“I’m all done here.” He tugs my sweatshirt down. “The bandages should hold until morning. I’ll leave this stuff with you. Maia can handle it next time.”
I turn. He’s already on his way out. “Gideon, wait. I really messed things up, didn’t I?”
He stops at the steps that descend to the door. “No. We’re on this. We’re going to get him back tomorrow.”
“I mean between us.”
He freezes on the small landing at the bottom, hand on the door, his back to me like the photo I have of him at Marcus’s graduation. His head falls to the side like he’s relaxing, but I know he’s not. “What are you doing, Daryn?”
I step down to him. He turns and his blue eyes find me. They’re guarded, and suspicious.
I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m taking my foot off the brake. Just this once. Just to feel what I’ve imagined all these months. I lift onto my toes and bring my mouth to his.
I thought he’d hesitate or draw away, but he doesn’t. He wraps his arms around me and we collide, connect, combine. His lips are surprisingly soft, his tongue softer, but the energy between us is hard, desperate. Every cell in my body charges with his strength, his energy, his clean alpine smell. His uneven breaths dance with mine, our hunger for each other raw and equal.
He pushes or I pull, and my back thumps into the wall.
“Your back.”
“It’s fine.”
He bends to kiss me again and I steal glances, so I don’t forget. I see slivers of sky through his long golden lashes. His wet lips, his eyebrows furrowed with intensity. It’s all the friction and disharmony between us, reversed and multiplied and perfect.
“Daryn,” he says hoarsely. “My hand.”
“It’s okay.”
“But it’s—”
“Fine, Gideon.”
His hands slip under my sweatshirt and run up my sides, cool and hard on one side, warm and soft on the other. I want to tell him how he makes me feel but it seems impossible to describe. I pull his shirt up and he understands. Reaches over his back and it comes off and he stands, hair ruffled, eyes heavy. He moves toward me again, but I’m not done looking at him yet.
He’s beautiful. It’s possible that he was made for me. Strong and lean. Every line of him fascinating.
Tattoos. He has tattoos now. A cross on his right forearm. And script on the inside of his biceps, ornate and only three letters.
Bas
I look away before responsibility crashes back in. There’s a black brace on his left arm. It wraps around his elbow and biceps, extending over his forearm and becoming the sculpted metal that’s his prosthetic.
A sick feeling blooms in my stomach. Dread for all the things I’m trying to ignore. All the things we haven’t said yet.
Gideon has gone stone still.
I look up.
The expression on his face is definitely, definitely not what I want to see.
His anger I can take. Not this.
“I was wondering how long it would take for you to regret this,” he says. “Took a little longer than last time.” He grabs his shirt off the step and leaps up to the hallway, disappearing into the bathroom. He leaves the door ajar and I hear the faucet run.
This regret, this mortification, whatever this is, makes my heart feel sick.
A knock sounds on the RV’s door and I start in surprise.
“Don’t answer it yet,” Gideon says, shutting off the tap. “Give me a second.”
Moments later, he appears at the top step, shirt on.
He looks hurt, and he should. We drew a line in the sand and I stomped all over it.
“Gideon, it’s not that I don’t want…” I don’t know what to say. Apologizing feels wrong. Everything feels wrong.
“I know.” He comes down and stops in front of me. This close, I feel his anger. It’s a dull feeling, not sharp and pointed.
My ears burn and I notice a drop of water on his neck. Water is the essence of life. He is essential. He makes time stop, makes my mind rhapsodize.
I want us to disappear into each other like waves into sand.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what ‘darken, surround me’ means from your poem,” he says. “The one called ‘Blue.’ Because I’d do it, Daryn. Whatever it is that means to you, I’d do it if I knew it was what you wanted. But you need to be sure first. Otherwise we’ll just keep hurting each other.” He pushes the door open, steps around Maia, and strides off into the night.
*
My list is what saves me. I add to “Reasons” until sleep slams the door on my mind.
8. Carnivore’s Delight pizza, really good even cold
9. New friends, maybe? It’s been so long
10. Butterfly bandages, gauze, antiseptic—sometimes healing is easy
11. White begonias
12. Puppies named Chief (what do you look like, little Chief?)
13. Shadow’s bravery today
14. Kissing Gideon! Amazing. All-encompassing. Lips should not possess such limitless power. And the way he looked at me—ardently (!!!)
15. The Terrible End to #14—tragic, save for the discovery that a) he read my poem and remembered it, and b) he might actually understand me
16. Tomorrow, because we’ll find Bas and this will all be over
CHAPTER 12
GIDEON
“What’s keeping them so long?” Jode tugs at his hair. “Have I gone completely gray yet? Do I look like Gandalf the Grey?”
Lucent shakes his massive white head, as impatient as his rider. He’s ready to go, too.
“Yes,” I say. “You’re exactly like Gandalf, except a pop-star version. Lord of the Sing.”
“This isn’t good, man,” Marcus says.
“Yeah, it was a reach.” Bas would have liked it, though.
I reach down and check the saddlebag for Bas’s weapon—the scales. Like Shadow, they didn’t go through with him into the Rift. Cordero has kept them safe until now. Soon I’ll be handing them back to him.
Marcus tips his chin, indicating the rest of the team. “How’s this gonna work?”
We’ve been sitting in our saddles for an hour on the edge of camp under a bright morning sun, waiting for them. The problem is their horses.
Cordero, Ben, Maia, Low, and Suarez will be riding into the Rift on the five Arabians that were trailered here late last night. So far, integrating them with our horses isn’t going well. Riot appears to be the main issue. The Arabians can’t seem to make sense of a totally chilled-out, happily burning horse. We have ten people trying to figure out how to settle five horses, and everyone seems to have a different method.
Marcus’s comment was only meant for us but Cordero hears it.
“Once we’re inside we’ll split up and give them some distance to your mounts,” she says. “It’ll work.”