“You’re not fine!” Milo insisted with wide, worried eyes.
“It’s just… girl stuff.” I tried to shrug it off, and I couldn’t tell if he saw through it or not.
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation that while I was upstairs, alone with a very attractive guy, he had said or done something to offend me, and that’s what had upset me. In fact, that would be much more plausible than what had actually happened, which was that I had become so entranced with somebody that I almost let him slaughter me. And I was pretty sure that this attempted-murder had happened not because he hated me, but because he was attracted to me.
“Like what?” Milo narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I just shook my head and looked away.
“What’s going on?” Mae shouted suddenly, and my heart soared at the sight of her standing in the doorway. Somehow, she’d make everything all right.
Then she rushed over to me, placing her hands her firmly on my shoulders to look in my puffy, red eyes. “What happened?”
“She was upstairs with Peter,” Jack explained, and Mae’s expression change from one of worry to shock, and she turned to look at Jack sharply.
“Nothing happened.”
Her expression changed again, and she looked sympathetically at me.
Before she pulled me into a hug, it finally dawned on me. Whatever had happened or almost happened with Peter, they knew it. When Ezra had sent me upstairs, he’d known exactly what would happen. Meaning, he had sent me to my probable death. What the hell was going on here? And why didn’t I feel as terrified as I should? In fact, as Mae stroked my hair, and murmured words of comfort in her soft British accent, I felt nothing but safe. What was wrong with me?
“I’m okay, really,” I insisted, and she finally released me. She smiled sadly at me and pushed strands of hair back from face, then straightened up.
“I hope you mean that.”
“I do.” I nodded firmly, and Jack playfully ruffled my hair, as if to reaffirm that everything was okay.
“And who is this?” Mae turned her attention to Milo. Just looking at her made his anxiety disappear, and he returned her open smile.
“I’m Milo, Alice’s brother.” He looked a little embarrassed by the look she was giving him, and I knew the feeling. She reached out and touched his face gently (his chubby cheeks were hard to resist) and grinned warmly.
“I’m Mae, Ezra’s wife,” Mae told him. “You’re so much cuter than I’d thought you’d be.”
“Thanks?” Milo replied unsurely.
“Have you had a tour of the house yet?” Mae had already started looping her arm through his, and I realized that Mae had missed her calling as a real estate agent. Milo shook his head no, and she laughed a little. “I didn’t think so.
The boys are really terrible about showing anybody anything. But you know how boys are.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, I turned to Jack and hissed, “What the hell happened?”
“You tell me,” Jack countered evenly, and I might have overestimated how much he knew.
“You have an idea of what happened, don’t you?” I pressed. He didn’t answer me, so I continued, “You have suspicions. There was something that you were afraid happened.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” he answered quietly, but the fog of Peter was wearing off and I could feel how unnerved he really was.
“Jack, I trust you,” I whispered fiercely. “Don’t betray that trust.” An amused but pained expression flitted across his face, and he shook his head.
“He’s not gonna hurt you, Alice.” Then he turned to look at me. “None of us are.”
“Then…” I trailed off, trying to understand what was happening. “But Peter told me to go before he did something very bad to me.” Jack let out a long breath through his teeth and stared off at some point above my head.
“Well… I guess we all just have different definitions of what hurting you means.”
“Was that meant to be comforting? Cause it wasn’t,” I snapped, crossing my arms on my chest. Jack laughed again, but he’d finished the conversation.
He still had the plastic guitar hanging over his shoulder, and he unpaused the game and clicked out of the two-player level he’d been playing with Milo.
“Let me put it this way: You are a top priority for my family.” He had started playing “Lazy Eye” by the Silversun Pickups, and when I asked him what that meant, he completely ignored me.
I flopped back on the couch next to Matilda and stroked her long, white fur. Everything with Peter had exhausted me. My skin flushed with embarrassment at the thought of running into him. I had made a fool of myself, and he was in trouble with Ezra. But even with that, I still really wanted to see him. My very being wanted to be near him again, and it would be worth anything.
As I had predicted, Milo was completely enchanted with Mae. They seemed made for each other. She was all motherly love, and he was all motherless child. When they made their way back into the living room, Milo went back to playing video games with Jack. I curled up on the couch with Mae, resting my head on her lap, and let her play with my hair.
“I know you’re hurting now, but things will make sense, love,” Mae murmured, pushing my hair from my eyes. “Everything happens for a reason.”
The nights of barely sleeping had finally caught up with me, and the soothing comfort of Mae was too much. I drifted off to sleep, and it was filled with dreams of Peter. They were almost entirely X-rated, but they weren’t bad at all. In fact, they were probably the best dreams I’d ever had.
When I woke up, I felt good, but incredibly disoriented. The living room was dark, and I was completely alone, except for Matilda, who snored loudly on the floor next to me. I moved a little on the couch, preparing to start calling for Jack or Milo, but then I heard voices talking softly nearby. And then I heard my name, so I stopped moving and strained to hear.
“Well, we obviously can’t leave Alice alone with him anymore.” That was Jack, trying to protect me from Peter, and I knew there was a reason that I’d never doubted my safety when I was with him.
“No, I agree.” Ezra’s deep voice sounded like a lullaby when he kept it low. I imagined that it would be incredibly tranquil to have him sing me to sleep.
“But they’ll have to eventually.”
“But she’s not ready for it,” Jack grumbled. “He’s not ready for it.”
“You’re not ready for it,” Ezra countered. Ready for what? Me to die?
Nobody should be ready for that. Tell him, Jack!
“Maybe not,” Jack relented. “But he feels too conflicted for anything to work. He’s sending her mixed messages, and he’s just making everything harder on her than it needs to be. I mean, you saw her today.”
“It’s incredibly painful, rejecting it.” Ezra was calmly explaining to Jack, and I didn’t understand it at all. Rejecting what? Me? Killing me? What?! “And Peter’s showing a tremendous will just going against it, but eventually, he’ll give in. It’s impossible. Whatever pain he thinks he’s avoiding, this is far worse.”
“How do you know?” Jack asked him suspiciously. “You never rejected it.”
“I did at first,” Ezra said, then backtracked. “Well, not really. I just didn’t understand what it was at first, and I tried to ignore it, and that was brutal. And I saw Peter after what happened with Alice.”
“And?” Jack pressed Ezra when he didn’t say anything, and I was forever indebted to him. I was dying to know what Peter had been like after I left, but of course, I couldn’t ask.
“Its sheer torture denying it,” Ezra replied thickly.
“How much longer will this go on?” Jack asked quietly, and I couldn’t help but notice a hint of sadness in his voice.
“Not much longer.” Ezra breathed deeply. “We’ll just have to keep an eye on both of them.”
“Ezra!” Mae called from another room, sounding farther away than them.
�
�Come here! Milo’s beat me at chess twice already! You’ve got to try against him! He’s amazing!”
“I’ll be right there!” Ezra shouted back to her, then spoke quieter to Jack.
“You understand?”
“Yeah,” Jack said reluctantly.
I didn’t hear Ezra’s footfalls when he walked away, but that didn’t surprise me. I saw Jack’s silhouette appear in the doorway, and I quickly closed my eyes to pretend like I was sleeping. Matilda whimpered as he walked past her, and he patted her head before sitting on the couch next to me. As soon as I felt the couch moved, I stirred like I was just waking up.
“Did you sleep okay?” Jack asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded and moved so I was sitting on my knees facing him. My voice sounded thick, and it was because I was fighting off tears, but I hoped he would think it was just because I was tired.
“Hey are you okay?” Jack sounded sad and worried. My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark, and I could just map out the concerned expression on his face.
“Yeah, just tired.”
“I gathered that when you just passed out.” He was trying to keep his tone light, but he was struggling. What Ezra had told him had gotten to him too.
When he felt anxious and worried, I felt it even worse. It wouldn’t be much longer before I started to cry.
“You sound upset,” I commented.
“Nah, I’m fine,” Jack insisted, shaking his head in the darkness.
“Jack, just promise me that I’ll be okay. You know I’ll believe anything you say, so just promise me that everything will be okay.” My voice sounded more nervous than I would’ve liked.
“I know you can’t understand right now, but you’ve got nothing to worry about.” Then he put his arm around me and roughly pulled me close to him. I rested my head on his chest, and he rested his chin on the top of my head. “I’m just upset because I care about you too much. The problem’s me, not you. You are gonna be better than fine. I promise.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand.” He stroked my hair, and I moved my head on his chest. Then I realized something odd. “I can’t hear your heart beat.”
“Just listen harder,” Jack suggested. Pressing my ear closer to his chest, I listened hard, and sure enough, there it was. But it was very faint and incredibly slow. I wasn’t timing it, but it couldn’t have been beating more than ten or twenty times a minute.
“It’s so slow!” I jerked my head back so I could look at him. “Are you okay? You’re not having a heart attack are you?”
“No,” Jack laughed, this time sounding more like himself. “That’s just the way my heart beats.”
171
“But that’s not the way hearts are supposed to beat.” I furrowed my brow, trying to understand. “That’s not how my heart beats.”
“I know.” He was mildly amused, but my confusion always seemed to entertain him. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
“How? You’re way over there.” He was actually sitting right next to me, but he was still too far away to hear my heartbeat. “You’re hearing isn’t that good.”
“It is for this one thing.” He reached out and put his hand gingerly on my throat.
At first, I didn’t understand what he was doing, but then I felt his thumb stroking my jugular vein. He was feeling my pulse, and a look of sheer pleasure passed across his face. A warm hunger radiated from him that I didn’t grasp.
“Jack!” Ezra’s voice broke into the room, and Jack instantly dropped his hand, as if he had been caught with his hand up my shirt instead of on my throat. “Its late. Milo’s tired. Maybe you should take them home. Unless you don’t feel up to it yourself. In which case, I’d be more than happy-”
“No, I’ve got it,” Jack replied gruffly and stood up.
Ezra gave Jack a disapproving look as we walked out of the living room, but Jack refused to look at him. For me, Ezra gave a reassuring smile and said he hoped that I would come back soon. Mae hugged me tightly at the door, but she hugged Milo even tighter. During the car ride home, Milo rattled on endlessly about what an amazing house Jack had and how great Mae was and all the fun things he’d done while I had been asleep. I rested my head against the cold glass of the window, and found that for once, I had very little to say.
I still didn’t know what Jack and his family were, but they definitely couldn’t be trusted. Peter wanted to hate me because for some reason, he was going to have to kill me. The reason he was being rude to me and keeping me at a distance was because he didn’t want to hurt me. He was trying to protect me.
Despite this, I loved Jack and Mae and even Ezra, and there was definitely something strong I felt for Peter. Even believing that they were going to kill me, I still felt like they really loved me too. And I knew that if being with them meant that I would die, I would still see them again. It would be worse to live without them.
When Milo and I went up to our apartment, I still felt dazed. I knew that part of it was coming to terms with my impending death, but most of it was just an after effect of being with Peter. He was like a drug, and I was still coming down from the high. I flopped down on the couch while Milo buzzed about the kitchen. Being over there had the opposite effect on him, and he was totally energized.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Milo asked from the kitchen. I heard pots and things banging, but I just buried myself deeper into the couch. “I’m starving. You know what’s weird? We were over them from five o’clock at night until after two in the morning, and I never once saw them eat or drink anything. In fact, when I wanted something to drink, Mae had to rummage around the kitchen for a glass and some water. You know, I don’t even think they have any food in that house.
They must order a lot of take out. Which is weird cause Mae really seems like the Suzie Homemaker type.”
Milo continued to ramble on but I was starting to drift to sleep. But then it all clicked. Everything that he said compared with everything that I already knew about Jack and Peter. I understood fully what they were. But before I could actually manifest the word and put it all together, I fell asleep, and lost it entirely.
Chapter 9
Dreamlessly, I’d managed to sleep for thirteen hours on the couch. My body ached because I don’t think that I’d even changed positions at all. Whatever happened with Peter, it had been tantamount to overdosing on sleeping pills. I stretched slowly, trying to work out the kinks and cricks in my back and neck.
Milo was sitting at the computer and he just smirked at my struggle to wake up.
“Morning, sunshine,” Milo chirped. For some reason, he still seemed energized from the night before.
“Shut up,” I grumbled. Already, the tired fog of my brain was filled with thoughts of Peter. Like some kind of hang over, my skin hurt and my head throbbed dully. When I breathed in deeply, I could still remember the way he smelled, like apples and something familiar that I couldn’t quite place.
“What are you doing?” Milo jolted me out of my daydream. He was looking at me like I had totally lost it, so I stood up and decided that I had to get myself in gear.
“Nothing,” I told him absently.
Walking to the bathroom, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was almost four in the afternoon, so maybe Jack would be awake by now. I shut the bathroom door, but before I could even actually go the bathroom (and I did have to go very, very badly), I had to text Jack first. He had a lot of explaining to do, but more than that, I had to see Peter again.
I need to see you today. I text messaged him, and then started the agonizing wait for him to respond.
After I showered, and he still hadn’t responded, I started getting a nervous pit in my stomach. Maybe I had done something wrong, and I wasn’t going to be allowed over there anymore. Or maybe Jack had just grown bored with me. It was probably pretty irritating to him they I was fawning over his brother, and I would hate me if I were him. When he’d been talking to Ezra, they had said that I couldn’t be alone with Peter. Maybe
that meant that I couldn’t be around him at all anymore. Somehow, I had ruined everything.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to call Jack, and find out what was going on. When I got his voicemail instead of him, I was near tears. “Jack, it’s just me. Alice. Um… I just wanted to apologize for last night. I know that I… overreacted to everything, and I’m really sorry. I just… I really want see you today. We need to talk. Okay. So… just call me back, I guess. Bye.”
Going through all the routine of getting ready, I managed to dress myself and apply makeup, but none of it felt real. It felt like some shell of myself going through the motions. My mind was completely locked onto the way Peter smelled and the way he looked through me and how my body felt pulled towards him. When I had finished getting ready, I just sat on the couch, staring off into nothing, and tried to figure out what I would do if I never talked to Peter or Jack again.
“What’s going on with you?” Milo still sat at the computer, but he couldn’t ignore my zombie like stare anymore. I just shook my head and swallowed hard, so he got up from what he was doing and came over to sit next to me on the couch. “What happened last night over there?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Alice, come on.” He gave me a hard look, the one that said I-know-you-betterthan-anyone-so-there’s-no-point-in-lying. I sighed, and tried to decide how much I could tell him about Peter. “Did Jack’s brother do something to you?”
“No.” I bit my lip and wondered if he had done something to me. Why couldn’t I get him out of my head? It was like he had crawled underneath my skin, but not in a bad way. Just a very permanent way. “I just really like him.
Like more than I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s completely… visceral.”
“Did he blow you off or something?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I wasn’t sure if him sending me out of his room was rejecting me or done to protect me… or maybe both. My phone felt very heavy in my hand, and I looked down at it, willing Jack to call me and fix everything. “Jack hasn’t texted me back. I think maybe he’s mad at me or something. I think I did something wrong.”
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