Denying the Alpha

by Sam Crescent

  This time, I didn’t take a flashlight. I knew this place inside and out now. I could’ve walked it in my sleep, and in a way, I felt like that was what I was doing. Sleepwalking, dragged forward by some internal force stronger than my willpower. And it felt good.

  Soon, my bare feet padded across the tiled hallway to the Rochester suites. Through my hazy, hypnotized awareness, I made a resolution. This time, I wouldn’t undress myself. I’d let him slide the silk of my nightgown over my skin. I’d let him release my hair from its band. And then … I’d let him do whatever else he wanted with me.

  With anticipation aching in my chest, I reached for the door handle. Before I could wrap my fingers around it, the brass turned itself, and the door swung open in the darkness. I nearly fell forward, ready to let Elliot Rochester take me in his arms again, until I saw who was standing before me.

  “Oh!”

  Grace let out a little cry, shying back from me in the dim light that spilled from the room. She was flushed, her red hair mussed a bit and her eyes wide.

  A sick feeling slithered into the pit of my stomach. Over Grace’s shoulder, Elliot was rising from the bedclothes, bare-chested and wearing a similar expression to Grace’s: guilt.

  I felt my face contort before I stumbled backward, muttering some excuse about being lost.

  “Miss Edwards!” I heard him call down the hallway.

  It didn’t matter. I was already gone.

  Chapter Five

  In the days following my discovery, I ignored every invitation to dinner, no matter how many times Grace delicately reminded me that they were “mandatory.” What would he do, fire me? It wouldn’t matter. My bags were already packed.

  It was Saturday mornings that I usually got to myself, as Mr. Rochester took coffee in his study, Addie slept in, and Grace was off doing whatever the hell she always did. This made it the perfect day for me to call my cab, load my things into the trunk, and disappear.

  So I did.

  From the back of the cab, with tears in my eyes, I pulled my cell phone from my bag and waited for the bars to grow. When they did, I dialed the only number I could think of. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Jon?” I pulled the receiver closer to my mouth. “I—I’m in New Hampshire and I need someplace to stay.”

  The silence at the other end of the line was almost worse than everything leading up to it. It had taken all I had in me to dial the numbers to call my ex, and it pained me even more to consider the possibility that he might turn me away.

  “I screwed up,” I told the static. “And it’ll only be for a day or so until I can get a plane ticket back home.”

  “Of course, Jessa,” he said softly. “What kind of person would I be to turn you away?”

  I didn’t answer that question. I just breathed a sigh of relief, told him I was on my way to the train station, and hung up. Then I slept.

  When I woke up, we were just pulling into the station. Stretching, I gathered my things and withdrew a wad of cash from my purse. I placed the bills on the center console, not looking up as I reached for the door handle. But just as my fingertips brushed the handle, the peg of the locking mechanism clicked into place audibly.

  I blinked, frozen for a moment before I looked up at the cabby’s face in the rearview mirror.

  “Staying at the Rochester place, huh?” asked the blonde woman casually. Her green eyes were piercing, even through the barrier of the mirror.

  “Yes,” I answered carefully. “But not anymore.”

  “A dark old place, isn’t it?” She was still looking at me intently, and I was mentally shuffling through the possibilities. More likely than not, she was a paparazzo with a strange interest in rich recluses, but something about her face struck me as familiar.

  “Yes. Too dark for me,” I muttered, slowly reaching for the lock.

  “He’s fucking the redhead, isn’t he?” She spun in the seat abruptly, long red fingernails biting into the vinyl on the backside as she finally faced me.

  “Grace?” I bit back all the questions I wanted to ask, including how she knew anything about the Rochester household. Then I realized this was my shot, and though it was a low blow, I took it. “Grace Peterson, you mean. And yes. He’s fucking her.”

  I allowed the dark satisfaction at selling him out settle into me. It felt mean, but it felt good. I hoped it would be plastered all over whatever trashy magazine this woman wrote for. I hoped he’d see it and know it was me. To my relief, the locks unclicked then, and I propped the door open just as she asked her next question.

  “And you too, I suppose?” She kept those jade eyes boring into mine.

  “No.” I swallowed hard. “Not me.”

  “You’re joking.” A perplexed look furrowed her brow. “I can smell him all over you. You have to be fucking him.”

  She leaned forward then, took a whiff of me, and returned to her confused stare. And it was only then that I realized two things in turn.

  She wasn’t a reporter.

  Her eyes were familiar because I had seen them before, just not since that night when a golden wolf locked its gaze with me before disappearing into the darkness.

  ****

  No matter how hard I tried to shake the images of the woman and the wolf from my mind, I couldn’t seem to do it for the entire train ride. That was the trouble with the truth: you can’t un-know it. Even when it was impossible.

  I tried to tell myself that even if I were right, even if by some miracle I’d stumbled across something legitimate, I could just chalk it up to the fever dream that was my time in Elliot Rochester’s house of horrors. If the word werewolf —I could hardly think it without hysterical laughter bubbling out of me—were something more than fodder for cheesy eighties movies, I couldn’t afford to care. I had nothing to do with it now. And Elliot? She could tear out his throat for all I cared.

  Jon picked me up at the train station right on time, wearing a pair of oversized headphones and a stupid hipster mustache. He was smiling too, but like he was posing for a photo. I fought the urge to board the train again and hide under the seats.

  “Jessa!” He waved, like I couldn’t see him twenty feet in front of me.

  “Jon.” I raised my hand in the best approximation of a wave I could muster.

  He didn’t offer to carry my bags and instead opted to chat about his latest photography exhibit in Manchester and how I should “def check it out” while I was in town. I nodded, and he kept talking the whole way back to his apartment. It wasn’t until I was sweating and breathless from dragging my luggage up three flights of stairs to his place that he finally asked about me.

  “So, what happened, Jessa? How’d you get stranded in New Hampshire?”

  I sighed, wondering how much of the truth I was willing to give him.

  “You know Elliot Rochester?” I asked finally.

  Jon wrinkled his nose. “Obviously. He’s evil. Capitalist slime.”

  I inhaled, trying to pacify my violent urge to roll my eyes. “Yes, that’s the one. I was his niece’s tutor. Turns out he is … slime. Like you said.”

  “Well, I could’ve told you that.”

  And in typical fashion, the conversation was over, reminding me not for the first time how absolutely terrible college boyfriends are. Pissing off your mother by dating a starving artist just isn’t worth the aggravation of dating someone like Jon.

  “Right, well, I’m going to try and get a plane ticket home by Tuesday or so,” I told him. “So thanks for this. I won’t overstay my welcome.”

  “No prob.” He crossed to the small galley kitchen. “There’s green juice in the fridge and some quinoa in the cupboard. I’m vegan, you remember.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath. “How could I forget?”

  But soon, I was spared the insufferable presence of my host as he had a drum circle or some equally obscure thing to attend for the evening. That suited me just fine. I was happy to cur
l into a ball on the couch and go straight to sleep.

  ****

  I resisted the very real temptation to devour a steak in Jon’s presence for the remainder of the weekend, sticking to his “greens and grains” diet out of the minimal respect I still harbored for him. Between varyingly revolting mealtimes, I scrolled through flights to Michigan with dread. It wasn’t that they were badly priced. I could fly out easily with the money I’d saved. But going home would mean admitting that I failed not at just my plan A or even plan B—I’d failed at my last resort. In a rare moment of insight, Jon must’ve guessed my reluctance, because he sat beside me on the couch and draped a blanket over my shoulders.

  “I get it,” he said softly. “And you can stay longer if you want. I mean, the way things ended between us … it was amicable. Who’s to say we can’t … pick up where we left off?”

  I looked up from my phone screen and into his clear blue eyes. He wasn’t unattractive—a lean build and big blue eyes worked in his favor—and if he shaved that damn hipster mustache off his face, he would be genuinely handsome. Aside from being obliviously self-centered, he wasn’t a bad person. It was abundantly clear what he was offering me: an option that didn’t involve admitting failure.

  It just required settling.

  It would be easy enough to do, just accept that this is the life that I chose and get some day job. Maybe I could write for the local paper, though that was about as close to journalism as a cat to a jaguar. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a life. Did I have that waiting for me back in Michigan?

  “I don’t know, Jon…” I cast my eyes back down to the list of flights, the same ones I’d been watching for days while they took off and landed without me.

  “Then we’ll take it slow,” he suggested, taking my hand in his. “You can meet my friends. Tim and Stacey have a brewery we could visit. I swear to God, their IPAs are to die for.”

  He smiled excitedly, and I did my best to return it despite the fact that I had told him dozens of times that I hated beer. Unbidden, a memory sprang into my head of the Spanish red from that night. I was a wine girl. Jon should’ve known that.

  But it didn’t matter anymore. I had an alternative to failure, and I had already made up my mind to take it.

  “Sure,” I managed weakly. “We’ll have to do that.”

  ****

  We were a week into our new arrangement when Jon suggested brunch at his favorite bistro in town, and three mimosas in, I wasn’t regretting the decision to go. Jon didn’t seem to notice much beyond the newspaper he’d found on one of the other wire tables.

  “I love print media,” he was saying, flipping through it. “I normally get my news from podcasts, but there’s something really authentic about reading it, you know?”

  “Mmm.” I swallowed the bottom of the orange juice-champagne mixture that I was convinced had been sent directly from God.

  “Hey.” Suddenly Jon was leaning forward, interested in something. “Isn’t this the place you were working?”

  He flipped the paper to face me, and on the front page, I saw the image he was referring to. And yes, at one point in time, that might have been the Rochester mansion. But in this picture, where the west wing once stood, there was nothing but ash. Above the image, the headline read, Rochester home burns, woman dead.

  “Oh, my God.” The words left my lips in a breathy whisper.

  “Early this morning, the body of a woman was discovered in the aftermath of a fire at the home of Elliot Rochester,” Jon read aloud from the article. “Authorities have identified the body as Miss Caroline Finch, a former lover of Mr. Rochester. It remains to be seen how the blaze began, but sources report that Rochester was granted a restraining order against Finch after the attempted kidnapping of his niece and ward in the fall of last year.”

  “What?” I snatched the paper from Jon’s fingers, no longer content to hear the story secondhand. “The other inhabitants of the home are reportedly unharmed,” I read slowly.

  And then I caught sight of the other photo. It was a portrait of a strikingly beautiful woman, blonde and smiling with piercing green eyes.

  The dead woman.

  The woman from the cab.

  Chapter Six

  Scrambling out of the bistro and leaving Jon dumbfounded was the easiest and fastest decision I had ever made. I didn’t even consider the consequences it would bring until a brief moment as the train rolled into the station. And even then, the moment was fleeting. Nothing mattered but the news I’d just heard.

  Though the pictures in the newspaper made my blood run cold, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of the destruction in person. When the cab rolled to a stop in front of what was left of the mansion, my mouth went dry.

  Reporters were clustered around the yellow police tape that separated the Rochester property from the rest of the world. Two cruisers sat in the long driveway, and even from the road, I could see the officers struggling to keep the gawkers under control.

  I picked my way up the driveway to join them and casually ducked under the tape to the flagstone sidewalk.

  “Hey, you!” an officer called, pointing a finger in my direction. “This is private property, not a tourist attraction! Have you no decency?”

  “I live here!” I bellowed over a shoulder, taking off at a jog for the east wing entrance. The door was, of course, locked, but I hammered the brass knocker into its plate over and over until Grace finally wrenched the door open.

  “What do you—?” Her expression of frustration melted into one of recognition a second before she folded me into a hug. I stiffened, remembering the last time we saw each other, then wrapped my arms around her awkwardly.

  “We had no idea where you were,” she said, pulling me inside. “I wondered if Caroline had—” She broke off, looking uncomfortable. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “And Addie?” I asked, looking over her shoulder into the hallway. From this part of the house, it was difficult to tell that anything was wrong at all.

  “She’s fine,” Grace explained, leading me to the east living room. “I can let her know you’re here. And Mr. Rochester…” She gave me a look that asked permission, asked if I wanted him to know I was home.

  “I can’t wait to see her.” I hoped that was clear enough an answer for her.

  Grace nodded and ducked up the east staircase. I found a seat on the couch, fiddling with my fingers and wondering what on earth I was doing back here. I’d left. I’d started a new life. So why had I jumped into a cab this morning without looking back?

  Footsteps on the stairs outside the living room echoed off the walls, but they were too heavy to be Addison’s. Too late, I rose from my seat and made for the door to the dining room. Suddenly, there he stood, his curls disheveled and his eyes cupped by purple shadows. He looked like he was seeing a ghost.

  “Miss Edwards,” was all he could manage. And then he was crossing the room, drawing me to him without restraint. I braced my palms against his chest, forming a barrier to the embrace.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded, stepping back from him.

  “I was—” He looked confused, then irritated. “How dare you leave this house? How dare you abandon that little girl?” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the wreckage. “You left without so much as a goodbye. We didn’t know if you were living or dead.”

  “Oh, and not knowing the truth bothered you?” I shot back at him. “That must be upsetting. Being lied to, I mean.”

  His face darkened. “Miss Edwards…”

  “I know,” I interrupted him hotly. “You don’t apologize. And I’m still not asking for one. I’m telling you. I met Caroline Finch before she lit your house on fire. And I think you and I both know there’s more to her than you told the goddamn newspapers.”

  At his sides, he clenched his fists. “Yes,” he spat through gritted teeth.

  “Honesty,” I mused, laughing humorlessly. “Refreshing from you, I have to admit.”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t lie to you because I wanted to,” he began, reaching for me again.

  “No!” I jerked out of his reach. “You don’t touch me. Not ever again, Elliot Rochester. Not after you’ve touched her.”

  “Caroline?” The muscle in his jaw worked manically. “She was a psychopath, you saw that!”

  “Not Caroline,” I hissed. “Grace.”

  “Grace Peterson?” To my complete shock, he threw back his head and barked out a laugh. “I’ve never so much as laid a finger on Grace Peterson. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I?” I snapped, rolling onto my tiptoes to get in his face. “I know I saw her coming from your bedroom in the middle of the night. I know you are both keeping secrets. And”—I dropped my voice—“I know there is much more going on under this roof than you two sharing beds.”

  With that, I was done. The fuse of my anger was nearly burned out, and I could feel the imminent crisis the end would bring.

  “By the way,” I muttered offhandedly, “I’d like to sleep tonight. Don’t keep me up howling.”

  Ignoring his slack-jawed expression, I climbed the stairs to my old bedroom, slammed the door, and burst into tears.

  Chapter Seven

  For obvious reasons, I didn’t receive an invitation to dinner. That was good. Any person in my room would’ve been greeted by obscenities at best and a flying lamp at worst. Besides, I wasn’t dressed. The one garment left in the wardrobe was the silk nightgown, and I wore it out of necessity. It wasn’t what I wanted—I wanted to mope around in sweats—but it would have to do.

  Elliot’s reaction to my words had told me the truth, which—contrary to everything I’d ever believed—made me feel much worse than I had when I was only guessing. The prospect of not one but two people who could change, could shift from something human to something else, was mindboggling, to say the least. And the idea that I might have fallen for one? That was unfathomable.