Page 39 of Blood from the Marrow
Zuri’s full lips spread into a lopsided smile. “Well, Bambi, It turns out all kinds of shit happens when you consecrate the ground of a new coven house.”
“Shut up! It worked?” She flung her arms around Zuri, pulling her in and hugging her so tight. “Congratulations. God, I’m so proud of you.” She squeezed her harder. “Will you tell me all about it?” She needed something good. Anything that felt like a real step forward and not the endless flinging of spaghetti at the wall, hoping anything would stick.
“I promise to tell you everything,” Zuri replied in a way that was too heavy with something unreadable.
Marisol tensed and leaned away. “Why do I hear abutin there?”
“There’s no but,” she promised. “More like I’ll tell you in a couple of days.”
Marisol furrowed her brow and glared at the bag. “What the hell are you planning, Zuri?” The edge in her tone didn’t feel borrowed like it often did. Her skin burned hot and her hands trembled and her entire essence roared withabsolutely notto whatever this is.
“Lib’s vampire cult contact came through… Well, sort of.” Zuri reached for her again, but Marisol stepped back. Zuri’s jaw flexed with disappointment but she didn’t move again.
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“She agreed to talk, but Lib didn’t want to risk asking her about the Aglion over the phone,” Zuri explained like every word pained her. “I can’t let her go to Venice by herself, Bambi. We don’t know if there’s a trap?—”
“Venice?” Marisol’s pulse thumped so hard in her throat it made her question a screech. “You better mean the town on the Gulf Coast.”
Zuri tipped her head to the said as if to say,we both know I mean the damn country in Europe.
“It should only be for a couple of days,” she said like that mattered. “We’ll get over there, find out what they know about the Aglion so we can make the most of them in a fight and stop whoever the fuck is trying to kill you and the rest of the?—”
“I’m coming with you,” Marisol said the way Elena would. It wasn’t a question. It was a complete freaking sentence.
“No, Bambi.” Zuri shook her head. “You can’t?—”
“Oh, now it’sI can’t?” Anger rose so hard and so fast, it nearly knocked Marisol off balance. “You’re not my mother, Zuri.” Her skin was so hot it felt like a fever and her wings itched to rip through her shirt again. “Oh, guess what. She can’t tell me what the hell to do either.” Marisol tore one of her shirts off a hanger and grabbed another bag from the shelf. “It’s bad enough that Elena won’t talk to me. Can’t even stand to look at me.” She unzipped the bag and dropped it on the floor before spiking the shirt in. “That we’re already doing all this shit alone and working apart and the craziest thing happening right now isn’t my fucking bio mom appearing out of nowhere with her merry band of… of… whatever the hell.” She slammed a pair of jeans into the bag because what the hell did one wear to meet aVenetian vampire cult? “And now you want to leave me behind. To throw me aside like everyone else—” Her voice cracked and tears she chose to believe were rage-filled stung her eyes.
Zuri reached for her, light fingers gently clasping her wrist. “Hey,” she spoke softly. The kind of tone Marisol usually heard when they were in the dark, entangled in each other and Elena and covered in hard-earned sweat. “Come here.”
She tugged on her arm and Marisol was too weak to resist. Too weak not to want Zuri’s comfort and reassurance.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to come with me.” She wrapped her arms around Marisol and held her close to her chest. “I don’t want to be away from you even for a second?—”
“Because you’re scared that?—”
“Because I love you,” Zuri said before pressing her lips to Marisol’s temple.
The gesture was like a plug yanked out of a drain and all of Marisol’s anger rushed out of her body. She was left with nothing but trembling muscles and tears and Zuri holding her up more than she was hugging her.
“I love you,” Zuri repeated like she hadn’t trusted Marisol to hear her the first time. Like she needed to burn it into her heart. “And you’ve got your hope to take care of,” she said like they’d officially christened the band of Aglion. “And we just don’t know what will happen if we walk in there with you.”
“They’ll think I’m a witch,” Marisol responded weakly. “Elena did.”
“Maybe,” Zuri agreed, hand moving in soothing circles on Marisol’s lower back. “Or maybe they’ll know exactly what you are.”
In the silence, Marisol’s thoughts moved in a hundred different directions. She wasn’t reckless. There had to be some objective reason she couldn’t be left behind. That she couldn’t be discarded.
“If part of the reason is to get intel on who is ever after us….” An idea formed as Marisol spoke. “Well, then I’m the one who needs to hear it.”
“Bambi—”
“What, areyougoing to Clara and the others to share what you learned?” Marisol leaned back to look at Zuri. She imagined the impenetrable wall that was Judith. “Or what? You’re going to tell me what they said and I’m going to pretend they told me? I’m not even sure they’re going to trust what I say, but I’m sure as hell not going to take a chance at lying.”
“Babe—”
“Or is it that you think I can’t handle myself, Zuri?” Marisol reached for her wings as effortlessly she’d exhaled. She didn’t know what it meant that power seemed so much more accessible since she’d been with the others, but this time, she controlled their density and made her wings translucent as the room filled with the electrical hum of potential.
