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“Bullet!”I gasped as we withdrew, reappearing in the startlingly peaceful spring meadow. “Are you actually going to do that?”
He looked at me, tilting his head to the side, squinting as though he wasn’t quite sure what the right answer was. “Do you not want me to?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Fine, fine.” Bullet groaned dramatically, flopping back onto the grass with an arm thrown over his eyes to block out the sunlight. “I’ll leave Viper to his normal dreams. Maybe he’ll conjure Mercy up again and they’ll pick up where they left off—”
“Okay, just send a few spiders,” I interrupted, my face heating. “Regular-sized ones. And not too many, just enough to, you know. Put him off.”
“There won’t be any sex dreams with your cousin happening on my watch,” Bullet replied with a mischievous grin, giving me a salute. “Come on, Dare is stirring.”
Chapter 4
WhathadIbeendoing?
Beds.I’d been making beds. Changing the sheets after our last lot of guests—a human family with adorable twin girls—had vacated The Bunkhouse. And then I was going to tidy up The Guesthouse, wasn’t I? Yes. The party staying there had requested cleaning services, but Harbor and a couple of the other boys had taken them out on the lake to fish for trout and I’d volunteered to clean up while they were out.
So why was I lying on the floor of The Bunkhouse, feeling like I was dying?
Everything hurt—especially my head—though my arm was definitely hurting the most of all. And despite it being fall in Maine, I was sweating through my jeans and hoodie. I tried to lift my arm, but the agony was too much to bear. Eventually, I managed to turn my head to the side, glancing down the line of my body. The sleeve of my favorite hoodie—the white one with daisies and pastel-colored jack-o’-lanterns on the front that Harbor had chosen for me because he knew I loved Halloween—was stained red with blood.
Great, I thought, my brain hazy. I was never going to be able to get that out. And I loved this sweater. It wasn’t like I had a lot of clothes to begin with—all the boys shared, and they’d gone out of their way to get me a few things of my own. And I’d gone and got blood all over it like a total idiot.
You are useless.A stupid, useless imposition. You should have never come here. You’ve made everyone’s lives worse.
“Mercy! No, no, no, what is happening? Pax, get the first-aid kit. Or an ambulance. What do we do? We can’t go to the human doctors…” Harbor’s panicked voice seemed so far away.
I didn’t like when Harbor sounded worried. He’d been so good to me, thebest. He’d taken me in and given me a job here at the campsite he and some other agathos ran to hide in plain sight from the communities that had sent them away. The boys who’d never felt the pull of the soul bond and so had been ostracized, kicked out to preserve the image of perfect harmony that the agathos liked to pretend they had.
The six of them had accepted me with no judgment, even when they knew I had a daimon soul bond out there, hunting me down, and I’d workedsohard to prove to them that letting me stay wasn’t a mistake.
And now I was ruining it all, getting bloodstains on the carpet that would probably never come out. We had guests checking in tonight, I didn’t havetimefor this.
“I’ll clean the floor,” I slurred. Why did my voice sound like that? “Don’t be upset, Harbor, please. I’ll clean the blood.”
He abruptly stopped issuing panicked instructions to Pax. “You think… You think I’m worried about thebloodstains? Are you serious?”
“I’m making a mess, I’m ruining everything. I don’t even know how this happened,” I all but wailed. “And I’m sohot.”
“You have a fever,” Harbor replied, his voice softer this time. “Come on, let’s get this sweater off. Did you use your gifts?”
“On a stabbing victim?” Pax added helpfully.
“I didn’t, I swear.” I knew my words meant less than any other agathos’ since lying was more of a discomfort than a hard limit for me, but I’d promised Harbor I’d do everything in my powernotto use my Hygeia ability. I’d slipped up once, speeding up the healing of a human child who’d fallen on the rocky shoreline and gotten an impressively long gash on their leg. But other than that, I’d been good. I triedsohard. We couldn’t afford the attention that an agathos with the gift of Hygeia would bring. “Harbor, I promise—”
“I believe you,” he cut in. I stifled a sob as he sliced through the fabric of my hoodie, wondering if I could stitch it back together. Harbor had given me this when I’d had nothing, showing up empty-handed at the gates of the campsite after getting off the bus, begging for sanctuary. The wound on my face had been fresh and disgusting, and I’d been a total emotional wreck who hadn’t slept in days, and all Harbor had asked in return for me staying was my story. He’d never judged me, never held my ability to lie against me, defended me when the other guys had said anything about my abilities or my past.
If I could have chosen a soul bond, it would have been him. But I couldn’t. I could never have him, and so I treasured the clothes he’d given me and the little things he did for me instead, pretending it meant something more than it ever could.
Hale’s voice joined in the chorus of worry as he deposited a first-aid kit on the floor, letting Pax get to work, bandaging my arm up tight, staunching the blood flow.
“These aren’t your injuries,” Harbor pointed out gently. “It looks like that wound on your leg did, that time you used your gift on the child. Too neat, too clean and perfect.”
I nodded weakly. We all knew injuries I’d gained myself didn’t look so tidy, didn’t heal away to nothingness. The ugly scar on my face was proof of that.
“So, what, someone else’s wounds just popped up on Mercy’s body out of nowhere?” Hale asked, voice laced with disbelief. He was older than the others, and my ability to lie made him wary.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Harbor challenged, stroking my hair back from my forehead with long, gentle fingers. “Hygeia are rare. Maybe this was Anesidora’s doing. Maybe she wanted to heal one of her loyal Basilinna’s and used Mercy’s gift to do it?”
