Step Beast

by Selena Kitt

  Tilly shrank back instinctively against Beast and his arm tightened around her as Meg approached. There wasn’t any way to defend herself, and a sharp stab of guilt pierced her core. If anything had happened to Miles, Tilly would never have forgiven herself. And she had brought him with her from the kitchen, after all, but he’d whined to get down, and they’d all been fussing over Liv…

  Meg snatched Miles from Tilly’s arms—he was still crying, and Tilly knew he’d never forget this moment, the fear and panic he’d caused in all the adults in his life—cradling his head against her not inconsiderable chest. He wrapped his arms around her neck and sobbed, which just made Meg even more protective.

  “Goddamnit, Tilly, how could you be so irresponsible?” Meg snapped, covering the little boy’s ear with one hand, pressing his other to her breast, as if she didn’t want him to hear her berating of her niece.

  “I’m sowwy, I’m sowwy!” Miles repeated over and over, like magic words that could make the adults smile again instead of scream at each other.

  “I’m sorry,” Tilly echoed, her voice a mere whisper.

  “Meg, that’s not fair,” Beast said, keeping his voice at a reasonable level. “Miles was—”

  “Sorry doesn’t undo anything!” Meg hissed through her teeth. Her eyes were wild, and Tilly knew just what she was feeling. Just because Miles was safe didn’t mean he hadn’t been in danger. It didn’t excuse Tilly for not paying closer attention, for letting him wander off. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was… I wasn’t… I—” Tilly choked back tears, and even Beast’s strong hold on her couldn’t assuage the horrible, rising feeling of inadequacy that washed over her. She’d never been good enough for anyone in her whole life, and this was no exception. If Miles had drowned, it would have been her fault.

  Then Megan leaned in, as if to tell her a secret, and in effect, that’s exactly what she did. They were words meant to wound Tilly, although they didn’t feel deliberate. It was as if they escaped from some primal, paralyzed, terrified part of Meg’s soul. She used them like a snake uses fangs—quickly and without mercy, a simple biological reaction.

  “This is the reason you had to give him up!” Meg hissed at Tilly, still covering the boy’s ears and ignoring Beast entirely. “You would have made a horrible mother!”

  With that, Meg fled, taking a still sobbing Miles with her toward the house.

  And Tilly collapsed.

  She slid out of Beast’s arms like a limp noodle when Meg’s words fell, like a hammer from the sky. She sank to her knees at the edge of the pool and thought, for a moment, that she was going to vomit. Closing her eyes, she waited, feeling sick, dizzy, weak. She couldn’t face it. She couldn’t face the still-dripping, wide-eyed, opened mouth Beast standing beside her and the words he’d just heard.

  The words that only, finally, confirmed what she had suspected, all along.

  And he would hate her now. He never could stand lies or deception. Beast was nothing if not a man of integrity, and finding out he’d been deceived went to the very center of who and what he was.

  Tilly covered her head with her arms and sobbed, the weight of Meg’s words falling again and again, like blows, leaving her feeling as if the beating would never end. She hoped, she prayed, she waited, wanting to feel Beast’s big hand on her shoulder, wanting him to gather her up and pull her to him and cradle her in his arms like a baby. She felt as small and scared and helpless as Miles.

  But he didn’t.

  She didn’t hear him go, but when she finally looked up through a haze of red hair and tears, he was gone. She was all alone.

  He’d left her. Again.

  And isn’t that what she had always known was going to happen?

  Tilly turned her head, cheek against the wet cement, staring into the bright blue ocean of the pool. What bliss that would be. She could get in, let herself float away, sink, drown. What perfection. No one in the world would care. No one needed or wanted her. She was broken, twisted, wrong. She’d proven that over and over, to herself and everyone she’d ever known.

  She wanted to die. For a brief, guilt-ridden moment, she envied her mother, who would soon pass from this pain-filled plane of existence and into somewhere beyond. Even if there wasn’t a heaven or a hell, in this moment, even darkness was preferable. Nothing. Oblivion. Silence.

  That’s when a faint, high-pitched, startled scream came from inside the house.

  Tilly half-sat, seeing the French doors open, but nothing else.

  Her first thought was, what did I do now?

  She waited, breath held, for some sort of commotion, but nothing followed.

  For just a moment, she was torn between filling her pockets with landscaping rocks and sinking to the bottom of the pool, and facing whatever was going on inside. The former seemed far better in her mind, the lure of the water filling all her available senses, just the way it would fill her lungs.

  But she couldn’t do it. As much as she hated herself, as much as she wanted to let go, there was something inside of her urging her to hang on, to keep trying.

  Glutton for punishment, she thought, shaking her head.

  But she got up and ran into the house.

  Chapter 15

  It was bedlam.

  Tilly’s mother was on the living room floor, unconscious. Tilly didn’t know who had screamed—probably Meg, who was prone to histrionics—but this was clearly the reason. Liv was pale, her wig completely gone, forgotten in an auburn heap on the rug, her skin so thin it was almost translucent. Tilly rushed to her mother’s side, where Beast knelt, talking to her, trying to rouse her. She was breathing, at least.

  Kate was on the phone to 911 and Meg was vacillating between rubbing a miserable and bedraggled Miles dry with a towel and confusing Kate’s conversation with 911 with reminders of Liv’s condition.

  Hanna, beside Beast, was the only one who had remained calm. She lifted Liv’s eyelid to look at her pupil while Tilly asked what in the hell had happened.

  “She just collapsed,” Hanna said, positioning the oxygen mask more carefully over her mouth and nose.

  “We’re going to the hospital with her,” Meg called. Tilly could see she’d been crying, although she didn’t know if those were tears leftover from her scare by the pool or new ones brought on by her sister’s condition. “Miles, where are your clothes?”

  “By the pool,” Miles sniffed, then burst out crying again.

  Tilly held her arms out to him and he went to her. She cradled him, rocking, feeling awful, and saw Meg give her a sharp, warning look, but she didn’t tell her to stop. Tilly could feel Beast’s gaze on her but she couldn’t look at him, didn’t dare.

  “Stay right here while I get your clothes,” Meg said, glaring at Tilly once more before turning and heading out of the living room.

  Julia had been gathering the things they’d take to the hospital with Liv, and she came by, give Miles his brontosaurus. He smiled at her through his tears and that made Tilly’s heart soar.

  “Is Auntie Liv gonna be okay, Tiwwy?” he sniffed and Tilly felt a lump growing in her throat.

  She tried to talk around it. “Want to sing your song, Miles?”

  “Five-hundred Miles!” he exclaimed, putting his chubby arms around her neck. He was still wet and smelled like chlorine from the pool and she nuzzled his neck as they sang the song she’d been singing to him since he was six months old. They were on the third round, and Meg had handed over his clothes to let Tilly get him dressed because Miles insisted, when the ambulance arrived.

  Liv had started coming back to them, but now she was out again. She kept passing in and out of consciousness and didn’t seem to know where she was. To Tilly, this was the most terrifying thing of all. Even when she was sick, Liv was strong. Tilly had never seen her confused and feeble, not like this. It was a complete upset to the natural order of the world, and Tilly’s mind refused to accept it.

  When the paramedics came in and started putting L
iv on a stretcher, Tilly thought her heart would break. Miles started to cry again at the sight, running back to Tilly and pressing his tear-stained face against her neck. Tilly soothed him, watching them strap her mother to the gurney and wheel it out of the living room.

  She felt Beast’s presence—he stood somewhere behind her, watching it all, silent. But she was glad for the distraction of Miles, of his questions and her ability to make him smile, even through his tears. Because if she hadn’t had someone or something to hold onto, she thought she would have drowned on dry land at that moment. First Miles and his near drowning, now her mother collapsing and being taken away in an ambulance. It was too much, all at once, a tidal wave of overwhelming hurt.

  Meg had been so concerned about Liv, she hadn’t noticed Tilly holding onto Miles until that moment. She pointed at Miles and crooked her finger at him.

  “Let’s go,” Meg said with a shake of her head, eyes narrowing on Tilly again. There was such disappointment there that Tilly felt like sinking through the floor just to avoid it. “We’ve got to get to the hospital.”

  “I can stay here with Miles,” Tilly offered. Suddenly, the prospect of sitting outside Liv’s hospital room door waiting to hear what was wrong this time, perhaps a new place the cancer had taken up residence, made her feel sick to her stomach. “They won’t let him upstairs at the hospital anyway. We can—”

  “Oh, there’s a brilliant idea.” Meg gave Kate a look, rolling her eyes, and then stalked over to take Miles’s hand, pulling him from Tilly’s lap. “That’s just what we need right now. Let’s put Ms. Irresponsible in charge.”

  Tilly opened her mouth to protest, but Meg’s meanness crushed her words. Her Aunt Meg had never been mean to her, even angry with her, that she could remember. Meg was who Tilly knew she could turn to when she was licking her wounds from Liv’s sharp tongue, not the other way around. The whole world had turned upside down.

  Miles cried and asked for Tilly, even as Meg shushed him and put him on her hip. Tilly couldn’t help her tears then. They were like kindred spirits in their misery. Two little children in a world of competent adults. Everyone else now had become efficient and useful as the paramedics spirited Liv out of the house, and Meg and Kate and the staff followed them out.

  Beast didn’t move.

  Tilly stayed where she was, sitting on the rug, tears streaming down her face, knowing she should get up and go after them, but she didn’t. The silence stretched, and Tilly longed for someone to talk to, someone who would put their arms around her in comfort, but there was no one here but Beast, and she could feel the anger radiating off him like a heat.

  It seemed like forever before he moved, taking the few steps necessary to be at her side, using her elbow to lift her up. She didn’t protest when he led her, not outside to the ambulance, but upstairs. In her room, Beast got out clean, dry clothes—jeans, a t-shirt—and told her to get dressed. Then he left.

  When he came back, Tilly was still sitting on the edge of the bed—she couldn’t seem to think, everything looked gray and fuzzy around her. He sighed and pulled her shirt off, replacing it with a dry one. Then he changed her pants, too, as if he was dressing a child. Like Tilly had dressed Miles.

  “Connie…” Tilly said his name as he knelt, putting sneakers on her feet, and he glanced up at her, frowning. Her voice was as small as she felt. “I don’t want her to die.”

  “I know.” His hand, cupping her calf, squeezed gently. “Let’s take it one thing at a time.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered to the walls.

  Beast didn’t say anything as he put her phone into her purse on the night table and handed it to her. Tilly just sat, looking at it in her lap, wondering what he wanted her to do now.

  “Come on.” He led her downstairs and outside. The ambulance was gone, and so was Megan’s car. Tilly wondered where Hanna and Julia were, but she didn’t have much time because Beast put her quickly in the front seat of the Mustang, buckling her in tightly.

  She remembered promising Miles a ride in the car, remembered his excitement and enthusiasm, and almost smiled. Then, her mind downshifted, and the memory of Miles being pulled out of the water like a drowned rat by Beast replaced that. Followed by Meg’s twisted face and rage, blaming Tilly for the accident.

  A horrible mother.

  And then there was Tilly’s mother, collapsed on the floor, looking dead already.

  No. No. No. No.

  Beast backed down the driveway and then peeled off. Tilly did the first active thing she could think of. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed.

  “What are you doing?” Beast glowered at her, frowning.

  “Making a phone call.” She sighed when it went to voice mail, trying again.

  “Not the time to make a hair appointment, Tilly,” he snapped, taking a sharp corner, forcing her body to lean against his. Just the feel of him, so solid and strong, made her want to burst into tears. “Who in the hell are you calling?”

  “Frankie.” Tilly swallowed when the phone went to voice mail again. She just wanted to hear sympathy in someone’s voice, and if anyone would put their arms around her and comfort her no matter what she’d done, it would be Frankie. “She’s not answering.”

  Beast didn’t comment. He was driving like a maniac, his anger roaring along with the car’s engine, accelerating to terrifying speeds on the straightaways, even side streets. Tilly had never been afraid with him behind the wheel before, but now she was. She clung to her belt as he took another sharp corner, the other way this time, the tires squealing on the pavement. The window felt cool on her hot, tear-stained cheek and she leaned against it, looking away from him.

  Beast knew. He knew about Miles.

  The memory of Beast’s face, the shock and hurt and anger there, forced a whimper from her throat. She wanted to turn to him, to explain, but what could she possibly say? It was a secret she hadn’t so much as kept, as had been kept from her. She told herself, when Meg and Kate brought Miles over for the first time when he was six months old, that what she was thinking was crazy. It couldn’t be. Even Liv wouldn’t…

  Every instinct she’d had told her that Miles was her baby, the one Liv had only allowed her to see once—but then she’d heard those stories of babies mixed up at birth. Mothers who took the wrong baby home. Maybe she was just missing her baby—and that would have been the understatement of the century—and was trying to replace him with this new little bundle of sweetness that Meg and Kate had adopted.

  And so, like mother, like daughter—Liv was the Queen of Denial, and Tilly not far behind—she had let them all pretend. Had pretended herself. Miles was her sweet baby cousin, and she could give him all the love she’d have given her own baby, if she’d been allowed to keep him. And so it went.

  Until today. Until those words had spilled out of Meg’s mouth like acid, burning her with their vitriol. It wasn’t like Meg, to say something like that, and it hurt all the more because of it. Meg had just reacted, probably hadn’t even realized what she’d said, what she was finally revealing to be the truth Tilly had somehow known all along.

  Tilly nearly screamed when they got on the highway and Beast floored it. If he got pulled over now, he’d get a ticket for doing about fifty over the limit. He weaved in and out of cars, fuming. She’d never seen him so furious. And she’d seen him furious plenty of times.

  He knows, he knows, he knows.

  It was like a chant in her head.

  Because of course—he could do the math.

  Tilly checked her phone, but there was nothing from Frankie. She texted her instead of calling—their usual mode of communication. Maybe she’d answer a text. The world flew by outside her window at a frightening pace and she felt panic rising again. That’s all they needed now, for Beast to roll the car, the two of them going down in flames. She wanted to beg him to slow down, but she knew better.

  The fear clawing at her throat was hysteria and she fought it, telling herself
to stay calm.

  Keep it together, Mathilda.

  That was her mother’s voice, and it brought her around instantly.

  But it made her think of her mother, and that made the alarm bells go off again. And so it went, in circles, until Beast pulled into the hospital parking lot. He swerved the Mustang into an open spot, putting the car in park and turning it off. They sat in silence a moment, listening to the engine ticking as it cooled.

  “I need to know.” His voice was soft in the small space, but his words so powerful they shattered her like dynamite. “And don’t lie to me, Tilly.”

  She nodded, miserable, looking over at him, which only increased the painful weight in her chest.