16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

T he smart thing to do would have been to keep going, in line with my original plan. After what happened with the cop, though, my eyes burned like my body was trying to cry and my magic just wouldn’t let it. The guilt didn’t abate after two hours, and I wasn’t about to hand the keys over to S?ren again, so I pulled off the highway at the next hole-in-the-wall motel I saw.

“Why are we stopping?”

I didn’t say anything, just got out of the car and slammed the door shut. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to that fucking dick right now. I headed into the tiny front office, where a boy who couldn’t be more than eighteen looked up from his video game a little incredulously.

“Seriously?”

“I need a room for a few hours.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Dude, we’re not that kind of hotel.”

I sighed. I was so done with dealing with smartasses for one night. “I need a room. Period. Full fucking stop. How much?”

“We have to charge you for the full night.”

I put both my hands on the counter and leaned in. “How. Much?”

The kid didn’t intimidate easily. “Twenty-nine ninety-nine. Hey, why is your car bouncing up and down?”

I didn’t even turn around. I didn’t want to know. “Because there’s a freak with a short attention span in it.” I passed him thirty bucks. “Key.”

He rummaged behind the counter for a key. “Look, whatever your buddy is on, don’t let him shoot up in the room, okay? We had a heroin addict miss a vein last week, and she got blood all over the walls. Mom doesn’t like it when she has to wear a face mask to clean the rooms.” He handed me the key, attached to a battered plastic tag. “Number eighteen, last one on the left.”

“Thanks.” I turned around, and sure enough, S?ren was sitting on the back of the car and bouncing it up and down. I throttled back the urge to murder him. It wouldn’t take, and I’d probably just die myself as a result, but—yeah.

“Knock it off,” I said as I rejoined him outside. The lingering warmth of the day had finally petered out, and I was chilly now.

“I’ve seen video where cars do this, except those ones leapt much higher into the air,” S?ren said, still bouncing.

“Those cars are specialized. All you’re doing right now is ruining my friend’s shocks. So stop.” He stopped, to my surprise, and I reached in and got my duffel bag out of the back. “Our room is this way.”

“We’re getting a room?” S?ren smiled brightly. “Are we going to have sex now?”

“Oh my god.” I wasn’t equipped to deal with this right now, I just wasn’t. It was too much. “No. Not going to happen.” I stalked off toward the room.

S?ren trailed along behind me. “Why not?”

“Because,” I said as I inserted the key in the lock. The edges were worn down so far they were barely enough to get the pins to move, but it worked eventually. I stepped inside and said a silent thanks for the strong smell of bleach in the room. Bleach was better than a lot of what I’d smelled in other places like this.

“Because why?”

I turned on S?ren, who was shutting the door with a look of distaste on his face. Apparently bleach wasn’t so comforting to him. “What are you, five years old?”

He looked at me, and his expression went still as misty purple rose up in his eyes. I froze. “Older than you,” he said, an edge of hollowness back in his voice. “Older than all of your short-lived kind. I was old when humans first stepped foot on our land of fire and ice. Consider that, as you seek to chastise me.”

I wasn’t going to apologize, but I couldn’t afford to be an asshole either. I tamped down on both my fear and my aggravation. “We’re not going to have sex because I don’t want to do that with you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No.”

“You’ve had sex with this body numerous times.”

I shook my head. “That was with S?ren, not you.”

“We’re the same person now.”

I dropped my duffel at the foot of the bed—the double bed, goddammit—no twins here. “Not to me.”

“You aren’t attracted to this body anymore?”

“Not when S?ren isn’t in it.” I felt filthy, covered with the remnants of too many cold sweats and a gritty layer of dirt. Every muscle ached, despite S?ren’s little burst of healing magic after the whole tying me to a tree thing. If I didn’t clean up soon, I wouldn’t be able to, I’d just collapse onto the bed and sleep for way too long. “I’m going to shower. I’ll be back out in a few minutes.” I grabbed sweatpants and a T-shirt and headed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I didn’t bother to lock it. That wouldn’t help anything.

The water was lukewarm at best, and the little bar of soap had obviously been used before and stuck back inside the wrapper, but I didn’t care. I scrubbed every inch of myself, rubbing hard at where the bullet wound used to be, just to see if I could still feel something of it, anything.

In less than a day, my entire life had been turned upside down. I was a contestant in a game I was in no way sure I could win. I had, at best, half a plan that relied on people doing stuff I didn’t know how to compel them to do yet. And I was traveling with the body of a man I loved and the soul of a spirit sociopath. Life didn’t just suck, it was ready to grind me down into the cracks on the sidewalk and leave me there to rot.

I cupped my flaccid penis, thinking about S?ren for a moment. There was nothing, not even a stir of interest. Too tired. Too sad. Too wrong. I stayed in the shower until the water went cold, putting off my exit as long as I could. When it was no longer possible to delay, I dressed and went back out into the room, expecting another discussion, maybe a fight, about why I wasn’t going to give in to S?ren’s very poor seductions.

Instead, I found him lying on his back on the bed, so still at first I thought the landv?ttir might have left the body. But no, his lips were moving, although no sound emerged. I sat down on the edge of the bed and watched, warily, until S?ren’s eyes opened and he looked at me.

“I’m singing him a lullaby,” he explained in a soft voice. “He sleeps, for the most part. It’s easier on him, even though the water is soft. He dislikes the cold of it, so I don’t wake him to experience it unless I must. But some things can seep through, and singing is one of them.”

I turned out the lamp and then stretched out on the bed next to him, keeping a little distance between us. “What’s the lullaby?”

“It’s called Móeir mín í kví, kví . It’s about a mother who couldn’t take care of her child, so she left him outside to die. Later, the child comes back to haunt her and offers her the rags he died in to clothe herself.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It’s traditional. Are the lullabies you’re familiar with any better?” S?ren gently prodded. “ When the bough breaks, the baby will fall… That’s a song about a child perishing, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure.” Maybe it was, I’d never really thought about it. “What else can seep through?”

“Only the things I choose to let in. Comforts. Sounds that he enjoys. The warmth of another body. He misses it greatly.”

“I don’t want to have sex with you.”

“Which is very peculiar, but I suppose I can’t force such a thing,” S?ren said. I felt suddenly, drastically relieved. “A reluctant gift is worse than no gift at all. But if you lie with me here, he’ll feel your presence. If you wrap me in your arms, he’ll feel your embrace. This is no trick,” he added. “When we’re quiescent, the bond is stronger. You will comfort him as much as me.”

The idea of anything I did really being a comfort to the landv?ttir sat a little odd with me, but I could at least do this for S?ren. “Roll over on your side,” I said, and he obeyed. I scooted closer, clenched my jaw for a moment as I wrapped my head around what I was going to do, and then moved in to spoon S?ren from shoulder to calf. His body was cold to touch, but I rested my head against the back of his neck and put my arm over his waist because if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.

I held him close, and a moment later, S?ren’s hand found mine. He laced our fingers together, and I let him, because the move was familiar, something he’d done with me before everything had become so terrible.

We lay silent for a few minutes, and my fatigue started to get the better of me. I was almost asleep when he said, “I didn’t think that using your magic like that would displease you so. You’ve done far worse.”

It was an apology and a rebuke all in one, because the thing I’d done that was worse lay in my arms right now. I’d consigned S?ren to this fate. It didn’t matter how hard I’d regretted it later, I’d still done it. I’d messed with fate for selfish reasons, and this was the result. It was my fault, my responsibility, and I had to make it right.

“I’m trying to change,” I said at last. “I’m trying to be better.”

“Humans like S?ren are rare. The vast majority are motivated by their own betterment, not the betterment of their fellows. You’ve already proven to be the first type. Why fight against your nature?”

I didn’t want to think about it. I was tired of talking. “Go to sleep,” I mumbled against the nape of his neck. “Just go to sleep.”

S?ren didn’t speak for the rest of the night.