Page 16 of Hellfire & Tinsel
Right. No one could see Kassel. Because if they could, they would one, probably run screaming for their lives, and two, call the police.
He hadn’t really thought about the fact that Kassel being invisible would mean that to others, Beau was still alone.
All the excitement for the day suddenly drained from him at once.
“Hurry up, guy. I’ve got a schedule to keep here,” the bus driver said. “One or two?”
“Sorry, my mistake,” Beau whispered. “Just one.”
He handed over the money and grabbed his ticket, face downcast as he walked down the aisle. He saw passengers glance at him from the corner of their eyes and wondered if they thought he was strange. If they could read in him that of course he would only need one ticket.
He’d always only needed one.
He swallowed and ignored the way the razor blade in his throat cut on the way down, heading to Kassel, who was standing at the end of the row. Beau peeked around him just as the bus got into gear again—decidedly lower to the ground with the extra weight—and indicated to pull off.
Beau saw a younger guy sprawled out over the whole back seat, his arms behind his head and his cap pulled low over his face as he slept. Clearly, he had no care for anyone around him.
Beau sighed and slipped into a free seat on the left, whispering under his breath even though no one was paying him the leastbit of attention anymore. It wasn’t a new phenomenon. “Kassel. Over here.”
Kassel didn’t budge. In fact, he reached his football-sized hand out to the sleeping guy and picked him up by the scruff of his shirt, tossing him with one move down the aisle.
He screamed, hitting the ground with a thud and rolling into another couple of guys who looked kind of scary. They shouted in shock and an argument heated up between them immediately.
Kassel paid them no attention, just turned to Beau and indicated the now empty back seat. “For you.”
Beau gaped at him, feeling a spike ofsomethinghit him in the gut.
It was inappropriate to feel so satisfied. The guy hadn’t deserved that. Yes, he was being inconsiderate and rude, but so were many people in the world and they didn’t deserve to be tossed like rag dolls.
And yet…
Kassel had done it for him without thinking, simply because he’d said he wanted to sit in the back seat. The way his heart was thumping was dangerous. Honestly, it felt a little like he was having palpitations.
He grabbed Kassel’s hand and held it to his chest. It spanned the whole width of it, and the feel oftouchagain, after so long without except that small taste last night, was like getting hit with a defibrillator.
Kassel stared at him, looking worried. “Beau?”
“Is this normal to you?” he asked him, weak-kneed and on the verge of whimpering.
“No. I’ve never been summoned before. Or interacted with a human that was alive.”
I’m the only one. For the first time it’s just me.
He was getting lightheaded.
“Not that,” he breathed. “My heartbeat.”
Kassel looked down at his chest like he could see through it. Maybe he could. He wondered absently if it would show the scars of neglect and sadness, or if they would be hidden by this overwhelming feeling.
“I’m not familiar with beating hearts, only dead ones.”
“Oh. Okay,” he chirped, still breathless, his heart still drumming like mad. Was the world always curled at the edges? “No worries.”
“Beau…”
Kassel removed his hand, but Beau didn’t have time for the tears that wanted to rise, because Kassel was grabbing him by the hips and swinging himoverthe backs of the chairs to fit him on the raised back seat before he could even send the signal to his tear ducts.
He gasped, numb hands hitting Kassel’s wide shoulders. His skin felt like something completely new under his fingertips, and hot. More heated than his hand. Molten, in the very literal sense.
