Crush

by Tracy Wolff

  I don’t know why he doesn’t respond to Jaxon’s words—maybe because he realizes everything Jaxon said about him is true. Maybe because he’s embarrassed. Maybe because he got his burst of anger out earlier. I don’t know. I just know that I expect some kind of response from him.

  I’ve known Hudson for only a few days and already I know that it’s not like him to be quiet. And it’s definitely not like him not to have a comeback or six…

  A sudden sadness swamps me, along with a wave of exhaustion that has me fighting back a yawn. Jaxon sees it, though—of course he does—and says, “Come on, the rest of the research can wait until tomorrow. Let’s get you back to your room.”

  I want to argue, but I’m fading fast, so I just nod. “Don’t we need to clean up first?” I gesture to the table where the candles still burn.

  “I can walk you to your room, then come back and clean up.” Jaxon starts gently herding me toward the library door.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’ll take ten minutes, and then we can head back to my room.”

  Turns out, it barely takes five minutes to get everything picked up and put away before we’re on our way to my room. When we get there, I know Jaxon expects to be able to kiss me like he did yesterday, but Hudson isn’t asleep now. He’s not talking to me, but he’s very definitely aware of what’s going on, and I can’t just make out with Jaxon when his brother is watching—especially not when he’s watching from inside my head.

  The last thing I want is for him (or anyone) to know what I’m thinking when Jaxon kisses me…or worse, what I’m feeling. It’s personal and private and nobody’s business but mine.

  So when Jaxon moves to set the huge vase of flowers on the floor beside my door, I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Three’s a crowd,” I tell him.

  He looks confused, but my meaning must register because he nods and steps away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then? We can meet for breakfast at ten, then research at the library after that, if it works for you?”

  “I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning than with you,” I tell him.

  “Good.” He starts to hand me my flowers, but I wrap my arms around him in a huge hug first, pulling his face down to mine so I can give him a superfast peck on the lips.

  “Thank you for tonight. It was awesome.”

  “Yeah?” He looks embarrassed but also a little pleased. I’ll admit it’s an adorable look on him.

  “Yeah. You’re…” I trail off as I struggle to put my thoughts into words.

  Jaxon leans against the doorframe then, a shit-eating grin on his face and a huge vase of flowers in his arms, and somehow still manages to look sexy as fuck. “I’m what?” he asks, making a ridiculous face.

  “A total dork,” I answer after I burst out laughing.

  He laughs, too. “Not quite what I was going for, but I’ll take it.” He hands me my flowers, then bends down to kiss my cheek. “Because I’ll take you.”

  My heart turns into an actual puddle—there’s no other word for it. “Good,” I answer. “Because I’ll take you, too.”

  And then Jaxon is opening the door and I’m floating inside, heart and head full of this boy, this powerful, perfect boy who makes me feel things I never imagined possible.

  Macy’s not here—probably out with some of the witches doing witch things—so I put the flowers on my desk before flopping down on my bed. A couple of minutes later, I turn on my favorite playlist and grab the book off my nightstand. But it’s the same book I was reading four months ago when I turned into a gargoyle, so I can’t follow the plot.

  Three minutes and five pages later and I put the book down. I consider streaming something from Netflix, but nothing sounds good, and eventually I end up wandering around my room, touching everything as I look for something to do.

  Turns out, there’s nothing to do—it’s been a long time since I’ve been in my room alone, and it feels so awkward, I almost can’t believe I’m in the right place. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, considering when I got to Katmere Academy, all I wanted was to be on my own, and now I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin.

  Finally, I decide to take a shower so I can go to bed, but I’m halfway to the bathroom, pajamas in my hand, when I realize I can’t do that. Last night when I showered, Hudson was asleep. Tonight, he isn’t.

  He’s being unnaturally quiet and hasn’t said a word to me since Jaxon’s outburst in the library, but he’s sprawled out on Macy’s bed reading—I stretch a little bit to get a look at the front of his book—Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, and I wonder idly if he relates to Rodion, who ends up killing people for his own selfish needs.

  I hesitate. I want to wash my hair, but there’s no way I’m going to strip naked and take a shower with him watching me, whether he seems like he’s reading or not. How could he not see me naked if I can see myself naked? I mean, he’s in my head.

  “I wouldn’t do that.” I nearly jump when Hudson finally speaks to me out of the blue. He’s still on Macy’s bed, with his ankles crossed and his arms folded beneath his head, but now his book is lying across his chest.

  There are a million other questions I want to ask him—namely what made him so upset that he shut down to begin with—but I settle for asking about his immediate statement first. “What do you mean?”

  “I wouldn’t watch you take a shower or get undressed. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Yeah, but how could you not watch? You’re literally in my head, even though it seems like you’re over there on Macy’s bed.” I tap my head. “You’re still right here.”

  “I don’t know. The best I can do is close my eyes and go deep inside my own mind so I’m not really active in yours at the time. I guess we’ll see. But take your shower. You don’t have anything gross to fear from me.”

  “Is that what you did at the end, in the library? Went deep into your own mind?” I don’t know why it matters, don’t know why I don’t just take the win and be happy he left me alone for as long as he did. But I don’t feel particularly happy, and I want to know what shut Hudson down to begin with.

  “No,” he answers after a second. “I’ve been here all along. I just…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I guess I just wanted to think for a while.”

  “I can understand that.”

  He smiles, and for the first time tonight, it’s not mocking. But it’s not happy, either. It’s just kind of…sad. “Can you?”

  It’s a good question, one I don’t know the answer to. I think I have a lot on my mind—pun maybe, kind of, totally intended—but for the first time, I wonder what it must be like to be Hudson. Trapped in the head of a girl you barely know and who has made no secret of the fact that she doesn’t like you, stuck there until she can figure out how to not only get you out of her head but also to make you human, something you’ve never been in your life.

  I know how alienated and strange I feel knowing that a part of me is gargoyle, not human. How much more awful must it feel to be a vampire and know that by the time you’re free, you will have lost the most basic building block of who you are?

  It’s a terrible thought, the idea of being responsible for stripping Hudson of his very identity. But at the same time, what’s the alternative? Set him free and hope he doesn’t decide to use his very formidable powers to launch a war on the entire world?

  He’s done absolutely nothing to earn the kind of trust that would require.

  “You’re right,” he tells me after a second.

  “About what?”

  He rolls over on the bed, gives me his back. And says, “You don’t have a clue what it’s like to be me.”

  It’s a true statement but also a hurtful one, and for long seconds I stand there wondering how to respond. But in the end, there is no resp
onse—or at least no good response—and I decide now might be the perfect time for me to take that shower. In the mood he’s in, I’m pretty sure Hudson will have absolutely no interest in breaking his promise.

  “I wouldn’t break my promise anyway.” The comment slides insidiously into my mind, so slowly and quietly that it takes me a moment to even recognize it for what it is.

  But once I do, I can’t help answering back: I know. Because I do, even though I don’t know how I know.

  It’s only later, after I’m washing the conditioner out of my hair, that something occurs to me. It wasn’t that I was bored when I first got to my room. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do with myself that made me unable to settle.

  It was the fact that Hudson wasn’t there, in my head, saying all the ridiculous, snarky, hilarious things that he normally says that had me so discombobulated.

  It doesn’t make any sense, but somehow, in the space of only a couple of days, I’ve grown used to having his voice in my head. I’ve grown used to his running commentary and his puffed-up opinions and even the way he pushes at me to get me to admit what I really think and feel.

  I don’t know how it happened when I hate the guy and everything he stands for—everything he once did. But it did happen, and now I don’t have a clue what to do about the fact that maybe, just maybe, I’m beginning to think of Hudson as something more than an enemy. Not a friend—I’m not childish enough to lower my guard that much—but something that isn’t entirely hateful, either.

  It’s not the best description ever, and I expect a snarky comment as soon as I make it, but nothing comes. Because Hudson is doing what he said he would—giving me the privacy I need.

  And that just makes me more confused.

  I get out of the shower and dry off so quickly that my PJs are still sticking to damp spots when I brush my teeth and finally head to bed.

  As I slide under my covers, I glance over at Macy’s side of the room and realize Hudson is gone. He’s so quiet that I figure he must be asleep. Which is probably a good thing, considering I have to think, really think, and the last thing I need right now is him peering over my shoulder while I do.

  Because the truth is, I can’t just sit around waiting for him to do something awful. I can already feel cracks in the shield I put up to keep him locked away, and who knows what he’ll do once it’s weak enough for him to get through?

  Now that it’s the weekend, I’ve got to step up my search for the objects I need to get him out of my head. Jaxon reminded me just how dangerous and untrustworthy he is. Add that to the cracks in the wall…and suddenly it’s beginning to feel like it’s going to be days, not weeks, before he breaks through.

  And then we’ll all be screwed.

  45

  Leave Your Daddy

  Issues at the Door

  I wake up to a screaming alarm and sunlight filtering in through the one window in our dorm room.

  “Turn it off,” Macy complains from her bed, where she’s busy shoving a pillow over her head. “For the love of God, turn it off.”

  I do, but then I roll out of bed because it’s nine fifteen and I have to be in the cafeteria in forty-five minutes. Which shouldn’t be such a chore, but I had a hard time sleeping last night, and today I am dragging already.

  I make my way to the bathroom as quietly as I can to splash water on my face and brush my teeth, but Macy rolls over after a minute and asks, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m meeting Jaxon for breakfast; then we’re going to the library to research.” I stare at her sleepy eyes. “You do remember I have a vampire in my brain and my walls won’t hold him in check forever, yes?”

  Macy groans and whines into her pillow for a minute, but then she pushes back her covers and sits up, feet on the floor.

  I burst out laughing at my first good look at her, and she gives me a disgruntled pout in return. I try to apologize, but I can’t. Every time I look at her, I end up grinning, because she looks ridiculous.

  Her hot-pink hair is sticking up in what looks like a rooster comb and her eye makeup—which she must have gone heavy on last night—has smeared all over her eyes so that she looks like a raccoon. An adorable raccoon, but a raccoon nonetheless.

  “Why are you getting up?” I ask as I make my way to my closet. “Go back to sleep. You look like you need it.”

  “You have no idea. One of the wolves had a party last night, and it got a little out of control.” She waves a hand up and down in front of her face. “Hence the old-hag look.”

  “That’s not quite how I would describe it, but okay.” I grin at her. “So that begs the question, why are you getting up when you have all day to recuperate?”

  “Because I’m going with you, silly.”

  “What? No, you don’t have to do that. We’re just going to sit around and read dusty books all day.”

  “I can sit around with the best of them.” Macy pushes to her feet and stumbles her way over to the bathroom. “Besides, I’m really good at research. Like, wicked good, even without the spells. So I’ll help you until I have to meet Gwen at two.”

  “There’s a spell to help you research?” I ask, fascinated at the idea.

  She rolls her eyes—or at least, I think she does. The insanely heavy, smeared eye makeup makes it impossible to tell. “There’s a spell for everything if you look hard enough.”

  “Everything?” I ask, but she’s already shut the bathroom door behind her. Seconds later, I hear the shower go on.

  “Everything,” Hudson answers. “Witches are nothing if not practical creatures. Why do something the hard way if you can hack it?”

  He’s sitting on the floor near the door, knees up and arms draped over them. For the first time since he showed up in my head, he’s dressed in a pair of faded jeans. They’re ripped at the knees, frayed around the bottom, and somehow manage to look amazing on him. As does the white T-shirt he’s wearing.

  “What about vampires?” I ask, because I’m curious. And because I’m anxious to distract myself from the fact that Hudson looks good—and that I’ve noticed that fact. “Are they practical, too?”

  He snorts. “Only when it comes to who they’re going to eat.”

  “That’s awful!” I tell him, but I’m laughing just a little.

  “Yeah, well, awful and true usually go hand in hand.” He runs his palms over his knees in a gesture that looks an awful lot like nerves. “Or haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  That he believes this says a lot about Hudson. But he’s not usually so brutal, and I can’t help wondering what happened in the middle of the night that turned him so massively bitter. I think about asking him, but things are relatively peaceful right now, and I’d rather try to keep it that way. Especially since I’m meeting up with Jaxon in less than an hour.

  “I’m going to change, okay?” I tell Hudson as I cross to my closet to pick something to wear.

  He waves a hand in that negligent “do what you want” way that he has, but he also tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

  “Thank you,” I tell him as I start to browse through my clothes.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I move to pull out one of the outfits Macy got me when I first moved here, but in the end I settle on a turquoise tank top and black yoga pants from my old life. Because I now live in a sometimes-drafty old castle in Alaska and I don’t want to spend the next ten hours of my life freezing, I layer my favorite cardigan over the tank top. As its worn softness settles around me, I feel more like myself than I have since I turned back from being stone.

  It’s a good feeling.

  “I’m done,” I tell Hudson softly, and he nods, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

  And as I stand here with this unique, unprecedented chance to study him uninterrupted—usually he’s wide awake and trading barbs with me
every time I so much as get a glimpse of him—I can’t help but realize how tired he looks.

  I get it. I’ve had two solid nights of sleep and I still feel like I’ve been run over by a semi. But his tiredness looks edgier, harder, more soul deep, and I wonder what’s going on in his head. I wonder what he’s feeling, if anything.

  Four days ago, it would have been impossible for me to imagine that I would worry about Hudson, even for a second. I still can’t believe it now. Not after everything he’s done, to Jaxon and to everyone else here at Katmere. Not after everything he wanted to do to the world.

  I wonder if this is what Stockholm Syndrome feels like? Despite everything your captor has done, all the horrible things they are, you start to identify with them anyway? God, I really hope that’s not the case.

  “I think you should be more concerned about whether reverse Stockholm Syndrome is a thing, don’t you? Considering you’re the one who has been holding me captive for almost three and a half months?” The crisp British accent is back, and when he opens his eyes, so is the superior smirk that makes Hudson…Hudson.

  My eyes go wide. “Me? You’re the one who won’t leave my head!”

  “Won’t leave your head?” he scoffs. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I’m desperate to leave your head. You’re the one who wastes time going to classes and painting pictures—oh, and kissing my brother—when you should be looking for a bloodstone!”

  “I’m sorry that me living my life is such a waste of time for you, but I can’t just drop everything and run around the world to stop you from having a temper tantrum,” I shoot back.

  “Temper tantrum?” His voice is dangerously low. “That’s the second time you’ve accused me of having a temper tantrum when I’ve expressed legitimate concerns about your attitude. I put up with it the first time, but now I’m warning you. Don’t do it again.”

  I take exception at the warning, not to mention the look in his eyes when he issues it. “Or what?” I ask, my entire body crackling with outrage.