Page 51 of Adam, Mine

Understanding what was happening in a rush of terror, Victor began to put his arm down, but it was too late.

Lightning tore from the sky, illuminating the field. A current for the alchemist of currents, Victor’s mind supplied again as his body received it and arched in agony.

Willem looked powerful as he reached over Victor’s chest, hand clad in a black glove, yanked his shirt open, and sealed his palm over Victor’s heart the instant the light of the bolt faded.

Willem gritted his teeth and, with a wild cry of effort, pulled his hand up until his palm was lifted. All five of his fingers pursed, still touching Victor’s flesh. Then, like it was taking all his strength, Willem spread his fingertips.

Victor screamed. It hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced before, including getting hit by that lightning. His entire skeleton was still vibrating from the electricity, but his chest felt like Willem had stabbed a morning star into his center and spun the handle around.

Willem grasped his own wrist and, using the strength of his other arm, tore his hand away from Victor, then dug his fingers deep into the ground. A deep thump rattled the ground, pulsing outward from where they lay like an explosion.

Victor couldn’t breathe for gasping and sobbing. His skin felt sunburned; he could smell the singed fabric of his robe and the acrid smoke from his hair.

Willem was panting beside him. Taking a moment to come back to himself. He rubbed his hands together, opening and closing the one that had hurt Victor so much to stretch it out.

Then he lay back onto the grass with a sigh.

“It is done,” he said over Victor’s whimpers. “Did you think this would be painless?”

He looked over and let out an exhausted chuckle. “It seems you kept your hair! Most of it. Be thankful.”

Victor couldn’t care about his hair. He could barely move, much less reach up to check how much of it was left.

Willem climbed to his feet and stretched again. Then he reached down and did something unthinkable. He scooped Victor up.

He placed Victor on his own back, secured Victor’s arms around his neck and looped his own arms beneath Victor’s thighs.

Victor sobbed into Willem’s neck. He cried for himself. He cried because his entire body hurt and he was too weak to walk. He cried because he’d had to do this in the first place. He cried because he knew it was his fault, and there was no easy way to fix his mistakes. He cried because he was embarrassed. Embarrassed to be fed, fussed over, carried, embarrassed to be himself in front of this kind man. Cried because he wished that he could have met Willem in some other way, before he did this terrible thing that made someone kind enough to carry him have to threaten his life. He cried because he had never felt more like a child or more lost and helpless, and he cried because he still had more places to go.

Willem walked him all the way back to his home. He didn’t say anything about Victor’s tears, even when he stopped crying and just hid his face in silence. Willem whistled to himself, as though Victor wasn’t even there, and even that was a kindness that made Victor’s eyes hot and wet.

He gave Victor the privacy to put himself to rights when they got inside. Let him dress himself and pack away his things and smooth his hair down until it looked proper again.

He fed Victor’s horse an apple and helped him onto her back.

“Here. It should keep your clothes dry.” Willem draped a waxed cape over Victor’s shoulders, tying it beneath his chin like his mother had when he was a boy. Another gift that Victor didn’t deserve, given freely without effort or expectation.

“If I live, can I come back here?” Victor asked. Begged. His heart felt raw and new, like Willem had scrubbed it with sand and rinsed it in the river.

Willem looked at him hard, then shook his head.

“You may come back for dinner, perhaps,” Willem said softly. “But you can never be allowed to learn the things that I know.”

Victor looked back at Willem’s house as it got smaller and smaller. He couldn’t look away. Kept his gaze on the place until the road turned and he couldn’t see it anymore.

Heartache

Willem didn’t go into detail about what he’d done to Victor, and Victor was certain he wouldn’t be able to replicate it, even though he’d witnessed it done. But he could feel that something had changed.

The waves were rough between England and the Netherlands. Victor dragged his body onto the boat and sat in his bunk like the dead, only moving to eat when food was handed to him.

His headaches and nausea that came and went in waves had tapered to a steady ache in the top of his spine and mild stomach upset. Both of which he could almost ignore if sufficiently distracted.

So, all in all, it was worth it to have visited Willem. But.

He’d seen his skin while getting dressed and the spiderwebbed scars that radiated out from his core. He’d never be able to take off his shirt in front of another without having to explain them.

Victor was peeling from exposure, and he’d have to get a haircut before meeting with Bradley King to sort out the lightning-damaged, singed bits. And that was just the surface.