“‘That which we are, we are,’” Everett murmured, sounding strangely resigned. “Tennyson was right about that. No escape.”
We watched the last piece of Renard Michaels blacken into ash, flakes as thin as feathers, and then float into the sky. Everett stood and reached a hand to help me up. We smothered the fire, gray smoke curling, and left, combing carefully back through the forest.
By the time we spotted the tall-grass meadow waving in front of us, my mind was pleasantly absent, drifting somewhere in the clouds. “For ever and forever,” I murmured. “Ever, forever, amen.”
He turned over his shoulder with an amused smile, and then his eyes hooked down to my feet. “Ruth, no,wait—”
But it was too late. The moment I looked down and saw the copperhead, its beautiful body red and brown like the leaves, it was already rising, its slitted eyes like twin slashes from a knife. It struck, sinking fangs into my inner thigh. I screamed, the pain like being stabbed, and the snake lit away so fast it looked like it was gliding over the earth. I crumpled to the ground as Everett flew past me, chasing the snake. When I cried out again, clutching my leg, he stiffened and rushed back.
“It’s going to be okay,” he promised. “Can I touch you?”
I nodded, sobbing, feeling slippery blood roll down my leg from the puncture wounds. Two thin streams, like bloody tears, staining my blue dress.
Everett scooped me in his arms and took off. Even clutching me, he was surprisingly fast, blowing through the meadow grass like a meteor. When we were a hundred yards from the trees, he jerked to a stop and laid me on the ground.
“What are you doing?” I cried, cupping my wound.
“Do you trust me?” He bent over my thigh, one of his hands still cradling my head. He looked down at the bite, dark eyes burning, and pulled out a pocketknife. Flipped the blade up.
Did I trust him? It seemed not the right word for what I felt: both imprecise and not quite strong enough.
I drew a deep breath. “Yes.”
At the word, he spread my legs in the grass, lifting the thin cotton of my dress. “Bite down,” he instructed, and placed two cool fingers against my lips. I didn’t know what he meant until he drew the tip of the blade across my thigh, opening the wound with a strong, sure cut. I bit down on instinct, tasting the salt of his skin as tears flooded my eyes.
I could hear my father’s voice: this was punishment for my sins.
Suddenly Everett pressed his mouth to the inside of my thigh and sucked. I lifted off the ground, gasping, with his fingers in my mouth. The sensation was unlike any I’d ever felt. Nerves lit electric through my body.
He drew away and spit a mouthful of blood into the grass. My blood was smeared over his face, crimson and deadly. If anyone saw him like this, bent over me dripping red, they would shoot him dead. But before I could think, he fastened his mouth over my thigh again, and I felt that warm sucking pressure. He gripped my leg and pulled it closer, pressing his lips harder to my skin, the movement desperate, like he had a raw thirst and I was the only thing in the world that could quench it.
The panic faded as something new built inside me. A hot pulsing, in rhythm with the blood pumping through my veins. I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and dug my fingers into the warm, dry dirt. All thoughts of punishment fled. There was only Everett’s mouth on me. Like a blade of grass, I was rooted in the meadow, unburdened by shame and simply—unbearably—alive.
Everett withdrew from my leg and spit once more. I opened my eyes, trying to gain control over my breathing.
“That should help,” he panted, wiping his mouth on his T-shirt. His teeth were stained red. “But we need to get you to the hospital for antivenin. I don’t have a working car. I need to take you back home.”
I nodded, still breathless, lost to the pulsing even as it waned.
“I’m going to pick you up again. Is that okay?”
“No one asks for permission.” The pain and strange pleasure had transformed my brain into a fog. Thoughts were hard to hold on to.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” he said, and heaved me up. We made our way out of the meadow and back into my parents’ neighborhood, cutting across lawns. My house loomed menacingly in the distance.
“I changed my mind,” I breathed. “I don’t want to go back.” Ourhouse had been freshly painted and now gleamed unblemished white, an upgrade my mother had insisted on even though vanity was an affront to God. “Please, Ever.”
He stopped, gazing down at me, looking torn. Just then, at the house next to ours, Fred Fortenot ambled out of his front door. He was large and tan like my father and wore his blond hair slicked back like him, too. They could be brothers. Fred stopped and bent over a flower bush. Quickly, he stomped on a small lizard running through the mulch.
“I can bring you to Fred,” Everett said. “Fred can drive you to Blanchard instead of your parents, and that way—”
“No.” My heart thundered against my rib cage. “Not him. Please, Everett, don’t let him see us.”
He studied me, dark eyes narrowing. Our faces were so close our noses brushed. “Why are you scared of Fred?”
“Take me home after all,” I whispered. “Just leave me on the porch so they don’t catch you.”
Everett rested his forehead against mine and took a deep breath. Then he ducked past Fred’s and brought me to my parents’, laying me outside their front door.
