26. Lilah
26
LILAH
I turned over in bed for the hundredth time that night and kicked off the covers with a sigh. Insomnia was nothing new for me — my brain liked to chew on loose ends and my life was a veritable carnival of loose ends — but it never got less frustrating.
Back in the bad old days, I’d lain awake thinking about my infractions, the mistakes and missteps that had landed me in the hall closet. Then it was what had happened between the Bastards and me and the fact that the entire school had seen my tits. After that, there was a period where I slept, but only because I was heavily medicated at Oak Hill.
A relief, if I was going to be honest.
Since living with the Bastards I’d gone from worrying they were going to bust my door down and assault me in the middle of the night to worrying about my increasingly undeniable attraction to them.
Basically, there was never a shortage of things to think about, and my brain was determined to cover them all, but only at 2 a.m. when I was desperate for sleep.
Tonight had started with Nolan and the way he’d made me feel at the beach, my body alive in places I hadn’t even known existed, even with my vibrator. Now I was thinking about Mr. Suit’s car and the shell company, about where to go from here.
Thinking about Nolan was a lot more pleasant, but also a lot more confusing, so I’d been worrying the problem of Mr. Suit for the last half hour instead, tossing and turning, trying not to give in to the impulse to go to the kitchen.
Because if I went to the kitchen Jude would come down and make me tea and grilled cheese and then I’d be even more confused, because if it was wrong to want one of the bastards who’d ruined my life, what could I call it when I wanted two of them?
I left Rafe out on purpose. I did NOT want Rafe Maddox.
Finally, I sat up with a sigh. This was so messed up.
I pulled on the sweatpants that had become my uniform, grabbed my knife from under my pillow, and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie. Then I stepped out into the hall.
At first it seemed like the house was quiet as usual. Other than my time at Oak Hill, I’d only ever lived in a drafty old house and a drafty old apartment. It had taken me a while to get used to the house in the mountains, which was so well designed, so well built, it sometimes felt like being sealed inside a tomb.
A luxe tomb, but still.
Except as I made my way down the hall I heard something coming from the door on the left.
Rafe’s bedroom.
It was faint, a muffled moan, barely audible words I couldn’t make out.
I froze, wondering if someone else was in Rafe’s room, then jumped when a scream tore through the house.
I flattened myself against the wall instinctively, my heart pounding like a jackhammer, adrenaline flooding my body.
“What the fuck… What the fuck ?”
Rafe was screaming, the sound reverberating through the house.
Something was wrong. Something was happening to him.
My hand went to my knife as I hurried toward his room.
I had my hand on the door when I heard Nolan’s voice behind me. “Don’t.”
Now Rafe was crying inside his room. I couldn’t even comprehend it. My brain couldn’t even process something so out of the realm of possibility, not with everything happening so fast.
“But he’s?—”
“Having a nightmare,” Nolan finished, covering my hand with his own so I wouldn’t turn the knob.
“A… a nightmare?” He might as well have said Rafe had rescued a puppy from the side of the road. That Rafe delivered meals to the elderly in his spare time. That he dressed up as Santa for kids in the cancer ward at Christmas.
It was that hard to believe.
“It happens sometimes,” Jude said, yawning and scrubbing a hand down his face.
“What… what?” I wasn’t sounding very smart here, but what could I say? This whole conversation was exploding my brain.
“I’ll go,” Nolan said, removing my hand from the door. “You go with Jude.”
“But… is Rafe okay?” I asked. “Will he be okay?”
I don’t know why I cared. I shouldn’t have cared.
Nolan touched his hand to my face. “He’ll be fine, sweetheart. Go with Jude.”
Jude took my hand and pulled me toward the stairs as Nolan slipped into Rafe’s room. For a split second, the sound of Rafe’s crying got louder. Then the door was shut and I heard Nolan, his voice soothing as he talked to Rafe.
“I don’t understand,” I said as Jude led me down the stairs.
“Nothing a grilled cheese won’t fix.”