Flamebound A Lone Star Witch No(23)
Once again, I pull myself up. But the room’s spinning around me, the dizziness and nausea from earlier back with a vengeance. Concerned now, I reach an unsteady hand out to the wall. Then I lean on it for support as I make my way slowly, slowly, into my bathroom.
By the time I get there, I’m pale, sweating, and my nausea has reached a critical stage. Dropping to my knees, I vomit the meager contents of my stomach, then continue with dry heaves for long, unpleasant minutes. Finally, it stops. Shoving away from the toilet, I try to get up.
I can’t. I’m too weak to even get to my knees. Frustrated, angry, I press my forehead against the cool blue tile of my bathroom floor and wait for this—whatever it is—to pass. I’ll try again in a minute or two.
But it turns out, I don’t have to wait that long. The bathroom light flips on and I catch a glimpse of cyanide green toenails before I clap a defensive hand over my eyes.
“What the hell, Xan!” Lily crouches down next to me and lays a soft hand on my forehead. “Are you sick?”
“I don’t think so,” I croak. “I just—”
“Oh my God! What happened to you?” She helps me into a sitting position, then scoots me over a little so I can rest against the wall. “Did someone die? Did you go to another murder scene?”
“I’ve been in bed all night.”
“Then what the hell happened to you?” Her eyes narrow. “Did Declan do this?”
“Do what?”
She grinds her teeth even as she fumbles around on the counter for a second. Then she’s shoving my small, standing mirror in my face. “That. Did Declan do that?”
One glimpse and I suddenly understand her concern. The entire left side of my face is one big bruise and my left eye is nearly swollen shut. “No! Of course he didn’t. He would never hurt me.”
I reach a trembling hand up to poke at the bruises, then immediately wish I hadn’t. Pain radiates from my temple to my jaw. My stomach sinks as I remember Shelby and the sudden agony of being punched. I pull my nightshirt up a few inches to stare at the long, jagged scar that runs the length of my right thigh. It’s pink and raised and looks newly healed, as if the skin has just started to mend itself.
“What the hell is that?” Lily demands, leaning over me. “Dear goddess, Xandra. You’re covered in cuts and bruises all over again. Are you sure nobody’s dead?”
She’s remembering the times I came home covered in injuries after finding Kyle’s victims. Part of my gift—or curse, depending on how you think about it—is that I relive what the victim went through. While I don’t suffer the broken bones and open wounds that they do, I do get bruises and marks that mimic those injuries.
Except Shelby is still alive. I was connected to her. I heard her cry, listened as she begged for help, felt her pain as it was inflicted. Unless . . . unless all that was posthumous and I just didn’t know it.
The nausea’s back with a vengeance. I lunge for the toilet, barely making it before the heaving starts all over again.
* * *
An hour later, I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, a mug of tea liberally laced with whiskey cupped between my freezing hands.
“Try Declan again,” Lily tells me as she ladles some chicken soup into a bowl for me.
“I just did. Still no answer.”
“That’s so weird.”
“You’re telling me.” He’s been so protective since that last incident with Kyle. I’ve barely been able to walk from point A to point B without tripping over him. Even when I’m at work, he calls or texts me a few times a day—in addition to stopping by for lunch. So for him to just disappear like this, with no warning, no phone call, nothing, is completely out of character. I’m beginning to think it’s my turn to start worrying about him.
Except I already do. All the time. Which is another reason why this absence is freaking me out so much. The only reason for him to go AWOL like this is if he’s doing something he knows I won’t like. And since I’m a pretty open-minded kind of girl, the list of things I don’t tolerate is pretty damn small—it starts and ends with black magic. Well, that and cheating on me. And since I doubt Declan’s sleeping with anyone else, I can’t help but wonder if what he’s doing has something to do with the soul-deep scars and shadows that haunt his every move. I don’t know what those scars are, but I know they’re there. Just like I know there’s a lot about his life before me—before us—that I don’t know. That I may never know. I’m trying to be okay with that.
“Okay, then,” Lily says, handing me the soup as she settles across the table from me. “Let’s think this thing through.”