Reckoning Page 0,14
was for damn sure.
We’d both changed so much.
“Planning. This is short-term. Anyone who goes digging through paper will find out Gran’s property’s in trust for me, with a couple investments paying the taxes. Someone will eventually track us, or figure out I’ve gone here to lick my wounds. We can’t stay here past fall, and that’s if they don’t find us first.”
“They. The vampires, and . . .”
And the Order. Staying with them is about as safe as a sack of snakes for you, and I’m not sure I like it much either. “And anyone else. So I need short, medium, long-range, and contingency plans. You think this stuff over before you have to.” I stared at the blank paper. “Dad used to say that.”
“Your accent’s getting thicker.” He rinsed the skillet, working the pump like he was born to it. “It’s cute.”
Did that count as being willing to talk about something emotional? A reluctant smile pulled at my lips. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall down. Awkward silence reigned in the kitchen. He kept washing, the white bar of a dish towel over one shoulder.
I flipped idly through the book. Dad’s crabbed, neat handwriting, in different pen colors. I found Augustine’s name and address and numbers, with the inked cross Dad used to mark a safe contact.
There were other hunters. How many of them were djamphir—or something else? Could I still trust them? Would they know what I was now that I’d bloomed? Would any of Dad’s friends or contacts sell me to Sergej if Dad wasn’t around?
It was a horrible thing to think.
There were a handful of people I could trust. Less than that, because the only ones among the living were up here with me. Christophe . . . maybe I could trust him, since Leon had been lying about him selling Graves to Sergej. But still, Christophe and Graves’d “had words,” Graves said.
Words about me.
I glanced up at Graves’s broad back as he finished rinsing a plate. Looked down again just as quickly, stared at the blank legal pad. “Can I ask you something?”
His shoulders stiffened. But he sounded easy, relaxed. “You bet.”
Chill, dude. I’m not going to ask you to repeat the L word. I know boys hate that. “Outside the gym. The night you disappeared. You and Christophe. What exactly did he say to you?” I had the Cliffs-Notes version, so to speak, but I wanted . . . more. “I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.”
“He had a group of djamphir buddies with him.” Graves set the plate in the rack, gently. Put his hands down on the lip of the utility sink, dropped his head forward. His hair curled over his nape, but you could still see the vulnerable-looking spot there. “He asked me if I thought I was any good for you. I said I knew I wasn’t, but I was all you got and I was stepping up. He laughed at that, and we got into it. Kind of . . . well, a shoving match. Guy stuff.” He let out a long, harsh sigh. “It ended up with things getting serious. He said I wasn’t doing you any good. That you deserved better.”
Oh, Jesus. I tasted burnt metal, swallowed hard. My fingers tightened on the blue Bic. “Graves—”
“I told him that you deserved better than a creepy little fuck like him, too. That was about it. I went for a run to cool off and the vampires nabbed me.” He pulled the plug on the sink; on either side, framing the window, were shelves holding the sum total of Gran’s china. There was a gleam on the windowsill, a random reflection of sunlight.
We’d have to keep washing like mad to make sure we had clean plates. All the pots and pans were hung around the stove, and Graves straightened. He started hanging things up, each in the correct place. Which meant he’d been watching me.
Soapy water slipped down the mouth of the drain. The gurgling was loud in the silence between us.
“You shouldn’t trust me,” he said finally, grabbing the edge of the sink again and holding on for dear life. Muscle stood out under his T-shirt. “He broke Ash. He could’ve broken me. I could be even more dangerous than that Anna chick. You shouldn’t have come to rescue me.”
He meant Sergej, and I could see Graves’s point. But still. All the breath rushed out of me; I had a hard time finding enough to