Page 43 of Will It Hurt?

Chapter Eighteen

Aisla

“Would you like some company?” Maia asked as she poked her head around the door to my bedroom.

For Anaia’s sake, I usually kept the door slightly ajar to deter the entitled cat from caterwauling all day.

I glanced up from the floor-length mirror, watching a frown touch the space between my brows. I’d spent the better part of an hour cataloging the scrapes and bruises on my body, although the ones at the back of my head still eluded me. Soaking in a hot bath had helped with the soreness.

“Sure,” I said with a shrug.

She stepped into the room, dressed in a large t-shirt that fell to her knees.

“I brought coconut oil,” she said. Her bare feet didn’t make a sound on the thin carpet. “I thought we could do your hair if you feel up to it.”

“Okay.”

As I folded myself onto the ground, Maia knelt behind me and popped the lid on the clear glass jar.

The room filled with the sticky-sweet scent of coconut, like the best part of a Bounty bar, or the inside of my mother’s closet.

Maia reached into the jar to break apart a hard chunk of the oil. She rubbed the shard between her palms and before long, her skin gleamed with a thick layer of coconut .

I breathed it in, feeling the tightness in my chest ease just a little.

Coconut was the smell of my ancestors—the quiet power of women who had come before me, who had escaped persecution and made space for themselves in a new country. They had made magick , even in the simplest of things.

There was a familiarity in it—the sound of palms rasping together to bring the oil to temperature, the slick noise of the viscous liquid turning warm and malleable, and the feeling of familiar fingers as they worked through the strands of my hair.

The ritual of it, the repetitiveness, the warmth that clung to my scalp—I felt my ancestors there, steady and strong.

As Maia moved in the mirror, kneeling behind me on her haunches, her fingers worked through my hair in motions that were muscle memory.

She parted my hair, baring the scalp, and pressed her oiled fingertips in slow, rhythmic circles—it was the same way my mother did it, the same way Maia’s mother had done it.

I imagined them sitting like we were now, bottles of oil resting at their feet, their hands moving with the same quiet patience and sharing some mindless gossip from the 80s.

I thought of my grandmother’s hands, always warm, always steady. The way she used to massage oil into my hair when Amma was on an assignment. I thought of her careful hands—less tuggy than my mother’s—and the way she would carefully braid my hair after and tie a little towel over it.

And now, here we were, carrying on the same ritual. After the events of last night, there was something grounding about this.

Ritual, I thought. Familiar. Constant.

Anaia pressed her warmth against me like a furry little space heater as she settled next to my thighs, staring at her own reflection in the mirror .

Sure, just twenty-four hours ago, I’d almost lost my life. But for now, I was here.

Rooted.

Connected.

Whole.

The mirror and I were old friends—it knew me more intimately than any lover, but never judged my weaknesses. I’d sat in this very spot two decades ago, wondering aloud why I was so different from Maia, Brodie and everyone else.

I touched a hand to my cheek, cool and soft beneath the pads of my fingers. There had been a time when my gaze would narrow on the too-thick brows and the chin that was much too strong for my soft cheeks. Or the skin that was a shade of singed umber even in the height of winter.

It was whiteness I wanted at the time. A blank slate.

An existence where the word paki wasn’t slung around like it defined me.

I’d wanted to exist like everyone else did behind a mask that fit in seamlessly.

Pale skin, straight hair, different nose, different chin.

I assumed that the sum of these parts would mean a different life.

Even in my big age, I cringed when I remembered how I would avoid mirrors in school and shied away from my reflection. I had scrubbed my skin raw, hoping it would lighten the brown that made me different. I had slicked a whole tub of gel over my curls so they wouldn’t frizz and fray.

Above all, I’d hated looking like a smudge of ash in a sea of ivory. Different. Always different. An anomaly that had been misplaced.

It had taken years to unravel the lies I had come to believe about myself—social media in the 2010s had helped to shift my perception of brownness in a white-dominated society.

And after spending years avoiding my own reflection in public, I’d started seeing my existence as something more than a mistake .

I now thought of my features as a collection of my ancestors—each one a story of escaping persecution in our home country all those years ago.

My grandmother’s eyes blinked through mine, my mother’s high cheekbones carved their way into my own.

The more I looked, the less of myself I saw and the more of them I became.

Each face from the Laxmi line of wytches had merged to form my own.

“What the fuck?” Maia paused, pushing herself onto her feet. “It can’t be.”

I glanced at her reflection as she pressed her face into the window.

“She’s back.” Maia’s voice was laced with shock. “Your stalker.”

I scrambled to my feet. True enough, there she stood, a lone dark figure under the halo of the streetlamp, hands tucked into her pockets and wingtips pointing north.

Her position told me that she was aware of exactly where the wards were placed and wished to avoid their taser-like burn while still getting my attention.

Snow fell around her and piled in little white mountains.

How long has she been standing there?

A part of me, the part that was still achy and bruised, wanted to throw open the window and yell go away!

But a much larger part of me, the part that had lain dormant for so long, wanted to bask in the vibrations of her hate, her rage.

Perhaps I should consider upping my therapy sessions. It couldn’t be normal to be drawn to someone’s negative energy. Hate and rage shouldn’t excite me.

“Why is she back?” Maia asked, squeezing into the small space in front of the window until our shoulders brushed against each other. “I thought you said she agreed to leave you alone? ”

“I don’t know.”

I gnawed on the edge of my already bitten nails.

“She’s obviously waiting for you.” Up close, I noticed two round indents from the rubber lining of the lab goggles around Maia’s eyes. “But we can’t invite her in.”

I looked down at my pajamas.

“I just got warm,” I muttered. “I don’t want to go back out into the cold.”

“Maybe she’ll leave if we ignore her.”

That was unlikely, given how much snow had already accumulated on her clothing. The undead weren’t deterred by the cold like we were.

“Doubt it.”

With a determined sigh, Maia pried open the brass latch on the window and thrust her head outside.

The vamp glanced up, and I thought I saw her eyes flash even from a distance.

“Oi!” she yelled, shattering the pin drop silence of our neighborhood. “Go away! She doesn’t want to talk to you!”

But the vamp didn’t budge. Not one bit.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that I would need to sacrifice the warmth I’d retained from the bath if I wanted to be rid of my visitor.

As Maia kept watch at the window, I tugged on a pair of thermals and layered them with dark jeans.

After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to tuck my pajamas into the jeans and pulled a thick knitted sweater over it.

I was erring on the side of comfort—something told me that the conversation with the vamp wasn’t going to be a short one.

“She’s dangerous.” Maia turned to watch me pull on a pair of thick socks. “I don’t think you should go, Aisla.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, tying my hair into a damp bun at the top of my head. “I’m staying within the wards. Like before. ”

“I…” Maia paused, biting her lip. “Something feels off. Maybe you shouldn’t go. She can’t possibly stand out there forever.”

“She’s immortal, Maia. Of course she can, especially if dawn doesn’t bring strong sunlight.”

Maia cursed under her breath.

“You need a weapon. I’ll get you a weapon!”

Experience told me it was better for Maia to occupy herself with a task in tense situations. As she stomped upstairs and tore the house apart to look for something I could use as a weapon, I slipped out the front door, zipping my coat up until it bit the skin under my neck.

Maraivaendiram, I reminded myself. Please, god, don’t let me forget again.

“How long have you been standing out here?” I asked, stopping a few meters short of the wards with the iron gates between us.

“A while,” was the terse response. I waited for her to explain her re-appearance, but nothing was forthcoming.

I shoved my fingers into my coat pockets, mourning the fact that I’d forgotten my gloves.

“This is the part where you tell me what you want,” I said with a frown. “It’s really creepy to stand in front of someone’s house, you know.”

“I know.”

“If you’re waiting for an invitation, you might as well just give up now. I have no intention of allowing you inside the protection of our wards.”

When she glanced at me, her gaze held something unreadable. Something dark. Something almost… vulnerable. I felt a tremor rise in my chest, an unspoken question pressing against my ribs.

“Look,” I said. “It’s fucking freezing and I’d rather be in bed than— ”

“I need your help.”

My brows rose at that.

“ My help?” I echoed. “Help from the person you tried to kill last night?”

Her eerie stillness didn’t waver.

“Yes.”

I scoffed. “And why the fuck should I help you?”

She retorted with a question of her own.

“Aren’t you curious about what I need help with?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’ll help.” I pried my fingers from my pockets to cross my arms. “What is it?”

“Have you heard about The Retractare? ”