Give me another lifetime
another day with you
another half an hour
only fifteen minutes
just a moment
a single solitary instant
just so I can be close again
just so I can be near
just so I can have another chance
to dig my fingers
against your throat
and bring the ashtray down
just a little harder.
This is Issue #37 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.
Happy Reading!
* * *
Dreams were not the same as slipping; he knew he was himself. Even so, they were disorienting, especially ones laced with pain medicine.
Kieron woke up in a cold sweat, panting, grimacing in anticipation of pain as he moved to sit up, but there was none, and he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing, or a bad thing, as he sat up fully, shivering in the warm infirmary.
“Hey,” came a low voice, off to the side.
Kieron turned, his bright eyes wide in the dark. He panted, teeth chattering, clutching the blankets in a sudden, dizzying wash of fear. Where am I? What happened?
“Key,” said the voice, and the nearby cot creaked, then Kieron’s own cot creaked as someone else sat on the edge. “Key, what happened?”
Jet.
Kieron let out a sob and turned to throw his arms around the other boy. “How did you get here? Who found you?” he wept. Once the floodgates were opened, he simply held on, and let go, all at once, fingers digging in, clutching the other boy’s shirt. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. “Forgive me, please. Please forgive me. I’m so glad you’re safe. I’m so glad you’re all right.” He pulled back to wipe at his face, to get a good look at the boy he’d abandoned, but he looked at his own hands as he scrubbed away his tears, half-laughing, trying to calm himself — they were reddened, sticky with blood.
“Wait–” he said, stiffening, feeling a sudden spasm of fear grip his belly. He turned to reach a hand to bring up the lantern. “Jet, are you–?”
“Why did you leave me? You knew I’d come find you,” Jet said, accusatory, and moved closer, as the light came up.
“No–” Kieron whispered, horrified.
Jet was dead, bluelipped and milky-eyed, wearing his Academy best, covered in blood. “You knew,” he said sadly. “How could you leave me like that?”
Kieron woke up in a cold sweat, panting, grimacing in actual pain as he moved to sit up, crying out, struggling to get away from the phantoms that haunted his sleep.
“Hey,” came a familiar voice, off to the side.
Kieron turned quickly, eyes wide and wild with fear; he clutched his blanket tightly, flinching back from the voice.
“Hey, hey easy,” Sha said, reaching out a hand to touch Kieron’s shoulder, fond irritation touching her voice. “Lay down, yeah?” she said. “Before I have to make it an order. You’ll fuck up your ribs worse, and nobody needs that. You should–” Genuine concern crossed her face. “Brody?” she murmured, leaning over him. “You all right?”
“Yes?” he said, panting, struggling to swallow back tears.
Sha looked around the small infirmary, and with the surgeon off on another task, she nodded to Kieron, and moved to sit on the edge of his cot. “You need to tell me about it?” she wondered.
“Jet,” he said. “I saw Jet.”
“Who’s Jet?” The Captain asked quietly.
Kieron’s cheeks flamed pink as he whispered, “A friend.”
The Captain, unfazed, said, “Right, but who is he?”
The answering blush was deeper scarlet. “A classmate. A roommate. We schooled at the Academy together.”
“In your dreams?” she wondered, making no jokes, no faces, not at all teasing, not responding to the blush with anything but calmness. We don’t have to talk about that part of it, her eyes said. We all have things we keep close.
“When I… when I went. I saw him. He was alive. But just now, I saw him dead.” Kieron’s hands wrung the blankets in a nervous fidget.
Sha nodded, staying near him, solid and warm and real. “Dreams aren’t the same as your sight,” she reassured him. “Nightmares are fucking frightening, I’ll give you that. But you’re awake now. It can’t hurt you.”
“I left because he was going to die. He kept dying. I kept seeing it. He died because he was with me, over and over and over,” Kieron said, feeling suffocated, like he had to sit up, to breathe. “I ran away, to keep him safe. But in my dream, he died because he followed me when I ran away.” When he moved to try to sit up, the world spun, and he turned faintly greenish and shivering.
“Did he follow you? Could you tell where he was?” Sha wondered. “Stay down, Brody. You got a concussion and cracked ribs, how many times I gotta say it?”
“I think he must have, but he’s nowhere I recognize. Marble floors, vaulted ceilings. Looked like a palace. Some dark-haired crazy man in tattoos and body paint,” Kieron said. “He was watching me die. He loved it, it was–” Kieron explained, panting, laying back.
The Captain froze, her eyes going wide. “Immanis,” she hissed. “Fuck, Brody, your friend is in the Blacklands. He didn’t follow you — he’s ahead of you. He’s with the Prince of Ilona.”
“I don’t… I don’t know what that means,” Kieron said, watching Sha.
“Fuck, don’t they teach you idiots anything useful at the Academy?” she snapped, tossing her head. “Every couple years I get fresh graduates, and you’re just getting meaner and stupider.” She sat up and stomped in a small circle, pacing.
Stung by her outburst, Kieron said defensively, “I’m not mean! And I know a lot! I know we’re at war. Even if the Centralis government doesn’t tell the people that, or says it’s just a minor conflict. My father has been designing airships and war vessels as long as I can remember. The Allied Territories want to Annex the Blacklands. It’s just a bunch of desert and wastelands, full of roving bands of illiterate tribes, all savages without our technology or our medicine. We could bring them true government and advances for agriculture and industry, but it’s hard to unite the people, because they’re all fighting over what little resources they have.”
The Captain stared at Kieron for a long time, incredulous. “That’s what they’re teaching you?” she whispered, shocked. “Does that jibe with the vision you had of a magnificent palace?”
“I… ah…?” Kieron looked lost.
“Oh, Brody. I’m so sorry. You… Okay. I’m… hold on a second, okay?” she sighed. She got herself up from where she’d sat on the edge of his cot, and walked out of the infirmary, leaving him to lay still and look toward Nate, who lay quiet and still and pale, on the mend from his rescue of Kieron.
When the Captain came back, she carried a large stack of books, and set them beside Kieron’s bed. She picked one, and flipped through a few of the pages before handing it to him. She picked up another and opened it to a middle page, and set it on the bed on his lap. She tapped one and said, “This is a map of the Allied Territories. How big are the Blacklands?”
He stared at the page, frowning slightly, looking at the map, then looking at her. “This is my book–”
“I know. Based on the map, how big are the Blacklands?” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Based on the map, I don’t…. I don’t know. They’re not on the map,” he said quietly, confused.
“Okay, not based on the map, then. Based on what you’ve learned at the Academy. You were about to graduate, right? How big are the Blacklands?” she said, pressing.
“They’re the size of.. half… half of Kriegsland?” he ventured. Seeing the shake of her head, he said, “Bigger?”
“Much.”
“Ah… roughly the size of the Western Sands?” he offered, running his fingers over the map. He lifted his eyes and looked at Sha, feeling his heart heavy in his chest.
“Kieron,” she said, and her voice was gentle, and pained. “Ilona itself is half the size of Kriegsland. And Ilona is only one city-state. The Blacklands are easily ten times the size of the Allied Territories,” she explained. “See the rest of these books?” she said, pointing them out on the bed. “Treatises on medicine. On alchemy. Physics. Weapons. Mathematics. Aether mechanics,” she said. “My brother collected these books. From Ilona. These were written by Ilonan scholars centuries ago. Not only are they not illiterate savages, Brody, they are ahead of us in so many things, because we came from them, but didn’t have the resources this side of the Ridge. The Allied Territories are the squabbling bands of roving tribes. We’re the savages,” she whispered.
Kieron felt his heart skip a beat as he struggled to comprehend this notion.
“There is a war,” she said, closing the books and setting them back beside the bed. “You got that much right.”
Kieron closed his eyes, feeling the lurch that meant soon he’d be gone, but he was there enough to hear his Captain’s next words.
“It’s just that we’re losing.”
* * *
This is Part 36 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.
Happy Reading!
* * *
It was hours later, and Jet was dozing in a chair by an open firebowl, when Immanis came in to the private audience chamber.
Jet stood immediately, assuming the custom, tiredness leaving him in an instant.
Immanis paused on the other side of the firebowl and watched the flames. He pursed his lips, blinking slowly, seeming to consider his words, then he walked away without speaking, to tall glass cabinets along the far wall. He brought out two glasses and a bottle.
Jet watched him over the flames and said nothing, waiting.
Finally, Immanis spoke, “My sister and I have been alone for some time now. Our parents and our ancestors are dead. We have yet to take consorts and make heirs.”
“It is hard to be alone,” Jet said softly.
“She is my life,” Immanis said, glancing up at Jet, his cold eyes burning. He poured two glasses, and handed one off to Jet. “Any man that touches her is a man I must put to the death.”
Jet nodded, tensing as he closed his hand around the glass. He waited until Immanis began to drink before he tasted the liquor — and had to turn and cough, after he did, struggling briefly for breath. It was like electricity in a cup.
Immanis drank down his first glass, poured another, and walked about, drinking, talking, and standing on the other side of the firebowl again, to watch Jet. “The dead man,” he murmured. “His name was Manu. He was to be her betrothed. I had arranged the match. He had been a friend, and might have been a valuable political ally,” he said, watching the fire. “He had been more than pleased for the honor. He had hoped for the marriage to be soon, but Lucida had convinced me more than once to put it off, citing nervousness and her desire to make a proper wife, telling me she still had much to learn, and wanted to be perfect for him. His last letters to me had hinted at impatience; I had not realized his heart had sickened.”
Jet listened carefully, and thought back to Lucy’s deliberate lies, wondering how much of the evening’s plan had been arranged ahead of time. Had Lucida actually agreed to the match? Had she ever really planned to go through with it?
“I thought I knew him better than to be surprised by this kind of an action,” Immanis said. “Tell me, Jet have you dealt with much betrayal? I have not. My eyes, my voice, command obedience, if I will it. My heart knows if one speaks the truth. It is a gift of my blood. All our people are gifted. It is what allows us to crush your armies as they approach us.”
Was that how he controlled Eisen? Jet closed his eyes against the barrage of unwanted feelings. Betrayal? The worst of it seemed that if Kieron had not run off, that Jet would not have been caught, would not now be so far from home, so close to death. Was it betrayal? Or just stupidity? He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t answer.
“Lucy tells me you saved her life,” Immanis murmured. “And while I am grateful beyond measure, I wanted to ask you why.”
“Why?” Jet said, honestly baffled. “What do you mean, why?”
“In the confusion, you could’ve run,” Immanis said, looking to Jet through the flames. His eyes were faintly glassy — likely from the drink. “In my grief, I’d have been dealing with Manu, and you could have escaped. I quite easily could have forgotten all about you.”
Jet stared at his hands, rubbing where there was still blood under the fingernails. “I did what anyone might do,” he said carefully. He didn’t know if Immanis could tell if he lied — he couldn’t command his obedience, but that could easily have been a fluke.
“Anyone with loyalty, perhaps,” Immanis said. “But you should have none, to me. You were given the choice to join my household, and you did exactly that. Not merely in name, not only on the surface. The man could have killed you. His ability with a sword was all but legendary. You had but a simple folding knife.”
“I am sorry for the loss of your friend,” Jet said slowly, weighing his words. “For your sister’s loss of her husband-to-be. But I am not sorry the man is dead. His intentions were clear.”
“You confess to killing him?” Immanis said, cocking his head to the side, swirling the drink in his glass. “Drink your aetheris; it is a waste, otherwise.”
Aetheris. Jet glanced at the pale blue liquor, nodding, and swallowed what was left in his glass, hissing briefly, feeling like he could taste lightning behind his eyes. He turned to look at Immanis. “I believe he was dead the moment he lifted a hand against your sister,” Jet answered, meeting his captor’s gaze. “He simply did not realize it yet.”
Immanis’s brows lifted. He set down his glass and came around the firebowl, then, striding with purpose, advancing on Jet. His eyes were dark, shining, and the intent on his face seemed all but murderous. He took a knife from his hip and grabbed Jet’s hand. “My will cannot control yours, Jet. Yet you chose this. You saved Lucida. I know many with strength. Many with honor. I know vipers in the court, and I know goodness, when I see it. Join us, truly. I will spare you from the hunt if you agree,” he murmured.
Jet flinched, his heart thundering as he looked at the knife. “What… what am I agreeing to?” he asked. He did not try to pull away, but schooled his trembling, barely.
“To be my brother,” Immanis said, lifting his chin. “It is an honor.”
Jet felt the ice in his veins, an ache behind his eyes.
Oh, the sharp teeth — how they bite.
There was no way to refuse and live. Jet nodded, solemn, twisting his wrist to offer up his palm. He watched as Immanis put the blade between their palms, each edge of the twice-sharp dagger pressed to their flesh. He hissed, grinding his teeth against the feel of the knife.
Immanis dragged the blade out, cutting them both. He kissed the flat of the blade, and then put the flat to Jet’s lips, pressing it there briefly.
Jet was reminded of the feel of Eisen’s warm blood against his skin, and he kept his eyes on Immanis, feeling his heart pound, but kissed the blade as well.
The dark-eyed man tucked the knife away and clasped his other hand around Jet’s, pressing their wounded hands together, the blood mingling, running slowly down their wrists, dripping to the floor. “It is done,” he said, and then he released Jet’s hand and leaned in, kissing Jet’s forehead briefly. He laughed then, clapping him on the back, and turned him toward the door out of the audience chamber. “Let us go. We will celebrate. This will call for a feast. We must wake the cooks, wake the palace itself. Wake my sister!” he crowed, smiling at Jet, his white teeth gleaming.
Jet looked to his hand, looked at the cut bleeding freely, and marveled at the burning feeling under his skin as Immanis declared the day nothing short of a national holiday. “That’s a lot of celebration,” Jet noted with amusement, assuming him to be somewhat in his cups after several glasses of what amounted to bottled delirium.
“Of course!” Immanis said. “But it should be. My sister deserves the whole of Ilona to celebrate with her!”
Jet stiffened, turning to look at Immanis, trying hard to keep himself from a look of shock.
Immanis continued, heedless, gesturing with his nearly empty bottle of aetheris, shouting down the hallways as he walked beside Jet. His great voice echoed off the stone of the long hallways, “Lucida and Jet will be married!”
* * *
This is Issue #35 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.
Happy Reading!
* * *
He could still feel the sting of her against his lips, the taste of her rough kiss, mingled with the wine, the heady excitement of the party, the intrusive curiosity of the guests, the way Lucida’s brother’s eyes followed him around the room, watchful, careful, amused and hungry all at once.
“Where?” Jet whispered, his lips brushing hers.
“Far corner,” she answered, keeping her voice as low as possible. She laughed then, tossing her head. “Come — don’t be shy.” The hand holding the knife carefully slipped between them; she tucked two fingers into his belt and pulled him against her, toward the bed as she backed up, step by step. “We Ilonan women are never shy,” she purred.
His eyes widened as he stepped after her, flushed, breathless, and the shocked look on his face was enough to make her laugh all over again. When she backed into the bed and he pressed up against her, she whispered again, “At my word, go right.” She kissed him again, lips hot, tongue sweet.
He couldn’t help himself when he immediately pulled back enough to ask, “Your right, or my right?”
Her expression was priceless and yet amused as she hissed, “You’re an idiot.” One hand reached up; she threaded her fingers through the tousled waves of his hair and pulled him in again, biting his lips.
“You have my knife,” he panted. “I can’t–”
“Now!” she commanded.
He spun right, looking for a weapon. He saw the intruder come forward, fury on his face, a broad, wicked sword curving from his fist. He had been a guest from the party, one who had left early, claiming a weak stomach or some other ailment. Jet threw himself forward, teeth bared. Sword or no sword, knife or no knife, he would not let the man harm Lucida in any way.
He realized some time later, he needn’t have worried.
She launched forward, silent and swift, and the knife she’d taken from him found its mark within moments, and then she dropped it to the floor.
She was so fast, so deliberate, as Jet reached the man, he did little more than catch him and lower him to the floor. He stared at the man’s eyes, at his mouth, as he struggled to breathe, to speak, and Jet remembered Eisen’s face as he laid on the stone in front of Immanis. Remembered the widening pool of blood. He watched him die, his heart still pounding, and reached to pick up the pocket knife, blood smearing over his hand and wrist and sleeve in the process. He glanced back over his shoulder, looking for Lucy.
Lucy’s eyes were wet with tears; her facepaint had run, the kohl around her eyes smearing. She looked at the man on the floor, looked to Jet, and with a deliberateness that put a crawling fear up Jet’s spine, she tore her skirts, pulled pins from her hair, and threw herself to the floor. She began to scream in Ilonan, and the sound of it was chilling. Her eyes were wide with terror; her makeup was smeared; her tears shone; her hair and clothing were mussed. She screamed, long and loud and shook with the force of her terrorized cries, her throat going raw.
Bewildered, almost frightened, Jet went to her, reached for her, his eyes wide. “Shh, shh, Lucy. It’s all right. You’re all right. See? He’s dead, Lucy, you… it’s okay, please–”
Lady’s maids and guards burst in, with Immanis himself quickly following, knives in his hands, his teeth bared. Light from the hall fell on both Jet and Lucida, the both of them bloody, he with a knife, her in tears. Immanis took but a moment to comprehend. His wrath was god-like; he strode to Jet’s side and pulled the young man away from Lucy by his hair, bringing knives to his throat, growling like an animal, cursing in Ilonan.
Lucida immediately put her hands on Immanis, slid them over his wrists, put her fingers against his blades and begged, tearful and shaking. She moved to put herself between Immanis and Jet, and pointed a shaking hand to the body half in the shadows, sobbing as she spoke. “No, Immanis. No, it was him,” she wept.
Immanis dropped Jet, snapping at the guards, gesturing to the dead body.
Jet staggered and leaned against Lucy, panting, struggling for equilibrium.
She sank to the floor with him, curling up in his arms and sobbing, clutching the fabric of his shirt, burying her face against his neck, inconsolable. Now and then, she looked up at him with tearstained eyes — a gaze only for him. It held no fear, only hunger.
Immanis inspected the man on the floor for a long while, grief and rage passing over his face as he looked at the body. Eventually, he returned to them both, crouching lowly, shifting to get himself between Jet and Lucy. “What happened?”
Jet moved to lean back, to get up and back away from Immanis. I’m not a threat. I’m not dangerous. I’m not even worth worrying about.
Before Jet could answer, Lucy said, “It was awful, brother! Your guest brought me back to my room, and said good night as a gentleman does. When I came into my room, that beast attacked me. He– he– I think he killed him, brother.” She sobbed, putting her hands to her face. “He saved me, Immanis,” she said, lifting her radiant face and smiling gratefully to Jet. “Your Black Stone saved me.”
Stunned, Jet looked to Immanis, and glanced to the body that was being removed by the guards.
“Leave us,” Immanis said, and his eyes were cold, and his arms were around his sister. “You will wait in my private audience chamber. I will speak with Lucida, and then I will speak with you.”
Jet glanced at Lucy, and she rose on a fawn’s legs, as unsteady in the moment as she had been graceful and deadly, earlier. He offered out a steadying hand and she stepped close and leaned into him, laying a hand against his chest, a hand against his cheek, smiling tearfully, baring her teeth. “Thank you,” she said earnestly. “For what you did. I owe you my life.”
Very sharp teeth indeed.
* * *
This is Issue #34 of DeathWatch, an ongoing Serial. Click that link to go find ‘A Beginning’ and read from there, if you need to catch up.
Happy Reading!
* * *
Her copper skin and dark hair shone in the light of the candelabras and chandeliers. She looked impossible, dressed like Immanis, rather than a servant. She wore silk brocade. She wore jewels. She wore tattoos and body paint. The plain uniform of the servants had fitted her, and this fit her, too, but it gave Jet more than pause — had she said or done something he took to heart that was a trick? Had she been playing with him, as a cat does a mouse?
“Don’t be mad, caro,” she whispered across the table, as Immanis continued to talk with his guests. “I wasn’t lying. I never get to meet the ones my brother hunts. They choose death too quickly. You don’t have their fear.”
Jet’s eyebrows shot up. Don’t have their fear? He was nothing but afraid! “I–”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?” she said, almost pouting, but then a glint in her eye showed that, too, to be a ruse. “Because if you get sullen, you’ll become infinitely less interesting.” The smirk on her face was the same one curving Imannis’s lips; she had as much the heart of a predator as he did, and Jet knew he would be a fool to forget it.
Didn’t he have every reason to be sullen? Didn’t he have every right to be angry? To be confused?
He sat back, swallowing roughly, and considered his words as he schooled his expression, carefully curving his own lips into the faintest of smiles. He had no idea what he was doing, here. He was out of his league, out of his element, out of his everything. He didn’t know the language, and he didn’t know how to survive here, thousands of miles from home.
He could use a friend, couldn’t he? Even if that friend had sharp teeth.
“Not mad at all,” Jet said. “Just feeling a little stupid I didn’t know who you were.”
“How could you have? And this way I find out how you treat people who serve,” she said, shrugging. Wine bearers came around, and she lifted her glass, and motioned for Jet to do the same.
He watched the purple-red liquid flow into his glass and when he’d received it back, he watched her to see if she would raise hers in a toast, or simply drink. Everyone around the table was still talking, though now and then they stared at both him and Lucy, conversing quickly in Ilonan. When he caught himself straight-faced, he pushed the smile back to his lips, not wanting to appear sullen now, or ungrateful.
Lucida lifted her glass in a silent toast, nodding to him, and then drained it of its contents, watching him.
When she put it to her lips, he mimicked her movement, and as she drank, he resolved to put his glass down only when she did. When she set hers, empty, on the table, he did only a moment afterwards, breathless.
When she laughed, he did, as well, feeling lightheaded in a way that left his spine tingling and his legs restless, his hands hot and his head swimming.
There had been a saying, centuries ago, that the Allied Territories brought up and then destroyed, as they slowly took over more and more of the world, starting wars, attempting to subdue other cultures: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” The Allied Territories did not believe in partaking of culture and learning it; they burned it down and replaced it with what they’d decreed as civilized culture.
Jet knew would not survive a war where he was the only one on his side if he behaved in that fashion; and as such, he would have to forget, would have to become.
“When in Ilona,” he muttered to himself as he allowed his glass to be refilled.
Wine made it easier.
A rather large amount of wine on an empty stomach was a poor choice, on his part, but he weathered it, watching Lucida, watching Immanis, waiting for the food, and when that came, watching the customs of eating to make sure he did not do anything improper or downright offensive.
Luckily, eating in Ilona wasn’t anything too different than eating back at home, or even at the Academy, though the food here was rich, and the courses plentiful. He must have tasted a dozen different things, strange pulpy fruits with bitter rinds, dried fish flavored with ashes — he had asked Lucy to translate it repeatedly until he believed her — and something called a chutney he found he loved, regrettably so, once he knew it had been made with red ants and their larvae.
Hours passed in a dizzying rush of food and drink; he answered questions as Lucida and Immanis translated, asked questions of his own, and as the dinner party broke up, he stumbled away from the table with Lucida, talking with her about nothing in particular, laughing as he tripped over a rumpled carpet, laughing harder when she did the same thing a moment later.
She led him to the massive doors he’d been shown to before, but this time, she walked in with him; he didn’t quite realize where he was until the doors shut behind him, and then he paused, blinking, trying to clear his head. “This isn’t my room,” he said, chuckling.
She answered him in Ilonan, grinning at him, her dark eyes shining, and grabbed him by his jacket, pulling him in after her.
“Wait — no, this isn’t –” he began, laughing. “I don’t–”
She put a finger to his lips, and leaned in very, very close, her breath warm against his ear, panting briefly, paused. He parted his lips to talk, but she pressed her finger harder against his mouth, silencing him further. “Do you have a knife,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to his, her lips near the corner of his mouth.
“In my front pocket,” he breathed, his heart racing, his eyes wide in the dark of her barely moonlit room, “Wh–”
Her lips crushed against his, then, tasting of wine and coriander, of orange and turmeric. Startled as he was, he didn’t stop her, didn’t even try to; the kiss was sharp, and he tipped his head to the side and kissed her back without thinking. The last time he’d felt warmth like this was the night before Kieron left him, and it was a welcome sensation, human and hungry.
She smelled of jasmine and cinnamon as she took a step closer and pressed herself against him, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss and pull him close.
He gasped against her lips as her hand slipped into his pocket, and then he grew quite still as she shifted her hand against him, searching for–he hoped–the knife.
All the while, she kept kissing him, and he trembled as he moved to put his arms around her, kissing her in return, his head spinning, his heart racing, thundering against his chest.
She found it, closed her hand around it, and lifted it from his pocket with deliberate care, her tongue against his teeth.
With one hand she opened the knife, drawing back just enough that he could still feel her heart beat now matching his, racing, as she whispered against his mouth.
“We’re not alone.”
* * *
