Page 21

Chapter 21

E very emotion I had suppressed in the last six months exploded within me in a burst of colour that flooded every inch of me. Until that moment, I hadn’t realised just how grey my emotional spectrum had become. How little I had felt, or allowed myself to feel as a means to hold back the agony at losing Asher.

His hand travelled up my back and pulled me in closer to him and I sank against his chest, our kiss deepening.

Questions attempted to surface in the rainbow deluge but they drowned in the cascade. In that moment, the last six months never existed. I hadn’t spent my nights curled up alone and wondering what I had done wrong, or what I could have done to fix things. Asher still cared for me, like he always had.

My hand slipped around the back of his neck, grabbing a fistful of his hair, just how he used to like, pulling him in deeper.

Any part of me that wanted to protect myself from the inevitable heartbreak when this moment ended was drowned out. I didn’t care. Not then. Not until I had to.

It wasn’t until that Hecate meowed loudly that my high crashed faster than a plane with broken engines, and I pulled away from Asher. But he kept his hands on me, keeping our bodies pressed together.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered.

“I thought it was the right thing,” Asher muttered. “I thought you’d be safer if…”

My curiosity pushed its way to the forefront, and suddenly my senses turned super sharp. Every twitch of his face, every change in his eyes spoke of conflict and pain. But from what? He had ended things between us and for what? Because he thought I’d be safe ?

“Safer?” I asked. “Asher, is there something you need to-?”

Asher took my face in his hands and stared into my eyes with an intensity I had never seen from him, not even in our most intimate moments.

“I need you to trust me,” he said. “Everything I’ve done is to keep you safe, even if you hate me for it. Just please if you need to go anywhere to track down this prophecy, ask me. I will go with you. It doesn’t have to be me, ask anyone, but for all things holy don’t do this by yourself. Please.”

With that, Asher released his grip from me and dashed past me. I blinked in a daze, listening to his footsteps disappear as my brain and body struggled to cooperate again.

Hecate stared at me from the counter, right behind where Asher had stood a moment ago. Then she padded up to me and reached up on her hind legs to paw at my chin.

“What was that about?”

Hecate raised a good question, but no matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t come to any conclusions.

Had Asher inferred that he had broken us up because he thought I was in danger? How did that work? Or had I missed the point completely?

I lay awake until the sun came up, the memory of our kiss distracting me from reaching any conclusion about what he had told me that night. All I could conclude was that he had suddenly decided he wanted to help me discover my prophecy, which was news to me given that he had tried to discourage me when we were together. And that somehow us being apart was safer? None of it made sense.

Hecate hadn't garnered any new information either when I asked her. I had wondered if, during her telling him why we had broken into the Franklin home, she had gotten even the slightest hint about his motivations. But she hadn't noticed anything while talking to him through her weird spiritual telepathy.

As the sun rose, I toyed with the idea of marching down to his room and demanding answers, but the idea of being alone with him in his room made me stop. After last night, were we in danger of having another moment like we did in the kitchen? I shoved my pyjama sleeve into my mouth and bit down. Not that I wouldn't have killed to have another night with Asher, but working out his secrets was more important than all that. Unfortunately.

Instead, I fell into a shallow sleep for a few hours until Priya knocked on my door to wake me up for breakfast. I trudged downstairs with Hecate, still in my pyjamas, and held my breath before I stepped into the kitchen. But when I searched for Asher at the breakfast table, I couldn't find him.

My heart sank, and I swallowed hard. Figures he'd left me again right when I needed him.

I sat down next to Penny, who ate her bowl of fruit and yoghurt with gusto.

"Hey," I said. "Where's Asher?"

"He left early, I think," Penny said, her face a picture of giddy joy. Whatever she and Edward were up to was clearly doing her some good. "He didn't say where he was going, though. Why? Did you need to talk to him?"

Did I want to open a can of worms about what we had been up to the night before? Not at the breakfast table.

"No," I said, with a shrug. "Just interested."

I still had his number, kept secretly in my phone for what I pretended was "emergencies", when actually I had just held onto the hope that he would text me with an apology and a desire to get back together. If he hadn't blocked me, maybe I could interrogate him.

"Would you mind coming to uni with me today again?" Penny asked. "I'm still feeling a bit… fragile."

On barely any sleep and with time ticking by on my commissions, I was reluctant. But in truth, anyone who ordered a grimoire from me knew better than to complain about being late. They weren't exactly legal, after all.

Even if last night had ended with a complete mess, I had gotten the power I needed and that surely warranted a day off, or at least a morning. Maybe I would catch up on some sleep in the library. Although, after what had happened the day before, I wasn't sure I wanted to choose that venue again.

"Sure," I said.

"I promise I won't ask again… or much more," Penny said. "But-"

"You don't have to explain yourself. I'll come with you whenever you want," I said, smiling at her. "Now would you pass me the toast, please?"

After breakfast, Hecate all but fell into a coma on my bed and Penny begged me not to wake her up. Given the night we had, I felt bad waking her to come with us for the day. Having barely eaten anything at breakfast, she was definitely uncharacteristically tired.

So Edward dropped just Penny and me off at the university. I was grateful that the two of them chatted enough that I could get lost in my own thoughts, which were consumed with last night's kiss. What had Asher meant by his odd ramblings? My mind had been too clouded with emotion to remember if he had said more or if I had forgotten something.

Asher’s comments explained why he had acted so strangely over the past few days. But getting into trouble on my own account was a sure thing. What did Asher think he was protecting me from?

I needed answers, and I wouldn't let him walk away without giving them to me.

As soon as Penny had gone to her lecture and I had tucked myself into a booth in the cafe, I tapped Asher out a text message:

We need to talk about last night and don't blow me off.

It didn't convey nearly as much confusion and frustration as I would have liked, but I had to give him some reason to answer me. But he didn't answer me. Not straight away, and not by the time I had woken up from dozing on my folded arms, drooling onto the table all the while.

Son of a biscuit. When I got back with Penny, he had better pray I had a sliver of patience left or he was going to get it. In a bad way. Not the sexual way. Although...

I slapped myself in the face and then again on the other cheek for good measure. Get a grip, woman.

"What's with the violence?" Penny asked as she slid into the booth opposite. "Trying to stay awake?"

"Trying to stay sane." I massaged my forehead with both hands. "How was class?"

"Weird," Penny said, raising her eyebrows at me. "Some older guy tried to sit in on the lecture but the professor booted him out because he wasn't on the class roster."

"Ew. Think he was there to pick up college girls?"

It wasn't like it didn't already happen at bars. Maybe this guy was trying to be different and go right to the source.

"No idea." Penny shrugged. "But he said he was there to take notes for Troy Franklin."

I stiffened. "Troy wasn't there?"

In all the drama of the night before, I had completely forgotten that Troy was even supposed to show up for class. Of course he wouldn't, not after realising someone had stolen his power.

"Yeah, it's weird," Penny said, sliding the jam tart I had gotten for her out of the bakery bag. "He never used to come to class at the beginning of the year, but I heard his dad gave him an ultimatum; either graduate or get written out of the will. He’s barely missed a class since."

Unless it was to de-fleshify a girl’s hand in the library, apparently.

"Huh. That is weird."

I was still in two minds about telling Penny about what I had done the night before, although I really wanted to get what had happened between Asher and me off my chest. Maybe I could tell her about that and leave the rest out, because I seriously needed a fellow girl's opinion on it.

"Speaking of weird," I said. "Something… happened between me and Asher last night."

Penny's mouth fell open and the bite of jam tart she had taken nearly fell out. She covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes continued to bug out of her head.

I watched with a sliver of amusement as she chewed furiously behind her hand and then swallowed so hard that she coughed a few times when she was done.

"Are you trying to choke me to death?" she asked. "What happened ?"

"I don't actually know." I twiddled with my thumbs. "We kissed but I don't know why , and he said some weird stuff-"

"You kissed ?" Penny slapped her hands down on the table and the mugs rattled. "I thought you guys were over?"

"So did I," I said. "But he-"

"I mean, this is so abrupt ." Penny leaned back and clapped her hands to her cheeks. "Do you think he's having regrets? Did he get cold feet because things were getting too serious for him? What if he thought he was gay and then realised he couldn't live without you?"

"Penny, gods, will you take it down a notch? Asher's bi, he's not having a sexuality crisis," I said. Although I couldn't exactly explain away the rest of her possibilities.

Asher did seem like he had regrets about our break-up, but even from the little he had said the night before, I could tell it was more complicated than that.

"Oh," Penny dropped her hands into her lap. "Well, that crosses out one of the things on my list."

"Forget your list. I need your help working something out with what he said last night," I said. "He said something about thinking I'd be safer if we broke up."

Or at least, that was what I had taken away from it.

"Safer?" Penny asked. "Safe from what?"

"That's what I don't understand, either," I said. "And I'm trying to talk to him about it but he keeps-"

"Excuse me, ladies. I'm sorry to interrupt."

I nearly jumped out of my seat when I realised a man had walked up to our table and stood uncomfortably close. Looking him up and down, I didn't recognise him, but Penny appeared to, as her face crinkled in recognition and suspicion.

"You're the guy who got kicked out of the lecture," she said.

"Yes, well." The man cleared his throat and extended a hand to her. "My name is Shawn Donnelly. I'm working on behalf of Troy Franklin and his family to investigate an incident that happened at their home last night."