Things must be really bad at home if his temper’s gotten as bad as mine. I speak quickly. “What if I pay you in advance to help us find Skye’s sister?” I say.
His eyebrows shoot up and he stares at me like I’ve been punched in the head one too many times, which I probably have. “Pay me? I don’t want to come as part of a job. I want to come because you’re my friend.”
I feel a bit of foolish warmth in my heart so I smack a fist in my hand to compensate. “Not like a job,” I say. “Like a donation. To your family. So you can come.”
“You’ve barely got more silver than me, and you’ll need to give it all to Clint to take care of Jolie and your mother while you’re gone.”
I keep smiling as I tell him about Abe’s little visit. He doesn’t believe me until I show him the pouch of silver coins. “Holy mother of all shivballs!” he exclaims. “You’re rich, Dazz!”
I nod because I am, and because sickles solve problems. “So you’ll do it?”
“Chill yah, I’ll do it,” he says, all smiles and taut muscles.
~~~
“Sear it, I’m gonna miss you when we leave,” Skye says, running a finger along my hand.
I laugh. “You know, I really love your honesty, Skye, but I’m coming with you.”
“You ain’t.”
“Think what you want to,” I say.
“My fists say you ain’t,” she says, and I laugh again.
“You can’t fight me,” I say. “Remember what happened last time? We might as well skip the fighting part and go straight to the other part.”
“You want to?” Skye says, her eyes bold and sharp as they cut into mine.
This time I really hope Jolie can’t hear us.
Skye leans into me and I scoop a hand around the back of her neck, slip it under her coat, feel the warmth of her smooth skin, pull her even closer. Her forehead touches mine and we look at each other, all the way in, closer than close, her brown chestnut eyes bearing her soul to me, and I can see—nay, feel—how much she wants me, how when she looks at me she feels the same way I do when I look at her.
I touch her jaw with my other hand, just below her ear, running my thumb along her brown skin. And then we kiss, more tenderly and slowly than the last time, when it was all adrenaline and urgency and—
I pull back, glancing sharply at Jolie, who I thought I saw move.
“What?” she says, following my gaze.
Jolie continues sleeping as still as a stone, just like she’s been the whole time.
Feeling foolish, I say, “Sorry, Skye, I thought—I just thought I saw…”
“It’s okay,” Skye says with that raspy voice of hers that makes me shake with desire. She touches a gentle hand to my face, brushing the scruff of my beard. “Time’ll heal everythin’,” she says.
~~~
One day till Skye leaves. (And me with her?)
I know, I know, I’ve been saying all along how I’m going, how Buff’s going with me, how I owe them and have to help Skye and Siena find her sister…but…but…
Jolie.
How can I leave my sleeping angel sister alone in her bed, maybe to wake up one day without me there by her side? After all she’s been through, how could I ever do that? The warmth of the fire is making me sweat.
I’m brooding over my thoughts, changing my mind again and again, when there’s a knock on the door. Usually Skye and Buff and the others just come right in, so it surprises me. Abe again maybe?
I wipe my sleeve on the frosted glass so I can take a peek. My breath hitches. What am I seeing?
I rush to the door, thrust it open, slamming it off the wall, but not caring, not caring, because—
—standing before me is my mother, practically withered away to nothing, all skin and bones and as pale as the Glassies, but that doesn’t matter, because she’s standing on her own two feet.
“Dazz,” she says, her voice as whispery as it always is, like when she’s murmuring nonsense at the fire. But there’s no nonsense in it, because it’s her—it’s really her. Not drugged-out Mother, but the real one, the one who was always there, always around when father was working in the mines, who only left us when he did.
My brain’s telling me to turn her away, to tell her to come back when she’s been clean for more than a day, a month at least, but every instinct in my body is saying different. And after everything—Wes and Jolie and Skye and the king—I can’t, I can’t be the firm hand on her now, because I need her, maybe every bit as much as she needs me.
I step forward and curl my arms around her, feeling my heart beating firmly against her head, which rests on my chest. I hold her and hold her and hold her, and I feel her body shaking as she sobs into me, but then I realize I’m shaking too, just letting go, letting everything out of me, because she’s my mother again, and she can make all the bad stuff go away.