Page 7 of Tick Tock, Darling

Caspian

I wrapped the glowing shard in the strip of my pant leg. White light came through the cloth like the cloth wasn’t there.

The moment I touched it, it did something. I wasn’t sure what. Not yet anyway.

I turned my head. A lifetime of walking dark holds and reading manifests by nothing at all, and I couldn’t look straight at a piece of glass in my own hand.

The heat came through next. Steady. Pulsing. It was as if the shard was alive and it was threatening to burn me the way it had burned her.

I didn’t care about that.

Her hand was still open at her side, palm up. Blisters across the pads of three fingers and one along the heel of her thumb, already going white at the edges. Her heartbeat was running fast and shallow, and it hadn’t slowed since she’d cried out. She’d made that noise and then acted like she hadn’t.

“We need to attend to that burn.”

But that wasn’t the only thing I noticed. For a moment, I thought stars had flashed in her eyes and then quickly disappeared. I’d never seen anything like that. But she didn’t act like anything was wrong. I wasn’t sure if that was something different due to the shard or if that was normal.

Either way, she was going to say she was fine. She’d say it in about four seconds and she’d mean for me to believe it.

“I can take care of it. I have a salve at home. Just give me the shard.”

Four seconds. I could set a watch by her.

The last woman who’d put her hands on me had been wearing enough perfume to hide a body, and I’d liked it fine at the time. Tinker Bell didn’t smell like anything but Tinker Bell — soot from the church, the copper off her own blood, and under it the green, dry, lightning-before-rain smell that came off every witch I’d ever stood close to, except hers was the only one I could pick out of a crowd.

She’d told me she was off limits. Twice, unprompted, which meant she’d been thinking about it too.

“So you can burn yourself again?”

Her heartbeat was still running fast and shallow and she was telling me she was fine. Her body had been arguing with her mouth since the second she’d cried out, and she had no idea I could hear both.

She gave me a cool get-lost glare. Her blue eyes narrowed like a cat ready to pounce. “I told you I don’t need your protection.”

I always wondered what it would be like to hear the woman purr rather than threatening to scratch me.

“Yeah. Yeah. You told me.” I closed my fist around the shard. “Walk.”

She didn’t move. Then she did, and she went past me with her chin up and her burned hand curled against her side where she thought I couldn’t see it.

Whatever had stacked those bricks was still unaccounted for. Most likely a demon. The last demons here had been Balthazar and Vex. Both powerful. Both cunning. Both vengeful. I put myself between her and the dark end of the church and followed her out. I wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her. She was the one person who might be able to help my sister.

The shard got hotter in my hand. I had to switch hands and shook my hot hand. My palm was red.

Tinker Bell stopped at a little red RAV4 and opened the car door. “You walked me to my car.” She held out her hand. “Now give me the shard and leave.”

“Tinker Bell, I’m here to protect you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need protection.”

Damn it. One frustrating woman. I’d have better odds getting a barracuda to release a shiny object than getting her to accept my help.

But I wasn’t backing down. Angelo hadn’t asked me to guard her — he’d told me — and a man doesn’t come back to Angelo Santi with she said no thanks. Enzo would be the one to explain it to me.

She snapped her fingers and stretched out her palm, the burned one. “Caspian—the shard.”

I looked at the blisters. White at the edges now, and she was holding the hand open like it didn’t hurt, waiting me out.

I gave it to her. I don’t know why. She’d asked with a snap of her fingers and I handed over the one thing keeping her tethered to me, and by the time I understood what I’d done it was already in her palm.