“Don’t argue. You’ve been doing worse and worse over the past weeks, and now you show up bleeding and panicked. I can’t keep working with you pretending I don’t see anything. Come with me,” I said. “I’m not asking you.”
“But I… I can’t… Helena, I don’t have time,” she said, her voice cracking, small and helpless, and it broke my heart hearing it. “I’m so behind on gathering resources for the event.”
“You arecomingwithme.We’ll make it work. Stop thinking about that and follow me, or you’re figuring it out on your own.”
She swallowed hard, eyes quivering, and it almost broke me—seeing her on the verge of tears, scared and vulnerable, it made me want to give her whatever she wanted, but I knew I had to hold my ground before something worse happened. “But I promised…” she said weakly, and I tightened my grip on her arm.
“We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Come with me.”
She opened her mouth to protest again, and she closed it, pursing her lips, and for her sake, I pretended I didn’t see the tears building up in her eyes, escaping from one side. “Just for long enough to make sure I’m not still bleeding,” she whispered, and she relented, following along after me out the doors, my heart pounding the whole way.
Chapter 14
Julie
“You’re not bleeding, turns out,” Helena said softly, although I wasn’t fucking listening, because I was sitting in Helena Warrick’s apartment with her boobs pressed into my back and her fingers working carefully through my hair. Holy shit. I was glad she was sitting behind me and couldn’t see the way I was probably the lovely blotchy red of a rotten tomato. “But you do have a bad lump… here, and here. How have you felt? Dizziness? Lack of concentration?”
“How have I… what?”
She sighed frustratedly, sinking back into the couch, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Lack of concentration, then, I’m guessing.”
Oh, shit. Right. She had said that. “I’m—I’m feeling perfectly fine, honestly. I didn’t even realize I had an injury.”
“You just completely clocked out on me, Houdini.”
Rah—what was the use of dignity at this point? “That had nothing to do with my head and everything to do with you being pressed into my back and touching me.”
“Oh.” She relaxed, and she laughed. I burned with embarrassment, and, um, a little bit of arousal as well. I was too tired to be turned on. Or at least, I thought I was, until Helena led me into her apartment, took my jacket off, sat me down on the couch, and pressed herself into me while she ran her fingers through my hair. I could have been dead and I’d still be turned on by that.
The apartment was nice—she’d warned me beforehand about the mess, and I’d rolled my eyes assuming there would be one coffee cup out on a draining rack and that would be it, but it was actually a little cluttered, knickknacks scattered out on surfaces, a few jackets and bags slung over the backs of chairs or the arm of the sofa, cardboard boxes broken down next to the front door. Honestly, what a relief. I worried I’d feel like I was in a showroom and I wasn’t allowed to sit down or I’d dirty it.
Also, she called the placecozy,and I hoped she meant in terms of the décor. It was—warm colors and plenty of textiles making the place feel lived-in. But also, it was a two-bedroom apartment in Tribeca. If she meant it as insmall,I was even more embarrassed about my literal laundry supply closet I lived in.
“You still need to take off the rest of the night,” she said softly, and I bristled.
“I really appreciate this, but Icannotafford to—”
“Yes, you can. What you cannot afford is to hurt yourself more and go to the hospital. How much have you been sleeping?”
I winced. “Um… more than zero.”
She stood up from the couch, walked around me, and sat down again in front of me this time, her hands on my knees, and I think I lost my fucking mind. I was in Helena Warrick’s apartment, with her hands on my legs. “You,” she said, her eyes fiery and intense, “are worrying me.”
“Ah… well, isn’t that the show? Everyone thinks there’s no way out, but Houdini pulls off a great escape again. The crowd goes wild!”
She shifted closer. Holy shit. I forgot what I was saying. She put her hands on my shoulders, so close now I could count her eyelashes, and I forgot what I was saying somehow even harder. “This isn’t a show,” she said. “This is you neglecting yourself. And as someone who cares about you, I’m not ignoring that.”
Oh, god. I wanted to cry, because she didn’t care about me, she cared about the person she thought I was, and Ihadto tell her at this rate, but I had no ideahow.Or I guess it didn’t matter how, because after coming this far, not only would she realize I was a loser she had no reason to talk to, but also she’d hate me for lying to her. I should have told her earlier on, when I didn’t care about her as much, when it wasn’t going to crush my soul as much as it was now. “Maybe I have a magic trick to heal myself,” I said, my voice wobbling.Wanted to crymight have been generous. She put her hands on my cheeks, and it was a wonder I didn’t pass out.
“Cassandra,” she said, and it made me cry harder, like the dumbass I was, reminding me she only cared about someone I wasn’t. She misinterpreted it, wiping my tears away with her thumbs, which wassosweet andsotender andsogood and I wished she hated me and had someone better in her life, someone who wasn’t a stupid-ass loser who lied constantly because of a fucking white guy in a durag called Kingmaker. “Cassandra,” she whispered, leaning in closer. “Hey. You’re safe here, okay? Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”
“It was a pothole,” I cried. “It’s not going to get me anywhere except in that one spot. They don’t move.”
“I mean, in New York I think they do.”
“Okay, point taken, but I’ve never seen one climb stairs. Not yet. Never say never.”
“Does he know where you live?”
