Lux (The Nocte Trilogy, #3)(17)

My heart flutters because the real Dare is back, even if only for a minute. He’s not afraid of anything. He can’t be.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Scooters though, not bicycles. I don’t want you to wear yourself out.”

It’s annoying because everyone is always saying things like that…. like I’m an invalid instead of crazy. But when Dare says it, I don’t argue.

“Fine,” is all I say.

We sneak out the back doors and down to the garages, where we grab the motorized scooters.

As we ride into town with the wind in our faces, I turn to Dare.

“Why don’t you talk like the rest of them? Only every once in a while do you say things in the English way. It’s weird.”

Dare stares at me drolly. “My father was French. I refuse to speak like Richard.”

“But you’re English now,” I point out. “And sometimes, you do sound like it.”

“That’s the meanest thing you’ve said to me all day.”

I haven’t said much to him today yet, but I don’t point that out. Instead, I pay attention to the road so that I don’t hit a pot-hole and bend a wheel like last time. We have to be like Ninjas, in and out of the village without our family knowing.

Or there will be hell to pay, especially for Dare.

“Why is my uncle Richard so mean to you?” I ask him as we stow our scooters on the village sidewalk. He shrugs.

“Lots of reasons, I guess,” he answers, pointing at the ice cream parlor. “Want some?”

Always. He knows that.

He buys me a dish of chocolate and he gets vanilla, and we sit in the shadows of the alleyway, nursing our ice cream. I watch mine begin to melt, as condensation forms on the cup in my hand.

“Your uncle doesn’t like me because I make him think of things he doesn’t want to,” Dare finally says.

“What things?”

Dare shakes his head. “Grown-up things, Calla. Nothing you need to worry about.”

But I do. I worry about it. I can’t stop worrying about it, about him. I’m so tired of things being kept from me, tired of being treated like a little girl.

“Who screams at night?” I ask tentatively, and Dare turns his head and I know that he knows. But he shakes his head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s ok,” I whisper, because I know he’s lying. “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

For a second, for one second, I think he’s going to. He looks at me like he’s speculating, like he’s pondering and I think he’s going to confide in me, but then…he doesn’t. He just takes a bite of ice cream and moves further away from me, edging down the pavement.

“There’s nothing to tell,” he says blankly, and I know the matter is closed. He doesn’t trust me. Not yet.

“Fine.”

I eat my ice cream until it’s gone and when it is, I turn to him.

“I don’t want to go back,” I say.

“We have to,” he replies, taking my cup and throwing them both in the trash.

“Because we’re both prisoners?” I ask, remembering his words from long ago.

He stares at me for a long time, his dark eyes hardening, hiding his pain.

“Yes.”

“You could leave, you know,” I suggest hesitantly. “You could run away. If you hate it so much here, I mean.”

Dare stares into the distance, his eyes so very dark. “And where would I go? There’s nowhere I could go that the Savages wouldn’t find me.”

He’s so bleak as he climbs to his feet and reaches down to help me up. Our ride back to Whitley is silent.

When we roll back through the gates, Richard is waiting.

His car is parked halfway down the driveway, and he’s leaning against it, waiting for us like a tall, coiled snake….a snake poised to strike. My heart pounds and leaps into my throat and I’m frozen.

“Go to the house, Calla,” my uncle tells me, his eyes hard and focused on Dare, and they contain a strange gleam, something that turns my stomach to ice.

“But…it was my idea!” I tell him quickly. “Dare didn’t want me to go alone.”

Richard turns to me, his face oh-so-cold, and Dare nudges me.

“Just go, Calla,” he says quietly.

Richard is satisfied by that, because Dare is being submissive and my uncle shoves him into the car. “You know you’re not to leave the house, boy,” he snaps, a vein pulsing beside his eye. He slams the car door far harder than necessary.

I watch them drive up the driveway, I watch Richard yanking Dare into the house, and I can’t stand to follow them and hear what I know I’ll hear. I dash into the back doors, into the kitchen, and I throw myself in Sabine’s arms.

She listens to me cry and when I’m done, she calmly looks at me.

“We’d better go get those scooters, child.”

She walks up the drive with me, and we push them back, and I ask her a million questions.

“Why does Richard hate Dare? Why is he so mean? Why isn’t Dare supposed to leave Whitley?”

Sabine listens but she doesn’t answer until long after we’ve put the scooters away and returned to the kitchen.