She turns back to glare at us impatiently, already pale. “I don’t know about you three, but I’m not enjoying the whole scarlet letter look. So if you could get your asses in gear, that’d be lovely.”
Walking away, she doesn’t turn around again, instead keeping her head held high and actively ignoring the people staring at her. They gawk, point, and gossip with amusement, not even trying to hide their disparaging remarks.
When she stumbles, Dorian is there offering his hand, trying to help her, but she brushes him off. She keeps her chin up high, lest she show weakness in front of this bloodthirsty crowd. He picks up on it and stops trying to help, biting his tongue and glowering at the others on the street instead.
We carry on in tense silence for quite some time, moving past the affluent houses to what is a weirdly pristine version of an apartment district. Gone are the magical houses and in their stead are nearly solid white, plain buildings. They’re no more than rectangular boxes with windows, not so much as a speck of dirt to be found.
Cambria’s steps come slower and her feet drag more between each step, but I do her the courtesy of pretending not to notice. She’s made it this long without collapsing; I’d hate to rob her of that strength when she’s this close to the finish line.
She heads towards her building and Lucien, ever the gentleman, opens the door for her as she mumbles a weak ‘thanks’. We step inside, a series of stairs leading to each floor that she begins to trudge up, letting her composure slip a bit now that we’re off of the street.
“Cambria, please,” Dorian finally asks, his voice strained. “Let me at least help now that there’s no one around?”
But the stubborn girl shakes her head, gripping the railing and tugging herself up slowly, one step at a time. “Walls have eyes,” she mumbles with a heavy breath, sweating and pale. “Nowhere is safe but home.”
I grind my teeth, staying close behind her in case she starts to fall. I share a look with Lucien who’s as stony faced as before, though his could be just as much from the surreal nightmare we woke up in. One never knows what’s going on in that head of his.
Blessedly, she approaches a door. Fumbling for her keys, she gets it open on the third attempt and stumbles inside. We quickly slam it shut behind us and I flip the lock, Lucien giving up all sense of pretense to pick her up before she collapses to the ground. She doesn’t fight now that we’re away from prying eyes, closing hers in relief as we move further into her studio.
“No passing out on us,” I demand, gently patting her cheek to keep her conscious. “You made it this far; it’d be some real shit to die now.”
Her eyes flutter open, glazed over and out of it. “Can’t give them the satisfaction,” she agrees on a mumble and I smirk.
“Damn straight.”
Lucien moves to lay her on her bed at one side of the room, but I redirect him to the table so all of the blood doesn’t ruin it. The girl certainly doesn’t look like she can afford new sheets, let alone a bed.
I whip out a pocket knife, passing it over to him. He apologizes as he cuts a line down her shirt to assess the damage and it’s far more gruesome than I gave her credit for.
Her shirt clings to the wound and she hisses in pain as Lucien peels it away. The same symbol that was burned into our hands was literally carved into hers, and it looks like they went all the way to the bone. Dorian appears with a wet washcloth and a bowl of water, adjusting her carefully to slip a towel underneath.
Lucien starts cleaning the wound on her chest first while Dorian and I take care of her hands. Between the three of us, we get her bandaged up, but it takes far longer than I would have liked; she just kept bleeding through them. She’s far too pale and has completely passed out at this stage despite my attempts to keep her awake, so at least it’s a small mercy that she isn’t in pain for the time being.
The blood has run down to stain parts of her hair, adding a morbid dye that mats it together despite my attempts to rinse it out. But a bloody rag and a kitchen table don’t make for the best environment and I doubt she could survive getting jostled into the bathtub next too.
After all is said and done, I lift her up as carefully as possible to lay her in bed, nothing left to do but hope for the best. Turning to the others, coated in this thief’s blood and at a loss of what to do now, I release a shaky breath.
“So...that just happened,” Dorian attempts in a pitiful shot at humor, beating me to it as he washes up in the kitchen sink as much as possible.
“Which was what exactly?” Lucien grimaces, stripping off his shirt and glaring at the bloody stains as if they personally offend him.
“We got robbed by a fae and then she adopted us,” Dorian chirps, enjoying this far too fucking much.
“She can’t adopt us, we’re nearly thirty!” I snap, Cambria not even flinching at the rising volume around her. “And Lucien’s even older than us, so no. Just...no.”
Dorian shrugs. “She claimed responsibility of us, which is pretty much like getting custody. Same thing.”
“No. I’m not doing this,” Lucien booms, storming off towards the door and yanking it open.
As soon as he does, Cambria whimpers in her sleep and the bandage around her chest starts staining red as the wound reopens. Dorian glares at Lucien and yanks him back inside, slamming and locking the door while I look on at my mild mannered, geeky friend in surprise. I’ve never seen Dorian this hostile, especially towards Lucien. Honestly, I’m surprised he had the balls to manhandle the psycho, but more so that Lucien tolerated it.
“That woman is nearly dead because of us, and you’re just going to leave without a second thought? Why the hell do you think they marked us like this, Lucien; decoration? We all bear the same mark as Cambria now, and she has three, one for each of us. We try to leave, she suffers for it. That’s what it means to claim responsibility. You’d think with how you’re always preaching, you’d know this without me having to spell it out for you.”
Dorian storms off to get a new wash cloth and bandage, coming back to fix Cambria up again, all the while pointedly ignoring us. I look at Lucien in shock, not really knowing how else to react to everything that’s happening far too fast and way more intensely than I’m used to dealing with.
“So what happens now?”
I wait for Dorian to look at me, because if any of us has a shot of wrapping their minds around things, it’s him. “Now we pray she wakes up, because we are just as tied to her as she is to us.”
Chapter 5
Cambria
“Why the hell didn’t she just let us die? Why’d she come back for us knowing this was going to happen to her?” Atlas growls.
I fight my groggy brain that’s still swimming in that stage of not quite asleep, but not quite awake yet either. Hissing in a sharp breath as pain lances through my chest, I start to sit up as the reality of what a colossally stupid mistake I made settles into my bones just as deeply as my new marks.
“Because she may be an idiot, but she isn’t that much of a bitch,” I declare with a groan, tossing the blanket back and pulling myself up. “A bleeding heart, if you will.”
Dorian huffs out a humored breath as he comes over and offers me a hand. This time, I gladly take it to help stand. My head is absolutely swimming and I’m not sure I could stand on my own yet if I tried, but most importantly, there aren’t any other fae around to witness it.