Dizzy, he swayed into a set of warm hands.
“Sorry,” he said, hoarse. “I’m blind down here.”
“I won’t let you get hurt,” she said.
Words that made an unwanted memory surface.
She’s part demon. And there’s something else. I knew it the moment I saw her taste that blood.
Eddie didn’t want to think about what Lannes had said. He fumbled until he found Lyssa’s arm, then her shoulder. It was her right arm. Right shoulder. He forgot that until she flinched.
“Er,” she muttered. “I’m twitchy.”
Eddie didn’t want her to feel embarrassed. “For years I didn’t like to be touched.”
“You didn’t like it. . or you were afraid of it?”
“I was afraid. For a variety of reasons.”
Lyssa pressed her hand against his chest. He shied away from the unexpectedness of contact — and the heat that exploded from it, inside him.
Eddie caught his breath. “I guess I’m. . twitchy, too.”
“Does it ever go away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me if it does.” The wistfulness in her voice made his heart ache, and so did her hand, capturing his. “Come on. You’ll have to walk sideways for a while. It’s going to get narrow.”
“You never answered my question. Where are we going?”
“Down. This city is full of tunnels. Most are old and not on any map. Dug by hand in the early part of the twentieth century, used to run guns and liquor — sometimes men and women who wanted to keep their comings and goings private. Urban legend.”
“Fairy tales. A dragon in the middle of them.”
She laughed, and the sound sent a frisson of heat through his body. “When I was little, I used to pretend I was a princess. Never the dragon.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t realize shape-shifting wasn’t normal. Being a princess, though. . that was magic.”
Eddie had believed in magic, as a boy. And then he’d stopped.
The walls were uneven, sometimes jagged and sharp when he touched them. Cut from rock, hacked away, sloping downward at a steep angle. Eddie had to watch his breathing as he walked — not because he was out of shape but because it was too easy to feel buried alive.
He lost track of time. Lyssa never let go of his hand. Once, she pressed down on his head. “Watch yourself.”
“I could light a fire to see with.”
“Trust me,” she replied.
Do I trust you? Eddie wondered, feeling her body tight against his side, guiding him. What do I risk by trusting you?
Because with Lyssa, it wasn’t like trusting one of the guys. It wasn’t the same as trusting Serena to watch his back, or Roland not to stab it. It felt deeper than that, more raw. As though he was asking whether or not he trusted himself.
And he didn’t trust himself.
Eddie heard water dripping, and the squeak of rats. “How did you find this place?”
“I was desperate. There’s nothing here that burns. I can’t. .” Lyssa paused, and he sensed her weighing words. “I can’t sleep. . in a normal place. I have nightmares, and when I dream. .”
“Fire,” he said. “I have a room for that.”
“Really?”
“Why are you surprised?”
“You seem to have your act together.”
“No.” He thought about his cage in the penthouse. He hated it. But it was heaven compared to this. “My emotions get the better of me, as you’ve seen. Sometimes. . I think it would be easier not to feel anything at all.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because there are already too many cowards in the world. Myself included.”
Eddie didn’t know anyone else who could affect him the way she did, just with words. She was right. Not feeling anything was the easy way out. Safe. How many years had he been running from himself?
“You’re no coward,” he told her. “Just the opposite.”
“You have no idea,” she replied. “Careful. There’s a big hole on your right.”
“I’m serious.”
“Step sideways.”
He stopped walking altogether. “Ten years on your own, surviving. I know what that means, Lyssa. I know the cost.”
“Eddie.”
“I know what it’s like to have no one. To spend nights sitting up, hiding in boxes with a piece of glass in your hand because you’re afraid someone will sneak up and kill you, or worse. I know hunger, Lyssa. I know every hunger imaginable. I know what it’s like, trying to stay alive without becoming the predator.”
She broke away, leaving him dizzy and alone in the darkness.
“Lyssa,” he called out, before he could stop himself. “I tried to kill myself once.”
He was horrified to hear those words come from his mouth — horrified and stunned — and then, just humiliated.
But even in that absolute darkness, he felt the heat of her stare — so he cleared his throat, and said in a hoarse voice, “Some things are too hard to live with. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. . ever again. And I was sick of hiding, of being alone. There was no one to go to. No one I trusted well enough to ask for help.”
He was rubbing his hands, their scars, and stopped himself with a deep breath. “I got better. What I am. . what I did. . I can live with now. I can say it out loud. I don’t have to hide all the time.”
Which was a lie. He was still hiding. No one knew the truth of what he’d done, all those years ago. What he hadn’t done. This was as close to it as he’d ever come to speaking the words. . and her silence killed him.
His beating heart was louder than the world. For the first time, he saw a glint of golden light in the darkness: two faint sparks, in the shape of eyes.
“I never tried to kill myself,” Lyssa said finally, in a soft voice. “But I thought about it sometimes. It frightens me, how close I came.”
Her words hit him hard, again. Old wounds suddenly felt fresh, and sharp. Eddie couldn’t push down the loneliness, the grief, fast enough. He folded his arms over his chest, bracing himself, holding himself up, keeping his head down — because even in the darkness, he was afraid of what she might see in his eyes.
“Like I said,” he whispered, “you’re no coward.”
“I am. In every way that matters.” Her voice broke. “You don’t know how easy it would have been for me to leave you and your friends today.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Neither did you.”
“No. But I’ve run, in the past. I’ve let people get hurt when I could have done something to stop it. I almost let the same thing happen today when I didn’t finish off Betty. So whatever you think you’ve done, or haven’t. .” Eddie stopped, fighting for the right words, wondering why the hell he’d opened his mouth in the first place. What was he trying to tell her? Why had he vomited all these emotions that he’d thought were dead?
That slow-burning glow of her eyes drew near. Eddie looked into that light, and said, “People change. Whatever you think you are, or have done, it’s not. . the end of it.”
“My mother used to say that. She’d tell me. . you make up for your mistakes by living. You pay back the bad debts by being worth something, somehow, to someone.”
“I like your mother.”
“I loved her.” Lyssa drew in a shaky breath. “But I don’t think I’ve followed her advice. It’s easier to run than to fight.”
“I know it is,” Eddie said, on the verge of telling her about his sister. It was too easy to talk to Lyssa, to tell the worst parts of himself. Things no one else knew. Things, he realized now, that he was desperate to unburden.
He looked down, blind and lost. Moments later, Lyssa’s hand found his. Her touch was warm, soft.
“Life is hard,” she murmured.
He squeezed her hand. “It could be worse.”
A short, sad laugh escaped her. “Yeah.”
; And then she sucked in her breath. Eddie knew that sound. Full of pain, shock.
“What is it?” he asked sharply, staggering backward as she hunched over, her shoulder hitting his. Her entire body quaked with terrible violence, and a crawling sensation filled his throat.
Heat exploded against his skin, sparks of flames riding through the air. His left shirtsleeve caught on fire, illuminating the darkness.
Lyssa stood beside him, hugging her right arm against her body. She twisted, shielding her eyes from the light, and snarled.
“Put that out,” she said harshly.
“You’re hurt.”
She tried to knock him back. Eddie ignored the weak blow and moved in close. Fire shone golden and warm on her hair. She kept her face turned away from him.
“Lyssa,” he said again.
“It’s nothing. My arm. I told you, I have trouble with it, sometimes.”
“Let me see.”
“No,” she said, and shuddered. “All I need is time.”
He ripped off the remains of his burning sleeve and held it in his hand. “Are we close to where you were taking me?”
Lyssa nodded tightly. “Just down this tunnel.”
Eddie slid his arm around her waist. “Relax. I’ve got you.”
She was silent a moment.
“I’m glad,” she said.
According to Lyssa, the subway tunnel that Eddie soon found himself in had been the victim of bad planning, corrupt politics, and a more powerful real-estate developer who had wanted all that underground territory for his own projects. Sealed at both ends some time in the early seventies, it was blocked off from anything functional — except for two very old tunnels, hand-dug, that had been uncovered during the initial excavation.
Eddie and Lyssa emerged from one of those tunnels, dirty and tired, and sweating.
He heard voices in the distance. She bumped him sideways with her hip and steered him across rough, uneven ground. The remains of his sleeve had burned to almost nothing, leaving him nearly blind — again.
Lyssa stopped him. “We’re here.”
Eddie wasn’t sure what that meant — until, unexpectedly, she placed his hand on a steel bar that slanted down and felt like a rail.
“Hold on,” she muttered, and he listened to her move away from him, her feet scuffing upward as though climbing stairs. His sleeve turned to ash. Eddie let it fall away from his hand, and waited in the darkness.
Metal rattled. A loud groan filled the air.
Then, light. A flickering flame. Eddie focused on it and sighed.
Lyssa held a candle in her hand. It shed enough light that he could see the stairs beside him.
He joined her at the narrow doorway. She had already taken off his jacket and laid it neatly on the back of a small plastic chair.
“This used to be the workers’ station,” she told him. “Come in.”
It was one small room made of concrete, with a stone floor that had been carefully swept and covered in bright-colored rugs. A plastic table was set against the wall, covered in paper and pens, inks, tin cans full of brushes. Water jugs were on the floor, surrounding a small cooler. In the corner was a sleeping bag.
In his opinion, quite cozy. Surprisingly so. Homey, even.
Except for the scent of smoke, and charred walls.
Eddie walked in, carefully. If he’d been wearing a hat, he would have taken it off. He felt as though he were trespassing, that the ground beneath him was made of glass. He was certain, in his gut, that few people ever came here.
“You’re probably wondering how anyone could live like this.” Lyssa set the candle on the desk and started lighting others. She used matches, he noticed. Not her own power.
He joined her at the table. “No, I would have been happy for something this good, not so long ago.”
Lyssa glanced at him. Eddie said, “I told you I was homeless.”
“Yes,” she said, with particular gentleness.
“I ended up in Los Angeles. It wasn’t an easy place to survive.”
“L.A.,” she said, staring at him with a compassion that made him want to sit down. “I tried living there when I was thirteen. It was a nightmare. I went to Vegas next, but when you’re a kid, alone, there’s nothing for you.”
“Nothing you want to be part of,” he added. “You were younger than me.”
“Twelve, when I. . when I began. I didn’t know anything.” Lyssa looked down at the table and scattered paintings. “How’d you survive?”
“I stole,” he said, and hated those words, and the memories. “I got odd jobs. I ate from garbage cans. I did everything short of prostituting myself. Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t do that anyway, just not with sex.”
Lyssa didn’t say anything, just ran her fingers over a watercolor filled with flames and an empty white spot. Eddie said, “I’ve never talked about it.”
“How could you? No one would understand.” She finally looked at him. “It’s not just surviving. It’s keeping the secret. It’s keeping other people safe from you.”
“I don’t like to remember.” He took a deep breath, then another, and studied the watercolors and sketches in front of him. There were a lot, and each was extraordinary: castles on clouds, and dragons floating on ponds; and women holding spears, with flowers in their hair.
There was fire, too. Fire, in several paintings, and in one, especially, which Lyssa kept staring at.
“These are beautiful,” he said, which was inadequate, but he thought she might be embarrassed by too much praise.
“Thanks.” Lyssa went to the cooler and flipped it open. Inside was half a loaf of wheat bread, a small bag of apples, and a couple bottles of water. “I’m an illustrator.”
“Really?”
“Surprise,” she said, with a faint smile. “Mostly children’s books, some comic-book covers. I do spreads in magazines, every now and then.”
“I. .” Eddie stopped, and took a water bottle from her outstretched hand. “How?”
“I taught myself. I told you I hung out in libraries. I spent time around the art books, because I liked the pictures. . and I had done a lot of drawing before my parents died. My dad was a painter. Most of his work. . burned in the fire.” Lyssa cleared her throat. “I’d find old newspaper or scraps of scratch paper around the library. . pencils, pens. . and then I’d draw. I drew everything. There was a librarian in Salt Lake City. . Mrs. Shue. . who paid special attention to me. She gave me a sketchbook, and I used that to make money. I’d tell people I was in high school, raising cash for charity. . and then I’d draw portraits for whatever people wanted to donate.”
Eddie smiled in admiration. “And then?”
“Luck. I drew a portrait of a woman who ran a local comic-book store, and she liked what I did enough that she had me sketch some superheroes for an event she wanted to advertise. It wasn’t much, but it gave me confidence. And then Mrs. Shue started leaving out books on art school. I knew I couldn’t go, but I started researching how people make a living at that sort of thing. Building a portfolio, making contacts. It helped that my librarian was having some luck selling her own writing. She started making inroads at children’s magazines and recommended me to some editors.”
“You did it.”
Lyssa shrugged. “It was slow. I didn’t have anything better to do. I wasn’t in school, so all my time was spent trying to make a living at the only thing I was really good at.”
She made it sound as though it were nothing, but Eddie knew better. Brains, determination, talent. . she’d taken all that, and despite everything else against her. . had turned it into something beautiful.
“I didn’t have aspirations,” he told her, “except to survive. I stole cars. I was good at it, but it was dangerous. You had to be careful of the territory you worked, the people you worked for. Cops almost caught me more times than I can remember. I never felt safe. And then. . not long after I got out, I heard that the crew I ran with had gotten in some dispute with a
local gang. Most ended up dead, or in jail.”
“You seem so straightlaced.”
He looked away. “I was a thief. I could still be a thief if I had to be. I saw so many tourists this morning, and there was a part of me coming up with a plan for how to take each one of them. Pick pocket, or short con. Snatch and grab. I used to tell myself that taking personal property didn’t really matter. As long as I didn’t hurt anyone physically, all that stuff could be replaced.”
“But that’s not how it works,” she said softly.
“No,” he agreed. “When I was sixteen, I stole a car. . and at the shop, we found this box that was full of baby pictures and toys, and. . things you can’t replace. There was something about the way it had all been put together. . it made me wonder if maybe it was more than just someone’s cleaning out a closet. As if. . the baby was dead, or something bad had happened. Just a gut feeling.”
“What happened to the box?” Lyssa tilted her head, lips tugging into a faint smile. “Come on. I know you didn’t throw it out.”
Eddie shrugged, scuffing his foot on the floor. “I found the owner’s insurance card in the glove compartment and put it in the box, along with a note. Then I mailed it to the local police department.”
Lyssa laughed, quietly. “A note?”
He felt embarrassed. “Yes, a note. I included the make and license-plate number of the car, and said it had been stolen and. . and that I thought the owner might like those pictures back. I wore gloves when I handled everything,” he added, a little defensively.
She held up her hand. “I didn’t doubt it.”
“It made me rethink some things,” he said, then, wanting to change the subject, said, “You’re nowhere. Off the grid. Hasn’t that been a problem finding work?”
Lyssa tore off a piece of bread. “You can have a whole life now with nothing but an Internet connection. I only communicate with my editors and agent via e-mail. We’ve never met even though they all live in this city. I have a laptop, and there’s wireless everywhere. It’s easier than you think.”
“Did you use fake identification to open a bank account?”
“Yes. Dead person’s social security number, too. I also have reserve cash in post office boxes all over the country. Salt Lake City, Boston, Chicago. . all the big cities where I’ve been. I mailed some to each location, just in case.”
Within the Flames d&s-11 Page 22