“Or we could enjoy this ferry ride with an incredible view of the backside of a Mini for the next several hours. What do they call the bigger Mini Coopers? Maxi Coopers? Mega Coopers?”
Doug doesn’t take my desperate topic change bait. “I never officially met Leo,” he says. “But judging by the pain, he was pretty special.”
I groan, slumping in my seat. I can’t talk about it because then I’ll have to think about it, and I can’t think about it. “Am I prying into your personal life? Asking questions about Jade?”
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind talking about it. At first it was flattering, yeah? She’s cute. Her happiness had a nice sort of lemon twist to it. Tart and surprising.”
“That’s weird. But also intriguing. What does everyone else taste like?”
“Rhys tastes like freshly cut grass smells. But when Cillian is around, he tastes like bubble gum. And Cillian tastes like—mmm, let’s see. Have you ever been starving and walked into a bakery and the first deep breath in almost hurts, it’s so good? That’s him. Imogen …” He pauses. “You know, it’s weird. I don’t like smelling her.”
“Bad?”
“Not bad. Just … off. She makes the back of my throat itch.”
“Maybe you’re allergic to her! Is that possible?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“What does my mom taste like?”
“I rarely get anything from your mom at all. Good or bad. That woman has worked very, very hard to be emotionless. She’s been through a lot.”
I scowl. I don’t like feeling bad for my mom, because it means I have to feel less bad for myself and everything Artemis and I went through being raised by her. It’s petty, I know, but it’s true. “We all have. What about Jessi?”
“She smells like hand sanitizer. Actually, that might just be hand sanitizer. And Ruth Zabuto smells like English breakfast tea.”
“Well, that’s going to make drinking that tea weird now. But back to Jade. You like the way she tastes. Gods, that sounds dirty. Keep going. But no dirty details, if there are any, please.”
He toys with one of his gold hoop earrings. “I like the castle. I like all of you. I like that Jade likes me. It’s been a long time since I had any real human contact other than Sean and his ilk taking advantage of me. And I’m glad she’s happy. But I worry about how much she’s using. It’s one of the things I want to talk to some of the fellows at the convention about. There’s a reason my type don’t usually stay in relationships or even friendships. We can be a bit addictive.” He sighs, rubbing his face. His skin still looks like a cracked desert floor, neon yellow with black beneath. But he seems healthier than when I first found him after he escaped from Sean. His cheeks are fuller, his pretty and incongruously brown eyes clear.
“No one else in the castle uses you like that, do they?” I should have been paying more attention. Doug’s skin secretes a psychotropic substance. It has to be ingested to have an effect, which I assumed would mean no one taking advantage of him. But for all I know, they’ve been lacing their tea with Essence of Doug.
“No, no one. Which isn’t to say I haven’t been tempted to give you a dose every now and again.” He holds up his hands at my horrified expression. “But I would never do it, because I know what it’s like to have choices taken away from me, and I only use it as a defense mechanism when absolutely required.”
I laugh, relieved. “I used it that way once too.”
“Really? How?”
It was right after Sean and Honora had found Doug where my mother was hiding him in the forest. His torn and beloved Coldplay shirt was left behind in the struggle. Leo had been trying to kidnap me to get me away from his mother, but I didn’t know that. I grabbed Doug’s shirt and shoved it in Leo’s mouth, blissing him out long enough to get back to the castle … and right into his mother’s claws. Which led to Artemis getting hurt, me sacrificing my power to save her, Leo sacrificing himself to save all of us, and then Artemis leaving anyway.
I don’t like to think about this memory. With Leo dead, I try to only think about the good ones. Because this memory pisses me off. He was lying to me, letting me run around chasing false leads when he knew all along where the real threat was. And I don’t want to be angry with him. It makes it so much harder to mourn him when I also want to throttle him.
I open my mouth to tell the story, but Doug lifts his arm and covers his nose with his sleeve. “Don’t tell me. Stop thinking about that right now. I’m going to lose my lunch if you keep smelling so impossibly sad and angry.”
I turn on the radio, settling back into my seat. I don’t want to feel this way any more than Doug wants me to. I try to think about something else. “The thing I liked best about Leo,” I say, staring out the window at the corrugated metal wall of the car bay, “is that he saw me. Sometimes better than I could, even. No one else saw me in the middle of the mess of being a Watcher and a Slayer, where we’re only our jobs … or in my family, where I was just this broken thing my mom and Artemis devoted their lives to protecting. It was nice, you know? Knowing that he liked me. Not what I could do, or how I could do it, or what he thought I needed from him. When he looked at me, I liked the person he saw.”
“That’s lovely,” Doug says. “But now you’re sadder than ever. And I’m starving.”
“Oh, for the love of the gods, give me a hit.” I hold out my hand. If it keeps him full and keeps my brain off this sadness and anger threatening to swallow me whole, I can pull a Jade for the duration of this ferry ride.
* * *
“No, it’s true!” My stomach hurts from laughing. “Our ceiling fan is so sharp it would decapitate someone! But only if they stood on exactly the right floorboard for us to trip the spring-loaded thingamajig to shoot them upward! And now that I think about it, it might not decapitate them. It might just sort of take off their scalp. And then fling blood everywhere. Gods, we did not think that one through.”
“You always seem so sweet.” Doug laughs with me and passes me my second Coke.
“I am! I really am! I’m, like, the only Hufflepuff the Watcher society ever had! Everyone else is pure Ravenclaw and Slytherin. I just want everyone to be happy! And love