Feral (27 page)

“And you thought your
Porsche
would be the best place?”

“It was the easiest solution.  When
you began eating the driver’s seat, Bacchus pointed out it might be better to leave you run your energy off.”  Stabbing a hand into his hair, he shook his head.  “But that’s not what we’re here to discuss.  This is all inconsequential.”

“Really?” I said doubtfully.  It didn’t feel inconsequential
to me.  Another eight hours and I’d be repeating it again, a notion I didn’t look forward to.  “What
are
we here to discuss?”

“
Your friend Peyton.”

At the mention of her name, I felt sick all
over again.  Peyton wasn’t spotted naked at Bennie’s window because she was trying to seduce him.  Alec and Marcus must have bitten her, which meant she was out there somewhere, afraid and in danger.  “She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

“I’m sorry Thaleia.  I was so sure Alec would focus on your family that
I overlooked your friends.”

She’s not my friend
, I wanted to say, but even I knew it would sound petty and childish.  And I was still worried about her.  I didn’t wish harm on her.  Maybe a horrible case of VD or something equally appropriate for a lying, backstabbing skank, but never lycanthropy.

“So what do we do?”

“We wait to see if she contacts you,” Icarus answered.  “Hopefully, when she does, she’ll lead us back to Alec.”

“What will you do with him
once you catch him?”  Glancing at each of them, they confirmed the growing suspicion of what I already knew.  Icarus’s words echoed in my ears.  They ‘policed their own.’  Alec was a murderer, a man responsible for the human trafficking of an untold number of women.  A simple slap on the wrist wouldn’t suffice.

“
What about Marcus?” As an accomplice, he was equally accountable.  On the other hand, he was wasn’t the mastermind.  Perhaps with Alec out of the way he would commit to an honest life.  (Yeah, right, an honest cheater.  If that wasn’t the goliath of oxymorons.)

Answering my question, e
veryone’s eyes fell to the floor.  My stomach curled.  Naively, I had assumed when Icarus admitted to questioning Marcus, they had let him go afterwards.  But I suddenly understood Icarus’s circuitous responses and Crispin’s untimely interjections whenever I mentioned Marcus’s name.  They had judged and sentenced him with swift and merciless justice.  They policed their own.  Marcus wasn’t missing.  He was dead.

Max acted preemptively and pushed a
tissue toward me across the marble counter.  I wondered if my face matched its stark shade of white.  No, I could feel as blood rushed to my cheeks, the reason for his consideration, yet my eyes remained stubbornly dry.

“I’m ok
.  I’m not going to cry.”

“My offer still stands if you do
,” Crispin said, generously.  He fluttered his lashes at me in a mockery of innocence.  Little flirt.  Another time, I might’ve laughed and delivered a witty retort, but I couldn’t think of anything at the moment except that Marcus was dead.

“I say good for you
,” Caius piped up.  “He was effing your best friend.  The guy was a loser.  He doesn’t deserve your sympathy.”

“Caius,” Icarus chided
, aghast.

E
qually exasperated, Bacchus’s eyes hiked to the ceiling.  His indiscreet castigation jarred the table and overturned a glass of orange juice, which spilled onto Lucius’s lap.  The consequential disruption adjourned the discussion as a squall of misconduct swept over the kitchen, causing a debacle just short of a food fight.

“
Are we done here?” I asked.  I wasn’t going to cry, but I preferred to steep in misery alone.  “Was that all you wanted to talk to me about?”  As if it weren’t enough.

Icarus
glanced to his cousins—knowing it was a lost battle—and nodded.

Needing a breath of fresh air, I headed out the back door.
  I stepped out into the cold, feeling like I could breathe again, only just.  The stuffiness of the room dissipated, yet the lead weight on my chest remained.  Goosebumps rose on my arms and legs, and prickled at my cheeks.  I lifted my hand to my face, surprised to find my eyes tearing up after all.

Inside
, I could hear the murmur of the boys’ deep voices.

Wrapping my arms around my center, I
roamed into the garage, overlooking the smell of gas and exhaust in lieu of a place where I could have a few minutes privately to gather my thoughts.  I chose the familiar, sliding behind the wheel of Lucius’s Mustang.  Just in time for the floodgates to open.  Curling up in the seat, I rested my head against the window.

Beside me, the passenger door popped open.  Icarus slid in, pulling the door closed behind him. 
In his hands, he held a folded paper towel.  He plucked at it nervously before proffering it to me.  “My father always said to carry a hanky, but I never listened.  This is the best I’ve got.”

I accepted it with thanks and wiped my face.  “I never understood
hankies anyhow,” I confessed.  “I mean, are you supposed to give them back when you’re done?”

Icarus and I shared a weak smile.

An uncomfortable silence fell between us, punctuated with the sound of my sniffles.  Neither of us knew what to say.  I turned to self-degradation, disgusted with my sniveling.

“
You think I’m pathetic, don’t you?”

“
Not at all.  You’re human.  You don’t date someone the better part of a year and go unaffected by his death.  But you understand we had to do it, don’t you?  What he was doing was wrong.  He’s hurt and killed people.  If we let him go, he’d only do it again.”

A new deluge of tears fell, compelled by the forced conversation.
  I had come out here to be alone.  Talking about my problems felt like poking at a raw wound.

“I know. 
I’m not really crying for Marcus.  I mean, I am, but for the person he pretended to be.  He was funny.  He made me laugh.  After Michael, I didn’t laugh for a long time.  That’s what made him perfect.  I wasn’t ready for anything serious.  I wasn’t planning to spend the rest of my life with him, or to fall in love with him.  And he was ok with that.”

Absently, wiping at my eyes
, I found Icarus watching me.

“
Sorry I didn’t mean to ramble.”  Dragging a hand through my hair, I pushed it from my face, trying to regain some semblance of decorum.  “It’s just…even after last night, this is all hard to get your head around.  It’s all so…surreal.  Part of me is still expecting to wake up.  That this is all a terrible nightmare.”

“I’m sorry, Thaleia.
  For everything.”

“
I don’t blame you, Icarus.”  Now that I had calmed down, I could see that Bennie was right.  “You have your cousins to think of; I can see why you didn’t want to get involved.”

Propping his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head into his hands
, his mind weighted heavily with guilt.  “Perhaps, but I was still wrong.  I should’ve done something.”

“If you would’ve
gotten involved sooner, would I be in any less danger?”

Surprised with the
reversal of roles, after my accusations the night before, he turned his head, his blue eyes searching mine for some sign of artifice.  “You wouldn’t be here today.”

“
Maybe not, but stopping Marcus and Alec is only delaying the inevitable.  You know as well as I do that if their employer is willing to pay in the triple digits, he’s not just going to walk away when Alec can’t deliver.  Sooner or later they’ll come for me.”

Reaching out, Icarus grasped my hand and tugged me toward him.  “Come here,” he implored.  When I didn’t budge, he added, “Please,
” and resorted to blandishing me with his eyes.  “I just want to hold you.”

Unscrupulously guilted, I rose from my seat.  As I maneuvered around the steering wheel, he pulled me into his lap, my legs resting over the console.  His hand guided my head to his shoulder, drawing small circles over my temple with his thumb.  His warmth was
comforting, his breathing, lulling.  In seconds, I went lax in his arms, all but purring from his attention.

“For someone who claims to be out of practice, you’re pretty good at this.”

“I usually just cuff the boys on the shoulder and tell them to buck up, but I didn’t think that would be appropriate in your case.”

“That explains a lot about you, actually.”

Icarus’s chest shook beneath me, but he bit his tongue and dropped his head, pressing his lips to my forehead in a chaste commendation.  “Everything will be ok, Thaleia.  I promise.”

“I just don’t understand it,” I griped, staring blankly at the ceiling of the car, as if I would find the answer
to all my problems there.  “I’m nobody.  Why would they want me?”  Like I was something special.  Out of the entire United States, they chose me from the Philadelphia suburbs.

“Find me a male, man or boy who
doesn’t
want you.”

Eyes flashing to Icarus’s wry grimace,
I scowled, my bottom lip jutting to an indignant pout.  “Just because someone’s pretty doesn’t make them personable.  Perhaps my personality reflects the exact opposite of my outward appearance.  I could be a real bitch.  I could be completely materialistic, or slutty or a snob.”

“
You’re none of the above.  Including pretty.”  My scowl deepened, but my lips curled, digesting Icarus’s teasing smile.  “You’re beautiful.”

Stroking my cheek with his fingertips, his eyes softened, a rueful crick dimpling the corner of his mouth. 
“In all seriousness, with my past, it’s in my nature to overreact.  I may have blown things out of proportion.  This buyer from New York, right now we don’t know how big of a threat he is.  So leave the worrying to me, and in the meantime, bear with me if I act a little overprotective.  Ok?”

“
Thanks, but I don’t think you’re overreacting.”  I wasn’t so easily consoled.  Everything about my situation screamed danger to me.  The guy obviously had money.  And money meant power.  This was no game.  Jack was dead.  Peyton was missing.  My parents were on lockdown.  And Icarus was acting majorly territorial, enough to kill Marcus in order to keep me safe.

“
I made a promise to your father that I would protect you.  I swore my life on it.  And I don’t make promises lightly.”

I could fee
l an instant flush crawl up my neck.  “You didn’t mean it, though.  That was just to…I don’t know…appease my parents.”

“I
meant every word.”

“
Come on.  Be serious.  You didn’t even like me,” I dismissed.  “No one make promises like that over someone they barely like or know.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Love at first sight.”

“Bullshit,” I said, snorting a laugh.  Now I know he was pulling my leg.

“
Scoff all you want, but it’s true.”

“Shut
up.”

“
You don’t believe me?”

“No
.  You’re just trying to embarrass me.”  Flailing about, I struggled to extricate myself from his lap.  I almost made it too, when he grasped my arms and yanked me back down.

“
I do like to see you flush, but my aim wasn’t to embarrass you.”  When I glowered and turned my head, he pinched my chin and tilted it up, staring attentively into my eyes.  “Jack once told me there wasn’t a boy in school that didn’t think you hung the moon and stars.  Well, every other boy might think you hung the moon and stars, Thaleia Llorente, but this one thinks you’re the sun.”

I was at a loss for words. 
By far, that was the most beautiful thing anyone ever said to me.  I think my heart melted in my chest.  Turned to a dripping puddle of loving adoration.  How could I not swoon over a remark like that?

Because I’d fallen for it twice before.  Between Michael’s false promises and Marcus’s
plagiarized sonnets, I was a skeptic of true romance.

“Fitting.  You’ve just compared me to a great big ball of gas.”

“You’re grasping for straws because you’re scared.  You know it’s true.  I have nothing to gain by serenading you with lies.  We both know I could’ve had you on several occasions.”

He was right
, damn him.  I scowled.

Icarus sighed, determined to make me believe. 
“When you walked into Jack’s house that night, you didn’t see how every eye drew your way.”

“It was my costume.”

“It wasn’t your costume.  It’s you, Thaleia.  You’re beautiful, and not an ordinary beauty.  It’s as if it stems from the inside and escalates until it can’t be contained.  It’s almost blinding.  It draws people to you, like plants to the sun.”

Hearing his words
, my tears dried.  My perception shifted.  No matter how late he arrived to my rescue, he rose to the challenge, risking more than I could ever ask.  The lives of his cousins were all in jeopardy over his intervention.  And he was content to hold me in his arms and comfort me while I cried over the degenerate who endangered us in the first place.