Lenny released Eva. She gasped as she fell against the counter’s edge.
“OUT!” I roared again.
I felt the monster in every pulse of adrenaline, and it took all I had to fight back the lapping desire to rush forward and seize Lenny by the throat. Already, I could see it in my mind’s eye. He’d turn purple, the monster squeezing our hand around his neck. He would—
Stop it,I inwardly snapped.
Flushed, Lenny swiped his mouth, his eyes still dark with cruel intent. When I stepped forward, he turned on his heel. The bolt resisted him, sticking in brass, before he jerked the door open and fled.
My vision hazed, and tinnitus pealed bright in my ears. I crossed to the door and re-bolted it, adrenaline rushing through me. The monster thrashed inside me, demanding I go after the coward. It wanted me to hurt him.Iwanted to hurt him.
But then Eva let out a sob and rushed past me to the storage room, hiding her face in her hands.
My anger crumpled. I flicked the sign toCLOSEDand steadied a palm on the door. Tried to bury the fury stretching its wings inside me. I could do that, for her.
I gave us both a minute to collect ourselves before going after her. When I pulled back the burlap curtain, Eva turned away from me. She white-knuckled the shelf, a raw sound breaking past her lips.
I felt like an intruder. I hadn’t earned the right to her bare emotion like this, but I was here, seeing it anyway.
“I’ll pay for the jar,” I said softly.
Eva turned. Tears striped her cheeks, and her bottom lip was swollen. She tried to speak once and had to start over to get the words out. “I don’t”—hic—“care about the jar!”
I nodded, scared that anything I said would only make her feel more cornered. Eva’s eyes shone under the ancient, swinging bulb. Her breaths quickened into short puffs. Too quick. In seconds, alarm washed her features.
She was hyperventilating.
I moved to her on instinct, hoping I wouldn’t scare her too. To my relief, Eva fell against me. She clutched my T-shirt, hitching sobs.
“Help her, little death-touch.”
Cupping the back of her head, I thought back to the day she’d tended my bee sting. If I couldn’t find the right words, I could steal hers. “Think of the sky,” I whispered. “The storm clouds. They move through you, right?”
“I can’t… can’t breathe!” Eva gasped.
When I pulled back, I realized her bottom lip wasn’t only swollen—it was bitten. The skin had darkened where Lenny had buried his teeth. A rush of anger made me dizzy, but I swallowed it down, for now, and placed Eva’s hand over my heart, as she’d done before.
“Do you feel that?” I said softly.
Eva nodded fast.
“Good.” I inhaled, deeply. “Can you try to breathe with me?”
Together, we inhaled. We exhaled. Time seemed to flatten, keeping us suspended as Eva’s frantic breathing slowly evened out.
“Okay.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “You’re okay, Ev.”
It was a lie. Nothing was okay right now. Lenny’s words turned over in my mind.It was just a kiss.I thought of the blank expression she’d worn the day Lenny had walked into the workshop, the day her bees had stung him. I thought about what she’d told me the very day we met.
They won’t hurt you. If you’re nice.
The monster’s anger steamed down to aggressive worry as Eva leaned her weight into my chest. I rubbed circles over her back, counting in circuits of eight. Stretching time. Slowing her down.
The monster’s ability to sense the life around us turned Eva’s heartbeat into a drum. Slowly, the rhythm lost its frantic edge. Our breaths moved in tandem. Eva slipped her arms around my waist. Somehow, that touch, so trusting, reached deeper than anything else had.
“You’re okay,” I whispered again.
I turned my face into her hair, not daring to plant a real kiss there but needing the reassurance of her touch. Eva melted into me. Could she feel my heart pounding too, with our chests pressed this close?
