Ghost Perfume | ✔

Chapter 13: Open Up to Me (Part 1)

Not at all sleepy, I bolted upright.

If Tommy and Jane were driving home directly from the mountains, and already in my range, then it would take them, I thought, anywhere from three quarters of an hour to several hours to return. I would be ready for them.

I tiptoed to my door. The house lights were extinguished, asleep.

Lukas stayed tonight in Alexander's bedroom. No light shone under the door; he probably slept. Poor Lukas, he'd seemed exhausted.

Did I want to ask for his help?

It had been Alexander, not Lukas, who'd looked at Colin with that red, red sheen to his dark eyes. Alexander who hadn't batted an eyelash at the possibility of having killed him.

But when Michael asked me where Tommy was and they had each of them turned to me, I'd seen ice in their eyes spread like black sheets over a lake. The kind of ice you didn't step on, lest it break; in Lukas's eyes too. And hadn't they reacted similarly after the last time that Tommy freaked out on me? Not that I remembered their reactions very well; back then I used to do more to avoid their eyes ...

But now I trusted them, of course I did. I was temporarily living with Alexander.

To wake Lukas up or not, then?

The problem was, I wasn't really one of them. I was closer, but they couldn't tell me anything about most of what took up their days, and they'd kept me out of how they dealt with Colin.

I saw that their instinct was to exclude me.

That's the real problem, I thought: I couldn't let them exclude me in how they 'helped' Tommy, even if I mostly believed that their help to him would be as true and generous as their help to me.

He was my violent, unpredictable brother.

He was my brother.

And I'd always reacted to him. It was time I started acting.

I withdrew quietly to my room.

Jane's thread was closer, clear to my sight; she'd covered nearly a quarter of the distance to me.

I waited.

She neared.

I tread downstairs and put on my boots, coat and scarf in the dark. As quietly as I could, I unlocked the door and stepped outside.

The snow-lined street looked desolate in the moonlight. Suburban corners of the world were so curious. Out of daylight, they sometimes had an uninhabited and empty look, as if you weren't supposed to see them like this ... I shivered and crossed to my old house and the new door that they'd had installed just this morning. They'd changed the locks this time; I had the new keys in my pocket. But for reasons I couldn't explain, I didn't want to spend longer than necessary inside the old house. So I waited outside.

The night air was cold and dead on my face. I pulled my hood up.

I heard a car nearby, in the same direction I sensed Jane. And there were headlights and a car approaching down the street. It slowed and turned into my old driveway. I shielded my eyes against the glaring lights.

That was Tommy behind the wheel, and Jane flying out of the car roof to meet me.

"Have I got a story for you,'' she said.

Tommy turned off the car, killing the lights, and came out. "Rose, uh, what?''

"Colin came and broke down the door to find you, then he tried to rape me,'' I said with no preamble. I had prepared myself, so I only stuttered on the word a little.