Jenks jerked to a stop under the motel overhang. “Rachel?” he said, bewildered. There was the snap of dragonfly wings, and I wondered how he could carry me if he was a pixy.

I couldn’t see Ivy, but her sobs had stopped and I wondered if she had heard me. I choked on my harsh breath. Jenks’s shocked eyes were inches from mine. I had promised I wouldn’t leave, and I refused to let her run away in guilt. I needed them both. I needed Ivy.

“I had to know,” I whispered, and Jenks’s face went panicked. “Please,” I breathed, my vision starting to mercifully darken. “Please get her. Don’t leave her alone.” My eyes closed. “I hurt her so badly. Don’t let her be alone,” I said, but I didn’t know if it made it into words before I passed out.

Twenty-three

I was moving, and it was confusing the hell out of me. I didn’t think I was unconscious, and I certainly didn’t know what was going on, but someone had their arms around me and I could smell the sharp scent of chlorophyll. Piecing together if I was outside with my eyes shut or inside with my eyes open was beyond me. I was cold, but I’d been cold for forever.

I did recognize the dropping sensation followed by a bed pressing into me. I tried to speak but failed. A wide hand cradled my head, and the pillow under it was pulled away. I sank deeper into the comforter as someone propped up my knees and tucked the pillow under it.

“Stay with me, Rache,” came a voice, accompanied by the smell of fudge, and I tried to remember how to open my eyes. Hands were on me, light and warm. “Don’t pass out. Let me get some water in you first, then you can rest.”

My head lolled, accompanied by a pulsing pain in my neck. The voice had been soft, but there was panic under it. The thought of water gave me a name to the feeling I couldn’t figure out. I’m thirsty. Yes, that’s what I’m feeling.

I felt sick, and my lids fluttered as I hung in a state too fatigued to move. I remembered this. I had done this before. “Where’s Keasley?” I whispered, hearing it come from me in a soft breath of air. No one heard me over the sound of running water.

“Jax, get a straw,” the intent voice said. “In the trash by the TV.”

There was the sound of cellophane crackling, and someone moved my legs to wedge another pillow under them. It was as if a veil dropped away, and suddenly everything had meaning. My eyes opened and reality realigned itself. I was in the motel room. I was on the bed with my feet propped higher than my head. I was cold. Jenks had carried me in, and that winged spot of sunshine hovering by the TV was Jax.

Oh God. I had asked Ivy to bite me.