I have to shut him up.
The flabby flesh in my hand is shoved over his lips, and I hold my bloody palm to his mouth as he gags on his own shitty choices in life.
I lean into him and speak as slowly and articulately as I can for his little brain to fully understand.
“You’ll never hurt her again. Ifuckingpromise.”
Then his lashes flutter, the whites of his eyes winking before his head lulls to one side.
And I let him drop to the hard ground. His body thuds over my shoes, and I have to kick him off of me to get to her.
The girl lies soundless and untouched.
The homeless man still remains seated at the other corner of the dumpster, his mouth as wide as his brown eyes at this point. I consider him as I pick the girl up and throw her carefully over one shoulder.
A soft humming sigh slips from her lips and does something strange to my chest.
I ignore it. I’m still waiting for the guy to react to what he just saw. But he doesn’t. The man watches us and never once says a word. He doesn’t scream. He doesn’t scatter away from the violence.
He just . . . exists.
Sometimes that’s the hardest part of the day. Even when shit like this happens.
With one hand, I reach into my pocket and pull out all that I have. A band of mortal dollars lifts between him and me. I have no idea what the value of the bills in my hand actually are. It isn’t important to me. But it is to this man. I offer the money towardhim. Blood smudges the printed green faces of old men. It stains my hands. It’s sticky against my neck even.
But I offer it kindly. He takes it too.
“Thank you,” he whispers on a dry, exhausted voice.
And that’s what it comes down to: a fucking exhausting night.
THREE
Seven
He looks like shit.
“Yer look like shite,” Rorrick tells him with a curl of his lips.
Nothing makes Rorrick happier than seeing Christian scowl. Any emotion is good emotion from the tragic prince. That’s what age does to you. When I was first told I’d live forever, I thought it was a blessing.
It’s not. It’s a goddamned curse.
What I’ve lived through is proof of that. I’m half their age, but I’ve spent all my life detaching from the pain .
Each year they grow more powerful. And their minds grow more unstable.
“Give me a hand with her.” Christian passes a limp body to me in the middle of the busy street. Dry blood stains his hands. It’s splattered across his pale neck and jaw, dying his white-blonde hair a shade of deep pink in some places.
A woman passes by, hand in hand with a man, and her laughter rings out, even as she looks at me and the lifeless body in my arms.
Humans don’t see well. A bit of magic wipes away all the ugly things that constantly surround them. In their eyes, the woman I’m holding doesn’t even exist.
When I look down on her angelic face, those other people don’t exist either.
“Damn,” I whisper.
She’s gorgeous.
