by Brinda Berry
“We know how to warm food.” I smirked at the way Em tried to take care of us.
“Mia only knows Microwaving 101 so she needs those instructions.” Austin slung his dark hair out his eyes.
“Hey, Mr. Smarty, guy who lives on cold cereal. I am an expert at heating things.” I faked a hurt look.
“Baby, I’ll help you heat things up any day of the week.” A wicked gleam and wide smile made me wish I had the hots for him. What was wrong with me?
“Mia doesn’t need any help from you.” Regulus’s low voice menaced from behind my back.
I whirled around and my errant mouth engaged. “I’ll heat things up with anyone I like.” If he could study with some college girl, he had no right to say anything to me. I’d stepped into the role of the jealous ex—searching for the right hurtful words.
My shame increased ten-fold when I saw his face. I knew that look. I’d seen it on myself in the mirror. In private. In secrecy. Alone. Hurt that shouldn’t be out there for others to witness. Was it pride? Or did he think he could claim me as his girl until the IIA swooped in and erased his memory again?
He turned his back on me and left the room.
Nothing in my seventeen years competed with this painful feeling—growing up without a mother, missing my older brother when he left…nothing.
Love sucked.
4
Regulus
The smell of Christmas consisted of evergreen and baked goods. Cinnamon and burning logs. Warmth wrapped up with a shiny bow on top announcing love and goodwill.
Or so Regulus had been told in training.
Here, the chilly reception from Mia iced his holiday expectations. In his years of living in The Vault, he had followed a calendar with little interest. Each day held promise, but special days—holidays—didn’t exist in his world.
He’d never understand the reason to mark a day on the calendar.
His gaze lingered on the Christmas cards strung across the living room mantle. Cards with Christmas trees, religious emblems, the fat man in the red suit.
The sound of footsteps made him grimace.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Emily said, her voice friendly. She stood at his right and looked at the cards.
“Hmm.” Regulus didn’t look away from the cards. After an awkward silence, he added, “Mia’s not.”
“She is.” Emily glanced at the kitchen where Mia stood talking with Austin and Tiny.
“She doesn’t laugh and talk with me like she does with Austin.”
“You’re not really jealous, are you?”
“No.” He inched closer to the wood mantle and picked up a card picturing Santa’s legs hanging from a chimney.
“Mia’s known Austin forever. I mean, like since kindergarten.”
He sensed Emily’s stare. A stare meant to invite conversation. She called it sharing. Closing the card, he wished she’d find something else to do. He opened another card and stared at the meaningless scrawl.
“Regulus, look at me.”
He dropped his hand from the Christmas card and sighed. “Yes, Emily.”
“You’d better call me Em if I’m going to give you relationship advice. You used to call me Em.”
“Em.”
“Better.” She chuckled and shook her head. “Be her friend. That’s what she wants right now. See how she treats Austin? They’re great friends.”
“Em.” He cleared his throat and thought about his words. “I don’t know how to be her friend. I don’t want to be her friend. If I knew how—”
“We’re friends…talking all friendly-like.”
“That’s because I don’t want to kiss your neck and run my hands along the curves of your body. I’m not thinking about—”
“OK,” she said, drawing out the word, her eyes wide. “Awkward. Reg, it’s not cool to tell somebody that. I give you kudos for the honesty thing, but rule number one is that you don’t publicly announce your, um, thoughts in that direction.”
He suppressed a sigh. “Since you are giving me advice, I thought you should completely understand the dilemma. I’m telling you what I’ve thought about telling her.”
“No. And double no. She will run screaming from the room at that.”
“Why would she not want the truth?”
Emily closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened her eyes and pursed her mouth for a moment. “Here’s the deal. You really hurt her.”
“It was not intentional.”
“Hey, I never said it was your fault. That memory cleanse thing sure does a number on relationships.”
He looked away, not wanting to see her judgment. The IIA did things that were necessary. He’d never questioned their actions in the past. It made him uneasy that he was questioning them now.
“You think I should stay away from her.”
“Gah. You are such a guy. Can you listen? I’m telling you to slow down if you want to start over with her. It’s nice if there’s a little trust before you do the hand-running-over-the-body scenario. And there has to be some honesty. A guarantee that the IIA won’t do this to you again.”
He watched her raise both brows. She wanted confirmation. He couldn’t give her that.
“I know what I want,” he said. “Your society is dishonest.”
He noticed that she wasn’t losing the disgusted expression—her nose wrinkled, her lip curled.
“I have a lot of work to do with you on the advice thing,” she said.
“I didn’t ask for it.”
“Too bad. Mia’s my friend and we look out for each other.”
Mia stood in the kitchen giving them covert glances. He didn’t mind. He wanted—no, he needed—her eyes on him. What he really wanted was that sparkle in her eyes that he’d seen with the others.
Mia’s face seemed pale and her brown eyes luminous against her skin. Was she upset?
Since the memory cleanse, he searched for facts about his time with Mia. She’d mention something that he couldn’t remember. Later, a touch or a smell or a sound would trigger emotions he couldn’t understand. He hadn’t forgotten about Emily. She continued to be bossy and interfering.
Emily waved a hand in front of his face. “Attention back on me, Romeo.”
“Mia puts up these shields.” Emily spoke and looked into the kitchen. “Shields that people erect after having life throw them one crappy curveball after another. She idolized her brother and then one day he was just gone. And I can’t even get started on her mother.”
Regulus heard Mia laughing at something. The pleasing tone of her throaty laugh warmed him like sitting near a campfire. He wished it had been at something he’d said.
Austin walked into the room with a comfortable swagger that made Regulus grind his teeth.
“Hey man.” Austin stood in front of him. A knowing quirk to his lips irritated and challenged.
“We’ll talk more later.”
Regulus watched Emily walk away, leaving him alone with Austin. Maybe if he ignored the guy, he’d go away too.
“We need a bag of ice. Come on.” Austin pulled keys from his pocket. Grabbing his coat that he’d slung onto the back of the sofa, he waited at the door.
“Ice.” Regulus wondered if he could restrain himself. The urge to punch Austin could rise quickly.
“Yeah. It’ll take twenty minutes. I’ll drive fast. We can talk.” Austin stepped closer for a second. “It’s important,” he whispered.
Everyone wanted to talk tonight. Everyone except the one person he wanted to talk to. Leaning against the kitchen bar, she studied them, her brow furrowed.
“I’ll go.” Regulus took his coat from the hall closet and followed Austin to the door.
Outside in the Jeep, he waited and Austin adjusted knobs, cranking up the heat and the music in unison. Austin drove away from the house. The woods thickened along the long driveway to the paved road. Oak and hickory trees hid the moonlight. Only the headlights pierced the cocoon of darkness.
“Our mad
scientist Bleeker has called her.”
“What do you mean, he called her? What exactly did he say? Turn around. We’re going back to the house. She can’t be a—”
“Hold on there, Kemosabi. She’s fine. Her dad is there. Tiny’s there. Your man Arizona is there. It won’t make a difference if you’re not there.”
He wanted to punch Austin. “Continue.”
“She won’t talk to him. I mean, she answered the first time and hung up on him when he identified himself. Now, she’s blocked his number.” Austin turned the Jeep onto the road.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Regulus rubbed the back of his neck. She hadn’t wanted him to know.
“I found out accidentally. She wasn’t going to tell me either.” Austin accelerated to highway speed. “I picked up her phone when it rang. Said ‘block’ on the screen. I asked her who she was blocking and she got this panicked look on her face. I knew something was wrong.”
“I should have known about it. Immediately.”
“She’s in denial. If she pretends Dr. Bleeker doesn’t exist, she doesn’t have to deal with it. With you or the IIA.”
He felt a deep ache in his gut that she’d put herself in danger. “The IIA can protect her.”
“So, it’s all about the IIA, huh?”
Regulus sat in silence, looking out his passenger window, his nerves stretched to a snapping point.
Austin didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s what I thought. Listen man. She’s not the only one in denial. You’d better get your head on straight before this psycho does something…psychotic.”
“It’s time for this to end. I won’t wait for directives. You can be sure of me.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” Austin adjusted the bill of his ball cap and nodded, his face lit by the dashboard lights.
5
Mistletoe
I stifled a laugh at Em’s kindergarten squeal at the guys’ return. “Did somebody spike Em’s eggnog?”
She glided across the room to the front door like a ballerina from the Nutcracker. “Austin, Regulus. We’ve been waiting for you guys to get back.” She hooked her arms around each, escorting them into the room.
“Huh?” Austin said.
Both guys gave her the girls-are-crazy look.
Em lugged the jumbo-sized Christmas bag beside her feet and reached inside it. Santa-like, she handed one gift to each person in the room, including Dad.
I squeezed my eyes shut and wrinkled my nose. “Ah, Em. No. We said we weren’t doing this.”
“Tell my mom that. She thinks shopping is a national sport and wants to train me to win the gold medal.” Em smiled apologetically. “Don’t be mad. See, you’re not special. Everybody gets something.”
Em surveyed the guys all shifting uncomfortably. “Open them. Now,” she ordered. She sounded so much like her mother that it freaked me out.
We obeyed and opened our gifts. I lifted a six-pack of lip glosses from the bag. They were taped to a music download gift card. Em was trying hard to bring me into the world of cosmetics and this was a baby step.
“Very cool,” I said, rotating the pack to read flavor names like Busta Red and Texty Tart. I had to temper my enthusiasm or she’d be begging to highlight my hair. Blonde is blonde. I failed to see what difference it would make.
I glanced around the room. Austin held up a gift that looked a lot like mine. He had a gift card with new ear buds for his iPod. Tiny pulled out a knit beanie and immediately took the one off his head to replace it with the new one. I chuckled because it appeared identical to the one he’d taken off. His red curls sprang from the edges of the cap.
Arizona sat staring at the gift in his hands. Regulus hadn’t even opened his bag.
“What is it, Arizona?” I walked across the room to stand in front of him. “I couldn’t tell from over there.”
He placed the object back into the bag. Poof.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “I want to see. Come on.”
“He doesn’t have to show it if he doesn’t want to,” Em said in a what-were-you-thinking tone.
Arizona, who always had something to say, was speechless. “I’d rather not. It’s something special.”
I shrugged and avoided Regulus on my way back to the ottoman seat. I uncapped the tube of Love Ya Lollipop and tentatively swiped the rosy gloss across my lower lip. Then I rubbed my lips together like Em had shown me. I lifted my chin and met Regulus’s intense stare. His gaze traveled to my mouth. My stomach coiled in an inverted roller-coaster loop, leaving my palms sweaty from the G-force. I stopped rubbing my lips together.
“Emily, thank you for being so thoughtful.” My dad waved another gift card. “This is my favorite bookstore.”
“No problem, Mr. Taylor. You’re my second Dad.” She jumped up to run, then hugged him. “You let me eat junk and stay up all night. I just realized,” she said, putting one finger to her chin in mock thought, “that you are my link to normalcy.”
Dad laughed. He put his finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. “Shh. That’s supposed to be our secret.” He rose with the bag and card in hand. “Now that Mia has you for company, I’m going to head upstairs and indulge in some reading. You guys stay as long as you want.”
“Night, Mr. Taylor.” Several voices melded into one farewell greeting.
“So what’s in the bag?” Tiny asked and leaned toward Arizona. “We’re all friends here, right?”
Tiny was far from being Mr. Manners. Everybody was getting along so far. A dark thundercloud of tension moved into the room.
“Hey, Arizona can keep a gift private if he wants.” I held up the new game controllers. “Who wants to play?”
Arizona cleared his throat. “I don’t mind showing it. I didn’t know if Em wanted everyone to know what she gave me.” He pulled the gift from the bag.
I could tell it was a picture frame. He turned the frame around to display the front. It was a candid photo from the winter formal. A lump the size of a s’mores worthy marshmallow formed in my throat. I swallowed past the bitter lump.
“That’s a fantastic shot.” I walked back across the room to get a better look and examined Em and Arizona in their formalwear. “You guys looked…” I didn’t finish my sentence. Regulus moved closer and studied it as well. He stood an inch away, our arms touching as he leaned in.
“What’s this in the background?” Regulus cocked his head to one side. This question pointedly reinforced the fact that he hadn’t been there. That he’d stood me up.
“It was a Grimm’s Fairy Tales theme or something like that,” Em said. “I thought Arizona might like to have a memento for his dorm room. So, everybody, let’s move along. We have better things to do than stare at this picture.”
I backed away slowly to retreat to the safety of my ottoman. How many times would I mentally relive the worst night of my life? Obviously once more.
The television murmured low in the background. Tiny stifled a yawn and used the remote control to flip though the channels. A headline banner, ‘Breaking News,’ appeared on the screen and I motioned at Tiny.
“Turn it up a little.” I froze as the television displayed the Goliath city limits sign.
“The citizens of Goliath are shaken by this latest discovery. Just last week, an elderly woman discovered a decomposed body in her compost bin. Now, this quiet Southern town is facing a second murder. A body has been discovered in the basement of the pharmaceutical lab destroyed in a recent fire. Both crimes are under investigation.” The video footage of a burned building cut to a Santa Claus. “In happier holiday news…”
Tiny muted the television.
“So, the dead body…is that Bleeker’s work?” Austin addressed me. Everyone in the room examined me in courtroom jury anticipation. Austin continued, “The body in the lab makes sense. Did our evil Dr. Bleeker put a body in the lady’s compost bin? Another experiment gone wrong?”
“Hello.” I singsonged the words as loud as possible and h
eld up my hand. “We’re not the crime squad. Students. I am a student. Card-carrying certified student. Goliath can take care of its own crime.”
“We have a responsibility to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Regulus sat back on the sofa with his arms folded, engaging me in a stare-down.
“We? You have a mouse in your pocket? We does not include me. Or anyone else in this room.”
Regulus softened his voice and one corner of his mouth tipped up. A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It doesn’t matter how you feel about me—”
“Not here. Not now.” I shook my head and broke eye contact. OK, so he’d won the staring contest. My breathing quickened and I pulled my hair off my perspiring neck.
Em appeared at my side, holding a tray of cookies. I picked up a sugary confection and smiled at her. “Thanks.”
Arizona’s eyes sparkled and he grabbed a reindeer-shaped cookie. Examining the pretzel antlers, he said, “You are a genius.” He ate half a reindeer face with one bite.
“You can have Rudolf,” she said, handing one to Regulus.
Regulus pretended to study the cookie for moment. He looked up and our eyes met. “Sorry,” he mouthed.
Diversion? Diversion. I turned to Em. “So, how did your mom like the purse you ordered from Macy’s?”
Later, everyone was either talking or eating. I gathered a couple of small gifts my dad had given me and the gift from Em and made my way upstairs. I put the boxes on my desk and turned to leave my room when I ran into someone.
“Hey!” I backed away from the wall of Regulus’s chest. “Say something or stomp when you follow me. You scared the bejesus out of me.”
He gave me a bashful smile that lifted his eyebrows in an apologetic fashion.
“You forgot this one.”
He handed me his gift of the stunner/cell phone.
“Oh yeah. Thanks. I mean…I appreciate that you thought I needed a weapon.”
“It wasn’t that. I wanted to give you something special. Something that you desired.” Rolling his shoulders forward, he tucked his hands into his pockets and examined his boots. He took a deep breath and met my eyes again after a long awkward silence.
