked.
“Did the Lady tell you that?”
“No. I heard Winifred yell it.”
He chuckled, a deep, rich sound that made my heart give another odd thump. I fought to control any emotional reaction that wanted to go with the physical one.
“To answer your question about why I placed your fingers on my mouth…it’s easy to lie to one of us if you know how, which you’ve proven you do. But, reactions are harder to fake. I wanted you to touch me to see how you reacted because I still don’t understand. Why you? Why us? Why now?”
Panic, sorrow, and fear began to unfurl inside me, and suppressing what I wanted to feel became harder with each question he spoke because I knew the answers to all of them.
Now is not the time,the Lady whispered.
“Your turn,” he said. “Why do you think your Lady rules over all of us?”
Relieved he didn’t expect me to answer the prior questions, I readily told him what I suspected.
“It’s the only thing that’s ever made any sense. She’s one of them. The Others. She’s made of the same kind of substance. I know she’s influencing what’s happening here, but I’m not entirely sure why. The Others want to be here, in this world. They’ll do anything for it. It’s why they help me, even though they know we’re trying to make a Judgement to correct the imbalance. They know we’re trying to stop them from coming here, but it’s never really mattered to them. They still help. They still try to possess dead bodies and willingly possess living ones even though it hurts them. Despite their desperation to get here, she’s giving us advice, giving Bethi dreams, created us to help stop them from coming here. Why do that if she isn’t in some way responsible for us, too?”
He nodded slowly then frowned.
“These things only you can see want to possess us? As in control our bodies?”
“Yes. And our minds to a degree. That’s how I was able to leave Blake’s home. When your group announced your existence, I knew it was the perfect time for one of the Others to possess Blake. Erratic behavior wouldn’t seem so out of place in such a chaotic situation. After I told the one possessing Blake what to do, he called Frank and several of his other men back into his office and started giving out orders. He went one way, I went another. Since he controls the movements of the Urbat, it meant the Urbat would be less likely to regroup.”
“It was also how I managed to get a letter out to Isabelle after the Lady gave me her address.”
