So…why the fuck is his bloodwhite?
I stare at it.
For as long as he studies every inch of me, I stare at that small hole in his hand.
It bleeds freely.
No move to stop it, to wrap it in a cloth, or even to hold it through the thrums of pain. Seems like he hardly feels it at all, like he’s not aware of it.
But I am.
White, thick blood trails down his fingers, then drips onto the road.
A film flashes in my mind.
Alien.
The injured, evil android who spews white fluid, like paint.
Disgust is quick to rattle my shoulders.
The shudder utters from my parted lips before they twist with blatant repulsion.
I lift my darkening gaze up at him, this creature, this beast, and find his wintergreen eyes boring into mine.
I blink—and my breath shudders in the air.
Still, that cold gaze drills into me, as though he can tell my disgust, read it on me.
That’s what it is.
Maybe I just had longer to get used to the black blood, or maybe it’s that the white reminds me of an old horror film I used to watch on tape, or that I forgot about the colour of his blood because the first time I saw it was back on the road when Ramona died, and all the fae were marching by us, but he was shot—
And I can’t fucking believe that my mind got so tangled up and stagnant that I forgot just how unlike the other fae this one is.
I get the unsettling feeling swaying in my gut, he is worse.
A gasp cuts through my lips as he moves for me, and he moves like a blizzard in a windy storm.
Fast, faster than I can see, his face is suddenly so close to mine that I can feel the iciness of his breath on my cheekbone.
I cringe into the edge of the truck, braced for an attack, for the end of the borrowed time I’m living on. But the graze of his breath is curt before he’s tugging away from me… and in his fist is a torn strap of my backpack.
The midsection belt is ripped right down the fabric.
So that’s what got caught.
I only just think it when he flings the strap at me.
My hands flail for it, but it still strikes me right on the chest like a whip.
Before I can even think about throwing a dark look at him, before the instinct can even set in, he’s snatching me by the arm, fingers digging into my flesh and creaking against the bone—
I stagger to my feet, stumbling into his chest.
He shoves me away from him.
A grunt jolts me as my spine hits the door of the pickup truck.
