Huh?“Uh, the water’s shut off.”He aimed them for the stairs, wondering how in the hell she could touch him when he’d just done… what he’d done.
“I don’t need to flush, I guess.Ew.”She shuddered, gripping him with surprising strength.“I can sort of see now.Is that part of it?”
“Kind of, yeah.”Now she had a Dreamer’s uncanny night vision, and if she wanted to, his eyes as well.The thought of her inside his skin, unexpectedly intimate, made his throat dry up and his palms damp.
Outside, far away, another high, glassy hunting-note sounded.
Normal Business
Flying,driving snow swirled around them.It was goddamn unsettling to have snowflakes melt before them, pushed aside by a hard invisible shell.It was even worse to bury her face in Erik’s shoulder andfeelthe invisible force propelling him along, his footsteps muffled by falling flakes.He didn’t so much contact the ground as glide over at high speed, a toe or heel occasionally touching down to propel them in a slightly different direction.
Maybe he just stayed still and let the planet whirl away underneath him.Which was another horrifying thought, and Liv curled up tighter.Once you got over the indignity of being hauled around like a sack of potatoes, it was sort of nice being carried.
Except it gave her too much time to think about monsters, about falling into dark holes, about golden-rainbow fire shading through every color in the spectrum plus a few she was sure weren’t, and the hard lump of theoneirosdigging into her breastbone when Erik shifted.
The world stopped spinning.He was still for a long moment, head upflung, and if it bothered him to cart her around like this, he gave no sign.Liv pried her eyes open and peered at his profile, trying to ignore how she was clinging to his shoulder, one arm around his nape like a dopey illustration on the cover of a romance novel.
Her grandmother had loved those.Especially the bite-sized read-in-one-afternoon numbers withimplausible titles, farfetched wish-fulfillment plots, and airbrushed couples clinching on the covers.
Liv didn’t blame Gramma Poe one bit.Fantasies were often the only comfort available in the huge pile of bullshit that was adult life.
Snow somehow avoided Erik’s damp dark hair, and there were pinpricks of that strange bluish light in his pupils.It was paler than the glow in Ignatius’s eyes, and somehow comforting.Sort of.
Not really.
Liv turned her head, peering into the driving snow and failing afternoon light.Erik stood on a rooftop amid a collection of buildings clinging to the interstate and huddling under the lash of a white wind.They were atop a four-story building, in fact; she didn’t recognize this town.
We’re not even in Rochester anymore.How in the hell…?
Except she knew how.Magic, or something like it.If they could move this fast, why had they bothered driving?
Another high, trilling bugle call lifted in the distance, stuttering uncertainly through the storm.She should have been freezing her ass off, but the invisible shell over them both kept body heat trapped.It was a welcome luxury, and one she didn’t want to think too deeply about since it might be related to the little trick they did with her meals in the other stone house.
“They’re still looking for us,” she whispered, aware that she was stupidly stating the fucking obvious, but after being thrown down a mineshaft she didn’t quite mind being a little off her game.
“And it’ll be dark soon.”Erik didn’t look at her, too busy scanning below.“We need transport.I could carry you the whole way, but…”
“I’m too heavy?”It was a pale attempt at a joke, and he barely noticed, giving her a short, distracted, sideways glance.
“Hardly.”Those pinpricks in his pupils swelled for a moment, and a strange warm breeze, like a just-started heating unit, ruffled her hair.“I could run for weeks with you.”
Let’s do it, then.Let’s just keep going.It wasn’t the sort of thing you could say to a guy who’d just fought off a bunch of monsters beforesomething happenedand they turned into dry, grainy dust.“But?”
You know what happened, Liv.That was you.
“But you’re safer in a car.So I’m looking for one.”
“Oh.”If she focused on grand theft auto, maybe she could get through the next few minutes without bursting into tears or screaming.It was a mercy her bladder was now empty.“We’re going to steal a car?”
“Probably.But notwe, beautiful.”
“I see.”Not the first time he’s called me that.Liv decided it wasn’t a bad nickname, even if wildly inaccurate.At least he didn’t call hercupcake, like Jake did.Orhoney, like Sal Kinnock; her boss probably had a brand-new paralegal to harass by now.“I was looking forward to committing a felony, though.”It was another pale attempt at a joke, and this time, it gained her a long considering stare.
With his ferocious stubble and dark circles under gleaming eyes, he looked raffish and exhausted at once, and one corner of his mouth twitched slightly.“I expected you to be screaming by now.Or passed out.”
“Tried that.Didn’t work.”Nevertheless, she was pretty glad he was still cradling her.Standing on her own seemed damn near an impossibility.“So, we’re not stealing a car?”
“You’renot.All you’ve gotta do is stand still and look pretty.”
