“You can do whatever you want to me,” I whispered, and he flinched at that.
“Go!” Peter growled.
His voice stung, but it managed to get me moving. Using all my strength, I looked away and stood up. He still hadn’t moved, but I could see the tendons in his neck and his arms standing out sharply. It wasn’t until I had started down the stairs, and I had started to really breathe, that I understood why his body looked so tense. He was using all his might not to move. That’s why he’d insisted that I leave. He couldn’t move or he’d lose control of himself.
When I got downstairs, I felt dazed and I was panting. There was a very real chance that I had just barely averted being killed. And the worst part was that I would’ve happily let him murder me. In fact, part of me still wanted to rush back upstairs and let him do whatever he wanted with me as long as I could still be with him.
“Alice?” Milo asked, sounding worried. He and Jack were standing in the middle of the living room, holding plastic guitars, but I could barely even see them. The whole world felt hazy and I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or not. “Are you okay?”
“You were with Peter?” Jack had stopped playing the game and turned to look at me. He eyed me over, and he saw something that he didn’t like. “Come here.” I felt frozen in place, so he commanded again, “Come here.” This time I did as I was told and walked over to him.
“Did something happen to her?” Milo’s voice got higher the more scared he got.
Jack didn’t answer him. Instead, he looked me over with this odd expression on his face, a cross between disturbed and jealous. Then, he put two fingers underneath my chin and lifted it up, revealing my neck. He turned my head this way and that, inspecting me carefully. When he was done, his expression had softened and he looked satisfied.
“Come here,” he repeated, but this time, he looped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him. I threw my arms around him, hugging him tightly and relishing the safety of his arms. I sobbed into his chest, unable to hold it back anymore, and he kissed the top of my head. “You’re okay.”
“What happened?” I heard Ezra’s melodic voice boom behind me, but I hadn’t seen him when I came in the room. He seemed to have suddenly materialized at the sound of me crying.
“I don’t know! She just came downstairs crying!” Milo explained plaintively. He was upset, and I wished somebody would just tell him that everything would be okay. Why wasn’t Mae here when I needed her?”
“Did something happen?” Ezra demanded, and there was an edge to his voice.
“No,” Jack murmured softly, stroking my hair.
“Are you sure?” Ezra persisted.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Jack replied, growing irritated.
“I’m going to go talk to Peter.” I didn’t hear Ezra leaving, but I knew he had anyway. The warmth he brought into the room had lessened.
“What’s wrong with her?” Milo was on the verge of tears now.
“Nothing.” I pulled away from Jack a little but made sure to keep his arm around me still. For some reason, I knew I wouldn’t feel as safe or sturdy without it. Wiping at my tear stained cheeks, I forced a smile at Milo. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine!” Milo insisted with wide, worried eyes.
“It’s just… girl stuff.” I tried to shrug it off, and I couldn’t tell if he saw through it or not.
It was a perfectly reasonable explanation that while I was upstairs, alone with a very attractive guy, he had said or done something to offend me, and that’s what had upset me. In fact, that would be much more plausible than what had actually happened, which was that I had become so entranced with somebody that I almost let him slaughter me. And I was pretty sure that this attempted-murder had happened not because he hated me, but because he was attracted to me.
“Like what?” Milo narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I just shook my head and looked away.
“What’s going on?” Mae shouted suddenly, and my heart soared at the sight of her standing in the doorway. Somehow, she’d make everything all right.
Then she rushed over to me, placing her hands her firmly on my shoulders to look in my puffy, red eyes. “What happened?”
“She was upstairs with Peter,” Jack explained, and Mae’s expression change from one of worry to shock, and she turned to look at Jack sharply.
“Nothing happened.”
Her expression changed again, and she looked sympathetically at me.
Before she pulled me into a hug, it finally dawned on me. Whatever had happened or almost happened with Peter, they knew it. When Ezra had sent me upstairs, he’d known exactly what would happen. Meaning, he had sent me to my probable death. What the hell was going on here? And why didn’t I feel as terrified as I should? In fact, as Mae stroked my hair, and murmured words of comfort in her soft British accent, I felt nothing but safe. What was wrong with me?
“I’m okay, really,” I insisted, and she finally released me. She smiled sadly at me and pushed strands of hair back from face, then straightened up.
“I hope you mean that.”
“I do.” I nodded firmly, and Jack playfully ruffled my hair, as if to reaffirm that everything was okay.
“And who is this?” Mae turned her attention to Milo. Just looking at her made his anxiety disappear, and he returned her open smile.
“I’m Milo, Alice’s brother.” He looked a little embarrassed by the look she was giving him, and I knew the feeling. She reached out and touched his face gently (his chubby cheeks were hard to resist) and grinned warmly.
“I’m Mae, Ezra’s wife,” Mae told him. “You’re so much cuter than I’d thought you’d be.”
“Thanks?” Milo replied unsurely.
“Have you had a tour of the house yet?” Mae had already started looping her arm through his, and I realized that Mae had missed her calling as a real estate agent. Milo shook his head no, and she laughed a little. “I didn’t think so.
The boys are really terrible about showing anybody anything. But you know how boys are.”
As soon as they were out of earshot, I turned to Jack and hissed, “What the hell happened?”
“You tell me,” Jack countered evenly, and I might have overestimated how much he knew.
“You have an idea of what happened, don’t you?” I pressed. He didn’t answer me, so I continued, “You have suspicions. There was something that you were afraid happened.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” he answered quietly, but the fog of Peter was wearing off and I could feel how unnerved he really was.
“Jack, I trust you,” I whispered fiercely. “Don’t betray that trust.” An amused but pained expression flitted across his face, and he shook his head.
“He’s not gonna hurt you, Alice.” Then he turned to look at me. “None of us are.”
“Then…” I trailed off, trying to understand what was happening. “But Peter told me to go before he did something very bad to me.” Jack let out a long breath through his teeth and stared off at some point above my head.
“Well… I guess we all just have different definitions of what hurting you means.”
“Was that meant to be comforting? Cause it wasn’t,” I snapped, crossing my arms on my chest. Jack laughed again, but he’d finished the conversation.
He still had the plastic guitar hanging over his shoulder, and he unpaused the game and clicked out of the two-player level he’d been playing with Milo.
“Let me put it this way: You are a top priority for my family.” He had started playing “Lazy Eye” by the Silversun Pickups, and when I asked him what that meant, he completely ignored me.
I flopped back on the couch next to Matilda and stroked her long, white fur. Everything with Peter had exhausted me. My skin flushed with embarrassment at the thought of running into him. I had made a fool of myself, and he was in trouble with Ezra. But even with that, I still really wanted to see him. My very being wanted to be near him again, and it would be worth anything.