contagion purging out of her system... or maybe it was the final dark blockage he'd placed there leaving. It could be a good thing that it was finally gone, or a bad one--the problem was he wasn't sure. But her darkening aura couldn't be a good sign.
"You still leaving today?" he asked quietly, trying to feel her out before launching into his observation. "I can take you home so you don't have to drive."
"The road will do me good," she said, not looking at him as she put shea butter on her elbows. "Fresh air will clear my head."
He didn't say anything, and then let his breath out hard. The room seemed to be growing darker around them; hopefully it was just his imagination. He glanced out the window, quickly studying the clouds to see if that was all it was. The last thing he wanted to do was to set her off again about what had happened in Arizona, but as his mind tried to take a different path and his mouth tried to form a different sentence, the subject he vowed he'd never bring up came out instead.
"Listen, D, that thing that happened between me and Juanita in Arizona--"
"Oh, you mean that foul shit that went down in my house?" Her tone was salty as she stared at him hard for a moment and then went back to her original task, serving him pure attitude. "I know. You were under the influence. You told me, I got it, we discussed it to death. There's nothing more to say about it."
"That wasn't me--"
"Right. I keep forgetting that it was your evil twin," she said, sucking her teeth.
He rubbed his palms down his face and sighed, frustration adding tightness to his voice. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with them?
"You know what happened when I made that attempt to get the book. I got possessed for a few, but if that hadn't gone down, I wouldn't have... baby, what I'm saying is, the shit wouldn't have gotten crazy... and I know you're still feeling some type of way about it and--"
"Oh, yeah," she said with a brittle chuckle. "I am definitely still feeling some type of way."
"So am I," he said quickly, feeling his pulse race and not sure why. He glanced around the bathroom and then focused on her aura. It was now almost blackened with flecks of eerie, static-charged filaments running through it. "Baby, your coloring is off, so is the light around you. This isn't us, not how we roll. I need to get you diagnosed by Marlene, or something... just like you told me back then, when I had my run-in with Level Seven."
She didn't move or speak; he didn't move or speak. All he wanted to know was where this conversation was going and what the darkness was that entombed her. Okay, she didn't have a blade on her. Good.
However, he could see her losing control of all reason second by millisecond. Fury radiated in her aura the longer he stood in the same space with her. It was as though black lightning was coursing through her normally silvery glow, making it take an unnerving dark turn. Her tense expression and jerky movements while applying cream to her body said everything. What had happened?
As he tried to think of what he could say to her, he knew the change within her had occurred in painful waves over a course of days. It was as though the sudden awareness hit him all at once.
At first she'd been stunned numb when the full memory came back again, and had then cried bitter tears when it all washed over her as sensations. They both did when he confessed, only after she knew for sure and wouldn't let it rest. She'd soaked in his explanation too hurt to even speak. Having to tell her something like that, and to see the look of horrified disbelief on her face, was the thing that had brought him to tears. Sobs, to be exact. She'd taken his vampiric turn better than that.
Then she became somber, as though someone had died--maybe they had. Then she asked fifty million questions, trying to understand and wrap her mind around the phenomena... made him relive it in excruciating detail, impression by impression until he was almost ready to walk. But he couldn't; she had the right to know. Then she had become calm and psychiatric and seemingly resigned over breakfast. He'd thought the storm