Hold Me Like a Breath (29 page)

The first drops of rain hit us when we were still four blocks away. I felt them, but was paying far more attention to my thoughts than the weather. I should invite him in. I should let him wait out the storm with me.

That was polite.

But he was eighteen, on his walkabout or whatever. Going to college in the fall.

I was seventeen and felt like a child. I spent most nights longing for my parents and wishing I'd packed my teddy bear.

If he were in my apartment—with no parents or interruptions—anything could happen. I mean, I could
let
anything happen. Or
choose
it—that was probably the most appropriate word.

But—I needed to tell him. If not everything, I needed to show him the birds'-tracks tickling bruises, the blotches from today's brushes against elbows and exhibit cases. Explain the dark lines on the backs of my hands, one of which he was currently lifting to his lips. “This looks much worse than it did yesterday. How hard did you hit the wall? I'm sorry.”

I just smiled and shrugged, but I'd have to tell him to be careful with me and explain why. It wasn't safe not to and it wasn't fair to either of us.

And maybe if he took that news well, I'd tell him more. Learn the answers to whether or not he'd have liked me if he'd met me as I was before: a dishwater blonde in pastel clothing trapped inside a gilded cage. And was I worth the risk once he found out
who I was, who my parents were, and how that all factored into my very uncertain future?

While I'd been consumed by internal debate, he'd been handing bills to a street vendor with thick eyebrows and a dark coat turned up at the collar. Char opened an umbrella, holding it more above my head than his own.

It was hot, sticky, standing so close, crowded by my thoughts and the humidity that the rain didn't seem to be breaking.

“I can't go back.” His voice was so quiet I wanted to shush the pattering of raindrops on the vinyl above our heads. “I thought I could do this—go home, go get the degree my father picked, live the life he's chosen for me. I appreciate the advantages he's given me and the sacrifices he's made, but …” His confessions sounded as if they were being ripped out one by one. His eyes were dull with pain.

I didn't dare say anything. Just curled my fingers over his on the umbrella handle and prayed he'd continue.

“He's never even considered the future I want—or how ill-suited I am to follow in his footsteps. Most people would be proud to have a son who wants to be a doctor. But it's not
his
plan for me, so he rejects it. My whole life he's been telling me everything I
am
is wrong because I'm not like him.”

“I'm sorry.” I wanted to say something more profound, prove I was listening, that I understood and meant so much more sympathy than seven letters could convey.

“I can't go back. And
you
. You're seventeen and on your own. You're figuring out how to live with your medical limitations.”

I stopped walking. Pulled my hand away from him. Felt the chill of raindrops down my collar as he continued forward before realizing I wasn't following and turned around with a confused look on his face.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

“This summer. You're here alone—so soon after being diagnosed with diabetes. If you can be brave like that … and I swore I'd take chances. I did
with you
—I never would've had the guts to go up to a girl like you—imagine if I hadn't? No! I need to find the courage to tell my dad what I want. Which is to stay here. I'll go to Columbia instead of Georgetown. I'll be a doctor. It's just that my father …, he—”

“Want to come in?” I asked. We were outside the building. I'd let myself get all the way to the door without having my keys in hand, a piece of dangerous laziness that would've earned lectures from any Ward. Even Garrett would call that unforgivable.

But it didn't matter. What mattered were the conversations we'd have once we climbed a few flights of stairs and shut out the world. When I listened to the rest of his plans and asked more about what had brought him to New York—what was the second lost opportunity that inspired his take-chances vow? What could I do to help?

When I told him who I was. When I told him what that meant. And that if he was staying in New York—and wanted to stay a part of my life—what that could mean for him and his safety.

He nodded.

I reached for the door handle, but it swung out to meet my hand. Followed by a pixie haircut on a tall, thin girl.

“There you are!”

I didn't know my neighbors. They were anonymous people with heads and eyes kept down when we passed each other in halls and stairs. They treated my greetings and attempts at conversation like they were alien and dangerous, responded in exhales and monotones.

I didn't know my neighbors, but I knew this girl.

“I've been waiting for you all morning,” she drawled in her Texan accent, coming out to stand on the step, and frowning up at the sky. “Come in, you're getting wet.”

Char had been lowering his umbrella when the door opened. I reached back and held it there, horizontal, blocking his face. He reacted to my movement with a stiffness of his own. “I didn't know you had company,” he said. “I should let you go.”

“Yeah,” I managed. The back of my throat itched with panic. I wanted to beg him to take me with him, keep me safe. Instead, I would just keep
him
safe—get him away.

I stepped around the umbrella, using it as a screen to grab a kiss, this one fierce. Fearful.

Char touched my cheek.

“I'll call you later,” I said.

He nodded. Kissed me again. So quickly he didn't notice my lips were trembling. “Good-bye,” he whispered.

Then he left, twirling away so he was just a boy beneath an umbrella disappearing down the block. And I was left alone with a face I recognized from Christmas cards.

I was weak with fear, with relief. No matter what happened next, Char was gone. Char was safe.

The girl cleared her throat. “Still waiting here. And those shoes are going to be ruined if you get them much wetter.”

“Hi, Maggie,” I said.

Magnolia Vickers pivoted and opened the door, holding it for me. I considered not going inside. Maybe I could run for it. Catch up with Char. Get away.

But every second I kept her here was a second he could get farther from us. I didn't want her to think of him, I didn't want her to remember I'd had a guy with me. If this was it—if it was not the Zhus, or Nolan, or Mr. Tanaka, but the Vickers, and this was
it
—I needed to know I'd saved Char. He was innocent, not a part of this lifestyle of blood and bodies and black market; he didn't deserve to die for me.

“There's this concept called “inside”; shall I demonstrate it for you?” She flitted in and out the door, stepping around and behind me with the grace of a long-legged bird. “Now let's see you try it.”

Her hands were up, like she might push me, prod me, damage me. I darted forward to avoid the bruises, through the doors, the second propped open with her purse.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Just a minute, we'll get to that. First”—she leaned close enough for me to smell her spicy perfume, tilted her head, whispered—“is cross-pollinating, like, a trend now? Just remember who started it.”

I'm sure this was some sort of riddle. Perhaps I was supposed to respond with a coded answer, provide some words that demonstrated I was in the know.

I was never in the know.

I was the most peripheral of people. Even in my own life. And even if the answer to that riddle would save me, no one had ever bothered to clue me in.

This knowledge slumped my shoulders, brought the weight of everything pressing down on me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Walk with me,” she said, tucking my hand over her arm. She squeezed it against her side—not quite bruising-tight, but the threat was there. Maggie had always been a voice that refused to be shouted down by the narrow-minded Family males. Not even the Ward brothers could tell her what to do.

And now she was towing me toward the stairs.

“The keys weren't where they should be.” Her voice was still that lilting, throaty song I remembered. “I assume you have them? And the one to the new lock?”

Everything was inverted again. The safe gone from my haven. How long had they been watching me? What else did they know? Char—

I'd been selfish to pretend I could have him; that he wasn't in danger every time he stood next to me. People willing to gun down my family would hardly stop and spare a rancher's son who got caught in the crossfire.

My steps felt heavy. I'd slowed, and Maggie tugged impatiently for me to keep up. On the fourth floor she knocked the rounded toe of her black lace-up boots against the door. It left a scuff on its surface.

“The keys?” she prompted, releasing my hand to cross her arms.

I dug them out of the bottom of my purse. Sheer carelessness. A testament to how dangerous it had been to participate in the fairy tale I'd been playing with Char. My keys should've been in my hand long before I approached the building. I should have been more aware. Not of his kisses or how good he smelled, but of the girl standing in my vestibule watching my approach. I should have seen her first and circled around, circled away.

I squeezed my fingers around the keys. What would Carter have done in this situation? What would Garrett? Not the Garrett who'd asked to kiss me a lifetime ago—I couldn't picture him clearly anymore—but the Garrett who wore a gun, shot tires, fought back.

They'd say going in that apartment meant never coming out again. They wouldn't go down without a struggle.

I pulled my arm back and threw the keys—sending them arching up and onto the steps above us, then I spun to flee.

Maggie was already blocking my path, a wry smile on her lips. “Really? Is that the best you can do? Don't disappoint me. Your brother spoke so highly of you, I don't like thinking he was wrong.”

Carter. When had she spoken to him?
How
had she extracted information?

“Let's go get the keys,” she said evenly, circling her hand back around my elbow. “Then we'll go in the apartment, have a seat, and you can tell me what you've been up to for the past few weeks and how you ended up with a lovely piece of rival on your arm.”

“Lovely piece of rival” was a rather appropriate way for her to describe herself. But the Vickers hadn't been our rivals. They hadn't ever been our rivals. The least contentious of the inter-Family relationships had been between my father and hers. When had that changed? Why?

“I don't want anything to do with all of this.” I held my hands up, signifying my lack of weapon with my empty palms.

“That's sort of disappointing, Pen. I was really hoping you were more than a pretty-faced puppet.” She dragged me up the stairs. This grip would leave a mark. “Actually, it's more than
disappointing
. It's disappointing our mothers let themselves be just painted figureheads. It's downright unacceptable you'd consider playing that role too.”

She may be here to kill me, to make a clean sweep of the
Landlows, but I wasn't going to make it easy for her. She bent to snag the keys, and I wrenched my arm out of her grip.

“Carter always said you were nothing but trouble and you were going to get someone killed … I guess he was right.”

The keys dropped from her fingers, the animation dropped from her face, leaving behind something that looked like it might have been pain.

Maybe.

It was hard to tell because I'd taken the opportunity to push past her and run down the stairs.

A couple seconds of surprise bought me a few stairs. But not many. Not enough.

Maggie caught up before I'd hit the third floor. “Do not make me hurt you, Penelope,” she warned. “We're going in that apartment, and we're going to talk. I'd rather you be focused on
me
and not on the bruises I've given you while pushing you through the door.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“That's okay—you can
listen
. I have plenty to say to you. I've got all sorts of things Carter made me promise to tell you, and I've got questions. So many questions. Like, why didn't you call me sooner? How could you go to the Zhus and not me? And why did you add another lock on our apartment?”

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a second set of keys.
Two of them. Banded with the same colored rings as the ones Carter left behind.

“
Our
apartment?” I asked.

“Pen.” She sighed in exasperation. “Don't even tell me you thought Carter painted a room purple and picked out those curtains.”

“You're not here to kill me?”

She laughed. Maggie had always had the best laugh. It was loud and carefree, wild and throaty. I couldn't imagine ever feeling uninhibited enough to make a noise like that.

“I'll be lucky if your brother doesn't haunt me for that mark on your arm …” Her laughter choked to a halt, her gaze dropped to the keys in her hand. Her voice was quieter when she raised serious eyes to my face. “I wish he'd haunt me. I wish I could see him again.”

Her implications made me narrow my eyes. Whatever game she was playing, I wasn't going to participate. “What do you want from me?”

“Inside.” She herded me up the stairs, slid the right keys into the right locks, turned them, pushed the door open, and entered. She didn't wait to see if I followed, but crossed the room and claimed the big chair. Hooking her toes under the rim of the coffee table, she pulled it closer and propped her feet on top. Char's roses wobbled in their beer-glass vases but didn't fall over. Reaching behind her, she fished an afghan out of a woven basket. Pulling it up to her face, she inhaled with her whole body, arching forward, shoulders creeping upward.