Disarranged (11 page)

It takes all I've got not to throw up a little in my mouth. All my worst nightmares have come true. Who the fuck would take pictures of her like this? Who the hell is close enough to her - no, who is she sleeping with in this hotel? Did she even agree to sleep with them? This is Kiera's doing and I know it. The coldness in my blood is melted by instant rage, hot and boiling. In the pictures Rose looks so innocent, so completely and totally trusting. Kiera's doing everything in her power to ruin that part of her, and she's succeeded.

I pray to God she hasn't succeeded.

I’ve never run faster in my life. I jump down half a flight and my kneecaps almost give way but I keep running, shoes pounding over carpet. The bellboys shoot me strange looks, the hotel desk clerk opens her mouth in the beginnings of a ‘can I help you’, but I glare at her and she backs off instantly. An overweight German man is in my way, a muffin dangling out of his pudgy hand, and I duck around him with a snarl.

228 is an unassuming door. It looks like every other, painted white with brass lettering and a fancy knob. My hand hovers above it as uncertainty takes over. But the urge to make sure she’s alright pushes all that out of my mind, and I wrench on the knob. It’s locked. I knock on the door with my fist, insistently and constantly.

“Rose? Rose! Are you in there? Open the door!”

No response. I bang on the door harder.

“Rose! Please, open the door!”

“Pleading won’t get you anywhere.” The voice is cool and collected. I turn to face my father, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Where did you come from? Are you the one –”

“Don’t be stupid, boy,” Farlon sneers. His hair is grayer than ever in the weak morning sunlight, his Spanish tan pale and uneven. He looks tired, sharp, hungry. He looks terrible and decrepit. I almost feel sorry for him, but then I remember exactly who he is.

“Are you involved in this at all?” I snap. “I swear to god, I will fucking kill you if –”

“Tsk. What a mouth. Your mother’s rolling over in her grave at the words coming from you right now.”

“Mom’s dead,” I say. “So don’t bring her into this. Where is Rose? Who took her? If one of you or Kiera’s pawns touched her I’ll -”

“You have to consider the following,” He switches to Spanish. “See it from her perspective; a boy dumps her to become the fiancé of a richer, prettier girl. She has been heartbroken, yes. But women are resilient, admirable, and often stupid. They learn to love again, and again. They pick themselves up and put themselves back together from true heartbreak far quicker than any man.”

I clench my fist in warning, but Farlon just keeps yammering.

“She is young. She has her life ahead of her. She has a promising, budding degree in her dream career – due in no small part to you, but she doesn’t know that, of course – and she is, by American standards, quite pretty with a little makeup. But she is not the independent sort of creature, is she? You showed her love, and then left her. She will crave it again, and if she cannot get it from you, she will turn to another. Perhaps she already has.”

“You piece of –”

“Ah ah, if you’re going to insult me, do it in English. It sounds so much more sincere.” He smiles.

“Fuck you,” I snap. “You don’t know anything.”

“Don’t I?” He sighs. “Is that why I saw who she went home with? You can ask the village if you don’t believe me – everyone at the pub saw her walk out with that blonde American boy.”

My stomach does Olympic flips in its own juices. I feel like puking. I pound on the door even harder.

“Rose! Goddamnit Rose, open the door!”

“She won’t answer you. From what I heard that boy say, she was completely ‘worn out’.”

The urge to punch his smug face is so strong I have to grip the doorknob with both hands and yank frantically on it. If I keep my hands busy I won’t sock the living daylights out of my own slimeball father. Farlon sighs behind me.

“If you’re going to be stubborn, at least be sensible. Do you think when your mother left me, I foolishly kept throwing myself at her door? No. I left with some pride still intact. I suggest you do the same.”

His receding footsteps don’t make me turn around. Nothing does. I’m laser-focused on the door, on seeing Rose’s face, on asking her if it’s true, if she really did sleep with Kiera’s pawn. The mistake slams into me with more force now than ever. Farlon is an asshole. I’m an asshole. But the difference between Farlon and I is that he’s right. I left her. I left Rose. That hurt. And now she’s leaving me.

That hurts more.                                    

That hurts the most.

That hurts in places it shouldn’t – places I never thought could feel. It aches in my spine, in my ribs, in my lungs. I can barely make out the sound of my own shouts above the loud pumping of my blood in my ears. I’m yelling for her. Can she hear me?

Does she even
want
to hear me anymore?

His receding footsteps don’t make me turn around. Nothing does. I’m laser-focused on the door, on seeing Rose’s face, on asking her if it’s true, if she really did sleep with Kiera’s pawn. The mistake slams into me with more force now than ever. Farlon is an asshole. I’m an asshole. But the difference between Farlon and I is that he’s right. I left her. I left Rose. That hurt. And now she’s leaving me.

That hurts more.         

That hurts the most.

That hurts in places it shouldn’t – places I never thought could feel. It aches in my spine, in my ribs, in the space between my lungs. I can barely make out the sound of my own shouts above the loud pumping of the blood in my ears. I’m yelling for her. Can she hear me?

Does she even want to hear me anymore?

And the door cracks open, held in place by a chain lock. It's not Rose's face on the other side - it's Felix's. He looks pale, but my rage quickly pushes that observation aside.

"Where is she?" I slam my hand on the door.

"I kicked her out," Felix says, dully. "I've had enough of her crap. She went too far one time too many."

It takes everything in me not to reach through the crack in the door and grab him by the collar to shake him. But the look in my eyes must tell him something, because he quickly corrects himself.

"Kiera. I kicked Kiera out."

"That's not who I'm asking about!" I shout. Felix looks over his shoulder and to the bed. He unlocks the door and motions for me to come in, but in the time it takes him to open the door I've already squeezed through. I stand at the bedside and look down at it. The sheets are crumpled, and nestled in them is a half-naked Rose, sleeping. But someone's pulled the covers over her. Her eyes flutter open just then, and my breath catches.

"L-Lee?" She asks in a sleepy voice.

"I'm here," I kneel at the bedside. "Rose, what did they do to you?"

She glances around the room with a confused expression. "Do to me? What do you mean?"

"Did he -" I point to Felix. "Did he touch you?"

She cradles her head in her hands, moaning. "N-No. But it's blurry. No one touched me, I think."

"Someone spiked your drink," Felix says. I bristle as he comes closer, so he stops in mid-stride. "At the tavern last night."

Rose's eyes widen. "The bakery! La Cigogne. And then I went to the bar, and Kiera and Grace fought. But Kiera left. Someone spiked my drink? It couldn't have been someone from the village. No one knows me. So who -"

Felix shoots a nervous look between me and Rose. I get up and pull him by his collar.

"You sonofa - "

"Listen!"

"I'm not listening to your Kiera-controlled ass!" I shout. "You're scum! You know that? Fucking scum!"

"Lee!" Rose snaps. I pull away from Felix reluctantly to look at her.

"Don't try to stop me, Rose. He's been after you this entire time -"

She gets up. She stands from the bed in all her naked glory. The only thing she's wearing is a pair of blue-striped panties. Two jolts run through me - the first is my nerves standing up and taking very careful notice of the body I used to run my hands over, the body of the girl I still dream about. The second jolt is my notice of the way she's changed - she's put on subtle amounts of weight, and it makes her even more beautiful. More full. More mature. The sight of her stupefies me into silence as she nears me and looks into Felix's eyes.

"Did you spike my drink with GHB?" She asks softly.

Felix groans reluctantly, but nods.

"Did Kiera tell you to?"

He nods again. She puts a hand on my arm and smiles at me.

"I remember now. A lot of it's fuzzy. But I remember Felix brought me back to his room. Kiera was here, waiting. She wanted you to..."

Rose trails off. It goes unsaid in the air. I feel my fists curling, and Felix speaks.

"I swear to you, I didn't -"

Rose shakes her head. "I know. I remember. You said you wouldn't do it. Kiera tried to make you, but you argued with her until she left."

"I was in the shower," Felix says quickly. "I went to take a shower and Kiera was tearing up condoms and throwing them all over the bed, taking pictures. It was sick."

"So that was your plan?" I snarl. "Drug Rose, rape her like the sick asshole you are, and have Kiera take pictures that'd hurt me?"

"I would never!" Felix roars. It's the first time I've heard his voice raised that loud. It must startle Rose, too, because she flinches back. Felix lowers his voice to a furious calm.

"I would never, ever, rape someone. The deal was to drug Rose, put her in my room to make it look like she slept with me. Kiera's obsessed with trying to make you hate Rose, you know that. I went for a shower and she changed the plan up on me. She wanted me to really do it. And I might love Kiera, and I might've come here because she asked me to, but for fuck's sake - I'm not a monster."

He messes his hair up in utter frustration. He looks towards the trashcan under the desk, where a bunch of condom wrappers sit on top. My fury at him lessens, but only marginally. I know where he's coming from. Rose is staring at me, but when I make eye contact, she looks quickly away and flushes. She walks over to the bed and pulls the sheet of it, swathing herself in it. I want nothing more than to kiss her right now, but I know better. Felix might be having a spat with Kiera, but he still tells her everything that goes on regarding Rose and I.

"I believe you," Rose says softly to him. "Thank you for...not doing what she said to."

"You don't have to thank him," I sigh. Rose punches me lightly in the arm.

"Yes I do. Everyone's been looking out for me. I owe them a lot. Thanks again, Felix."

"Anytime," He says. "I'm gonna try to find her. Confront her about this."

He turns and leaves without a word. The silence in his wake is overwhelmingly choking. I try to break it.

"Kiera sent me pictures. Of you, in that bed, with all these condom wrappers around you, and I thought -"

"Thought what?" She cocks her head. "I still can't believe she really did this. I knew she was possessive but not this possessive. I haven't done anything. Besides, she shouldn't have to worry about me getting in the way - she's the one you want to marry. Not me."

Rose smiles, but it's faint and only half-real. I want to tell her everything in that moment - the truth, about the money and Kiera's blackmail deal. Before I can stop myself I reach out to hug her, pull her into me and make her feel my heartbeat so she knows the truth. But she spins on her heel and makes a dash for the bathroom just as my hands glance over her shoulders. At first I think she's furious at me and is going to lock herself in it, but then I hear the sounds of her vomiting. I stand in the doorway. She's bent over the toilet and heaving, and I walk over and gently pull her hair up and rub her back in slow circles. When she calms down, she looks up and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry."

I shake my head. "It's a good thing. The GHB is probably moving out of your system."

"Maybe. But I've just been sick the whole time I've been here," she says.

"Could be the altitude," I offer. "Some people are more sensitive than others."

She smirks at me. "Oh really?"

I laugh for the first time in a long time. It's a true, golden laugh, the kind that comes from your stomach instead of your throat. Relief courses through me, and temporary happiness. I'm sitting on the bathroom floor with a half-naked Rose, cracking maybe-dirty jokes. It feels...normal. It feels right. I want this feeling to last forever. I want it for the rest of my life and she's the only one who's ever given it to me.

"Rose!"

The hotel door slams open, and Felix stands there, panting madly. Rose and I quickly stand.

"What's wrong?" She asks.

"It's Morgan!"

Felix doesn't have to say anything more - Rose is dressed in a flash and pulling me along with her down the hall. Felix runs and we run after him to the lobby, which is now packed with a crowd of murmuring people. Grace waves to us and we push through the crowd to her.

"What the hell's going on?" I ask.

"Morgan is missing," Felix says.

"What?" Rose starts. "What do you mean, 'missing'?"

"Over there." Grace points to a sobbing, well-dressed couple towards the front of the crowd. "They came into the cafeteria and haven't stopped crying. Something about the kid's empty bed, and a note she left?"

Rose muscles her way through the crowd, shouting 'excuse me' and 'please move'. She gets to the parents and starts talking to them, and the mother clings to her instantly and wails. Grace looks to me and Felix.

"Where was Rose? She wasn't in the hotel room last night."

"I helped her back," Felix says quickly. "She just fell asleep on my bed and refused to move."

Grace quirks a brow and glances at me, as if for confirmation everything worked out okay. I give her a slow nod, and she seems satisfied with it. Rose comes back to us just as a man in full skiing gear shakes off snow and walks into the lobby. He raises his hand and the crowd goes quiet. He speaks in rapid French, but Grace translates fragments.

"He's a mountain ranger. Something about a search party? These people have volunteered to help look for her."