The Resurrected Compendium Read online

  They kissed for a long time, so long she thought maybe he intended only to kiss her and nothing else. The thought of that, making out like this for hours without him even touching her anywhere else, excited her unbearably even as it disappointed.

  Abbie could no longer count on two hands the number of men she’d fucked, but she could still remember their faces, if not their names. She could remember how each one sounded when he moved inside her. None of them had been meant as a notch on the bedpost, but quite a few of them had been just a way to pass the time. Lackluster sex and shamed faces in the morning, though never hers because she always figured if she was going to do something she would at least own the consequences.

  But Cal…Cal’s mouth, tongue, hands, the press of his erection, nothing about this felt boring or shameful, and Abbie rocked herself on his lap until he gave her what she’d been craving. A moan. It slipped from his lips on a breath in between kisses, and it made her laugh a little. Then he laughed, and in another moment the two of them were giggling and guffawing even as he rolled her onto her back and slid between her legs with that long, lean body.

  That’s when he touched her. All over. Big hands slid up her legs, undid her jeans and peeled them down her thighs and past her ankles. The buttons of her shirt and the shirt itself. In her bra and panties, Abbie tensed as she always did, hands wanting to cover the scars but forcing herself not to.

  She had to own the consequences.

  Cal ran a fingertip along the longest scar, the ugliest one. The others had faded into silver marks no more intrusive than the stretch marks from pregnancy, visible only in certain light. But the one that curved from over her right breast and along her ribs, down to her abdomen, was cross-hatched from the stitches. The surgeon who’d saved her life hadn’t cared much for making things pretty, and she’d chosen never to have plastic surgery to fix it.

  Most men asked her what had happened. Cal didn’t. He bent to press his mouth to the slope of her breasts, then over the soft cotton of her bra, down her ribs. His lips traced the scar, and his touch should’ve tickled but as always she felt nothing except the heat of his touch and that just barely.

  Abbie closed her eyes when he got to the end of it. Her hands fisted in the comforter. When he pulled her panties off, her mouth opened but nothing came out but a hiss of breath. Not even the “yes” she was thinking managed to escape.

  Then, nothing.

  She opened her eyes to look down at him studying her. Those nice eyes with that hard gaze. Noticing things. What had he noticed about her?

  Whatever it was, he didn’t say anything about it. He sat back and unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it before moving over her again to kiss her. Together they worked at the button and zipper on his jeans, the dark boxers underneath. Mouths working, hands roaming, at last they were both naked and he was touching her in all the places she wanted him to. Needed him to.

  Abbie never faked her pleasure, and few of the men she’d been with ever even noticed if she wasn’t getting off. Probably hadn’t cared. There was no faking it this time. Cal moved in every right way.

  He was looking in her eyes when she came. Abbie almost always looked away at the moment she broke, but this time she was looking into his eyes too. He shuddered and murmured something that could’ve been endearment or curse as he came too.

  When he rolled off onto the pillow next to her, one long arm thrown up behind his head, Cal let out a sigh. Then a chuckle. Abbie rolled to face him, a hand tucked under her cheek. Their legs tangled. Sweat cooled. She rubbed her toes along his calf.

  Cal looked at her. “How long are you staying here?”

  She had no timeline. No place to be. She could go wherever and whenever she wanted, at least until the money ran out. But that meant she could also stay the same way.

  “I was going to leave tomorrow,” she said after a couple seconds’ thought. “But…I don’t have to.”

  She thought perhaps she’d misjudged him. Maybe she shouldn’t have made herself an offering. Then he turned toward her and brushed the hair away from her face without saying anything, and she didn’t worry about that any more.

  2

  They slept.

  Abbie dreamed, as she often did, in full color and stereo surround sound. At first her dreamscape was a jumbled mess of faces and places she hadn’t seen for a long time. And then, as in the way of dreams, it all changed.

  She was on a train. Going fast. Too fast. She looked out her window at the scenery passing outside, trees and farms and small towns lit up in the night. The train clattered on the rails, too high above everything to be a real train, she knew that even in the dream, but even as she got to her feet and gripped the back of the seat to keep herself steady, she was unable to force herself to wake. And she wanted to, because though this wasn’t yet a nightmare, it felt well on its way to becoming one.

  The chug-chugging got louder. The train hissed and steamed. She was riding in a dragon.

  The train lurched, and Abbie stumbled forward. Strong hands caught her, kept her from falling, but when she looked up to see who it was she could find nothing but darkness. Something reeked, the stench thick in her nostrils. Choking. It smelled of blood and shit and puke; it was the stink of lying in a ditch on the side of the road in your upside-down car while you waited to die.

  The EMTs would load her on a stretcher and take her to the hospital. It would be her first ride in an ambulance. They would not bother with a siren, because she was already gone. There was no white light, no tunnel, no chorus of angels or parade of loved ones waiting for her. She’d left everyone she loved behind her in that ditch, long ago.

  “Abbie.” Someone shook her, then again. “Abbie, wake up. Now!”

  Not the voice of God. Not a doctor. Abbie clawed her way up and out of the dreams to find Cal bent over her, his hair so shaggy and in such disarray she moved without thinking to push it off his face. He captured her hand, his grip too tight. Mouth a frown. Expression urgent.

  “Get up,” Cal said. “We need to get into the bathroom.”

  “What?” Blinking, the taste of beer and sex furry on her tongue, she couldn’t focus. He was shouting, she realized. He had to shout over the sound of the train.

  Not a train.

  The wind.

  Cal pulled her out of bed. He was naked. She was naked. Together, they stumbled across the grotty carpet. She stubbed her toe on the leg of the bed, but there wasn’t time even to yelp. She wouldn’t have been able to hear herself over the roar of the wind if she had.

  In the bathroom, Cal didn’t even pull back the curtain. He pushed her into the tub. Abbie’s knees hit the cold, slick porcelain, and this time it was hard enough to shove a cry out of her.

  Then he was there with her, his body covering hers. Warm. Slick with sweat. She remembered how they’d moved against each other and how he’d touched her with those strong hands, but there was nothing sensual about the way he grabbed her now. Cal pushed her down, down, down, her cheek against the bottom of the tub. Her teeth cut into her skin. She tasted blood.

  He might’ve been shouting something, but she couldn’t make out words, just rough, hoarse shouts. Her own screams bit at the inside of her throat, but her clamped-tight teeth wouldn’t let out a single sound. Cal pushed her down harder, harder, even though this tub was barely big enough for one, not large enough to hold two even if they were in an intimate embrace as they were now, intimate but graceless, nothing kind or generous about it.

  The tub rocked.

  The floor creaked. The walls strained, rattling the light fixtures so fiercely the glass globes covering the bulbs fell onto the linoleum floor and shattered. Abbie could see nothing, but the song of shattering glass was a noise she knew well enough to understand.

  This was…something. Her brain wanted her to understand what was going on, it wanted to clear itself of the haze of alcohol she’d once again been so cruel to subject it to, but though fear could always give the appearance of sobriety, n