Page 146 of Nine-Tenths

Onatah levers me to my feet, pulls me through the branches. She lifts my wrist, turns it over and sniffs at it. It's flaked over with gross dried saliva. The bruise itself is huge, three wobbly circles overlapping one another, already angry red around theedges and purpling in the center, a thin cut oozing a sluggish bead of drying blood. It's horrifying. It hurts like crazy.

It was my idea.

She circles around me, looking for other hurts. My neck burns when I turn it. It's rough with another massive suck bruise. Onatah comes back around to stare at my face, which I'm sure is puffy and lined with tear-tracks. My eyes feel swollen.

"Fucking colonizer bullshit." She yanks me in for a warm, firm hug.

"Don't touch me!"

"Over the clothes," she says gently. She smells dragon-smoky, and like the wind, and leather, and that's good, right now. It’ssafe.Then she adds in a slightly louder voice: "You're not going back in there. Not before you clean up, and we have the conversation someone else clearly wormed out of."

A rustling on the other side of the gate catches my attention.

"Who was…?"

"Never mind. Get on the bike. Helmet's in the saddlebag."

We're already off down the road before I realize that the sound on the other side of the wall had probably been Dav. Standing rightthere.

Probably had been there the whole time.

And not saying a goddamned thing.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

For those of you following along at home, this is the climax of Act Two, the part of the story where the clues are supposed to all come together and a revelation occurs. The main and subplots merge, and you realize what was happening overtherewas part of what's happening overhereall along. Surprise! Here's the thing though: this is real life, and not a story. So all the small, important clues? I wasn't fucking clocking them.

By the time Onatah parks the bike on St. Paul Street, Beanevolence is closed. The lights are still on, though, and Hadi lets us in when I bang on the glass.

Without so much as a hello, I make a bee-line for the bathroom. Through the closed door and the rush of water in the sink, I can hear the murmur of voices but can't make out thewords. I strip off my shirt. In the harsh light of the bathroom, I look sallow. Well, more sallow than usual. My hair is a wreck, my face smeared with tear tracks and road dust. The burst capillaries on my neck are a horror show. There are fine red lines and prick-marks from Dav's teeth and claws all over my chest and belly.

I look savaged.

And it hurts.

Fuck, it allhurts.

I've been scratched up by lovers before, but this wasn't pleasurable. I didn't want it. Dav didn't want it either. He fought it, and he fought it hard, shuddering and telling me how to get away from him.

This isn't something Dav didtome.

This was…

This was bullshit.

I scrub every bit of skin I can reach—and I am angry now. So angry I have to flex my fists to fight the urge to punch the mirror, which won't make me feel better and would mean I'd have to buy Hadi a new one. I shove my way back into my shirt, seething, the scrape of fabric making it worse, and good, good, Iwantto feel it. The anger. The pain. Because… how dare, howdareSimcoe do that to Dav?

I'm mad about what happened to me, too. I'm filled with terror at the memory of how effortlessly Dav proved he could overpower me, how quickly it had all happened and how… howhelplessI'd been.

But worse is that Simcoe shook my hand and heknewwhat would come of it.

I hate the bastard so goddamned much right now. I try to imagine the hate as a physical thing, a black sludge I can expel from my body. Dr. Chen taught me this one, visualizing an emotion you want to purge. I cough, hork up the hate, spit intothe sink, imagine it swirling down the drain, gone. It works, sort of. Leaves me feeling hollowed-out.

When I shut the taps, it's just in time to catch Onatah's "Got anything stronger?" through the door.

When I emerge, damp around the edges but feeling slightly more human, there are coffee cups, a carafe, and a bottle of whiskey on the table in the conversation area. The black leather sofas are occupied with Onatah, Hadi… and Pedra.

"Hi," she says softly, when I stop to glare at her.