Page 122 of A Heart of Bluestone

I doubt I’ll get the chance before he fillets me.

Staggering back, I turn for the ruins, the maze of stone and debris and weeds, and I run.

Serena makes to call after me, but a horrid retch doubles her over and—as I glance back over my shoulder—she’s sick all over the frost.

I leave her to my brother.

He’ll look after her.

I scramble for the opening of the snowy ruins—and right there, on the stone before the maze, is a bottle of liquor. I don’t pause, my steps don’t falter, I just scoop my hand out for it and steal it into my grasp, then keep running.

20

I run until I can’t anymore.

And when I slow to a heavy, jaded walk, bootsteps scuffing on the packed dirt and frosted ground, my breathing is hoarse. Ragged.It is sound.

“Huh.”

I test it. Test my voice, my vocal cords.

“Huh-huh.”

Faint, whispery, but there.

“Beep-bop-boo, I-hate-you.”

It’s coming back to me.

I unscrew the bottle, and decide that, in the maze, this will be my companion.

How long I will be stuck in the maze for, I don’t know. Whenever I find enough courage to sneak back out and see if Dray and Oliver are still around.

That’s not yet. That’s not for a while.

So I pass the time with the golden tequila.

I throw back a few swigs, and the burn of it is cheap. A convulsion strikes my middle before a bubbly burp crawls up me.

I shudder it away, like an aftershock.

For a beat, I lift the bottle and eye it over.

All I see is one huge headache tomorrow if I keep drinking this poison. But tomorrow is Saturday, so I bring the cold rim to my mouth again.

I stagger through the stone maze. Debris lines the narrow, uneven trails, and I have no sense of the direction I am taking, I just walk and turn and wander and turn again.

Until I take the wrong corner and almost smack right into Asta and Eric.

I stagger back. The tequila sloshes in the bottle.

Perched on a ledge of stone, Asta turns her dark look on me. Eric is wedged between her spread legs—and I almost think, for a heartbeat there, I found them fucking.

Thankfully, her breeches are still on, and his dick is tucked away. But they were hot and heavy enough that his jacket is discarded, the collar of his sweater fisted in her grip, and both of their mouths swollen.

“What the fuck doyouwant?” Asta spits, a mixture of hateful venom and exhaustion. “Here to stalk us—or just Eric?”

My face heats.

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