Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(23)
“I had it yesterday.” He searched his pockets again and then started looking around the house. They probably fell out of his jeans when the birds carried us. They were probably teetering on a rock ledge along that God-forsaken cliff. Just a little gust and they’d be gone.
“Never mind,” he said, pulling a small neon green lighter from his back pocket. “I found it.”
Well, wasn’t he nice to have apologized for accusing me of stealing? “Why are you smoking, and how in the hell do you get cigarettes here? Are there convenience stores?” Maybe it was a black-market thing, like the soul traffickers. Maybe Keeper got them in exchange for people.
He snorted. “I have them delivered from Earth, and another shipment should arrive in a day or so.”
“Brilliant. Can you see if they can score a Pepsi?”
He ticked his head. “Caffeine is bad for your body.”
“And cigarettes are healthy?”
“Not for you, but for me there are no ill effects. I like the taste, and it’s become a habit.”
“Can I have a smoke?” Watching him guardedly, I wondered what he would expect in return. I remembered the last time I bummed smokes. In all fairness, I’d offered the blow job. It was a trade, and at the time I thought it was fair.
Keeper threw the pack of smokes and lighter onto the couch cushions. He bared his teeth and walked away angrily, pacing over the carpet of the house. He was going to wear a path. I knew what he saw in my mind, but his anger was confusing. I wasn’t angry about it. I really had no feelings about it whatsoever. I wanted smokes. The guy wanted a blowjob. What was the problem?
“You… What you did for him? He didn’t… appreciate it. He was just using you.”
“I was also using him. Or do you not get that? I wanted cigarettes. I got cigarettes. End of story.” Judgmental asshole.
“You’re worth more than that,” he said, his voice gritty with emotion. The muscle in his jaw flared rapidly.
“I decide what I’m worth. Not you. Not that guy. No one. I decide.”
Keeper glared at me and then, even though his demeanor hadn’t calmed, he used a soothing voice and artfully changed the subject. “There has to be more to the story. A soul can’t tear the fabric of the divide. The veil was torn once, but not by the hand of a human soul,” he said, trying to figure out what I’d done. But I didn’t understand it either. It just did. It tore off and freaking disappeared into my hand.
“Let me see it again,” he said, standing up and grabbing my head, his thumbs at my temple and his fingers rubbing my scalp.
“Not so rough this time,” I warned. This time it wasn’t unpleasant. His touch was whisper soft, and if I had hair I’d have moaned embarrassingly loud. His touch was something I could easily become addicted to, better than cocaine, but perhaps more costly because I loved every soft stroke of his skin on mine. This must be a dream, I thought, closing my eyes and reveling in the feel of him.
“You aren’t dreaming. This place is real,” Keeper said softly.
“It doesn’t feel real. Life doesn’t feel like this. This is perfect,” I said, looking up at him. His eyes swirled a soft caramel. “Why do they change?” He knew exactly what I was referring to.
“They reflect emotion.” He had mood eyes.
“Why do your tattoos change?”
“They aren’t tattoos, and they reflect the language I speak and the words that I need. They are reflections of the pleas I utter.”
His thumbs massaged my temples and I melted into him. “Remember everything. Show me everything that led you here.”
So I did. I took him back to when my life began to unravel at the seams. I remembered the paparazzi, the car accident, and the feeling of letting go. I remembered Doc and rehab and trying to escape Dimitri. The feeling of shattering bones and bruises so deep I would always be sore. The spikes of my hair upon my fingertips when I realized it was gone and the ridges and bumps of the staples and skin that lay cramped in between. I showed him the moment I realized I was the girl attached to the machines, laying in the bed effectively dead, the fabric or veil or whatever he wanted to call it and how I poked at it, my finger coming away clean. Giving him the moment of Pamela’s abduction and then mine, I showed him how I fought them, how I didn’t go down without a fight—I’d fought Dimitri and his thugs, too. No matter who or what I fought, it never did any good, but I did it to show that I wouldn’t buckle before I broke. I showed him how the fabric tore, and then the fear in Gus’s eyes and the overwhelming gray that found me as the swirling black mass soaked into my body and awakened me to this place. I showed him the gate and The Killing Field and the moment I saw him.
His body, so close to mine, went rigid. “Thank you,” he whispered, easing his fingers away from me. When he touched my face, there was no spark. It didn’t hurt or anything. Maybe we were past it.
“This is beyond my knowledge. I don’t understand.” The strained lines in his face showed how difficult it was to even admit it.
“The veil thing you talk about – is it a bad thing that I tore it?”
“Most likely, yes,” he replied. “But it was so small a piece.” His eyes, now ebony, snapped to mine. “Those men who hurt you, why did they do it?”