by Tracey Ward
“I’m not doing anything,” she lies easily. “How could I? I’m weak, remember?”
“You’re trying to get in my head.”
“Trying?” she chuckles. “Sweetie, I’m already there. You should really keep things locked up tighter in here.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Get. Out.”
“Why? What are you afraid I’ll find out? Were you a bedwetter, Campbell?”
“You’re making a mistake, SB.”
“Your favorite toy when you were a kid was a little yellow taxi your dad brought you back from New York. He was on a business trip. You thought he was never coming home.”
“Alex,” I snarl, my anger rising like warm air around us.
“You tell everyone your favorite movie is Trainspotting, but it’s not. It’s The Neverending Story. The horse scene made you cry when you were little.”
I lick my lips anxiously, taking a slow, deep breath. “It made everyone cry. You’re doing parlor tricks. You’re not really in my head, Madame Mills.”
“Your favorite person on the planet isn’t you,” she continues, her voice getting dreamy. Kind of lost, like she’s listening to a conversation in another room, trying to figure out what they’re saying. “Your favorite person is your aunt Jenna. She got you into comic books. She’s an artist, but when she got sick—”
I close the distance between us, towering over her. Staring down into her wide open eyes with fierce meaning. “Don’t ever get into my head again. Ever. I may not have powers, but I will make you regret it. Do you understand me?”
She blinks up at me in shock, her face turning instantly apologetic. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That was so—you just made me so mad and I—Why did I get so mad?”
“Do you understand me?”
She takes a sharp breath, exhaling slowly. “I understand,” she whispers. “I never meant for it to go that far. I really don’t know what came over me.”
I nod, my lips an angry line that pulls tight over my teeth. I step away from her. Trying to get my rage in check. “We’re all a little off lately, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I haven’t been sleeping very well.” She winces, her ever-present guilt kicking in hard. “It’s no excuse.”
“No, but I’ll take it as one if you will. We’ll chalk it up to bad vibes and never talk about it again. Deal?”
Alex nods eagerly. “Deal.”
“Good.” I cough roughly, turning my back on her. “I gotta walk the rest of the house. I’ll see you later.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop it.”
I leave Alex and her apologies in the kitchen. I take the back way out through the mudroom. The clean smell of dryer sheets and laundry detergent fill the room, clogging my senses. When I step outside into the rainy afternoon, it’s a relief. The wide open fields surrounding us give me the space the huge house can’t. I need a second to myself, out of the group, out of myself, to get my head straight again. To be me again.
I walk the porch surrounding the house slowly five times, burning almost forty minutes before I go back inside. I feel better when I do. Less angry, less aggressive. Not so appalled by Alex and what she did because when I ask myself if I would do the same thing if someone challenged me like I challenged her, I have to admit that yeah, I would. Probably a long time ago.
“Because you’re cheating,” Trina growls angrily from the kitchen table. Britta and Stewart are nowhere to be seen, their puzzle already packed up and put away somewhere.
Across from Trina, Brody methodically stacks his chips. His winnings. “I’m not cheatin’.”
“You’ve won every hand for the last half hour. No one is that lucky.”
“Not lucky, sis. Talented. And you have tells. Big ones.”
Trina scoffs at him. “Like what?”
“Nuh-uh,” he chides, shuffling the deck of cards. “I’m not tellin’ you. You’ll stop doin’ ‘em and I’ll start losing. And I don’t wanna lose.”
Trina pushes roughly away from the table. Red, blue, and green chips spill from their piles, splashing across the table. “I don’t want to play with you anymore.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
She stomps away, marching into the living room where she falls in a huff on the couch.
I raise my eyebrows at Brody. “Everything okay?”
He shakes his head in disgust. “Yeah. It’s great.”
“Cool. I’m gonna do a check upstairs. You got things down here?”
“Whatever you need.”
“Thanks, man.”
He knocks the cards against the table, muttering blandly, “Yeah.”
As I step up onto the stairs, I nod to Justin slung across the couch in the library. He smiles weakly over the top of his book, the gesture lost in his eyes. Alex isn’t the only one to complain about trouble sleeping. There are people up right now that shouldn’t be, all because they can’t sleep. I’ve had trouble too. Tossing and turning all night, my mind a running parade of worry. We’re all stressed and it’s starting to become a problem.
The lights upstairs are off, the hallway dark and shadow strewn. The wood floors are covered with a long runner made of browns, golds, and a muted red. My mom would gag if she saw it, her interior designer’s heart unable to process the lack of white in this house.
Earth tones are the worst tones, Max, she loved to tell me whenever she brought in a new white vase filled with tall white flowers. Remember that.
And I do. I remember everything she told me. Everything she taught me about being strong. Stubborn. About not backing down, not giving up. Ever. My dad is my idol, my ideal, but my mom is my spine. And she does not bend. She does not bow.
I need that feeling of strength as I walk down the hall, deeper into the dark. I feel the shadows on my skin. They weigh heavy on my hands, on my chest. I get that fuzzy feeling again, the one Alex gave me, and I wonder if she’s up here. I didn’t see her downstairs with everyone else when I came back in from my walk, so she must be. Probably napping in her room. Getting her head right and staying out of mine. But if that’s true, why do I feel so off kilter?
My hand instinctively goes for my gun when a door on my left opens. It takes me a second to recognize Gwen stepping silently out into the hall. She closes the door softly behind herself, turning to face me. Starting when she sees me watching her.
Her eyes dart to my hand, to my gun, and her mouth drops open. “What are you gonna do with that?”
I flex my hand, releasing the handle. “Nothing. You surprised me, that’s all.”
“I’ll try not to do that again.”
“It’s a reflex. I didn’t pull it.”
“You were definitely ready to.”
I jut my chin to the door behind her. “How is he?”
“Liam’s out. I’ve got him on a constant cycle of morphine to keep him comfortable, which basically equates to unconscious.”
“Better than living through the pain.”
“No kidding.”
“Any signs of infection?”
“No, he’s clean.”
“Is Naomi in there or is she asleep somewhere?”
Gwen’s face darkens, turning unreadable in the faint light from the stairs behind me. The window at the opposite end of the hall glows faintly behind her, making it harder to read her expression. She looks almost sinister, harsh shadows cutting across her angular face. “She’s in there. Why? What do you need from her?”
“Nothing. I’m doing a walk through the house, counting heads to make sure everything is okay.”
“Everything is fine.”
I look her over doubtfully. “Are you sure?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you look like hell. You have for a couple days now.”
She glowers at me. “Oh, I’m sorry I don’t look pretty enough for you. I’ll go put on my makeup right now. Will that make you happy?”
“Ostensibly, I guess. Yeah.
”
Her lips tighten over her teeth, sneering at me. “You’re a pig,” she whispers tremulously.
I take a step closer to her, frowning. My shadow falls off of her, the light from the stairs finding her face. Her eyes glisten wildly. Wetly. “Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You just whimpered that denial.”
“I’m not crying,” she lies insistently. She wipes an errant tear from under her right eye. “You’re being a jerk.”
“Less than usual, though.”
“You’re still a jerk.”
“It’s what I do.”
“It’s not very endearing.”
“Endearing is not what I do.”
“Could you just be kind, for, like, a second?” she pleads shakily, the tears coming in earnest now. They tumble down her cheeks, catching on her long lashes. They pull me in, push me forward, until I can reach out to touch her shoulder gently. Until I can step outside myself and be someone else. Someone softer. More compassionate.
“No,” I tell her quietly. “But I can try.”
Gwen surprises me when she collapses against me, her face buried in my chest. Her hands clenching the sides of my shirt tightly. She shudders once, then goes still. No hiccupping. No crying. No ranting. She just clings to me, breathing slow and shaky. I wrap my arms around her hesitantly, careful to keep my palms away from any Hot Zones. Basically anywhere that’s going to get me slapped.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispers desperately. “I’m not this girl. I don’t cry.”
“You’re tired. We all are. And stressed. It messes with people.”
“It doesn’t seem like it’s messing with you.”
“I’m holding a hot girl in a dark hallway and I’m not trying to get on her,” I remind her plainly. “This is not the norm for me. We’re all out of our element right now.”
She pulls back slightly, looking up at me with swimming eyes. “Thank you. For not being you right now.”
I smirk at her. “Yeah. No problem.”
She looks at me like that for a long time. Until it starts to feel uncomfortable. Until it starts to feel good. Too good. Her eyes dry up, her lips parting. Her stare dropping from my eyes to my mouth. Her hands tightening in my shirt, pulling on me. Tugging me down to her.
I go because I’m not programmed not to. I don’t have the kill switch that would stop me. I kiss her because she wants me to and I definitely want to, so why wouldn’t I? Why would I ever deny myself something I want when it so clearly wants me back?
Why does it feel so gut wrenchingly wrong the second I do?
Gwen wraps her arms around my neck as she licks her tongue along my lips. My hands hold her hips hard, at war with each other. Pushing and pulling on her, knotting the material of her shirt in my fists until the soft, silky skin of her sides brush my knuckles and I topple inside. I push past that feeling of ‘no’ and fall deep into the ‘yes’ of her. Of her fingers in my hair. Her tongue dancing with mine. Her breaths bursting excitedly past my lips as her small body pushes me back against the wall, pinning me to it aggressively. As she lifts her leg to wrap around mine, twining herself around me like a vine.
But as our breaths get louder, more desperate, so does the ‘no’. It gets clearer, stronger, and suddenly it has a voice. It has eyes, brown and warm. Long hair, an oval face, and a song of a laugh that rings in my ears, making me sick in my stomach as Gwen grabs for my shirt, pulling it up high over my stomach.
“Stop,” I mumble against her lips.
She’s pressed against me hard, her body determined and surprisingly strong. She digs her fingers into my scalp, pulling my head down against hers.
“No,” she growls.
“We’re in the hallway.”
“And that’s stopping you?”
Honestly, no. That’s not stopping me. That’s confusing me, because the whole ‘in public’ thing is crazy hot. And so is Gwen. She’s nuts right now, nipping at my lip, lifting her leg up high against me to grind her body on mine, and I’m getting hazy on why I wanted her to stop. I don’t, that’s the problem. I want to strip her naked and have a night to remember. And that’s what she’s offering me right now. That’s what she’s demanding from me, but there are so many problems with that. For one, it doesn’t feel like her. This feels strangely forced, even though she’s the one forcing it. Two, I’m on duty. I’m on watch and I take my job very seriously, even more serious than my own desires. And three, I don’t really want this. Or, I do, but I don’t want the aftermath. I don’t want to give up something I don’t even know if I can have for this one passion fueled moment. Campbell six months ago would have been game. Tonight, Max’s head is somewhere else, somewhere on the other side of the Sound. And it’s taken my libido with it.
“Hold up. Hold up,” I chant, gently pushing against her shoulders.
Gwen stumbles back a step, her eyes wide with surprise, but at what I’m not sure. My rejection or her advances? The blush on her cheeks says it’s probably the latter.
“What’s your problem?” she asks breathlessly.
I wipe my hand surreptitiously across my mouth, brushing away her taste. “I’m working right now.”
“So what? Who’s coming here?”
“Hopefully no one.”
“Then what’s the problem?” she insists, getting angry.
I shake my head at her. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Clearly, I do.”
“I don’t think you know what you want right now. Two minutes ago you were crying. An hour before that you were staring dead-eyed into nothing, totally vacant.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I notice things,” I interrupt before she can argue. Before she can lie to us both. “And I’ve noticed you. It’s Naomi, isn’t it?”
Gwen’s lower lip trembles slightly and I know I’ve hit home. Her eyes well with more tears, turning to the ceiling trying to push them back. “I think so,” she whispers shakily.
“You need a break. You haven’t had one since Liam got hurt. It’s starting to show.”
“She’s just so…” She trails off, closing her eyes. A single tear falls down her cheek, sliding off the sharp line of her jaw to the floor. “She’s so much.”
“I know. Too much for one person all the time.” I take a hesitant step forward. I’m worried she’ll jump me again. She’s all over the place right now. I sigh with relief when she lowers her head, making no move to touch me. “Take a break. Head downstairs. I’ve got Liam and Naomi. She’s asleep now anyway, right?”
“It’s worse when she’s asleep,” she warns me quietly, her voice deep. Foreboding. Her eyes hidden by her short hair. “She doesn’t control it when she’s sleeping. It’s everywhere.”
“I can handle it. I promise.”
Gwen looks at the closed door behind me, her eyes still rimmed red from her first outbursts. They’ll be worse after this second wave. She’s definitely tapped. Her shoulders are slumped, her face drawn and pale. She can’t do another night with Naomi. And she knows it.
“Nowhere is far enough to get away from her,” she breathes. “She’ll find me anywhere I go.”
“What happens when you’re with her?”
“She makes me see things. Awful things.”
“Like what?”
“Like pain.”
I stare at her, not sure what to say to that. Nothing that comes to mind sounds good. In fact, everything sounds wrong. Everything feels wrong, especially Gwen. And I have no idea how to make it right.
“Go downstairs,” I tell her inadequately. “Grab a spot on the couch. If you see Alex, ask her to make you some tea. She’s nurturing as hell. She’ll love having someone to take care of. You’ll feel better. Trust me.”
She looks at me, real fear in her eyes. Regret. Hurt. “Okay,” she answers numbly. She steps around me, heading toward the stairs. When she’s almost there, she hesitates with her back to me. “You aren’t going to go t
elling everyone that I kissed you, are you?”
“You have my word that I won’t,” I swear seriously.
“How good is your word?”
“You’d be surprised.”
She nods again, satisfied. “I hope I am.”
Her small body disappears into the shadows at the end of the hall, finally sliding like a ghost down the stairs into the light and warmth waiting below. She’ll do better down there. The distance from Naomi isn’t as much as I’d like, but it’s all we’ve got.
I turn in the dark, quiet hallway to the dark, quiet door leading to the dark, quiet room where Liam and Naomi are sleeping, and I wonder how quiet it really is in there. How tired is everyone downstairs? Not enough to warrant the reactions they’re having to each other. Not enough to explain the mood shifts and outbursts or the general feeling of unease that’s seeping through the house in every corner. Inside every shadow.
As I take hold of the cold door handle, I think I may not have a good idea of how quiet Naomi is being, but I’ve got a good guess about how dark she can be. And it’s really beginning to show.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ALEX
I dream of Nick. That’s the best kind of dream.
Well, second best. The best kind is when I dream with Nick. When we stand on the edge of forever together, the world unable to find us. To touch us. It’s just him and me and every dream we could ever imagine. And he has a beautiful imagination.
This is a different type of dream, one that I suddenly realize I’ve never actually had before. My perspective is skewed. I’m not dreaming of Nick so much as I’m dreaming as Nick. Through his eyes. With his voice. His confidence. I’m not in control, more like I’m watching, but it’s an exhilarating ride. To see the world through Nick’s eyes, no fear response whatsoever, is like being on vacation. It’s not exactly a stress-free existence, but it’s blissfully calm. Comfortable in a way I’ll never be with myself.
And his power. Oh my crap, his power. It’s everywhere. It’s in his blood, in his hands, in his head, in his heart. And so am I. I didn’t know the full force of how much that man loves me until I felt it for myself, and it’s breathtaking. It’s a perfect match to my love for him, rising and crashing like the tide. Like the feel of our dreams. The pull of our souls to each other across nothing and everything. It’s a dream, my dream, so I’m probably projecting, but it feels too good to care.