Chapter Two
EZEKIEL
This is weird,” Aurelia whispers. Her brown skin is still ashen from the avalanche, but most of the color has already returned to her cheeks and neck.
I try to ignore the way they flush with heat each time our eyes accidentally meet.
“I mean… This is weird, right?” she presses when no one else says a word.
Khalil, who is sitting between us like a barrier, grumbles something to her. Thorin sits on Aurelia’s other side, and I wonder who those overbearing assholes are protecting: Her or me? Either possibility makes me want to roll my eyes.
Do they really think I’d hurt her? I’m not Bane.
Or do they think I’m so fucking fragile that I can’t handle one girl?
The four of us are huddled in front of the wood-burning stove in our living room, trying to get warm. I’m pretty sure we’re all past that now, but no one knows what to do. No one knows what to do about this. About us. About me.
It feels like I’m the outsider.
I’ve gotten used to waking from a split and having no idea what day it is or what’s happening. It’s still jarring as fuck, but it helps if it happens in a safe space, where I’m surrounded by familiar faces—neither of which happened today.
First of all, I’m pretty sure I died.
I place a hand over my chest to ensure my heart is still beating at a rhythm that won’t trigger them.
Too fast and it wakes Seth.
Too slow…Bane.
I’m forever straddling that fine line, knowing my emotions rest on an explosive hair trigger.
Thorin and Khalil were vague on the details of what happened earlier, only explaining that we got caught in an avalanche before insisting we get back to the cabin.
Seth, what did you do? I ask the alter, reaching out with a mental probe.
Once again, he doesn’t answer.
Radio fucking silent like a petulant fucking asshole because I woke up and ruined his fun.
I need him to tell me about her.
Aurelia.
Any hopes that she was a passerby were dashed when she followed us into our cabin, and from the looks of it, she’s made herself pretty comfortable here.
What the fuck is going on? Why won’t anyone tell me?
“How long was I out?” I finally demand when it’s clear they won’t offer the information on their own. Khalil and Thorin are probably hoping I’ll just fall in line, but fat fucking chance of that happening. Exhaustion weighs down my voice, but the awkward silence makes it easy for them to hear me.
Thorin answers. “Couple of months,” he grumbles.
The tightening of my skin—stretching impossibly as if I no longer fit—eases a little.
Two months isn’t bad. Seth has been in control for much longer before, and the worn-down state I usually find Thorin and Khalil in after is never much better than my own.
What scares the shit out of me is how much has changed in such a short time.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Aurelia’s shiver and Thorin pulling her closer, sharing his warmth with her while nuzzling her temple.
Thorin, soft and attentive? I’m in the fucking Twilight Zone.
“Zeke?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you remember?” Khalil asks with a caution that makes my skin prickle.
The better question is… What exactly don’t they want me to remember?
“Nothing. Not a fucking thing. You know that.”
The tension in the room heightens to a dangerous point since we all know my amnesia is temporary.
It’s not unusual for Seth to lock away some memories, though the memory loss is not always his doing.
I don’t know if the secrets he keeps are his way of punishing me for taking my body back or protecting me from further harm, but he always tucks the memories away just out of reach whenever he sleeps.
It’s never bothered me before.
I’ve never been so tempted to go looking for them until now.
My gaze travels back to the girl because I can’t help myself. She’s leaning forward and staring back at me, too, with a mixture of curiosity and anguish. I have no idea what that’s about, but it makes my teeth clench.
Seth…
Just like my last few attempts, he’s eerily silent when I call for him. That space inside my head that Seth occupies is hauntingly hollow, and I’m left asking a terrifying question that would send me to my knees if I wasn’t already sitting.
Can an alter die even if the body lives on?
A flare of unexpected panic seizes my muscles and sends my heart racing even as I reach for Seth again out of habit, grasping for the comfort he provides.
My feelings toward Seth have always been complicated, but the dread wrapping itself around me like a barbed fist feels pretty fucking definitive.
When all I feel is that emptiness again, I focus on trying to access his memories.
It’s a challenge for any of us to hide them all, especially from me. It’s my head after all.
Wincing at the pounding in my skull when I probe for the ones of Aurelia—the memories Seth has locked down tighter than state secrets—I give up for now and absently rub my chest while staring into the flames.
This ache right over my heart feels like my rib cage had been torn open recently.
The last time I’d felt that way was when I learned of Tatum’s betrayal.
My gaze flicks toward the girl again only to find her watching me.
Seriously, what the fuck is her problem?
Khalil hears my sharp inhale and then searches for the source, catching Aurelia gawking again.
He leans and whispers something to her, but this time his voice carries enough over the crackling fire for me to make out the gentle order.
“We need to talk to him. Go in the room and relax for me, Goldilocks. We got this.”
Aurelia sighs heavily like she’s annoyed about being shut out before pushing the blanket off her shoulders and standing to obey.
I grit my teeth when I catch my brothers watching her like obsessed maniacs.
Their eyes follow her out of the room and into Thorin’s, but when she turns to close the door, it’s my eyes she finds and holds as she quietly shuts it behind her.
It feels like she’s hunting me, and I react like any cornered prey would.
I do nothing while waiting for her pounce, to feel the sink of her claws and teeth bleeding me dry.
The door closes, and even though I can’t see her anymore, I’m locked inside my fear of this girl who watches me like she thinks I’m hers.
The moment she’s gone Khalil swears and then places his hand on my back before instructing heavily, “Breathe, Zeke.”
My lungs expand inside my chest, but I can’t quite catch my breath. “Why is she here?” I choke out. “Who is she? What is she doing here? Why is she here?”
My heart is pounding dangerously fast by the time Khalil moves and wraps himself around me from behind for comfort as much as control in case I switch.
“Shhh,” he soothes with his bearded cheek pressed against the side of mine as he rocks us both from side to side.
“It’s okay, Zeke. She’s not going to hurt you. Just breathe, man. Breathe.”
I hold on to his promise even though I want to flee the cabin.
She won’t hurt me. She won’t hurt me. She won’t hurt me.
I don’t realize Thorin’s left the room until he crouches in front of me with a pill in one hand and a glass of water in the other. I open my mouth, and Thorin places the pill on my tongue.
An image flashes in my mind of a smaller pill, a softer mouth, and…my hand placing the pill inside. The brown eyes staring up at me are resigned but grateful as I place the tiny pill on her tongue. Aurelia swallows it down, and the image is replaced by another.
She’s now passed out in Khalil’s bed, and I’m standing over her. She sleeps so soundly and peacefully while looking like she’s been through hell.
The memory fades, and I’m left reeling. What the hell was that about?
Thorin hands me the glass of water, and I drink it because I know he won’t stop watching me like a hawk until I do. When the glass is empty, he takes it from me and collapses next to me. I tap Khalil’s hand, and he lets me go.
“She was in the plane crash, wasn’t she?” I say, and they both stiffen. When neither of them respond, I growl out, “Wasn’t she?”
“I thought you didn’t remember anything?”
I shake my head that already feels heavy and let the lie leave my lips. “Nothing after finding her in Khalil’s bed. Now stop dodging the question and answer me.”
“Yes,” Thorin answers.
“Isaac?”
Thorin shakes his head. “She’s not with him. Far from it.”
“Aurelia’s a singer. A really good one,” Khalil gushes, and I’m once again questioning if I’ve entered an alternate reality. “You should hear her sing sometime. She—”
“It’s been two months,” I interrupt. “If Aurelia was in that crash, why is she still here?”
They both fall quiet, and my heart plummets like a deadweight into the pit of my stomach.
I remember the morning she arrived.
We’d been in the middle of an argument that had nearly torn us apart when I caught sight of her plane engulfed in flames and flying dangerously low over our cabin like a shooting star.
And the argument Aurelia had unknowingly interrupted?
It was whether it was finally safe for us to go into town and find some local girls to seduce.
Seduce, not kidnap.
We definitely would have never brought them here.
This cabin, these wilds, and this life were supposed to be ours and ours alone.
Finding a woman for each of us would have been about fulfilling a need and nothing more.
Nothing as serious or fucked-up as whatever the hell is happening with this singer who makes Khalil Poverly gush.
Staring at my brothers and wondering if I ever knew them at all, I scramble to my feet and back away with my hands clutching my hair and my vision blurring when they stand too. “What did you guys do?” I shout when my mind taunts me with horrifying possibilities. “What the fuck did you do?”
That argument ended with two against one and then she appeared, forcing us to shelve the discussion for now.
Or so I thought.
Only one thing is absolutely clear…