“. . . even the furniture?” he was saying in a raspy voice.
“Yeah, I even made the furniture. The first couple of tries at chairs back in my cabin were not so—” Nexi glanced over to the doorway and flushed. “Oh. Hey. Figured he’d need a, you know, clean. Ing, I mean. Cleaning.”
“She gave me her vein, too,” Ahlan added.
“For medicinal purposes.” The Shadow cleared her throat and put the washcloth she’d been using back in a stainless steel kitchen bowl she’d brought down with her. “Well, this is done. You’re good. I’m going to head upstairs—”
“Will you come back,” Ahlan said as he tried to sit up. “Or I can come upstairs—please.”
Nexi looked down at him. She seemed surprised at the way he stared at her, and Ahmare felt a very sisterly impulse to beg the Shadow not to break his heart.
Male vampires tended to fall hard when they did.
Except then a small, secret smile graced Nexi’s lips. For a split second. But it definitely was there. “Yeah. I’ll be back.”
When the Shadow turned to leave, her face was all composed, all hard-ass, all fighter well-trained and experienced. And Ahmare let her be with that armor.
She had seen what was behind it, however. And had a feeling that a divide had presented itself for the Shadow.
Left alone with her brother, Ahmare crossed over to the bed and sat down. His hands found hers, and they just stared at each other for the longest time.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into all this. I was so fucking stupid.”
“No more of the dealing, Ahlan. Or the drugs. From here on out, you have to be clean.”
“I promise.”
She hoped he could keep that vow. Only time would tell, but at least the commitment was on his part at the moment.
“I miss Mahmen and Dad,” he said. “Every night.”
“Me, too.”
As they both fell silent, she thought of things she wanted to forget. Like Rollie. And Chalen’s dungeon. The skeletons in that ceremonial arena and the Dhavos. And then, prior to all that, memories like packing up their parents’ personal possessions. Shutting down the house she’d grown up in. Walking away, though she hadn’t sold it yet.
Abruptly, she had no interest in ever going back to Caldwell.
“You came when I needed you,” Ahlan said. “You saved me.”
As he spoke, something inside her broke free—in a good way. And it was then that she realized she had always felt as though she had failed their mahmen and father. Somehow, in her mind, she had ascribed to herself and herself alone the ability to stop their murders. Save their lives. Restore their family to how it had been and should be.
It was craziness. But emotions were rarely logical.
But she had been able to save Ahlan—with help from Duran and Nexi. And as her brother was all she had left of her bloodline, there was peace to be had in that, peace that ushered in a whole lot of forgiveness for those things she had felt responsible for, even if she could not control them.
Ahmare stared into eyes that were the same color as her own. And thought more of the divides in people’s lives, the starts and finishes of stages, the eras that you weren’t aware of being in . . . until they were over.
“Do you want to leave Caldwell?” she asked.
“Yes,” her brother said, “I do.”
36
IT REALLY SHOULDN’T BE that tough.
As Duran faced off at the shower, he stared at the faucet handle like it held the key to the mysteries of the universe: H vs. C. His choice of one or the other seemed monumental. A predictor of things to come. A prognostication as to whether what was going to come next in his life would be good . . . or bad.
Reaching into the tiled alcove, he started the water and moved the handle to the “C” position—and was disappointed in himself as he pulled the curtain back into place. But there was no reason to think he’d tolerate warmth any better now than he’d handled it back at Nexi’s cabin. Had that been two nights ago? Or . . . only one?
Time had little meaning to him. Everything had been so momentous that measuring things in terms of twenty-four hour clips seemed like using a beach to count grains of sand.
Getting out of his filthy, dirty, sweat-and bloodstained clothes, he looked down at his body. There were bruises on his skin. Scrapes that were leaking. Cuts that were healing already.
Thanks to Ahmare’s vein.
There were a lot of other things that were thanks to her. He touched his neck, which was, for the first time in twenty years, free of a shock collar. She had even been the one to cut the thing off him, sawing through that which had been locked on his throat by Chalen.
Who most certainly was no longer on the planet.
Ahmare had freed him in so many ways. Yet he was worried there were things even she couldn’t let him out of.
He drew the shower curtain back again. As he pictured Ahmare’s face when she had broken out of that crawl space in the cell and thrown herself at him, he focused on the faucet’s “H.”