Between (34 page)

“I. Don’t. Care,” I bellow. “Without Sam, I don’t want to be here!”

Seth’s hand rests against my shoulder blades. I take deep, shuddering breaths. I can’t be here without Sam. I can’t live knowing I’ll never see him again. We know he’s with Whalen. We know Whalen is in the Between. Even though the Between is daunting, it’s the closest I’ve got to a pinpoint on my brother’s location.

No one is going to stop me now.

“He’s one of ours,” Seth argues. “We can’t leave him out there.”

“Regretfully,” Alexander says, “we’ve reached a point where the future of the Fellowship must come before any individual member.”

“You would sacrifice Sam’s life?” Seth asks, staring at Alexander like he’s never seen him before.

Alexander squares his shoulders. “Yes.”

I launch myself at the giant founder, but Seth catches me, wrapping his arms around mine and spinning me backward. I scream for him to let me go, but he keeps his arms tight until he transitions from holding me back to holding me together. I melt against him, exhausted.

N
INETEEN

I
walk through Seth’s door on autopilot, barely registering the setting sun. We must have been at Central Hall for hours. I slump down onto the sofa and curl into him, hiding my face in his chest and crying, finally releasing the full range of emotions I’ve been pushing down since Mom died.

He wraps an arm around me and lets me cry for as long as it takes. I tell him everything again, from the first time Keiran and I snuck into the Between to watching Mom die. I relive it all, more for myself than for him. I break it into pieces. Seeing her face. Hearing her voice. Even in the end, she was protecting me. She screamed so the Mothman would go after her instead of me.

She never stopped, lying there dying, knowing she couldn’t survive his attack.

She never stopped protecting me.

I clutch Seth’s shirt and cry harder, remembering everything about the life before Ellauria.

Mom’s bedroom full of books. Her spaghetti. The way she joked with me and Sam about everything. The way she treated us like adults and allowed us to make our own mistakes.

If there was something I wanted, she never told me I couldn’t achieve it. As big as my dreams are, her dreams for me were always bigger.

She took me on and loved me as much as she loved her own child.

Even though I knew my life in the mortal realm was over, I’ve been clinging to the idea that Mom, Sam, and I would be a family again. We’d still be us, no matter where we were.

Now it’s just me and Sam.

I have to find him.

By the time I’m able to breathe without sobbing, I’m exhausted. My eyes are so swollen I can barely keep them open, and Seth’s shirt is drenched with my tears. I wipe my cheeks with my hand and settle my fist against my lips, like I can capture any further emotion before it escapes.

“I can’t lose him, Seth.”

He rests his chin on my head. I know he feels my heart breaking, and I’m pretty sure I feel his, too. “Don’t worry,” he whispers. “I’m not letting him go, either.”

It’s all I need to hear. One person to tell me he’s in this with me. I won’t have to fight alone. “Thank you,” I reply.

Seth pulls me from the sofa and leads me to his bedroom. He pulls back the thick gray comforter on his queen-sized bed before grabbing a white T-shirt from his drawer. “Put this on. Get some sleep.”

I take the shirt from his hand and clutch its softness to my chest. Before he leaves the room, he looks back and says, “I mean it. Sleep. We’re going to need everything we’ve got to save him.”

He’s right. As much as I want to spend the next few days in bed, grieving everything I’ve lost, I can’t. I have to pull myself together and go on—Sam needs me.

I’m going to save him.

I slip on Seth’s shirt and crawl beneath the covers, listening to him pace outside the door until I fall asleep.

It’s pitch black outside when I wake again. Moonlight pours through the curtains, illuminating Seth’s form by the window. “Seth?”

“Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“What time is it? What are you doing?”

“Midnight,” he says. “I came in to crack the window. I know how you like to sleep with it open.”

I close my eyes, overwhelmed with affection for the beautiful, frustrating boy in front of me. “Can you—” I take a deep breath. “Will you hold me?”

Seth goes still for a moment, then nods. I lift the blankets, and he stretches his body alongside mine. I pull the covers over our shoulders and snuggle into him, molding my body to his.

“Don’t tune me out, okay?” I whisper. I close my eyes and let my walls down, allowing myself to feel all the things I shouldn’t.

“Charlie.” He shakes his head.

“Please,” I whisper against his neck. “I don’t care what PC says about this.” I run my fingers lightly over his cheek, tracing his jawline. When my thumb sweeps across his bottom lip, his hand lands on my waist, sliding over my lower back and pulling me even tighter against him.

“Charlie,” he says again, but quieter. “We can’t.”

I have a lot of confidence in the fact that we absolutely can. Maybe we can’t parade around Ellauria holding hands and trading kisses, but right here, right now, I refuse to let him pull away again.

“Just once,” I breathe.

I press my lips against the underside of his jaw, and his sigh makes me smile. He winds his fingers through my hair and whispers my name one last time before his mouth finds mine.

We go still, savoring the moment we’ve been denying ourselves for weeks. When we move again, the kiss is urgent, full of everything we haven’t said and everything we may never be able to admit. He pulls my bottom lip between his teeth, and I curl my fingers into fists in his hair. When his tongue slides over mine, I lose myself for a moment.

There are no thoughts. Just this. Just Seth, and his lips, the way his breaths become my own, and the way his hands know exactly where I want to be touched.

I tilt my head back slightly while he kisses the corner of my mouth, my cheek, below my ear. He lingers at the base of my neck, and my whole body tingles. His fingers slip beneath the hem of my shirt, setting my skin on fire.

We carry on for several minutes, exploring each other. His study of my neck is particularly thorough, and I discover that putting my fingers in Seth’s hair is the quickest way to make him melt.

I fall asleep with my head on his chest and my leg draped across his hip, while his hand traces lines up and down my back.

I wake the next morning alone in Seth’s bed, wrapped in his scent. I lift the neck of his shirt to my nose and gather his sheets around me, inhaling him. Footsteps in the living room pull me out of bed, and I gasp when my bare feet hit the cool wooden floor. I tiptoe to the doorway, tugging Seth’s shirt over my thighs.

Seth’s sitting on the sofa with his back to me, flipping through my sketchbook of home. The sight of him sends my mind to last night—the scratch of his chin against mine, the burn of his fingers on my skin, and the sweet softness of his lips.

I quickly finger-comb my hair and say, “Morning.”

He glances over his shoulder and freezes. I smile when his eyes travel up my legs. I could’ve put my shorts on, but part of me wanted this moment. When he reaches my eyes, his mouth spreads into the smile I love so much.

I step around the sofa and he stands. His hand slides down my arm from my shoulder to my elbow and he pulls me close, kissing my cheek. I close my eyes and resist the urge to pull him back to the bedroom. We have too much work to do.

“I was just about to wake you,” he says. He releases me and pulls something from his pocket.

My knife. “Where’d you get that?”

He winks. “I have friends in high places.”

The only way he could’ve gotten that knife is if someone on Principal Command snagged it for him. I can’t imagine either of us has any friends left on PC, except—oh. “Lulu?”

He nods. I take the knife from him, feeling its weight in my hands. Someone took the time to clean it, and the steel blade shines, showing my blue eyes in its reflection.

There’s a knock at the door, and the peace of the morning vanishes. I shouldn’t be here. Seth nods toward his room, and I duck back in there to hide.

I close his door, easing it shut as quietly as possible, then back away, staring at it. My eyes fall on every single section of his room—the bed set against the middle of the wall, the tall bookshelf to its right and the short nightstand on its left, the wide mirror-topped dresser behind me. The only decent hiding spot would be his small closet, but that’s entirely too obvious.

My heart races. The last thing I need after all of yesterday’s drama is to be caught at my Aegis’s house early in the morning wearing only his T-shirt.

I creep toward the door and press my ear to it. Keiran’s voice sounds from the living room.
Thank God
. I pick up my shorts from the floor and slide my legs into them before dropping my knife into the case on my hip. I leave on Seth’s T-shirt.

There’s a knock on the door, and Keiran peeks his head in before I have a chance to respond. I’m so grateful I’m dressed.

“Oh, hi!” I put on my innocent face. “When’d you get here?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Just now. When did
you
get here?”

Keiran’s smirk tells me I don’t even need to bother coming up with a lie, so I roll my eyes instead.

“You know I don’t care about the rules,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

I take a deep breath, giving it some thought. “Determined.”

“Good answer.” His eyes bounce around the room. “Do you mind if we talk for a minute?”

I wrinkle my eyebrows. “Of course not.”

Keiran steps further into the room and calls over his shoulder, “Seth! I’m gonna do some making out with Charlie, so we’re gonna shut the door now!”

“Sure thing!” Seth calls back, and I smile. If I’d known kissing Seth would’ve chilled him out so much, I would’ve forced myself on him a long time ago.

I straighten the comforter over the bed and sit, and Keiran joins me. Anxiety creeps over his face; he stares at the floor for a few minutes before speaking. “I’m really sorry about Adele.”

I knew he would feel the need to apologize, even though his guilt is completely misplaced. I squeeze his hand, remembering everything he did for her yesterday. Everything he did for me. My chest aches, and a tear sneaks down my cheek. It’s all so fresh.

“Thank you.”

He places his hand over mine and shifts to face me. “I just—I want you to know that I still think I can save him.”

I go still. Save him? We’re still going to save the man responsible for killing my mother? Yesterday only solidified my stance on Whalen’s morality. There’s no saving him. Keiran’s delusional.

I look at the wall because it’s easier than looking at him. “Keiran—”

“No, listen,” he says, cutting off the argument he knows is coming. “You only know this side of him, and I totally understand that. I know he’s only done horrible things to you—”

It’s my turn to interrupt him. “He’s done horrible things to you, too! And Marian. And the Fellowship. And Sam. My mom is dead because of him.” My voice shakes, and I pause to get my emotions in check. “You said yourself you miss the man he used to be. Are you so sure that man is still there at all?”

He swallows hard and looks at me. “We’ll never know if we don’t give him the chance.”

I lace my fingers together on my lap, squeezing my own hands. How many chances does a madman get before we accept the fact that he’s evil? How far will Keiran go to save this completely fabricated image of a father who can’t possibly exist anymore?

Seth knocks on the door and opens it. “You two finished?”

He eyes me, and I realize he’s been creeping on my emotions from the next room. I shoot him a small smile. It’s nothing I can’t handle.

“Yeah.” Keiran gives me one last lingering look. He’s not giving up. “All done.”

The three of us move to the living room. Seth and I sit on the sofa, and Keiran picks the recliner near the window. “What happens next?” he asks. “Is the Fellowship really not going to send anyone after Sam?”

My stomach twists. “It certainly doesn’t seem like it.”