Ghost Perfume | ✔

Chapter 4: Help Me (Part 2)

No, I was crazy.

"Rose,'' Michael said, taking my attention. "Is there something you can think you'd like us to do, so that your brother doesn't 'freak out on you' again?''

I swallowed a bite. "It's whenever he feels the pressure to raise me,'' I said. When I was a psycho and a liar and a slut. "Our mom died when I was twelve. He was twenty-one and he had to take me.''

I took another bite. "I don't know. Sometimes his mood just crashes after his parties,'' I muttered.

"What specifically lets you predict his mood?''

"Specifically today ... he thought I was lying to him,'' I said.

"About what?''

"Someone told him I,'' I stumbled over the word and found an alternative, "slept with Alexander and Gabriel at the party. When we went up to my room.''

Since Alexander sat opposite me, I saw his face whiten.

Michael's eyes flared as he looked at Alexander too.

"This is exactly what I am talking about,'' he hissed in a tone that shocked me. "You cause problems you can't even predict.''

"He'd take any excuse to treat her like shit,'' Alexander snapped back, though his face was still pale. "You should see this boy. At least I'm in place nearby now!''

"Michael, you know why they went up to her room, right?'' Lukas spoke more reasonably. "Gabriel said she said she had to make a call.''

There was a long, charged silence.

"So we cleared her room for her,'' Alexander muttered. "What else should we have done?''

The silence stretched.

Michael looked stony, like a king mulling over bad news. In the silence, he passed me a small bottle of white pills across the table, together with a small round container, round and glass, dwarfed in his hand. "The salve, and these are the painkillers. Do you want one now?''

"I feel much better now,'' I said, reaching for them and putting them in my pocket with Alexander's key. "Kind of weirdly cold still though.''

"It should pass in a few hours,'' he said quietly.

"Anyway,'' I bit my lip and glanced at Alexander. "Alexander gave me a key to his place.''

"Yes,'' Michael said. I saw thoughts in his eyes that he didn't say, and I wondered anxiously what they were.

"Use it anytime, Rose,'' Alexander said.

I sensed their approach like clouds dark with rain.

Anticipation thrummed in my blood.

That part of me, the part that had gone to sleep after Ali and Diya, pricked up its ears. My eyes involuntarily searched the room.

"This does nothing to preempt your brother's freakouts,'' Michael was saying, a curl to his lips not unlike Alexander's. He tilted his head back. "But perhaps we'll find more solutions after we think about it more.''

Four ghosts came in through the wall to slowly approach me. An older man and woman, and two little girls.

A family.

My heart clenched for them.

Lukas pressed his knee to mine again and I tried to focus on him. "Oi. You staying out of the house more can only be good,'' he offered. "You know you can always hang out here whether or not you're working. Do your homework in the back office.''