“No!”
“You don’t?” His body loosens, the car briefly slowing with the lightness of his foot.
“He knows his way around Caldera. Let him have his tantrum and talk to him after.”
Eli takes another tight corner and darts between lanes, passing everyone at four times the speed limit.
“Then… now what?” he asks, his quiet question at odds with the power of the vehicle he commands.
“Stop the car up there.” I point wildly. “I’m nauseous. And I want to show you something.”
He spins out and slides the car between two others in front of the building, a perfect parallel park.
How in the fuck? I don’t even care. I can finally breathe again.
“It’s dark,” he says, revving the engine.
“It’s closed.” I rest my head back against the seat. “It’s the middle of the night. I’ll show you through the window.”
He grunts and pounds the pedal while twisting the steering wheel. The tires squeal, and we’re up the curb. Across the sidewalk. And straight through the windows that form the front of the store. Glass shatters for the millionth time tonight, raining over the car like a crystal storm.
Chapter 16
EVER
Eli hops out, leaving the car on. And me inside.
I burst out laughing. I don’t know why. All the connections in my brain crisscross. Eli stands in front of the car with his back to me.
My laugh fades to a pathetic chuckle, then quiet, disbelieving huffs as I catch up to the moment.
What in the Calderan fuck just happened? And nobody cares. An alarm could go off, and they’d carry on, oblivious.
Eli strides to my side of the car and opens the door. His brown eyes are softened, glittering with flashes of honey gold and green and bordered by bruises on all sides. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”
I pick up a worthless silver coin from the cupholder and tuck it inside my bra. Calmness trickles through me. “Actually,youcan show me now that we’re inside.” I reach for him as I get out, then remember my violent touch. He shoves his hands in his pockets. The knives lining his chest cut the reflection of my face in endless angles, and I wonder if others can see how broken I am when they look at me.
I shuffle around him and guide us past the sea of glass and the front counter full of brochures and binders, snagging a red guitar pick from a display on my way by and hiding it with the coin and cork. For extra security. We reach a small stage at the back of the room. The top half of the surrounding walls are decorated with dozens of guitars hanging at matching angles. Once he sees where I’ve led him, he grabs a stool from against the wall and arranges it two feet from the other one on the stage.
“Sit,” he says. That’s all the invitation I need.
Eli settles onto the other stool in front of a drumset. He stares, taking in the shiny metal frame and wires, the plastic surfaces—nothing like his nature-made drumset in Sonnet.
“Who taught you to play the drums?” I ask.
“I taught myself. I spent thousands of years inside a cage in my first body. I made music on any surface I could.”
“That’s… I don’t even know.” Unimaginable? Tragic and beautiful at once? I tap my toes on the wooden stage. Should I bring up what Kelter said? The car? All the unspoken words between us?
He shrugs his shoulders repeatedly, loosening them, then rolls his back and arms and neck. When he seems too floppy to stay upright on the stool and the complete opposite of his rigid self, he raises two drumsticks in the air.
The graze of fingers works its way lightly down my neck. I know it’s a curse, but I still wonder what’s behind it, who he is under there. The curse can push others away, make them want to run, but his actions, his words—they tell another story.
I shiver at the sensation. “Does everyone feel what I feel around you?”
He turns his head to me, sticks still waiting for impact, and serves up the finest fucking smirk possible. “Not everyone’s pussy drips when they look at me.”
I laugh. “You egotistical prick. Not that. I mean the fingers on my neck and the bloody taste. Everyone who sees your dark side feels that too? What about the breeze with your light side? The scent?”
