Then he tosses the ball up in the air yet again.
“Yeah, well, I’d rather have a mean streak than an asshole streak,” I tell him.
“Everyone has an asshole streak, Grace.” He looks me straight in the eyes when he says this, and for the first time, it feels sincere. He feels sincere. “The only difference is whether or not they’re honest enough to let you see it. And those who aren’t? Those are the ones you need to watch out for.”
“Why does that feel like a warning?” I wonder aloud.
“Because you’re not some pathetic little human anymore. You’re a gargoyle, and when it comes to how people feel about gargoyles—knowing one, owning one, possessing one—nothing and nobody is quite what they seem.”
“Including you?” I shoot back, even as a shiver works its way down my back at his warning.
“Obviously me,” he agrees, sounding bored and annoyed. “But my point is, I’m not the only one.”
I don’t know how to respond to that, don’t know if he’s just messing with my mind or if there really is some truth to what Hudson is saying. Before I can decide, he steps away from the wall. But instead of coming toward me, he moves farther back into the shadows of the room.
“Here comes one now,” he whispers deep in the recesses of my brain.
“What do you mean?” I ask, just as softly.
He shakes his head, refuses to say anything else.
And it’s not until I turn away, not until the Bloodletter calls my name, that I realize that the ball Hudson tossed up in the air? It never came back down.
34
This Place Isn’t
Big Enough for
the Both of Us
“Grace, are you awake yet?” The Bloodletter’s voice seems farther away than expected.
“I’m awake,” I tell her, pushing myself into a sitting position and leaning back against the pillows. “I’m sorry. Hudson…”
“What about Hudson?” the Bloodletter asks, leaning forward with watchful eyes.
For the first time, I realize that the shadows were hiding bars that are between her and me. Even worse is the realization that I’m on the wrong side of those bars.
I bolt upright then, my gaze searching the shadowy darkness until it collides with Jaxon’s. “What’s going on?” I demand in a voice made shrill with fear. “Why am I in a cage?”
“It’s okay,” he soothes.
“It’s not okay. I’m not some animal in the zoo, Jaxon. Get me out of here. Now.”
I start to reach for the bars, then think better of it, since they’ve got this weird, electric glow to them and I can’t help wondering what that means…not to mention what it will mean for me if I touch them.
“We can’t do that, Grace. Not yet,” the Bloodletter answers.
“Why not?” For the first time, I start to wonder if Hudson’s words were actually true. If he wasn’t just saying those things to mess with me.
“Much as I enjoy messing with you, Grace, I’m not in the habit of issuing warnings for no reason,” Hudson admonishes from the shadows.
“Stop talking to me!” I practically shout back. “Can’t you see I’m in trouble here?”
Jaxon and the Bloodletter exchange a surprised look.
“Who are you talking to, Grace?” Jaxon asks.
“They can’t hear me,” Hudson reminds me, and I clamp my jaw tight.
“It’s okay,” the Bloodletter says. “I know Hudson is in there with you. I’m the one who put you to sleep when I realized just how strong Hudson’s hold on you is.”
Part of me wants to ask how she knows, but then I figure, why wouldn’t she? What’s the point of being that old if you don’t know a lot about a lot?
“Oh, please.” Hudson lets out a long-suffering sigh and steps away from the shadows again to pace in the narrow space next to my bed. “She makes me sound like a cult leader. I haven’t forced you do anything you didn’t want to do.”
I turn to him in shock. “You mean besides stealing the athame and trying to kill Cole? Oh, and the fact that I’ve now blacked out three times in as many days?”
“To be fair, Cole deserved it. And we didn’t try to kill him.”
I watch as the Bloodletter grabs Jaxon’s arm and pulls him away from the cage bars to tell him something privately. Fuck my life. More secrets.
But I use the space to hiss quietly back at Hudson. “You’re right. We didn’t do anything. You did.”
He sighs and leans against the ice wall again. “Potato, po-tah-to. But back to the situation at hand. I warned you not to trust her.”
“You warned me after she’d already put me in a cage. What good is that?” I snipe back.
“And besides, you’re the reason I’m even in this cage, so you’re the one I should be blaming.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same song, different singer.” He waves a careless hand.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means more powerful people than you have bent over backward trying to absolve my little brother of guilt. I don’t even know why I’m surprised that you’ve turned out to be just like the rest of them.”
“I’m not trying to absolve Jaxon of anything!” I whisper-shout. “I’m just trying to get out of this damn cage. How did you come back without a body so that I’d be lucky enough to have you trapped in my head in the first place?”
“I came back with a body.” He shakes his head and glances at Jaxon, still conversing with the Bloodletter. “I was confused, too, but I know that much. The last thing I remember is my brother trying to kill me and I was moving on instinct, fading toward him to protect myself. When you turned to stone, I’m pretty sure you took my faded body that was still re-forming with you. And, well”—he spreads his hands wide—“here we are.”
That makes a twisted kind of sense to me, even though I don’t want it to be true. But what else could have happened? I didn’t shift to my gargoyle form on purpose—I didn’t even know it was possible. But if he was fading into me at the exact same time, maybe it messed with how I shifted. Or maybe I messed with how he faded. Either way, it really might be my fault that he’s trapped in my head. Ugh. So not what I wanted to realize.
I turn back to the Bloodletter with that knowledge churning in my head and try to get her attention again. “What do I need to do for you to let me out of here?”