by Mary Martel
I ignored that, and said, “I don’t like the thought of you being alone with her and no one knowing about it. She’s dangerous, and who knows what scary, messed-up thing she’s just waiting to do next. You need a wingman, a partner in crime, someone to back your plays and be able to call in the cavalry when you are, Gods forbid, unable to do so yourself. Right now, I’m all you’ve got, and you need me. If you tell one of the others, you run the risk of everyone finding out, and you’ve already said how much you don’t want that. So,” I shrugged my shoulders, “looks like it’s you and me, Ty.”
I relaxed and knew I looked smug. He couldn’t scrape me off of this for fear of hurting my feelings and worrying about me running to his Uncle to tattle on him like a little kid. And I’d do it, too, if it meant potentially keeping everyone safe and out of that psycho slut’s clutches, himself included.
It might not have been fair, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have to know Annabell personally to know she wasn’t going to play fair; Tyson would need me to be a little schemer and slightly ruthless. I had never tried my hand at either, but I had grown up watching Vivian work it, and she’d been a pro at both. I had to have learned something along the way from her, right?
“This is a terrible idea,” he told me.
I agreed wholeheartedly. Not out loud, of course. I didn’t want to give him a reason to tell me no, not that it would do him any good, really. My mind was firmly made up, and I had zero intentions of budging.
After asking if I was okay, and promising to call me in the morning, he asked if I was okay with him taking the Rover so he could head back to the big house, because he no longer wished to go inside Dash’s. Big surprise there, I think he needed to escape me. He kissed me on the cheek, and I got out of the vehicle. I didn’t stick around to watch him drive off with my Rover. I hurried inside, not liking to dawdle in front of the house because, even though it was no longer there, I still saw blood on the walkway and front steps.
I made my way into Dash’s home with a bad feeling in my gut, and the need to turn around to see if I was being watched, because I felt eyes on me. I had been feeling eyes on me for at least the last week, but had dismissed it as paranoia.
I ignored both now and went inside. Chucky was with the Council, they wouldn’t let him harm me again, and he was the only threat I knew I had. I wasn’t counting Annabell.
Chapter Five
The phone ringing woke me up. Some days I loved having a cell phone. Other days, like today, I hated the stupid thing. I had gone years without it, and I had survived. Why did I need one now? Mr. Cole had bought it for me, but I think the only reason I charged it was so that the guys could keep tabs on me. Texting made it easy to know where everyone was at all times.
It kept ringing as I sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. A hand slid down my chest to land in my lap as I sat up. The arm it was attached to came from behind me. The arm was covered in freckles, telling me it belonged to Dash. He was the only redhead in our coven.
I had gone to bed alone the night before, so I was surprised to see him in my bed with me. This was a new development. Normally, he always kept to his own bedroom at night and left me alone to mine. Maybe he was giving me space? If so, then why change now?
The hand fell into my lap. His body curled into me from behind, around my hips and his other arm wrapped around my waist.
“Make it stop,” he said as he rubbed his face against my hip. I was thankful for the shorts I had on because if he’d rubbed his face like that against my bare skin his beard would have hurt me. I didn’t need carpet burn from Dash’s facial hair. He was the only one of the guys who had a beard, and it was big and full, covering half of his face. It suited him.
The phone stopped ringing. And immediately started back up again.
I grumbled as I scooted away from Dash’s warmth, and climbed out of the comfort of my bed and his arms. I had no freaking clue what could be so important that someone would feel the need to call my phone over and over again. And, honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I wanted to go back to bed and back to Dash.
Instead of doing what I wanted, I walked across the room to the dresser on bare feet. The wood floor was surprisingly warm; it always was. I kept expecting it to be cold on my feet when I got out of bed in the morning, but I was never disappointed to find it warm.
The screen on my phone was lit up, Quinton’s name on the screen. I frowned as I picked up the cell and unplugged it from the cord that had been charging it. I pressed my finger to the green button and swiped it across the screen before bringing it up to my ear. He was talking before I had the phone to my ear.
“Where the hell are you?” he growled.
Did I say he’d been talking? Well, I’d meant bitching.
“I’m home,” I grumbled sullenly. He woke me up just to ask where I was? Ridiculous. “Where else would I be? Where the heck are you?”
Dash started to laugh quietly. They all got a kick out of me throwing attitude Quinton’s way. If he’d been less of a pain in everyone’s ass, they might have thought differently.
“Right now, I’m standing in front of my house watching that fuckwad football player drive off with that motherfucker Adrian.”
Oh boy.
With each word spoken, his voice got a little lower, until he ended in a scary whisper that told me just how angry he was.
I thought about my options and went with the easiest one.
“Okay,” I said cautiously. I felt like it was the only safe thing for me to say. Anything else and he would likely take it the wrong way. I didn’t like dealing with Quinton when he was angry, and, unfortunately, he was angry more often than not.
“Okay,” he repeated in a deep growl. “What the fuck do you mean, okay? No, never mind. I have no desire to hear whatever fucked-up shit that will come out of your crazy mouth if you answer that.”
Fucked-up shit that would come out of my mouth? My crazy mouth?
Please.
That did it. I needed coffee before dealing with his hostility.
I pulled the phone away from my ear and tapped the dark screen with my fingertip. The screen came to life and I pressed my finger firmly to the red circle, ending the call.
I didn’t feel bad about hanging up on Quinton. Sometimes, he needed it, and I was the only one who could give it to him without making him angry with me, and without having to fear him taking it out on me later.
Let him call one of the others and give them a hard time, my time putting up with it was up.
It wasn’t but ten seconds later when the phone started ringing once again. I sighed and, instead of turning my phone off and setting it on top of the dresser and walking away from it, I pressed my finger to the green circle and swiped. It was either talk to him now, or wait for ten minutes to talk to him when he showed up at the cottage. Which is exactly what he’d do so that he could give me a piece of his mind face-to-face. I’d like to avoid that particular delight if possible, something I might have screwed myself out of because I’d hung up on him; he might just show up anyway because he felt like it.
“Hello,” I said pleasantly into the phone.
This was going to be a disaster.
“Did you just hang up on me?” He growled. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Sheesh. Normally, he was a whole lot brighter than this.
“Quinton,” I said patiently. “You called me, yelled at me, and demanded I tell you things and then proceeded to say not so pleasant things to me and about me. How can you honestly expect me to stick around for that? Of course I hung up on you.”
Perhaps I should have been a little less than honest with him? Oh, well. Too late now, the words were out, and like usual, I would have to deal with them.
“It’s Wednesday, Ariel.” He told me something I already knew. Then he told me something I had forgotten entirely all about. “You come over early on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday to meet with Adrian. The rest of the week, you do afternoons
because of his schedule. So, forgive me that I was worried when you didn’t show up this morning, you’ve never even been late to these meetings before. What the hell was I supposed to think? You ran out of here yesterday like the devil was chasing you, and I’ve been worried ever since. That was a lot to deal with yesterday. Is that why you decided to no-show this morning? I wish you would have told me you weren’t coming. I looked like an asshole to Adrian.”
I swore under my breath as I looked out the window. Sunlight poured in through the open curtains. I had slept in. Normally, Dash woke me up with the mornings with a cup off coffee and some toast. Why hadn’t he woken me up today? I should really start setting the alarm on my cell phone for those things, I didn’t need to be relying on someone else to wake me up, that was ridiculous.
I blew out a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry. I overslept. It won’t happen again.”
That last part might have been an out and out lie. I couldn’t promise that it would never happen again, telling the future wasn’t one of my talents.
“Where’s Dash?” He demanded to know.
I looked back over my shoulder. Dash was still in my bed, now sitting up with his back against the headboard, the blanket pooled around his hips. His chest was bare, and his lap was full of Binx, his little black and white cat. Briefly, I wondered if the little furball had come in after we’d woken up, or if he’d been here the whole time. He’d probably been here the whole time, Binx didn’t have to sleep alone, ever. He either loved attention from you, or he loved to hiss and bite at you. Luckily, he loved me as much as I loved him.
“Uhh…” I mumbled. “I’m pretty sure Dash just woke up, too.”
“What do you mean, Dash just woke up, too?” He asked suspiciously. “Dash doesn’t sleep in, he’s up with the birds. Put him on the phone.”
His tone was really starting to bother me.
“Why do I have to give him my phone?” I asked. “Why can’t you just call up Dash on his phone? Now you’re just trying to boss me around.”
“Ariel,” he groaned. “Now you’re just trying to be difficult.”
I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. What could I say, I was pretty good at being difficult. But, then again, so was Quinton.
I rolled my eyes as I walked towards the bed with the phone held out in front of me. Normally, I wouldn’t want to subject Dash to Quinton’s bad mood, but, at the moment, I was happy to hand it off to someone else.
Dash smirked at me as he took the phone out of my outstretched hand. With his other hand, he took hold of my now free hand and gave a slight tug. I got the point and climbed up on the bed as he scooted over, closer to the middle and made room for me.
I scooted along with him, when he stopped moving, so did I. I leaned back against the headboard and pressed my shoulder into his while he put my phone to his ear. He reached out and took hold of my hand and slipped his fingers through mine. I laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes as I tried to make out what Quinton was saying to Dash. It didn’t work, I couldn’t hear him, just the slight murmur of his deep voice.
“Normally, I would have,” Dash said. Then, “No. She woke me up. I heard her cry out and I came in to check on her. She was moving around a lot and Binx was sitting up at her feet, watching her. It was weird, and it was almost like she was trying to wake herself up for something. Or, like, something else was trying to wake her up but couldn’t manage it. She quieted when I got in bed with her. And Binx went back to sleep when I did, too. I meant to stay awake and watch over her, but I must have fallen asleep at some time… Mmmhmm.. Yeah. It’s my fault she wasn’t up on time. Sorry about that.”
Dash kept talking, but I ignored what he was saying. I was too busy thinking over what he’d already said. I opened my eyes and looked up at the pretty yellow and black dream catcher that Tyson had gotten for me. It had words worked into it in white, and they weren’t in English. Tyson had put magic into the dream catcher to keep out the big bad things while I slept. It worked, it more than worked because I hadn’t had a single dream once since I started sleeping under it. And I used to dream every night, not all of them being good dreams, and some I would even consider nightmares.
Had I been dreaming and just didn’t remember it? Had I been fighting things off in my sleep and didn’t know about it? What exactly did those words mean that Tyson and etched into the dream catcher with white chalk? It never occurred to me to ask him about it, I simply trusted that he knew what he was doing, and I trusted in his skill. Now, after what Dash had described I was doing, I wanted to know.
“Yeah,” Dash said. “I’ll tell her, and I’ll see you later.”
He pulled the phone away from his ear and ended the call. He threw the phone towards the end of the bed, close to Binx, and I watched as it bounced once before landing and staying put. Binx didn’t even bother opening his eyes. That cat was adorable, but weird. If anyone but Dash had thrown something so close to him, he would have gotten up, hissing, and maybe tried to scratch at someone. It’s like, even with his eyes closed, he knew it was Dash, and that made it okay. For a cat, he had quite the personality. He never hissed at me, I was one of the few people that he just seemed to like, and he slept with me more now than he slept with Dash. I had grand plans of stealing him away and keeping him as my own.
Dash squeezed my fingers and pulled our joined hands over to his lap.
“Quinton is in a mood,” he told me unnecessarily.
I laughed softly as I squeezed his hand back. “Quinton is always in a mood. Whether it’s a good mood or a bad mood just depends on the day, I guess. Well, that and whatever chaos we are dealing with at the moment. I think he’s still freaked out over what happened yesterday.”
Beside me, Dash stiffened. “He told us about Adrian’s new pet. And that he wanted you to keep him.”
I shivered at his words. Humans shouldn’t be described as pets. There was something very, very wrong about it. But, wasn’t that, in a way, an apt description of what Chucky possibly now was to the Council? Dash would know better than I would.
“Do you-”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Dash said in a quiet voice. “The Council should either punish quick and be done with it, or wipe his memory and give him happy thoughts before returning him home where he belongs. Our time having to deal with him should be over, and I’m upset thinking that the Council is going to keep shoving him in our faces when, if they’d left him in jail, we wouldn’t be having to deal with him at all. The Council is just making things worse for the rest of us, like they usually do.”
His voice was quiet, controlled. He was upset and didn’t want to be talking about this. I didn’t blame him.
I realized something then. Dash and I had never once talked about what had happened on his front steps.
Quinton and I had talked about it. Tyson had glossed over it with me. Jules had talked to me about it. The Salt and Pepper twins hadn't brought it up to me, and I wasn't expecting them to any time soon. They didn't like to talk about the bad things that went on around them; if you pretended it wasn't there enough, then it made ignoring it on the daily a whole lot easier, and life just a little more bearable. I didn't blame them or begrudge them this tactic. I wished like hell it was easier for me to pretend like the bad didn't exist until I couldn't look away from it because it was staring me right in the face.
But Dash? He'd kept quiet on what had happened when I was around. I wasn't sure he'd talked to anyone about what had happened to us, to him. I got the whole male thing, where they didn't like to talk about their feelings and over examine every tiny little detail the way girls sometimes do, but it wasn't good to keep it all locked away inside. It could make you bitter and eat at you until you were nothing left inside but something dark and angry. I didn't want that for Dash, and I didn't want it for myself. So, I talked to the others when they wanted to talk to me about it, but I didn't go out of my way to bring it up like they did. Who would Dash talk to if he nee
ded to talk about it, to let it out? Would he talk to me? Somehow, I wasn't sure he would. And that bothered me.
"Stop thinking about it," he murmured as he laid the side of his face against the top of my head. "You're overthinking and creating a problem that doesn't exist. We've got enough problems already, you don't need to make up other ones. If you need to pick something apart, then just focus on one of our already existing problems."
How did he know that? It was exactly what I had been doing, overthinking everything and looking for something to pick at. Did Dash really know me that well, or was I just that easy to read? Perhaps it was because I had been living with him for weeks now, maybe we were just becoming more used to one another. Was that normal with roommates? I wasn't sure, and didn't care enough to ask.
"How did you know?" I asked him as I snuggled closer to his side. Binx got up from his place at Dash’s feet and stretched. He looked at me, meowed pathetically, and then climbed over Dash to get closer to me, where he curled up into a little furry black ball between our feet. I thought that was telling, and fought to check Dash's expression and see if he saw what I did. Binx didn't choose between us, he'd picked us both. Heck yeah, I was getting somewhere with my cat thievery. I wanted to shout and pump my fist in victory. Maybe I didn't need my own pet after all.
"I know you," he said. "Maybe not as well as I would like to, but I'm getting there. You don't know what to do when there isn't a problem, so you pick at things to create one. I don't think you know how to just be. Be in the moment. Be happy. To just breathe and not have to be fighting for something or fighting off someone. I recognize it, because it's a lot like how I am. It's because our childhoods were disasters and full of trauma; it's what we've come to expect out of life because that's all we've had, and we don't understand how to live without the constant trauma, or even the constant expectation of it. I would know because it's just like how I am. I knew I recognized it in you. Some of the others might even see it in you, because it's not just the two of us who've gone through terrible things. Ours just seem like the worst, because we're scarred on the outside, and the others aren't. Makes it seem like ours was harsher because we have a physical representation of it etched into our bodies, so it makes it something that's not easily forgettable because it's always in their faces. But we're not alone, you're not alone. We are in good company, and eventually you will stop wanting to fight everything, and you will just breathe and learn to trust in the people around you and to trust in a good thing. I know it sounds weird to say trust in a good thing, but I mean it."