He tried to be gentle. Still it felt like someone was twisting scalpels in my neck. I grew light-headed as the blood that should have been pumping into my brain was now draining into Adrian. As he grew stronger, he reached up and held my face with his hand and I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. Just breathing. Everything else was starting to fade away.
I don’t know how long it went on for. I only knew the pain was constant and sharp; the only clearness in the fog of existing. I had no real concept of time, but eventually, blessedly, it stopped. He pressed his trembling lips to my skin in a kiss.
“You promised me,” I murmured, on the thin edge of consciousness.
“I know,” he whispered. “Open your eyes.”
I did. He met mine and murmured something in that funny language of his—and I could feel the teethmarks in my neck closing back up. I should really ask him about that language sometime. Probably not now, though.
I fell back against the snow, drained. In my mind I laughed because I’d never used that word literally before. I felt Adrian crawl slowly over me. He touched my cheek, my eyes, my lips. He whispered my name brokenly against my heart.
And then I didn’t feel anything.
*
I used to chew on pennies when I was teething, or so my mom always told me. She’d have to hide all of them on the top shelf so I couldn’t find them. I remember they tasted like copper.
I woke up in the clearing and the world was copper. The trees, the grass, the clouds, my tongue—all copper. I would never be able to get that smell, that taste, out of my head.
I realized something heavy was covering me from head to foot.
Ah, yes.
That would be Adrian.
I muttered and shifted. He woke up, blinking sleepily. Our eyes met and we stared at each other for a long time. And then I reached up, stiff from the cold and dried blood, and put my arms around his neck and hugged him because I still didn’t believe he was alive—I wanted to, but wasn’t I crazy? Crazy people thought their dead, fake ex-boyfriends were alive. I didn’t know anymore. His arms felt warm around me—real. As long as they held on, I didn’t care if I was crazy. That was fine.
“Adrian?” I whispered against his cheek.
He buried his face in my hair. “I’m here.”
“Okay.”
I drifted off again.
“Caitlin,” he murmured into my hair a while later.
“Hmm?”
“We need to go back.”
“There’s no going back,” I mumbled.
“We need to go back,” he repeated. “We have to get to my house. I need to call Mariana and Dominic and Julian. We need to get warm.”
Warm sounded good.
Half letting go of me, we stumbled to our knees, and then, after many shaky attempts, we made it to our feet. I was so dizzy. The clearing smelled of copper. Adrian smelled like copper.
We took a step, and then another. Holding on to each other for balance, we staggered across the meadow and into the trees, the bright starlight dusting the path enough for us to see our feet on the white ground. We walked for so long. Everything in me begged me to stop, to fall into the snow and sleep, but I ignored me, and thought about clean clothes, a hot bath, hot chocolate, a fire, food, protein, food, a blanket, sleeping in a bed, sleeping anywhere.
The house came into view. The utility van was gone.
“Adrian,” I said, pulling him to a stop. “I … smelled him. It was like—like charred meat. What did you do?”
He paused before saying, “I honestly don’t know. Whatever it was, I’ve never done that before. I didn’t even know I could.”
We went inside the open front door cautiously, listening. The house was silent, a few lights burning on into the darkness.
“Grab some clothes, whatever you need for a few days,” he said as we headed up the stairs, checking every door as we went. There was no one there. As I packed, he went back downstairs and started raiding our fridge. I moved sluggishly, limply placing sweatpants and shirts and socks into a duffel bag, paying little attention to what I grabbed or if it matched. I headed downstairs again. Adrian looked better, more awake—more alive.
“You ready?”
I nodded.
“Lock the door, and we’ll come back tomorrow.”
We headed outside and I locked the door. My phone beeped anxiously in my bag. I fumbled onto the motorcycle and unlocked the screen. I had a text message from Rachel asking how I was doing over at Trish’s. I texted her back: sry was watching movie marathon. im good, going to bed now.