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“That was different.Shewas different. And it was a group decision. Butanyway, nothing bad’s going to happen tonight.”
“How do you know that?”
She shrugs. “Can’t feel it waiting.”
I can’t either, but I don’t like it. This feels like the silence before an ambush, only there’s nothing I can shoot, or tackle, or bomb to hell. My shoulder aches the way it did when I was recovering from surgery. Even if this nightmarewasa physical being, I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to wring its neck.
Can’t say I love that feeling.
“What are you worried about?” Daisy asks.
There’s a quiet shuffling in the hall. Hades, moving down a few more feet. Zeus’s voice is a brighter hum, and from farther off, Persephone’s is like a night bloom.
Oh. I get it now. Midnight blooms.
“You.”
Daisy hooks her hand into the neckline of my T-shirt. “You’ve done so much for me. Do you know that?”
“It’s not enough.”
“Hercules.” I want the feeling of her fingers on my skin imprinted there for the rest of my life. “Brains are complicated. Nobody expected you to be able to help mine, atall.I would never expect that from you. I wouldn’t be disappointed if—”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t say what?”
“Don’t say that it’s fine if I can’t save you. It’s not fine. You should be able to count on me.” My throat feels bruised, and my ribs, and that deep ache is spreading all over my shoulder, getting sharper every second. “My mom should’ve been able to count on me. Ollie should’ve been able to count on me. I’m so fucking sick of letting people I love down.”
She’s still, but she’s not asleep. “I don’t think any of those people would agree with you.”
“They should.”
“Well,Idon’t. You haven’t let me down. And you can’t.”
“Yes, I fucking can.”
“Are you refusing to kiss me?”
I bark a laugh. “Jesus. No.”
“Then do it,” she insists.
I lean in for a soft kiss, one that’s appropriate for a woman who might literally fucking die soon, and Daisy hooks her arm around my neck and yanks me in for a rough one. She bites me like she did the first time. It’s hot and desperate, sharp teeth and sweetness, and when she’s kissing me, I could forget that her painkillers failed, I could forget that we’re out of tricks to stop her seizures, I could forget that there might notbean answer that arrives in time.
I taste her like there’s no tomorrow.
I’d fuck her, too, but we’ve come to a silent agreement that fucking might be counterproductive right now. Without an active nightmare threat, we can’t risk spending her energy on a rough fuck, or even a gentle one.
Her hand is tangled in my hair when she pulls back, gasping.
I like the sound of it until I realize she’s not gasping because she wants to fuck, she’s gasping because she can’t catch her breath. She doesn’t have enough energy to catch her breath.
I pull her against me on instinct. “Relax, baby. All the way. Don’t hold yourself up at all.”
Daisy half-asses it.
“I meanallyour weight, on me, right now. Your shoulders are still tense.” She onlybeginsto relax when I rub her back, her head getting heavier first, then the rest of her. “You have to stop pushing yourself up. I’m not going to kiss you again.”
