* * *
Afterwards, I drive to Brice’s house. He should be through with being a berserker by now, and maybe he’s still awake. When I get there, his house seems dark and quiet. I circle the perimeter, peering in windows, trying to find his bedroom. I finally do, but it’s empty. No one is inside. Where is Brice?
Could he have been out somewhere when he turned into a berserker? What if he’s hurt someone?
But then I see a square of grass on Brice’s lawn being lifted up. Brice crawls up out of the earth. I hurry over, unsure of what I’m seeing. When I arrive next to him, I can see that Brice is coming out of a hole in the ground, like a cellar. It has a ladder leading down underground. “What is this?” I ask him.
“Olivia,” he says. “Hi. Um, it’s an old root cellar. It’s a safe place for when I change.”
I peer into its depths. It’s dark down there. I feel sorry for Brice, locking himself underground every night. “Are you just now back to normal?”
He climbs the rest of the way out and resettles the square of grass over the hole, camouflaging it. “Yeah.”
“It’s almost two o’clock. You were a berserker for too long. You said you did the benedetta rituals to keep the virus at bay.”
“I did,” Brice says. “It’s been lasting longer though.”
First he doesn’t respond to my spells. Then he’s staying a berserker longer and longer. How much stronger could this strain of the virus be? I feel wretched. I want to tell him that my mother isn’t in her coffin and that she might be alive. But he’s suffering so much. Does he need to deal with my problems? And weren’t we going to stay away from each other?
“What are you doing here?” he asks me.
Suddenly, I’m self-conscious. I hug myself. “I went to a wedding, and then I...” Then I dug up my mother’s grave.
“What were you doing? You’ve got dirt all over you. Are you okay?”
I look up and meet his eyes. “Brice...” I step closer again. I put my hand on his cheek. Then I pull away. He’s right. I am dirty. “Sorry. I don’t want to get you messy or anything.”
“It’s fine,” he says, catching my hand with his own. “What’s going on, Olivia?”
I place my lips on his lips. I don’t know why I do it. I just want to kiss him again. Maybe I came here to kiss him. Maybe that’s all I’ve wanted for a long time now.
He pulls me close, and then we’re kissing hungrily, like we need each other to survive or something. His tongue is touching my tongue, and his hands are on my hips, smashing me against him. I’m running my fingers through his hair. I’m making little noises. They might be moans. I don’t know. Everything feels amazing. I feel glowing and strong and white hot. Brice and I cling to each other, and we kiss and kiss and kiss and—
I wrench myself away. I feel like I might cry. I won’t cry. I don’t cry. I stumble as I try to get away from him.
“Olivia,” Brice says.
And I’m running back to my car, not looking back, fighting against some stupid tight feeling in my chest and the threat of tears in my throat. I can’t involve Brice in this anymore. I need to do this on my own. I peel out of Brice’s driveway and go home. As I predicted, I can’t get to sleep for a long time.
The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One Page 26