I licked Evelyn’s hand. She stared at the skin my tongue had touched, then stared at me, and I felt like I’d done something wrong. But then her pallid face split with a startled smile, and she wrapped her arms around my neck and crushed me againsther.
Her scent rushed through me, reaching the places her arms couldn’t, and like the petals on a limp rose, my wolf form tumbled off my spentbody.
Several things happened at once. Evelyn gasped. The air turned colder. A shirt whispered over my naked backside. A loud voice rose over all the others, demanding that everyone get out. Frank’s. Large hands lifted Evelyn and helped her back to the couch, and then those same large, papery hands wrapped around my taut and tremblingarms.
“Someone, get her clothes!” Frank’s frantic voice reverberated off the cracked plaster walls. “I’m so sorry. We didn’tknow.”
I bobbed my head, half nod, halftremble.
Frank rose and someone else crouched in front of my huddled, naked form.Liam.
“Here,” hesaid.
I kept my eyes on the dusty, water-stained wooden slats my father would oil every two years. Whoever had bought our house hadn’t cared for it atall.
Liam fit a roomy t-shirt over my head, then lifted my hands one after the other and guided them through the sleeves. He tugged the hem low over my thighs. And then he crooked my chin on a finger to make me look athim.
“She’s safe, Ness. You saved her.” He smoothed my hair back, and then he collected my trembling body against his solid one, and heldme.
The room swayed and then it blurred and darkened before finally vanishingcompletely.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Isprang awake so fastmy head spun and my vision fragmented. “Evelyn!”
“I am right here,querida.” She eased me back down, then leaned over me, her fingertips curving over the sides of my face, tracking over each one of myfeatures.
I blinked at her. “You’reokay?”
“I amokay.”
“Did Lucy…did she hurt you?” Iwhispered.
“No.”
I closed my eyes and saw my aunt’s protruding eyes, saw Evelyn hunched in a chair. I forced my lids up. My mouth tasted sour, and my body reeked of wet-dog. I stretched my arms and legs then sat up, slower this time, my cheek pulsing. I lifted my fingers and felt a patch of puckeredskin.
Evelyn wrapped her hands around my bicep. Although I didn’t require her support, I let her guide me to the bathroom…I let her tend to me. She closed the lid of the toilet and sat me down. As she warmed the water, I peeled my t-shirt and shorts away. I didn’t remember putting themon.
When steam curled up from the shower nozzle, I stepped into the bathtub, sat, and raised my face, letting the hot water beat down on me. Evelyn squirted soap into her hands and cleaned my body. And then she rubbed shampoo between her palms and washed my hair. She lathered in conditioner next, her careful fingers working out theknots.
She rinsed and rinsed and then turned off the water. As she picked up a towel, I clamped my fingers around the rim of the bathtub and heaved myself up and out. She patted down my body and then my hair, and I felt like I was a toddler all over again. She forced me to sit back down on the closed lid and went to get me clean clothes: leggings and a tank top. I pulled both on. She dried my hair some more and then combed itout.
As I stood, the world spun a little, and my stomach rumbled as though it hadn’t been fed in days instead ofhours.
“You need to eat something.” She steered me to the armchair that was creased and warmed from her body. “Sit here and don’tmove.”
“I won’t.” I leaned my head back and shut my eyes, relishing thetranquility.
Sometime later, she was back with thick slices of chewy bread topped with thin slivers of turkey. I ate slowly, the food dropping into my stomach like clumps of blizzard snow. Evelyn pulled the sheets off my bed and tucked in new ones. For a long time, the rustle of fabric and the floorboards creaking under Evelyn’s lopsided footsteps were the only sounds inside the room. I thought about the day. About Lucy and Everest and Jeb. And that made me think of what my uncle hadinsinuated.
She was fluffing my pillows when I finally spoke. “Evelyn?”
“Yes?”
I peeled a piece of crust off the bread and shredded it into dark dust between my fingers. “Can I ask yousomething?”
Like an articulated toy, she straightened out. “Anything.”
