Chapter Twenty-One
After we eat and Jack issues a few more dire warnings, as that appears to be how he self-soothes, Nora herds Logan and me
back upstairs. My twin swings into his elfin horror of a room like he’s never wanted anything more than to sleep there. And
ignores me when I smirk at him.
More points to me.
Nora and I end up sitting together on the end of my bed. I think both of us are exhausted, but neither of us is quite ready
to be left to our own thoughts.
Not after the bomb Jack dropped.
“Should we call Cleo and check up on her?” she asks, playing with a little tassel on one of the decorative pillows. “I would,
but it’s so late now.”
“Tomorrow is soon enough,” I say, thinking about Virginia. “She said she’s safe there. She’s right, isn’t she? Even if the
Feed is early?”
Nora inhales, then nods. “Nothing bad ever happens out at the airport, and she can hardly leave Virginia. Much less bring her here if she’s struggling with memory issues.” Nora blows out a breath. “All my life I’ve known the Feed would come, but none of this is happening like I thought it would.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “I know the feeling. And I didn’t know anything about the Feed.”
She leans into me, shoulder to shoulder. If I could have dreamed up a sister who’s the opposite of Logan and somehow the other
side of something I needed, it would be Nora. She’s so nice in a way I don’t find cloying or fake, the way I would if someone came at me with niceness in New York, where that kind of thing is suspicious. It makes sense to me that Amelia took her under her wing.
“You’re dealing with so much more, I know,” she says.
“It’s not a contest, Nora. You can bitch, too. Anyone dealing with demons and a potential death by slurping gets to bitch.”
That gets a little laugh out of her, which makes me feel good.
“Anyway, you should get some rest,” she tells me. She gets to her feet and looks down at me. I can see a million worries in
her eyes, but she doesn’t voice any more of them.
I make myself smile reassuringly. “I will if you will.”
She smiles back at me. “Deal. And the antique store is fitted with all my usual protections. We should be perfectly safe.”
I believe her. I haven’t sleepwalked anywhere in weeks now even when I do dream. “Are you going to fall asleep happily dreaming
of the horrors you’ve put Logan through?” I ask, hoping to cheer her up.
Weirdly, I think it both cheers her up and bums her out, though I don’t know why. She slips out the door, closing it behind
her so I am left in this very cramped, overfilled room all by myself.
With hair wreaths.
I don’t want to look at them, but they’re right there in my line of vision.
How can I possibly sleep amongst hair wreaths and a locket with furry hair in it that I cannot bring myself to put back under my pillow, no matter the protections involved?
I search the room a little desperately until I find a box. It’s filled with vases swathed in bubble wrap, and I carefully
take them all out and set them gently on a shelf in the corner. Then I march over to the wall and begin to take down the frames
one by one so I can pile them into the box. I get the locket out of my bag and toss it in there for good measure.
I look around the room, wondering what I’m going to do with this box of hair horrors. There’s a stack of big, heavy-looking
books on one shelf, so I kneel on the floor and pull them all out, put the box where they were, then pile the books on top.
Sure, hair wreaths can’t hurt me—as far as I know—but now they’re trapped.
Absently, I reach for the last book, only to realize it’s not a book at all, but a kind of shadow box.
Of hair.
Hair braided in the shape of the clock tower.
I manage to swallow down the strangled scream, then flip it over, so the back of the frame is facing up instead. I still know what’s under there, but . . .
I rearrange the books so they’re on top of that, too.
I’m feeling a little clammy, a little panicked. I reach into my bag for something to put over my bare arms and pull out the
sweater Nora lent me weeks ago. I keep meaning to give it back to her, but for now I pull it on.
This feeling is just exhaustion, I tell myself. And worry. About Cleo and Virginia. Feeds past and Feeds come early and my
grandmother sacrificing herself. I need to get some rest, just like Nora said.
I need my sleep routine. I need to center and ground myself in this new place. Everything will be fine then.
I grab my toiletry bag and head down the hallway. Everything is dark and in shadows. I think maybe the rustling I hear is Nora settling into her bed in the main showroom, but I don’t want to investigate to find out. I would hate to be wrong about that.
I slip into the bathroom. There’s nowhere to set everything out. Even with a shower, it’s cramped. The frustration of trying
to do everything without any counter space or room to move is annoying.
By the time I’m done, I’m a little sweaty and not in any way less panicked, and I want more than just a palmful of water to
swallow my pill down with. I want a glass. I don’t remember seeing any in my room, and who knows if they’d be tainted by hair
if there were, but if I creep downstairs I can swipe a glass from the diner.
Jack wouldn’t mind, I tell myself. Or maybe I know he would and that’s why I’m tempted. I leave the bathroom, including my
bag and sleeping pill that I prop precariously on the lip of the sink, and move into the hallway. I use the wall to guide
me out to the stairs where a red EXIT sign lights my way down.
If I take a left, I’ll go to the antique store. Where Jack is probably sleeping in his grandfather’s office.
What would it be like to go find him instead of a glass? Open his door, slide into his bed, and press my cheek to his back
like I did on the motorcycle?
Crazy, Lexi. It would be crazy. Maybe there’s that moment at the airport looming in my brain now, but he walked away. Of his own volition. He has given me
no real reason to think this is something I should fantasize about. Sure, he’s been kind at times. Under his gruff exterior
is clearly a very good man.
And what would I do with that?
So I push on. Avoiding looking out the window at the clock tower as I move into the diner. Where there’s a light on.
At the counter, Jack is sitting on a stool. He is illuminated by one solitary light hanging above him. He has an array of things spread out on the counter—an old-looking journal, a legal pad, and something on the other side of his arm I can’t see from my angle.
I stand there and watch him. He’s deep in it, because he doesn’t look up. Every once in a while he runs a hand through his
thick dark hair. Agitated. Frustrated.
I would really like to run my fingers through his hair in a much less agitated and frustrated manner. And sure, that could
be chalked up to simple attraction. A little forbidden fruit, since Harrison seemed to warn me off his grandson.
But whatever this yearning is feels different than what I’ve known before. It’s deeper in my chest. Simple attraction doesn’t have daggers and hooks.
At least, not in my experience.
The way he jumped out onto that roof to help Virginia. The way he said he wouldn’t hurt me that first night. The way I’m sure
he almost kissed me and then took the curves easy on his motorcycle today, making sure I was holding on. His care with Harrison
and Nora. There’s a good man in there, under all the gruff.
And all the hot.
I don’t say anything, but eventually he looks up like he can sense me there.
He takes in my pajamas. The cheese illustrations and garish yellow that’s easy to see in the dark—something you think about
when you could wake up anywhere. My bare feet that could definitely use some socks since the tile floor under them is cold. There’s a considering kind of look in his gaze, like he’s not sure about me.
I get it. “I’m not sleepwalking,” I offer into the silence.
“Good to know.” He looks back at his book and I move closer. I peer over his shoulder at the leather-bound book. There’s one
of his maps on one page and the faded script of some ancient person’s recounting of demons on the other.
“Do you not sleep?” I ask him.
“I’ll catch a few hours eventually.” He says this in an offhanded way that is not at all believable. Because he is the de
facto leader. Because he takes everything on his shoulders, like this is all . . . his responsibility, and only his.
“Why does this all fall to you, Jack?” I ask him.
He doesn’t look at me at first. I think he’s trying to find a way to wave it off, pretend that he doesn’t act like he and
he alone can find the answer to stop a demon horde.
When he looks at me, though, something changes. And I think, as he speaks, soft and serious, he is offering nothing but the
truth.
“My ancestor made that deal—it was his bright idea, and he brought the others along. It starts with him, so it has to end with him, in some way. He did seem to
have realized his mistake after the fact. He passed down tips and tricks to survive, theories on how to break the demon deal,
and theorized that ending the deal ends the suffering. Every generation of Bellamys has tried to break the deal ever since,
but it started with his idea and his mistake.”
He speaks like that is somehow his mistake, and I wonder what would make someone so dedicated to fixing someone else’s mistake. It makes my heart ache, more
than it already does, for Jack Bellamy and all these weights he carries that don’t seem fair.
“What about the Darlings? My ancestor was there, too, right? It’s not like a Bellamy forced a Darling’s hand.”
He looks away then. “I can’t speak for you, Lexi. Your dad got out, but he took you and Logan with him. He wasn’t saving himself,
not according to any explanation I ever heard. He was trying to save you.”
“And because your parents got out to save themselves, you feel added pressure to be what they weren’t?”
He looks over at me, in a startled kind of way. Like he never expected anyone to understand that, when it seems clear as day to me.