“Noooo,” I wailed. “Stop!”
My stomach seized. Everything shook. But the world swirled together, and nausea overtook me, so I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the spiraling to stop while I focused on bearing the pain. It came and went, contracting heavily like waves. But it hurt. Oh, God, it hurt more than anything I had ever experienced.
Voices rode through my mind like on the tail end of a bad trip, diving in and out of dreams and reality.
“She’s finally losing it.” The deep voice spoke with a curious blend of regret and relief. “I’ll tell Carson. Anton, clean her up.”
There was a rattle of obstinate Korean, a woman and a man’s voice.
“Just do it!” shouted the woman finally, in English. “She will die if you do not!”
Yu-na? Eomma? Was that her name?
More hands. A cold, wet fabric. Gauze or cloth or sheets shoved between my legs.
“Ummmmmmm,” I moaned again, writhing into myself.
“Can’t you fucking give her something?” A man’s voice, the first one, hovering closer, speaking with something close to panic. “She can’t die, Anton. Carson will fucking flip out.”
“She won’t die.” The voice was heavily accented, sharp and clipped with fear. He had gotten more than he asked for. He was scared, even if he liked pain the other times.
“She better not,” said the other man, a man I knew. Hermes. A name, hanging by the wings of a Greek god, floated through my erratic brain. “Give her something,” he said again. “Calm her down, Anton. All that thrashing around can’t be good for her.”
“Go,” said the Russian, angry now. “Let me do my job.”
“Fuck. Fuck. She better be alive when I get back with the medic, Anton. Otherwise you’ll be responsible, not me.”
“Shhhhh.” I didn’t know who said it, but a prick in my elbow made the world fade away again, though the pain still remained, like a shadow I couldn’t escape.
2009
“Shhhh.”
Eric stroked the top of my head while outside, another new snowfall filtered through the streetlights. Boston was quiet, insulated by a mantle of white.
My glasses sat on the table, having been removed at some point—by me? By Eric—during one of our bouts of passion. Outside our cocoon of sex and warmth, the world was blurry. But here, in this bed, it was crystal clear. Eric and I gazed at each other with openness. Hope.
And for the first time, I examined him without looking away.
“That was…” He shook his head. “You know what? I don’t want to describe it. It will just sound trite.”
“God forbid we sound trite,” I joked, though I understood what he meant. Some things, you can’t comment on. Some things just need to stand on their own.
Though in all honesty, this was the first of those things I had ever encountered in my twenty-two years. It was a little overwhelming.
“Tell me about your life,” I said instead. “Your family. You’re from the Upper East Side, right?”
Eric didn’t answer. Instead he toyed with a strand of my hair, winding it around his finger, dropping it in a tight curl before it relaxed into its natural wave. I didn’t even want to think about what I looked like at the moment, after rolling around the sheets for the last who knew how many hours. It was probably close to three or four a.m., and the effects of drinking, snow, and sex had likely not been kind. My thigh was probably bright pink, and the spot where his palm had met skin again and again still smarted in the best possible way.
“Your hair is so…alive,” he said as he examined the bright purple, twirling it again around his fingers again.
“That’s one word for it,” I said. “I probably look like a hungover hair band groupie right now.”
Eric just rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about the color. More the texture. It has its own personality.” He stopped his movements. “Would you give me a lock?”
I leaned back. “Who are you, the Duke of Cumberland? You want a lock of hair to ride into battle?”
But Eric didn’t bat an eye. “Come on, I want one. Like a talisman.” He combed through another piece. “I wouldn’t mind carrying a reminder of your bravery with me wherever I go.”
I was quiet for a moment. I had been doing things to my hair since I was old enough to sneak boxes of drugstore dye past my mother. She had been freaking about my hair my entire life, even when I was a small child and she would spend hours combing through the wavy tangles. It was so unlike her own beautifully straight black hair. Just like your father’s, she would say irritably, over and over again.
Even then, I was difficult.
The comment never made sense, though. Dad’s hair was a thin, scraggly auburn. Nothing like my thick, naturally brown-black waves.
Brave, though. Did dyeing my hair make me brave?
Crazy.
Try-hard.
Attention-seeker.
Teachers, friends, students, etc. Everyone had something to say about my penchant for out-of-the-box fashion and style.
Brave. That was a first.
“Tell me,” I changed the subject. “Your family. Do you…do you get along with your folks? Your dad, maybe?”
“Well, that would be hard, since he’s dead.” Eric focused hard on the hair between his fingers, even pulling it a little so it pinched.
“Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry for that. What…what happened?”
He stilled. “It was a long time ago. I was around ten, eleven. But I think…that’s best saved for a night where we consume at least a bottle of wine each. And maybe not a story to start at almost four in the morning.”
I shrugged, as if his brush-off didn’t sting a bit. “Fair enough. I don’t need to know your secrets to bone you.”
“I think I’m the one who does the boning, pretty girl.”
But despite the playful words, his face remained solemn. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more behind Eric’s melancholia besides the death of his father. Granted, that was no small loss, but I had known other people who lost a parent or close person as kids. Children were resilient. They never really recovered, but they bounced back better than people gave them credit for. Eric’s stolid face masked something deeper, a mark of tragedy that, for whatever reason, felt more recent.
But what did I know? I couldn’t force him to bare his soul. Not when I was nowhere close to giving him mine.
The thought was terrifying. But suddenly, I wanted to do anything I could to wipe that sadness off his face.
“Here,” I said, tossing back the covers.
“I get a show, huh?” Eric watched with open admiration as I padded naked to my desk, which was covered with scattered sewing supplies.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get too excited, Petri dish.”
“I really fucking hate that name, you know.”
“Which is exactly why I’ll continue to use it.”
I grabbed a pair of scissors and walked back to sit down in front of him. From under my mane, I pulled out a lock of purple hair and measured out a solid few inches, enough to curl on its own.
“Here,” I said offering the scissors to him. “When you need a bit of bravery. Or maybe bravado is a better word.”
“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
Eric took the scissors and snipped the lock just below my fingers. He cradled his gift in his palm, rocking it slightly back and forth before he accepted the tiny rubber band I procured from my nightstand.
“Thanks, gorgeous,” he said as I wrapped the elastic around one end of the lock. He took it, then reached down to the floor to grab his wallet from his jeans. He tucked the lock between a few bills. “For safe-keeping. Now I can take your bravado with me everywhere.”
A part of me shouted that this couldn’t be real. That this was a bubble, and at some point, it was obviously going to pop. A lock of hair in his wallet? I shouldn’t fall for this, right?
But instead, I toppled right back into his arms when
he returned to the nest we had made.
“You’d better treasure that,” I said as he wound the rest of my hair around his fist and trapped me under his solid, wiry form. “I just maimed my perfect coif for you. I hope you appreciate thesacrifice.”
“Ah, Jane,” Eric said before his lips closed over mine. “Haven’t you learned yet? I appreciate everything about you, pretty girl. Every single fucking thing.”
Present
“Pretty girl. Come on. Come on, gorgeous. Fucking hell, Jane, you have to wake up!”
A new voice sounded. A different voice, one that wasn’t angry or condescending or disgusted.
It pleaded with me. But this was a voice that never, ever begged. Not with me.
I was dead.
She was dead.
Maybe this voice was dead too.
I hoped he was alive, but I wasn’t sure that what I wanted mattered anymore.
“Jane! Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ.”
I had failed us both. They were calling for me, voices through the dreams, through the memories, through days and years I couldn’t tell apart anymore.
“What the fuck did you do to her?”
“I did not do anything. I saved her life!”
“Eric, man, he’s just a medic. Ten to one, he’s a captive just like they are.”
“Yeah, but why in the fuck would they need a medic?”
The bed sank, a weight beside my body. They were back, a voice realized deep within me. Back with broth. Back with noodles. Back with fuzzying substances and impersonal, bruising hands that forced my legs apart and penetrated those deep spaces.
But the hands that framed my face were gentle, not prodding. The breath against my cheek was warm and smelled of mint, not cigarettes. A whiff of cologne. Light. Linen.
Eric’s face was a golden light, a floating, concerned mask as bright as the sun.
“Jane,” he whispered, his voice shaking with pain and emotion. His hair flopped forward. “What happened? Oh, God, can you even hear me?”
“She is going to be okay,” said the accented man.
I made a face. I knew that voice. It was the one that belonged to some of the impersonal, prodding hands. The one who whispered hushed Korean prayers as it did something down there while the others fled. Had he done this? Had the others, the ones who put something else there too?
Eric’s face, though, still consumed my vision, growing clearer with every second.
Too clear.
Too much.
“You’re not real,” I murmured, amazed at how very soft the hair under my fingers felt.
Gentle hands stroked my face.
“Shhhh, gorgeous, I’m here,” said the vision. “Don’t say anything. I’m here. And it’s going to be all right.”
“I don’t care if you’re not real,” I mumbled as I lifted my face toward his light. “I’m just glad you’re here at all.”
14
2009
“Do you have anything to eat?” Eric asked as he opened the fridge. “I’m starving. You kind of sapped my energy, you know.”
I lolled over the countertop, purposefully pushing together what little cleavage I had. Okay, it wasn’t much. I was a B-cup on a good day. But Eric ogled cooperatively.
This wasn’t hard, the ooey gooey stuff. The “pleasing my man” thing. Twenty-four hours after I had watched this boy literally take a lock of my hair like a knight accepting his lady’s favor, I was all in. Head over heels. Stick fifteen forks in me. So done I was practically charred through.
After spending the last twenty-four hours doing nothing but alternately fucking like monsters and cooing like doves, we were both, apparently, finished with the pretense of push and pull. By some strange magic, the boy was more beautiful now, and that was really saying something. And he, apparently, thought the same of me, since whenever I caught him looking at me, he positively glowed.
I still couldn’t believe I’d actually given him that lock of hair. Who was I, Lady Guinevere?
“I need actual sustenance,” Eric said as he leaned over and nipped the curve of one breast. “I’d live on this if I could, but it’s just not possible, gorgeous.”
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. Eric preened at my open adoration of him as he turned back to the fridge. Good God, how had I gotten this lucky? The way the man filled out a pair of boxer shorts should be illegal. Meanwhile, I was also fucking alight, like one of the lanterns that kept Harvard Square twinkling even in the dead of winter.
Outside the window, the snow cloaking Cambridge shimmered with said lights.
Was this what it felt like to be in love? Okay, maybe it was a little early for that word, but I honestly wasn’t sure I could call it anything else. I’d never said it to anyone, never felt anything like it. I felt free even though another part of me was completely at this boy’s mercy. Eric could snap his fingers, and I’d bend right over this counter if he asked me. And at the same time, I felt like I could jump right off that fire escape and soar.
On your knees, he’d said more than once last night.
I hadn’t knelt. I’d practically jumped to the floor.
Come here, he’d ordered from the head of the bed.
I’d fucking flown.
A lock of hair. I had given him a lock of fucking hair.
I helped Eric mouse through what little Skylar and I had, shoving him aside and sticking out my ass, earning a swift swat across the cheek. I looked over my shoulder to find him grinning.
“If you wanted more, you could just ask,” he said, rubbing his palms together.
I wriggled my hips at him. “Aren’t you a little presumptuous? Maybe I want you to leave now that I’ve had my fill of you.”
Another sharp smack. This time I jumped. Eric laughed and pulled me back against his chest.
“If that’s true,” he said as he cupped my breast through my thin shirt, “then I’ve got a lot more work to do.”
I sank into his warm touch, allowing him to encircle me with his solid form.
“I do, however, need something to eat. Besides you. Do you actually have anything other than ketchup and fermented cabbage?” He toyed briefly with my nipple, then kissed my earlobe before releasing me. “Or do I need to venture out to get us some appropriate sustenance?”
I opened the fridge again and pulled out the only box that wasn’t a condiment. “All we have is some…I don’t know…I think there is something in here. Skylar’s, but she forfeits rights to her takeout.”
I handed Eric the container, which he opened. His stomach growled, and mine answered. Sex burned a lot of calories—especially the kind that he and I had.
“I think it’s Greek,” I said as I bent back to the fridge to pull out some of the kimchi he mentioned and a carton of eggs. “I can make us some noodles too. I have a lifetime supply in the cupboard.”
When I stood back up, however, Eric was still staring into the box like it contained the mysteries of life.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Is it moldy?”
I peeked in. It was not. I frowned. Eric still hadn’t moved.
“It’s spanakopita, Petri dish, not a pensieve. What’s wrong with you?”
When the nickname still didn’t provoke an answer, I was officially worried.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Eric blinked and swallowed. His eyes refocused on me. “What?”
“Got something against Greek food? It’s okay, it wasn’t that good anyway. You should come to Chicago during spring break, after the winter storms are over. I’ll take you to Greektown, and we’ll get some spanakopita that’s not a mushy mess. I know this one place, it will knock your socks off…”
I was babbling nervously. Something had happened, and I really wanted to know what. Was he regretting the last twenty-four hours? The tickets, the lock of hair, the mind-bending sex? It was overwhelming, but surely he didn’t regret anything?
Did he?
He looked up. “We’ll get what?”
I
swallowed. “Um, Greek food. You know, since you’re not happy with Skylar’s takeout, plus you’ve got that classics fetish?” I was trying to sound laid-back, but to be honest, his lack of response was starting to freak me out.
Eric frowned. “How did you know that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Eric, you have like twenty books of Greek and Roman poetry on your bookshelf. You didn’t think I missed that, did you? I am reasonably observant.”
Again, he didn’t respond, but that empty mask was hiding some serious gear-turning.
“Eric?” I ventured once more. I reached out to touch his hand. “What the hell is wrong?”
Suddenly, he was all movement, looking from side to side, tossing the box on the counter like it was a hot pan and darting around me toward the bedrooms.
“I…I need to go,” he said in a hurry. “I need to get out of here.”
I followed him back to the bedroom, where he was digging through the clothes on the floor.
“I’m going to get some real breakfast,” he said curtly as he yanked on his shirt. “We’ll—um, we’ll talk later, okay?”
“What? What happened to eating me for breakfast?” I was trying to be playful, but failed miserably. When your voice cracks like the San Andreas Fault, it’s sort of a giveaway.
But the time for flirtation was over anyway. Eric was too busy pulling on his pants, then shoving his feet into his shoes without even bothering to look for socks. Almost out of solidarity, I pulled on my neon-green bathrobe, wanting to cover myself up too. The room felt unaccountably cold.
“Eric?” I tried once more. “Eric, what’s wrong?”
He pulled on his jacket and tossed a scarf around his arm before stopping, finding me staring at him.
“Eric, I’m kind of freaking out here,” I said, pulling on a bunch of loose purple hair. Shit. In this bathrobe I probably looked like a Fraggle. Honestly, it was the first time I’d ever worried about how I looked the morning after. “I—what happened?” I tried yet again. “What did I do?”
He looked me over with an expression I couldn’t read. It was almost like he had just realized I was there. Was that regret? Sorrow? Fear? I didn’t know him well enough to interpret.
The Love Trap (Quicksilver Book 3) Page 13