Ecstasy: The Shadowdwellers. Jacquelyn Frank

only a short nod, but it was enough. Trace’s eyes slid closed as regret trickled through him. He had watched hundreds of lives come and go, hundreds of ’Dwellers willing to accept pain and worse for the sake of their beliefs and their Chancellors, but never had it been like this for him. He knew he should feel gratitude, but it was almost impossible in that moment. Wounds he had barely felt in the heat of the battle, and had paid little mind to since, came back to him with a force and power he could hardly stand. Now he remembered every detail of them. Now he felt the flaying of flesh under the speed of sharp instruments. Now he truly felt a mortal blow to his body.

      He at least had had his breed’s strength and supernatural power at his beckoning. Ashla had not. She still did not have them.

      “Where are you sleeping?” he asked her softly.

      Her reaction to the question scraped harshly against him. She suddenly scrabbled with clutches of slim fingers to gather her torn dress back over her body. Trace’s hands caught hers with quick gentleness and he drew her back to the warmth and protection of his body.

      “It’s okay,” he tried to reassure her as she refused to look up at him. “In this place, we have only ourselves to count on. No doubt, you have done a fine job for quite some time. But jei li, you are injured and in pain, and these wounds could turn wicked before you recuperate enough to heal them on your own. You need help.”

      “I took ibuprofen,” she argued. “I cleaned out all of the glass. I didn’t need help.”

      I didn’t need your help. The stubborn implication was clear, but Trace wasn’t insulted at all. Her pluck came in spurts, and he knew she was afraid of the loneliness echoing in vast quantities all around them, but it was more than fear and bullheadedness that fueled her. He had no idea what she was trying to prove to herself and why, but he wasn’t going to let her go off by herself again.

      “Look, I have two days before I have to go—”

      “Go!” she gasped, her eyes darting up now and widening with her true feelings at the prospect of being left alone again. “But there is nowhere to go! I’ve been everywhere, and there’s nothing! Except…Well, I went to LaGuardia, and…it was just…all those planes, taking off and landing empty, with no pilots that I could see! I wanted to try it, but it was just too creepy. They were like these great big mechanical ghosts. Everything is like that. Everything works without explanation or even logic. The things I see are impossible. I tried staring at these tomatoes in a bodega, so I could watch what happens to them. I guess I expected them to float away or something crazy like that. I mean, I knew things were being changed constantly. But you have to blink, you know? And when I did, it was suddenly different and I had no better explanation.” She stopped suddenly, seemingly realizing that she was rambling in her anxiety. “Where will you go?” she asked at last, her shoulders slumping and her breath decompressing out of her in dejection.

      Ah. The million-dollar question. Trace still didn’t know how he should answer it. She was under more than enough duress at the moment, and he couldn’t see his way clear to telling her that she was no doubt lying just about dead somewhere in the real world. He could also empathize with the way she struggled for understanding and knew he could provide answers that would resolve all of her questions. His urges to be honest with her warred with his fierce new need to protect her.

      “I will explain what I can…but later. Right now we need to get you into fresh clothing and somewhere comfortable where you can rest. If you won’t tell me where you are living, then we will find another place for the time being.”

      “No, I…” She fell quiet for a very long moment, searching herself quite deeply by the look of it. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’m at the Plaza.”

      That made him smile at her.

      “The Plaza?” he echoed. Then he shrugged with his grin. “You know what, if it were me, that’s probably where I would stay, too.”

      “They have big windows,” she argued a bit petulantly.

      “Yeah. Wouldn’t want to miss those Manhattan sunrises,” he teased her as he gathered her comfortably to himself and rose smoothly to his feet. He hesitated just long enough to glance down at his weapons. He hated to do anything that would disturb her further, but the fact was it wasn’t safe for either of them to walk around Shadowscape unarmed. By herself she would be completely dismissed, but because of his presence she would be in danger. Just looking at her proved she could be harmed physically.

      Once again Trace quickly forced himself to shut away the insidious whisper within his mind that wanted to contemplate the worst. It wanted to consider his knowledge that what happened in one ’scape, happened in all ’scapes. But…for all that he had seen and done in the world, Trace simply couldn’t bear the concept of what had to be happening to her defenseless body in Realscape every time she suffered injury in Shadowscape.

      He knelt and swept up his swords.