Before David, Grandma and I had been close, bonding over our love of cooking and fine foods. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of sitting in her kitchen, stirring chocolate sauce for sundaes or watching the beater whip up meringue. I haven’t been in the kitchen for anything more than a quick meal in months.
I’m still angry with her about the lies and the way she has let David take over our lives, but after a week of not seeing her, I need to feel her arms wrap around me in a hug. I don’t understand when she stops midway across the room. She holds one hand to her mouth as tears form in her eyes.
“Van, I’m so glad to see you, sweetheart. I’ve been so worried.”
“I’ve missed you, Grandma,” I say. I try to tell myself that she’s only staying back because Chris told her she should. I want to believe that, but something in her posture puts me on edge. “Chris, is it okay if she comes closer?”
The two of them share a look that I don’t understand. Chris turns to glance back at me, his expression pained. “No, that’s not a good idea.”
Grandma’s shoulders twitch a bit, and I swear she’s trying not to cry. I don’t understand. Is she really that scared of me? She says a quick goodbye and turns away, disappearing toward the back of the house. I’m even more confused when Zander emerges from the hallway and rushes over to me. I hear Chris calling out for him to be gentle, but he wraps his arms around me in a massive hug anyway.
My pleasure at having him so close dwarfs the pain and hunger his hug inspires. Kneeling on the floor in front of me, I have no doubts about my brother’s love for me. He cradles me in his arms so tenderly. “I missed you so much, Van. I was losing my mind not being able to see you and make sure you were doing okay.”
“I’m alright,” I say, my face squashed against his shirt. “You’re kinda strangling me, though.”
“Sorry,” Zander says as he pulls back. “Chris said your new hunger is manifesting differently than ours did, that you’re in a lot of pain. I’m here for whatever you need, Van, and Annabelle wanted me to tell you that she’d be here to help you, too. Especially for dressing and the other stuff you don’t want a guy helping you with.”
“Is Annabelle here now?” I ask, surprised by the offer. She seems like a nice girl, but I really haven’t had a chance to get to know her very much yet.
Zander shakes his head. “Chris thought we should keep visitors to a minimum right now, but if you’re handling everything okay, she said she’d come over tonight to help you get ready for bed.”
“Oh, that’s really nice of her. Thanks.”
The smile that spreads across Zander’s face catches me off guard. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him smile like that. I’ve had some doubts about Annabelle and her convenient appearance, but I promise myself I’ll give her a chance. Anyone who can make Zander so happy can’t be that bad.
I notice Zander staring at the bandages on my arms from various IVs and blood draws. He touches one briefly before pulling back. “Whatever you need from me, Van, you have it. There were times after my hunger erupted that I couldn’t contain it. I needed to feed so badly it was the only thought in my mind. I want you to tell me if you get to that point. I can handle it, okay?”
His eyes dart back to Chris, checking for any sign of argument. Not that Chris telling him not to help me would stop him. Chris remains quiet, so Zander continues. “Promise me you won’t try to do this alone. It’s not a good way to suffer through this, believe me.”
“I promise,” I say softly. Smiling ruefully, I nudge Zander’s shoulder. “Besides, you’d deserve it. I’m sure I still owe you for all that crap with Ivy.”
Zander chuckles. “I still owe you a favor, too.”
“I know.”
My big brother waits a moment, waiting to see if I have decided to call in that favor yet. He knows what it will be. He has always known. I start to bite my lip, but I stop when my hunger growls at me. When Zander refused to stop seeing Ivy, he made me a promise that when I needed it, he would do something hard for me, no questions asked, no complaining. I want to ask him now to be okay with me dating Ketchup, to give up some of the closeness we share in exchange for my freedom to love. I want to ask him so badly, but I don’t know if that’s even a possibility anymore.
“He’s here,” Zander says softly.
My breathing hitches. “He is?”
“He’s been here every day since your hunger erupted, making sure you’re okay and begging to see you. David practically had to pull him off you when they took you to the hospital. He wanted to go with you, but he wouldn’t allow it.”
My hands start shaking. “Can I see him?”
Zander looks back at Chris, who frowns. “It could be dangerous,” Chris says. “Humans are more fragile than we are. The tiniest illness or injury could set you off right now.”
“Ketchup knows this,” Zander says, “but he still wants to see you if you’re ready. If you’re not, he said he understands.”
Sucking in a huge, steadying breath, I look up at my big brother with pleading eyes. “I want to see him, but I don’t want to hurt him. Will you stay close by?”
Grimacing, Zander nods. “I’ll stay as close as I can. I won’t let you hurt him, okay?”
I nod and curl my arms around my body slowly. I know tucking them away won’t do anything to slow me down, but the action helps calm me. I watch as Zander steps back to the far corner of the room. Chris disappears to the backyard. Anxiety like I have never known courses through me. I am visibly shaking by the time I hear the back door open and close. Every shuffled step I hear sends my heart racing. I jump when they finally step into the room.
The agony in Ketchup’s expression kills me. Pain is pouring off him like a waterfall. “Stop!” I gasp.
Ketchup’s eyes widen. “What’s wrong? I’m not sick or hurt, I promise!”
“It’s your emotions,” I say between gasps. “You’re hurting so much. I can feel it. You have to stop, Ketchup, please.”
“What?” Chris and Zander ask at the same time. They seem confused, but I don’t have a single thought to spare for them.
“Van, I’m so sorry,” he says, “for everything. I never should have gotten mad at you over Noah. I should have been there for you when your hunger erupted. I left you when you needed me. I’m so sorry.”
Another wave of pain washes over me, and I double over. I want to tell him it’s okay, that I understand why he was mad, and I don’t blame him. I would have been pissed too if the tables were turned. I try to form the words, but it hurts too much to even move my lips.
“I’ll go,” Ketchup says.
“No,” I beg, “don’t go.” I breathe like Chris has taught me, closing myself down to everything and focusing my thoughts on calming my hunger. I don’t want Ketchup to leave. I need him! I can’t let him go. “Please,” I beg, “don’t leave me.”
“I don’t want to,” Ketchup says. He presses his hands against his head. “You know I don’t want to leave you, but if… if you’ve chosen someone else …”
“What?” I demand, the shock of his words doing more for me than anything Chris has taught me.
“Noah,” Ketchup says, the words slipping out like they are slicing him open with each syllable. “In the hall that day…” His eyes dart between Chris and Zander helplessly.
I cringe, knowing he can’t say anything more because nobody but Ketchup knows that my first fainting spell triggered the string of visions I’ve had. Not even Zander. Gathering every last bit of strength I have, I say, “Can you guys leave us alone for a minute?”
Neither of them moves even an inch.
“I can do this,” I growl at them. “Just wait in the hall, please. It’s still close enough to stop me if you have to. Please.”
Zander is the first to move. He skirts around Ketchup and nods for Chris to follow him. Chris doesn’t look in the least bit willing, but Zander is hard to say no to. I watch them go and I push myself up to sitting, gasping with ea
ch painful movement. Ketchup is at my side before I get fully upright, staring at me in a near panic.
“Are you okay? You look like you’re in agony!”
“I am,” I say quickly, “but it’s okay.”
“How is it okay?”
Growling, I glare at him. “Shut up! I can’t take this for long.” He sits back on the coffee table, giving me a small buffer. I sigh in thanks. “Now what on earth were you talking about a minute ago? I did not choose Noah over you. Have you lost your mind?”
“You didn’t?” Ketchup asks. “Then what did you see after you turned into a human torch?”
“What do you think I saw?”
Ketchup’s head drops into his hands. “I thought you saw yourself ending up with him. I thought… I thought that was why you told him you wanted to be friends after everything he did to you.”
I reach out and touch his hand. The ache that builds in my chest from touching him kills me, but I don’t pull back. “Oh, Ketchup, I’m so sorry. That wasn’t what I saw at all. I had no idea that’s what you thought. I would have sat on you and forced you to let me explain if I’d known. I thought you were just angry with me for giving him a second chance.”
Looking up, Ketchup asks, “What did you see then?”
“He’s going to save my life.”
“What?”
I shrug. “Some guy had his arms around my neck, choking me, in the vision, and somehow Noah saved me. That’s all I know.”
The pain emanating from Ketchup vanishes as his lips turn up in a smile. “So, you’re not ditching me for Noah?”
“No,” I say with a smile. “I care about Noah, as a friend, and I still think we need to keep him close until we figure out what he’s hiding, but I could never give you up, no matter what the future holds. When you walked away… nothing else mattered but getting you back. I just didn’t know how.”
Ketchup grins at me like a psychotic Cheshire cat. For some reason, I start giggling. A second ago, I felt like I was suffocating under the weight of Ketchup’s emotional pain, but now, my head feels like it’s about to float right off my body. I start giggling harder. I fall back against the couch. A burst of pain shoots through my shoulders, but it quickly gets buried under the giggling.
“What’s going on?” Chris demands, seeming to appear out of thin air behind Ketchup.
“I don’t know,” Ketchup says defensively. “She just started giggling all crazy, and now she won’t stop.”
Zander stands behind Chris and Ketchup, watching me with a puzzled expression. The faintest sense of curiosity drifts over to me from him, but it’s not enough to overpower the joy spilling out of Ketchup.
“Ketchup!” I say suddenly between giggles. “It’s Ketchup! He’s too happy.” I collapse into another round of giggles.
Suddenly, the mood sobers as Ketchup’s eyes dart around the room. “I’m not doing anything, I swear.”
I push myself back up to sitting, noticing that my hunger and pain both seem lighter. “It’s not his fault,” I say, still feeling unusually chipper. “I can feel him, that’s all.”
“You can feel his emotions?” Chris demands.
“Yeah?” I say slowly, not sure why Chris looks like he’s about to freak out. “Is that bad?”
Chris shakes his head and presses his hands against his face. “I have no idea. I honestly don’t have a clue about what’s going on with you.” Chris drops his hands to his side and sighs. “Ketchup, it might be best if you head home for tonight.”
“No!” I cry out. “My hunger isn’t as bad with him here.”
“What?” Chris asks. Now he’s the one who looks like his head is about to explode.
“It’s always been that way,” I say quietly.
Chris looks to Zander. My brother shrugs. “Don’t ask me why, but it’s true. Somehow, Ketchup has always been able to calm her hunger a little.”
“It’s even better now… as long as he’s happy.”
Pointing a finger at Ketchup, Chris says, “Are you done sulking?”
Ketchup nods like a puppy promising to be good.
“Fine,” Chris says, “you can stay, for now.”
Chris turns back to Zander, his face a mask of utter confusion. “I don’t know what to say about all this, but I suggest you keep it to yourselves for the time being.”
I was planning on it. Zander nods in agreement.
Finally, Chris sighs in defeat and goes outside to check on Grandma. When Zander asks if I’ll be okay with Ketchup for a while and I nod, he excuses himself for some fresh air as well. It’s a relief when he takes his roiling hunger out of the house. When the room is finally quiet, exhaustion rolls over me like the tide coming in.
“Come on,” Ketchup says as he slips his arms under my back and legs, “it looks like you’re ready for bed.”
“It’s okay, I can just rest here,” I argue.
Ketchup shakes his head. “This couch is seriously uncomfortable, believe me. I’ve slept on it a few nights this week, and my back will never be the same. Besides, you could use the peace and quiet, I’m sure.”
My will to argue was pretty weak to begin with. I don’t bother trying again. I grit my teeth against the pain as he hoists me into his arms. It’s not as bad as when Chris carried me in from the car, but it still forces me to bite my cheek against crying out. Eyes closed, hands clenched into fists, head buried against Ketchup’s chest, I stay like that until he reaches my bedroom and sets me gently on the bed. As soon as he steps away from me, I shiver.
“Will you hand me my sweater?” I ask as the shivering gets worse. It’s only slightly cooler up here than it was downstairs, thanks to drafty windows, but my overly sensitive skin is covered with goose bumps.
Ketchup plucks my hoodie off my desk chair and holds it out to me. I stare at it with a frown, feeling more than a little embarrassed. “Uh, sorry, but could you help me get it on? I’m still having trouble moving on my own.”
“Not a problem,” Ketchup says.
Letting Chris help me was embarrassing. Feeling Ketchup’s gentle fingers carefully pull the sweater over my head is a whole other experience altogether. I close my eyes against his nearness, but end up breathing in his scent as he reaches over me. His warm breath on my cheek as he leans forward to pull my hair out from my sweater steals away my ability to breathe properly. I whimper as his feather-light touch brushes my hair back from my face.
“Am I hurting you?” Ketchup asks worriedly.
I swallow hard. “No.”
Ketchup pauses for a moment and looks at me, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he goes to work on my arms. He dresses me like he might an infant, reaching his fingers through the sleeves of the sweater and carefully guiding my arm back out. Whatever pain the movement causes, it’s hard to notice in the face of him trailing his fingers over my hand before setting it gently on the bed. When he moves to my other hand, I hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Van, what’s wrong? You’re not breathing,” Ketchup says worriedly.
“I can’t.”
“You can’t breathe?” he exclaims. “I’m getting Chris and Zander.”
He starts to push away from the bed, but I reach out and grab him. The quick movement sends tears cascading down my cheeks. My hunger bites and snaps, but Ketchup caressing my cheek soothes it instantly. “Don’t go,” I beg.
“But…”
“I’m okay. It’s just hard to breathe with you touching me like that.” I shake my head. “It’s not bad. I don’t want you to stop. Please don’t go.”
Ketchup’s Adam’s apple bobs forcefully. “I won’t go.”
With this promise, he reaches for my other hand and slowly, achingly, pulls my hand through the sleeve. He couldn’t have been more delicate if I’d been made out of rose petals. By the time he is finished, I can only pull in short, raspy breaths, but Ketchup isn’t doing much better.
“How did you… in the hospital… getting dressed?” The words stumb
le out of his mouth as his hands ball up in the blankets.
My mouth is dry as I peel my lips apart. “Chris.”
Ketchup’s head drops to the comforter. He groans into the blankets. “I begged and begged them to let me see you. I could have helped you that whole time.”
I don’t ask if he’s talking about my clothes or my hunger. I don’t need to.
“I wanted you there so badly,” I admit. He was all I could think about, every day, every second. “I was so scared, Ketchup. I thought I had lost you. I was terrified that you had finally given up on me.”
Suddenly, Ketchup’s head comes up. “I will never give up on you,” he promises.
His hands grip my shoulders and he presses me down into the blankets, deftly swinging my legs up onto the bed in one smooth motion. Before I can even blink, he is hovering over me.
“Do you remember that night in the tree?” Ketchup asks, breathing hard.
I gulp and lick my lips so I can part them. “Yes,” I whisper. I remember every second of that night, but I know which part specifically is running through his mind right now, because it is the same one running through mine.
I was furious at him that night because of what he told Noah. When I demanded he sneak into my room so I could yell at him, he gave me an answer I wasn’t expecting.
“I wouldn’t come in because I knew the last thing I’d want to do alone in your room with you was talk,” Ketchup says.
His body presses closer to me, and all thoughts of pain and hunger vanish. “I remember,” I whisper, swallowing hard.
“Nothing has changed, but I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t know what’s going on between us with your hunger.” Ketchup presses his lips to my forehead. “But I want you to know that this won’t be the last time we’ll find ourselves in this position. I love you, Van. I want you more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”
The pressing agony of my hunger, the gnawing fear that has followed me for so long, it all dissolves in the face of being loved so completely. Swallowing fear and hunger alike, I say, “I want you, too. I’ve always wanted you.” I reach up and pull his lips to mine. “I love you, William Keane.”
Wicked Power Page 26