Cataclysm (38 page)

“Some shit like that!? Some shit like that!?” Gabe squealed, appalled. “Let me tell you what’s some shit,” he said, rolling his head on his neck with his finger in Colton’s face.

“Guys!” Kerrigan yelled.

Gabe looked down at Millie. “Hush up, Mills.” And then he turned to look at her. “You too, Kerr. This is between me and him. It has nothing to do with you.”

Millie whined.

“Anyway,” he said with a roll of his eyes at the intrusion. “Like I was saying. What’s some shit is the fact that your brother wouldn’t even be alive, or
half
alive, if it weren’t for her. And then he goes and sticks his dicky-doo-I-see-you in her hello-how-ya-doin’ and impregnates her with a little crumb snatchin’ doo-doo geyser. Now she’s going to get so many stretch marks that her body will look like a roadmap of America’s great highways, her tits are going to sag so low she’ll have to roll them up and tuck them inside her bra, and her ass is going to spread so much she’ll need a wide-load beeper to alert everyone when she’s backing up. Her body will never be the same again, and it wasn’t that great to begin with. So he’s got some nerve trying to act like this is an
inconvenience
for him.”

“Oh yeah!?”

“Yeah!”

And then there was silence. Gabe and Colton both had their eyes narrowed at each other, their nostrils flared, poised to launch into another yelling fit the second the other one so much as flinched.

Colton lost the standoff. “I’m going to go find my brother!” He shoved the chair out of his way and stomped off with Millie trotting to the doorway and barking after him.

“You do that!” Gabe yelled after him. “And, FYI... you and Ralph are in the doghouse tonight!”

Millie turned around and whined at Gabe as if he knew what he was talking about. He sneezed, and then held his head high as he pranced off into the other room. Not that Millie actually had a doghouse, but apparently, he had been insulted by the comment nonetheless.

Kerrigan put her head in her hands. “I don’t want you two fighting over me and Dominic. Our relationship issues are our issues, not yours.”

“Oh, honey, don’t you worry about it,” Gabe said with a dismissive hand. He sat back down and pushed the plate of eggs back in front of her. “Eat. You need your protein, and I ain’t talking about the salty kind.”

The metallic screech of the screen door opening drew their attention to the doorway of the kitchen. There was a deep thud of boots on the wood floor in the hallway, and for a moment, Kerrigan’s heart leaped into her throat thinking that Dominic had decided to come back and talk it out. There was even a flip-flopping sound with it, which could have very well meant Colton was with him.

“What the hell is with all the yelling and screaming coming out of this house lately?” Sydney’s face was screwed up in confusion and aggravation when she stepped into the kitchen with a combat-boot-wearing Olivia behind her. “Last night there was all the crashing and shouting, and then this morning again with the yelling. Either something’s amiss in the land of bliss, or you guys decided to allow a taping of
Jerry Springer
to take place in your home.”

Kerrigan’s shoulders fell.

Olivia’s coal-lined eyes conveyed her perplexity as she thumbed in the direction of the front door. “We tried to ask Dominic and Colton, but they were apparently too busy wearing a path through the front lawn while grunting and growling, either at each other or something else. I couldn’t really tell. Are they arguing or something?”

Kerrigan sighed. “No, we are.”

“You and Gabe are arguing?” Sydney asked.

“No. Dominic and I are.”

“What? Why? You’re like the perfect couple.” Olivia’s ruffled black lace skirt swished as she crossed the room to join them. “Is it because of Drew?”

“What!? No! Why would you ask that?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “Seemed like the most logical reason. It’s what me and Ty and Syd and Talon argue about.”

“Livi, stop talking about him,” Sydney said with a shove to her shoulder. “You’ll get my girly bits all worked up again.” She and Olivia giggled, Gabe rolled his eyes, and Kerrigan just looked pathetically morose.

“Sit, bitches,” Gabe ordered the girls. “I’m about to tell y’all what went down, and you’re going to want to talk—” He stopped and held up his finger when Olivia opened her mouth to say something. “but this is your one and only warning not to interrupt me until I’ve told you the whole story. ‘Cause I’m just close enough to each one of you to reach out and touch a bitch. M’kay? M’kay.”

He launched into the whole story and didn’t stop until he was ready to hear Kerrigan’s explanation as to why she had kept the pregnancy from Dominic. When she explained the reason, Gabe and the girls nodded in understanding. They knew how protective Dominic was of her, and completely agreed she did the only thing she could do. It was just a shame he’d had to find out the way he had.

With that out of the way, the girls then started up their baby talk; not that it was anything Kerrigan could particularly get into when the father of the baby apparently couldn’t even stand to look at her. Her friends tried to cheer her up, but until she knew everything was okay between her and Dominic, nothing would be the same.

By dinner time, the rift between Kerrigan and Dominic had caused a ripple effect. Not only were they still not speaking, but there was a noticeable divide between every couple in the house, including their neighbors.

Olivia and Sydney had filled the twins in on what was amiss in the Cruz home, and they had taken it upon themselves to have a chat with Dominic who had spent the majority of the day in various stages of spookdom. Colton hadn’t left his brother’s ghostly side, determined to show Gabe that he could be just as dismissive and stubborn. In the end, after having gotten Dominic’s side of things from Colton, the twins had also chosen a side—Dominic’s side.

And because of that, their girlfriends decided it would be best for them to think about the poor choice they had made while snuggling with their sleeping bags in their surfboard hut on the beach. In answer to that, the twins high-fived each other in celebration of having more time to surf without the ball-and-chains nagging them to come home and spend “quality time” with them. Tyson also decided it would be a good idea for Olivia to run to the drugstore and fetch a home pregnancy test so he could make sure she wasn’t pregnant and keeping it from him as well. As if pregnancy was a contagious disease. That set Sydney off, and after having made a comment about Tyson hitting his head on the surfboard one too many times while wiping out, Talon suddenly grew a set of balls and told her to back off his twin, that she was always riding his ass about something, and that Ty’s brain wasn’t swollen, he just had a really big head—not his fault.

It was a complete and utter mess—a battle of the sexes. A couples’ therapist would have had a field day.

When Drew arrived, things didn’t get any better. Not only were the girls—sans Kerrigan—fawning all over him just to make their boyfriends jealous, but he brought news of what they had feared even though they had been preparing for it all along. Drew had found everyone in the backyard, just as they would have been on any other day, except this time they were behaving like there was an invisible line that separated the men from the women.

“I’ve just spent the day with Sinclair, and she’s given me the order,” he told Kerrigan.

“And what order was that?” Dominic reluctantly joined the two Guardians in his flickering state of manifestation. He was not about to be left out of something this important.

Drew was noticeably concerned over his appearance. “Tomorrow night is the full moon. She wants me to bring Colton to the graveyard at midnight.”

“So soon?” Kerrigan asked. “But, I’m not ready.”

“You’re not going anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” It was the first Dominic had talked to her since their argument the night before, and he hadn’t even bothered to look at her while doing it. Instead, he focused his attention on Drew, basically dismissing the fact that she was standing there even though technically, he was the one who wasn’t. She may as well have traded places with him and become the ghost herself.

“So, did you hope to fuck my girl while you had her in your sanctuary?”

Kerrigan had been about to refute Dominic’s absurd demand that she wasn’t going when she was caught off guard by his question. She and Drew snapped their heads toward him. “What?” they both asked at the same time.

The rest of the party in attendance stopped what they were doing and looked up.

“Did... you...
want
. . . to . . . fuck... her?” he enunciated. His voice was disembodied and seemed to float in the air around them. It would have been eerily spooky to the normal person, but they were all used to abnormality at that point.

Drew chuckled nervously. “What kind of question is that?”

“Obviously one that I need the answer to, or I wouldn’t have asked it.”

Kerrigan was appalled. “No! That’s asinine! How can you even ask something like that?”

He finally looked at her. “How do you know? There has to be some reason he took you into his sanctuary. If it wasn’t that, then what was it?”

“I took her there to show her a faster way to absorb my Light.” Drew thought it best to leave out the part about thinking that maybe she was his soul mate. It wasn’t important, and a completely moot at this point.

Dominic gave Kerrigan an accusing look. “So, it wasn’t the phone call with your mother that gave you the idea to take me to your sanctuary. It was the trip into
his
that gave you the idea that it could help me. So you lied about that, too.”

“Yes, he took me into his sanctuary, but it wasn’t until I talked to my mother that it dawned on me that pulling you into mine might have the same effect, that you would absorb my energy. I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you everything because I knew you’d get upset over something that wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Omission of the truth is the same thing, Kerrigan,” he said with an air of smugness. It was the same thing she had said to him when she first learned of his secret, and he was throwing her words back in her face. “And in case you missed the memo, it is a
very
big deal.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah, I get that.” Thunder rumbled overhead, and the sky darkened. “You know what? I’ve had about enough of your pity party of one. I only
delayed
telling you about the baby because I knew you’d stop me from helping you. Other than that, I haven’t done anything wrong, so you can go on claiming that’s the reason you’re acting like a bastard all you want, but everyone here knows the truth, including you.”

“And that is?”

“You don’t want this baby.”

“I never said that I don’t want the baby.” Dominic defended himself, but the tone of his voice gave no indication of his true feelings. Probably because he wasn’t sure of them himself.

“You didn’t say that you do either.” She had him there.

Getting no reply to the contrary, she turned to Drew, who had backed up to allow them some space. He was fascinated with the sudden change in weather, although he knew exactly what had caused it, just like she did. And then the rain fell in fat dollops.

“Drew, I will see you tomorrow night. Syd, I could really use a ride, if you don’t mind.”

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Dominic asked.

“I
know
I’m going to see Lucy,” she said with much attitude. “If you’ll recall, she said if we ever needed her help to come see her, and the way I see it, we need her more than ever right now. Maybe she knows how I can channel all this energy without passing out.” She walked past them. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, and even if you won’t, I don’t care... I’m in a hurry. Her shop is about to close, and I’d like to catch her before she heads home for the evening.”

“I’m coming, too.” Olivia quick-stepped it to catch up with them.

Gabe fell in line. “Y’all ain’t leaving me here with these assholes.”

Kerrigan never looked back as she walked to the Lady Bug parked in Sydney and Olivia’s driveway. But once she was out of sight, tucked away in the relative seclusion of the car with only her friends surrounding her, the tears fell. Outside the car, the clouds poured buckets of rain, and the wind howled a sad song to match the sorrow in her heart.