Brooks looked back to Xia’s table and found her staring at him. Her expression was flat and the fire in her eyes banked to embers, but there was still something brewing under the surface. He was hoping she’d calmed enough to at least go to their room and rest.
He held the key up and tilted his head toward the stairs. She didn’t come to him, just walked toward the steps and up without a backward glance. Brooks took the steps two at a time and found her leaning against the wall, waiting to follow him to their room.
Brooks wiggled the old key into the hole and twisted. The lock was old and caught at nearly every turn, but eventually gave way. He held the door open for Xia as she stepped through.
“Wow, I’m surprised I get to go in first. Don’t you need to check the room for rabid bunnies or sharp corners? I may fall and hit my head on one, you know.”
Brooks sighed as exhaustion crept in. “No, I don’t need to check the room, Xia.”
She nodded and Brooks could see the reply sitting on her tongue, but rather than spitting it at him she turned around. The room was basic– yellowing walls accompanied by a single bed with a green comforter that was probably black at one time.The sour smell of old food and fermented fruit drifted from the tavern and clogged his nose. He didn’t even want to know what the bathroom looked like.
“I’m sorry, Xia. This is terrible. I can go ask for something cleaner.”
“It’s fine, Brooks. I don’t need luxury. I’m not fragile.”
You’re really fucking this up.
He swallowed the building frustration. “I know you’re not fragile.” Brooks walked in and shut the door behind him, locking the single rusted mechanism in the doorknob. Only one lock was not ideal, but it would have to do. He would use his shadows to stand guard–
She drained us when she fed.
Xia opened the bathroom door and stared for a few seconds before shutting it again. “Neither of us will be bathing tonight. Do yourself a favor anddo notopen that door.”
“Fucks sake.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes as he flipped through their options. Surely there was another place in Dion they could stay for the night. “Maybe we could go somewhere else. I assume we need money, which I don’t have, but you could use your Song to influence–”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I’m not calling on my chaos again.”
“Sunshine,” he whispered. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
“We hardly had it the first time, and I really think we should talk about it.”
“I’m done talking tonight, Brooks. I just want to sleep, and I think you should too.”
“You shouldn’t hide from it, Xia. If you keep pushing it down it’s going to take control of you. You’ll lose who you are, and Iknow you don’t want that. Gods, and you look so much more alive now that you’ve fed.”
“Stop!”
“You don’t have to kill another daemon to feed your chaos anymore, Sunshine. I can be that balance for you–”
“I saidstop!” she screamed, her voice an inhuman roar that rattled through the building. Xia pulled at her hair as she bent at the waist as if whatever was lurking couldn’t find her if she got small enough. “Just get out.”
“Xia, please, I–”
“Just get out, Brooks! Get out, get out, get out!”
Tears pooled in his eyes as the pain bottled in her voice shot through the air like shrapnel. She screamed over and over, her words echoing through the room until he stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. His chest squeezed as he leaned against the door, the sound of her sobs the ultimate torture.
“Take it away,” he said out loud. “Take it away, Chaos.”
His passenger didn’t say anything, only laced his shadowed fingers through Brooks’ and flipped their hands. When Brooks opened his eyes again, he was seeing his body move from someone else’s eyes. The pain in his heart still remained, but the anxiety released the vice in his chest and the exhaustion fell away, all handed to a god who felt nothing but ruthless logic.
Go rest, Brooks. I’ve got us.
