Ben laughed. “I’m counting on it, Browning. In fact, I think I’m going to slip Mr. Knickerbocker a twenty to make sure it happens. Since you bailed on me last year, you have a lot to make up for.”
The nurse knocked on the door again, then entered. “Your parents are on their way, dear. You’re being discharged.”
Ben stood up.
“I’ll see you at school, right?” I said to him.
“Yup. Seniors, baby.”
He left right before Mom came back in, but I could see the gleam in her eye even though I was halfway across the room. “Ben came to visit?” she said.
I nodded.
“Well, isn’t that nice of him.”
Chapter Two. STUCK LIKE GLUE
… for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York …
– “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
Dad drove twenty miles per hour under the speed limit on the way home and constantly kept looking back at me in the rearview mirror. It was making me crazy.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I called from the backseat. “You actually can drive, you know.”
He gave me a worried look in the mirror again. “I know, honey, but I just want to make sure I don’t jostle you.”
I sighed. “I’m fine, Dad. Driving at the speed limit so we can get home at a decent hour isn’t going to kill me.”
His face paled.
“Sorry,” I said. “Bad choice of words.”
Caspian was next to me, and I leaned my head back against the seat. This is going to be worse than when I came home from Dr. Pendleton’s. At least then everyone just thought I was crazy. Now they were treating me like I was as fragile as glass.
Dad turned onto a side road, and our house came into view. A giant banner that said WELCOME HOME, ABBEY! was hanging over the front door.
“Oh, jeez,” I muttered.
“Party time,” Caspian said. “I hope they have those little blower things that make noise.”
His comment made me laugh, and I had to cover it with a fake cough. Dad came to a stop, and Mom opened my door for me. “Let me help you,” she insisted. “You could still be woozy and not even know it until you stand up.”
The doctors had put my arm in a sling because of a sprain. Since I wasn’t used to not being able to use my hand, I put my free arm around her neck, and Caspian slipped out behind me.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” Mom said, steering me into the house. “I’m taking a few days off work so I can be here with you.”
I wanted to argue that I was seventeen, not five, but I didn’t have the heart. “I should probably go up to my room and rest for a while,” I said. She nodded, and then escorted me up the stairs. Caspian followed us.
As soon as we entered my bedroom, I noticed that it was different. Gone were the spilled perfumes and broken glass bottles that Vincent Drake had strewn across the floor, yet a smell still clung faintly to the air. I could tell that Mom had probably sprayed some cleaner, because a lemony scent was there too-the unmistakable odor of wood furniture polish-but it didn’t mask the reminder of destruction entirely. A burgundy wingback chair sat in the corner where my perfume cabinet had been. I recognized it as a remnant from the attic.
The red roses that Vincent had placed around the room were cleaned up by Uri and Sophie, but all I had to do was close my eyes to see them again. And to see Vincent lying on my bed, dressed in a black funeral suit, his hair white-blond like Caspian’s, even down to the black streak …
Mom put a hand on my shoulder. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “You don’t have to sleep in here if you don’t want to. I can make up the guest room.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll be fine.” I purposefully went over to my bed and sat down on it. I didn’t want the memory of Vincent to drive me away from here. This is my room. Not his.
Mom came over too, and moved the pillows around, stacking them one on top of the other. Then she turned back one edge of the covers, folding it and unfolding it again.
I caught her hand and held it. “I’m fine, Mom.” I forced a brave smile. She had no idea what had really happened here, and I wasn’t going to let on.
“Is there anything that I can get you?” she said. “Anything you need?”
“Nope. But thanks for the offer.”
She looked at me for a long time without saying anything, her eyes wide and kind of glassy. Then she leaned forward and kissed my forehead before standing up. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll wake you when dinner’s ready.”
“Okay, Mom.” I kept the smile on my face until she left the room, then I slumped against the bed and let out a little sigh. My arm ached, and I lifted the sling with a sad little wave at Caspian. He sat down beside me.
“Hurt myself,” I said.
“I see. Looks like you’re going to need an extra hand.”
“Know any takers?”
“By your side like glue.” He grinned at me, but his eyes were sad.
I wanted to take away the sadness that was there. Make it disappear and have it never return. “What I told Ben goes double for you, you know. It’s not your fault.”
He ran a hand through his hair and looked away. “Yeah, but unlike Ben, it is my job to protect you. Or at least … to do the best that I can. I can’t believe I let that happen.” He smacked his fist against his open palm as he spoke. “Vincent attacked you, and now you’re here, like this, and I’m …”
“Stuck like glue?”
“That’s right,” he said softly, catching my eye. “Stuck like glue.”
“Lucky for you I happen to like glue.” I kicked off my sandals and unzipped my hoodie. It was hard to pull my injured hand through the sleeve, but once it was out, I was able to shrug the shirt off the rest of the way and tossed it on the floor.
Caspian reached down and picked it up. Then he walked over to the closet door and hung it on the knob. “Is this okay here?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. You know, you’re going to be handy to have around. You can put away all of my laundry.”
He made a short bow, then came back to the bed and stretched out beside me. “If laundry duty is what milady wants, then laundry duty is what she will get.”
He turned to face me, and his black streak of hair covered one eye. My heart fluttered.
“That’s the picture of domestic bliss,” I said. “Add in a big fan and an exotic drink, and you have every girl’s dream fantasy.”
“Domestic bliss, huh? You wanna play house with me, Abbey?”
I felt my cheeks heating up. “I, um … You know what I mean. Servant. Fantasy. That sort of thing.”
“Right. Right. Every girl’s fantasy. But I’m only interested in one girl’s fantasy.” He leaned forward. “Yours.”
I thought back to our recent hotel stay in West Virginia. Where we’d shared a bed … and a towel. Then something else struck me. “Hey, who did the laundry at your house?” I asked softly.
His face grew serious, and he looked away. “We went to the Laundromat. There was a lady there who washed it for us. Eventually she showed me how to do it. She even made me a cheat sheet so I wouldn’t forget. Only took a couple loads of pink shorts and one overflowing washer, but then I taught Dad.”
I watched his face move as he spoke, and was struck once again by how beautiful he was. And by something more … How mine he was.
“So you did all of your own laundry? What else did you do?”
“I got myself up for school and made my own lunches.”
I pictured a younger version of Caspian trying to put together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every morning, and my heart felt sad. Mom had always made my lunches for me when I was little. She’d even taken special requests, like when I wanted egg salad for three months straight. “I would have made your lunch for you,” I said softly.
He went to squeeze my hand, but pulled back as he remembered he couldn’t. “I know, Abbey,” he replied instead. �
�I know.”
We lay there in silence until finally I said, “You know what’s going to be the best thing about having you here with me?”
“Having a manservant at your beck and call?”
“Nope. But that’s a close second.” I moved my free hand closer to his until that faint tingle of almost touching buzzed through me, and I gazed up at the constellations covering my bedroom ceiling. “The best thing is having someone to look at the stars with.”
A couple hours later Mom called me down for dinner, while Caspian stayed up in my room. The whole time we ate, I kept thinking about what it was going to be like to have him there without my parents realizing it. I’ll have to be careful. Have to watch that I don’t let anything slip in front of them, that they don’t hear me talking to him.
“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Dad said. “What are you thinking about?”
“The fact that we should get an alarm system.”
Okay, so that wasn’t really what I’d been thinking about, but it sounded good.
Mom and Dad exchanged uncomfortable glances. “Your mother and I have someone coming over this week to talk about our options,” Dad replied.
I forked a piece of broccoli and kept eating. “Okay.”
They both just looked at me, dumbfounded.
“So … you’re okay with that?” Dad asked.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, we wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable with the idea of needing to have one, to feel safe here.”
I put my fork down. “Dad, someone broke into our house. I think an alarm system would be okay.”
Mom put her hand on the table with a loud bang. “Enough! Enough of this conversation! I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”
“I think we should all discuss this,” Dad said.
“Yeah. It’s only an alarm system, Mom. No big deal …”
Mom’s face was stricken. “I don’t want to discuss this. We’ve lived in this town our entire lives and nothing like this has ever happened before. I don’t want to know that we’re getting an alarm system put in because there’s some crazy person breaking into homes and hurting people’s children and … and …” Her voice grew louder with every word until she was practically screaming.
Then she shut down.
“I can’t deal with this. I need a pill.”
She suddenly left the room, and I waited for some type of explanation from Dad.
But he didn’t give me one.
“What was that all about?” I prodded him. “‘I need a pill’?”
“Your mother is just upset by everything that happened. The doctor prescribed her some pills to calm her nerves.”
“Calm her nerves? You’d think she was the one who’d been attacked.”
Dad sucked in a sharp breath of air.
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just-”
He shook his head. “I know what you meant. But it’s going to be tough for a while. We all need to … adjust. Your mother and I love you very much, Abbey.”
“I know, Dad. I guess I just need some time to adjust too.” Time to adjust to the fact that they didn’t know what had happened, and I could never tell them.
My broccoli was cold now, but I didn’t feel like heating it up. Pushing my plate away, I maneuvered my sling out from under the table and stood up. I turned toward the stairs, but stopped short. “Hey, Dad? What would you and Mom do if I died? Or if I had already been dead when you guys came home and found me?”
All of the emotion bled from his face. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Just a question.”
“It may be ‘just a question,’ but it’s certainly not something you need to worry about.” He patted my arm. “You have a very long life ahead of you.”
When I made it back to my bedroom, Caspian was lying on the bed, looking up at the stars. “You know they’re much better in the dark,” I said.
“I know. But I was waiting for you.” He propped himself up on one arm, and I sat down beside him. “How did things go down there? I heard yelling.”
I sighed. “Yeah. It was Mom. She’s freaking out because they have a security system guy coming to put an alarm in.”
“And she doesn’t want that?”
“Oh, she wants it. Or doesn’t. Or doesn’t want to want it … I don’t know. It’s confusing. She’s confusing. It’s not like it’s going to stop Vincent if he comes here again anyway, but they don’t know that. I think she’s just mad about the fact that she feels like she has to get one.”
I shrugged. Or tried to. The sling on my arm pulled tight and hurt. “I can’t wait to get this stupid thing off,” I said, lifting it up.
“Aw, poor baby. I can’t even rub it or anything.”
I gave a mock sigh, but my arm was really hurting now. “Can you grab me that pill bottle on the desk?” I asked him. “The tall one with a yellow lid.”
He obliged and dropped it next to me on the covers. I popped the top open and reached for the glass of water sitting on my nightstand. After washing down two pills, I recapped the bottle and rolled it back across the covers to him.
Caspian scooped it up and put it back on the desk. Then he walked over to the closet. A moment later, a blanket was placed next to me. I looked at it in surprise.
“I figured you’d want that,” he said.
He’d figured right. I was already pulling it on top of me and snuggling underneath. He sat down beside me without a word.
“Can I ask you something?” I said. “About … Vincent?”
“What do you want to know?”
“After I went to the hospital, what happened?”
He looked like he was thinking about it. Then he said, “The last thing I remember was seeing him in your room. All I could think about was getting him out of here. Then it’s just a blank. When I woke up, I was with Nikolas and Katy. At their house.” He put his head down, right next to my ear. “I said that I needed to find you. Sophie and Kame were there, and they told me what had happened. Then they brought me to the hospital.”
“Did they tell you why Vincent came after me?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“He came after me because he got the wrong girl,” I said sadly. “He thought Kristen was me. I’m the reason why she’s dead, Caspian.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “It’s not your fault. You’re not the reason she’s dead. He is. Don’t put that on yourself.”
“But if I had just known … had done something to warn her …”
“Warn her how? You couldn’t have changed anything, and if you had-” He stopped.
“You know we’re going to have to talk about it sooner or later,” I said. “The reason why the Revenants are here. Because I’m going to d-”
“Don’t say it, Abbey,” he begged. “Please don’t. I can’t think about that. About you … I just can’t.”
“Everyone has to die sometime.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He put his hand out, and it went through mine. “I know better than anyone.”
He turned away from me, obviously upset.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t be angry.”
“I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I just can’t … I can’t picture you dead, Astrid.” Caspian held out both hands and spread them wide.
“I won’t bring it up again,” I promised, desperate to make everything better. “I swear.”
He exhaled a shaky sigh and closed his eyes, leaning his head next to mine. We would have been touching … if we could.
I closed my eyes too. The pain pill was making me sleepy. “Will you stay?” I asked, burrowing deeper into my covers, closer to him and yet still so far away. “Stay with me.”
“Forever,” he whispered. “I’m staying forever.”
Chapter Three. STRAIGHT CORNERS AND BAD ANGLES
In this way matters went on for some time …
–
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
When I woke up the next morning, I noticed two things. The first was that my sling was stuck underneath me at an impossible angle, and second … I had a hot guy in my bed.
Ignoring the dead weight sensation that I knew would lead to pins and needles when my trapped arm woke up, I lay very still and took in the sight before me. Caspian was on his side, one arm thrown up above his head. His T-shirt twisted slightly so that I could just barely make out the bare flesh above his jeans.
My eyes traced a path down the stripe of black hair that lay across his cheekbones. Then to his nose, his lips … Lips that I wanted to kiss again. How many days until November first? How many days until the anniversary of his death day, when we can touch?
Two weeks until school started, and then thirty-one days in October …
Too long. Much too long.
My gaze slipped lower. To his skin. I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to try to feel that piece of him I wanted so badly. I’d never realized, never dreamt, that a relationship without something as simple as a touch could be so hard.
Caspian’s eyes flickered open, and I knew he felt the same tingle that I did.
“Hi,” I said softly.
He just looked at me. Then a slow smile came across his face. “Were you ogling me?”
“Drawing a mental picture,” I said, with a wicked grin of my own. “Remembering that night last Christmas when you took off your sweater and showed me your tattoos.”
With one swift movement he reached down and twisted up the shirt. It slid off, and my pulse skyrocketed. “Better?” he asked.
“Much.” I sighed. My heart beat like a drum in my ears, and the air around us felt heavy and thick. I couldn’t stop staring at him. Couldn’t stop looking at his skin. So different from mine, yet the same. It was fascinating. Little bumps and ridges made up the hollows of his collarbone, while smooth, taught flesh stretched all the way down …
He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to return the favor?”
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