Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(75)

"Did you see what you needed to?" he asked.

His voice was merely curious. He didn't realize what I'd found out. I decided to keep it that way.

My most desperate question had been why he'd left me when we were eighteen. How pathetic. Almost as pathetic as his leaving because he'd been ordered to.

I tamped down on that anger. He'd been eighteen, same as me. Thrust into the federation long before I had been. He'd been adrift. Alone and floundering. I would have been no help to him at all. I would have gotten us both killed.

That Ruthie had been right in her assumption did not make me feel any more warm and fuzzy toward her right now.

But one thing at a time. I really needed to know where Summer had taken Jimmy. That I hadn't fallen out of his dreams and back into my cold, half-dead body in Indiana meant I could still discover the answer to My Most Desperate Question, Part Deux.

"Lizzy?"

I lifted my head, and my nose brushed his knee. The scent of him—cinnamon, soap and water—washed over me and my eyes watered. So much given, taken, lost. I climbed to my feet just as he stood.

We were only inches apart; the heat of his naked skin washed over me. I laid my palm against his chest, felt his heart heating, realized mine wasn't.

Uh-oh.

I should probably do what I'd come here to do and get back. I wasn't exactly certain how everything worked, but I had a feeling that once my body had healed, I'd be yanked out of here faster than I'd been dropped in.

Jimmy covered my hand with his. He was so warm I wanted to burrow into him and let that warmth, his scent, wash over me. Now that I knew what was behind the secret locked door, a lot of other doors were being un-locked. Like the ones I'd slammed closed the day I'd first seen him with her.

Damn.

I'd been swaying forward, face lifted, lips puckered. Now I stiffened, stepped back, and he let me go.

"What did you see?" Jimmy asked.

"Not much in there." I tapped on his head with my knuckles.

"Ha-ha."

My attempt at humor relaxed him. Obviously, if I'd seen what he hadn't wanted me to. I wouldn't be able to joke about anything.

Jimmy didn't really know me very well at all anymore. Did anyone?

I moved to the window. The bars were gold; they had to be. Jimmy could yank out anything else, though I had a feeling he'd have a hard time slipping through this small of a hole. He wasn't a shape-shifter, like me.

The moon that had shone in earlier had disappeared. The sun wasn't yet up and darkness ruled. All I had to do was ask Jimmy where he was, and he'd tell me. I was in his head; he didn't have much choice. Yet, I hesitated. Once I asked, once I knew, I'd come here, and I'd hurt him.

He moved behind me, silently, but I knew he was there. I always knew. We were connected in a way nothing and no one could ever break.

Unless it was me.

He put his hands on my hips. I felt his lips in my hair, his breath on my ear. I leaned against him, just for a minute.

"You seem better," I whispered.

"I'm not."

Was I happy about that or sad?

"Summer cast a spell."

I fought not to stiffen at her name. None of this had been Summer's fault. Although her falling in love with him was just annoying. It made me feel sorry for her, and I didn't want to. I wanted to keep hating her. I did it so well.

"What kind of spell?" I asked.

"Subvert the demon."

"How?"

He didn't answer. Instead he stilled. Something had changed. It took me a few seconds to figure out what, and when I did, I stilled, too.

His skin seemed so hot; his hands on my hips had become almost bruising. Slowly I turned and for a minute, in the dark, I thought I'd imagined things. He smelled the same; his outline was so familiar; I'd seen it rise above me in the night so many times. The cadence of his breath, the fall of his hair, the curve of his neck into his shoulder were all Jimmy.

Then, behind me, the sun burst free of the night and splashed merrily across his face. The center of his eyes flared red; his fangs had lengthened.

"It's coming." His gaze lowered from my eyes to my neck.

My pulse pounded in my temples. I guess something had jump-started my heart. Most likely the sight of his hellfire-lit eyes.

"I can't hold it back all the time." Jimmy stared at what must be my throbbing carotid artery and licked his lips "Sometimes it gets free."

I backed up. smacked into the wall, threw a glance over my shoulder, and froze at the sight framed in the window.

I knew exactly where he was.

The next instant I lay on the pavement in the parking lot in the dark. I had a bad f*cking headache.

The lopsided moon flaring brightly against a navy blue night confused me, as I'd just watched the sun come up in dream-walk world. Two heads appeared above me, haloed by that moon.

"Better?" Sawyer murmured, sounding completely calm, not at all freaked out by what had to have been a pretty freaky situation. There were a few good things about Sawyer, and that was one of them.

"What are you?" Luther sounded freaked out enough for both of them.

I sat up, touched my head, which still throbbed but appeared to be all there, though sticky with things I didn't want to think about. Then I glanced around. We were amazingly alone.