“You should keep it for yourself.”
“But you made it for the sculpture.”
The sharp angles of his face softened. “I made it for you.”
I became acutely aware of the ticking of the clock, and another sound: my heartbeat, skipping in a quick rhythm. I nodded, and knew that now I needed the spool of copper wire, and should get it, I really should, but it was in the desk drawer and Conn was sitting in front of it like a lion I’d have to creep past. I hesitated, then stretched out my arm and reached for the drawer.
His hand caught mine. “What’s this?” He eased back my sleeve, exposing the black and blue mark on my wrist.
“Just a bruise.”
“A bruise,” he repeated.
“Yeah. Really clumsy of me. I got it this morning.” Conn was examining my skin with wonder. His dark golden head bowed over my hand in his as I stood before him, begging my body not to tremble, begging my voice not to break. “What’s the big deal?” I tried to sound nonchalant. “Everybody gets bruises.”
“Not you. Never you. You shouldn’t allow it.”
Which was, obviously, a bizarre thing to say. But before I could make a comment to that effect, Conn grazed his thumb over the bruise and swept his fingers up the tender skin of my inner arm. I forgot to speak. I forgot to breathe.
Still seated, still caressing the pale hollow of my elbow with a palm as rough as a cat’s tongue, Conn looked up at me. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, and alive with a question.
My answer?
I kissed him.
He sighed. It was a tired sound, and so brief that I might have imagined it if that breath hadn’t brushed against my mouth. If I hadn’t inhaled it, tasted it, and made it mine. Then Conn pulled me into his arms, and I was invaded by an emotion as fierce as fear. I touched the prickle and velvet of his shorn hair. This is what it means to kiss, I thought. This is what it means to—
Conn shifted. His lips hardened, grew eager. Almost angry. He grasped my fingers, lowered them to his waist, and seized my upper arm. Gripped it to the bone.
Yet I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t. He crushed me close. I strained closer. Our kiss was a deep, dark well, and I fell into it, and never wanted to see the sun again. It didn’t matter that my arm hurt. It didn’t matter that Conn’s other hand was reaching behind him, searching for something in his back pocket.
Something that flashed through the air and bit into my wrists.
A pair of handcuffs.
“You’re under arrest, Shade.” Conn tightened the cuffs. “You have no rights.”
15
What had he called me?
Why was he acting like a cop?
Were those handcuffs made of glass?
My mind groped for something that made sense. Nothing did. I lifted my cuffed hands and stared at the transparent device that chained them together. An orange light coursed through the cuffs and the links between them. “What the hell,” I hissed.
Conn was silent. Stony. A suddenly menacing stranger.
I wrenched away from him and raised my hands high.
“No!” Conn’s eyes filled with horror. He moved to stop me.
Too late. I smashed the handcuffs against the edge of the desk.
My hands burst into flames.
I screamed. My fingers curled into fists of agony. The ends of my hair caught on fire. An acrid smell filled the air, and I remembered it from my nightmares. Now I knew what that stench was. The smoke of burning hair, of burning flesh.
Conn snatched the X-Acto knife from where it lay on the desk. He barreled into me, shoving me onto the bed.
“Don’t!” I cried. “Please!” My breath came in heaving sobs as he tried to pin me down and the waterbed rocked beneath us. I struggled, but struggling didn’t help. He was heavy, and I was on fire.
Conn raised the knife. Terror beat its wings inside me, and I heard my voice begging him not to do this, to let me go, to stop, please stop—
He drove the knife down, slashing into the mattress.
Water gushed over us. Conn flung the knife away, ripped the mattress wide open, and pressed my body into the wet ruins of the waterbed.
I choked, coughing up water that tasted like moldy plastic. The fire was gone, but I still twisted beneath Conn. His chest was a hard weight against mine.
“Darcy?” His face dripped water onto my cheeks. “Are you all right?”
His hold loosened.
I hitched up my knees and kicked him in the stomach. He slammed onto the sodden carpet, and I was up, I was free, I was careening toward the door.
He seized my ankle, but before I fell against the desk I wrapped my scorched fingers around a weapon: the stylus.
Conn scrambled to his feet, but so did I. He inched closer, hands empty and low, signaling that I should calm down and drop the stylus. Some of my fear had burned out with the fire, and the thick smoke in my lungs began to taste like anger as I listened to him gasp, trying to speak. I had knocked the wind out of him.
Well. That wasn’t much, but it was a start.
I swept my arm against the sculpture and flung it at him. The four glass panes split apart, the plaster man broke. Conn reeled as I drew my hand back and drove the stylus deep into his bicep.
He cried out. As much as I hated him then, I hated myself more, for my last move had been stupid. I had just given him possession of my only weapon.
But maybe he was stupid, too. Shuddering, he yanked the stylus from his arm and tossed it into a far corner of the room. Blood seeped through his sweater.
“Listen,” he rasped, but I had already thrown open the bedroom door.
I ran into the living room and had made it halfway to the front door when Conn snagged the waist of my pants and hauled me back.
“Listen,” he said again, this time into my ear, his breath hot against my neck.
Depending on your point of view, this was either the best or worst time for Marsha to come home early.
Conn swore, but didn’t let go. He snaked an arm around my waist and cinched me close.
Marsha let the front door swing wide until it banged against the outside of the house and cold air poured into the living room. She stood, staring. She sucked in a huge breath, and I could feel uncertainty in Conn’s body against mine. Then Marsha did something very sensible. In a voice as shrill as a train whistle, she yelled, “HELP! POLICE!”
Maybe a neighbor would hear. In the meantime, I rammed my elbow into Conn’s ribs as hard as I could, and heard something crack. He staggered back, and everything might have turned out differently if Marsha hadn’t done something very not sensible, which was to run into the kitchen, grab a knife from the butcher block, and throw it.