Ruth looked down at the subtly twitching feet—Dave's feet—in her lap, even though she didn't have to. She felt their heat, although not burningly hot anymore, seeping through her clothes and warming her skin unpleasantly. She glanced over at Lolli sitting beside her, the rest of the scorching body in her lap. Her hands were wrapped tenderly around Dave's spasming chest, for reasons Ruth couldn't understand. If she were Lolli, she'd want to beat him shitless. The silence between them seemed heavy, stifling, and Ruth longed to fill it. So she blurted out, "That must be some wicked shit he took."
Lolli grinned knowingly. "Wicked shit indeed," she agreed, brushing a stray lock of knotted, faded blue hair out of her face. Lolli stared down at Dave's body, unconscious and fevered, in her lap, then back up to Ruth. "Wanna try it?"
Ruth followed Lolli's gaze, seeing Dave's fluttering eyelids and spastic movements. She quickly decided she didn't want to be some dying faery-human-whatever thing. "Hell no."
"Aw," Lolli said, looking but not sounding disappointed. "That shit gives you one hell of a buzz. It's like you're some sort of sculptor, and the world is your clay." Lolli sighed dreamily. Ruth had no clue how something so obviously dangerous could give someone such a rush. But Lolli seemed addicted to the stuff. All of them—Lolli, Dave, Luis, even Val—seemed addicted. She hoped Val wasn't addicted, although seeing how she was hooked on numerous substances, felt slightly hypocritical.
If the cab driver was concerned at all about the talk of obviously illegal drugs, or about the twitching body and the multicolored hair of both girls carrying it, he didn't say anything. He probably got a lot of freak shows better than Ruth, Lolli, and Dave, although this one was pretty fucked-up. Ruth sighed, tearing her gaze away from Lolli and Dave, and stared out the window at the rushing Manhattan skyline. She wanted to get out of New York, away from Val's new "friends" and away from the faery stories, and take herself and Val back to Jersey. At least they could try to live normally again then. But somehow, Ruth knew that wasn't going to happen—that they weren't going back to Jersey, at least not right now, and neither she nor Val would really live normally again after this. Whatever the hell normal meant.
my first Holly Black fic. (i don't like that they list it under Tithe, because there's Tithe AND Valiant AND Ironside.) epic failure? epic success? review!