touch (32 page)

“The price will be steep.”

“How steep?”

“It must have value to you,” they said apologetically.

I already knew that, but having him say it again made me
nervous.  “What is it Morik?  What’s the price?”

“Your family’s chant.  You must abide by it until you turn
seventeen.”

My freedom.  The key to spending more time with him.  Would
I have enough time to choose him without it?  “Not until seventeen.  A week
before, I want it lifted in case I need to spend more time with you.”  Whether
out of desperation to make the connection or to say good-bye, I wanted a few
days.

“A deal.  Their protection for yours until a week before you
turn seventeen.  Your grandmother will come and pick you up shortly.”

Then he left her.

She blinked at me in confusion then clapped a hand over her
mouth, rushing for a toilet.  I stayed with her as she emptied her breakfast. 
As expected, a teacher came in questioning our lingering presence in the
bathroom.  My new friend took that moment to heave into the toilet again. 
Enough said.

I walked with them to the office after grabbing my things,
explaining my grandmother would be pulling me from school early, but forgot to
write a note.

A stubborn Beatriz stood in the office waiting for a hall
pass.  I’d forgotten Ahgred sent her away.  When she saw me with the girl who’d
misled her, her eyes narrowed on the girl.

“Ashley!  What the heck?  Why did you send me down here?”

Poor Ashley, her skin still horribly tinted green moaned and
shut her eyes as if that would remove Beatriz’s irritation.  I didn’t need to
say anything.  Bea did a head to toe sweep of Ashley and then looked at me.  I
had no doubt I looked pale.

“She got sick and didn’t want witnesses,” I explained hoping
Ashley would go with it.  I wondered what she did and didn’t remember.  Her
reaction to Morik’s tampering made me believe the experience had been less than
tolerable.

Gran strode into the office a few minutes later looking pale
and shaken.  No one questioned her when she told me to hurry up and held the
door for me.  Bea waved good-bye while the rest of the office faculty rushed to
get Ashley a wastebasket.

Morik waited for us by Mom’s car.  She and Aunt Grace
typically took the new car, leaving Gran a means of transportation.

He politely opened the door for Gran with a quiet apology. 
She patted his cheek, a little firmly in my opinion, and said he forgave him.

“For what?” I asked when he opened my door.

“My driving.”

I could just image.

Gran waited until he pulled away from the school before
asking for an explanation.

“Can we talk about it when we get home?  I don’t want to
distract Morik from driving.”  His white knuckled grip on the steering wheel
conflicted with his sedate driving.

*    *    *    *

“I made a deal with Ahgred, thinking it was Morik,” I
admitted once Morik closed the front door behind us.

I turned to him, peeling off my jacket.  The motion pulled
at the sore spot at the base of my spine.  Morik’s gazed narrowed catching my
hesitant, jerky movement.

“And I think he marked me,” I added despondently.

I felt like crying.  I didn’t know what we’d see when we
looked.  I presented my back to him and lowered my pants just enough to expose
the painful area.

Gran sucked air through her teeth.

“How bad is it?  Did I undo it all?”  I feared Ahgred had
removed the link Morik and I had forged.

Morik’s warm hand traced two twisting lines up the sway of
my back.  “Our link is still here, Tessa.  Don’t worry.”  Bracing my hands on
my legs, I flinched when he touched the tender spot, tracing it only half as
far as the other lines.  “He added his own link.”

“It looks raw,” Gran said.  “Let me get some first aid
cream.”

“I’ll change first.”  I kept my pants pulled away from my
back.  Now that I’d moved it away, anything touching that spot hurt.

In my room, I dug out my pajama pants and folded them down
low on my hips.  On top, I put on a sport bra, not wanting anything to stick to
my lower back.  I finished pulling my hair back into a messy bun and shuffled
back out to the living room feeling miserable.

For a while, it felt we all had a chance to find our happy
endings.  Now I felt like I held the loose threads of an unraveling blanket. 
How could I let Ahgred mark me?

“Tessa what did you gain from the deal?” Morik asked as soon
as I returned.

Thinking of what I’d gotten in exchange just made the deal worse. 
“I’m not sure what I really got, but what I asked for was to go to the dance
with you.”

“Can you recall how you worded it?  Exactly?”

He was suspicious too.  Not good.  “A single touch in return
for a single night, the night of the dance, with you.  I said your name,
Morik.”

He nodded and watched me lay on my stomach on the couch. 
Gran bustled over with the cream and dabbed it on.  Immediate cooling relief
followed her touch.

“Gran, I’d like to take Tess to my place with your
permission.”

I didn’t turn my head to look at them.  Instead, I stayed
facing the back of the couch thinking Aunt Danielle was being unusually quiet.

The material under me shifted from couch cushions to white
comforter.  “I’m sorry, I screwed up, Morik.”  Would Ahgred’s mark make it
harder to finish our link?

“I don’t see how you screwed up.  You made a deal to spend
more time with me.  I would never consider that a screw up.”

“But the mark…”  I turned my head to look at him.  He lay on
the bed next to me.  The temperature of his home warmed me.

“It doesn’t mean anything other than he hasn’t given up.” 
He smoothed a hand over my hair.  “So you really want to go to this dance?”

“Not bad enough for Ahgred’s mark.”

“There had to be something that you wanted that enabled the
deal.  If not the dance, then something associated with it.”

How could I tell him I wanted to experience things just in
case I died?  He would think I’d already given up.  We still had a little more
than three months.  Instead of saying anything, I lifted myself up on my elbows
ignoring the pain and pulled myself closer to him.  I still didn’t know what he
expected from me, where or how far he saw our relationship going.

Half lying on his chest, I leaned in to take a chance.  My
lips met his softly.  Warm.  Everything about him warmed me.  I brushed my lips
over his, feeling the slight rise of his lower lip.  No holding back.  Heart
hammering, palms sweating, I used my lips to catch his lower lip.

As soon as my lips parted, he growled a low rumble emanating
from his chest, growing in volume.

Clueless beyond our typical kiss, a gentle press of lips, I
didn’t know if Beatriz’s suggestion had been literal, but I went for it anyway,
catching his lips between my teeth.  The growl turned to a groan.  I released
him and pulled back.

For the first time in weeks, the void of his eyes assured
me.  I bent my head and gave his lip the barest lick, a tiny touch of my
tongue.

Like touching him first, and kissing him first, I unlocked
another aspect of our contact.  He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, cupping
the back of my head and pressed his mouth to mine.  At the first touch of his
tongue, I forgot to breathe and my heart skipped a beat.  My hands wandered to
his hair.  Mostly to capture his face as he had mine to ensure he wouldn’t
leave me before I was ready.

This moment, this kiss, defined the purpose behind my deal
with Ahgred.  I didn’t want to die before I could experience what could have
been.

My fingers accidentally brushed his ears.  This time he
didn’t disappear or pull away.  His fingers twitched at the base of my skull
and then slowly slid down my back.  Little shocks crackled along my skin in
their wake.  Nothing else existed but his urgent mouth and nimble fingers.

He stopped just short of the new mark.  My left hand gave up
its hold on his hair to wander down his shirt, drifting under the edge to skim
over the flat plans of his stomach to his ribs.  Seconds, minutes, years… I
wanted time to hold still for our kiss.  Instead, I tore away from him
desperate for air.

He gave me an inch of space, just enough to turn my head
while he trailed kisses down my throat.  My skin tingled.  More electric
charges.  His lips met my collarbone and he growled again.  I touched his ear
lightly not wanting him to stop.

Suddenly, I lay on my back, the weight of him pressing me
into the mattress.

“Wait,” I gasped, a whiny edge crept into my voice.  I hated
it sounding so pathetic, but flames licked the base of my spine.  All of the
tingling charges he’d planted within me dissolved with my pain.  I struggled to
push him off me, desperate.

My pain and panic lasted less than a second before the
bedroom changed into the kitchen.  I blinked at change of perspective.  We
stood before the refrigerator.  He pushed the button for ice and immediately I
felt relief as he pressed ice to the raw skin.

“Forgive me,” he rumbled.  “I forgot for a moment.”

My hands still in the same places, convulsed with the
lingering application of ice.  “Me too.”  I lifted my head from his chest and
met his gaze, while the soothing water trailed down my back.

Yellow streaked his eyes, no black, and I smiled at him
sadly.

*    *    *    *

Ahgred’s mark healed enough Monday night that I sported a
delicate scab Tuesday.

Ditching jeans, I wore leggings folded down low on my hips
and a long sweater.  The knitting on the sweater caught on the scab
occasionally.  The worst pain occurred when I sat or stood, the skin stretching
or expanding, which affected the scab unpredictably.  Thus, Tuesday passed with
measured moments of soreness.

Moving from class to class, I struggled to keep the
discomfort from showing in my expression.  I knew I failed when Beatriz
repeatedly glanced my way.

Wednesday should have been better, but instead it hurt
worse.

Before lunch, Beatriz yanked me into a bathroom just as the
next class bell rang and demanded to know the cause of my facial gymnastics.

“Remember that tattoo?”  She nodded her eyes wide.  “Don’t
ever get one,” I moaned and lifted my shirt so she could see.

“Ew!  That doesn’t look good,” she said, rummaging in the
bag she had hanging from her shoulder.  She pulled out tweezers, peroxide,
bandages, antiseptic spray, tubes of cream, and more, lining it all on the
stainless steel shelf mounted just below the length of the bathroom’s mirror.

Her supplies amazed me.  “Why do you have all of that?”

“Because my friend gimped around most of the day yesterday
and then left school looking a little flushed.  Something had to be infected
and I knew you’d tell me eventually.  Turn around,” she said picking up the
spray and the tweezers.

I
so
didn’t want to turn around.  The white aerosol
cylinder with tiny black lettering screamed hospital grade germ-killing fire in
a can.  “I’ll ask my mom to take me to the doctor,” I promised not taking my
eyes from the can.

Bea put her hands on her hips.  “Turn.  Around.”

Giving her my best puppy eyes, I tried again.  “I’ll trade
you one more day of lets-wait-and-see-if-it-gets-better for a movie date with
Morik.”  It’d be dark.  He’d be fine.

“Now, I know it’s bad.  It’s me, or the school nurse. 
You’re not yet seventeen.  Heads are going to roll for an underage tattoo.  And
it’s not ratting if I’m doing it to save your life,” she clarified.  Resolve
lit her eyes.

Defeated, I turned, angling myself so I could watch in the
mirror and brace my hands on the white porcelain rim of the sink.

She flipped the edged of my shirt back and hissed in a
breath.  “Some of the scabs are almost off because of the clothes and
cracking.  I’m going to use the tweezers to…”

“Beatriz, just do it quick.  I don’t want a play-by-play.”

She shook her head then ducked closer to her work.

I tried relaxing my shoulders in preparation of her first
assault.  It didn’t work.  I yelped my way through the scab removal.  My knees
buckled when she sprayed the now open and raw wound.  I clung to the sink to
stay upright.  She didn’t stop.

Dousing my back in peroxide, catching the run off with a paper
towel, she killed every germ.  Of course, the peroxide didn’t stop at germs. 
It continued eating its way to my spine.

She moved to grab one of the tubes and I looked up in the
mirror with watering eyes to watch.

In a stall off to the side, I caught the blazing red and
yellow swirl of Morik’s gaze.  How had he known?  Of course.  My pain called
him to me.

Beatriz dabbed on some cream and then taped thin gauze over
it.  “The gauze will prevent snagging and other stuff growing into the scab as
it heals, but still allow it to breath.  We should change it again before the
end of the day.”

I nodded, sweat beading on my upper lip.  Rest of the day? 
I wanted to go home and curl in a little ball and curse whoever taught Beatriz
first aid.

“Come on,” she said tossing her supplies back into her bag. 
“We need to go get a pass.”

Motivating my shaky limbs, I followed her out of the
bathroom not looking back at Morik.  He’d looked barely contained.  Less
acknowledgment probably suited the situation.

After the sting of the peroxide and other chemicals she’d
liberally applied wore off, the mark began to feel… okay.  Still hot and uncomfortable,
but not as bad.  When she suggested we change the bandage again after the last
bell rang, I didn’t protest.  The process went quickly with little discomfort
and no reappearance of Morik.

We stepped out into the afternoon light together.  Most of
the buses began their slow crawl toward the main exit.

Amidst the slush-filled parking lot, I spotted Morik leaning
against his motorcycle.  The day, just a hair above freezing, didn’t inspire
excitement for a motorcycle ride.  Or maybe my back didn’t inspire one.