Chapter 32

32

MINA

I drove home by muscle memory.

It'd been a long time since I'd had a panic attack, but if anything was going to trigger one, it was the thought of going back to the cabin.

It made sense, now that I was able to put two and two together—with Sylas's help—but just because my brain knew it was the right thing to do didn't mean that any part of my body was on board with the idea.

Because my body remembered.

I'd gone there again, mostly to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy, after I hauled the police out and hadn't been able to find the cellar door—despite the fact that it was wooden and huge—and made myself the laughingstock of the campus.

And that was when I'd been caught.

All by my lonesome.

And—

"Mina!" Sylas shouted, grabbing the steering wheel from my hands, yanking us back into our lane.

"What? I'm sorry—I'm fine!" I sputtered, dragging my attention back to the present.

"Perhaps I should drive," he suggested sternly.

"Do you know how?" I asked, looking over.

"No. But it doesn't look that hard."

I snorted at him. "I'll pay attention," I said, then glanced into the rearview mirror and saw his expression of concern and disbelief written in his shadows. "Swear."

It wasn't like I wanted to think about my past really, anyhow.

But now that I had, it was like a shaken-up soda bottle—I'd made the mistake of opening it, dropping a Mento in, and now I couldn't find the cap.

I got us back to my apartment—we had several hours before we needed to go track Nolan down—and then I remembered that Sylas was going to scrape the memories out of the inside of his skull like the good part of an artichoke leaf.

And I couldn't very well tell him not to, if we needed to know those things to fix Ella's problem.

I was already ruining things enough with my inability to function.

"Mina?" he asked again, from beside me. I'd parked—but I wasn't sure how long I'd been sitting inside the car.

"I'm here," I said. "Let's go."

I made a beeline for my bedroom once I was inside, and started sorting through the contents of the top drawer in my nightstand, which was mostly bottles of pills on top of an old layer of packaged condoms. Hopefully, Sylas was staying politely outside my closed door for once while I uncapped a bottle.

You'd be surprised what you can get prescribed to you after your parents traumatically die. Not like I didn't deserve anti-anxiety medication, because I did, I was a college-aged student in America, for the most part we were all like nervous chihuahuas, trying to figure out what the fuck any of us were going to do with our lives.

But underneath the familiar orange bottles with tight white caps was what I'd used to use to relax, before I had access to good drugs and could legally buy weed...my vibrator.

I stood there, with one tiny white happy pill in my hand, while looking down at its friendly pink silicone and little rabbit-eared head.

I groaned, tossed the pill into the nightstand, and stormed back out into my living room.

"Sylas?" I announced, and he appeared.

"Are you well, my queen?"

"Honestly? Probably not. But—you have to do things I say, mostly, right?"

"Yes." His answer was hesitant and after my time in the car I couldn't blame him.

"And—you can touch me through fabric, yeah?"

I knew he could, I'd felt him all over me in the car, holding me in a completely unfair fashion—like he fucking cared.

"Also yes," he intoned, tilting his head. "Why do you ask? "

"So if I were to ever tell you to stop, you would?"

"Completely. Up until the moment I get to kill you, that is. Nothing will be able to stop that from happening." He gestured between us, where our invisible cord of shared fate was apparently always pulling me closer.

"Okay. Can you get on the couch?" I asked, pointing. He did so, and then looked at me, making himself more solid than normal in his current state of confusion. "Answer me truthfully—do you fuck?"

Everything on him that was usually in a swirling state of motion stilled, like for once he was the one frozen in time—and I realized that considering using my murder-buddy like a sex-toy was probably not very cool of me, and that I should genuinely fucking know better.

"I am so, so sorry. Forget I asked." I shook my head and went back to hide in my bedroom immediately, hunting in my nightstand for the pill I'd tossed.

Then there was a knock outside my door.

If he was knocking, instead of just appearing beside me, I knew things were bad.

"Mina," he said, from the door's other side. "You're not the first person to try to barter with me for their life."

I groaned. "I wasn't doing that, but out of morbid curiosity—was anyone else successful?"

"No."

"Please forget I asked, then!" I shouted back, rattling around the half-empty pill bottles in my nightstand for my loose Ativan. I had Xanax in there somewhere, but I didn't trust myself to be in murdering shape by sundown if I took it .

"I will be waiting for you on your couch," he announced, and then I felt his presence fade.

I stood over the open drawer. What the fuck did that mean?

Did I . . . want to go find out?

I closed the drawer again, and peeked out of my open door.

"What on earth possessed you to ask that?" he asked, the second he saw my face.

I came out sheepishly. "Okay, just, know that I'm not super proud of myself in this moment...but I wanted to get laid."

His mouth opened like he was going to say something, but then he didn't, he just gravely nodded.

"I mean, I don't want to if you don't want to, I'm way not like that—but—I saw myself in there with you, Sylas, in Timelandia. It didn't make you a good person suddenly, but it did help me to understand things with you."

"Ah, yes, Mina the frail human, suddenly grasping the intricacies of the universe." His tone was snide, but I was used to him by now, so I didn't really worry about it.

"I know you're only helping me for self-serving reasons. It's still help, though. And—you're what I have at hand."

"And isn't that what every man wants to hear."

I wiped my sweaty palms on the thighs of my jeans. "You'd be surprised." That made him snort. "Plus—you're my last chance at being normal."

"Normal," he repeated slowly.

"I'm not saying it makes a ton of sense outside my head, okay? I just wanted to do something safe. With a friend. And I'm pretty sure you can't knock me up—we both know I'm not ready to be a time-baby mom."

"Well, and you're on your period, besides," he said drolly, and it took me half-a-second to remember what I'd said earlier in Ella's room about my nosebleed.

"Also you're really good at callbacks," I said. "It's kind of hot."

That made him chuckle darkly. "I am not sure what you are good at, except for foolish bravery. But if sex is what you desire, I can certainly play along."

I bit my lips and took a hesitant step toward him. "You won't hate it or anything, will you?"

"No, my queen," he said, his voice slightly more solemn.

I swallowed, closed my eyes, and then opened them again. "All right." I pulled my top off, and unzipped my jeans, leaving my bra and underwear on, not trying to make things sexy in the least. "Just stay right there. And I might change my mind. I'm sorry if I do; it just is what it is."

"Whatever you desire," he said as I walked over to him. I put a knee on either side of his lap on the couch, and my hands against it over his shoulders. My underwear covered the mark the RRP guys left on me the second time through, which was good, because I didn't want to see it—and I didn't want to have to explain it to him. "What would you like from me?"

"No penetration—not yet," I said, and I wished it didn't sound so clinical, but here we were.

"As you wish," he agreed, but he also slouched down, jutting his hips up—it took me a moment to parse what he was offering, but he'd pulled enough of himself in so that I could see the outline of his clothing, and, when my eyes trailed down, I found the promise of something hard between his legs.

It made the parts of me the boys were right about long to answer. The rest of me was not a whore—and no shade to sex workers, having sex as a job sounded amazing—but if my pussy had its way, it wasn't picky, it'd work with a doorknob.

"You are my queen. Turn my lap into your throne."

I glared at him. "Why do you have to make things weird?" I complained, and he laughed.

"You're the one who wants to have sex with the creature that will kill you."

"Not sex, just . . . fucking," I muttered.

I hadn't been horny in months—ever since the last time I'd seen Trent in the cellar.

So why now?

And why him?

I thought it was because I knew him now, as much as it was possible for anyone to. Going to Timelandia had been like doing really good drugs—I'd gained a lot of clarity.

"What does normal mean to you?" he asked.

"That's such a good question," I said.

All I knew was that I wanted it in a way I couldn't quantify. I wanted to live in a world that was fair, where things made sense, where I could go back to just being a girl who was a little messed up, but who still had a clean conscience and a present best friend.

"Then might I suggest something?" he asked, and I gave a soft nod. "Sit down. "

I frowned at him, but he'd sworn he'd behave—and he wasn't human, which meant that maybe I could trust him. So I did as I was told, waiting for something horrible to happen, wondering if I'd ever not be waiting for something horrible ever again.

"May I grab hold of your thighs?" he asked.

"You have to say mother-may-I first," I snarked, but then nodded.

He took the tops of each of my thighs into his hands and I felt the pinpricks of his claws. "You have lovely skin."

"I bet you say that to all the girls you're going to murder."

That made him chuckle. "May I touch you, Mina?" Seeing as he already was, I had a feeling where he meant. "Not in, though, I promise," he said—and I felt a ripple between my legs, like a sea-creature breaching the surface of the water, running up my seam. I gasped, and he asked, "Shall I continue?"

It was nice to be asked.

It was nice to be touched.

It was nice, after so many goddamn months of festering silence, to be heard.

"Yes," I whispered, and so I felt him again, heat and pressure, rubbing against me, sliding back and forth. I felt myself part slightly as he slid across my opening, and something hot and blunt nudge against my clit. He did it again and again, making nerves light up as I started breathing with his rhythm, rocking back and forth in his time.

"Do you like that?" he asked.

I swallowed. "Yeah."

"What other normal things might you like?" His tone was even and calm, even as he was rocking up into me .

I bit my lips. Normalcy was now or never—because after he read Nolan's mind tonight, I'd never get the chance again. "You."

"Let us wait a bit," he said, sliding his hands up my thighs, to my hips.

"Why?" I heard myself—I sounded upset.

"Because I don't know when I'll get to do something like this again. If we are not in a rush, I would prefer it to not be over too soon." He tilted his gaze up to look at me.

It never would've occurred to me that we were both searching for the same thing. "What do you see when you look at me?" I asked, wondering which set of eyes he was looking at me with.

"A pretty human, grinding on me."

"Pretty, eh?"

"More attractive than seventy-five point one percent of all humanity," he said, and I stilled. "That's counting men and women by the way," he went on, as the edges of his lips quirked up.

"Fuck you," I said with a laugh.

"Or, you can fuck me," he offered instead, flexing his claws against me as he rocked, moving against me, making me move against him. "I can feel how wet you are now, Mina. If I were on fire, you could put me out."

"Don't judge." I frowned, pouting.

"Trust me, I was not. But would you rather know what I really see?" he asked, and I nodded. "I see a girl who is either brave—or insane—enough to let the creature who is going to kill her plug her cunt. And that goes far beyond external beauty—that fact makes her spectacular. "

I waited for him to make a joke, to disarm me and ruin the moment, but when he didn't, I dared to breathe again. "I'm not sure how I feel about the words plug or cunt used in that order—but—do that to me?"

His claw-tips guided me up higher. I felt him notch at my entrance, and then he slowly guided me down. I was wet, but he was also the perfect size, pushing me open and filling me as I slowly sank.

"Oh, fuck, that's good," I groaned, biting my lips and closing my eyes, as I settled him deep inside.

It'd been so long since I'd had sex—months, which, when you were like me, felt like an eternity. The shit I'd done for Brad did not count.

No—this was precisely what I needed: a good, deep, safe, dicking.

"Yes," he agreed, in a low, low voice. "Just like that," he purred as his hands moved me through another stroke.