Page 81 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

A trickle of blood painted Joe’s neck, reddening his collar. Percy’s hand held the vicious blade there in his skin, stalled by something in the voice—something indefinable, unfathomable—something primal. But he didn’t dare to hope. He remained, like a brutal statue, frozen in the act of murder. Void.

Almost void.

Almost empty, but for that one vibration of tenderness.

He knew the soul behind that voice.

The knife clattered to the floor. Percy threw his head against Joe’s chest, red tears bathing his shirt through and through, and heaving sobs and arms wrapped around Joe’s waist. Then Percy’s hands on either side of Joe’s face, searching desperately.

Joe, truly Joe, stared back at him, eyes wet with tears and as adoring as they’d ever been. “It’s me. Percy…”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Percy scrambled for the dagger, slitting the electrical tape.

Joe’s arms were around him, kisses all over his hair, his temples and cheeks, anywhere he could plant one, strong arms pulling him close. “Baby, it’s okay. It’s okay now. You did it.”

Percy shook his head in the heated darkness of Joe’s embrace. “I almost slit your throat. Jesus Christ, what did I do?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. You’re so, so perfect. Percy, look at me.” Percy flinched away, but Joe brought his chin up with loving fingers. “Your eyes. We need to get you out of here.”

Like a wind-up toy, Percy acted on command, his every movement bereft of thought, the residual energy of a dying vessel. He found the key, he unlocked Joe, he unwound the chains, and Joe, shaking in every inch of his body, heart ramming a million miles an hour, gasps of breath fighting at the venom in his blood, took Percy’s exhausted weight against his body, and they two trudged down the stairs. They braced themselves against the wall, slipping, but with Joe’s red and swollen arm on the railing catching them every time. He dragged Percy out into the street and refused to let him fall onto the broken asphalt. He kept on, up and up, to the brown-greenexpanse of the council estate, where he finally let Percy sink into his lap, stroking his hair. “Rest here.”

A fog of all-encompassing fatigue swept over Percy. Against the heat of Joe’s body, the touch of his hands in his hair, the reassuring press of the breath in his body, Percy was ready to slip away. But he sunk his fingernails into the dirt to grope his way back up. “I need to kill it.”

Joe forced him back down. “Shhh. It’s gone. It’s not there anymore.”

“Gone? Gone where?” Percy muttered, face pushed into Joe’s knee, eyelids fluttering closed. “How do you know that?”

A small mew sounded at Joe’s hip.

Percy was up quicker than a shot. “Moxie! Thank Christ.” He scooped the kitten up, taking her to his chest, then collapsed back onto Joe. “This makes no sense. It must have gone somewhere.”

“Mew,” said the kitten. Percy pulled her up against his cheek.

“You called it Moxie?” asked Joe, more than a hint of worry in his voice.

“Leave Moxie alone. She stays with me.” As if in agreement, the kitten stretched a tiny paw across his bloody closed eye. “It’s going to be after Althea next. We need to find her and get away from here. We’ll go to Paris tonight.”

Joe let slip a small laugh. “You’re not going anywhere tonight, Percy. Or for some time. It’s gone. And it didn’t really want her anyway. It was just testing you.”

Percy rolled onto his back to look at Joe. “Do you know what it was?”

“I do. But let’s save that for another chapter because?—”

“Fuck that, Joe. What is it, what did it want, and why did it give you back?”

Their attention was snatched away to the end of the street by the fast and untrustworthy movement of an ambulance. It hitthe tight corner of a brick wall, grazing the side of the van with an ear-piercing scrape. It overcorrected and smashed the railing off someone’s staircase. The accelerator propelled the thing too fast off the stairs it had mounted, and the vehicle screeched to a long and disturbing halt just past their safe house.

“Leo!” Joe shouted as soon as saw him jump out. “Althea!”

The pair bolted up the street to them, Althea just about knocking Joe over with her arms around his neck, and Leo on his knees in front of Percy.

“Are you all right?” Althea asked.

“I’ve been worse,” Joe laughed out.

“Come here.” Percy pulled Leo’s head down to his shoulder, where Leo let out a little whimper, patted away by Percy’s hand on his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

Leo, refusing to leave the desperately needed embrace, spoke into Percy’s shoulder, “I got your antivenom.”

---