My hands are wet. Sticky. I raise them into a sliver of moonlight from the window. They’re covered in crimson blood.
When I lower my hands, I see the body on the floor. The Artistic Director of Ashborne Collegiate Institute.
And my one wish is that he’d rise from the afterlife so I could do it all over again.
‘I’ll arrive late tonight…’ Lark sings, ‘Blackbird, bye, bye.’
“Blackbird,” a different but familiar voice says. I surface from the murk of memory and dreams that never let go. When I open my eyes, Rowan is there, sitting on the edge of the bed. His hand sweeps the hair from my face. “Just a nightmare.”
I blink and take in my unfamiliar surroundings. Light spills from the ensuite bathroom to illuminate a slice of the guestroom, decorated in hues of deep gray and white and pops of yellow that lose their cheerful brilliance in shadow. Moments come back to me from the haze of strong painkillers. Memories of agony as Fionn rotated my arm. The pain in Rowan’s eyes as he held my hand and reminded me to breathe. The relief of the bone sliding back into place. The way Rowan rested his head next to mine when it was over, as though every moment had carved a deep slash across his heart. When he rose and looked at me, there was both distress and regret in his eyes, and I couldn’t tell which one was worse.
And even now, they still linger in his eyes.
“What time is it?” I ask as I sit up a little with a groan. My shoulder aches, but there’s a certain comfort in having my arm strapped across my body in the sling.
“Eleven-thirty.”
“I feel gross,” I say as I look down at my leggings and the button-up flannel shirt that I’ve just slept in for the last few hours. I haven’t showered in well over a day, not since the morning of Harvey’s house of horrors. It’s as though he haunts me through the film that coats my skin.
“Come on.” Rowan offers a hand to help me sit. “I’ll start you a bath. Might help some of the soreness.”
He leaves me at the edge of the bed and heads to the sliver of light, as though he knows I need a minute to get my bearings. I hear the faucet squeak, the water rush into the tub. For a long moment, I just linger in the dimly lit room until I conquer my inertia and join Rowan in the bathroom.
I say nothing as I stop at the vanity to stare at my reflection and try to will the tears away despite the sting in my eyes and the knot in my throat. Deep purple bruises follow the curve of my eyes, the imprint of Harvey Mead’s bootprint even more vibrant in my skin than it was when I first saw it in the car. Dried blood still rims the edges of my nostrils. My nose is sore and swollen. Fortunately, however, it’s still in the right place. Which is good, because I already look like a fucking dumpster fire and I don’t need a broken nose to add to the current shitshow.
“Ready,” Rowan says as he switches the water off for the bath. When I don’t answer, he comes closer, his reflection drawing to a halt in the periphery. I don’t take my eyes from my ruined face. “I’ll get Rose to help you.”
“No,” I whisper. Tears gather on my lash line despite my best effort to keep them at bay. “You.”
Rowan doesn’t move for a moment that feels stretched thin. When he approaches, he stops behind me, the weight of his gaze so heavy on my reflection that I can feel it through the glass. “Beautiful.”
An incredulous laugh that sounds more like a sob escapes my lips. “I look like shit,” I say as the first tear falls. I know I shouldn’t care as much as I do. It’s only temporary. In a few weeks, this will be nothing more than a memory, probably even a funny one. But the problem is, I do care, no matter how hard I try not to. Maybe I’m just tired from the pain and the stress and the hours on the road. Or maybe it’s just hard to see that my vulnerability isn’t just trapped on the inside. It’s staring out at the world in full color. It’s staring at him.
“You’re beautiful to me,” Rowan says. He reaches from behind me to chase the tear from my skin with his thumb. The next pass of his caress follows the swoop of the bruise beneath my eye. “That color right there, how many things can you think of that are that color? It’s rare.”
He grazes my bruise again, his touch so soft that I don’t feel pain. My lip trembles in the mirror. More tears well in my eyes. “Eggplant,” I say, my voice tremulous. “It’s the worst vegetable.”
Rowan’s huff of a laugh warms my neck and sends a current through my skin. “It’s not. Celery is the worst vegetable.”