A Matter of Heart (45 page)

“The same thing happened to
Hannah too, after Joey died.” He looks lost as he talks about the people he
considered to be his uncle and aunt. “You’re asking me to trust your decision,
and I’m going to. But know it’s going against everything in me right now.” He
moves closer, takes both hands in his. “I can’t lose you, Chloe.”

I raise our enjoined hands
and kiss the backs of his knuckles. “You won’t. We’re forever, remember?”

When
we kiss, all of the passion from the last twenty-four hours is missing.
Instead, there is quiet desperation. And a hope, on both of our behalves, that
we made the right choice.

The roller coaster of guilt
and love that defines my life continues at a dizzying rate.

The day after Zthane briefed
Jonah, I catch him and Kellan in an argument. I’ve just come back from running
errands when I hear them yelling in Jonah’s side of the apartments.

“What the fuck is wrong with
you, Jonah?”

I flinch and hang back, far
enough that neither of them can feel the pull toward me. It’s so rare to hear
them argue out loud to one another that I can’t help but morbidly listen.

“The better question is,
what the fuck is wrong with you, Kellan? Going off on Zthane in front of
everyone?”

“Are you serious? You want
me to apologize for
that
? Please. I don’t give two shits what people
might have thought about me arguing against Chloe’s involvement in this
mission. You though—you basically just gave her the go-ahead to get herself
killed.”

Jonah is beyond furious.
“Did you ever stop to recognize that forbidding Chloe is pretty much a surefire
way of getting her to rebel? Do you not remember what happened when she took
off to San Francisco? She walled us up in a building!”

Silence.

“Jesus! NO. No, I am NOT
OKAY WITH ANY OF THIS,” Jonah yells in response to whatever Kellan just said in
their heads.

My stomach twists. Burns. I
grapple for the ibuprofen in my purse.

“If anything happens to her,
I swear to all the gods, Jonah. . .” Something is hit. A wall maybe?

A pause precedes, “Thanks
for the heads up. But, frankly, Kellan, this isn’t any of your business. This
is between her and me. So butt the hell out.”

“Fuck you, Jonah.”

I have to lean back against
the wall to steady myself. I swallow a handful of pills, but my stomach only
churns more.

“Yeah? Right back at you.
Stop acting like you’re—”

“Like I’m what? Her
Connection
?”
Kellan laughs bitterly. “Sorry, bro. No can do, but not for lack of trying. But
the way I figure it, I’ve got every right to act the way I do and you’ve got
nothing to say about that.” He pauses, then delivers the next blow with deft
precision. “It eats you alive that she loves me. You like to pretend like you
hold her heart, but you don’t. At least, not exclusively. Sucks, doesn’t it,
J?”

Oh, gods. I’m seriously
going to throw up. My stomach is on fire. I double over and hug myself. They’re
fighting. Again. Because of me.

“Yeah, but the thing is—she
picked
me
.” Jonah’s tone is just as cruel as Kellan’s. “She’s living
with
me
. She’s marrying
me
. And there’s not a damn thing you can
do about it.”

Kellan’s response sends
another round of pain shooting through my stomach. “You think? Because I’m
pretty sure that’s not true, J.”

OH GODS. What if he tells
Jonah about Costa Rica? I can’t—I can’t—

I reach behind me and slam
my door shut.

The arguing stops. Just like
I knew it would. I can only hope it didn’t continue in their heads.

I’ve sat on the porch of the
small, rented house twenty minutes away from where I grew up for the bulk of
two days now, bored out of my skull. I’ve read a book and a half, three fashion
magazines, completed six crosswords (okay, so they were easy ones, BUT STILL),
and created several new playlists on my iPod.

There have been zilch Elder
sightings.

Whatcha doing right now?
I
text to Jonah.

Watching you.

I roll my eyes.
Seriously.
Whatcha doing?

I AM serious. You think I’m
going to let you out of my sight for 1 minute when you’re outside?

It’s endearing how Jonah
refuses to ever shorten the word
you
when he texts. I scan the street,
searching for the house he’s most likely in. I don’t know for sure which one it
is, though. Zthane has the team rotating between houses and locations within a
one-mile radius every so many hours. Jonah insisted on always being within a
block of me, though.

So did Kellan, although I’d
lay down money the two of them aren’t in the same location, especially after
what happened when we first got back to California.

It went like this:

Kiah was hugging me hello
when she noticed his ring. She squealed and made a huge production of it.
Several other Guard came over and offered congratulations, as it’s a pretty
well-known fact that if a Connected couple finds their rings, it’s the same as
a marriage, certificate and ceremony or not.

But the thing is, apparently
during their argument a couple days prior, Jonah never got around to telling
Kellan about the ring. And I’ll freely admit to being a huge chicken and not
telling him either, because 1) I couldn’t bear to hurt him, and 2) I’m selfish
in the long run and still think about what went down between us in Costa Rica
far too often, which is all sorts of wrong. Because I’m deliriously happy with
Jonah right now, and things are good, and bloody hell, WHY CAN’T I STOP
THINKING ABOUT KELLAN?

There was this Artic stare
down between the twins once everyone moved on which triggered my trusty friend
Guilt to rear its blackened, rotting head once more.

While Jonah was going over
final details with Zthane and Karl, Kellan found me alone, in pretense of sweeping
the house.

He didn’t say anything at
first. Not, “So, I see you guys have matching rings now.” Or, “You’ve torn my
heart out again.” Or even, “I hate you, why do we have to be Connected?”

He just kissed me. Backed me
up against a wall and kissed me like he did in Costa Rica, like we’re in the
Olympics for kissing and want the gold. And then he finally spoke to me, the
first time since our argument. He said, “That ring means nothing. Not to me,
not anymore.”

I was speechless.

“Please be careful?”

I assumed he was talking
about the mission, but he could have been referring to how I hold the fate of
three hearts in my hands. All I could do was nod. And then he left.

I didn’t tell Jonah. Because
how could I?

I’d
wanted that kiss just as much as Kellan.

I’ve just crawled into a
very cold, dusty bed when I hear what sounds like the back door slam. I freeze,
the covers halfway up my body, my ears focused on every noise I can discern in
the house.

Silence. Must’ve been my
imagination.

I settle down and clap off
the light (yes, the rental has its lights hooked up where you can clap to turn
them on and off; I kind of want this back home now, to be honest), but not ten
seconds after my head hits the pillow, something clatters in the kitchen.

It must be one of the Guard.

They’ve kept their distance
for the past two days, concerned the Elders would stay away if they knew a team
was present. But I get the feeling that every so often, someone sneaks inside
to check out the area, especially when I’m sleeping.

I call out, “Hello?” But no
one answers.

I slip out of bed and tiptoe
to the kitchen. The house gives me the creeps at night, since I’m still not too
familiar with it. “Who’s here?”

No answer, which makes
sense, as there’s no one in the kitchen. The back door is open, though. The
screen swings silently back and forth, unlatched.

I peek my head outside,
scanning the area. It’s a decent neighborhood; I didn’t think I’d have to fear
home invasion during my stay. Even still, I create an overly large butcher
knife and tiptoe towards the living room.

No one.

Nothing in the bathroom. The
spare bedroom.

I’m in the dining room,
tapping the knife against the palm of my hand when I hear another crash, this
time from the master bedroom. My heart stops.

I force the word out of my mouth,
like some kind of fool with a death wish from a horror film. “Hello?”

And
then I’m on my back, and all the air is gone from my lungs, rendering me
speechless.

HOLY MOTHER-EFFING
HELL
.

My wrist snaps loudly as the
silent Elder’s whip-like tail cracks against it. The knife I’d been holding
goes skittering across the hardwood floors. Another strike hits my knee with
deft precision.

My mind fragments into
shards of black, searing pain.

Move
,
Caleb shouts at me.
Get up and MOVE
.

I manage to twist to my side,
even though my left kneecap collapses in on itself when pressed against the
floor. All the air in my lungs whooshes out again, but a few well-placed orders
from Caleb gets me to roll once more before the Elder can strike me again. The
floor is not so lucky; the wood splinters where my sternum once lay.

I focus on the table long
enough to hurl it at the Elder. It emits a low-pitched shriek, so unlike all of
the others I’ve ever heard from these things, and ends up catching the table. I
rip the hutch off the wall and shove it at the monster, too.

Black smoke stretches thin
and regroups enough to envelope and crush the hutch, absorbing the sound like a
black hole or something. I try to push myself forward, but my wrist refuses to
hold my weight. My chin hits the floor; warm blood gushes down my neck.

MOVE
,
Caleb orders.

But I can’t. Instead, I slam
a barricade down in between me and the Elder, one that stretches wall-to-wall,
ceiling to floor. Then I slam one down on what I assume to be the other side of
the Elder, boxing it in. Finally, I slam a third down on the other side of me,
so I’m boxed into the house, too. The Elder beats against our shared wall,
reminding me of the relentless pounding on the cave months before. Still, it
refuses to scream.

Why isn’t it screaming? They
always scream. It’s their thing. Screaming.

It’s like I’m underwater. My
ears buzz.

FOCUS
,
Caleb roars in my mind.

I can’t, I can’t, good lords
above, I am in paaaaiiiinnnnn.

It’s not howling because it
doesn’t want the Guard to know it’s here,
Caleb snaps.
You
need to LET THEM KNOW.

I fumble for my phone. It’s
not in my pocket. I’m in my pajamas; the phone must be in my room. My room is
close to where the Elder is. Gods my head aches. I can’t focus. It’s hitting
the wall a lot. I’m blocked in a small swath of space in between the living
room and dining room.

I need to call Jonah.

It takes me three tries to
get a phone right. The first one has no buttons. How can I dial with no
buttons? The second has no way to talk. It’s all buttons, no talkie parts. The
third, please gods let this phone work.

My wrist is broken. I can’t
dial with those fingers. I lay the phone on my stomach and pray that I’m
getting the number right, but I’m not right handed. My fingers are stubby
against the buttons. I need one of those old people phones that have big
buttons. I should make one of those.

FOCUS
.

Someone named Jilly who
sounds like she’s six answers. She asks if I want to talk to her mom. I think I
say no, but Jilly screams when I moan and hangs up on me. My ears feel like
they’re bleeding now, too. Buzzin’ and bleedin’.

I try again. Another wrong
number. I gurgle out an apology and then try again. And again. Why can’t I get
this right? All I want to do is sleep. I hurt. I hurt.