“I don’t doubt that. Nobody in this world is like you. It frightens me. I’ve lost someone before, and it hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt. I suddenly went from bringing a woman flowers to laying them on her grave. I thought I would never be that close to anyone again… and here you are. Incredible, independent, and so goddamn soft-hearted. You’re an experiment in contradictions and every time you show me something new, it becomes clearer and clearer that there will never be another person in the world like you. I’m terrified, because you’re something I crave now. I need to know more about you, I need to see you home safe every day. I need to see you shuffling for coffee every morning. Just to see you. Just to know that you’re still there. That you haven’t disappeared on me yet…”
He paused, and I could feel the breath that trembled through his lungs, spilling warm air onto my exposed neck. I remembered Noah and Cabe telling me about the girl that Quillan had dated, the one that Weston had apparently paid to keep Quillan occupied so that he wouldn’t go searching for his Atmá. I hadn’t thought about the ramifications of that woman dying, but obviously Quillan had been unaware of the deal between her and Weston at the time of her death; it was only something that he had learned later. Her death must have crushed him. It must have made him feel as though he wasn’t allowed to love: he had known all along that his Atmá was an impossible option thanks to Weston, but even a normal partner had been denied him.
“You won’t lose me,” I promised him. “And I know that I mean something… different… to you, but however you chose to have me in your life, I’m not going anywhere. You won’t be visiting my grave ever. I refuse to die.”
He chuckled, stepping forwards until the backs of my thighs hit the edge of the desk, and then he lowered me slightly so that I could sit there. His leg brushed against my knee, and I instinctively parted my legs so that I could continue to hug him. He stepped between my legs and passed his hands down my spine, making an annoyed sort of sound at all the cloth that bunched into his grip.
“This stuff doesn’t fit you, you need your own clothes. You can’t defy death wearing Cabe’s hand-me-downs.”
“Sure I can. Immortality doesn’t discriminate based on looks.”
He laughed again and the door swung open, admitting Noah and Cabe. They both seemed surprised at my position on the desk, but didn’t comment on it. Quillan pulled away, passing a hand over the back of his neck as he moved to sit beside me on the desk instead.
“So,” he said, his tone back to normal. “What do we do now?”
I sat in the back of the limousine with Quillan and Cabe on either side of me and Noah directly across from me, looking uncomfortably sandwiched between the two silent giants. Hans cleared his throat as the limousine pulled away from the campus and I folded my arms stubbornly at the look he was giving me.
“What?” I asked. “You didn’t have to come with us. You could have waited until I was done.”
Hans frowned and looked back to the window, but then Andrei cleared his throat. I sighed, rolling my eyes at the man. They were clearly upset because I hadn’t bothered to tell them about the plan.
“We’re headed to the hospital,” I said, looking from one to the other to catch the way they shifted about, pretending they hadn’t been demanding answers with their passive-aggressive throat clearing since they had gotten into the car.
“Why isn’t Seph sitting here?” Noah suddenly spoke up, apparently made even more uncomfortable with the recent shifting around. “She’s the little one.”
“She wanted to sit with us,” Cabe replied.
Noah grumbled something and then shot out of his seat, plucking me from mine and taking my place. He tugged on the back of my shirt and I landed in his lap sideways, my hand catching onto Quillan’s arm to steady myself.
“She can’t sit in the middle like that.” Cabe pulled the back of my shirt out of Noah’s grip and slid me from Noah’s lap to his, putting my back against the window. “She’ll fall or something.”
Noah shrugged, picking up my legs and laying them over his lap, looking out the window. “Problem solved.”
The silent giants pretended not to watch, and I knew that my reputation with the Adairs and Quillans had filtered down through the ears of the Klovoda agents. I considered standing up and taking Noah’s vacated seat, but Cabe’s arm had slipped around my middle, his hand gently splaying along my side, and I was suddenly too comfortable to move. It was odd to be in his embrace without the scratching feeling making me wary of our contact, but I was curious enough to not want the space I had been so desperate for the year before. It made me wonder, once again, whether Cabe and Noah had managed to get all of their memories back or not, but I couldn’t ask in front of the silent giants. Cabe rested his other hand on my thigh, his palm facing up, and he ducked his head briefly, burying his nose in my hair.
“You used my shampoo?” He sounded shocked. “When?”
Quillan looked over at us, his expression unreadable, and I realised that my sneakers were resting in his lap, spilling dirt onto his pants. I tried to move them off, but he draped his forearm casually over my shins and turned toward the front of the limousine, dismissing us.
“There was some in your old bathroom,” I told Cabe.
“At Le Chateau?”
I nodded, and Cabe made a humming sound in the back of his throat. “You stayed in my room?”
I nodded again, and Noah suddenly released a deep, rumbling laugh. Even Quillan’s lips were quirked into a smile.