Page 22 of Death's Daughter
In that moment, I want to climb over the armrest between us and settle myself on Carter’s lap, let him wrap his arms around me until I feel safe, grounded again.
And I’m certain he would let me. In that moment.
After a second, though, he breaks the connection, turning to stare out the windshield.
I try not to dry-drown in the swell of disappointment.
On the way back to campus, the silence between us fills the car, with only the roar of the heater and the clicking sleet to interrupt.
But the quiet only allows my mind to wander without distraction. With the sound of the ice tapping overhead on the car’s roof, like impatient fingernails, I think about the roof at Branwick.
Had my fellow spawn talked Lennie through Branwick, up to the roof? That would explain why Lennie hadn’t knocked on our door.
Then he or she could have simply used magic to make her impact hit that much harder? Harder than normal physics would allow.
That still didn’t account for locked doors, though. None of the Old Ones or their children could pass through solid objects or manifest a material object out of nothing—as far as I knew anyway. It’s not how they—we—worked.
Of course, nothing would stop one of them from simply charming the keys off the residential director… or removing them from her corpse.
But maybe I’m making this too complicated. If it was a randomWar spawn, they would have just reached out and… pulled until Lennie’s insides spilled outside. Their connection isn’t just with violence but with bloodshed specifically.
Thatscenario plays in my head like a little movie, over and over again. I see the pain and surprise in Lennie’s tear-dampened eyes, the way she frantically grasps at her middle and the blood oozing between her fingers… and I can’t stop it.
I suck in a breath sharply, and Carter glances over at me.
He’s going to ask me if I’m okay.And I can’t have that, I’ll break.
“So, who is she?” I ask abruptly into the bubble of silence. Anything to change the subject.
“Who is who?” Carter asks with a frown, as he slows to turn onto Beecher Drive, the main thoroughfare through campus.
Turning to face him, I tap my jaw in the same place where his is marred.
His frown deepens. He flips down the visor for a quick look in the mirror. Irritation flickers across his expression when he sees the mark, but it vanishes immediately.
“No one,” he says, closing the visor.
“Really? Interesting.” I’m warmer now, and the emergency blanket is sticking to my legs. I adjust it, paying extra careful attention to the folds. “No oneseems to have the suction power of a Dyson fresh off the charging station.”
Carter exhales through his nose. “No one you know, okay, Jocasta? Is that better?”
No. Because at least if I know who it is, I can imagine her. While that hurts, it’s at least a known quantity. I can point out to myself all the ways they’re better for each other. And in my shitty person moments, pick apart their—her—perceived flaws. Maybe she hates the way he spouts random psychology factlets or shewants him to be sportier, in the backward baseball cap–wearing frat crowd.
But a nameless, faceless stranger?She, whoever she is, will always be perfect.
He sighs, as if reading my thoughts. “This is what I mean. You always make things more difficult. More painful. Why?”
“It’s a gift,” I say with a careless shrug, mouth twisting into a grin that I don’t feel.
“It’s a choice,” he corrects, with a severe look and just enough of that know-it-all-ness that makes me want to push back.
“You went from slipping your hand under my skirt in a study room last semester to ignoring me and then telling me you want to be friends?” I shake my head. “I’m not the only one making that choice.” I had, however, worn the skirt, hoping to tempt him. Hoping that he would slide his hand under the fabric, along the inside of my thigh.
“And the diathesis-stress model?” he asked in a calm, even tone, sitting next to me. To anyone walking by, it looked like he was helping me prep for my Abnormal Psych midterm, but all the while, under the table, his fingers stroked, teasing, against the front of my panties.
“It’s, uh…” I tried to get my brain to function. “The idea that there’s, um, a disorder is caused by both predisposition and…” My words cut off in a gasp as his fingers dipped inside the hollow of my leg and then underneath the fabric.
“You should know this,” he said, mildly scolding, even as his slightly calloused fingertips traced over my clit. “I’m not his TA, but I’m betting Bronson will have it on the exam.” And then he slipped the first two knuckles of his middle finger inside me.
