NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (21 page)

 
“I can’t,” he says firmly. “You’re
drunk.”

“I am,” I agree.
 
“Didn’t we already establish that?”

The room spins a bit, but then rights
itself, and I decide to take matters into my own hands.
 
I collide against him, my chest smashed
to his, as I kiss him.
 

I consume him, basically.
 

I kiss him hard, my need for him
overwhelming everything else.
 
His
mouth is hot and at first he hesitates, then he kisses me back, his tongue
plunging into my mouth.
 
Clumsily, I
run my hands down his chest, across his hips, and coming to a stop where his
hardness bulges against me.
 
My
fingers brush against him and he sucks in his breath, absorbing my gasp.
 
And then he yanks away.
 

“Jesus, Calla,” he bites out, his voice
harsh, his breathing ragged.
 
He holds me away as I try to wiggle
closer.
 
“Seriously.
 
I’m going to pour ice water on you.”

I freeze, suddenly terrified of
something.
 

“You don’t want me, do you?”
 

Dare looks at the ceiling, apparently
trying very hard to be patient.
 

Lifting my hand, he places it squarely
onto his lap, where he strains against the crotch of his jeans, throbbing and
hard.
 

“Does that seem like I don’t want you?”
he asks mildly, removing my hand, even though I desperately want to keep it
there.
 
“I’m looking out for you,
even if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t want you to,” I agree.
 
“I just want you.”

Dare looks at the ceiling again, but I
see the tiniest hint of a flush along the curve of his cheekbone.
 
He’s struggling for self-control, I
realize.
 
The thought makes me
smile, but then the room spins again, faster this time.
 
  

I slump into Dare, he pulls me up, and I
immediately slump again.
 

“I like being drunk,” I tell him,
mumbling into his shirt.
 
“I can’t
feel anything.”

“You’re
gonna
feel it in the morning,” he assures me.
 

I somehow know he’s right, because the
room spins and spins, and my mouth suddenly
fills
up
with spit.

“I’m
gonna
throw
up,” I realize.
 
Dare grabs me up
and
rushes
me to the bathroom.
 
I kneel in front of the toilet and retch
and retch and retch.
 

The gin, if possible, tastes worse coming
up than going down.
 

That’s saying something.

Cool hands pull my hair away from my face
as I vomit, holding it back and I wave my hand.
 

“Go away,” I mumble in between
heaves.
 

“You’re fine,” Dare says comfortingly,
patting my back with one hand as he holds my hair with the other. “You’re
fine.”

I’m not fine. I’m dying.
 
I’m vomiting up every last vestige of
food that I’ve consumed in the past four years.
 
Of that, I am sure.
 
And still I heave.
 
Until there’s nothing left and then I
heave some more.
  

Finally, I curl up on the floor, my face
pressed against the cool tiles.
 

Nothing
has ever felt better than this
,
I decide, loving each and every one of the cool porcelain tiles with a blinding
and personal passion.
 

I close my eyes and keep them closed,
even though I feel myself being moved.
 
My pants are tugged off, though my shirt is left on and I’m floundering
around like a rag doll.
 
And better
yet, I don’t care.
 

Cool sheets are pulled up around me, and
I don’t bother opening my eyes.
 
The
only thing I know is that the sheets smell like
Dare
…woodsy
and male.
 
In this moment, that’s
all that matters.

When I open my eyes again, it takes a
minute to focus, but then I see the moonlight shining against the wall. It’s
the middle of the night.
 
  

My mouth is dry, like wood or sawdust,
and I swallow hard.
 

I’m in Dare’s bed.
 

Dare.
DuBray’s.
Bed.
 

It’s a thought that takes a minute to
register, and then I register too, that unfortunately, Dare DuBray isn’t in his
bed.
 

I scan the room, and he’s not in here at
all.
 

So I get up, wrapping the sheet around
me, and pad into his living room.
 
He’s sprawled out on his couch, completely clothed and dead asleep.

In sleep, his face is vulnerable and
bathed in moonlight.
 
I stare at him
for a long time, because when he’s awake, I don’t get this luxury.
 
I only turn away when I start to feel
dizzy again, when my head begins to pound and pound and I finally grasp what he
meant when he said that I’d feel it tomorrow.
 

It’s not tomorrow yet, but I certainly
feel it now.
 

I cross the room as something jackhammers
the back of my head, and I dig through the cabinet over the stove to find more
aspirin.
 
I find them, take several,
and wobble back to the living room.
 

I’m standing above Dare watching him
again when he opens his eyes.

His beautiful onyx eyes.

“I don’t want to be alone,” I
murmur.
 

He doesn’t say anything
,
he simply opens his
arms
.
 

I lay down in front of him and he closes
his arms around me, shielding me from the night.
 
This is how I fall asleep, cradled
against his chest and listening to his heartbeat.

In the morning, the sunlight wakes me up
while Dare still sleeps.
 

It takes me a second to remember where I
am, how I’d gotten drunk last night, how I’d thrown myself at Dare and then
thrown up in front of him.
 

I’m dying of humiliation as I glance up
at the windows, at the door, and then I freeze.
 

Finn is staring inside, a look of horror
on his tired face.
 
He’s still
dressed in the clothes he was wearing from yesterday, which make me believe
he’s only just now getting in.
 

I’m sprawled in Dare’s arms, wrapped in a
sheet, and I realize how it must look.
 

Finn has the entirely wrong idea.
 

I scramble up to tell him, I throw open
the door, but he’s already gone.
 

TRIGENTA

I
chase Finn up to my room where he’s waiting for me, sitting calmly on my bed,
his shoes muddy from the beach.
 

“It’s not what it looked like,” I tell
him quickly, although I still have Dare’s sheet wrapped around my waist because
my shorts are in his bedroom.
 

Finn shakes his head and looks out the
window. “I don’t care what you were doing with him, Cal.
 
It’s not my business.
 
I’m your brother, not your keeper.”

“But I’m
your
keeper,” I snap back.
 
“And you went out alone yesterday. What the hell
were
you dong
?”

“I needed some alone time,” he says
quietly, still looking out the window.
 
“After the cemetery, I mean.”

That causes me to pause, which was his
intention.
 
“I’m sorry,” I say
simply, my hands still clutching the sheet.
 
“I should’ve been there with you.
 
I let you go alone. I’m so sorry, Finn.”

He shrugs with his skinny shoulders, his
arms pale in the morning light.
 
“It’s fine, Calla.
 
You
aren’t ready yet. I get it.”

“But I should still have gone for you,” I
argue. “I’m sorry. Do you want to go back today?
 
Because I will.
If you need to go again, I will.”

Finn looks at me sadly.
 
“You need to go for
you,
Cal.
 
But you’re
not ready.
 
It’ll happen in layers…
in order.
 
I promise.”

He’s talking nonsense, which worries
me.
 
“You’re taking your meds,
right?” I ask him worriedly.
 
He
nods.
 

“Please stop worrying about me, Cal.
 
I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”
 
I can’t help but take in his wrinkled
clothes, pale skin,
dark
circles around his eyes.
 
“You’re not sleeping again.
 
Your hands are shaking.
 
We’ve got to get you some help.
 
I’m going to talk to dad.”

 
Finn’s arm snakes out faster than I can
blink and grabs mine. “Don’t,” he says quickly. “Please.
 
We’ll handle this on our own, Calla. You
and
me,
just like always.”

And I want to tell him that it’s not fair
to
me, that
this weight is too heavy, that it’s too
much responsibility, but of course I don’t.
 
Because we’re Calla-and-Finn and that’s
how it’s always been, and that’s how it will always be.
 

I finally just nod.
“Ok.
 
I won’t tell him.”

I glance at him again and remember that
he’s not wearing his St. Michael’s medallion.
 

“You took your necklace off,” I tell him,
trying not to sound accusatory.
 
He
looks away and shrugs.
 

“I decided I don’t need it anymore. You
can have it, if you want.”

I stare at him, my mouth open.
 
“You haven’t taken that thing off since
you got it, because mom liked the idea that you’re protected when you wear it.”

His icy blue gaze impales me.
 
“Mom’s not here anymore, Calla.”

I swallow and it hurts.
 
“I know that,” I answer, the words
raspy. He nods.

“Good. So you can have it if you want
it.” He gets to his feet wearily and my heart explodes into a puff of
dust.
 

 
“I’ve
gotta
shower,” he says quietly and leaves without another word.

I’m quiet as I stare out the window,
staring at the ocean.
 
Boats glide
on the horizon and I can’t help but wish I
was
on one,
floating far, far away from here.
 

But if that were the case, I’d be sailing
away from Dare.
 
And I can’t do
that.
 
Not now.
 

I shower and brush my teeth, then lock my
bedroom door before pulling out Finn’s journal.
 
Curled up in my window, I force myself
to read the words because I’ve been putting it off and now is the time.
 
Flipping the mysterious tarot card
absently over and over in my fingers, I stare at another of Finn’s strange
symbols and read his words.
 

Death is the beginning.

Mors solum initium
est
.

The beginning beginning
beginning beginning

I need to
start

I startle as I read the scratched words,
the ink ground into the paper like Finn had used all of his strength.
 
He needs to start what?
 

A new beginning?
 

Or death?

My heart pounds hard against my ribcage
as I mark my page with the tarot card, then cram the journal back between the
mattresses before I clatter down the steps.
 

“Have you seen Finn?” I ask my father
when I meet him on the stairs.

“No,” he answers. “Are you ok?”

“Yes,” I sigh because I’m so sick of him
asking.
 
“I just need to find Finn.”

I find him where I always find him
lately, down by the woodshed, chopping wood.
 
More wood, although we have fifteen
piles already.
 

“Why do you keep doing this?” I ask him
hesitantly. I approach him slowly so I don’t startle him because he’s holding
an ax, after all.
 

He looks up at me, the light shining in
his pale blue eyes.
 

“The exercise burns stress.”
 

“Ok,” I answer.
 
“Finn, you’d tell me if you were feeling
really bad, right?
 
Like, you
wouldn’t do anything stupid?”

His forehead wrinkles and he leans
against the ax handle.
 
“Stupid like
what, Cal?
 
What are you talking
about?”

I sigh because he knows what I’m
saying,
he’s just trying to make me say the words.

“You wouldn’t try to hurt yourself, would
you?”

The words taste hateful and awful, but I
ask them anyway.
 

Finn stares at me seriously.

“Calla, if I wanted to hurt myself, I
wouldn’t try.
 
I’d just
do
.”
 
But when I start to cry out, he
hurriedly continues. “But no.
 
I
don’t want to hurt myself.”

 
I stare at him, desperately wanting to
believe him, but so sure he’s lying.
 

“I think you should go to Group today,” I
tell him slowly, gauging his reaction.
 

He shrugs.
 
“Ok.
 
I was planning on it anyway.”

“Yeah?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he answers firmly.
 
“Let me finish here and then take a
shower.”

He splits another piece of wood and
tosses it into a new pile. I shake my head as I walk to the house.
 
Dad will have enough wood to last five
winters.

I hesitate at the porch, playing with the
idea of going to talk to
Dare
, but as I stand there
trying to decide, I see him pacing back and forth behind the cottage, talking
animatedly on his cell phone.
 
He
paces up, waves his hands, his face set in stone,
then
he paces back, doing the same thing.
 

He glances up and sees me, and his dark
eyes hold mine for just a moment, black, black, black as night, then he turns
his back and paces away.
 

Who is he talking to so intently?
 

Questions swirl around me as return to my
room to fold up Dare’s sheet so that I can take it back to him later.
 
Who is he talking to?
 
For that matter, as long as I’m asking
questions, who is
Dare
here to visit?
 
He’d said he was visiting someone in the
hospital.
 
He never said
who
, and he never said why he wanted to rent an apartment
here when he lives in England.
 
I’ve
been so wrapped up in my own stuff and in my own fascination with
Dare
himself, that I’ve never asked.

That’s going to end today.

I wait patiently for thirty minutes
because that’s got to be enough time to wrap up a conversation.
 
  

I take the sheet and knock on Dare’s
door.

He opens it immediately and looks
devastatingly handsome in a snug dark shirt that complements his dark
eyes.
 

“Hey,” he greets me.
 
“You look like you feel better.”

“Thank you for taking care of me last
night,” I tell him, flushing a bit.
 
It’s embarrassing that he saw me puke my guts up. “I’m a bit
humiliated.”

“Don’t be,” he says politely, oddly
formal considering I slept all night in his arms. He doesn’t make any kind of
move to invite me in, but instead stands planted in the middle of the doorway.
 

“Well, I am,” I answer back in
confusion.
 
“Is something
wrong?
 
I can’t help but notice that
we’re still standing on the porch.”

He shakes his head. “Of course not. I’m
just a bit busy at the moment.”

He’s so cool and detached, sort of
aloof.
 
I stare at him, not sure
what to say.

“Did you need something?” he prompts me,
his eyes glinting in the light.
 

“I…yeah,” I stammer. I thrust the sheet
at him. “I just came to give this back to you.
 
And to get my shorts.”

“Sure. Hang on.”

And I swear to God, he closes the door in
my face.
 
I’m still stunned when he
re-emerges a few minutes later with my shorts.
 

“Here you go,” he hands them to me.
 

I stare at him, never more confused in my
life.

“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

His face seems to soften for a minute,
then it smooths back into an unreadable mask.
 
“Yeah, I’m sure.
 
I’m just busy.
 
I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” I say slowly.
 
“I’ll just catch up with you
later.”
 
I turn to leave, but pause,
turning
half-way
on the sidewalk.

“Hey, you never said who you were here in
Astoria to visit,” I tell him slowly, watching his face for a reaction.
 
“You said you were visiting someone in
the hospital, but you never said who.”

He doesn’t miss a beat.
 
He simply nods.
 
“I didn’t, did I?”

And he doesn’t offer it now.
 
 

I wait, but there’s nothing.
 
He just steps back inside his
house.
 

“I’ll talk to you later, Calla.”

And then he closes the door.

I’m absolutely stunned as I stare at the
wood, frozen on the path.
 
 

Everyone
has secrets, Calla.
That’s what he told me and I guess it’s truer than I realized. The question is,
are his secrets important? Should I care about them?
 
Because I’ve got so
much to worry about already.