“And I’ll fill the house with the scent of gingerbread,” my mother said, cheerily keeping up her image as the dutiful homemaker.
Stark turned an accusing glare on her. “You’ve already forgotten I detest the spice? What do you use that brain for, Carla? Sometimes I think we need to enroll you in the academy, except that we have an IQ requirement, and I doubt you’d qualify.”
Flustered, she somehow kept a smile on her face. “I meant poppyseed bread. I don’t know why I said gingerbread. Vanilla is the spice you love. I didn’t forget.”
As much as I resented my mother these days, it enraged me to hear her referred to as stupid. Not that I was about to defend her—I wasn’t stupid either.
Instead, I drew the attention back to me. “I haven’t ever been in the storage shed. Will the boxes be easy to find?”
Asking questions was always a risk of its own. Stark hated explaining himself. On the other hand, he hated it when things were done wrong.
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I held my breath, waiting for the lashing.
What he said was worse. “Julianna? Go with and show him.”
If she looked at me at all before saying, “Yes, sir,” I didn’t see it because I definitely did not look at her.
“Good. Dress warm. I wouldn’t want you to already be frozen before you have to get on the roof.”
Somehow I doubted his sincerity.
I took his advice, anyway, dressing in layers because it was a good way to stall, not because I was fearful of the cold, but eventually I couldn’t put it off any longer, and the two of us set out to the rickety storage shed in the backyard.
“This is chaos,” I said when I flicked on the light and saw the disaster ahead of us. Closest to the door was all the garden equipment—the mower and a wheelbarrow and hoses and shovels and rakes. There was also a generator along one wall. Beyond that were the totes. Dozens and dozens of them. None of them labeled or organized. Many, I suspected, hadn’t been opened in years. “They have to be near the front, right? Since you used them last year?”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound hopeful. “He had the generator set up last spring. Before that, a bunch of the totes were in its place. They’ve all been moved around now.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yeah.”
She closed the door, and I tensed, wary about being in a confined space with her with the door shut, but as soon as I realized that it was warmer without the wind blowing in, I decided I was going to have to suck it up.
Though, the cold might have been easier to endure.
“Better get started.” Faster we were out of here, the better.
It only took five minutes before I realized that this wasn’t going to be a quick chore. Not with Julianna. A quick peek under the lid of each tote told me what was inside, and I was able to eliminate a whole tower of them right away. She, on the other hand, found a lot to distract her.
“My angel costume!” she said after opening one. She pulled out a headband with a halo and put it on her head, then rummaged around a bit before retrieving a crumpled set of wings. “This was my Halloween costume for third grade.”
She stuck her arms through the elastics and turned around to shake the flimsy things in my direction.
Damn, she was adorable.
“Your father let you go trick-or-treating?” I couldn’t imagine it. That was the only reason I wanted to know.
“Of course not. There was a parade at school, and he couldn’t let me be the only one without a costume.” She feigned a gasp. “What would people think?”
She took off the wings and tried to straighten out the bent wire. “He chose the angel. I wanted to be a witch.”
Now that sounded like him. “I’m surprised he let you go to school at all before you got to middle school and he could police you all the time as the headmaster.” Stark Academy started enrollment at sixth grade. I’d never wondered where she’d gone before that.
“It was almost worse that he did. I don’t know if I would have realized that my family wasn’t normal.” She put the wings back in the tote and rooted around a bit more before returning the lid and moving it to the ground so she could look in the one underneath it.
It continued from there—every lid lifted revealing another memory.
I knew I should rush her along. But for some reason, I let her take the trip to the past while I worked, listening to her prattle on about this item or that, wishing I didn’t like hearing her talk so much.
Most of it wasn’t even happy talk. Every object held the same sorts of addendums—This was how my father stained this memory. This is how he stained that one. Every recollection another record of proof that Langdon Stark was a monster.
I’d gotten through almost half of the totes with no success when I realized she’d been quiet for a whole minute. I dared a glance at her and found her staring intently at a photograph.
I didn’t want to be interested.
I really, really didn’t want to be.
But there I was, setting down my tote so I could go and look over her shoulder. There was a woman in the image, with light eyes and long blonde/brown hair, the same shade as Julianna’s.
It wasn’t hard to guess who it was. “Your mother?”
“Yeah.”
I bit my cheek and held my tongue. For all of ten seconds. “Do you remember her?”
“A little. I was only four when she died. But I remember that she hummed a lot, which irritated my father to no end. And she liked cats. She used to feed this black and white stray.” She thought a minute, remembering that silly halo bobbing above her head. “I was so young...of course, I didn’t really understand what death was, but when Dad said she wasn’t coming back, that was what I was worried most about—that cat. Who was going to feed the damn cat?”
“What happened to it?” I whispered the question, sure I knew the answer, wishing I could ignore the need to have it confirmed.
“I fed him for a while. I’d run out every day as soon as I woke up and take a handful from the bag, just the way my mother did. But then the bag was empty. So I told Dad.” She took a deep breath. “It didn’t go well.”
She smiled in that way that said what she was thinking about was terrible, but if she didn’t show it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. “I think that was when I really knew, you know. Because he’s always been like he is. That didn’t just start after she was gone. He was always awful, and she was as helpless to it as we all are, but when she was here, I always knew there was a lap waiting for me after. So that time with the cat—that was when I really got that I was alone.”
I’d never been particularly empathetic, and maybe I wasn’t then either, but it was the only word I had to explain the intensity of the need I had to want to console her. Console both the Julianna from the past and the one standing in front of me, though the one standing in front of me didn’t necessarily look in need of consolation. She was strong. Stronger than me, in many ways. In most ways.
And the methods I would have used to console the Julianna from the past versus the one in front of me—well, those were very different. G-rated methods versus R. X, even, if I let myself think about it too long, which I knew better than to do.
“I’m sorry about the cat,” I said, deciding it was the safest way around this conversation.
“Oh, the cat was fine. Janice ended up adopting him.”
“Janice the gardener?” I’d worked with her a few times over the past months, usually as part of detention that I was sure I never deserved.
“Yeah. I don’t know how she found out about the cat. Maybe I told her, or maybe he was never really a stray and was hers all along, I don’t know. But she’d babysit me from time to time, usually at our house, but once I went to hers, and there he was.”
I let out a sound that was almost like a laugh. “Who’d have thought there could be a happy ending in this place?”
“Right?” She cleared her throat, dropping the picture back in the tot
e before putting the lid back on it. “Anyway, the impression I have of my mother is that she was a lot like Carla.”
I’d moved back to the tote I’d abandoned already but paused before I lifted the lid. “Subservient and neglectful?”
She gave a wry smile as she pushed the lid in my hand up farther to peek inside. “I meant traditional—a good cook and homemaker. A woman who made her husband feel important. But I could see how you’d label them both with less flattering adjectives. This isn’t Christmas. Next.”
I put the tote to the side and reached for the next one, puzzling over her choice of descriptors. She might be able to understand my labels, but I couldn’t understand hers.
“You really only think those things about your mom?” As though she could see the inside of my head.
“Yes. Yes. Definitely yes.” This tote had videotapes with handwritten descriptions like La Bohème and La Traviata. “Well, maybe that’s not true. I should add manipulative and self-serving. She’s real good at wooing men. Her problem is getting them to stick around.
“Move over so I can grab that one, will you?” I scooted her with my hip, regretting it as soon as our bodies met. Even through my coat and three layers of shirts, I felt the zing from the contact.
Either she didn’t notice or she didn’t mind because she moved, but not so much that we weren’t still touching. “You really don’t have any good memories with her?”
Fuck, were we still talking about my mom?
I considered not answering. This tote had ornaments in it. The rest of the ones we needed were probably underneath, which meant we were done and could get out of here.
But she was good at pulling things from me. Like a fishing line, except her hook didn’t have any bait, and I didn’t know why I kept swallowing it unless maybe I secretly liked the tortured feeling of saying too much to her, of being too exposed. Of splitting myself open and letting her see what was inside.
“She used to read to me,” I said. “Picture books. Every one she could get her hands on. She was never really a library kind of gal, and we rarely had money for things, so she’d go to garage sales or take hand-me-downs. Dr. Seuss and The Wild Things one and Berenstein Bears.”
“Berenstain Bears,” she corrected with a grin.
“Whatever the fuck it was. I had Inside, Outside, Upside Down memorized. She’d use funny voices to keep me interested—or to keep herself interested—and run her hands through my hair. Kiss me on my head.”
I barely recognized that woman in Carla.
I didn’t recognize myself as that little boy at all. It didn’t even feel like it had happened to me, but rather like a movie I once saw. “I think once I started to think for myself, she didn’t know what to do with me. Maybe it got harder. Maybe I got harder. I don’t know. Just… I learned to read for myself, and she stopped sitting with me, and she stopped getting me new books, and soon she stopped thinking about me much at all.”
“We both lost our mothers young,” she said. “Only you never knew, so you didn’t get to grieve.”
Yeah, that was it. That was...on the nose and so well said and no one had ever made me feel like they got it until right then.
Which made my chest constrict.
And my throat feel tight.
And the layers of clothing must have done the trick because I was suddenly hot and sweating. And she was standing so close, and I could feel her breath on my chin like the world’s tiniest space heater. And all I wanted to do was capture that breath inside me, take it all in. Make it mine.
“You aren’t alone anymore, Jolie.” Goddamn hook. Tugging out words I shouldn’t say. Calling her a name that was too intimate. Pulling my mouth down as hers moved up.
Something inside me was still thinking right because when her lips grazed mine, I said, “Don’t.” Which was the thing to say, and the thing to do.
But I didn’t push her away, and she moved her mouth over mine again, softly. Teasing? Testing, before she closed her lips around mine.
I jumped back instantly. Fast, as though there’d been electricity in her kiss. “Don’t,” I said again.
Only one breath passed—a simple rise and fall of her chest—and then I was lunging forward, pushing her up against the tower of totes, my hands clenched around her upper arms while I kissed the fuck out of her.
Devoured her.
Like I’d never get a chance again, and there was a real good reason to think that was the case. Open-mouthed and punishing. Taking more than I was giving. Sliding my tongue in too far. Tasting her. Memorizing her. Kissing an angel.
She groaned, and I took that too, swallowing it as I pressed harder into her, grinding the ache in my jeans against her belly. I could feel her struggling, and I knew if I Iet her arms go, she’d touch me. Anywhere she touched me, any way she touched me, it would be heaven.
But I wanted her captive.
Needed her captive. Needed to feel like this was my decision instead of like I had no choice but to touch her. She made me too out of control, otherwise. Made me feel like I was a black hole, and whether I wanted to or not, I would draw all of her inside of me.
I would break her then.
Maybe not by my own hand, but she would be broken apart if she really got in. She’d be shattered, and her father would kill us both, and fuck. Fuck. I wouldn’t care. For this one single moment, I wouldn’t even care.
Abruptly, light spilled in the shed, and thank God for the yard equipment and that we were all the way in the back because even though we jumped apart instantly, we would have been caught otherwise.
“What’s taking you two so long?” Stark said.
For the first time since I’d met her, I saw real fear in Jolie’s eyes, a fear that somehow looked more severe with the halo on. I’d wondered before if her punishments were as severe as mine, if she really had a sense of how far her father could go. It wasn’t the kind of thing I could ask, and she managed to piss him off so much less than I did, it was an obvious assumption.
Now, though, I was sure that she knew. She knew just how evil he was. She knew just how much she should be afraid.
Her fear sprung me into action. “It took us a while to find the Christmas stuff, sir, but these should be them.” I lifted the last tote I’d looked in as evidence. “I should label them this year after the holiday before I put them back.”
I did everything right. Called him sir. Assumed responsibility for making the task easier in the future. Let him know I was aware that I’d be the one storing them again.
I’d been learning from his daughter, after all.
“Smart thinking, Cade. Who knew you had it in you.” He scanned his daughter then me, looking both of us up and down, his eyes lingering on her halo, and I silently prayed that he assumed her flushed cheeks and red lips were from the cold.
It felt like forever before he spoke again. “Make sure you clean off any mouse droppings before you bring those things inside. If any of us get Hantavirus, it will be your fault.” He looked back at Jolie. “Probably shouldn’t be handling anything in those totes, Julianna, but if you’re determined, let him clean it off first. Better if he got sick than you.”
I hated him. I legitimately hated him.
And even though he seemed to think better of her than he did of me, I hated him most because of whatever things he’d done to her. Because of that fear he’d programmed into her eyes.
She didn’t seem to breathe again until he was gone. “I swear I almost had a heart attack.”
My heart was racing too. For entirely different reasons than they’d been racing before. I set down the tote, and when I lifted my hands, they were shaking. “That was stupid. We were stupid.”
“I know,” she agreed, removing the halo and tossing it to the ground. “We have to be more careful.”
My eyes flew to hers. Be more careful? No. That fucking couldn’t happen again. No fucking way.
But it was hard to say when she was looking at me like that, like I was the only
light in her world, and though it was possible I was just dark in disguise, I understood how much she needed to believe otherwise.
And I really did want her.
Wanted her to be my light, too.
She took a step forward, putting her hand on my cheek. “Cade…”
I shook my head, looking for strength I wasn’t sure I had. If she couldn’t protect herself, it had to be me.
“Stop. Don’t do that. Don’t say we can’t have this. Don’t say I can’t have this.”
Her pleading wore me down. It also hardened my resolve. “This is for you,” I said, taking her hand from my face. I grabbed the other one with it, held them together. “It’s not for me.” I was pretty sure I’d suffer anything from her father’s hand, if that was the only price to be paid.
But it wasn’t.
“This can’t happen again.”
It was her turn to shake her head.
“It can’t,” I repeated. Bending in, I kissed her quickly, once more because I couldn’t bear not to.
Then I picked up the tote and left, putting distance between us, determined that I would be the one to keep her safe.
Thirteen
Jolie
I HATE HER.
The inside cover of my notebook was filled with that refrain, over and over. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.
I hated her pretty little laugh.
I hated her jet-black hair.
I hated her adoring smile.
I hated how nice she was.
Most of all, I hated that she had the one thing I wanted most: Cade.
The biggest problem with hating Amelia Lu was how much I actually didn’t hate her. She’d been at Stark since sixth grade. We’d come into the academy together, and she was by all counts the sweetest girl in the whole school. We’d never been friends, per se—there was no being friends with the headmaster’s daughter—but she’d been the closest thing to it. She’d never backed away when I entered a room or whispered behind my back as soon as I walked by. When her grandmother died the year before, she’d let me hug her when I gave her condolences, and she’d squeezed so hard, I’d been the one who had to pull away.
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