The Seventh Hour

by Tracey Ward

  “Do you need anything? Do you want some water?” I ask.

  “Toothpaste,” she answers immediately. “My mouth is a wasteland.”

  I laugh, reaching for a small bag by the bed. “I think Dr. Kanden saw that coming. She left you this. There’s a toothbrush, toothpaste, and hairbrush inside.”

  Liv takes the bag gratefully, immediately digging out the toothbrush and coating it in white paste. She looks me up and down as she brushes. “Have you slept?”

  “You’re spitting.”

  “You’re evading.”

  I run my hand over my burning eyes. “No. I haven’t slept.”

  “You should.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay first.”

  Liv finishes brushing her teeth, her eyes in the distance. When she’s done I hand her a cup of water to drink from.

  “I’m okay,” she tells me unconvincingly, putting the cup and bag on the nightstand.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “Grayson, can you be kind for a minute? I’ve had a rough night.”

  “I’m not saying it to be mean. You really don’t look good.”

  She sighs. “I don’t feel very good. I feel foggy.” Her hands tighten around each other in her lap. “What happened to me?”

  “Dr. Kanden thinks someone drugged you. She thinks they used Narthenol.”

  “The supply closet,” she whispers.

  “I guess the good news is we have a jump on investigating who did it.”

  “Do they think I did it?”

  “What?” I pretend to be astonished. “No. Of course not.”

  “Oh my God, they do think I did it!”

  I groan, sitting down on the side of her bed. “You know, it’s a real pain how perceptive you are.”

  “Be mad at yourself and how translucent you are. Who thinks I did it?”

  “Captain Fuller is a maybe. He’s not ruling anyone out yet, not even you. Probably not me either. Abby is a definite yes.”

  Liv snorts. “There’s a surprise.”

  “She thinks you have a drug problem and that you accidentally OD’d chasing a high.”

  “And what do you think about that?”

  “I think what I’ve always thought. Abby is a bitch.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  I frown. “Why are you asking me this? She’s wrong. I don’t think it, I know it because I know you. You’re not stealing drugs, and you’re not sitting in your apartment shoveling cheese snaps into your mouth and chasing them with Narthenol. You don’t have an addiction and you don’t have a death wish.”

  Her face falls, crumbling like ash after a fire. Gray and sickly. Sad.

  “And if I did?” she whispers, her words barely audible. Her lips hardly moving. “What then? What would you think then?”

  “What are you saying? You’ve been taking drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Then what the hell are you saying, Liv?”

  Her lower lip trembles. Her eyes fill with hot tears that pour over her cheeks, down under her chin, and race along her long neck. Her answer is there written on her skin, in the tracks her tears leave behind like the white words on her side and the dark ink on her arm.

  You can tell a lot just by looking at Liv, but you have to be patient. Anyone can see her and make assumptions, but until you really know her you can’t understand what you’re seeing. What it all really means. I’ve been with her for months and even I’m still learning. Even I don’t understand this. Probably because I don’t want to.

  “You want to kill yourself,” I grind out, my words gravel in my throat.

  She visibly swallows. “I did once.”

  I’m angry. Irrationally, uncontrollably angry. “When?” I demand. “When you got here?”

  “No. Never here.”

  “How long ago? Years ago?”

  “No.”

  “When, Liv?!”

  She flinches. “You’re yelling at me.”

  “Yeah, I’m yelling at you! Are you serious with this?”

  “Grayson.”

  “Never. Do you understand me? You can never do that to yourself. You swear to me right now that you’ll never think of doing something so selfish again.”

  She shakes her head helplessly. “I wish I could. You have no idea how much I wish I could.” She chokes on a sob. “You have no idea what it’s like to be afraid of your own thoughts.”

  I curse, turning away to pace the room. My hands are in my hair, pulling hard. Pulling until I feel pain. Until the hot hurt inside my gut is made small in comparison. I can’t stomach this. The idea of her laying there pale, lifeless, her eyes empty orbs, her voice a fading echo in my ears, the sweet silver sound something I’ll never hear again, it kills me. It enrages me.

  It terrifies me.

  I turn abruptly, my movements jerky and uncontrolled. I’m wild inside. I’m so many things I can’t pin down exactly what they are. I can’t separate how I feel. Everything is blurred, moving too fast to see, only slow enough to feel, and when I close the distance between us, take her warm, soft face in my hands, and kiss her gently, I feel everything. I feel the heat of her skin, the force of her breath, the surprised gasp in the back of her throat. I feel the Earth turn too slowly under my feet. I feel the strength of the cave over our heads. The cold of the stars in the sky.

  I feel Liv. I feel love.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Liv

  He’s there on the bed with me. His back is against the headboard, my back against his chest. His arms are around me, loose but strong. Determined. He’ll be insufferable now. More protective than he’s ever been before because the threat isn’t coming from the outside. It’s in me, in a place he can’t defend, and that lack of control will eat away at him. I’ve taken my burden and made it his, and I feel awful about that. Or I would if I could. If I could understand anything but the strange euphoria of sinking deeper and deeper into this moment. Into that kiss.

  I can still feel him on my mouth, firm and insistent. Like he would push his strength into me if he could, forcing out the fear and insecurity that’s plagued me. If it would work I’d let him. I’d take anything he could give me to make this feeling go away. This oppressive dread that settles over me any time I let my guard down. Any time I stop moving long enough to hear the silence around me.

  Even as he holds me, even as I’m riding the wave of his kiss, I feel the old worry kick in. It’s the aftermath of something gained, something won, because now it’s mine to lose. This is something I can never keep. I can’t stay here, I can’t take him with me, so where will that leave us?

  A memory, that’s where. A moment in time that neither of us can hold onto, no matter how desperately we want to. No matter how much emptier my hollow life will feel having known all of this something.

  I was hungry before. Now I’ll be forever starving, never again tasting but always remembering the decadent deliciousness of him.

  “Are you awake?” he asks quietly, his words vibrating through his chest into my back. Through my entire body.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  “You should sleep. We both should.”

  “Is the door locked?”

  “No.”

  “What if Fuller finds us like this?”

  “He’ll take you away. Off my watch. Out of the dorms. Hell, maybe he should. Maybe you’d be better off.”

  My stomach flips anxiously. “You don’t believe that.”

  “I’m not exactly doing a great job protecting you.”

  I turn my head so my face is pressed to his chest, my ear absorbing the steady thrum of his heart. “Yes, you are.”

  “You’re in a hospital. I’m really not.”

  “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

  Grayson drops his head, his lips landing lightly in my hair. “Yeah. You are.”

  “No one else would have come in to check on me. I would have been dead if you hadn’t found me. You’re doing a fantast
ic job.”

  I feel him sigh, the hot air from his nose bursting over my scalp. It’s heavenly warm and I want to enjoy it, but I know what he’s thinking about. It’s the elephant in the room, even bigger and bolder than the fact that I’m sitting wrapped up in his arms. It’s heavy in the air. Weighing us down by degrees. Making its presence known until we won’t be able to ignore it anymore. We’ll either cry uncle and talk about it or we’ll turn to dust under its unrelenting influence.

  I drag my tongue over my teeth nervously. “You can ask me about it.”

  He snorts, lifting his head to let it drop back against the wall. “No, I can’t. I yelled at you.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m a jerk.”

  “I know. I don’t mind it.”

  I’m relieved when I feel him chuckle silently.

  “It was on my ship, just before the storm,” I begin, not waiting for him to ask because he might never and I need him to know. I need to say it out loud, no matter how much it hurts me. No matter how angry it makes him. “I was walking the deck before dinner. I needed air. I was in my dress and my shoes and my jewels, and I… I don’t know. I suddenly couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t the first time I felt that way but it was the worst. I started to panic. I was scared I would faint. I ripped at my necklace, I kicked off my shoes. If I could have, I would have stripped my dress off and stood there completely naked. Anything to get a breath. To feel free for just a second.

  “The next thing I knew I was on the bowsprit. I had climbed out there and I was in the wind with my hair flying wild and my feet dangling above the water. It was black and white and so cold, and I thought if I fell off I’d die. I’d go under and never come back up. I’d never have to put on those shoes again. I’d never sit at the dinner table with bone white porcelain and thick red candles. I’d never take my seat on the Council. I’d never get married off. I’d never be anything.” I take a shuddering breath, my terrible truth on my tongue. “But being nothing sounded so much better than being everything I’m not.”

  Grayson is silent. His heart beats evenly as mine races through my chest, my pulse panicking. He’s pausing. Thinking the way he does about everything. Counting the beats down…four…three…two...

  “When was the last time you felt that way?”

  “That night,” I answer softly, honestly. “When I sat on the bowsprit. It was the first time and the last time.”

  “And if your ship hadn’t gone down?”

  “Gav showed up. He talked me back onto the boat.”

  “And if he hadn’t shown up?” he presses.

  I take a shallow breath. “I don’t know. That’s the scary part. The ‘what if’. I don’t know what would have happened if he wasn’t there. Maybe nothing. Maybe I would have brought myself back onto the ship and everything would have been fine. I really don’t know.” I take his hand in mine, squeezing it hard. “I know I don’t feel that way anymore, though. It haunted me for a long time when I got here. It’s why I clung to you so violently. Why I woke you up early every morning. I couldn’t stand to be alone. I worried I’d get desperate again. Depressed and crazed and it would take me over until I was on a ledge somewhere with no idea how I got there and no one to pull me back in.”

  Grayson’s arms tighten around me. “What do I do, Liv?”

  “Nothing. You don’t have to do anything. I told you, I’m not afraid of it anymore. I’m a different person than the girl who went out on that bowsprit. I can’t imagine feeling that sad or trapped here.”

  “Here you can’t. But what happens when you go back?”

  I swallow hard, my throat tightening painfully. “I don’t know,” I breathe.

  “I have no idea how to help you, how to keep you safe. Not from anything.”

  “You don’t have to. You’ve already saved me, Grayson.”

  He groans angrily, pushing me gently from him. He stands, staying close to the bed but he feels miles away. “God, not this. Not from you too.”

  “Not what?”

  “The hero crap again. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “What are you talking about? If it wasn’t for you I’d be dead.”

  His eyes flash with fire. “All I did was reach for you. If you’d been three oar strokes away, you’d be dead right now because I wouldn’t have gone after you. I would have saved myself, no question.” He rubs his hand over his mouth like he’s trying to keep something inside. Something that’s been dying to get out. “So that’s it. That’s the truth. That’s the epic story of how I didn’t save your life. It’s why I couldn’t stand you when I met you. Everyone was calling me a hero, comparing me to Easton, and I couldn’t take it because they were wrong. That’s not me. I’m not a hero, I’m not him, and I didn’t save you.”

  I sit up on my knees on the bed to face him. He towers over me, staring down at me. Into me.

  “Thank you.”

  He blinks, his brow creasing. “Yeah, well, you said you always want the truth.”

  “Not for that.”

  “For what then?”

  “For reaching for me. You’ve been reaching for me every day since I got here. You listen to me. You question me. You fight with me. You don’t try to tell me who or what to be. You let me be me, something I never dreamed I could be, and it’s been amazing finding out who that is. And it’s all because of you. Because you showed me what it really is to be brave.”

  His shoulders sag. His hands rise, cupping my face between his palms. His eyes close as he leans his forehead against mine.

  “If anyone else had pulled me out of the water,” I whisper, “you’d still be the one saving me. You’re my hero, Grayson. I don’t care if you’re anyone else’s. You’ll always be mine.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  TWO MONTHS LATER

  Gray

  The doors are opening today.

  The long night is over.

  Liv is a little bundle of nerves bouncing from place to place, unable to sit still. She’s been up all night and sucking down coffee all day. It’s a nerve-racking combination. She pounded on the wall this morning at four-thirty on the dot demanding I go to the bathroom with her. ‘For old times’ sake’ she insisted. I refused to sit in the room with her while she peed but I snuck into her apartment with her when she was done and fell back to sleep on the couch with her next to me.

  We’ve only done that a couple of times. It scares her a little to get too close to me. She knows where she is, she knows her dad can’t get to me to punish me, but it’s years of conditioning. You can’t break that in a night. Not in two months, probably not in a year. I don’t care. I’ll go as fast or as slow as she wants me to, so long as she lets me be near her. I’ll endure anything as long as I get to hear the silver sound of her voice whispering to me all the things inside her soul.

  “I might vomit,” Liv whispers nervously.

  “Why?”

  “I’m scared.”

  I tug on the front of her coat, pulling her into a bracing hug. “You don’t have to be.”

  “I can’t help it. What if I hate it?”

  I laugh, leaning back to look down at her. “Why would you hate it? It’s all you’ve talked about for the last month.”

  “What do the stars look like? Really?”

  “Nope,” I let her go, handing her a knit hat. “I told you, I’m not doing this anymore. You’ll have to see them for yourself.”

  “You said it’s like the sky is on fire.”

  “I also told you I was lying.”

  “No, I think I told you that you were lying.”

  “Yeah, because you already knew from the painting in the Mayor’s office what it looks like. Just like you know right now what it’s going to look like, so stop asking me.”

  “I’m nervous,” she apologizes, bouncing on her toes anxiously.

  “I know. You keep licking your teeth.”

  She freezes. “I keep what?”

  “Licking your teeth.” I demonstrat
e for her. “Like that.”

  “I don’t do that.”

  “The same way you don’t snore?”

  “I really do that?!” she exclaims.

  “Only when you’re nervous.”

  “Is that weird? It seems weird.”

  I grin, wrapping a scarf around her neck. She’s starting to disappear under all the layers. “Yeah, it’s weird. But you’re a good weird, remember?”

  “I try to.” She smiles, stepping up on her toes to reach for me.

  I reach back, leaning down until my lips find hers. Until her breath is mine and my blood is flying loose through my veins like currents in the tide.

  This has been us for the last two months. Us in secret. Us in hiding.

  Us in love.

  I’ve never felt like this before. Liv swears she never has either. She told me about the kiss with the guy at the piano. She had tears in her eyes when she told me how her dad ended it. I had fire in my heart. Hate for a man I’ve never met.

  I admitted to her that I kissed Karina once. It was at the Summer Celebration two years ago, just before everything started to go sideways with us. It was behind the welder’s tent, their shining metal artwork clinking together in the warm breeze. It was my first kiss. I accidentally poked her in the eye with my nose. We never talked about it again.

  I admitted to other kisses with other girls. Other festivals. The hardest to own up to was Abby. I blame the beer. Liv refuses to accept that as an excuse, but it’s not her call. It was the beer. End of story.

  We leave her apartment together, both bundled up tight. Everyone else has already left the building. All work is suspended today. Every shift is awake and at the doors, ready to taste that first brisk breath of fresh air. When we reach the entryway it’s packed. We find a space off to the side, half-hidden by the armory case that’s anchored into the wall. It’s the same one we armed ourselves from when we fought off the vishers together. It feels like a thousand years ago.

  “How long until they open them?” Liv asks. She stands on her tiptoes trying to look over the sea of heads in front of her.