Chapter 22: But I'm Fading Red
Rowan carried me into the skoolie and sat me at the red and steel diner booth behind the driver’s seat. I felt submissive, for lack of a better word. Tired of thinking; completely open to him guiding me however he pleased.
He held my shoulders and knelt before me, so tall that he was easily at my eye’s level. “Let me look at you,” he whispered, voice heavy with emotion.
I observed him while he observed me. His eyes were wide with madness and pain. His crown was skewed over his curly black hair. His stubble had grown to look untamed. He had to have been searching the Land of Night for days, at least.
“You’re a mess,” I commented.
He breathlessly laughed. “You’re not too bad yourself.”
As he observed me longer, his eyes pinched. “Why? If we were too drunk to…” He trailed off. ‘Have sex,’ was how the rest of that clause would have went. He continued, “If not that, why, ‘why’ the Land of Night? Shouldn’t ‘that’ have been a sober decision?”