Filed to story: Kissed by Claw and Fang
“I swear to God, if you’re messing with me, Mekhi… If this is all just some great, big practical joke you guys cooked up, I’m going to murder you all. Like, disembowel you while you’re still alive and feed your entrails to whatever poor, starving polar bear I can find. We’re clear about that, right?”
“Crystal.” His phone vibrates with several return texts, and his face gets even more grim as he reads them. “It definitely wasn’t Zane.”
The shiver along my spine turns into a violent chill, one that makes it hard for me to think. Hard for me to breathe. “How do you know he’s not just saying that?”
“Because Zane doesn’t lie to me. And because he is currently freaking the fuck out.” His phone buzzes again, and he reads the newest messages before continuing. “He wants you to sit tight. He’s on his way back. He’ll be here in a few hours.”
“On his way back?” My head is actually threatening to blow up. Like, it seriously might just explode right here, right now, and then it won’t matter who made these marks on me or why. “Where exactly did he go?”
“The mountains.”
“The mountains? You mean
Denali?”
Mekhi doesn’t look at me when he answers. “Farther than that.”
“Farther than… How much farther are we talking about here?”
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t you tell me not to worry about it.” I poke him in the shoulder. “I’m the one with fang marks in my neck from some asshole’s practical joke, and Zane is the last one who saw me besides the medical professional. So I’m going to worry until he gets back here and explains this to me. Okay?”
“Okay, okay!” He pretends to rub the spot I poked. “Jeez, woman. You definitely know how to make your point.”
“Yeah, well, you might want to pass that along to your mountain-traversing friend. And by the way, why aren’t you freaking out that I have fang marks in my neck?”
“I am freaking out! Zane’s freaking out. We’re all freaking out.”
“Yeah, but you’re freaking out because you don’t know who bit me. You’re not freaking out because-oh, I don’t know- someone bit me
!”
“Oh yeah.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, looks anywhere but at me. “I think I’m going to leave that for Zane to explain.”
“Because he’s just so talkative.”
I’m completely fed up with both of them at this point, not to mention the entire situation, so screw it. Just screw it. I push off the chair and head for the door.
Except Mekhi gets there before me-the boy sure can move fast when he wants to-and blocks my path. “Hey. Where are you going?”
“Back to my room to get my stuff. I have class.” And a cousin who I am totally prepared to torture the truth out of if I have to. I move to go around him, but he shifts to block my path.
“I told you Zane wants you to stay put. Just…I don’t know, grab a book and a blanket and curl up by the fire.” He gestures to the empty fireplace.
“There’s no fire.”
“I’ll build one. It’ll take me five minutes, I promise.”
“Mekhi.” I speak slowly and in the most reasonable tone I can manage, but I can see that just makes him warier. Smart boy.
“Yes, Ivy?”
“If Zane wants me to stay put, maybe he should have done the same. As it is, he’s on some mountain God only knows where doing God only knows what, and I’m here with inexplicable fang marks in my neck that happened when I was unconscious.” The terror is back, so I focus on the anger. It’s so much easier to deal with. “I assume you can see why I don’t actually give a damn what Zane wants right now.”
“Um, yeah. I absolutely can see that.” He gives me the grin that I’m sure normally gets him everything he wants in life and more, but I refuse to cave. Not now and not over this. “How about we compromise? You go back to your room and chill until Zane gets here. That way you’ll be safe, and then you two can figure this out together.”
“You really think I need to hide from some moron with a staple remover or a pet snake?”
“A staple remover didn’t make those marks, Ivy. And neither did a snake. I think you know that, or you wouldn’t have been up here pounding on Zane’s door at six in the morning.”
His acknowledgment of the elephant in the room-or should I say the monster-has a kind of calmness washing over me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Maybe it’s the medicine, maybe I’m going into shock, or maybe I’m just relieved to have someone finally being real with me.
Whatever it is, I take a deep breath and hold on to it with both hands as my very first conversation with Zane plays through my head.
There are more things in heaven and hell, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. And then I ask him-because I have to hear it out loud: “So what did make these marks?”
For long seconds, he doesn’t answer. And then, just when I’ve given up on him speaking at all, he says, “The truth is, Ivy, sometimes the most obvious answer really is the right one.”
There’s Never a
Hallucinogen Around
When You Need One
Mekhi and I don’t have a lot to say after that charming revelation-except for him insisting on escorting me back to my room. I mean, there really isn’t much to say, considering I can’t decide if I should trust him or not. I don’t know this guy. I mean, yeah, Zane trusts him, but Zane is currently MIA, so that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.
The fact that Zane’s been blowing up my phone with text messages for the last fifteen minutes doesn’t matter much to me, either. I texted him earlier, and the only response I got was him sending Mekhi. So now he can ask Mekhi what he wants to know about me, because I am not answering.
Childish? Maybe. Prudent? Absolutely. Because in the mood I’m in, I’m afraid I’m going to say something I’ll regret. Better to calm down and talk to him in person when he gets back. And also, if he tries to lie to me right now, I’ll burn whatever is growing between us straight to the freaking ground.
Mekhi tries to start conversations several times on the way back to my room, but I’m too shell-shocked to participate much. It’s not that I’m ignoring him; it’s just that my head is spinning. This has to be a nightmare. It’s the only reasonable explanation.
