Page 155 of Nine-Tenths

Nothing.

Onatah walks me outside.

"Thank you," I say.

"For?"

"Dropping everything to help me."

She sticks her hands in her back pockets, all cocky swagger. "Maybe I'm helping Dav." She smirks at me and I let her push away my gratitude.

Doesn't mean I don't feel it though.

"Thank you for helping him, too. I get now that you're kinda the only one who does."

Whatever infinitesimal respect Onatah may have for British draconic propriety goes out the window, and she clutches me close in a firm hug.

"You guys don’t deserve to spend the rest of your lives being bullied," she whispers in my ear as she lets go.

Janet gets out of the car, and opens the rear door.

"Master Levesque?" Janet says softly.

I stand on the sidewalk, hands shoved in my pockets. "What if I asked you to drive me to Orillia? To my family?"

Janet is too stoic to squirm. "I'd do it. But I would stay. I couldn't leave you there."

"What if I asked you to drive me to the airport?"

For a split second, anguish crawls over her face, but is quickly doused. "Please," she says. "Pleasedon't,sir."

"No. Of course not," I say, and climb into the car, because what else can I do?

Nothing.

Chapter Forty-One

"You're back," Dav says cautiously as I enter his—our—hisbedroom. He's seated by the fire, a half-drunk bottle of wine already beside his elbow. I assume the rest is inside him. He stands. Fidgets. Takes a step toward me. "I'm so sorry—"

"Don't," I hiss.

He stops.

It's one thing to know it's not the dog's fault it bit you. It's something else entirely to let it get close enough to do it again.

The nothingness I'd been stewing in since I left Beanevolence dissipates in the wake of... some emotion. Big. Choking.

"Are you alright?"

"Of course not."

"When you said Onatah told you about touching, I assumed—"

I'm humiliated, exhausted, frightened, worried for my safety, and he thinks he can tell me it'smyfault for not understanding? As if nothing had happened, still didn't have bruises on my wrist from his mouth, as if I hadn't beenthis closeto being another Charlotte?

Like the song about the merry murderesses says, Dav has it coming. I throw a punch straight at his nose.

The thing with dragons, though, is that they're fast. Especially the ones with military training. Before my fist can connect, I'm on my back. Dav has one hand balled up in my shirt, holding me flat against the carpet. The air woofs out of my lungs as my internal organs catch up with the rest of me. My head doesn't hurt. It never hit the ground. He's got the back of my skull cradled in his hand.