Recover: Book 2 of the Magic Mutations Series | ✓

42: The New Plan

After a couple of moments of silence exchanged between us, I finally braved a glance up at her. Deceit shrouded her gaze as her eyes narrowed and her mind evidently raced with questions or things she wanted to say back.

"You're wondering how to trust me on this?" I asked, reading one I expected her to be thinking.

She gave me a slight nod.

Leaning back into the couch, I heaved a sigh. "I know that you hate going to bed without properly having scrubbed off all of your makeup. I know you often wake up hugging your pillow. And I know... I know you have a freckle right below your belly button."

She pressed her lips together, brows furrowing even further, though again, words were lost on her.

"Now how do I make that sound like I haven't been stalking you from your window? Well... I also know that picture you have of your cat on your wallpaper was a photo you took of him a couple of days before you moved over here. You and your mum have calls every Sunday... She's the one who mostly calls you Ollie... or she was until I came along. But the nickname comes from you not being able to say your name when you were a kid. And you used to date a terrible guy back in Australia named Jacob... who I still would like to drain of his blood, even if I'd burn to a crisp if I went there, by the way. And... I know he did some horrible things to you."

"I... I told you that?" she whispered, brows starting to turn down as her eyes welled with tears. I could see she was slowly starting to believe me.

Shuffling over on the couch, I picked up her hands, wincing as her zaps shook through my body. "Your favourite classic is Jane Eyre, you developed routines to ease your anxiety just after what Jacob did to you that night and... You once harmed yourself here." I traced her wrist with my finger. "But I healed that for you and... made you think it faded over time."

Slowly, she pulled her arms from my grasp. "Healed? Like..."

"With my saliva, yes but... I didn't taste you."

"But... how did you touch me? You're not immune to my zaps."

A part of me was scared to confess to this girl who didn't remember us—whose heart had drifted on to Ben—that she was once my world. That she still is. I was scared that this new Ollie who didn't meet me in that exact time and place, who no longer created a buzz in the room by her presence alone, would reject me.

But I had to try.

For us.

Because I promised.

So I got to my feet, leaving the living area momentarily to go to the magic room, pulling out the picture strip hidden behind my book on bonds. Then I also grabbed the book for good measure... figuring it was the best way to explain it to her again.

When I rejoined her, her eyes warily looked at the new objects in my hand before I passed the picture over. Taking it, her eyes trailed over the three photos of us, widening slightly as she looked over them. I heard her audibly swallow.

"Why... why are you kissing... How are you touching me?" She looked up at me in shock. Then, curiously, she extended her small hand across the way, fingers gently brushing my arm before my eyes scrunched up as the electrical current spread through my body. She immediately retracted her hand. "How could we touch in this photo but not now?" she asked more forcefully. "And if I'm really a fairy who shocks vampires... how come Ben can touch me?"

With a sigh, I then slowly passed over the book to her, which she accepted with shaky hands, eyes scanning over the title.

"Basics of Bonds," she whispered, glancing up at me with an eyebrow cocked. "What's this?"