Ivory opened the bathroom door. “It’s not much,” she said, flipping on the bathroom light. “Shampoo, conditioner, soap—all that stuff is in a shower caddy. Holler if you need anything.”
She shut the door, and I jumped at the volume of the click. I set the towels on top of the bag of clothing she’d left on the toilet seat lid. A pale yellow decorative towel hung over a bar on the wall, lace trim fluttering around the hem, and the flames of lit candles on the vanity flickered in the vanilla-scented draft.
The bathroom light created a sudden pulsing pain in the front of my head. Once in the shower, hot water pelted against my skin, and the body wash surrounded me with the scent of wisteria petals, fresh melon, and cherry blossoms, layered over base notes of coconut and vanilla.
My senses were in overdrive, and the silence in my mind felt unnatural, almost uncomfortable. A pulsing but painless throb. It wasn’t truly peace. The noise had merely been locked away in a soundproof room where it pounded its fists on the walls, trying to burst out again.
Had Adrian’s blood silenced the noise? Could his blood also cause me to see flashes of his memories?
How was I supposed to make sense of the last twenty-four hours? That Ivory had kept this from me for so long created a distance between us, yet knowing the same secret also brought us closer together. Who was I to judge? I had secrets, too.
After I rinsed the shampoo from my hair, I stepped out, wrapped myself in a towel, and turned the faucet off. Just then, another image flashed into my mind. This one was faster. A mausoleum in a cemetery. Adrian’s hand lifting to wipe a tear, his gold ring swiping against his eyelashes. The images vanished.
Shaking, I huffed and fumbled for my clothes. My hips ached as I pulled on my khaki skirt, and I looked down to examine the cause. Four tiny bruises stacked above each hip.
Oh.
A soft gasp escaped my lips as realization set in: the tiny, barely-there bruises must have been from the dig of Charles’ fingers as we danced. Had his grip been that strong? How hadn’t I noticed?
Thinking of his hands there again sent a shiver blazing down my spine, and I had to force myself to push away the betraying sensation.
I pulled on the sky-blue cashmere sweater Lauren had given me last Christmas and tugged on my chocolate Eskimo boots. Maybe I could get some answers from Ivory without being too direct.
Back in her room, Ivory was folding down the top of her comforter, which looked like burnt wood against her bone-white sheets. The room smelled of clean linen and the soap I’d used, but strangely, the room carried another scent. One I recognized to be Ivory, though I’d never noticed the scent before. Kind of like watermelon candy and something heavier. Loneliness? Could a person smell lonely?
My head was probably playing tricks on me due to knowledge of her past. She’d never told me the details, but one night in my college dorm room, she shared with me that her lover had been murdered. I saw her in a new light after that. A light I couldn’t share with Lauren, even though it might help her understand why Ivory was a little rough around the edges.
I flopped onto Ivory’s bed and stared at the henna design on the ceiling. “Where’d you find that body wash?”
She leaned against the bed. “The dollar store.” She laughed. “It’s nothing special. The Cruor blood is assaulting your senses. Usually that side-effect fades within a few hours.”
“You’ve drank it before?”
“Once or twice.” She patted the comforter. “Come sit. I’ll brush your hair.”
I sat up and hugged one of her throw pillows to my stomach, and she sat close behind with her legs tucked under her.
I clicked my tongue, quickly replaying Charles’ parting exchange with her. “What were you going to tell me…you know, when you told Charles you’d tell me everything?”
She grabbed a hairbrush from the side table drawer. “You’ll need to know a few things,” she said. “About fighting the Cruor.”
“I don’t plan on running into them again.”
“Did you plan on running into them the first time?” She pulled the brush’s soft bristles through my hair and then leaned over one of my shoulders. “Staking, decapitation, and burning. That should cover it. Pretty self-explanatory.”
“Forgive me if I don’t share your enthusiasm. I’m still trying to come to terms with how this is real, yet people don’t know.”
Ivory parted my hair with her fingernail and brushed the ends on one side, flattening my curls. “You remember Mr. Petrenko?”
My heart stuttered at hearing his name spoken aloud. Spoken outside my own thoughts. “Mr.—Mr. Petrenko?”