Page 25 of Deathless
"Yeah," I said. The word tore loose from somewhere deep and left a mark on its way out. "Okay. I'm in."
Diego smiled and leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine, a kiss that was gentle in a way that contradicted every mark we'd left on each other's bodies.
When he pulled back, he reached for my cigarettes on the floor. He lit one, took a drag, and passed it to me. We shared it in silence, the smoke curling between us in the flickering light.
"Get some sleep," I said after a while. "You need to be sharp tomorrow."
Diego's eyes were already heavy. "You'll sleep too?" he asked, though he knew the answer.
"Later," I lied.
He knew it was a lie, but he let it pass. Instead, he pressed his face into my neck, his breath evening out as sleep claimed him.
I stayed awake, the cigarette burning down between my fingers, the shadows dancing on the concrete walls. The katana lay on the floor beside me. The sword and I had an understanding: it asked for blood, and I gave it.
Diego shifted in his sleep, tightening his arm around my waist. The welts on my chest pulled with the movement, a sting that had no business being tender but was. I pressed my hand flat over the worst of the marks, the ones where he'd drawn blood, and held it there.
I’d given Diego my blood too when he asked. I’d give him a lot more.
I stubbed the cigarette out on the floor and settled in for my watch.
Jasper's elbow was inmy kidney, and I woke up with a cot spring trying to redesign my spine, which was fine because every second of last night was worth the structural damage.
He had me pinned, face buried in my neck, the whole length of him curved against me like he'd been doing it for years instead of one night on the world's worst cot. I gave myself thirty seconds. His chest rose and fell, deep and even, while I pretended the rest of the day wasn't waiting. In an hour I'd climb a mountain and bleed in front of everyone I'd ever known. Thirty seconds was a fair trade.
He tightened his grip when I tried to shift, still asleep but holding on anyway, and mierda I wanted to stay. But Danior was probably already awake doing pushups or meditating or whatever the hell Danior did to prepare for ritual combat. Staying in this cot wasn't an option, no matter how much my body disagreed with that assessment.
I lifted Jasper's arm off my chest and slid out. The cot springs protested. I wasn't careful. He turned into the pillow withoutwaking, pulled the blanket into the warm spot where I'd been, and I stood there for five seconds I definitely didn't have, staring at him like an idiot.
Then I grabbed my jeans off the floor and made myself walk down the hall to the bathroom. I turned the tap on and stepped under it. The cold slammed into my shoulders, and I worked my grandmother's rough yellow soap over my chest until the lemon smell cut through everything else. You went up the mountain clean; that was the rule. You started with your body washed and your face shaved and nothing on you that didn't belong there. The fight was supposed to be about who you were, not what you carried.
I scrubbed until my skin hurt and the water finally started running clear.
I stepped out and grabbed the razor from the sink. My mother gave me these steady hands, along with the grudges and the inability to quit anything, even when quitting was the smart move. The blade scraped over my jaw, and I rinsed it between passes, kept going until my face was smooth, and I looked at myself in the mirror without thinking about how Jasper's stubble had scraped against my neck.
My boots were by the door where I'd left them. I sat on the edge of the tub and laced them up, pulled each knot tight, tested the tension. The mountain wasn't going to care about my comfort, and neither was Danior, so the boots needed to understand what we were doing today and commit to it.
Then I went to find Jasper.
He was exactly where I knew he'd be, sitting on the front steps with a cigarette and his elbows on his knees, watching the valley wake up. He'd been awake for a while. The cigarette butts next to his boot told me that. He'd left the room when I did and hadn't said anything. That's what Jasper did. He gave you space and then he waited at the edge of it until you came back.
He moved over when the door opened, and I sat down next to him. He held out the cigarette without looking at me. I took it and drew deep, letting the smoke sit in my chest for a second before I handed it back. We didn't talk. The valley spread out below us in the early light, all red dirt and scrub and the thin line of the road cutting through it, and somewhere down there the Pantheon was still parked and waiting, but up here it was just us and the mountain and the quiet.
Jasper put the cigarette out under his boot and turned his head to look at me.
He didn't say anything, didn't need to. Two months in that farmhouse kitchen had taught me how to read every one of his silences, and this one said I know what you're walking into, and I can't go with you, and I'm going to be right here when you come back.
"Don't bite anyone while I'm gone," I said.
His mouth twitched at one corner. "No promises."
I stood up, and he caught my wrist for half a second. Then he let go, and I walked away before I could do something stupid like stay.
The cauldron was waiting behind the house, where it always was.
It was black iron on three legs over a low fire, old enough that nobody in the family could agree on where it had come from or when. My grandmother said one thing. Emilio had said something else entirely. I'd believed Emilio when he told me the cauldron had just always existed, the same way the mountain existed, and somewhere along the line the family had found it and decided it belonged to us.
Danior was already there. He was clean-shaved, shirt buttoned, jaw still carrying yesterday's conversation on the left side where I'd caught him. He looked at me across the fire,and we said nothing. Everything that needed saying had already been said with fists.
