Page 53 of Wicked Bonds
“I thought I did.” I look down at my hands, which don’t quite match up with the rest of the world. “It’s better than this,” I say. “Most days.”
She sighs. “You’re a real downer, you know that?”
“I’ve been told.”
She scoots closer. “Promise me you won’t disappear for so long again,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to do this alone.”
I nod, and the words come out before I can stop them. “I promise.”
She looks at me for a long time, as if searching for the place where I’m still real.
I sit beside her, not caring if she can see the floor through my legs.
“We’re a mess,” she says.
“We are,” I agree.
She leans her head on my shoulder, and even though I don’t have nerves or blood or flesh, I can feel her there, warm and solid and alive.
For the first time in a hundred years, I think I might be, too.
We stay like that for a long time. I know she’s getting tired, and eventually her head slumps and her breath evens out.
I stay with her, watching her dream. Making sure that I don’t drift away.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell her more.
Tomorrow, I’ll find a way to be better.
Twenty-Five
Drake
When she wakes the windows have frosted over.
She blinks hard, shakes her head, and for a second I wonder if she’ll forget I’m here. But then she sees me. Still beside her, exactly as she left me. I haven’t moved. I haven’t even tried.
“I fell asleep.” She rubs her eyes. “You stayed,” she says. Her voice is rough with sleep.
“I said I would.”
We sit in silence.. She just sits there, knees pulled to her chest, shivering from more than just the cold.
I want to touch her. I want to reach out and cup her cheek, or brush the hair from her face, but I don’t. I’m not sure if she wants me to touch her. Not sure if she wants me like that. What if she uses her magic to blast me across the veil and back? Last time it took days to reassemble all my scattered parts.
But then, she does it for me.
She closes the distance between us. Her skin is warm, radiating life, and for a second I can almost forget what I am. My senses explode, with her heartbeat in my ears, the taste of her breath on my lips, the smell of her shampoo and all the secret things living girls have about them.
She leans in, and I meet her halfway.
We’re kissing. Her tongue is inside my mouth and for a strange minute I panic thinking I’m transparent and that’s going to look really bizarre, but I also don’t care, and then… and then I realize I’m solid. I’m real. I’m flesh. Every kiss draws me closer to solid ground, Rose’s magic coaxing me into a body that shouldn’t exist.
Rose pulls back and looks at me. “How?”
