Chapter 6 #2
“I’m too far behind,” I hedged. “Connor and Miss Savannah – she’s my other tutor – think I could take some college courses on the computer now, but the GED stuff was so hard. And I… I like working at the flower shop.”
I did look at Vaughn briefly, but to my surprise, he wasn’t looking at me with anything but curiosity. No pity that I could see.
“Why’d you ask about MIT?”
“My father went there.”
“Your father is from the U.S.?” Vaughn asked.
I nodded. “But Papa isn’t.”
I almost smiled at his look of confusion. “I have two fathers,” I clarified. “Mama was married before she had me. Dante and I have the same father, but he died before I was born. He was very smart and went to MIT. Mama always hoped I’d go there someday. Mama said it was my… legacy?”
Vaughn nodded, and I relaxed a little when I realized I hadn’t messed up the word. “Mama made sure I knew English because she wanted me to come back here and go to my father’s school and be just like him.”
“Your English is excellent,” Vaughn said.
I knew he’d meant the words as a compliment, but a chill snaked down my spine. The next thing I knew my name was being called from far away.
“Aleks, sweetheart, just focus on my voice.”
I felt my skin grow warm. First on my cheek, then my arms. Someone was rubbing my upper arms but not in a bad way.
“Aleks, open your eyes.”
When had I closed my eyes?
I did as he said and forced my lids open. Bright light was everywhere, but it wasn’t anything more than the sunlight filtering through the car like before.
Only now the car wasn’t moving.
And Vaughn didn’t have his hands on the wheel. They were on me, rubbing my arms. My shirt sleeves had ridden up on my forearms and every once in a while he’d give my muscles there a gentle squeeze.
“Breathe, baby,” Vaughn whispered.
I automatically sucked in a breath, then another. My brain began to feel less fuzzy. As my mind started to focus, I realized we were sitting on the side of the road, but not on the interstate anymore. We were on the shoulder of an off-ramp.
“What… what happened?” I asked.
“Here, drink this,” Vaughn said as he handed me a bottle of water. It was warm, but it gave me something to focus on as I tried to get my bearings.
My fingers were shaking as I tried to put the cap back on the bottle, so Vaughn took it from me and closed it, then set the bottle in the cup holder between us.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Aleks, have you ever lost time before?”
“What? I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“Have you ever blacked out and woken up minutes or hours later or in a different place… after you left Chicago?”
“No, I—” I began, but then fell silent. Then I was nodding. “A few times,” I whispered. “After I began living with Magnus and Dante… they, um, they’d find me asleep in strange places sometimes.”
“What places?”
I shook my head because I didn’t want to say.
“What places?” Vaughn gently repeated. He was still rubbing my arms. My entire body started to get warm.
“My closet mostly. Sometimes the basement.”
I could feel his eyes on me but refused to look up. “I don’t know about the other…”
“The losing time?” Vaughn asked.
I nodded. “I guess sometimes I’d feel confused for no reason… like I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten someplace or what I’d been doing.”
“We were talking about how well you speak English,” Vaughn said.
“I remember,” I said.
“Do you remember anything after that?”
Fear began to engulf me as I realized I couldn’t. “No,” I said softly. “No, I just… we were talking and you said that and then you were calling my name and telling me to open my eyes.” I looked up at him in confusion. “What happened? Did I pass out or something?”
The entire car shifted when a huge semi flew past as it got off the interstate. I jumped and felt my breathing tick up.
“Aleks, look at me,” Vaughn demanded. My brain instantly responded to the command and I did as he said.
“I’m going to get us to someplace quieter so we can talk.
I want you to hold my hand and not let go,” he said.
He quickly put the car in gear, then curled his fingers around mine.
I unashamedly clung to him. “I want you to tell me a funny story about when you and Dante were kids and I want you to keep your eyes on me the whole time, okay?”
I couldn’t breathe well, but I managed a nod. The car began moving but Vaughn had to give my hand a squeeze. “Aleks,” he said softly.
Right, the story.
“When I was seven and Dante was fifteen, our grandmother was cooking dobradinha… it’s, um, part of the cow’s stomach,” I began.
“Anyway, Dante and I both hate dobradinha but Mama always made us eat it. Our Vó used to take her wedding ring off when she was cooking it, so Dante came up with this plan. He told me to pretend to color a picture of our Vó—”
“Vó? Does that mean grandmother?” Vaughn asked.
“Yes. Grandfather looks almost the same when you spell it, but it is pronounced V?.”
Vaughn nodded in understanding. “Anyway, Dante told me to pretend to color her por… por…”
“Portrait?” Vaughn offered.
“Right, portrait,” I said awkwardly because I’d known that word but wasn’t sure why I was having so much trouble matching it to my thoughts.
Vaughn gave my hand another gentle squeeze and I couldn’t help but look down.
His thumb was rubbing over mine and while it was both relaxing and soothing at the same time, there was something happening in my belly…
a tenseness I didn’t understand. I wasn’t exactly nervous.
It was more like I was waiting for something… but I didn’t know what exactly.
“So Dante had you pretend to draw your grandmother’s portrait…” Vaughn reminded me.
“Um, yes,” I stammered as I realized I’d been staring at where his finger was stroking mine. “So I made her sit at the kitchen table while I was drawing. Dante came in but someone kept coming into the room so he couldn’t take it… I had to keep distracting her. I, uh, don’t know the word...”
“You stalled,” Vaughn suggested.
“Right. I had to stall her. She was afraid her food would burn but I kept telling her I was almost done. Dante was taking the ring right when she said she was done sitting for her portrait. I screamed her name and then jumped in her lap and showed her the picture. It was… it was a terrible picture,” I said with a smile.
“Even for being seven, I did a really bad job. It didn’t even look like a person… it looked more like a pig.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I remembered my grandmother’s expression when I’d shown her the picture.
“She finished cooking and when we all sat down to eat, Dante casually asked her when she’d stopped wearing her wedding ring.
She looked at the food and let out this cry…
Papa had already started eating so she slapped him on the back to get him to spit the food out and made him look through it for the ring.
Then everybody had to look through what was on their plate. ”
“How did Dante get the ring back to her?” Vaughn asked. His expression was soft and relaxed, which helped calm me even more.
“He left it in the soap dish by the kitchen sink. Beneath the soap. He let me ‘find’ it and our Vó was so happy she gave me an extra helping of dessert.”
“Did anyone ever find out?”
I laughed. “Our V?… he was always good at being able to tell when me and Dante were up to something. When he asked us about it, I… what’s the expression… sang like a…?”
“Canary,” Vaughn said with a chuckle. “You sang like a canary.”
“I did,” I admitted.
“Did he turn you in?”
“No.” I began laughing so hard it was almost difficult to breathe.
When I could finally speak, I said, “Turned out our V? hated dobradinha too! He kept our secret and whenever our Vó said she was going to make dobradinha, either me or Dante or our V? would ask her to make our favorite food instead and we’d give her the dog eyes. ”
Vaughn’s laughter was a soft rumble in his chest that I itched to feel beneath my fingers.
“Puppy dog eyes,” he corrected.
I nodded. “It usually worked. I never had to have dobradinha again…”
I sobered when I realized the real reason I hadn’t had that terrible dish ever again… because I’d been abducted less than three months later.
The lead weight was back in my stomach.
“Hey,” Vaughn said, and then I felt his fingers under my chin again. “You’re safe, Aleks. Just take deep breaths and focus on my voice.” When I could breathe again, I realized Vaughn had stopped the car again, this time on the side of the road beneath an overpass.
I managed a nod. “Did… did you ever play tricks like that?” I asked.
“No… pranks didn’t go over real well in my house,” he hedged. “But my brother and I did once convince a gardener that the lawnmower was possessed.”
“What?” I asked with a laugh.
Vaughn shrugged and said, “I was always mechanically inclined. A few crossed wires and a few stories here and there about the previous gardener being horribly maimed by the thing were enough… power of suggestion and all.” He winked at me.
Actually winked.
My heart almost stopped.
And I couldn’t stop staring at him.
In case he did it again…
“Aleks,” Vaughn said softly, and I forced myself to focus on his entire face rather than one rogue eye.
“You have a brother?” I asked, hoping to stall.
“I do,” was all he said, then he was grazing my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You don’t remember what happened back there, but you know what caused it, don’t you?”
I wasn’t sure what “it” was, but I did know what the cause was. I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t make myself tell the lie. Even if it hadn’t been against the rules, I didn’t want to lie to him.
I may not have trusted him, but God help me, I didn’t want to lie to him… I couldn’t.
And just like with everything else when it came to Vaughn, that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.