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It wasn’t enough He ached inside But there was a line he wasn’t allowed to cross, and he was never sure where it started Surely this was close to it He felt dangerous and kinetic

Then her fingers cautiously pressed into his back, feeling his spine He hadn’t gone too far, then

He leaned in to kiss her

Blue tore herself froet away Her head knocked against the slanted ceiling

"I said no," she gasped, hand clapped on the back of her skull

Soo"

"It’s still no!"

They stared at each other, both hurt

"Just," she said, "just, not kissing"

He still ached His skin was a constellation of nerve endings "I don’t understand"

Blue touched her lips as if they had been kissed "I told you"

He just wanted an answer He wanted to know if it was him, or if it was her He didn’t kno to ask it, but he did anyway "Did sohappen to you?"

Her face was blank for a moment "What? Oh No Does there have to be a reason? The answer’s just no! Isn’t that good enough?"

The correct ansas yes He knew it But the real ansas that he wanted to know if he had bad breath or if she was only doing this with him because he was the first one to ask her or if there was so to take a shower," he said He tried not to let it sound like he was still hurt, but he was, and it did "You gonna be here when I get back out? When’s your shift start?"

"I’ll wait" She tried not to let it sound like she was hurt, but she was, and it did

While Blue paged through a few maps he had on his plastic bed stand, Ada What do you want, Adam? He didn’t even know Froe of hi about his own reflection had seeaunt face peered back at him, troubled but not unusual

And just like that, he was thinking of Cabeswater again So else He hadn’t owned s in his life, properly owned theain It had been a little over a month since he’d offered his sacrifice to Cabeswater in order to wake Gansey’s ley line The entire ritual felt swi hione fully prepared to make a sacrifice But he wasn’t quite sure how the specific one he’d eventually made had come to him: I will be your hands I will be your eyes

So far, nothing had happened, not really Which was alnosis that he couldn’t understand

In the shower, Adam scratched a thumbnail across his sury red in a moment, and as he studied it, it struck hi odd about the flow of the water across his skin As if it was in slow-motion He followed the stream of water up to the showerhead and spent a full hts were a confusion of translucent drops clinging to reen leaves

He blinked

There was nothing odd about the water There were no leaves He needed to get so out of the shower, his spine aching, shoulders aching, soul aching, Adam dried and dressed slowly He feared -- hoped? --that Blue ht have left after all, but when he opened the bathroo his hair dry, he discovered that she stood at the door, talking cheerfully to sones’s office lady, her black hair curled in the humidity She probably had an official title that Ronan knew, sub-nun, or so, but Ada a church required to keep it running, short of saying Mass

Including the collection of Adam’s monthly rent check

When he saw her, his stomach plummeted He was filled with the certainty that his last check had bounced She would tell him there were insufficient funds, and Ada hole of the account, and then he’d have to pay a returned check fee to the bank and another one to Mrs Ra further behind on his next month’s rent, an endless pathetic loop of insufficiency

Voice thin, he asked, "What can I do for you, ma’am?"

Her expression shifted She wasn’t sure how to say what needed to be said

Adahtened on the door fra you know about the rent on your little rooht No ot a new-- tax assess And you knoe charge you as a nonprofit So weyour rent’s going to change It’s got to stay the sa costs It’s two hundred dollars less"