Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(33)

Sleep stalked me for hours but never pounced. When I finally dozed off it must have been in the wee hours of the morning, and it was a fitful sleep. When my roommate made the slightest move or sound, I snapped awake. I’d never shared a room with a person before, and every movement made me think intruder.

I had a dream.

Everything was huge, like some torturous funhouse. Chairs were too high to climb, the carpet monstrously huge, scraping my tiny feet as I walked. I was in a strange place, a huge empty place. Sheets covered all the furnishings like ghosts, and there were light squares on the walls, specters of lost paintings. Boxes everywhere, a maze of them. There was something behind me, following me, stalking, moving closer. I looked over my shoulder and saw him. My father, gigantic and stooped, his head scraping the ceiling. His eyes burned with blue flames, like a gas stove, charred the skin around his too-big eye sockets. I screamed and ran and he chased after me on back-jointed legs, snapping a belt in his huge bony hands. The belt was made of strange pale leather, as wide as my hands and studded with gleaming metal points, wickedly sharp. I ran and ran and ran and called a name without remembering it.

All at once the world began shifting around me, jerking wildly, and I fell. In a dark corner I saw the figure of a woman, hunched and weeping, but she had no face, only a blank void where eyes and nose and mouth should be. She reached a hand for me in mute appeal, but her fingers were broken. The shaking grew worse, the world tumbling and turning around me, and I forgot I was being chased and he was there.

You’ve been difficult, you little slut. Take off your dress and wake up.

Wake up.

“Wake up,” Jennifer snapped at me, not gently but not angrily, either.

My head came up from the pillow. I was covered head to toe in cold, acid sweat. The light outside was still bruised from dawn, and cut lines on the tile floor through the blinds. Jennifer quickly drew her hand back from my shoulder as I curled up in a ball, twisted up in my blankets, and lay there panting.

She crouched next to the bed.

“You started shouting in your sleep. I don’t understand what you were saying.”

“Oh. Sorry. I had a bad dream.”

She gave me a cryptic nod. “Can you stay in the bed for a second?”

I nodded, and she gracefully slipped back up into the top bunk. I heard her shift around, the bed jerked, and she came down in a crouch, dressed in sweatclothes, and slipped on a pair of running shoes.

No one I’ve ever met exercised as much as she did. She was either studying, sleeping, or running or, later, riding a bicycle. She seemed to live on granola bars and cold oatmeal.

While Jennifer was out running, I went to the showers for the first time. It made me nervous, but there was plenty of privacy, a big curtain for each stall and room to change in front of the shower itself.

After that I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I took my schedule and went to the book store. I came back with two armloads of plastic bags, the handles cutting into my fingers, and neatly stacked the books on the little shelf on my desk. For the next hour or so, I started reading a microeconomics textbook, tapping my foot on the tiles. There was a tap at my window, a soft sound on the glass, then another, and another. I looked over and saw Victor peering through the glass at me, grinning.

My room was on the second floor.

I threw up the sash.

“What are you doing?”

“Let me in.”

I fumbled with the screen, lifted it up. The windows were very large. I jumped out of the way as Victor clambered inside. He was barefoot, his shoes hanging from his belt, tied by their laces. He wiped sweat off his forehead with his hand, then scooped me up in his arms. He literally lifted me off the floor as he pulled me against him, and kissed me. This time I touched him back, putting my hands on his sides, just above his hips. The muscles bunched and tightened under his skin as he moved. The kiss was like a mouthful of warm honey, and left me breathless and shaking. He put his arms around me.

“What are you up to?”

“Reading,” I said, glancing at the book.

“What is that?”

“Principles of Microeconomics, Third Edition.”

“You’re reading a textbook?”

“What?”

He grinned at me. “I didn’t think you were that boring.”

“I’m not boring.” I sighed. “The book is boring.”

“You’ll have time to read that later. Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here.”

Jennifer picked that moment to come back. She walked in, gathered up her robe and toiletry bag, and left, all while scowling at Victor.

“I think she’s starting to like me.”

“I don’t think she likes you at all.”

He sighed. “One day you will understand this. We earth humans call it ‘humor’.”

“Oh. You were being sarcastic.”

“Yeah. She has a key, right? Come on.”

I locked up and followed him outside. He parked in the overflow, tucking the Firebird into a corner space so the car in the next spot over was far enough away to swing the wide door open. As always, he opened mine first before getting in himself. I unlocked his door for him.

“So where are we going?”

“You have anything in mind?”

“Not really,” I said. “I don’t know what to do if I’m not studying.”