My stomach grumbled loudly enough for him to hear.
“Marlow, you have to eat something. Your hunger strikeisn’t going to bring them back.”
I twisted to grab a pillow and chuck it at him. He snatched it easily from the air and approached the bed. He balanced the delivery bags on top of the duvet as he took a seat.
“Get out of here,” I grumbled, grabbing my remaining pillow and shoving it over my head so he couldn’t see me. “I hate you. You ruined my life.”
His muffled chuckle enraged me.
“What is so funny?” I demanded, sitting up to glare at him.
“Other than this teenage temper tantrum?”
“This is goddamn serious,” I grumbled.
He ignored me as he tore a hole in the plastic bag rather than unravel it. He procured three Styrofoam boxes and popped them open. Cayenne, slow-cooked meat, onion, and lime filled my bedroom. My mouth watered on the spot. “Chicken, shrimp, or carnitas?”
I extended my hands wordlessly for the pork. I dumped as much pico de gallo on the tacos as I could before wolfing them down.
Between bites of meat and tortilla, Silas asked, “Is your plan to sit out the rest of the apocalypse?”
“I think I’ve done enough,” I said without swallowing my mouthful of food. I looked at the coffee-brown eyes where his golden halos had so recently been. He’d riffled through my guest bedroom until he’d found the shrine of my ex’s belongings I’d never returned. He’d slipped into a pair of gray sweatpants and a navy-blue T-shirt, abandoning the hardened, neutral battle clothes that I’d come to consider his second skin.
He didn’t even smell like himself anymore.
“You know what really bothers me? Apart from all of it.” I still clutched my third taco, half-eaten, paper crinkling beneath my hand. “It’s that I didn’t even do anything wrong. You are on our side. You saved the fucking day. I made the right call.”
He discarded the empty container of chicken tacos and started in on the shrimp. “Did you, though?”
I shot him a look.
“Come on! You’re the one person who’s supposed to be on my side right now!”
“No one is mad that I helped. They’re mad that you thought I was the enemy and still summoned me.”
“I know why they’re mad,” I grumbled.
“Even I know it was a bad call. A dangerous one, even. I’d be mad, too. Hell, Iammad. How could you really think I was working with your mom after everything?”
I abandoned the taco completely, wiping the grease on the overly generous supply of napkins. “What do you mean,how? Youwereworking with her. You showed up at the house with her forever ago when I was there with Fauna. Then when you pushed me through the realms, you sent me to her house. And when she said you’d made certain promises, things were suspicious.”
“Then you shouldn’t have called me.” He dusted his hands off.
I stared at him, my chipmunk cheeks filled with unchewed food.
“I didn’t have any autonomy to say no when I was sent there the first time—the time with Fauna that you’re mentioning. As far as how you tumbled into her house? I don’t know, have you ever heard the wordmiracle? Those assholes were making it rain blood and sending locusts to your friends for days, and you didn’t think they could hack a realm jump and send you down the channel to your praying mother? As far as what she said…since when have you known her to be honest? Or to have a firm grip on reality?”
I slowly resumed chewing.
“Are you going to finish that?” he asked.
“Don’t touch my tacos.”
“I knew you were hungry,” he said, getting up from the bed. He collected the Styrofoam boxes and looked down atme. “When you’re finished sulking, we have to unfuck your mess.”
He was right, and I hated him for it.
I didn’t want more lectures. I wanted to be told that I was kind and perfect and that it was a small accident but everyone understood. I didn’t want accountability.
