Between (15 page)

"Fine," I mumble.

We sprint across the car park
toward Alek’s car and climb inside. Alek starts the engine and turns the heating up high. I peel off my damp jacket and hold my hands in front of the air vents.

His half-answer plays on my mind.
"Why do you hate Reapers?"

He scrunches his nose and I’m unsure if he’ll answer. "Two reasons - they took the person I loved and left me behind in this mess."

Tears spring behind my eyes, and I want to reach out to touch his face. The same as they did to me. Finn did to me.

Eyes darkening slightly,
Alek leans and brushes a wet strand from my face. My face heats at the exact point his fingertips touch. "It’s weird to have met another me."

"I’m not you."

"We’re two of a kind, in more ways than one." He wipes a stray raindrop from my cheek. "Who did you lose?"

"My best friend. Sometimes
, I feel guilty he died and I survived, but now I’m not so sure." I shift in my seat. "This isn’t a real life, is it? Maybe I should let Finn do whatever he needs?"

Alek
stiffens, stares ahead and I wait for him to drive. "You don’t want to go where Finn needs to send you."

"What do you mean?"

Alek cups my cheek and drags his thumb against my lips, hitching my breath and fuzzing out the question I’m asking. He
does
know. "Like I said, it’s weird I met another me, and someone stronger." As his lips hover close to mine, I shift my head back and look at him.

"Are you going to take my energy?"

"I said stronger; I can’t hurt you. I want you around because you're like me. I’ll fight him - them - to keep you, so I don’t have to be on my own anymore. I’ve waited more years than you can imagine."

"
There are others, though?" I say, my voice a whisper, pulled into the seduction of his words and the flowing power from his fingers on my face.

"Others, yeah
, but not many. Lizzie says she’s only met one other."

I don’t understand all his words, can't wait for explanations because all I want at this very moment is for him to hold me. I wind my fingers into his damp hair and lock my mouth on his.
Alek responds with a hard kiss, flaring my body to life and the energy flows. I don’t mean to but I want him, too; the moment our mouths connect, I want to consume him, have him part of me. Alek tightens his arms around me and his damp leather jacket squeaks as his arms move, crushing me into an embrace which takes away my breath. Our mouths move together; in my mind, there's bright white light and it's coming from Alek. I have to have this - him - everything. Alek's head hits the window as I climb onto his lap and hold his face tightly against mine.

Alek
slides his hand down my arm, taking my hand is his damp palm. I jolt at the sensation and let his head go. I grip his hand, not wanting to let go of the power. I feel so alive, high. The rain coming down outside is beautiful. Rainbows are refracting in the drops sliding down the window. Where the rain was cold before, it now warms against my skin. I inhale; the leaves of autumn from outside of the car and Alek's scent are magnified a thousand times.

"Let go of my hand, Rose."

I look back at him, eyes wide, filling with the happiness flooding my system, even without his mouth on mine. Alek frowns at me, chewing on his mouth. "Let go. You don’t need it."

But I do. All of this.

Alek wrenches his hand from my grasp, and my shoulders sag at the loss of him. The rain in his hair from the run to the car drips onto his beautiful face, onto those full, kissable lips I crave to have on mine again. I part my own and lean back to him.

Eyes widening,
Alek turns his head. "Rose, don’t do this…"

"You started it
."

Alek
grabs my arms and shakes me. "Do you want to hurt me?"

I blink back to reality as I ground myself back into the damp girl sitting in an idling, warm car with a pale-faced man. What did I do to him?
Alek is pallid, lips almost white, and has a hand on the door. Is he about to run from me?

I giggle at the conceited, intimidating man suddenly nervous of me.
Alek frowns which makes me giggle more. This is awesome, feeling so alive and happy, the fog and pain from the accident wiped away.

"Last time
, you needed my energy to survive, Rose. This time you didn’t, and now look what’s happened."

"I feel amazing!"
And he could give me more
. My attempt to grab his head fails and Alek grabs my wrists, gripping them away from him.

"For fuck’s sake, Rose, stop it!"

"I can still feel the energy flowing where you’re holding me," I say and grin.

"
I’ll get out of this car and leave you!" he snaps. "You’ll fucking kill me!"

"But we’re already dead!" My giggling returns. I have an urge to climb out of the car and run around in the rain, to feel everything that’s dulled for so long.

"You’ll send me to the Void, Rose. Do you want that? Who will help you then?"

"Finn, maybe? Ooh! I know! Tom Jones could help me." I burst into song, singing ‘It’s Not Unusual’.

Alek’s horrified look grows. "You’re fucking high! Jesus, Rose."

I stop and put a hand over my mouth. Well,
I
thought it was funny. He throws open the car door and climbs out. I’m about to respond when he slams it closed.

Wow.

I climb out of my side, into the rain, and lean across the car roof. "Sorry, Alek."

"Will you stop touching me?" he replies gruffly.

I bite back another giggle. "Yes. I promise."

The rains runs from his curls and down his face, now paler then a few minutes ago. His dull eyes hit me with reality. I’ve hurt him. "
Alek… I didn’t realise what I was doing."

"
Doesn’t matter." He shivers against the weather. "I need to go home and hope there’s a fucking Shade in the house. And you need to get back in the car before somebody notices how strange you look."

"What do you mean?" My hands
; there’s a luminescence barely visible, but it’s there. "Am I glowing?"

"The humans won’t see how much
, but they will think you’ve got very strange-coloured hair."

I pull at a strand
to examine the white-gold shine. "Ooh, pretty." He looks at me sternly and I pout.

"Rose, just get in the car."

I climb into the car and pull on my seatbelt; the warmth of the air from the vents barely touches the heat flowing inside. Freezing me back out, Alek pushes the idling car into gear. As I sit with hot air blowing in my face, I stare straight ahead, watching the windscreen wipers that struggle with the rain still crashing down, and consider our weird relationship. A thought strikes me. Alek could’ve done the same to me, but didn’t. And he still could. Am I safe?

CHAPTER 14

Something feels wrong the moment I step into the house
, and I turn to Alek as he enters behind me. The gas fire roars in the corner but the breath mists in front of my mouth, and the warmth in my body from Alek’s kiss dissipates.

I look to
Alek, who closes the door and rubs his head. "What?"

"A Shade. Perfect, I can get back some of
the energy some chick stole from me." He smirks at me, and I’m relieved he’s forgiven me for my accidental attack.

"There’s one in the house?"

Alek shakes his head and walks slowly to the hallway, and then stands at the bottom of the stairs. Turning to me, he puts a finger to his lips. I pull a face and mouth ‘what’s going on?’ to him. Pushing the damp hair from his face, he kicks off his boots and disappears up the stairs. Mildly amused at the fact this is the first time I’ve heard him walk upstairs quietly, I shiver, the cold intensifying around me.

I peel off my wet coat and drape it over the back of the sofa before walking
toward the gas fire. The heat from the fire only reaches a few centimetres and when I hold my hands in front, the numb cold doesn’t leave. My damp hair cools against my neck; the icy sensation from the wet tendrils crawls down my back. I don’t want to keep my back to the expanse of the room behind, so I turn, half-expecting to come face to face with the red-haired girl. Although Alek said she’s fully dead now, I don't know what laws of the universe apply anymore. She could be back again.

To my relief, there’s
no one there, so I remain as close to the fire as I can without igniting and wait for Alek to return. A few minutes later, he reappears, still dressed in his damp clothes.

"I don’t know, it’s odd," he says as if to himself.

"What is?"

"You can feel the cold
, too, right?"

I point at myself. "Am I blue? Because I feel like I’m going blue." I shake as if to reinforce the point.

Alek smiles. "I meant the house. I'm sure there's a Shade here, unless it left recently and left the cold behind."

"Shade?"

"Yeah, and Lizzie isn’t here either. I hope nothing happened to her."

"So
, I can go and get changed then?" I ask.

Something stands between us in the room, besides the cold. Unspoken desire remains from the encounter in the car
, even though the high has left me. The memory of that triggers other memories of our kisses, touches.

"
Your eyes are your betrayer."

"What do you mean?"

"The first day you looked at me, I could see everything you thought about me, and it’s in your eyes now."

I close my eyes. "There. Now you can’t see."

A soft laugh escapes Alek and I open one eye. "Shit, I wish I had more energy right now," he says.

"Why?"

"You know why." Darkness circles his dull eyes; weakness, caused by me. "And there’s no point being all pink and virginal about this."

At the use of the word
, I inhale sharply. No, I’m not a virgin, but I’m not promiscuous. Alek slips so easily back into teasing me and it pisses me off. "I’m going to get changed."

"Good idea.
You’ll catch your death in those clothes." Again, the smug smirk and the clever connotation.

I
approach Alek and stand close enough for the spark to flicker between us. "Now I know what I can do to you; don’t you think you’d better be careful how you treat me?" I whisper, skin almost touching skin.

The power shift is reflected by the confusion and desire
in his expression. I hold back the urge to act on the growing intensity between us and move past him to the hallway.

"Only because I let you," he calls after me.

I make a soft sound of amusement as I climb the stairs, because I know his words are only half-true. Our encounter in the car demonstrates he’s not as in control of the situation – or me – as he would like.

The cool of the house increases as I climb the second flight of stairs to my room. My room is an icy box, so I grab my robe and a towel. The only solution to temperatures like this is a shower.

As the water washes over me, the power glowing through that I took from Alek intensifies with the tingling warmth of the water. I imagine him in the shower with me as the heat from the combination of water and lust flows into cold extremities. I remain under the pouring water for longer than usual, not looking forward to stepping out into the cool air.

I open the shower screen, grab my towelling robe and put it on before stepping out
straight into the face of a young guy.

"Holy fuck! Who are you?" I shout.

He says nothing. His hair is black and wet, plastered to his ears and forehead, and there’s mud smearing his bluish skin. The dull eyes looking back at me express nothing. He smiles slowly as he reaches forward, the skin ragged on his bleeding fingers. I stumble backward.

"
Alek!" I scream as the man pushes me against the wall.

The guy appraises me with what I can only presume is hunger as he yanks at my arms
; instinctively, I’ve crossed them over my chest, knowing what he wants. His cold hands hurt my cooling skin.

"Let me have some. You have so much," he whispers.

"No! Get away from me!"

Alek’s
footsteps climbing the stairs stir a tiny amount of relief. "Rose?"

"There’s one in here! A Shade!"

The door rattles but I locked it when I came in. The sound of something heavy hitting the door follows, then Alek swearing.

The guy ignores him and grabs my hair, slamming my head against the wall. Dazed, I stumble and reach an arm out to the sink. He seizes his opportunity and twists me around, throwing me to the floor.

Alek throws himself against the door a couple more times then stops. "I can’t get in! Rose, you’re stronger than the Shade!"