Eternity and a Year by Ranae Rose Page A

Brendan said, tilting her head back gently and tracing the curve of her bruised throat. “You need to go.”
    “No,” Carrie said, burying her head in his shoulder and forcing herself against him so her dirtied breasts painted charcoal-grey smudges across his pale chest. “I’m staying with you.”
    Brendan sighed, causing several wayward tendrils of Carrie’s hair to flutter. He stroked them flat against her skull with one hand while he pressed her harder against him with the other, forcing her breasts to swell upwards in the space between them. “And I’m staying with you. I’m going with you this time, then I’ll take you home.”
    “And you’ll stay with me there?” Carrie asked.
    He nodded. “I won’t leave you alone again.”
    Carrie opened her mouth to reply but wrinkled her nose instead as a sickly odour greeted her nostrils. “What—” she began, lifting her head from his cool shoulder. “Oh,” she said, a sound of mingled surprise and understanding. Sophia stood over a small, burning mass at her feet.
    Sophia tucked a glinting, silver lighter into a fold of her dress. Then she stood still, staring down at the heart enveloped in flames as if determined to see it reduced to ash. It shrank beneath the heat with the foetid smell of charred flesh, and Carrie retched.
    Brendan moved fluidly to his feet, lifting Carrie as he did so and supporting her with a strong arm around her shoulders when she stood. “Let’s go outside,” he said, urging her in the direction of the door.
    “But you’re—” Carrie swallowed a mouthful of bile as she stared at Brendan, eyeing the length of his bare form, every sinew and muscular curve exposed.
    Brendan glanced appraisingly down at his own body then looked around as if searching for his clothing. He found his garments lying nearby and stepped into his jeans quickly but held his shirt out to Carrie. “Here,” he said.
    She slipped into it without protest, grateful for the cover it provided even though it hung baggily around her figure.
    “Wait here,” Brendan directed a moment later, pausing cautiously before the threshold.
    She lingered obediently, holding her breath as best she could as he stepped out of the building and into the alley.
    “No sign of her,” he announced a few moments later, peering through the doorway at Carrie. “Come on.” He held out a hand for her to take.
    She hesitated, turning to face Sophia. “Thank you,” she said.
    Sophia looked up from the flames and smiled briefly at her. “My work isn’t done, yet. I still have to burn her , but…well, this is a huge start. Thank you ,” she added nodding in Brendan’s direction.
    Brendan nodded. “Thank you, Sophia.” He paused as Carrie took his hand. “Will you be pursuing her?”
    “I’ll start tracking her tonight, as soon as this has finished burning,” Sophia replied.
    “Good luck,” Brendan muttered, and drew Carrie out of the building, into the night by his side.
    “So you and Sophia planned all that?” she asked as they strode over the packed-dirt alley floor.
    Brendan nodded. “She found me this afternoon, after Isadora captured you, and told me what had happened. We planned what we would do as best we could.”
    He flexed his arm, pulling Carrie closer to him as they emerged from the alley and stepped into the street. “It’s kind of a long walk to the hospital. Do you want me to call a cab?”
    Carrie eyed her surroundings warily and shook her head. “I don’t want to wait here. Let’s just walk.”
    Brendan’s bare, white chest glowed faintly beneath the street lights and attracted stares from nearly everyone they passed. No one accosted them, although a few cat calls followed him as they walked around the line at the door of a night club, forced off the sidewalk and onto the street by the queue of bodies. Carrie got the feeling something in Brendan’s red eyes kept the curious and the dangerous onlookers alike at bay.
    “I’ll wait around the side