Chapter Two #2
That poor girl’s timing could not have been worse.
“Zeke—”
Thorin sighs. “Let’s face it. We are never leaving this mountain. This is our home now. This is our life. This is how we stay together and keep each other safe.”
Nothing of what he says surprises me because even though we’ve talked about leaving one day, none of us have ever believed it. “What the fuck does that have to do with her?”
“Everything,” Khalil answers. “We finally have everything we’ve been needing.”
My eyes rapidly flick between the two of them, and then I swear viciously. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“She’s ours, Zeke.”
“Ours.” I echo the word, and it clangs around my psyche like a gong on D-day. “Does Aurelia know that?” Aurelia. It’s my first time saying her name out loud.
“Of course.”
“Tell me everything that happened,” I demand. “Starting with the day she got here.”
Thorin shrugs, but feigning indifference has never been a talent of his.
The tension in his shoulders always gives him away.
“Nothing to tell really. After you split, we questioned her to see if she was one of Isaac’s, found out who she really is, and decided to keep her around for a while in case she was lying. ”
“And now that you know that she’s not?”
Thorin’s jaw clenches. “We told you. She wants to stay.”
“Just like that?” I whisper sharply. Do they take me for a fool?
“It’s complicated,” Thorin sighs, “but it was her choice, Zeke. We didn’t force her to make it.”
But there it is…the quick look they give each other that leaves me pushing past the hurt of knowing my brothers are lying to me and focusing on getting the truth one way or another.
And if they won’t tell me…
I’m on my feet and at Thorin’s door before either of them can react.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Khalil barks.
I hear him rising to his feet, so I pause only long enough to say, “I’m going to ask her myself.”
I push open the door of Thorin’s room to their combined shouts. “Zeke!”
I don’t consider the repercussions of barging into a room without knocking until I’m already inside.
I throw my shoulder against the door to shut it just as the hard bodies of my best friends slam into it from the other side.
Thorin and Khalil’s chorus of pained groans filters through the door as I quickly lock it, but I immediately regret it when I turn to see one very naked girl staring back at me through equally surprised eyes.
“Fuck!” I slap my hand over my eyes and turn around to face the door again. “Shit. Sorry. Ah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…sorry.”
Thorin and Khalil start pounding on the door—the rhythm in sync with my racing heart.
“That’s okay,” she says, sounding amused. “But do you mind telling me why those two sound like they’re about to have a heart attack?”
I expected screaming and hysteria from my barging in. Instead, the light and lyrical sound of her giggling at my expense has me lowering my hand as I cautiously peek over my shoulder. Aurelia’s covered now with a yellow silk robe that makes her glow that much brighter.
I look away again before I can get caught in a trance.
“Sorry about that,” I say as I stare at the floor. “I should have knocked.”
“Stop apologizing, Seth. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
My teeth clench a second before I correct her. “Zeke.”
Aurelia winces, and I immediately feel like a dick.
It wasn’t a slight. She’ll obviously need to acclimate to me being back.
“Right…right. Sorry. I…I’ve never known anyone with DID before, and Seth is the only alter I’ve met so far.
Please tell me there’s a learning curve?
” She bowls on, shaking off her fumble before I can reply.
“Hi, Zeke. Nice to meet you…again. I’m Aurelia… again.”
I peek at her curiously through the strands of my hair that Seth let get too long.
He’s usually more particular about his appearance, but haircuts are a sore spot for him.
A few more inches and our hair will be long enough for those douchey topknots that Thorin wears. “So…you know about me? About…us?”
“Mm-hmm.” She tucks her lips while nodding like she wants to say more but no longer trusts herself to say the right thing. “Yuuuup.”
“And…” I frown. “You’re not afraid?”
“Not to get competitive, but between the two of us I’m pretty sure I’m scarier.” I take an involuntary step back, and she slaps her forehead with her palm. “Fuck. Zero for two.” When I force myself to get a grip, she offers me a wobbly smile. “I keep putting my foot in my mouth, huh?”
I take a few moments to practice the breathing techniques Khalil helped me with until the worst of my anxiety passes and I no longer feel like fleeing. “It’s not your fault, Aurelia.” She winces at the sound of her name, but I don’t fixate on why. “I should probably unclench.”
“I didn’t exactly leave you with a great first impression. And I’m sorry about that kiss earlier. If I’d known it was you…”
It was jarring as fuck. When was the last time I’d kissed a girl or even wanted to?
Tatum?
No. But she was the last time it meant something and that kiss from Aurelia earlier had certainly felt like it meant a lot to her.
I just don’t feel the same. Since I don’t want Aurelia taking my rejection personally, I take a page from her book and choose not to remark on it. “So, you and Seth?” I ask instead.
“Uh-huh. Is that weird?”
I shrug even though I want to say yes. I don’t know how far Seth has gotten with her, but it’s possible I’ve already been inside her and I don’t remember any of it.
Not. Important.
Aurelia makes a sound of distress, and then she’s clutching her stomach and looking horrified. “I’m sorry. I just realized how that must make you feel.” This strange and beautiful girl covers her face with her hands and groans. “God, you must feel so violated.”
Yeah, they definitely had sex.
Nothing less would spark that kind of remorse and shame.
My lips twitch from the smile I keep at bay as I stare down at her. “It’s okay. It’s Seth’s body too. He never really understood that, but I guess he finally found the right motivation.”
I let my smirk fall when Aurelia slowly lowers her hands. She still has trouble meeting my eyes. “You’re not mad?”
“I’d have to be blind,” I mumble.
“What’s that?”
“No.”
“Oh. Good.” She gathers the mass of her blond curls in her hands and a claw clip off Thorin’s nightstand.
The movement causes the gap in her robe to widen, and I’m momentarily distracted by the inner curves of her breasts while she twists and clips her curls.
The natural brown roots are already starting to chase away the gold, creating an unintentional ombre that makes her skin look more bronzed.
When my gaze returns to her face, I find her arms by her side again as she silently contemplates me with a crestfallen look. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Honestly, today was nothing.” She waves me off, misreading my concern. “You’ve missed a lot. There’s been nothing but drama since I arrived.” Sighing, she drops down onto Thorin’s bed and leans back on her hands to consider her statement. “I’m pretty sure I am the drama.”
“Aurelia…” There it is again. Her soft lips flatten, and that look like I’m breaking her heart by simply saying her name returns. I push past it again and focus on the reason I’m even in this room, ignoring the need to run away from her. “Do you need help?”
She sits up straight, bringing her hands into her lap before dropping them back to her sides to curl around the sheets like she doesn’t quite know what to do with them. “Help?” she echoes quietly.
Thorin and Khalil are no longer pounding on the locked door.
I hear them pacing outside though, and the words get stuck in my throat.
The part of me that leans on them doesn’t want to know the answer.
I don’t want to know if my best friends betrayed what I went through by holding someone else against their will.
I feel like shit for even suggesting they’re capable of doing that, but I can’t ignore the way Aurelia’s suddenly looking around the room like a cornered animal.
“Did my brothers hurt you?”
Aurelia’s gaze snaps to mine, and she searches for something before quickly replying, “No.”
Knowing Isaac would often trick me with kindness in order to break me down further, I don’t let it go. “It’s not a trick, Aurelia. Did they hurt you? You can tell me.”
She blinks, seemingly regaining her composure and shedding some of her unease before she cocks her head and tightens the sash on her robe. “And then what?”
I’m stumped by her question for a moment, feeling my brows pulling down. “And then I get you out. I…I’ll help you get home. I’ll keep you safe from them. I promise you.”
“Even if that means you all go to prison?”
My eyes fall shut.
I knew those pricks were lying to me.
I knew it the moment I tasted her lips, heard her speak, walked into this room and saw her body, and caught her scent.
She’s ambrosia.
And we’ve been dying without her.
No way Thorin, Khalil, and fucking Seth would just let her go. They found her and they made her theirs like some twisted version of finders keepers.
“Zeke?” Aurelia calls softly when I don’t speak for a long while.
I scrub a hand down my face—a hand that helped to shackle her and may have even harmed her—and then I force myself to open my eyes and face this beautiful girl who confuses and scares the shit out of me. “I have a better question for you, Aurelia. Why do you care what happens to us?”
“I don’t,” she says unevenly. She’s all bluster. I caught her off her guard, and now she’s trying to regain some control. “I just don’t believe you.”
Shame courses through me as I wonder again what we did to her. “You think this is a test?”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut when she gives the smallest nod without quite meeting my eyes. If I blinked, I would have missed it.
And suddenly, I realize how disorienting it must have been when I barged in here and flipped the script. Isaac did it often. He feigned mercy only to extinguish my hope in the most brutal way the moment it appeared.
All I’ve accomplished is convincing Aurelia that I’m just another monster.
Fuck.
“It’s not a test,” I assure her. “And as much as I wish I could convince you, I won’t push for now, but this isn’t over.” I say it almost like an apology because I can’t let it go—no matter how much she or my brothers might want me to.
“They’re not so bad,” she confesses with a small smile that I don’t understand.
It eases some of the worry that my brothers did unspeakable things to her, but that smile only replaces those worries with new ones.
“You sure it’s not the Stockholm talking?” I blurt. When the hearts in her eyes turn into sharp daggers, I feel like I’m finally getting a glimpse of the real her. “Right. Okay. Suit yourself. I’ll leave you now. Good night.”
Yanking the door open and barreling past Thorin and Khalil, I don’t realize it’s the middle of the day until I’m standing outside the cabin, bent over, hands braced on my knees, trying to convince myself of two things.
She’s not Tatum.
And I’m not prey.
When I finally step back into the cabin thirty minutes later, Aurelia is stepping out of Thorin’s room fully dressed. Our eyes meet briefly before she looks away and announces to no one in particular, “I’ll get started on lunch.”