Haunted (19 page)

“You're what? Why? There was no reason to…oh they did, did they? Fuck, I really don't need this right now. Not from you.” His energy changed almost instantly from one of heat and lust, to anger and resentment. Whoever he was talking to was not someone he cared for one bit.

Silence permeated again as I waited to hear more. Whatever was going on, it seemed less than favorable for our would-be happenings that evening. He turned his back to me, further avoiding my gaze, which he'd been studiously doing since he accepted the call.

“Fine,” he said, letting out an enormous breath. “I'll pick you up tomorrow.”

Who are you picking up?

“I know. Listen, you leave her the fuck out of this. This is between you, me and the Elders, not her,” he said as his volume increased dramatically. “Don't tell me how this works, I know damn well how it works. I'm a shitload older than you in case you've forgotten.” His hand gripped a nearby table so murderously that the wood started to crack and splinter under his grasp. “No, I haven't forgotten that minor detail, but thanks for rubbing it in my face. Listen…just stop…stop…WOULD YOU FUCKING STOP?” he roared, jarring me to attention. “Damn it, Sophie.”

I sucked in a breath so loudly I startled myself. Sean's shoulders tensed immediately; he had not wanted me to know who he was talking to. He turned slowly, phone still to his ear, looking at me with the most pathetic expression of sadness and guilt, with an undercurrent of pity. I wanted to punch him in the face to let him know what he could do with that pity.

He hung up the phone without saying a word to her, lowering his hand slowly to his side. He instantly looked exhausted. We stared at each other across that beautiful room like a couple who'd just had their first fight and had no clue how to proceed from there. The emotions were palpable in the air. Hate, frustration, anger, sorrow, desperation, hurt and grief all hung like a cloud over both of us. As the tension mounted, I had to bail. Running had served me well in the past and I decided to continue that legacy.

I walked towards the door, slipping past Sean, determined not to touch him. Contact with him always made things more intense, for better or worse. He made no attempt to reach for me – it was a wise choice.

I spilled into the hallway, my cloud accompanying me; I desperately needed to get some air. I'd nearly made it to the exit when I heard him come up behind me. He caught my shoulder to stop me, but didn't turn me around. He just gently held me hostage.

“I don't know what to say,” he managed after a moment.

“Say you can fix it,” I said softly over my shoulder.

“I'm trying to, Ruby. I've been trying to find a way—”

“But you haven't,” I replied, dryly.

“Not yet.” He sounded like even he wasn't convinced of the potential success of that task.

“Because there isn't.”

“I don't know that that's true.”

“Sure you do, Sean. You're just choosing to ignore it,” I said, spinning around to face him. My drunken wobblies seemed to have been cured by the mere mention of Sophie's name, my hatred of her fueling my temporary sobriety. “You know what the real problem is here? You want to have your cake and eat it too,” I said, jabbing my finger in his chest repeatedly. “God, I'm stupid. I thought that maybe Sophie was out of the picture…convinced myself that you had made all of that drama disappear. But I should have known better; out of sight, out of mind, but not out of heart.”

“I don't love her.”

“That may be, but apparently you can't leave her either. It all adds up to the same thing.”

“I'll find a way, Ruby, I promise.”

“The only promise I want from you right now is that you'll find who really killed Cass. That's a promise you might be able to deliver on.” I pulled away from his grip and stormed out the door. He didn't even bother to follow me.

If time healed all wounds, then anger slapped a dirty band-aid on them long enough to get you through the night. The downside was after a night of festering, it left you more raw and infected the next day.

I backtracked down the street towards the club. The sobering effect of our little fight seemed to be wearing off slightly, but I was fairly confident that I was headed the right way. I rifled through my purse, trying to find my phone so I could call Matty and let him know that I'd be taking him up on his offer, if he'd still have me. With my head down, digging through my bag, I didn't see the person I crashed into until he was helping me up off the ground. He smiled at me as he picked up my phone and handed it to me.

“Hi, Ruby.”

“Uh, hey. It's Jay, right?” I asked after flipping through my mental rolodex. We'd had an interesting introduction months ago as I was searching for my keys under Sean’s car back in Portsmouth. I'd seen him after that during the fallout from Utah and the incident at the Bitch's place. He seemed neutral enough.

“Is it safe to go home now?” he asked.

“That's your place?”

“Yeah. Sean texted me and said I needed to take off,” he informed me. “He never let me know when it'd be clear to head back.”

That explains the frantic texting.

“Does he do that often?” I asked. “Just kick you out of your own home?”

He grinned at me and shrugged. He wasn't giving anything up on Sean.

Good little soldier…

“Whatever. The coast should be clear. He may be a bit testy, though. Sophie seems to bring the best out in all of us.”

I turned away and continued on to the club, not waiting for a response. Eventually one came from behind me.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Ruby. He really is trying,” Jay yelled.

“Some problems don't have solutions, Jay,” I replied, yelling over my shoulder.

I turned the corner and Jay disappeared from earshot. My phone was flipped open and I tried to reach Matty yet again only to find out that the battery had been knocked loose, and my hands were too twitchy with adrenaline to get it back in. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of driving myself home while questionably sober, but I couldn’t afford to waste time searching Vain for Matty, or waiting for my nervous system to calm down enough to return my fine motor skills.

As I passed the club in pursuit of the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of a tall, hot blond in my periphery. I looked over to see Cooper making his way out of the building. One look at me and he came running.

“Ruby, what are you doing here?”

“Are you kidding me right now? Why aren't you with Peyta?” I asked, fuming at him as he approached. “She's apparently home alone, Cooper. Not really the game plan, remember?”

“What do you mean? You're supposed to be with her!” he rebutted.

“No, she called you earlier and you said you'd be right down.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, ya did. What the fuck, Coop?”

“Wait, what day is it?”

“It's Thursday. Why?”

“Aw man, I thought it was Friday. You were supposed to be home with her on Friday,” he said, as if reminding himself of our babysitting schedule. “Fuck.”

“How do you not know what day it is, Cooper?”

“You try not sleeping for nights on end and then tell me you can remember the day of the week.”

“Let's go. You're driving,” I said as I tossed him my keys. “And you better pray to whatever god you believe in that she's okay when we get there.”

24

“Hey, go easy on the clutch!” I yelled at him as he hammered it through the floor for the eighth time. “You do know how to drive stick, right?”

“Can it, you backseat driving lush,” he countered, jaw flexing as he sped onto the highway.

“Fine. Just be nice to her. The TT likes to be loved on, not beaten to death.”

“I don't know, she seems to be liking it pretty rough right now,” he informed me, grinding into third gear.

“I think you left the transmission back there,” I said, looking over my shoulder for effect.

“You're lucky I didn't leave you back there.”

“Whatever, just hurry. We need to get to Peyta.”

“I know,” he said, his tone softening. He looked over at me in the darkness of the car and held my gaze for a moment before returning his focus to the road. “Hey, I need to tell you about something. I saw something odd this morning, and I'm not really sure what to make of it given the current crisis.”

“And which crisis would that be exactly?” I asked, preemptively rubbing my temples before the pressure kicked in. My CF's seemed to bring about that physical response a lot.

“The one that involves Peyta.” Fantastic. “I saw her on her way to school this morning. I followed behind her to make sure everything was good to go.”

“And?” I inquired, still rubbing my head. My eyes were shut as though that could somehow protect me from what Cooper was about to lay on me.

“And everything seemed totally normal the entire way, until out of nowhere she started laughing hysterically. She dropped her umbrella and everything.”

“So, the crisis was that she found something amusing?” I asked, incredulously.

“No, Ruby, not laughing, like totally losing her shit cracking up. It was weird – unbalanced. She was making a spectacle of herself.” I heard the groan of leather being squeezed and wrung out, and I wondered if the poor TT's wheel was going to be attached much longer.

I didn't like his usage of the word “unbalanced”, which implied “unstable”. The last thing I wanted to try to explain to Ronnie was why her child went loony while in my care because some pissed-off entity residing in my home attached itself to her and drove her mad. That was an unenviable task at best. At worst it was a death wish.

“What do you think it means?” I asked, trying to grossly downplay my concern.

“I think it means we need to get some help with this situation ASAP or Peyta's in a lot of trouble.”

I released the breath I'd been holding in one loud gust. He was right and I knew it; we were in way over our heads. It sucked that the only person I knew who could possibly help us had been brutally alienated that night by none other than me.

“You have to call Sean,” I instructed. After jimmying the battery into place, I shoved my newly intact phone toward Cooper. “You need to tell him everything. Maybe he'll know what to do.”

Cooper looked over at me with a look of utter confusion. His “why the hell am I calling him” face came across loud and clear in the neon blue light of the car's interior.

“It's a long story, Coop. Let it be,” I whispered, praying he'd comply. “Please.”

He looked as though he was preparing to make some low blow, wise ass remark but held back when he saw the glistening in the corner of my eye. I turned up the volume on the car stereo as David Gray sang the haunting lyrics to “This Year's Love”. It chilled me to the bone and further convinced me that both the universe and my iPod hated me.

He sang sweetly of a love that never quite fit, as if a single piece of the puzzle was missing that could almost be forgotten, almost overlooked, when she held him, allowing the memories of hurt and heartbreak to start to fall to the wayside. There was passion behind his words describing how guarded he felt not knowing where he stood with her, unable to break the pattern of times long past, unwilling to give himself to her completely. “Sweet lies”, he called them, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was referring to the ones that others tell us, or the lies we tell ourselves. The latter seemed far more potent, much more likely, and way more damaging. It explained so much.

I felt the tear spill down my cheek, rounding the curve of my jaw. Cooper brushed it away with his thumb so softly that it felt like a feather sliding along my skin.

“I'll do it now,” he whispered, delicately taking my phone from my hand that still offered it. I met his eyes briefly and smiled; he had no idea why I was crying. He reached over and grabbed my left hand, resting his palm down atop it after giving it a little squeeze. “It's going to be OK, Ruby. We're going to make it so.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

I didn't share in his optimism.

* * *

“So you're sure you're fine?” Cooper and I asked for the second time in unison – our synchronization was off-putting and creepy.

“YES! I'm fine. Nothing happened,” Peyta protested. “You guys need a serious vacation from your paranoia. It can't be good for you.” She was feigning aloofness and indifference to her abandonment, but I could feel her true sentiments swirling around her. She'd been frightened and was glad to see us; she just didn't want us to see that.

“Why didn't you call me?” I asked, trying to bring the volume of my voice down to a less deafening level.

“You were in Boston, at class. What were you going to do, run out like a crazy person and floor it home?”

Well, maybe not run out of class…

“I would've done something that made it so you weren't here alone,” I said, throwing my palm up in her face anticipating her rebuttal. “We all agreed it was best until we knew what was going on, remember?”

She deflated onto the couch looking irritated, but bested.

“About that, did you get a hold of that dickhead yet?” she asked, knowing her name-calling would irk me slightly.