Текст книги "Seth"

Автор книги: Jo Raven

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Chapter Seven

Seth

“My name is Madeline Amelie Torres.” She draws a deep breath. “My dad’s from Texas, my mom’s French from Algeria. I’m…”

She falls silent, and I crack one eye open, needing to see why. Her hands clench in her lap, and her gaze is distant. Clad in a dark blue dress with a narrow belt cinching her tiny waist, with her dark hair curling around her heart-shaped face and those large, dark eyes she looks like a movie star from the forties. There’s something so delicate about her face I’m afraid I might crush it if I cup her jaw.

Not that it matters. I won’t be touching her. She’s not free.

“So… Madeline Amelie Torres,” I drawl. “Ça va?”

Her gaze snaps up, and her eyes widen. I grin at her startled expression. “You speak French?”

“Nope. That’s it. And Je t’aime.”

Her cheeks redden. “Used this last one a lot?”

I shrug, and my shoulder stops me, shooting a sliver of pain up my neck. “Told Shane once. He didn’t appreciate it.”

She giggles, then claps a hand over her mouth. “This is ridiculous,” she whispers. “Me sitting here, telling you about myself. I don’t talk about myself to anyone.” But before I ask why not, she sighs. “I like blue. Anything that’s blue.”

Great. I bet this Fred she’s dating has baby blues, unlike me. “Gotcha.”

Hey, I asked for it, didn’t I? Somehow.

“Last book I read was… In Search of Lost Time.” At my confused look, she explains, “A book by Marcel Proust. Talks about himself mostly. Very French.”

“That explains it,” I mumble. My stomach twists, and man, I really fucking hope I won’t throw up again.

“My mom wanted me to read more French literature while I was staying with her, and I tried.”

“D’you like it?”

“It was okay.” She smooths the fine fabric of her dress over her thighs, and I’m caught in a spell, staring at her small, white hands on the black cloth. “Suited the mood while I was there.”

“Not fun?” I guess.

“Not really. I was there for the last year of high school. I had been looking forward to it, you know? I hadn’t seen her in years. I’d missed her. I thought we’d have fun together, but…” She leans back, bracing her hands on the mattress, and my gaze dips to her breasts, high and pert, stretching the bust of her dress. Like clockwork. Can’t help myself.

“Sorry,” I say automatically, trying in vain to look away.

“Yeah, me too. And then this happened, with the dance school, and I am…” She bites her lip, and the catch in her voice finally does the trick. I look up, at her face.

“Hey. You okay?”

She nods, but she’s not okay. This is obviously crushing her, this rejection from the school, the loss of her dream. And yet here she is, taking care of me.

“Forget about this,” I say. “This talking shit. It was stupid. I got another idea. Why don’t you lie down with me?”

“Lie down with you?” Her voice rises to a horrified pitch.

“To catch a few Zs. You know.” I blink at her, my lids heavy. “It’s late.”

She doesn’t move, and it occurs to me belatedly that maybe I’ve offended her. She barely knows me, and I’m telling her to get into bed with me. A narrow bed, at that. Why would she?

“Hey, I’m not coming on to you,” I mutter. “I promise. I’d just feel better knowing you’re getting some rest, too.”

Fuck, I’m an idiot. She’s probably considering her exit strategy right now. Not sure how to fix this, I rack my mind for something to say to smooth things over before she runs.

Which is why I jerk in surprise when she toes off her shoes and climbs onto the mattress, lying down beside me. She’s on top of the covers, I’m below, but even through the quilt I feel her curves, and despite the queasiness, I harden and have to shift to accommodate my swelling dick.

Shit. Didn’t count on that. Thought I was too zonked out, but my dick has other ideas.

I pretend nothing happened, that I’m not two seconds away from flipping the covers back, grabbing her and sinking into her until she comes so hard she can’t speak. Until I come so hard I can’t think. I pretend that we are just a guy and a pretty girl on their way to becoming friends.

It will have to be enough. No choice. Not for someone like me.

She curls up against me, and when I extend my arm over the pillow, she snuggles closer. Jesus Christ, can’t remember the last time I’ve had a girl in my arms. Not like this. On my bed. By my side.

The girl I’ve been fantasizing about.

I shift again, draw a deep breath of her vanilla scent, and close my eyes, determined to catch some winks despite everything. Despite the silky softness of her hair under my cheek and her warmth along my side.

Yeah, as if. Dammit, I can’t sleep. My head is throbbing in time to my heartbeat.

“Seth?” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“What about your family? Micah said…” She stops, starts again. “Crap, sorry. It’s none of my business.”

She’s right, it’s not. Automatic defenses rear up, put in place years ago, and I open my mouth to tell her Micah should learn to keep his fucking big mouth shut.

But I don’t.

Roll with the punches, right? Don’t lash out, don’t take the suckage that is life seriously. Despite the call this morning, despite the fact my mom is alive, that she left me to rot behind bars and took off with God knows whom to do God knows what… I don’t.

Besides, I asked first.

I take too long to reply, though, and she starts to sit up.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “Really am. I shouldn’t poke my nose in other people’s lives. I should go.”

“They’re not dead,” I blurt out. “My parents.”

“Seth…”

“I don’t know my dad,” I say. Need to stop her from leaving, so I draw a deep breath, force out more words. “And for a long time I thought my mom was dead, but I found out today she’s not.”

She stills, her eyes wide.

“It’s like a fairytale gone bad,” I go on, not even sure why I’m spewing everything out. Guess I hope that if I keep talking she’ll stay here and not run away, like she seemed about to do. “My dad is from the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe. Works at the Potawatomi Casino. My mom used to go there often, looking for wealthy men to fuck.” She winces, and I clench my jaw, because the truth ain’t pretty. Like I said. Fairytale gone bad. “She often brought her sister along. They met my dad there one fine day and had a nice little threesome. Nine months later, Shane, and I were born.”

She says nothing, but at least she isn’t moving away, which is a win, because running after her ain’t in the cards with the way my balance is shot to hell right now.

“Was that what you were asking?” I say after long seconds pass with nothing but silence. “If my parents are alive?”

“Yeah.” She’s still sitting rigidly beside me, and I’m so aware of her breathing it’s like there’s nothing else in the world. Nothing and nobody but her and me. “That’s what I was asking.”

I relax a little. Maybe I didn’t fuck this up. I replied to her question. I held it together. “Okay.”

“You said…” She licks her lips, soft, inviting in the dim light. “You really thought your mom was dead until today?”

“Yeah.”

Didn’t tell anyone else about it, not even Shane. I didn’t want to talk about it, think about it. Wanted to forget it, forget everything. She’s dead to me and will always be.

But of course now reality slams back into me, and with it memories I’ve done my best to bury. Betrayal. Shock. Fear. Horror. Anger. Sorrow so bitter it burns.

The police arriving. Finding me unable to move. My mother gone. Everyone gone, leaving me alone.

And now she’s back from the dead, asking for my fucking help.

My stomach turns over so suddenly I barely manage to twist away from Manon and bend over the bucket by the bed before I throw up water and bile. Nothing left in me to toss.

“Crap.” She scrambles up beside me and slides off the bed. “I’ll be right back.”

I pant through the dry heaves, throat and eyes burning. The fuck. Why are my eyes burning? A reaction to vomiting, I tell myself. All that acid.

Not the memory. Not the pain of the past. I’m over that.

Even if she abandoned me. My mom. Left me there for the police to find and took off. Never came back for me. Never let me know she was alive.

Because she just didn’t care.

***

“Here,” Manon says, handing me my refilled glass of water as I lean back on the pillows, panting. “It’s okay.”

It’s not, not really, but that’s another matter. My hand shakes, but I manage a small sip of water before she takes the glass away and places it on the bedside table, a wooden crate Shane brought me.

Shane. Goddammit. I close my eyes, so tired. What a messed up family we are.

Something cool brushes my brow, and I jerk back.

“Shhh.” She sweeps the wet towel down my cheek, over my mouth, wiping away sweat, tears and traces of puke. “Rest.”

Damn. Now I have something clogging my throat. I turn my head away when she swipes at my other cheek, and she sits back, leaving me be.

Only quiet is not what I need. I reach blindly for her hand, and she lets me take it. I wrap my cold fingers around her delicate ones, feeling the fine bones of her knuckles, the softness of her palm.

Wish I could tell her more. Tell her everything. Wonder if the words coming out of my mouth are like poison being let out from a wound. If it might heal me.

Then reason returns, and I clamp my mouth shut. Not because I’m afraid she’ll rat me out to Zane—why would she care?—but because she’ll run away so fast I won’t even have time to say I’m sorry.

Sorry for who I am. For not being who and what she needs. For not being someone fit for company, for the society, for normal things like friendships and hand-holding. The fact she let me so close is precious to me. And even though I know how stupid this is—and I know, believe me—I can’t help but cling to her for as long as she’ll let me.

Even if it means not telling her the truth. Lying. Pretending I don’t want more from her, that I don’t get hard just by looking at her.

Jesus.

“Feeling better?” she asks, and I jerk my chin down in a nod.

Doesn’t matter anyway. She’s done all she could. Emptied and washed the bucket, cleaned me up, brought me water. Let me hold her hand. What more could I ask for?

“How’s your knee?” She glances down at my cotton-clad legs, as she stretches out on top of the comforter. “Did the doctor see it?”

“It’s fine.” Look at me. A pro liar. “The break is all healed up.”

“Since yesterday? You could barely walk.”

Yeah. There’s that. “The leg I broke is the other one.”

And what the fuck’s wrong with my mouth? It keeps spewing out things it shouldn’t.

“The other one? Then why…?” Her face twists into a cute little frown. Her small nose wrinkles as she tries to figure out the riddle after a night without sleep. “How did you hurt it? Was it when you fell? Oh crap, it was, wasn’t it. I’m so sorry!”

Fuck. “Dammit, no. That’s not on you.” I squeeze her hand. “It’s an old thing.”

As old as I feel on days like this. Old like the world.

“What happened?” The million dollar question, but before I can formulate a deflection, a white lie, her hand perches lightly on top of my bad knee, and even through my sweats and the knee brace, I can feel it.

I can always feel her. I’m sure I’d feel her presence in a fucking crowd in a fucking zombie apocalypse.

That’s how screwed I am when it comes to her. I’ve been aware of her ever since Cassie started bringing her along to Halo, the bar where we like to meet and shoot some pool in the evenings.

Haven’t been there in a long while.

And although she’s right here, holding my hand, she might as well be on the moon for the good it does me.

I can’t have her.

“Seth.” She pulls her hand and I let her go. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Let her go. “I hope you don’t think I’m too pushy. I… like you.” She blushes and my mouth goes dry. “You’re a nice guy.”

But not the one she wants. This accepting your fate thing is so much harder when I’m close to her.

“I was hoping we could be friends.” She’s looking at me, cautious and expectant and beautiful. She’s everything I want.

I need to stop wanting her.

It’s easier to stop breathing.

“We can be friends,” I say, the words like bitter drops on my tongue.

She smiles, then, and the bitterness fades. “Thank you. I don’t have many friends. I didn’t go to school near here, and the guys from dance school…” She scrunches up her nose again, and I love that. “Let’s just say they’re not interested in friendships.”

“Why not?”

“It’s very competitive, you know?” She looks at me, expecting me to understand, so I nod. Her eyes are bright. “And exhausting and takes up all our time. We can’t afford to spend time on anything else, and—”

The light in her eyes goes out.

Fuck, that’s right. She’s not a part of that anymore. Her lips tremble before she presses them together hard, refusing to cry, and if I wasn’t gone for her already, I’d have fallen for her right now.

She’s a fighter. I knew it.

“Shall we try this once more?” I ask, and she gives me a blank stare. “This sleeping thing. I’m seriously beat, and you look like you could use some rest, too. What do you say?”

Because we’re friends and all. Practically siblings, goddammit.

But when she sighs and lies back down beside me, trusting, warm and real, I don’t fucking care.

I mean, well played, fate. Well played. Okay, I give in. I’ll accept the pitiful scraps you throw my way.

And I’ll be damn grateful.

***

My knee is broken. The doctor explained it to me. Blunt-force injury. Broken ligaments. Broken meniscus. Broken everything.

Like I am. Curled up on my bunk bed in prison, I feel the pain radiating upward, right into my soul. Still don’t know how long I’ll be locked up this time, but it’s looking bad. I’m seventeen now, and it seems the state has decided I’m old enough to be tried as an adult. The lawyers aren’t optimistic.

No adult to take my side, support my case. Parents absent. My mother gone.

She’s dead. If she were alive, she’d have come back for me, called me. Visited me. Right?

Right?

The guards step come down the hallway, and I shiver, curl up tighter. I’ll get out of here. I won’t be here forever. Shane. I hope Shane is okay, but I know he’s not. His Native blood is easier to see than mine. Plus he looks younger than me. I hear stories circulating among the prisoners, and I know he’s living a nightmare.

Shane’s mine to protect. My only family. But there’s nothing I can do to help him.

Nothing’s okay. I’m not safe. This isn’t safe. The guard is coming closer and closer, and I don’t know if I can survive another night in this place.

Need to get out. Need to get up. Need to move. But I can’t. Can’t move. My knee burns. My heart hammers. A scream is building up in my throat.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! Let me out. Let me—

“Seth. Wake up.” Feather-light touches on my face, my hair. “It’s just a nightmare.”

Nightmare?

My eyes are blurry. I lift a hand to rub at them, and it’s shaking. My heartbeat is pounding in my skull, in my ears. It’s not the images that linger. It’s the feeling of helplessness, despair and terror—an acid taste in my mouth, a cold burn of fear that has my skin breaking into goosebumps.

Not a nightmare. Memories.

I’m not there. I’m not trapped. I didn’t stay in prison. The pain I feel is part of the memory. I can move. My knee isn’t broken anymore.

I’m not broken.

Repeating that to myself in case I forget, I cautiously twist onto my side on the bed and crack my eyes open. Light stabs through them, right to my brain, and I groan, throwing an arm over my face.

The mattress shifts and someone—Manon—pads quietly around the bed to stand in front of me, a beautiful shadow against the gray light of dawn seeping through the blinds.

“Want to talk about it?” she whispers and sits down on the bed beside me.

“About what?”

“Your dream. You kept saying you had to get out. And you were searching for someone.” She hesitates. “You seemed to be in pain.”

Dammit, she seems as shaken as I feel. I scared her, that much is clear, and I wonder what I looked like, thrashing about on the bed, muttering things. Like a crazy person, I guess.

Awesome.

“You said it. Just a nightmare. It’s over now.” I sit up and straighten my bad leg, flexing it just to make sure I’m right—that the pain I remember in my knee is only a pale ghost of the agony I’d felt back then.

Yeah. Bearable. Survivable.

“But…” She puts a hand on my ankle, and I jerk instinctively away. Too soon.

“Don’t, okay? Just don’t. I…”

My voice goes out, and my lungs are too small for breathing. I pant in the sudden quiet.

She pulls away, her face stricken. “Okay.”

I’m still shaking like a leaf. Not free of the memory yet, like I thought. My body remembers, taking longer to believe it’s over. It reacts as if I’m still there, in that bunk bed, my life gone to hell, my body beaten and battered, every touch causing me pain.

Even as I want to comfort her, repeat the lie, tell her I’m okay, I can’t. Not when I’m barely holding it together. I need a minute or two for the shudders to pass, for my heartbeat to slow.

But by then she’s standing up, fiddling with the tiny buckle of her narrow belt. “I should be going,” she says quietly.

I wince.

“Need to get home and change, then talk to my studies advisor,” she goes on.

Of course. She has other crap on her plate, better things to do than to be wiping vomit from my face and being shoved off when she tries to help me. She has a life. I’m only a temporary problem, an accident that belongs to the past.

What the fuck? Stop pitying yourself, Seffers, for chrissakes.

You knew all this before you jumped in. You knew this thing between you and her could never happen – even if she wanted you. Even if she didn’t have an almost boyfriend.

You don’t belong in a relationship. You’re an ex-con. You have a rap sheet. You don’t deserve her and aren’t what she needs.

I shake my head as she sits on the rickety chair by the door to put on her shoes. Slim ankles, fine hands, slender fingers tightening the old-fashioned straps. Low heels, a flash of silver, and then a curl of dark hair falling over her eyes.

Beautiful.

“Don’t look,” she whispers.

“Why?” She’s right, I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop – looking, wanting her.

“My feet. They’re ugly. Blistered and callused from the pointes I use.” She winces. “Used.”

“You look fine to me,” I whisper.

Her eyes flash to me, vulnerable and confused. Then she sighs and gets up, her expression closing off, going distant. “Asher texted me to say Rafe will be here soon.”

“Okay.”

Something feels off, but I don’t know what. Is she still upset?

“Will you be all right?” she asks.

Yeah, I will be. I need to say something, keep her here just a while longer so that I can gather my scattered wits and apologize.

But she’s gone long before I can, before I draw enough air to speak, and by then it’s too fucking late.

Story of my life.

***

Rafe is all business when he arrives. He makes me get up and shower, and frowns when I limp on my way to the bathroom.

“Fucking leg still bothering you? Damn, man, are you going to PT and doing the exercises I showed you? You should be better by now.”

“I’m fine,” I snap, out of sorts since Manon left, a sourness in my mouth that has nothing to do with the concussion and more to do with her absence from my side. The fact I upset her. And the nightmare.

I think back at it. Haven’t had so many of those this past year. Not until now. Christ, that call, the knowledge my mom is alive, rattled me real good.

“Seth, dammit. Watch it.”

His words register a second after pain shoots up my hip from having hit the handle of the open door.

Ow, fuck. Just what I need.

“Jesus, man.” Rafe guides me to the toilet, slams the seat closed and pushes me down on top. “What’s going on? Spit it out.”

“Nothing’s fucking wrong.”

“I said, spit it out,” Rafe leans over me, crowding me in with his large frame, “or I’ll call Zane, and you know how he gets. He’ll be here in five minutes to chew you out over the fact you didn’t tell us your leg still hurts. And then there’s the accident you didn’t think to mention, and the funk you’re walking around in.”

Fuck me. “I’m telling you, I’m fine.”

“Let me see.” And before I can protest and shove him away, he’s pushing up my sweat pants leg, baring my knee brace. His eyes widen. “A brace? When the hell did this happen? Last I knew the break was higher up—”

I do shove him before he catches on, but yeah, you guessed it—too late again.

“This isn’t the leg you broke,” he says and shoves me right back, so that my back hits the toilet tank, and I hiss out a breath. Now my bruises from the other night have bruises.

Dammit. “Rafe—”

“I said.” He pokes a finger into my chest, and his jaw clenches hard. “Start talking.”

Fuck. “Old injury, okay? Flared up when I broke my leg and started using this leg more. Then the change in the weather didn’t help.”

“Knee injury? What kind? And how old?”

Of course Rafe would ask. He can figure this out. He knows. He’s the one training us every Tuesday night at the neighborhood gym. I used to go before I had the shit beaten out of me—twice—and finally ended up with my leg in a cast.

I open my mouth to tell him the truth and to hell with it all, but the nightmare returns full force, sucking the air from my lungs, and ice washes down my back. A violent shudder rocks me, and Rafe grabs my shoulder.

“Look at me, Seth. Hey, l said look at me.” He’s, like, an inch from my face, our noses almost touching. “What the fuck happened to you today?”

“Got a call this morning,” I whisper. “From my mom’s lawyer.”

Silence stretches between us. Long seconds pass.

Then Rafe draws back. “Fuck. I thought she was dead.”

Yeah. Me too. And worst of all? It was easier then.

“Is she here? In Wisconsin?”

“No. She’s… in Indiana. In jail.” My heart is hammering again, so hard I think I might break a rib.

“Okay.” Rafe rubs a hand over his face, then rakes it through his hair. “It’ll be okay, buddy. Just take it easy.”

I wish that were true.