Ghost Perfume | ✔

Chapter 14: Remember the Rules (Part 1)

It was the longest week of school I ever had to endure. The periods passed excruciatingly slowly. I couldn't care about memorizing the presidents for bonus points when I thought about my reconciliation of a sorts with Tommy, when one of the brothers was waiting for me at home, when Project Location needed to be finished, when all evidence in Project Receive pointed to my range growing greater and greater, when Michael said he'd take me and Jane to Overwood on Saturday.

Tommy lived quietly at home, reading through the manuscripts he'd taken. There were thousands of pages, he told me, and he said they were mostly trash, but recognizably Ashe Perkase's. He was obsessed. I'd never thought he could sit and read all day like he suddenly was doing. But he wanted to read them and make digital copies before he lost them to the millionaire professors who'd put out the scavenger hunt.

He was willing to use his phone again, as he'd promised, and we mostly texted each other, because the brothers got a weird expression on their faces when I said I wanted to see him. Though they never stopped me, they always accompanied me over. And Tommy got a pissed off look when he saw me with one of them.

I was glad that Tommy didn't disappear and didn't seem like he'd been hurt whenever I saw him. That tiny niggling fear I'd had that the Alistairs would do something to him faded.

But they didn't give me back the key to Tommy's house, though a key to Alexander's had been returned to me.

It was odd that after all their reluctance to interfere in my life with Tommy, now that they had, they were reluctant to give me my freedom.

For a few days, they removed me entirely from my neighborhood. Alexander had to go back to work on Wednesday, and Michael suggested to me that I could stay over at his house while Alexander worked. He said I could play with the dogs, that they'd be happy to see me. I guessed he meant that it would be much easier for them to watch over me if I stayed in the big house, so I was eager to agree. He was pleased.

The dogs were out when I came over. They greeted me with delirious joy.

The guest bedroom that I'd stayed at before had changed. A gorgeous quilt lay heavy on the bed, embroidered all over in abstract whirls that looked like roses. The inner layer of curtains remained a sheer white, but the outer layer was a pretty turquoise, and a huge rug now lay on the floor, fluffy and somehow similar to the rug that Gabriel and I had bought when we'd gone shopping.

I thought about one of them buying new things for the room, making the room mine, and butterflies exploded in my stomach.

Then I saw roses - blooming, an extraordinary yellow streaked to a scarlet red at the tips - standing in a blue glass vase by the window seat. The fading light outside illuminated the flowers and vase to deep hues and soft shadows. I moved to touch a velvet petal.

"Do you like them?'' It was Gabriel's deep, rich baritone. He stood at the door.

"I love them,'' I said. "I've never seen roses in two colors like that.''

"They're called cherry brandy roses.''

"Do they naturally grow like that?''

"I'm not sure,'' he said.

"I think the different colors have different meanings,'' I said.

"Oh?''

"But I'm not sure what they are.''

Gabriel came to stand beside me. "We could look it up,'' he said.

I noticed a bandage peeking out from under the cuff of his shirt.

"Are you hurt?''

"Hm? Just a graze,'' he said dismissively, looking down at the wrist that my hands fluttered towards.