Yes, I thought, there wasn’t any sense sleeping in a broken house.
Before we left, Criseyde helped me get bits of glass out of my skin and hair. Les got a flathead from a drawer in the kitchen so I could unlock my room. I changed clothes and shoved the glass-spangled ones I’d been wearing into a plastic bag to deal with later.
I gathered a few things to take with me, not sure where we were going or how long we’d be gone. At the last second I grabbed both my new dress and Criseyde’s, just in case Les still planned to take us to the party tomorrow. For whatever good that might do.
Cris, Aleskie and I followed Les through the dark streets, unsure of our destination. The atmosphere in Criseyde’s car was sober and tense, none of us sure what to say to one another. Even Cris seemed humbled by the night’s events. For now the danger was behind us, but never gone for good.
eleven
gravity: a mutual physical force of nature that causes two bodies to attract each other
We ended up at Les’s dad’s house that night. In all the years Les had known Ivory, I had never seen the place. It was a house much like ours: few windows, bland-colored stucco and splitting wood trim. The neighborhood wasn’t far from ours, the distance easily walkable, which explained why Ivory and Les had been back and forth between the two houses so often as young teenagers, sometimes several times a day.
“Does your dad still live here?” I asked, following Les up the weedy front walk. I clutched my bag of clothes to my chest.
“Yeah. But he drives a truck now and he’s hardly ever here.”
Despite being currently empty, the house was warm and inviting, if not particularly modern. The plaid living room couches were worn and faded, the furniture made from honey-hued wood. There were pillows and throws and stacks of coasters all over the place. The TV remotes were lined up neatly parallel to each other on an end table. It smelled something like pine.
“There are two bedrooms,” Les said once everyone was inside. “You can decide who gets which room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
He wouldn’t look at any of us. Criseyde nudged me in the ribs and nodded meaningfully at him. Then she grabbed Aleskie and headed off down the hall to look at the rooms.
I stared at Les’s inscrutable profile as he busied himself with a pile of mail left on a console table just inside the entrance. I thought about his busted knuckles, Rade’s bloodied face. Les could have kept hitting him all night and I wouldn’t have cared. Though I hoped Rade would be useful in finding Ivory, I hated him. No matter what kind of connection we may have shared, no matter how drawn to him I might feel, I would let him go in an instant. It was Les who mattered. Reserved as he was, he was the one who’d always be there for me.
“Les,” I said softly. “Are you all right?”
For the first time since his encounter with Rade, he raised his eyes to me. “Sorry you had to see that.”
“I don’t care,” I rushed to assure him. “Nothing could make . . . Les, it didn’t change my opinion of you.”
His lips lifted in a wry grin. “Good to know.”
“So . . . I have some things to tell you.” I paused for an uncertain moment, then sat down stiffly on one of the couches.
He remained standing. “I’m listening.”
“It’s about last night. I went to this . . . vampire dinner party at some abandoned hotel,” I began. I looked at my hands as I spoke, knowing I would never get the whole story out if I watched his reaction to it. “Nothing happened to me, but I saw Aleskie there. I thought she must have betrayed us, but now I wonder if she was just trying to get information about Ivory, like I was. And when she came to warn us tonight, I knew she couldn’t possibly be a bad guy. Unless she’s a really good actress.”
I glanced up to find Les listening patiently. “Go on,” he said.
“Well,” I said reluctantly, “the attack just now was my fault. Rade said someone might have recognized me at the hotel. I don’t know who it could have been or what their motive was, but I’m sorry.” The apology was stupidly inadequate.
“Don’t blame yourself. You might never have done any of this if I hadn’t asked for your help with Lucinda.” He turned his head away, looking down, and said, “I’m going to make something to eat. Want anything?”
“No thanks.”
He walked into the kitchen without another word, flipping on the light and disappearing from view. I reached out to turn off the living room light and sat for a moment in the dim room. I stared at the soft glow from the kitchen, listening to Les opening drawers and cabinets. My mouth stretched into a yawn that made my eyes water. He’d said he would take the couch, but I lay down to sleep on it so he wouldn’t have to.
It was dark when my eyes opened again, but enough moonlight peeked through the curtains for me to make out Les’s form lying on the floor a few feet from the couch. I felt a rush of tenderness. I’d hoped he would take a bed in one of the rooms, but apparently he still thought it best if we stuck together at night.
I slid off the couch and crouched beside him. I placed one hand on his shoulder.
Instantly he came awake. He looked at me in the dark, eyes fathomless. I started to tell him he could take the couch, that he didn’t have to sleep on the floor anymore, but before my lips could form the words, he slid one hand under my hair and brought his mouth to mine.
We kissed quietly, passionately. Except for his hand at the base of my skull, we kissed without touching. It was the kind of long, slow kiss shared only in the dark, only in the dead of night, between two people who had never before kissed each other.
All too soon he released me, drawing his hand back as if startled. My body was on fire. He rose quickly to his feet and just stood there while I remained in a crouch, neither of us having anywhere to go.
“I . . .”
“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t—that wasn’t—”
“I just wanted to say you can have the couch,” I interrupted before I had to hear him rejecting me. “I’ll go sleep with Criseyde. Good night.”
And I walked out of the room, my chest bursting with emotion, my eyes darting blindly in the dark.
He didn’t try to stop me.
~
“Asha! You brought our dresses! You are my hero!”
Opening my eyes, I looked up from the floor to see Criseyde twirling around in front of me, rapturously hugging her hot pink dress to her chest.
We had slept in what I assumed to be Les’s old bedroom, though there were no personal items to indicate he’d ever lived here. There were no tack holes in the basic white walls, no photos, no books, no anything. The room could have belonged to anyone.
“I would never leave you stranded without clothes,” I replied through a yawn. I stretched my body, stiff from sleeping on the floor. The memory of last night’s kiss made me hot and I kicked off the blankets I’d found in the hall closet. Judging from the way Les had acted afterward, obviously it had been an accident. Maybe he’d been dreaming and hadn’t realized he’d been kissing me.
God. How was I ever going to face him now?
“Les told me the party’s at four,” Cris said. “I was like, who the heck holds a party at four in the afternoon? But I don’t know, I guess they like to give people time to get home before dark.” She twirled again, then laid the dress reverently on the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be a couple hours getting ready. You want to go first?”
“No. I forgot to bring shower stuff. I’ll have to go get it from home.” The thought of returning there, to the shattered windows and broken furniture and glass in the carpet, did not inspire enthusiasm.
“You can use my stuff if you want. I always carry an emergency supply in my purse.”
I had to laugh. “Of course you do.”
It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to go home after all, I decided. I would be able to survey the damage and determine what needed to be done to fix it. It would also be a good way to avoid Les.
Someh
ow I managed to slip out without anyone noticing. Walking briskly, even in the heat, I made it to the house in just ten minutes. My bedroom window looked out onto the carport, so I walked right past it on my way to the front door. I hadn’t bothered to notice last night, but it was indeed broken. I’d locked the front door out of sheer habit, but a house missing at least two windows wouldn’t be keeping anybody out of it.
The living room was worse than I remembered. Wearing only flip-flops, I walked gingerly over the crunching carpet. There was a dark stain on the couch—just dirt, not blood, thankfully. The end table lamp was on the floor, though not broken. I saw a couple of holes in the walls near the dining room. We could repair most of the damage ourselves, but we would definitely have to hire some people for the glass. Which meant I’d probably need to speak to Les as some point, since he had his own bank account as well as access to Ivory’s, and all I had was a debit card for Ivory’s account. I frowned, feeling slightly panicked at the thought of seeing him after our little mishap.
Slipping through the jagged back door, I climbed the ladder to the roof. With a sigh, I placed a hand on the telescope and closed my eyes. It was unharmed. Everything else I could deal with since my telescope had survived the night.
I climbed down and went back into the house. There was nothing I could do here today—nothing I felt like doing, anyway—so I grabbed an old cloth bag from my room and shoved shampoo and other bathroom necessities into it. I was ready to head back to the house and take my shower before the party, but I stopped outside Les’s door. It was still locked from last night.
On a whim, I retrieved the screwdriver from where I’d left it and undid the lock. Leaving my bag in the hall, I pushed the door open and stepped slowly into the room.
I’d gotten glimpses of it over the years, but I’d never been inside. It was about as messy as I’d expect a boy’s room to be: clothes tossed on the floor, bed unmade, a few cups cluttering the nightstand. The short black bookshelf in the corner by the window, however, was impeccably neat. There was a row of CDs—The Cramps, Hot Snakes, Stray Cats—and a handful of books—Lord of the Flies, The Outsiders. I spotted a little red Buddha figurine, a frameless photograph of two people who must have been his parents, and a brass dish full of coins.
“What are you doing?”
I spun around at Les’s voice. “I . . . um . . . I came to get some stuff and I . . . Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I wasn’t . . .” I lifted one hand uselessly, eyes landing everywhere in the room except on him. If I didn’t get out of here right now, I was going to cry. How humiliating for him to have caught me snooping around his room. How stupid I’d been to do it.
“I came to check out the damage,” he said, ignoring my idiotic stammering.
“Oh. Yeah. Me too. I’ll just . . .” I gestured that I wanted to move past him, but he kept blocking the door. I stood there feeling embarrassed and wishing he would go away so we could pretend everything was normal again.
“About last night,” he said.
No such luck. With a sigh, I began to tap one foot in nervous impatience. “Yeah. I get it. You were probably, like, dreaming and thought I was—someone else—”
“No. I knew it was you.”
I looked at him for a brief instant. He was staring at me, steady and intent. He’d never looked at me quite this way before and I didn’t know what to think. Didn’t know what to think when he started toward me, his expression never changing. Couldn’t think when he pressed his lips onto mine. I shook to feel his arms come around me and hold me tight against his lean body.
And then my hands were in his hair, along the sides of his face. I pressed closer, deepening the kiss, and he responded with a low growling sound. My heart pounded. Les was undoubtedly more experienced than I was, but I knew exactly where this would end up and I had no problem going there.
I slid my hands beneath his shirt and he raised his arms to pull it off. His chest was pale and smooth, defined with angles of muscle. I ran my fingers over his skin, encountering various small scars. I explored his lean ribs, the slant of his collarbone, his broad shoulders. He looked down at me, his eyes ardent and unwavering, yet betraying a surprising vulnerability.
“I’ve . . . wanted this,” he said, his voice catching slightly.
I took his face between my hands and pulled it down to mine. I was elated, kissing this boy I had loved for years, feeling his hands on me, his hunger. He had thought about me before tonight. He had looked at me at some point, his thoughts mirroring mine. He wasn’t indifferent to me as I’d always believed.
We groped our way to his bed, the pale gray sheets twisting beneath us. He left a trail of kisses down my neck and ground his hips against mine. I felt a fierce, unbearable wave of desire and fumbled at the waist of his jeans, clumsily desperate as I was for more.
“Hold on,” he said softly. “We don’t have to hurry.”
His weight sank into me. I pushed against the wall with my right arm and flipped on top of him. He worked his hands under my shirt and up my waist, his touch making me shiver. He lifted the shirt over my head and tossed it aside, and then rolled back on top of me. My skin felt hot beneath the kisses he left on my neck, my shoulders, along my collarbone, and down my stomach. Then he returned to my mouth and we were fully immersed in one another, greedy for touch, wild with longing.
After several minutes of rolling around he stepped back off the bed and removed his own jeans. Then he undid mine, lifting up my hips to slide them off. He glided his palms up my calves and brought my legs over his shoulders. He held me with hot, roaming hands, his face between my knees. He kissed the insides of my thighs.
“I can’t,” I panted. “Les, I need—”
He looked at me, the side of his face resting gently against the sensitive skin between my legs. “You want to stop?”
I shook my head fervently. “No, no. I want to keep going. I need more. I need . . .”
“Say it, Ash.”
I widened my eyes at him, both exasperated and embarrassed. He just waited with a sort of lazy grin on his lips, one arm hooked around my leg, fingers drifting softly but electrically up and down the inner curve of my thigh. He looked as if he could easily wait forever for me to finish my thought. But he’d done this a lot, so maybe his patience was greater than mine at this particular moment.
“You’re enjoying this,” I said, tortured.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Okay.” I exhaled in surrender. “I need you, now.”
Briefly closing his eyes, he made a low sound of satisfaction and turned to brush his lips once more across my thigh, his fluttering breath sending waves of heat through me. “I need you, too,” he said with a low, rough sigh.
Then he moved my legs off his shoulders and balanced himself over me. I made a sound between a gasp and a sigh as he pushed into me. I hooked my legs around the back of his, wanting him closer, deeper. I curved up into him and his body arched along mine, forehead down in the crook of my shoulder, his breath warming my collarbone. I turned my lips to his neck and raked my teeth against his skin, shuddering. He released a grunting sigh and I went rigid with a heat both startling and intense, and he made it seem to last forever.
After, we lay next to each other, his left arm supporting my head. Heavy-lidded, he ran a few strands of my hair idly between his fingers. I watched the rise and fall of his chest.
“You just . . .” I said breathlessly. “That just . . . It was . . .”
“Ash,” he said with fondness, “that’s just the beginning.”
“Oh god.”
“I’ve been holding on to that for three years. Ever since the day we heard about your mom. I saw something in you that day, some kind of aggression I never noticed before. That was the day I . . .” He trailed off and looked at me, his eyes oddly shy. “Last night, when I woke up and saw you leaning over me, I just . . . I didn’t think. But I’d spent so long fighting what I wanted I thought I’d made a mistake.”
My brow knit
as unwelcome thoughts of all the other girls who’d lain in this narrow bed with him passed through my mind. I’d felt so wistful and disappointed year after year, always wanting him to look at me, to see me, to speak to me in friendlier tones. All along—for three years, anyway—he’d been hiding feelings for me, just as I had from him.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“You’re three years younger than me. It wouldn’t have been appropriate . . .” I felt his faint shrug. “I always told myself it was better if we were never together. You’re Ivory’s little sister, you would have distracted me from my job, I didn’t want to take advantage of you.”
“You wouldn’t have.”
“You may not think so, but I didn’t see it that way. The age gap isn’t a big deal now, but it was when you were sixteen.”
“What about your girlfriends?” The question left a bitter taste on my tongue.
“They were just . . . distractions. None of them ever meant anything to me, even the ones before I . . . fell for you. None of them fit me. I was always waiting for one who would. I always expected someone would make me feel . . . anything. But you’re the only one who ever did.”
I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction. “I’ve always had a crush on you.”
“I know.”
I tilted my face up to look at him. “What?”
His lips curved into a knowing yet diffident smile. “You thought no one could tell? I’ve always known. Practically since the day we met. It’s in the way you look at me. The careful way you say my name.”
He squeezed me against him. This was the worst period in my life, yet I felt so happy it was almost ridiculous.
The world wouldn’t stop for anything, I realized. Beyond Las Secas, people’s lives were continuing on as they always had. They didn’t have to consider vampires before making certain decisions.
But they had trapped us here, abandoned us, and we had let them. We had let time stop in our city. Vampires had been insinuating themselves into our lives for years, as I knew firsthand from having been bitten, but it had been only a year since the quarantine. How quickly had things spiraled out of control. Businesses shut down, houses and buildings abandoned. People dead or missing. People defected. In some parts of the city it was like a ghost town.
A Dark-Adapted Eye Page 14