Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
ZEPHYR
The evening is quiet. Matty looks a little frustrated, though I’m not entirely sure why. His eyes remain narrowed as he glances to the side of the table. Glaring at someone that only he sees.
Once, I might have said that people who see ghosts are simply not all there.
There’s something mentally wrong with them.
Yeah, I was one of those people. Even when Matty would know something that he shouldn’t—that he couldn’t know—I was convinced that someone must have told him.
That’s what makes the most sense, after all. That’s what’s logical.
Seeing him freak out after the failed initiation wasn’t even that convincing to me.
It told me he couldn’t handle murder. Honestly?
Good for him. Being forced to murder someone for a secret society initiation and then failing, having to watch the man you love more than anything—the one responsible for putting you in this position to begin with—murder the victim in cold blood instead?
I can see how that can break someone. I understand why he might rave about dead bodies and shit. The nightmares are real. Unless you don’t have a conscience, murder affects you. I get it.
The first time that I think I truly believed Matty could see ghosts was just the other week when he woke us up to tell us someone was here. He led us there in the dark with nothing but flashlights. He showed us where the boat was. He followed some invisible line to where the intruder was.
All on his own.
This is a man who hasn’t left the bowels of the island in over two years. Someone who didn’t explore the castle, and certainly not the island, before his failed initiation. There’s simply no other explanation as to how he managed that than his seeing and hearing what we can’t.
Ghosts. Or as he calls them, the dead. He doesn’t say ghosts or spirits. To him, it’s always the dead. Once, I heard him refer to them as the murdered.
Tonight, he’s not happy with one of the dead. I don’t know what they’re saying, but he’s not happy. It doesn’t appear as if they’re shutting up, either. I’ve never seen him address a ghost directly.
“Matty?” Darwin asks. Matty’s eyes flicker to his. “You okay?”
He huffs in annoyance. “Sometimes, they don’t shut up with their opinions.
” His eyes narrow more as he looks to where he’d been glaring a moment ago.
“Even when I didn’t ask for them and don’t give a shit what they think.
” The corners of his lips quirk up in wicked satisfaction.
“They don’t like it when I swear, but that’s just too fucking bad, isn’t it?
If they can run their mouths, I can speak however the fuckity-fucking fuck I want. ”
I laugh. “Wow.”
Matty looks at me, his expression softening. “Sorry,” he says, somewhat embarrassed. “I must sound like a lunatic.”
“Oh, Matty,” Darwin sighs. He scooches from the bench beside me and slides in beside Matty instead, wrapping his arms around Matty’s shoulders. “You’re not a lunatic. Anyone who has ever called you that can be shoved down a well.”
He hums, leaning his head on Darwin’s shoulder. “Thanks. Maybe I feel crazy sometimes. It’s not as exciting as it might sound to see and hear what no one else can.”
“You know? Maybe that’s by choice. Maybe they only trust you to see them,” Darwin says, brushing Matty’s hair down and trying to tame his wild curls. “Maybe they trust you above the rest of us because we failed at being good human beings.”
“Liam said the man was… bad. He said he’d killed people himself—a small child with his bare hands. But adults, too. That was true, wasn’t it?” Matty asks.
“Yes. We don’t kill any random person off the streets simply for an initiation,” I agree.
Matty nods. “Then, by all accounts, he deserved to die. We were playing as the hand of karma. We were turning around his god-complex, determining that he deserved to die, just as the innocent child whom he killed.”
“He did,” Darwin and I agree.
I’m not entirely sure which target he’s referring to. As I’ve already established, I’m generally pretty oblivious to most people around me outside of Jude and whoever is directly involved in our fun and conversation. Which meant I wasn’t paying any attention to Matty at all when he arrived.
“But I couldn’t kill him. He deserved to die, and I couldn’t kill him.”
“Matty, that makes you a far better man than the rest of us. I didn’t hesitate to kill my target. I didn’t hesitate to kill the man your ghosts told us was on the island. Do you think that makes me a good person?” I ask.
Matty studies me. “I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
“I’m not sure that man deserved to die, but our rules are simple and straightforward—we protect our secrets at all costs. Including the bodies on the island, living and dead,” I state. “That means he was going to die simply by setting foot on the island without invitation.”
“Your ghosts knew that,” Darwin says. I watch his fingers as he brushes Matty’s curls from his forehead.
“That’s why they urged you to come to us to tell us about the intruder.
As angry as they might be about being dead by whatever put them there—even if it was us—they want our secrets kept as well. Don’t they?”
Matty glances around the room, and I get the distinct impression that he’s looking into the faces of the dead that surround us. “Yeah,” he says. “This is their home.”
“Exactly. We protect our secrets and their home because they can’t. We will always do that,” I assure him.
He nods. Maybe it’s just me, but he looks a little lighter now. Darwin kisses his temple and then retakes his seat beside me. Dinner is cold now, but we pick away at it until we’re finished. The three of us clean up together, and then we lounge around for the rest of the night.
Matty joins us in bed, which means no sex. While we’re obviously not shy about fucking when Matty is around, we don’t generally go at it when he’s in the room. Inevitably, he shows up while we’re in the middle of it.
I think that’s by design. Probably on all our parts.
In a way, we’re involving Matty as best we can when we can’t for moral reasons.
Not that I’ve given this much thought, but I think I’d steal Matty from Liam if given the chance.
He deserves better than a dickwad who forced him into this situation and then abandoned him to his demons.
I definitely don’t try to think about this. I agreed to having sexy fun with Darwin. Anything else doesn’t have a place here.
We crawl into bed together. Darwin and I are stripped down to our underwear.
Matty is fully clothed in sweats. My sweats.
He likes to wear my sweats to bed. I’m going to need to get Erez to send me some more clothes, I think.
It’s silly to keep purchasing more when I have an ungodly amount of clothing to begin with.
I feel like I’m barely asleep when Matty’s shaking us awake. The panic in his voice makes me feel disoriented as I sit upright and look around the dark room for the threat.
“They’re back,” Matty says, urgency in his voice. “They’re back, Zephyr. Hurry.”
His words don’t make sense. I reach for him and pull Matty into my chest, dropping us back on the bed. “Shh,” I murmur, eyes already closed. “It’s okay, doll.”
For a moment, his entire body relaxes. He snuggles further into me, and I realize just how touch-starved he is. I wrap around him a little tighter, and Darwin follows.
I’m about to doze again when Matty jerks free. “No. No, no, no. We need to get up. They’re heading for the tower, Zephyr!”
“What?” I ask. I’m not awake enough for word puzzles.
“Who?” Darwin asks at the same time.
“People who shouldn’t be here. Their boat is right where the last one was. There are two this time. Hurry, Darwin! Hurry.”
My eyes open a little wider. “More Chokecherry asshats?” I ask.
Matty looks away, though I don’t get the impression he’s looking at someone. He’s listening. “Yes?” he answers, tilting his head. Then he shakes his head. “I don’t know. They don’t know.”
Darwin and I are already getting out of bed, hurrying to dress with the discarded clothes on the floor again. This time, I grab some clean socks, though. I hate wearing socks that I’ve already taken off my feet after wearing them all day. That’s just gross.
It feels very familiar as we head down the hall with Matty in tow.
He’s quietly urging us to hurry, even as we stop for boots and winter clothes.
Darwin holds a jacket open for Matty, and he slips in.
He’s zipping it up as I pull a hat over his head, right down over his face. He grins as he adjusts himself.
Just as Darwin had in the woods previously, we show him the No Face masks.
Whatever humor he had just shown disappears.
Fear glistens in his eyes. I don’t think he’s actually afraid of the ghosts.
No matter what they say. His true fear is of the masks and what they represent.
The memories they pull to the surface. They’re a trigger object.
“Just us, right?” I ask. “There’s only three of us on this island who are allowed to be here. So you know without a doubt who is behind these two masks. Right?”
Matty swallows and nods. “Yeah.”
“Don’t take us to the boat this time,” Darwin says. “Please. Right to the intruders. We’ll take care of the boat tomorrow.”
“The boat isn’t on the shore this time,” Matty says, flashlight in hand, as he shoves the big door open and leads the way out. “It was on the shore before. That’s why I brought you there.”
“Understood. We’ll take care of the boat in the morning,” I agree.
“Stay behind me. Step where I do. They’re almost at the tower, so we need to hurry,” Matty says.