Dumb luck probably had chosen us as its target because the streets were surprisingly desolate for a summer night. Yet it ran away right as we reached Zion’s family’s two-story house. Warm light poured out of his parents’ and Ayla’s bedroom windows.
Quietly cursing, I steered us down another street, carefully evading the potholes dotting the middle of the road. Walking down a sidewalk had ceased being an option. Apparently, Zion had decided it was a playground. The dumbass wouldn’t stop trying to balance on the curb. Unsuccessfully, obviously. Which also led to him sporting a cut on his bottom lip.
At least his hiccups had relented.
“Wait!” He stopped dead in his tracks. “My home is supposed to be back there.” His head swiveled back and forth. “Where is it? Is it gone? It’s gone, isn’t it?”
“You can crash at mine.” I pushed him to move along. “Your whole family is awake.”
The last time I had brought him home drunk, I had to suffer through the tirade his mother had given both of us about being responsible.
Truth be told, I hadn’t been completely sober that evening, but I would rather endure another year at school than sit still for a full hour while his mom reproached us and then made us clean their house as punishment.
Zion snickered. “Are you taking me to your bed?”
As we neared my family’s one-story house, its fresh coat of white pain bright even in the gloom, I searched my pockets for keys. “You can sleep on the floor.”
“Pffffft.” He slumped against the sky-blue door. “I have a list, you know.”
“What list?” Grunting, I hauled him away so I could unlock the door. “And be quiet,” I added as we entered.
Unsurprisingly, he immediately lost his balance and hit the first door in the dark hallway. Luck be damned, it led to the bathroom and not my parents’ bedroom.
“The liiist,” he loudly whispered. “You kn?—.”
I slapped a hand over his mouth. “Shut up.”
His mumbles were incomprehensible, and I somehow managed to pull him into my room.
Without hesitation, he dumped himself on my bed, startling Dusk enough for her to leap off the mattress and rub around my legs, her black fur concealing her in the darkness drowning my bedroom.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I said you could take the floor.”
“Hrgh,” he grunted, his face shoved into my pillow, legs spread across the mattress.
I should have left him on his parents’ doorstep. Except he likely would have blabbed about me getting him there. For the life of me, he could not keep his mouth shut when inebriated.
And his mother’s wrath… Now that woman was the sweetest in the world, would bake you chocolate chip cookies for no reason other than her kindness, but break one of the three rules she would have etched in stone if such a possibility existed, and her ire stalked you for days.
“I swear I will beat your ass in training tomorrow,” I grumbled, but unlaced Zion’s mottled sneakers and scrunched my nose at the stink of his sweaty feet. If he was not lying on my bed, I would have poured a bucket of cold water on him.
“On your side,” I barked to wake him up. I didn’t need him suffocating on his vomit if he got sick.
“Mh— I li—.” His slurs grew incoherent, but he shifted as I had ordered. “…you.”
After ridding myself of my clothing, I collapsed beside him. Dusk leaped onto the bed to curl up on my chest as usual, her weight a comforting presence.
Scratching behind my cat’s pointy ears, I stared at the ceiling, sinking into the sea of Zion’s light snoring. Why I could not leave him to deal with his foolish actions and their consequences by himself, I had no idea.
2
KALI
“Scream.”
Sitting on my heels, in an identical position as Zion, I widened my knees. “What?”
Winter had released its hold on the world, thawing the earth, but spring hadn’t reached the peak of the three-thousand-foot mountain we’d climbed. Hard soil and tiny rocks prodded my shins through the two pairs of cotton leggings and sweatpants.
