Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely 2)

Hands, bruising, laughter, the sickly-sweet smell of crack, voices, Ren’s voice, bleeding. She let the memories wash over her. I didn’t drown. I didn’t break.

Seth didn’t look away, didn’t flinch.

And neither did she. She might scream when the nightmares found her, but not by choice, not when she was awake.

She tilted her head back and forced her voice to stay steady. “I survived.”

“You did.” Seth’s keys clinked together as he shook them to find the door key. “But if everyone had known how bad things were before Ren let—” He stopped himself, looking pained. “We didn’t know. We were so caught up with…things, and—”

Leslie turned away. She didn’t—couldn’t—say anything. She kept her back to him. The door creaked open but didn’t slam closed, which meant he was standing there waiting.

She cleared her throat, but her voice sounded as tear-filled as it was. “I’ll be in. I just need a sec.”

She darted a glance his way, but he was staring into the empty air behind her.

“I’ll be in,” she repeated.

The only answer was the sound of the door closing gently.

She sat down on the ground outside Seth’s train and let her gaze follow the murals that decorated it. They ranged from anime to abstract—dizzying, blurring as she tried to follow the lines, concentrate on the colors, the art, anything but the memories she didn’t want to face.

I did survive. I still am. And it won’t happen again.

It hurt, though, knowing that her friends, people she respected, knew about what they had done to her. Logic said not to be embarrassed, but she was.

It hurts. But she didn’t want to let it. She stood up and ran a hand over one of the metalwork sculptures that sprouted like plants outside the train. She squeezed it until the sharp metal edges dug into her palm, until blood started to ooze between her fingers and drip onto the ground, until the pain in her hand made her think about now, not then, not other pains that left her curled into herself sobbing.

Think about this feeling, this place. She uncurled her hand, looking at the big cut in her palm, the smaller ones in her fingers. Think about now.

Right now she was safe. It was more than she could say some days.

She opened the door and went inside, fisting her hand again so the blood didn’t drip on the floor. Seth was sitting in one of the weird curved chairs in the front of the train. His boa constrictor was coiled in his lap, one thick loop trailing toward the floor like the hem of a blanket.

“Be rig

ht out,” she said as she walked past him to the second train car, where the tiny bathroom and his bedroom were. She almost believed he hadn’t noticed the way she held her hand.

Then he called out, “There’s bandages in the blue box on the floor if you need one. Should be some antibiotic junk too.”

“Right.” She rinsed her hand in the cold water and grabbed some toilet paper to hold. She didn’t want to wipe her still-bleeding hand on Seth’s towels. After she’d bandaged herself, she went back out.

“Feel better?” He was toying with his lip ring again.

Aislinn had said that the lip-ring bit was a stalling thing—not that Aislinn had been spilling secrets, but she seemed to find everything about Seth fascinating. Leslie smiled a little, thinking about them. Aislinn and Seth had something real, something special. It might not be easy to find, but it was possible.

“Some,” Leslie said, sitting back on Seth’s battered sofa. “I should probably rinse the, umm, sculpture off.”

“Later.” He motioned to the blanket he had put on the end of the sofa. “You should catch a nap. Here or back there”—he gestured toward the hallway that led to his room—“wherever you feel comfortable. There’s a lock on the door.”

“Why are you being so nice?” She stared at him, hating that she had to ask, but still needing to know.

“You’re Ash’s friend. My friend now.” He looked like some freaky wise man, sitting in the weird chair with a boa in his lap and a stack of old books beside him. It was partly an illusion made by the surreality of the details, but not entirely. The way he watched her, watched the door. He knew about what sort of people waited out there.

She tried to make light of it all. “So we’re friends, huh? When did that happen?”

Seth didn’t laugh. He stared at her for a moment, stroking the boa’s head as it slithered toward his shoulder. Then he said, “When I realized that you weren’t a loser like Ren, but his victim. You’re a good person, Leslie. Good people deserve help.”

There wasn’t any way to make light of that. She looked away.