Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Peach
Reflections - The Neighbourhood
" H ere you go, sweetie," Alex says as she passes me a steaming mug of tea.
I'm curled up on her sofa under three fluffy blankets, and I have one of her pet bunnies chewing some cilantro on my lap.
I look down at my phone that’s lighting up for the hundredth time. It's late. He called me all day and all evening. He keeps alternating calls and messages. Every time there's a new text, I re-read all the other ones.
Wren: Where are you?
Wren: Peach. I'm so sorry. You have to let me explain.
Wren: Where did you go? Are you on campus? Your house is empty.
Wren: I'm sorry. Please pick up.
Wren: Pick up, Penelope.
Wren: Peach, baby, please. We need to talk. Where are you?
Wren: Talk to me. I'm begging you.
Wren: I'm worried. At least tell me you're safe.
Wren: Penelope, pick up the fucking phone.
There are a few reasons I came to Alex and Xi's house on the North Shore of Silver Falls the second I left the library. The first one being I couldn't go to Ella's because Chris can't be trusted. He would have told Wren where I am right away. The second is that Wren has never been here. He knows Alex lives on the North Shore when she's not on campus, but he has no idea where exactly.
Alex sits next to me on the sofa and puts her hand on my lap.
"Hey." She smiles softly. "Did you change your mind about talking about it, or should we just binge watch something super violent?"
I chuckle softly, petting her bunny. His name is Jean-Paul Sartre. Yes, like the French philosopher. She's such a nerd.
Alex has the kindest heart, and no matter that I've been distant, she knows I'm hiding something, and she still welcomed me with open arms when I knocked on her door.
Xi walks into the living room, nodding a hello at me, but nothing more. He's not the friendliest, most talkative guy. He's clearly coming back from the painting studio he set up in his shed. He's got pink paint smudged on his shirt, fingers, and hair. It's Alex's favorite color, and Xi might be a big, bad ex-drug dealer from the North Shore, but it's clear when you look at their house who owns his ass.
The front door is painted fuchsia, and there are frames of the couple everywhere on pink shelves she probably made him put up. Some are of them and the bunnies. Some are only the bunnies. So when Xi walks in, wearing jeans and a white tank top, and I notice how big his arms are, how lethal his entire body is…when I think about the fact that he's probably killed people for the gang he used to be in, I want to burst out laughing. The man has pet bunnies.
"I think I'll choose the violent movie, if you don't mind," I tell my friend. "I'm not sure I feel like talking about anything."
She nods, completely unsurprised. I'm not one to talk about topics that feel a little too real. As she grabs the remote, she hesitates.
"Are you and Wren still together?" she whispers, barely able to look at me. She sounds like a kid whose parents are about to divorce.
Except it's a lot more complicated than that, isn't it? I'm furious with Wren. Betrayed. But he's my Shadow. There are forces more powerful than my will that get to decide if he and I are still together or not.
And there’s also the issue that I'm in love with him, and that isn't a feeling I can simply shut down.
I've never felt so lonely while being linked so strongly to someone.
I take too long to answer, my thoughts swirling like smoke in my head. It's impossible to take hold of one to make sense of anything.
"Something violent," Alex says reassuringly, stopping the war in my head.
"Where the guy gets his dick chopped off will do," I say playfully.
"Intense," I hear Xi mumble behind the couch. He's now throwing carrot peels into the fenced space the bunnies have in the living room. They have three of them. Why do they need so much space? This house is tiny, too.
"This is how girls cope," Alex throws back as we both look over our shoulders at him. "I don't tell you how to deal with heartbreak."
"Cupcake." He smiles, but there's nothing reassuring in it. "Break my heart, and you'll be the one having to deal with putting it back together. Spoiler alert: won't feel like a trip to Disneyland for you."
She giggles as I roll my eyes, and we're cut off by her phone ringing. Her wide gaze comes to me as she shows me the name on the screen.
Wren.
"Motherfucker," I groan, throwing my head back.
"I'm going to see what he wants. I won't tell him you're here," she assures me.
"No, no. Alex, you're a terrible liar—" I cut myself off as she picks up and puts him on speaker.
"Hey, Wren," she says in a fake cheer. "What’s?—"
"Is she with you? Because she's not at your campus house. She's not at her dads', and she's not with Ella."
Alex's eyes go from me and to Xi, who's now slowly walking to the sofa with a scowl on his face.
"Um, she's not here," she says meekly, making me slap a hand against my face.
" You're a terrible liar."
I mouth I told you to her, and she shakes her head, not knowing what to do.
" Please, please, tell her I'm sorry. Tell her to come home. I need her."
"What did you do?" my friend asks, her eyes on me and her face falling when she notices my eyes tearing up.
" I fucked up. But I never meant to hurt her. I would never hurt her. I was… I was trying to keep her happy. Please, give her the phone. I need to hear her voice. "
Her eyebrows rise slightly, her puppy eyes begging me to say something. She's fucking falling for it. So, I shake my head vehemently.
" Give me your address, Alex. Let me bring her home, and you won't have to worry about anything else. Please, we're both your friends." He sounds so desperate, he's even pulling at my heartstrings. I can't imagine Alex, who wears her heart on her sleeve, resisting him much longer.
Hang up , I mouth. But she shakes her head.
"Wren." She hesitates. "Maybe you could give her the night? And try again tomorrow?"
" No." And the switch in his voice makes her blink a few times in confusion. She doesn't know that side of him. She still knows him as Wren, our best friend.
"N-no?" she stutters. I catch Xi’s eyes narrowing at the phone as he crosses his arms.
" No. And actually, I'd like you to remind her of something for me. Can you do that? "
"Uh…" she hesitates, wide eyes now looking around the room.
My jaw tightens. He's scaring her.
" Tell her that she can hide all she wants, but there's no escaping me. " His smooth, low voice is terrifying, sending goosebumps to my forearms. "Remind her that her choice is an illusion I can take away at any time, and that the same system we both hate will support me in finding her. She can hate me, and she can be mad for the rest of her life, but she will be mad by my side. " My mouth drops open to help my struggling breath. I can't believe he's giving her hints of the Circle even existing.
" And you two stay at your house, Alex. I can find you, don't you worry. "
She's frozen on the spot, but it doesn't matter, because Xi snatches her phone out of her hands.
"Do you know who the fuck you're talking to, Hunter?" he growls. "I've killed men for a lot less than being threatening to Alex. So watch your tone and stay away from our house. Because if I see you here, I'll show you how we deal with clingy exes on this side of the river."
Hanging up, he turns back to us, throwing the phone on the couch. He looks me up and down and says to Alex, "If she becomes a problem for your safety, she's out."
"What?" Alex gasps. "No, she's not. Take that back."
He shakes his head. "Her ex-boyfriend surrounds himself with seriously dangerous people, Cupcake. I'm not taking any risks."
"What?" The word slips out of my mouth with barely any emotion in it. The shock is too great. "What do you know?"
"Enough to know I don't want him and his little friends anywhere near my woman."
"What little friends?" Alex jumps back in. "What is it? What are we talking about?"
"How do you know anything?" I ask as I get to my feet, rounding the sofa to where he's standing.
"Those guys keep their power by owning everyone. They're intricately linked with mafia men. And I happen to know a few of those men. That's it," he explains in his unbothered tone.
"Wait, wait." Alex shakes her head as Jean-Paul Sartre jumps on her lap. She grabs him, petting him as she stands up. "Are we… Are we scared of Wren now or something? Why is he dangerous so suddenly?" Her eyes grow wider than saucers. "Xi, are you scared of Wren?"
She looks like her world is about to fall apart, and mine too. To Alex, there’s no one who can keep her safer than her ex-gang-member boyfriend who grew up in the roughest town in the tri-state area. She's looking so vulnerable like this, a little girl who's finding out for the first time that parents can be scared too.
"All I'm saying," Xi says calmly, "is that Wren Hunter is someone you don't necessarily want to mess with. So if your friend being here becomes a danger to you, she's out."
"But you just threatened him ," she says weakly. "Why would you threaten someone you're scared of!" She walks around, petting her bunny until she freezes. "Wait, that makes no sense." She laughs to herself. "Wren is our best friend. Xi, you're being paranoid. Again."
He approaches her at the same time I do, and he puts a hand on her cheek.
"I'm not scared of him . My threat is very much valid. He shows up here, he's dead. Buried by tree thirteen and all. But then we might, you know, have to move across the world or something. Because the people he associates with are more powerful than I can handle on my own."
Alex rubs a hand down her now pinkened face. "You've lost your mind. Wren doesn't associate himself with anyone but us . Is that who you're scared of? Me and my friends? His lacrosse team? This is insane."
"What's tree thirteen?" I ask, heart racing. I feel this is useful information I should know.
They both turn to me. And Alex forgets all about Wren and the people she should fear. Good.
"Um," my friend hesitates.
Xi doesn't.
"It’s a place on the North Shore, where we bury all our bodies. There are so many, it would be impossible for the cops to trace them back to anyone."
I stay still for a while, my thoughts running a hundred miles an hour. Today is a heavy day. A lot on my mind. A lot that’s going to stick with me and haunt me. And I'm struggling to put words to my emotions.
Xi observes me as Alex goes back to the couch, sitting down and sighing that “this is too much to process.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes growing more intense on me. "Why are you interested in tree thirteen?"
"Because you just threatened to put my boyfriend six feet under by said tree," I snap back. "Can I have a minute to process it?"
"Still your boyfriend, then." He continues with his unbearably flat tone.
He doesn't move, observing me from head to toe, and back up… Then something flashes in his eyes. Recognition.
"Do you have a sister?"
"I'm an only child," I reply right away. "Adopted."
"Right. Of course. You just remind me of someone."
The entire conversation feels robotic until stupid hope flares up my chest.
"Who? Because I could have a mom." And I know I read she had been killed, but that's the thing about hope. It comes back, because it keeps you going. A survival mechanism that's kept humanity alive for hundreds of thousands of years.
Sweat coats my back when I take a step toward him.
"I could have a mom," I repeat, and the vigor in my words makes him take a step back.
"Xi," Alex insists. "Do you know a woman who looks like Peach and is of age to be her mom?"
He shakes his head. "No, sorry. She's young. Early thirties or something."
Alex looks at me with eyes full of apology and smiles to try to reassure me that everything is going to be okay.
"But how much does she look like me? It has to be a lot if you thought of her?"
His gaze darts to Alex, and I catch her shaking her head. I know she isn't holding something back from me. Alex is too bad at that. She probably doesn't even know the woman. What she's silently telling him, though, is to not give me false hope.
Xi runs a hand through his thick dark hair. "Maybe all redheads look a bit the same to me," he mumbles.
"Are you only realizing now that I look like her, Xi?" I ask, annoyed. "You’ve seen me how many hundreds of times since you’ve been with Alex? And you see it now ?"
"I’ll be honest with you. When Alex is in a room, I don’t really look at anyone else."
Can’t blame him for that, I guess.
I turn to Alex. "Do you know her?"
Negative.
I'm about to ask for her name when my phone beeps again, and I look down, expecting another message from Wren.
It's not him.
It's Hermes.
Hermes: Did you know there are secret rooms under the campus castle?
"No," I whisper to myself, despair clinging to me like a heavy blanket weighing me down.
This is the last thing I need right now.
Hermes: Well, there are. There's a secret passageway to access them. In the middle of the quad, the statue of Athena stares at the entrance. The young men from the Circle like to use the place to play with their Heras without the older members keeping an eye on them.
"Peach, is everything okay?"
I startle, nodding at Alex, but I feel like my soul is leaving my body.
Hermes: Go check it out, little murderer. Hurry up. Or you'll miss the best part.
It takes all of me to stay standing, my legs threatening to give up on me. I can't take any more of life today.
"All fine," I croak. "I…I have to go."
"Are you okay? Was it Wren? Was it…those people Xi is talking about?"
I shake my head. "No. No, but I have to run."
"Peach." Alex gets up, nervous energy wafting from her. "Who are those people?"
I glance at Xi. "I can't say anything, but you're not part of it. Whatever you know and share with her won't get anyone in trouble. I have to go."
Of course, I feel horrible lying to my friend after she let me stay all day and was going to let me hide the whole night at her house so Wren wouldn't find me.
But when Hermes calls…I have to act.