by Misti Murphy
“What are you smiling at?” she asks.
“How cute my woman is.” And the look that will be on Rebel’s face when they meet for the first time. He’s probably going to have an issue with the mask. Think she’s a stalker or something. Actually, it’s perfect that they’ll meet at this party where it isn’t weird to be wearing a costume.
“Can we please take this slow? You don’t know me. What if you don’t like what you find?”
“Don’t worry.” I take the key out of the small pouch on my belt and unlock the cuff on my wrist. Everything about her is beautiful. The shape of her face. Her curves. Her soul. I might be missing a few key pieces of the puzzle, but I’m not worried that the way I feel will change any time soon. “I’ve got you.”
“Rogue, it’s…” Her eyes widen as I secure the empty link around one of the metal bars in the headboard. A dark ring grows around the purple of her contacts. She squirms. “What are you doing?”
“I am…” I blow out a breath and scrub a hand through my hair. I feel like a prick, actually. I’m aware I’m going a bit too far in the name of being totally obsessed with the woman underneath me. I just can’t give her the opportunity to run again before I’ve proved to myself and my twin that I am not losing my ever-loving mind. “…not taking any chances. You make me crazy when you disappear like you do, you know that?”
She crawls to the head of the bed. Rests her back against the wood and metal headboard. “So you handcuff me to your bed?”
“Not my bed.”
“What?”
I clear my throat. “It’s not my bed. This is one of Bianca’s guest rooms.”
She shakes her head. “Why does that matter?”
“Because it means that I’m not taking you prisoner.”
She jerks at her wrist and the chain on the cuff rattles. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“For like fifteen minutes tops,” I say. Yes, I’m aware of how suspect I’m acting. I love Criminal Minds. “I just have to find my brother so I can introduce you two.”
“I told you I wouldn’t run.” She glares at me. “Give me the key and go find your brother. I’ll still be here when you come back.”
I consider my questionable actions and whether I can trust her to stay put. “Mmm, yeah. I’m not going to do that.”
“Please, Rogue. This is ridiculous.”
“Perhaps.” I climb off the bed. “And more than anything I want to trust you, but right now I can’t. Every time you promise you’ll stay, you turn around and bounce.”
“So you’re really going to leave me cuffed to the bed?” She pouts.
“Fifteen minutes,” I promise. “That’s all. Then you can prove me wrong by sticking around. Or break my heart if that’s what you choose. Please don’t choose that.”
She sucks her lips between her teeth and mulls over what I’m asking of her. “Fifteen minutes?”
“At the most. I’ll be quick.”
“Okay,” she says. “Hurry.”
“Anything for you, baby.” I grin as I open the door and step out onto the landing.
Closing the door behind me, I race back through the cobwebs and fake spiders and blood splattered on the walls. When I don’t see my brother on the second floor, I take the stairs two at a time while checking out the crowd from the higher vantage point.
I spot him out by the pool with the rest of our clique. Well, most of them anyway. Bianca is sandwiched between Ethan and Linc. Rebel has both arms wrapped around Summer. I slide down the banister, grab a beer from King Kong and almost make it outside before I catch sight of Riot in a corner with a girl. Her hands are on his back, her fingers curled into the black cotton of his cape. The hint of her white and gold ensemble is enough to give her away. Ro.
Knew it. I so fucking knew it. I don’t know what to think about it though. On the one hand she’s over my twin so that’s good. On the other, I worry Riot is mistaking his protectiveness over Ro for something more than that. And she’s still jumping at shadows, still trying to find her way free of her nightmares. If it doesn’t work out…if it ends badly, it could really screw things up. More than they already have been.
As I step outside I shake off the weirdness of watching my brother get intimate with a woman I’ve thought of as a sister for years. I’m on board with kink. And I did have that one dream about Summer that I still feel odd about, but this is weirder. Best to pretend it never happened and get back on mission.
“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Bianca.”
My timing couldn’t be worse as two shirtless waiters wheel out a six tier cake, aglow with candles. It’s so tall that Ethan and Linc pick the petite blonde birthday girl up between them and balance her on their shoulders so she can blow out the flames when the song ends.
Everyone cheers and claps and whistles. Feet are stamped. Bianca cuts the cake and accidentally on purpose touches the bottom so that she has to kiss the nearest boy. It’s tradition and Bianca never misses a chance to make a spectacle of herself, if she can help it. Ethan and Linc jokingly argue over which one of them is closer.
“You need to come upstairs with me,” I tell Rebel out the side of my mouth as Bianca jumps Ethan and shoves her tongue down his throat. What’s a bit of spit between friends, am I right?
“Huh?” Rebel says.
Linc catches Bianca’s jaw when she and Ethan break apart and smacks his own lips to hers. Throws in a bit of tongue action too. When he finally lets her up for air, she crooks a finger at me.
I put a palm up and shake my head. Last year I would have got in on the action for shiggles and the media drones in the background. This year, I have a girl upstairs and…I glance at my watch…six minutes to get my ass back to her with Rebel in tow. “Found her. Come on.”
“Found who?” my apparently dense as concrete brother asks.
“Oh my God,” Summer exclaims, tugging out of Rebel’s arms. “You found Uma Cookie?”
“Yes,” I say. “She’s upstairs. So hurry up. She already thinks I kidnapped her.”
“Holy shit.” Summer’s eyes grow so big they seem to take over her face. “What did you do, Rogue?”
I glance at my watch. I now have five minutes.
Grabbing Summer’s hand, I tug her toward the house. All I need is one member of my family to see this girl is fucking real. “I left her handcuffed to the bed.”
“Ohmygod!” Summer starts dragging and digging her heels in. “Oh my God. Please tell me you didn’t. Rogue?”
“D-did you kidnap a girl from the party?” Rebel grabs his hair on both sides. He looks like his head might explode at any moment.
“It’s not like that.” I tug harder at Summer’s hand. We’re almost to the stairs. In two short minutes Summer and my brother will see that Uma Cookie is real. Then I can take the cuffs off her and we’ll see where we go from there.
“Brother or not, I will thump you if you keep dragging Summer around like that. Didn’t anyone teach you any fucking manners?” Rebel wraps his arm around Summer’s waist and we come to a standstill.
“You practically raised me,” I clap back.
“I didn’t teach you to fucking abduct people,” Rebel snarls. “And in Bianca’s house? With people everywhere? And the paps just waiting at the gates? Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“It’s okay. It’s fine.” I toss my hands up. “I promised Uma that it wasn’t kidnapping.”
“Oh. Oh, you fucking told her it wasn’t kidnapping,” he scoffs. “What is this? Everybody wants to be a criminal now?”
“What the hell is going on?” Riot asks, inserting himself between us. It isn’t the first time he’s had to be the voice of reason. It probably won’t be the last. But I would rather we all just went upstairs so I can let Uma Cookie out of those cuffs.
“Your above average idiot brother has a woman cuffed to a bed upstairs.”
“Nice, bro.” Riot lifts his palm for a high five.
Rebel groans.
“Probably against her will,” Rebel qualifies his statement. “Because he thinks Uma Cookie is real.”
“She is real,” I snap.
“I…” Riot grimaces as he reaches out and squeezes my shoulder, “…don’t think she is, man.”
“Fuck you,” I spit. He hasn’t even been in town. He’s been travelling with his band. “Where’s Ro, by the way? Do you really think it’s a smart idea to be hooking up with her right now?”
“Wait? What?” Rebel double checks at that news. He looks like he’s glitching. It’d be funny if Uma Cookie wasn’t waiting for us.
“It just happened.” Riot reaches to rub the back of his head but stops himself and drops his arm to his side. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. Do you really have a girl handcuffed to a bed upstairs?”
“You’re not going to give him the oldest brother speech?” I glare at Rebel.
Summer lays a hand on my chest. Stares up at me with her big green eyes that have moved mountains and made my brother do a million things he wouldn’t have done otherwise. “I want to meet your Uma Cookie. Will you take me to meet her?”
It’s like she has a superpower. All three of us quiet when she speaks.
I cover her hand with mine, pat it a couple of times. “Thanks, Sum.”
“That’s alright,” she says. “Lead the way.”
“Up you go,” Rebel says as he scoops her and her fish tail up over his shoulder. “I guess we have to see this through. At least to make sure whoever you have up there is okay. And hopefully won’t want to call the police.”
“It’s the real deal.” I stop in front of the bedroom door. Hand to the knob, I take a deep breath. My family is about to meet the girl that I think of as mine. It’s not something I’ve done before and I want to soak up how right it feels.
“Are we going to do this?” Riot asks from behind me.
I turn the handle and push open the door to reveal crumpled bedcovers, a pair of handcuffs, and no Uma Cookie.
In fact, there’s no girl at all.
Rebel’s hand lands on my shoulder and grips tight. Summer sinks into my side and wraps her arms around my torso. Riot gives me a sympathetic nod as he moves to lean against the wall. None of them say it as I scan the room and scan it again. As I take in the handcuffs still attached to the bed. As I search every corner and every shadow for a woman who has turned my world upside down over and over and over since the day I got shot.
My focus again settles on the metal bracelets still attached to the head of the bed. I did leave them there, didn’t I? I turn to Rebel, “Those are the cuffs I borrowed from you, right?”
“I don’t know, dude. Those cuffs are so generic, they could belong to anyone at this party.”
“It’s Bianca’s birthday, bro,” Riot adds. “You know she gets wild at this time of year. For all we know she has handcuffs hanging on every bed in every bedroom.”
“No. I left them there. I’m sure of it.” I pull the key out of the pouch on my belt and unlock the metal ring from the frame. “See.”
“Hate to break it to you, but those keys are universal.” Rebel files into the bedroom behind me. “They’ll open all cuffs like that as long as they’re kept in good repair.”
“I was wearing them when I got to the party.” I check my belt where they’d been hanging. Wrap my fingers around both wrists. I can practically still feel their heaviness on my skin. “But now I’m not. These are the cuffs.”
“Well, maybe you attached them to the bed in hopes of kidnapping a girl—which, frankly, is only marginally better than actually kidnapping a girl…”
Oh God, I’m losing my mind. Kidnapping? Attempted kidnapping? If Uma isn’t real then what the hell am I doing? She’s so vivid, so real…but if she’s not… “Hang on. She came with Adira…and he is certainly real. He’s downstairs. I’ve got to find him. Get him to tell me the truth.”
I spin on my heel to race downstairs. Adira is the fucking key to all of this.
“Adira is the drag queen, right?” Riot asks.
“Yes,” Summer says.
Riot scratches his head. “He left. With some young vampire dude who looked like someone had kicked his puppy.”
“How would you know,” I snap. “You had your tongue shoved so far down your best friend’s throat you were probably licking the inside of her clit.”
“Eww.” Summer wrinkles her nose.
“Firstly, don’t fucking talk about Ro like that.” Riot stares me down with pure violence in his gaze and white knuckles at his sides. “Secondly, it was mutual, but that doesn’t make it mean anything. Thirdly, we’re not fucking talking about it.”
“Fine.” I tug at my hair. I probably owe him an apology. Later. When I’m not so frustrated. “Was there anyone else with Adira and the kicked puppy?”
Because maybe Uma was with them. She’d been with that guy when I found her.
“Nope.”
The snick of a door opening catches our attention and we all turn in unison to watch a couple emerge from the bathroom, along with a whole lot of steam. They’re both wet and wearing towels. He holds her hand and she tugs him toward the bed. Toward us.
It takes them a moment to notice they’re not alone.
His laugh faulters as he glances between us.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I snarl. How long were they in that bathroom? I never once noticed the water running. Were they in there when Uma… I glance at the bed; its crumpled covers… did they screw in that bed? Is that why the sheets are crumpled and not because Uma is real… fuck, I don’t know anymore.
The girl yips and tries to stretch the terry cloth to cover more of her naked body. Her wide green eyes dart to each one of us with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment.
The guy—he doesn’t have an immediately recognizable face like most of the people at this party—shrugs. “You know. It’s a party. We’re just having some fun.”
My knees give out and I find myself sitting on the end of the bed. I swear I can still smell Uma’s jasmine and blackberry perfume. “H-how long?”
“I don’t know, dude. Thirty minutes, maybe longer. I wasn’t exactly keeping an eye on the time. We were preoccupied.” He glances around at everyone and then at the girl. “Is he your boyfriend or something?”
“No.” She sounds peeved that he would think so.
“I’m having a breakdown or something, aren’t I?” The possibility weighs me down. I couldn’t get to my feet if I tried. Uma isn’t real. She’s in my head. That’s all.
“We need the room,” my twin growls at the interlopers, er, the couple who were here before us.
“B-but,” the girl starts.
“Out. Now,” he snaps again.
The two of them dart around the room, collecting their clothes and muttering about what an asshole Rebel is—like that’s news to anyone—before they exit the room.
I suck in a breath and finally say it. What I’m thinking. What they’re all thinking. “I’m turning out like her.”
Like our mom.
“I don’t know.” Rebel sits down next to me on the only part of the bed that is still made. He clasps his hands between his knees. He has issues with our mother and the way he believes she chose to handle her illness. He put her in the nicest facility money could buy as soon as he could afford it. He looks after her.
But I’m the one who checks on her. Makes sure she’s doing as well as she can. I’ve watched her, and she doesn’t get better. She’s medicated and zoned out. She doesn’t talk to me, but she talks to the voices in her head. “I don’t want to be like her.”
He grips the back of my neck and pulls our heads together. “You’re nothing like her. And even if…”
He gulps and I feel salty wetness in my own throat.
“Whatever this is, we’ve got it handled, right?”
“Right.” Riot drops
down on my other side. His head bows to ours.
Summer kneels at our feet. Her hand on my knee, she peers up at me. “You were shot. You had to have surgery. Who’s to say that this isn’t some kind of stress response to that?”
“I’m seeing things,” I mutter.
“I-I sometimes swear I see my high school ex on the street,” Summer shivers. “And then I look again and he’s not there. It can be PTSD related.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rebel says, like he wants to take an axe to Summer’s past and everyone who hurt her.
“I’m not saying it’s the same thing,” Summer says. “Not at all. But you won’t know what is going on with you until you see someone about it. You need to talk about it. And not necessarily in jokes.”
I take a deep breath in through my nose and let it out through my mouth. “You’re right. I’ll make an appointment to see someone as soon as possible.”
“Good.” Rebel squeezes my neck again. “And Riot, we are so fucking talking about you and Ro later.”
Baby bro grumbles under his breath. “Whatever.”
I turn my attention to those handcuffs hanging from the headboard. “Did we ever work out how I got to the hospital?”
“I’ll follow up,” Summer says. “If it’ll give you peace of mind.”
I just can’t shake the feeling that Uma Cookie is real. But if she is why the fuck does she keep running from me? Has this been her plan all along? Is she trying to make me crazy?
Chapter Nineteen
Ivy
I’m a horrible person.
I chew my thumb as I pace Dr. Keller’s waiting area. My scuffed high tops sink into the plush carpet. I take a seat in one of the chairs lined up against the glass wall.
Outside it’s a beautiful California day. Blue sky has me thinking about him. About his eyes. About what kind of asshole makes someone feel like they’re going crazy.
Back on my feet, I take another turn around the room.
Dr. Keller’s door stays firmly shut. The wood grain turns to static the longer I stare at it. Someone else is in session behind that closed door. Otherwise I might burst in there and blurt out everything that’s on my mind. Including that I am downright awful. A human wasteland of compassion.
