Ice Country(65)

“I don’t go chasin’ after guys. I don’t got a Circ, like Siena. I’ve never…” Her voice falters for the first time. “Dazz, I’ve never kissed a guy,” she says.

Not what I expected her to say. How could a girl like her not have kissed anyone? She should have fire country guys leaping over each other to get to her. I don’t say anything, because, well, you know why.

“Well, ain’t ya gonna say somethin’?” she says.

I almost chuckle, but I hold it in. “I thought I wasn’t allowed.”

Now she does laugh. “You take my words pretty seriously, don’t you?”

“I do,” I say.

“Why?” she says. “I ain’t smart, the sun goddess knows that as well as anyone. I got things to say, but they’re probably not always the right things.”

I gawk at her brown eyes through the hole. The right things? She’s worried about saying the right things when every time we speak I’m the one bumbling along. “You’re wooloo,” I say, turning her fire country word back on her.

She laughs again. “Ain’t that the truth,” she says. “Did you see how I rode that big fella like a searin’ tugbull?”

“I did,” I laugh. “I was most impressed.”

“Ain’t you wonderin’ why I’ve never kissed nobody?” she asks, changing the subject quicker than a rabbit hopping to his hole when he hears the hoot of an owl.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I say. “But yah, I figured you’d have kissed dozens of guys by now.”

“You callin’ me a shilt?” she says, her tone darkening.

“What? Nay! I mean, I don’t know what that even is. All I meant was that as beautiful as you are I’d think guys would be lining up across fire country for a chance to win you over.”

“Flattery won’t git you far with me,” she says.

“How about honesty?” I say, finally feeling the words flowing the way they’re meant to.

“I wanna kiss you,” she says matter-of-factly, like she’s saying she wants another plate of gruel, or the sky is red, or ice country is cold, or any of a dozen other normal things to say.

“You—you do?”

“Scorch yes, I do, Dazz. Yer smoky, you make me laugh, I ’spect without even tryin’, and you got a good heart.” Be asleep, Buff. Be asleep.

“We should try,” I say, feeling my blood rushing all over the place, waking up my whole body.

“This is a searin’ thick wall,” she says. “And this hole ain’t big enough to git more’n a hand through.” As if to demonstrate, she sticks her fingers through. My confidence is roaring like a just-woken beast, and I feel like the old Dazz, the one who could catch girls’ attention, even if he couldn’t keep them. I grab her hand, kiss it, stars flashing behind my eyelids. Ice this wall! I’ve got the urge to pound my way through it, fist by fist, without regard for my bones breaking.

I give her hand back, look through at her. There’s a wildness in her eyes and I know everything I’m feeling is mutual, and she’s considering pounding away too, meeting me in the middle, in a big old pile of dungeon rubble. “Bars,” I say, but she’s already moving in that direction, gone from sight.

I rush along the wall to the bars, jam my head and arms through, feeling the metal poles cinch around me, stopping me. Her head’s through too, and she’s reaching for me, and our hands are touching, and now our arms—I’ve got one hand in her hair, running through it wildly, and the other on her jaw, cupping it, touching the dark bruise where Big hit her.

I strain against the tightening bars, feeling the dull pressure of the metal as it bruises my ribcage, but keep pushing, getting another inch, Skye doing the same, trying, trying, icin’ trying to—

—meet in the middle where—

—her lips can meet mine, where—

—she can get her first kiss, and me, my first real kiss, her lips closing in, so close I can see the pink tinge on them but then—

—we can’t go any further, and we’re just dangling there, hugging each other awkwardly, wishing we had another inch. Just one more inch.

The dungeon door creaks open.





Chapter Twenny-Five





We stop moving. Stop struggling against the bars.

“What do you think yer doin’?” a familiar voice says.

Can’t be.

Can’t.

I’m dreaming up the whole thing. Skye’s words—I wanna kiss you—weren’t real, at least no realer than my imagination made them.

I pull back, and Skye does too, strain on her face as she wedges back between the bars. I do the same, grunting as the metal tightens, tightens, tightens, and finally releases me. The whole time I’m trying to look past Skye, but I can’t see anything except the top bits of an open door, dark and empty, and then—