Page 61 of Blood from the Marrow
Indulging her, Elena looked back at the painting she’d regarded a thousand times. She ignored the human who was as much a prop as the lounge they were lying on. The artist’s fascination had been Cleopatra—daughter of cunning and lethal beauty. Her body, serpentine in its positioning, had reminded Elena of the snake tempting Eve.
“Cleopatra sitting down to dinner,” Elena said after a beat. “Well, reclining is more accurate, I suppose.”
Marisol looked away from the painting and at Elena with a challenge in her hazel eyes. Without a word, she accused Elena of not having answered honestly.
“Interesting,” Marisol said, instead of calling her out directly the way Zuri would. “Because I see someone so full of hesitation.Of fear.” She didn’t take her gaze away from Elena. “Someone who’s afraid that she might ruin everything if she closes the gap and takes a bite.”
Elena didn’t blink. Didn’t move. “You can’t ruin what’s already broken,” she said without pretending to give a shit about the artist’s intention.
Marisol shifted to face Elena as much as she could while remaining seated in her lap. Using both hands, she ran her fingernails through Elena’s hair, easing it away from her face. She looked at her like she’d borrowed Zuri’s power. Like she was peeling away layers and centuries and revealing every fiber of Elena’s essence. Her history. Her shame.
“You’re not broken,” she said, voice gentle and devastating. She ran her palms down to Elena’s face and cradled her jaw so lightly. “But maybe you think you are because you’ve never seen yourself put back together.”
She brushed her lips against Elena’s before pressing their foreheads together. Before filling Elena with an overwhelming warmth.
“Because you’re so used to being the gold that fills in the shattered pottery to make it new,” she muttered, turning Elena’s Kintsugi metaphor into a mirror Elena couldn’t stand to look at. “Maybe you just have to trust that you’re not the only one who does the mending.” She slid one hand down Elena’s neck and pressed her palm to her chest. “Maybe you just have to trust that you can be mended too. Trust us to take care of you.”
Heart and lungs and gut all squeezed so tight it was terrifying, Elena shook her head. “Did you take psychoanalysis in college as well?”
“You don’t have to hide from me, Elena.” Marisol’s hand against her sternum was a lighthouse guiding her out of a storm. “I want all the parts of you. Even the ones you think are broken.”
She remembered Marisol’s horror at witnessing Elena’s justice. At watching her kill. “The things I’m going to have to do?—”
“I know,” Marisol whispered, “and I don’t love that.” She rubbed her thumb over Elena’s tense jaw with the hand that wasn’t holding her heart. “But I realize that you don’t love it either.” She kissed her again. “That you didn’t choose this and what Sayah is capable of…” She shook her head as if banishing the same memory that assaulted Elena’s mind. “She’s not going to leave you in peace even if you waved a white flag.”
The idea of surrender awoke every muscle in Elena’s body. Made her want to tear off into the night and find Sayah. To rip her apart before she stole another breath on borrowed time.
But she’d do it, Elena admitted to herself. She’d let Sayah win if she could guarantee that all the people she loved would survive. She’d bow out of the fight. Her ego wasn’t nearly as important as her family.
“No matter what comes, Elena.” Marisol kissed her cheek, the bridge of her nose, her forehead. Touched her with a tenderness Elena almost didn’t know how to absorb. “I’m with you until the very end.”
The backs of Elena’s eyes burned with how much she wanted to believe Marisol. With how badly she wanted to deserve her.
“You’re not alone.” Marisol turned around to straddle Elena’s lap. To hold her face close to her chest like Elena might hear the truth of her conviction in Marisol’s racing heart. “You’re not alone,” she repeated with the pain of all the loneliness she’d known before Elena crashed into her life. “You never were. Even when you tried to be.”
“If you had it all to do again,” Elena asked the question weighing down her heart, “would you have taken the day off work?” She clarified, “Assuming I would have survived just the same if you hadn’t been in the hospital that night. But if youcould have continued on with your peaceful, normal reality, never knowing?—”
“Would I have chosen never to meet you?” Marisol tipped her head to the side like the question was unintelligible. “Is that what you’re asking me? Would I choose my old life and erase all of this? Erase you?”
Embarrassed at her own question but wanting to know the truth, Elena nodded.
Marisol drew her eyebrows together. “Elena,” she chuckled without any amusement. “What life?” She ran her hands through Elena’s hair again. This time, the touch was even more loving. “Before you and Zuri and Sofia and Lib… I was just… existing.” Her eyes were wide and begging Elena to believe her. “Never in my life did I think I’d ever have the kind of love I have with you and Zuri. And since I lost my grandmother”—emotion swelled in her eyes when she hesitated—“I never thought I’dfitanywhere. I had settled forfinewithout knowing there was an entire galaxy of feelings I’d never experienced before.” Her voice cracked along with the restraint holding back Elena’s emotions. “I love you. And I choose you. Over and over and over.”
Without a word, Elena kissed her. Soft and deep and conveying the promise that she’d never leave her again. That if Marisol was brave enough to stare death in the face, Elena would sacrifice everything to make sure it didn’t touch her.
By the time it was nearly sunset, Elena was wearing her bravado like a borrowed suit. Not perfectly tailored to her skin, but good enough to fit into a crowd. It would do until she’d gotten her bearings again.
“Hel,” Elena said when she walked into the kitchen where Zuri and Marisol were eating something before they left. Where Sofia was on the phone and Lib and Hel were in quiet conversation near the terrace door. “It’s time to say farewell.”
No one moved except for Sofia, who strode out into the dining room to continue her call.
“What if Hel comes with us?” Marisol said after wiping her mouth with a napkin. Like they hadn’t already had this conversation.
“Bambi said Hel did some vampire speed-reading of a bunch of Sabina’s books.” Zuri stood to collect the takeout containers. “Lots of valuable intel on the species we know dick about.” She shrugged causally, but Elena could tell she’d practiced this pitch. “Kinda the whole fucking point of coming here,” she muttered. “Seems kind of stupid to leave her behind.”
Elena’s attention darted between them. She knew, without a doubt, that they’d already conspired to be a united front on this point. She took a deep breath and debated how long she wanted to argue about this.
“And it’s not like we don’t need all the help we can get,” Marisol added. Her eyes were so wide and innocent, Elena could almost forget that she wasn’t a helpless ingenue.
