I wasn’t sure she could hear me.
“You were in a car accident. You were hurt. And you haven’t had blood in months. Your body is working hard to heal. Let’s make sure you can heal, Lula.”
I stood in front of her and could smell the smoke on her clothes and skin. But beneath that, I could smell the fragrance that was all her: rose and honey.
I’d seen her like this before, especially in the early days after the attack, when she was struggling to control her changed body and her new life bound to the Route.
Over the years, she’d become an expert in managing her need for blood. She didn’t crave it now, and only needed it when her body had been under heavy stress and was stretched too thin to heal.
In those times, she became more the monster she had been changed into than the woman she’d been born as. She became something that didn’t think like a human, didn’t react or act like a human.
She became hunger.
Times like that didn’t happen often, but they did happen.
Like now. Like right now.
I reached for her, because how could I not, and took her hand in mine. “Lula, my love. Are you with me? I need you to see me. To really see me. Here. Real. Your husband. Brogan Gauge.”
Something shifted in her, deep and seismic. I held my breath to see which way the scales would tip.
She trembled as if a great sea change rolled through her. Clarity returned to her eyes, and the harshness of the monster within dissolved away by bits, her humanity seeping back into the amber glow of them.
“I know your name.” Her voice was a rasp.
“Yeah?” I squeezed her hands gently, stepping even closer. “Because you love me? Because you’ve been in love with me forever? All your days?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her shoulders slowly softening, the confusion easing. “I love you.”
“I love you, Lula Gauge,” I said, just as I always would.
“Don’t let go.” It was quiet, her request. A faint plea, as if she’d been swimming hard against the tide and had only just spotted land.
So I held on, just as I always would. Because I’d had loved her forever. All my days.
CHAPTERSEVEN
“It’s a giant bottle.” Abbi’s voice was still a little wobbly, as if she had to work to fill each word with air. “And it’s glowing.”
The sixty-six feet tall statue of a soda bottle that stood outside Pops 66 Soda Ranch—a gas station, restaurant, and gift shop that offered every soda brand and style under the sun—was hard to miss. It was night now, the day having lasted a year, and all I wanted was a flat surface where I could snore my way into oblivion.
But the seer was waiting for me here—if I believed my dreams, and if I believed Lawrence—and Headwaters wanted Lula to call.
We’d had the truck towed, and paid for a local shop to do the repairs it needed, both inside and out. They had to order some parts, and were already backlogged, so waiting around for the truck to be fixed wasn’t in the cards.
We borrowed a car—an early model SUV that looked like a small station wagon—from one of Lawrence’s friends, gave the woman money for her generosity, though she’d tried to refuse it several times. The worn seats were stained, and the hard surfaces had cracked from UV exposure.
It had a hell of a lot more sitting room than the truck. I tried to convince myself it was more practical than Silver, but the pervasive stink of damp and mold was making me miss the truck, cramped seating room or not.
Lu won the who-will-drive argument, so I was in the passenger seat. Now and then she’d glance over at me watching her, roll her eyes and say: “Still fine.” She’d repeated that for miles.
Lorde had sprawled out across the rear bench seat and had slept the whole way.
Hado and Abbi sat in the center seats, Hado still in his human form, Abbi still wrapped in the healing shroud. Her color was better, and her eyes bright, but she was still moving slowly, as if trying to steer around a pain she wasn’t used to.
Lu had drunk the bag of blood the doctor had given her with a blank expression that anyone who didn’t know her might think meant she didn’t have any strong feelings about the action.
But I knew her. I knew how much she hated giving in to a part of her she despised, a weakness that was no fault of her own.
