All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,52
some room to work!
“I don’t know what to tell you!”
Tell me about Damien.
“Oh God,” Tucker muttered brokenly. “We were friends in high school. And I loved him.” His voice broke. “I was so in love with him.”
Were you lovers? Angel tried to suppress her jealousy. She was not the first person in Tucker’s life—she’d known that since she’d seen him asleep in Dakota Fisher’s bed.
“No,” Tucker whispered. “No. Because I was bi, and he was fine with that, but all he talked about was girls.”
Oh, Tucker. I’m so sorry.
“It wasn’t your fault!” Tucker wept—and yes, he was weeping, finally, from pain in his body and pain in his heart. Angel could feel the puke-yellow of bitterness fading a little, into the gold of nostalgia.
Please, Tucker, heal. Heal just a little, and I can help you heal the rest.
“What do you want me to say?” he begged, his voice nothing more than a harsh whisper, his lungs still crackling with the pain of Angel’s electricity burning away hostile spirits.
Did he ever know you loved him? Angel wanted to weep. It was the wrong question. She should have been asking something practical, like why the memory haunted Tucker worse than the terrible energies reaching into his body, but so help her, she needed to know.
“Yes,” Tucker said. The truck swerved, and Angel risked his wrath and took over, jerking the wheel with stiff hands. “Sorry. Sorry. I’ll try not to kill us. Yes. Yes, he knew. I told him, and he was… he was kind, Angel. I know he looked horrible, as a ghost—”
They all do. It’s because their energies are here but not their souls. But still, Angel hated to think of that snarling face, that bitter, screaming anger, housed in the diaphanous form of what had once been a friend, a lover never touched.
“But he was such a kind boy,” Tucker sobbed, blood and spittle running from his lips down his chin. “He was so kind, and he didn’t want to hurt me. And then, one night, he called me up. He said he’d been dreaming about me. About us kissing. He said he wanted to kiss me. And I’d loved him for so long. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to follow the pull that night, Angel. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. I was selfish. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh Damien, I’m sorry.”
Angel gave a mighty psychic scream inside his body and clenched all the muscles not used to steer the car. Oh yes! There! The layer of putrid guilt, it was diminishing, leaving healthy grief in its place. Not all of it. Some of it still lingered, but Tucker’s voice was broken, his lungs too damaged to talk anymore, and Angel needed to help him steer home.
Together they yanked into a skidding right-hand turn and then a quick left, the truck rambling to a stop almost past the rise. Angel/Tucker stomped on the brake, and Tucker moved his hand to kill the engine. Finally, both of them slumped, exhausted and frightened, in the front seat, while Tucker dragged in lungfuls of sweet, sweet air.
Hold on, Angel warned. I’m going to drive out more of the toxin now. It’s going to hurt.
“Bring it,” Tucker said, so obviously in pain that Angel couldn’t stand it anymore.
Augh! she screamed, long and loud, so long and loud that the truck’s front window cracked, the crack spreading with her squat-thrust-shove of poison out of Tucker’s body.
For a moment, nothing gave, and then she heard Tucker, in his head, thinking, Don’t hurt yourself, Angel. You’re trying so hard.
And that was it. That little bit of kindness and his aura firmed up just enough. Angel screamed again, and together they watched the yellow biliousness of spiritual poison evaporate into the air.
Tucker slumped sideways, his breathing much less tortured, and Angel sank a little deeper into his consciousness to take stock of his pain.
His lungs were no longer blistered, and neither was his skin. The parts of his chest that had been sweating, the skin broken and bleeding, were no longer stuck to his shirt, and his face showed a little bit of heat exposure, as if he’d fallen asleep in the sun with a T-shirt on his head.
But he was exhausted—too tired to move. Angel pulled out of him, hearing his sigh of relief as the uncomfortable fullness of two souls in one body diminished. Diaphanous again, she slid out of the cab of the truck and waited for Tucker’s friend to come help.