Chapter 32 Rosabelle
Rosabelle
“What’s going on?” Adam says again, looking around in a panic. “What the hell is happening?”
The diner has erupted into chaos.
Some people pause to bid urgent farewells to their dinner partners before bolting for the exit; others, like Kian and Allie
and Liam, rush out without so much as a backward glance. Voices swell and retreat, plates crashing, chairs screeching, people
shouting, footfalls thundering. The ring of a bell. The slam of a door. The ring of a bell. The slam of a door.
I get to my feet as if in slow motion, a feeling of foreboding flooding my veins.
My heart is beating fast.
James, on the other hand, doesn’t hurry. In the midst of so much mayhem, he seems to slow down and solidify, as if the commotion
only hones him into a sharper blade. I can almost see the adrenaline coursing through him, control and focus hardening the
lines of him, darkening his eyes. He shoots me a brief, heated look before clapping an arm on his brother’s shoulder.
“Go home,” he says to Adam, the noise level around us rising to a fever pitch. Abandoned diners are abandoning their dinners, leaving in droves. “Everything’s going to be fine. Tell Alia not to worry. You’ll be safe on campus.”
“But—”
“Nazeera,” says James. “Get Rosabelle back to the house immediately.”
Alarm lances through me.
The door continues to slam open and shut, chair legs shrieking across the floors.
“No way,” says Nazeera. “I’m not sitting this out.”
“This is your job,” he counters. “You signed up for it. Around-the-clock security detail, remember? It’s not like we can take
her with us—”
“Why not?” I ask cautiously.
Winston rolls his eyes at me. “Be serious.”
“Take her with you where?” Adam asks. “What the hell is going on?”
“Yeah, and you tried to fight me for it,” Nazeera is saying. “Here’s your big chance.”
“You’re unbelievable,” says James. “You can’t just change the rules whenever you feel like it—”
Nazeera tries to argue and James shakes his head, cutting her off.
“Look, we’ll finish fighting about this in a minute,” he says. “Until then, can you run back to my place and grab a few things
for me?”
“Me?” she says. “Why can’t you do it?”
“Because I won’t have a chance to change and head to the armory,” he says angrily, “so unless you’re offering to babysit Rosabelle,
I need to figure out what to do with her.”
Now I’m offended.
“No, thanks,” says Nazeera, already heading for the exit. “I’ll get the gear.”
“Hey, you asked for this responsibility!” he calls after her. “This was your idea—”
The ring of a bell. The slam of a door.
The diner is nearly empty now.
“And that’s our cue,” says Winston, nodding at Adam. “Let’s go. I’m heading home, too.” He turns to me. “This isn’t really
my area of expertise, and I’ve had enough of getting what I asked for. I’m sorry I ever wanted you to talk. If I never see
you again, please don’t keep in touch.”
“If I never see you again,” I say to him, “you should know that your archetype is one of the easiest to kill.”
Winston stiffens. “Uh. What?”
“Hey,” Adam says loudly. He doesn’t budge from his chair. “I want to know what’s happening—”
“Did you just— Was that your idea of a joke?” Winston says to me. “Did you just attempt a sense of humor?”
“James—” Adam tries again.
James grabs his jacket off the back of his seat, his fist tightening around the denim. He turns to his brother with a stifled
sigh, his voice firm but not unkind when he says, “Look, are you sure you want to know what’s happening? Because I don’t think
you do. I don’t think you need to drive yourself crazy with a little information and no ready solution. But if you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”
Adam pushes both hands through his hair and finally stands up.
He turns in a half circle, taking in the emptying room.
A few stragglers shovel last bites of food into their mouths before dropping their plates with a clatter.
A bearded redhead in an apron stands, stunned, behind the front counter, surveying the aftermath.
“I want to know what’s happening,” I offer.
“I bet you do,” says Winston.
“Shut up, Winston,” I say softly, keeping my eyes on James. “Your inability to endure silence masks an unresolved trauma that’s
obvious to everyone but you.”
Winston manages a stunned laugh.
James shoots me an indecipherable look, but he doesn’t answer my question. In fact, he seems upset.
With me.
My dread solidifies into fear.
“I don’t think it’s obvious to everyone,” Winston says nervously. “Do you think it’s obvious to everyone?”
“Honestly, I’m already driving myself crazy,” Adam is saying to James, glancing in my direction. “She never even finished
explaining the first bombshell, and now this.”
“You don’t need to worry about any of it,” James reassures him. “Everything is going to be fine. I’ll update you on the situation
as soon as the issue is resolved. Go home. Get some rest.”
Adam looks up at him. His panic is real.
It surprises me, even in the middle of so much turbulence, to witness this unusual dynamic.
I’d already reasoned that Adam was averse to conflict, but I’d not determined that James would need to manage the emotional needs of his older brother.
James is acting as if this is an old pattern; as if it’s something he’s done many times before.
It makes me wonder about their history.
“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” Winston says, throwing his arm over Adam’s shoulder. He shoots me a furtive glance. “Rosabelle
is starting to scare the shit out of me.”
With a final sigh and a last look, Adam relents.
Another ring of a bell, a slam of a door, and he and Winston disappear into the night.
The restaurant is now emptied out.
The only people left are me and James and the bearded redhead behind the counter.
I’m still watching James, my apprehension rising. “You’re not going to tell me what’s happening?”
“You’re not going to like what I have to say.”
I step back.
My heart rate spikes. “This has something to do with me.”
It’s not a question.
And he doesn’t answer.
I slowly unzip my puffy pink jacket, shedding it like a skin before shoving it under the table. I have an ominous feeling
I’ll soon require full range of motion.
“They never remember to pay,” says the redhead from across the room, managing a smile in our direction. He gestures to the
empty diner, the tables laden with half-eaten meals. “All these years and it’s always the same. Can’t believe I keep feeding
you ungrateful kids.”
“Put it on my tab, Kip,” says James. “I’ll settle the bill.”
“I’ll do you one better,” he says, rapping his hands against the counter. “I’ll put it on your brother’s tab.”
“Done.”
“Good luck out there,” says Kip, flashing a tired salute in our direction. He heads toward the kitchen, pushing through the
swinging door as he calls over his shoulder: “But if my windows get shattered again, or my shelves get broken, or I find shrapnel
in my walls, I’m making you fix it!”
“C’mon, Kip, you know we always”—the interior door swings shut behind the man—“fix it.”
Suddenly, James and I are alone.
A set of overhead lights flicker out, leaving us in partial darkness, and I come alive with an electric sensation I’ve begun
to recognize. Moonlight slants through the large front windows, warm and cold radiance melding as it washes over us, rendering
James in half-silhouette, one blue eye illuminated, gleaming. He tosses his jacket onto a chair, shadows emphasizing the sculpted
muscles of his arms, the hardened line of his jaw. His hair looks soft and melted. A little messy. His hands flex at his sides,
the brawn of his broad chest straining under his T-shirt.
He’s so gorgeous it’s disorienting.
Adrenaline courses through me as I study him, my body already bright with awareness. He takes a step closer and I feel the
shift as palpably as I feel the air leaving my lungs. I’m stripped back to nothing all over again, painfully alive in my skin,
inhaled by the sun.
James looks at me. Looks away. Looks back. I can feel myself sinking.
He’s angry.
He’s radiating unchecked power, his eyes charged with feeling. Instinctive fear responses activate all throughout my nervous
system.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
He shakes his head slowly. He laughs, but the dark sound only seems to wind him tighter. “You know, I’ve been dying for a
moment alone with you. Desperate for it. And now we’re here, just you and me, and this isn’t going anything like I thought it would.” He takes a
breath; his voice is unsteady. “Nothing about you has gone the way I thought it would.”
My heart is hammering. “James. Please, tell me what’s happening—”
“We haven’t even talked about any of it,” he says, looking up. “Isn’t that crazy? None of it. Not what happened with Leon,
or the things you said to me in the tunnel. We haven’t talked about your dad. We haven’t talked about Clara. We haven’t talked
about the fact that you shot me. We haven’t talked about how you sacrificed your one chance to escape at the airfield—to get
to your sister—just to keep me alive—”
I panic. “That’s not— I didn’t—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Rosabelle.”
A sound breaks free of my chest, something wild and breathless. My pulse is frantic.
James looks unearthly. Lit by fury and moonlight.
“We haven’t talked about the fact that you literally died for three days,” he says, “or even the fact that you have this power at all. We haven’t talked about what’s going through your head, or how you feel about The Reestablishment, or what the hell you’re planning on doing next.
We haven’t talked about anything. God, I have so many questions sometimes I think I’d rip my own heart out for a chance to have a single, honest conversation
with you.”
A desperate ache is fracturing across my body.
I’m transfixed by him, half out of my mind. I’m watching his throat work with rapt fascination; I can’t look away as he drags
a hand down his neck, muscles flexing, tendons straining. He looks as if he’s coming apart, fighting to remain rooted in his
body, to keep the distance between us.
Fighting not to touch me.
“I want answers,” he says, lifting his head. “I want to know what happened to you when you woke up in the hospital after being
dead for three days. I want to know why you passed out when I hugged you. Fuck, I just want to know what you’re thinking half
the time.”
“James—”
“I want to know what you want, Rosabelle, because I want to know if you think about me,” he says roughly, “the way I think
about you, because I’m beginning to lose my fucking mind every time you look at me. The amount of work I have to do just to
act normal around you—” He makes a gutted sound, briefly turning away. “All you have to do is walk into a room and I wish
we were alone. You breathe and I wish we were alone. Now we’re alone and all I want to do— All I want—”
He cuts himself off. Visibly struggles.
The more I listen to him speak, the more I feel as if I’m separating from my body. Nothing like this has ever happened to
me before. I’ve never felt this kind of need, this kind of fever, this honeyed heat moving through my blood. I never imagined
I could desperately want someone to touch me. All of me.
I never knew I might be willing to beg for it.
“I keep covering for you,” he says to the floor. “I keep taking hits for you. I keep trying to vouch for you. But I can’t
do this if you’re not honest with me. I can’t protect you if you keep all these secrets. You once told me you trusted me.”
He meets my gaze then, and his eyes are scorched. “Is that still true?”
I’ve gone up in flames.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” I whisper. “It was a mistake to say that—”
“Answer the question,” he says angrily, his chest lifting as he breathes. “Do you trust me?”
I can’t feel my hands anymore, only my heartbeat, and I can’t bear to lie to him. My voice catches on the word when I say,
finally—
“Yes.”
He exhales, his body releasing tension in a crashing wave. He unclenches his fists only to clench them again, his eyes closing.
And then he looks at me with a fire that draws the breath from my body.
“Then I’m going to ask you this once,” he says. “Did you steal the vial?”