NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1)(22)

He grins. Dare me.

“Perhaps we should focus on the now,” he suggests lightly, as if he knows that he was just undressed in my mind. I internally combust, then nod.

“Yeah. I’d better get some groceries.”

I toss him my keys and we drive down the mountain.

We.

Dare and me.

It’s an exhilarating thought, and one that for the moment, distracts me from sadness.

That’s a miracle in itself.





10


DECEM

Finn



You’reAMiserableMiseraleMiserableExcuse, the voices hiss and I clench my teeth and draw around them, drawing faces and then scratching them out every time a voice says something. Before long, the page is covered in scribble.

Calla’s gone and I don’t know where she is, and for the first time in weeks, I’m alone.

I don’t like it.

I don’t like it.

A motor roars through the yard and I go to the window, looking down. The new guy stands on the edge of the grass. Calla stares up at him, her hand so close to the guy’s chest.

GetAwayFromHer.

GetAway.

I watch, enthralled, horrified as my sister smiles.

It’s like she knows him. Like she belongs there, smiling with him.

I’m alone and she’s there.

It’s wrong.

It’s wrong.

I grit my teeth again, because it’s not wrong. My sister is an adult and she can do what she wishes and obviously it’s normal for her to smile at a guy.

But not him, the voices protest, so many of them that I can’t tell them apart. There’s something about him, something wrong, something he’s hiding.

He’s hiding.

YouCan’tTellHerSheWon’tBelieveYou. For the first time, I agree with them. Calla would never believe me if I voiced this reservation, because I don’t have any proof.

All I have is a feeling.

And we all know I’m crazy.





11


UNDECIM

Calla



I sort through the million different kinds of pasta sauce, picking one, before I find Dare in the shampoo aisle.

I’m halfway to him when my eye falls on Dove, the kind of shampoo my mother used. I can almost smell her hair as she hugged me, and my throat clams up and I pointedly look away, because that’s what I have to do when something reminds me. I have to ignore it and put it away for later. Because I simply can’t deal with it now.

“Are you ready?” I ask Dare. He nods, then eyes my heaping cart.

“Good thing we brought your car and not my bike,” he observes. I have to laugh, but I don’t want to explain how my father is sliding, how we’re out of every imaginable thing in my house. So I don’t.

Instead, we check out and load our stuff into the trunk and get on our way.

But once we’re on the road, Dare turns to me.

“I could use a drink. Could you?”

I’m giddy that he thinks I’m old enough, but I shake my head. “I’m not twenty-one,” I tell him sheepishly, but honestly, why am I embarrassed? My age is not my fault.

Dare grins, unaffected. “I meant a soda, young one.”

“Oh. Well, I know a coffee house. And they have sodas.”

“Let it be so, then,” he announces theatrically, like he’s at the helm of the Starship Enterprise.

“You’re not a Trekkie, are you?” I ask, scared that I might finally be finding a fault in this seemingly perfect guy as I turn the car down a narrow city street. He glances sidelong at me.

“What’s that?”

“You’re from England, not Mars, right?” I demand. “A trekkie. Someone who watches marathons of star trek and goes to star trek conventions dressed as an Ewok. You’re not that. Hopefully.”

“I take offense to that,” he says seriously. “First, an Ewok is from Star Wars, not Star Trek. Any good trekkie would know that.”

He pauses and I’m appalled because oh-my-gosh there’s no way.

“And also that you’d think so little of me. I’m not a trekkie. I’m a die-hard Whovian. I don’t think I can be both.”

Dr. Who, England, of course. I smile limply and pull into a parking spot.

“I just admitted a guilty pleasure,” he tells me, with his hand on the handle. “It’s your turn. What’s one of yours?”

Honestly, I haven’t thought about any pleasures in six weeks.

“Um.” Daydreaming about you. “I like the Arctic Monkeys.”

He barks out a laugh as I name the British band, and gets out of the car, coming around to open my door while I’m still fiddling with my seat belt. I look up at him, mesmerized by his manners.

“I’ll try and look past that,” he says solemnly as I brush past him, inhaling his cologne on my way.

He opens the coffee house door for me, too, and we wait in the trendy line for our turn. He looks at me.

“And this is what I’m afraid the hospital café will turn into,” he says quietly, like he’s sharing a secret. I nod, completely serious.

“Yeah. I can see that there’s a need to worry.”

I picture the sterile hospital environment, shrouded with the screams from the Psych Ward and giggle. “Tons of need to worry.”