Call to Arms (War of the Fae: Book 2) (45 page)

The rest of the meal finished without incident.
 
I was fuming over the death of my cat, fluctuating between being sad and pissed, while Chase occupied himself with eating three pieces of apple pie loaded down with ice cream.
 
My mom chattered on and on about work, neighbors,
the
garden – a bunch of garbage I couldn’t care less about.
 
Empty words filling up empty space.
 

I finished my pie and stood up.
 
“Listen, Mom, do you mind if Chase and I spent the night here?”

She looked at Rick expectantly.

I refused to follow her gaze.
 
“I didn’t ask
him
, Mom; I asked
you
.
 
Can we stay or not?”

“Well, Jayne, it’s Rick’s house too.”

“Bullshit,
it’s his house!
 
This is
your
house, you got it in the divorce settlement.”

“Well, he’s on the deed too ... now that ... well, honey, we have some wonderful news, actually!”
 
She looked at me with bright, shining eyes and a quavering smile.
 
“We got married while you were gone!
 
Rick is your new step-father!”

I pushed back from the table so fast the chair went flying out behind me.
 
I ran to the bathroom just in time to vomit my entire dinner and dessert into the toilet.
 

A little while later Chase came to the door, pushing it open and leaning against the doorframe.
 
I was sitting on the cold tile floor, resting my head on the closed toilet lid.
 
I didn’t even want to look at him.
 
I was exhausted from the barfing and then the crying that had followed.
 
I just could not fathom how a mother could marry her daughter’s molester.
 
She had to know what had happened; she wasn’t that clueless.
 
This whole situation was just completely unreal to me.
 
I felt like I was trapped in one of my own nightmares, unable to get out.

“Hey.
 
You okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

“No.”

“Good.
 
Thanks.”

“Rick said I can’t stay, but you can.”

“I’m not staying here without you.”

“I won’t
let
you stay without me.
 
I’ll sneak in and stay in your room with you after they go to sleep.”

I looked up.
 
“Really?”

“Really.”

In that moment, I loved him.
 
He was such a strong, steady presence.
 
I felt totally safe looking at him, and that was completely awesome.
 
To feel safe when just now I had felt so vulnerable and violated was exactly what I needed.
 

“Maybe I should just go back to the hotel.”

“No.
 
You need to make contact with Tony tonight if you can.”

I sighed.
 
“You’re right.
 
Fine.
 
I’ll do it.
 
I’ll stay here in hell for one night.”

I pulled the phone out of my back pocket and texted Tony.

‘LET’S MEET.
 
10? UR HOUSE?’

A minute later, while I was washing my mouth out with some mouthwash I’d found under the sink, he responded.

‘CAN’T. OUT LATE WTH B. C U TMRROW?’

“Fuck.
 
He says he’s
gonna
be out late with Ben.
 
He wants to meet tomorrow.”

“Tell him okay.
 
Later tonight, we’ll break into his room and talk with him there.”

Finally.
 
Some sunshine in my life.
 
“Excellent plan, my daemon friend.”
 
I reached up and absently stroked his bicep while I texted Tony back with one hand.
 
‘K.
 
TTYL’

I nudged Chase on the arm when I finished.
 
“Come on.
 
Let’s go to my room.”

I walked to the kitchen where my mom was washing the dishes
;
 
I
was trying like hell to keep the bitterness from my voice.
 
“I’m going to go show Chase my room, okay?”

My mom looked nervous, “Um ... I don’t know ... Rick said ... ”

Rather than blow up, I tried to speak calmly to her.
 
“Come on, Mom.
 
I’m just going to hang out with him a little before he leaves.
 
It’s no big deal.”

She sighed.
 
“Okay.
 
But only for a few minutes.”

I didn’t hang around to hear anything else.
 
“Come on,” I said to Chase, turning to head up the stairs.

We both went up to my room.
 
I could hear the shower running in my mom’s room.
 
I could have told that asshole – no amount of water was going to wash away his kind of dirt.

“So, this is where it all began,” I said, opening the door to my room and stepping inside.

Chase followed me in, looking around.
 
He walked over to my desk and started picking things up, looking at them.

I shut the door behind him.

He had a picture of Tony and me in his hand.
 
We had taken this one when we went to the school’s Halloween dance just last year.
 
I had gone as a tiger and he had gone as a zombie.
 
We were terrible at making costumes.
 
I had put the self-portrait picture in a frame and wrote the year on the edge of it.

“Yeah, I know.
 
Weak-ass costumes, right?”

“Maybe.
 
But I was looking at this other guy in the picture – in the background.
 
It looks like Ben.”

I walked over and grabbed the frame from him.
 
“Let me see that.”
 
Standing behind Tony and me, looking at the back of my head, was a guy who looked exactly like Ben.
 
I mean,
exactly
exactly.
 
He was dressed all in black.
 

“What the hell?”

“I thought you said he was new here.”

“He is.
 
He didn’t go to our school before.
 
Trust me, I would have known about him.
 
He’s too hot to be unpopular.
 
Plus, Tony said in his emails that the guy was new and had just moved in.”

“Well, what was he doing at your Halloween dance last year?”

“I have no friggin’ idea.
 
Maybe he came with someone else?”

“What, trolling for fae?”

That was a chilling idea – to think that
I could have been recruited by the Dark Fae before meeting up with Jared
.
 
Now Rick the Dick’s dirty hands were pissing me off all over again.
 
I wanted nothing to do with that silver lining bullshit, so long as it involved him.

“That’s messed up.
 
That means I came seriously close to getting pulled over to the dark side.”

“That means we need to get to Tony quick.
 
If Ben knows now that you’re Light Fae, and that you’re here to get Tony back, he’s going to make his move soon.”

I looked at Chase, now thoroughly pissed.
 
“Do you
really
think you’re helping this situation?
 
By making me panic even more?”

 
Chase took me by the upper arms and stared me in the face.
 
“Jayne.
 
Relax
.
 
We’ve got this.
 
You saw Tony today and he was fine.
 
Tonight we’re going to go talk some sense into him, and tomorrow we’ll get him outta here, okay?”

He kept staring me in the eyes and somehow it managed to strip me of all my defenses.
 
One second I was
all tough
and ready to kick someone’s ass, and the next I was getting all teary-eyed.
 
Being in my mom’s house was seriously messing with my head.
 
Correction – being in my mom’s and my molester’s house.
  
How fucked up was that?

Chase pulled me into his arms, rubbing my back, saying nothing.

I stood there for a few seconds just breathing and enjoying the feeling of being comforted by his big, strong, warm body.
 

“Is this in your daemon handbook?
 
How to calm down a crazy fae girl?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.
 
I’m just lucky I got a cute one to protect.”

I giggled a little, picturing Chase hugging a guy like Spike and patting his back.
 
“I’m not cute.”

“Yes, you are.
 
Very cute.”

Did Chase just tell me I’m very cute?

I sighed and leaned against him more.
 
It was like I was melting into him a little, and
it felt
good.

His back rub got a little more wide-ranging and his hand pressed a bit firmer.
 
I could feel more of his muscles against my chest and stomach.
 
I was getting warm, and not just from our combined body heat.
 

My head started to spin with questions.
 
Just what exactly was happening?
 
Was
I getting turned on by Chase
?
 
Did I like him that way?
 
Could
I like him that way?
 
Did he like me?

I felt his head drop down towards my neck, his breath tickling me as he exhaled and then inhaled deeply.
 
I wrapped my arms around his waist, tentatively touching the small of his back.
 
I could feel the muscles on either side of his spine, like big, thick ropes that moved as his arms continued to rub my back slowly, languidly.

Suddenly there was a bang on the door and we jumped apart, my face instantly going red as I realized what we had been doing ... or were about to do.
 
Holy hotness.
 
Holy
double
hotness.

The door swung open to reveal Rick the Dick.
 
“Your boyfriend needs to leave now.”

Chase leaned towards me, giving me a quick, outwardly casual kiss on the lips.
 
“See you tomorrow morning.”
 
Then he walked out, pushing past Rick.
 

Rick stood there in my doorway for a second, sneering at me.
 
Then he walked away.
 

I kicked my door shut and locked it, turning to fall down on my bed.
 

He kissed me.
 
I can’t believe he actually kissed me.
 
Chase!

He’d barely touched my lips, but
wow
, I was still feeling it.
 
Chase?
 
This one
kinda
took me by surprise.
 
All this time I’d been looking at Chase as ... well ... just Chase.
 
The quiet guy.
 
The guy who was only half there most of the time.
 
Now suddenly he’s my big daemon hugger, kisser guy.
 

I got up and went over to my window, lifting it up.
 
I watched Chase’s form recede as he went to join up with the others.
 
I knew he would come get me when it was time to go to Tony’s.
 
In the meantime, I was going to moon over that kiss and figure out what the hell I was going to say to Tony to convince him to come back with me, before it was really too late.

I left the window open so Tim could get in.
 
Around eleven he came flying up and stood on the windowsill.

“Rapunzel!
 
Time to go!
 
Your chariot awaits!”

“I think you’re mixing up your fairy tales,” I said wryly, as I sat up and put my shoes on.
 
“Where does a pixie learn about fairy tales, anyway?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what I know about the human world,” Tim said mysteriously.

One of these days I was going to get into that tiny head of his and find out all his secrets.
 
He has a lot of them, I’m pretty sure.

“So what’s the scoop, poop?”

“Well, Tony was out with Ben, but he just got back.
 
We watched Ben drop him off.
 
He’s in his room now, listening to music.”
 
Tim started dancing a jig on my desk.
 
“Time for us to stage our fae intervention.”
 
He was a little too excited about breaking into Tony’s house, talking with his happy-happy singsong voice.