Meaning he sees Bastien but doesn’t hear the distinct De Leon rumble that conveys a glaringly clear message.
Meaning that he also doesn’t understand why he jogs his head up with a yo-bro smirk and receives a daunting glower as reply.
Meaning that when the guy adds a friendly wave of a drumstick and watches Bastien snap it like a twig, he doesn’t hesitate to leap to his feet.
Just like I do.
Because even as Bastien helps the woman to sit, smiling as if everything’s right with the world, I already know it isn’t.
I don’t know what to be more freaked about now: the fury on Drummer Boy’s face or the fascination on everyone else’s as they whip out their phones and start recording the rumble.
CHAPTER TEN
BASTIEN
“Hold. Still.”
Though this is Raegan’s third time around with the words, their vehemence does not wane. But none of her communication has been jovial since the commotion I caused on the bus, causing the driver to swerve, stop, and order us both off the conveyance.
It mattered not that I was the one with blood joining the rain down my face. The woman had jabbed hands into her jacket pockets and turned as if I had insulted her in eight different ways. Without waiting to see if I followed, she tromped across the street. Her pace did not falter even as I completed my crossing too late, earning me obscene screeches and blares courtesy of the people inside several of the car machines.
One of those enculés wanted to waltz into my memory a little more, cutting sharply at the corner to lob an empty glass bottle my way. I picked it up, perplexed why someone would be so wasteful with glass, especially etched with such a dazzling message. Share a Classic with a Friend.
Raegan Karlinne Tavish does not look like she wants to be my friend anymore.
Now, as she pushes a washcloth against my left cheek, I wonder if she has any considerations left for me anymore—as friends or beyond.
I should not be weathering that as if she was the one who punched me on the bus. Oui, the first and second time. I should not be feeling as if she is the one who grabbed one of the broken sticks from me and then lunged it toward my right eye socket. Thankfully, the bus’s driver swerved his wheel at just the right moment.
“Hold still,” she intones. “This is going to sting a little.”
The second she presses the cloth to my cheek, I jerk back with a howl. “Mierde! What the hell—”
She rolls her eyes. “I said—”
“A little,” I bite back. “That is what you said. Not that you had squeezed peppers onto a cloth and thought it would be a good laugh to use the foulness on me.”
She slams the cloth down. “Do I look like I’m laughing?” Her shoulders fall and her eyes darken, but she makes no further move to approach me. “It’s old-school antiseptic. It’s all the innkeepers had at the desk. You want an infection from those welts, that’s on you.”
I hold back from flinging words or a tone that I’ll regret. Moments like this are sometimes better than arguments. Sometimes. The conclusion aside, I seize a chance to study her in full. My poor little rescuer is seething, soaked, and spent—and still beyond beautiful. It still does not feel wrong to admit that, despite knowing her real identity.
It is a force beyond the obvious impetus: her tiny slip of fluent French, so much like Magique, that stopped me as hard as it did her. Nor was it her mumbled comment afterward, when she thought I was not listening anymore. A memory from sheer vapers for her but from last month for me.
But neither of those factors are the grips at my sanity now.
It is her. So many things about this woman, of this moment. The female who should have given up when I fled from her this morning. Who broke the legalities of this time to come and find me instead. Who has turned her life inside out to continue being here at my side, despite how she looks ready to fall asleep on her feet for it.
She inspires me as much as Magique ever did.
And somehow, I sense Magique smiling about that. Approving.
Telling me to care for Raegan Tavish in all the ways I took care of her.
Even if that means pulling in a long breath to strengthen my lungs for the next words on my lips.
“But that is…not the only thing that would be ‘on me’ today, would it?”
Raegan’s chin hikes up. Her gaze goes to green velvet, soft but still so dark. “No,” she murmurs. “It certainly wouldn’t be.”
“Then I am sorry.” I withdraw the cloth from her hold and cup her hands in mine. “You did not ask for any of this. For your existence to be upended like this. I truly regret that.”
“Like you regret bolting from me before we could talk about it and I could’ve helped you in a way other than impersonating a fed?”
I comprehend enough of the words that a sheepish reply is warranted. “Oui. All of that.”
“And you also regret getting into that guy’s grill and then snapping his stick?”
I understand all of that, as well. But the part about giving her my true contrition? I refuse to insult her by bearing that falsehood.
“He had another one.”
She yanks her hands away. “They had drums in your time, right? Ones that needed to be played with two sticks?”
I unleash an open seethe. Hers clearly wants company. “And we also had human beings who reached the achievement of their elder years and were shown respect for that. Respect that never had to be enforced with nudges, glares, or fisticuffs.”
A sigh tumbles from her pursed lips. “Fine. You’re not completely wrong. But you’re not totally right either.” She slides her eyes closed. When she reopens them, she sends a visual plea to the plain pendant light overhead. “Holy crap. I just hope nobody got viable footage for any decent posting. If they did and there’s a connection between the stuff that got streamed from the consulate, we might be dealing with more than just one peeved percussionist…”
Her trail-off is perfectly timed. Another few seconds would not have been enough to quash my enraged spike. “Peeved?” I spew. “Why? He was being a complete toad. That woman was carrying food and supplies! He was toting sticks.”
“Okay, whoa there, Trigger.” She lowers her sights back to my face and slides her touch along my shoulders. “Was he a total asshole amphibian? Yes. And were you right about reminding him of it? Technically and morally, super yes. But in the eyes of our law, that’s a hard no.” She throws one hand back up, halting my objection in my throat. “Hold up there too, buddy. Everyone in our day and age isn’t a boorish cretin. The nice guys are still here, but the battlefield has gotten a lot flatter. As you can probably surmise, that’s a good and bad thing.”
I push to my feet. This conversation is heading into different nuances, though I do not fully hate the recognition. I can surmise that, merci beaucoup, and it feels good to have someone simply recognize the fact. As thoroughly as I worship my big brother, it has been maddening to be brushed off as the denser brother simply because of our birth order. Why? Doesn’t second in line merely mean I’ve just germinated a little later?
But vocalizing all that will not change it. I embrace her bigger point instead. Her better point. “Equality for all means even the toads, oui?”