Chapter 23

The Uproot of Hoodwink

So apparently, when your grandfather said "to the boozemobile" your father wasn't down with that.

Weird.

I asked for ice cream instead and was also denied that request. Apparently going out now wasn't a good idea because I'd just been attacked and god knew what could happen.

I tried repeating that the dangerous thing was dead now, but my words were falling on deaf ears. After talking more about the gory details of the traumatic event that was seeing a girl twisting her own head around I was allowed to go to bed.

Part of me was scared that somehow she'd show up in my dreams, that I'd see her again, but instead I fell asleep fast a dreamless sleep.

The next morning was more of the same thing.

Matvei and I had been supposed to go somewhere to talk about my mother but now the plans had sort of been forgotten. The whole house was fussing over yesterday's death. It wasn't that big of a mystery, but they still needed to figure out where Kimiko had came from and what she wanted exactly. It was an all hands on deck kind of thing and the whole family was requisitioned, except for sad-little-inexperienced-me.

They asked me questions now and then about what Kimiko had told me, if she'd hinted at what her true intentions were but I was pretty much as clueless as they were. I didn't think she had actually cared about me. She cared about hurting someone that cared about me. That much I could assume.

By the end of the morning I was just sitting in the living room playing Jenga with Kirill.

Semyon joined us and sat in the lazy boy with a drink in his head—I could only assume it was booze. He kept blowing towards the wooden bricks to make them fall. He was just basically spitting a lot.

At one point though he frowned and got on his feet, walking towards the windows. "What's the Brahe's kid doing parked in our driveway?"

I frowned. "Huh?"

He said, pointing and I got up beside him "There," he said, pressing his finger against the glass.

And sure enough, that was Kostyantyn's car parked in our drive way. "I'll go check," I said, and headed to the door, slipped into my sneakers, go out and slowly made my way to the car.

The passenger window came down, revealing a smiling Kostyantyn hiding his eyes behind sunglasses. "Cute outfit!" he teased.

Okay, so I was in sweatpants and t-shirt. Sue me. I hadn't been expecting company. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm assuming you don't have any plans anymore and that you want to be out of that house," he said.

"Maybe..." I trailed, just a tiny bit worried, but also a tiny bit interested.

"And that ice cream sounds good," he grinned.

"Can you stop reading my mind," I asked him as I opened the door and sat in the passenger's seat of his car. What? I wasn't going to say no to ice cream.

"Sorry, it's just kind of fun," he answered and waited for me to buckle my seatbelt before starting to drive.

After a few seconds of silence and a tiny bit of side-checking-out on my part—what, the dude kind of looked good in sunglasses—I said, "You look tired."

It looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Me and this pretty girl, we talked all night long. It was a transcending experience. I forgot to sleep."

I grimaced. "Can I please not have any details about your sex life?"

Of course, he smirked. "Jealous?"

I shuddered. "A little disgusted actually. At this point it's not like sex with you is anything special."

"True," Kostya nodded slowly, "it's definitely not something to feel special about," he replied, but there was a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you."

"Don't worry about it." He shrugged. "I know what my life looks like."

This was getting me thinking. Had he ever had a girlfriend? If he actually needed to bang as many girl as he was, feeding on all of them he probably couldn't stick with just one. "How much do you actually need to feed?"

"Lately? A lot. Both of my Mare and Succubus powers need a lot of fuel to be efficient. The nice thing about me though is that I don't need to get juices from a Mare feeding in order to use my Mare powers and vice versa," he explained.

"So having sex can feed your Mare powers?" I asked.

"Basically."

"You don't like feeding on people by doing Mare stuff right?"

He sighed. "Think about what Kimiko just did to you. Now imagine that in order for me to feed as a Mare I would need to do that. All the time."

Yikes. "I get why you have issues with your mom. She must be one scary broad."

"Your grandma's got nothing on her," he joked. Stupid Valkyrie.

"My grandma needs to go to Nanny booth camp. She can't even make an apple pie."

"I doubt she could even eat up a frozen one in the microwave."

I scoffed. "Who eats frozen pie? You gotta eat that stuff the second it's out of the oven."

He grinned. "Pie lover?"

I stuck my tongue out at him. "I know you think you think your innuendo is funny but I don't care. I love pie. Did you know that in Wisconsin, State Law made it illegal to serve apple pie in public restaurants without cheese?"

He made a gagging face. "Don't tell me you're one of those lunatics that put cheese on their apple pie."

I gapped at him. "Don't tell me you're one of those lunatics that don't."

He pointed at my face, wiggling his index finger. "You have seriously weird tastes."

"Obviously. I'm hanging around you, aren't I?" I teased.

Kostyantyn smiled at me and I smiled back. When I turned to look at the road again something that looked oddly like a tree stood in the middle of the road. "As I screamed, "Kostya, look out!" one of the tree's branches grew super fast coming straight at the car, piercing the hood, going through the engine. The car came to a brutal stop. The branch started to reach towards the windshield to come at us but I hear two gunshots and the branches retracted, the tree disappearing.

"Oksana, are you alright?" Kostya asked, frantically.

What the actual hell? Kimiko was dead. What was this thing coming at us? And when the hell had Kostyantyn grabbed a gun? "Why the hell do you have a gun in your car?" I replied, completely freaking out.

"I have a lot more than just a gun in my car," he told me and opened the glove compartment in front of me.

Yeah, that wasn't a glove compartment. The handles of a bunch of weapons were just sticking out.

"WOAH! Why the fuck do you have an armoury in your car? And this is real? It's not another illusion?"

"Yes, it's very real. And the question is why wouldn't I have an armoury in my car?" Kostya said, checking between the now empty road and the weapons. He grabbed the handle of a knife, which turned out to be a freaking sword once he pulled it out and I realized how long it was. Naughty comments were kept to myself.

"No, not at all that's not a question at all," I answered, freaking out.

"Once we survive this, you'll thank me." A branch appeared piercing the back window but Kostya shot at it again. "You get the gun," he added, handing it to me.

I sort of backed away from it, not touching it. "Why do I get the gun? Can't I get the sword?"

He made a face. "Please."

"Oh, because you obviously have more experience with a sword than I do?"

"This conversation is getting into a dangerous territory," Kostya said. This was such not a good time to joke around. Especially since the car had started to rattle a bit. I was guessing the tree branch were under us now.

He shoved the gun in my head. "Why am I getting the gun?" I whined. Which was kind of stupid to do, I should just thank him for it and run the hell away.

"Because shooting I trust you can do. You've yet to impress me with your sword skills. I guess we'll have to work on that after we survive this."

"What are you even saying?"

"This."

Without any time for me to back away or argue, Kostya was holding the back of my head, pressing our lips together. The dude could have chosen a much better time to kiss me, honestly. But I hardly was going to complain because he was kissing me and—hot damn. I'd seen in so many places lips being compared to velvet pillows and all the shebang and I always though cheesy. Like, honestly, lips weren't freaking silk or anything. But I'll be damned; I could make a bed out of his lips and live in there forever. The comparison was kind of freaking creepy though.

Back to the kiss. Hot. Fucking. Damn. His lips moved against mine, not hesitant but slow, confidant and soft, way too freaking soft to be real. And I could taste him against my mouth. I didn't exactly know what he tasted like—maybe the nectar of the gods? All I knew was that it was madly intoxicating and I couldn't help but open my lips slightly to taste him better. His breath brushed against my skin, and his lips kept gliding and nipping on mine. My hands knotted in his hair of their own accord. My knees were weak—I never would have been able to stay on my feet if I had been up—my breaths were short, my thoughts, incoherent and I actually felt dizzy. There was something happening, something I had felt in his presence, this pull he had on me, it actually felt like it generated from his lips, sparks and warmth coming from them.

When he parted our lips, I automatically tried to press them together again, but he laughed, and held the back of my head firmly, stopping me, our foreheads still touching. "Easy there."

My vision was blurry, my thoughts, actually incoherent—what was I doing here? Why wasn't I kissing him? I had to kiss him. Again. More.

But then I realized what was going on. I punched him in the baby-maker.

He let out a strangled breath, coiling on himself but still smiled at me. "That's my girl," he managed to breath, half groaning, half laughing.

My fingers lightly touching my lips—I could still very clearly feel his and taste him. "What was that for?"

His head pressed against the headrest, his eyes closed—still feeling the pain from my punch, obviously—he answered, "Just for good luck."

"Good luck, my ass! Did you just feed on me?"

He rolled his eyes. The nerves. "Please. Look, once we get out, I want you to run as fast as you can, don't look back just run. Your feet will get you home."

"My feet will get me home" I probably sounded like my grandmother right about now.

"Trust me."

"I don't trust you." That wasn't exactly true though. Because I did trust him.

"You'll just know where to go" he whispered and trailed a finger against my temple.

"You did something, didn't you?"

He ignored it. He looked sad for some reason. "Once you do get home, you hide and you let them take care of the problem."

"What about you?" I answered in a rush. We were both speaking in a rush. We shouldn't even be speaking right now we should just be running away and hiding.

"Don't worry about me."

"But they aren't after you, they're after me," I pointed out, which made absolutely no fucking sense but when did anything make sense in my life anyway?

"I told you, don't worry about me," he pressed. "Now, go. We don't have a lot of time. Go!" He was actually pretty much right because branches were trying to get in, twisting metal, the car still shaking.

"I can't just leave you here."

"You can," he opened my door and shoved me out. "You have to. Go. I'm right behind you."

God dammit. I would have argued with him but I was a sitting duck now out of the protection of the car. I mean, it was completely totalled, but hey, it was better than just standing there.

I had to run towards the forest. There was something in me, like an outside force that was almost pulling me towards it. I had to go through the forest because I could reach my house faster. For some reason I was absolutely sure of that.

I guess I had Kostyantyn to thank for that.

I started to run. I heard metal crashing and glass shattering. I didn't turn around and kept running.

A branch came straight for my face and before I even had the time to reach I shot straight at it. Bullseye. Apparently I was a good shot. In all my years living in Detroit I had never touch a gun. Actually, I was pretty much against them. It was funny how your values quickly changed when you had monster trees gunning for you.

I heard Kostyantyn scream. I stopped running.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

I couldn't just leave him behind, not after everything he'd done for me. Everything in me was screaming to keep running deeper into the forest, to get to my house, to my family, to ask for help. This was one of those times when I really should have kept my phone with me.

Dammit.

I turned around and ran back to Kostya.