NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (12 page)

Thud.
 

“Dare.”
 
My voice is stiffer now, like ice, and
finally he stops, his arm dangling at his side.
 
He doesn’t look at me, but his breaths
are coming in pants.
 
I wait, and eventually
the pants slow down to shallow, even
breaths
.
 
  

“What’s wrong?” I ask him. “Why are you….
what’s wrong?”

I wait.
 

He’s silent.
 
Finally, he rocks back on his heels, and
sinks to the ground, to his knees.
 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he finally tells me,
his voice like wood.
 

“Nothing?” I find that hard to
believe.
 
“Then why are you breaking
your hands?”

I kneel down in front of him, lifting his
hands to examine them.
 
The knuckles
are beyond scraped, beyond cut. They’re mashed.
 
A bloody pulp, actually.
 
“I think you might’ve actually broken them.”

He yanks them away.
 
“I didn’t.”

“Ok.”

I eye him warily.
 
If there’s one thing I’ve gotten good
at, it’s sorting through crazy situations.
 
“Can I help you clean them up?”
 

I hold my breath until he climbs to his
feet.
 

“I’ve got it.”
 
His voice is curt and dismissive, and he
turns to walk away. What the hell?
 
Where is the guy who has been so engaging?
 
So charming?
 
 
He’s apparently been
replaced by this cold stranger who has an affinity for hurting himself
.

I grab his elbow.
 
Out of my periphery, I notice Finn
standing in the distance, watching.
 
Waiting.
 

“It’s ok,” I call to my brother.
 
“You don’t have to wait.”

Finn shakes his head, but so
do
I. “Go on,” I call out.
 
“I’ll be up shortly.”

Reluctantly, he walks away with the crabs
and Dare looks at me.
 

 
“You don’t need to stay.
 
I don’t need help.”

“Yes, you do,” I argue.
 
“You just don’t realize it.”

“And you do?”

“Yes.”

Dare stares down at me, his eyes
chilly.
 
“No, you don’t.
 
Because as you so
clearly pointed out, you don’t know me.
 
You can let go of my elbow now.”

My fingers slip away, confused by his
iciness, by his words, but he still follows me into the Carriage House and into
his little kitchen.

As we go, I can’t help but notice how
neat he keeps the little home.
 
The
bed is made, the counters are wiped off, there are no dirty clothes piled on
the floor.
 
Impressive
for a young single guy.

I turn the water on and let it run,
waiting until it gets warm before I hold his hands beneath it. He sucks in his
breath but doesn’t say anything.
 
I
grab a clean
dish-towel
and wrap his hands in it, and
he leans against the counter.
 
As he
does, the shirt at his waistband lifts a bit, exposing a flat ribbon of his
belly.
 

The skin looks soft as velvet, although
the muscle looks hard as steel.
 
I
itch to run my finger along it, to touch it and find out.
 

But of course, I don’t because it’s not
exactly socially acceptable.

“Why are you upset?” I ask instead, as I
open his freezer.
 
I pull out some
ice, and dump it into two
baggies
, one for each hand.

Dare doesn’t open his eyes.

“I’m not.”

“You lie.”

It’s a statement, not a question.
 

He sighs.

“Maybe.”

I push him into a kitchen chair, and hold
the ice onto his hands.
 

“Definitely.”

He opens his eyes finally. “Do you know
what it’s like to not be able to change something?”

I ogle him.
 
Seriously?
 

“My brother is crazy and my mom died in a
car crash,” I tell him.
 
“Of course
I know what it’s like.”

He sighs and looks away like I’m trivial
and just don’t understand.
 

“Your brother doesn’t seem crazy,” he
answers. “I mean, from the way you’ve talked about him.”

“That’s true,” I answer carefully.
 
“But just because we can’t see something
doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

Dare looks at me, his eyes dark as
night.
 
“True.”

He gets up and pulls his shirt off,
wincing slightly as he moves his hands.
 
He tosses the blood-splattered tee in the sink, and I can hardly breathe
on account of his abs. Rippled like a washboard, they hover in my face, and I
want to trace those ripples with my fingers, to follow the thin, dark, ‘happy
trail’ into the edge of his shorts to see where it leads.
 

But I know where it leads.
 

And that bursts my cheeks into
flame.
 

“How do you live here?” he asks quietly,
and I lift my gaze to follow his.
 
He’s staring out the window now, at the black smoke that billows from
the crematorium stacks.
 
I’m the one
who almost cringes now, at the mere fact that he recognized the smoke for what
it is.
 
Burning bodies.
 

I shrug.
 
“I’m used to it.
 
There are creepier places.”

He looks at me, unconvinced.
 
“Oh, yeah?”

I nod. “Yeah. I know of one off-hand.”

“I’d like to see that place sometime,” he
tells me. “Or I won’t believe it.”

I smile.
 
“Deal.
 
If
you tell me what’s wrong with you.
Why are you punishing
your hands?
 
What did they ever do
to you?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it
right now,” Dare tells me, leaning once again against the counter, so casual
that it’s painful.
 
“Unless you’re
using one of your questions and I’m obligated to answer.”

I don’t miss a beat.
 
“I am.”

He sighs because he saw that one coming,
and I almost fall into the blackness of his eyes because they’re bottomless
wells.
 
“I’m mad at myself,” he
finally says, as though that’s an answer.
 

“Obviously,” I say wryly.
 
“But the question is…why?”

He stares at me now, with a painful gaze,
something so wretched and awful that it makes my stomach flip.
 
“Because I can’t change something.
 
And because I’m letting it get to me,”
he finally replies.
 
“Something that
I can’t control.
 
It’s stupid.
 
So it pisses me off.”

“Emotions piss you off?” I ask, my
eyebrow
raised
.
 

He smirks now, and the heaviness lifts.

“They are when they’re stupid.”

He turns to walk out of the kitchen, and
I suck in my breath hard.
 

A tattoo is inscribed across the top of
his back, spanning his shoulder blades.

LIVE FREE.

I’ve never seen such a fitting tattoo,
for a guy with such a fitting name.
 
If anyone
lives free
, it’s
Dare
.

“I love your tattoo,” I call out to him,
as he walks from the kitchen to the bedroom, out of my sight.
 

“Freedom is an illusion,” he calls
back.
 

I want to ask him why, but I don’t want
to use a question, so I let it go.
 
For now.
 

He emerges a minute later in a clean
shirt.
 

“We’ve got some gauze and tape up at the
house,” I tell him.
 
“Will you come
with me so that I can bandage you up? Finn and I caught some crabs today.
 
Stay for dinner.”

I’m not asking.
 
It’s an instruction.
 
And surprisingly,
Dare
nods.
 

“Ok.”

I lift an eyebrow.
 
“Ok?”

He smiles and the Dare I know is back,
the charming and friendly one.
  
“Yeah.
 
I want to see if they really scream when
you drop them into the pot.”

I must recoil a bit, because he
chuckles.
 
“I’m kidding.
 
That’s a myth, right?”

I nod.
 
“They don’t have vocal cords.
 
But it sounds like a scream sometimes,
when the air bubbles out of their stomachs.”
 

“That’s a pleasant thought,” Dare says
wryly.
 

“I just don’t think about it,” I shrug.
“Because they’re delicious.”

“Sadistic yet practical,” Dare observes
as he holds the door open for me.

I grin.
 
“That’s my hamartia.”

Dare shakes his head.
 
“I don’t believe in fatal flaws.”

I pause, staring up at him.
 
“Really?
 
Then what, pray tell, will be your
downfall?”

Dare pauses too, purveying me with his
arms dangling limply at his sides.
 

“There’s a very good chance it’ll be
you.”

TREDECIM

“How
can you possibly say that?” I stutter.
 
“You only just met me.”

Dare’s lip twitches and he starts walking
toward my house.
 
“I’m a very intuitive
guy, Calla-Lily.
 
I guess you can
just call it a feeling.”

I feel like I’m walking on a cloud of
confusion as we make our way to my house.
 
I barely greet Finn when we walk in, and he immediately knows that
something is up, although he doesn’t ask for details.
 
Instead, he just calmly assesses
me.
 

“Everything ok?”
 
His voice is slow and even, and I nod.

“Yeah.”

He nods.
 
“Good.
 
I’m not feeling well, so I’m going to
eat in my room.”

He turns and disappears into the back
hallway before I can say anything.
 
I suspect that his absence has more to do with Dare’s presence and less
to do with not feeling well.
 
I sigh
as my father comes through the kitchen door.
 

He glances at Dare.
 
“Would you like anything to drink?”

“Sure.
 
I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Dare
answers.
 

My father is gone for a minute, and comes
back out with a beer.
 
“You looked
like you could use something stronger than lemonade.”

Dare almost looks relieved, and takes a
big gulp.
 
“Thanks.”

As Dare wipes his mouth with one of
smashed up hands, my dad eyes the damage, but doesn’t say anything.
 

It’s strange how everything is socially
acceptable and comfortable, despite the fact that Dare’s hands are mangled and
everyone is ignoring that fact.
 

“Let’s go find the first aid kit,” I tell
Dare.
 
He nods and sets his beer
down, and dad heads into the kitchen.
 

“The crabs will be ready in five,” he
calls over his shoulder.
 

“We’d better hurry,” I murmur to Dare as
I lead him through the halls.
 
We pass
the Viewing Rooms and the Great Room and never once
does
Dare say anything about the Funeral Home smell.
 

After we quietly walk the length of the
halls leading to the basement, I gently push him into a seat outside of my
father’s Embalming Room.
 
“Be right
back,” I tell him.
 

I push open the door, and ignore the
instant change in temperature that sends
goose-bumps
forming down my arms and legs.
 
I
also ignore the reason it has to be so cold in here.
 
Cold = Death.
 
It’s an equation that was long ago impressed
in my head.
 
It’s one reason I’d
love to move someplace tropical.
 
Because Warmth = Life.
  

I dig in a cabinet for gauze and medical
tape,
rustling around loudly enough that I don’t hear Dare
walk into the room.
 
It’s only when
he speaks from behind me that I jump.

“So, this doesn’t look that scary,” he
observes, his quiet voice loud in the silence.
 

I whirl around, my heart pounding.
 
“Sorry,” he says quickly, holding up a
hand. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s all right,” I tell him. “I just
wasn’t expecting to hear a voice.”

He nods, his lip twitching. “Yeah, I
guess that would be a bad thing in here usually.”

I nod, still willing my heart to slow
down as I grab the supplies I need.
 

Dare turns in a slow circle, eyeing the
wall of coolers, the metal tables in the middle with the run-off trays, the
sterile walls, the medicinal smell.

“This room is creepy,” he announces,
focusing in on the run-off trays.
 
“I don’t see how your dad can do what he does.”

“I don’t either,” I agree, as I pull him
from the room.
 
“I hate being in
here. The last time I was down here was when they wheeled my mom in.”

She’d been in a bag, completely covered
by black canvas.
 
I thought she
needed me with her, to hold her hand, so she wouldn’t be alone.
 
But I’d only lasted until the zipper
reached her chest, and I saw her yellow shirt turned red with blood.
 
Then I was out of here like a shot.

I poke a long swab of iodine at his
knuckles, and Dare doesn’t even flinch.
 
“Surely your dad didn’t… your mom…” his voice trails off as he realizes
how sensitive that subject is.
 

I swallow hard.
 
“He did, actually.
 
I have no idea how.
 
But he said he couldn’t trust anyone
else to take care of her.
 
I don’t
know why he bothered. The casket was closed, anyway.”
 

My chest clenches up, and I dab, dab, dab
at Dare’s cuts and then wrap his hands with gauze and tape.

He looks into my eyes, a long, slow
look.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
It was thoughtless of me to ask. I’m not
usually so clumsy with words.”

I shake my head.
 
“It’s ok.”

He examines my hands, moving deftly to
bandage his.
 
“I’m not going to ask
how you learned to do this so well.”

I can’t help but smile.
 
“Smart.
 
Although I have to say, it’s nice to
work on someone living.”

I snort when Dare does a
double-take
.
 
“Kidding. I don’t work on the bodies. Ever.”

He exhales and I laugh, and then put the
supplies away.
  
When I turn
back around, Dare is trailing a finger down one stainless steel cooler door.

“Are
there
any…
I mean, is anyone in here?”
 
He
doesn’t even sound nervous.

I nod. “Yeah.
 
I think there’s one.”

Dare raises an eyebrow. “And it seriously
doesn’t bother you to sleep in the same house?”

I shrug. “I’ve never known anything
different.
 
My father has been a
mortician my whole life.
 
I used to
get made fun of in school.
 
Funeral Home Girl.
That’s what they called me.”

I don’t know why I said that, and
apparently Dare doesn’t either because he studies me now.
 

“Why would they do that?
 
It’s not like you chose your father’s
profession.”

“I know.
 
Who knows why kids do what they do?
 
They can be cruel.
 
But I lived.
 
And Finn did too.
 
They used to tease him for being crazy.”

Dare’s eyes are dark as he looks into
mine.
 
“So you were basically all
each other had growing up,” he says slowly.
 
“No wonder you’re close.”

I nod.
 
“Yeah.
 
That about sums it up.”

“So that’s why you were upset the other
night on the beach.
 
Because you
don’t want to be separated from Finn.”
 
Dare’s voice is so calm, so slow and so steady.
 
I nod, sucked into the vortex of that
comfort.
 

“Yeah.”

He nods.
 
“I can understand that.
 
What’s wrong with your brother?
 
You said he’s…”

“Crazy,” I interject. “I shouldn’t call
him that.
 
He’s not. He’s just got a
mental issue.
 
He’s medicated
though.”

I hear the condensation in my voice and
cringe.
 
My brother is
more than
, not
less than.

“He’s harmless,” I add.
 
“Trust me.”

“I do,” Dare answers, his eyes
gleaming.
 
“Trust you, I mean.”

That answer causes my heart to thud.
 
I don’t know why.
 
It’s not like others don’t trust
me.
 
My dad, Finn.
 
My mom used to. But to hear that Dare
trusts me, it’s like an intimacy, words that roll off his tongue and meant only
for me.
 
I like it.
 

“Ready to eat?” I manage to ask
casually.
 
Dare nods and we make our
way up the stairs and into the dining
room.
 
When he holds my chair out for me, I
manage not to swoon.
 

***

The
sound of cracking crab legs fills the air, along with the fishy smell of the
meat.
 
It makes my stomach growl in
sort of a Pavlov’s reaction to melted butter.
 
Across from me, Dare eats his like a
pro.
 

He’s clearly done this before. I watch as
he expertly cracks the leg,
then
picks the meat out in
one deft movement.
 
Most people
utterly muck it up.
 

“So, where do you live, Dare?” My father
asks this casually as he takes a bite of biscuit, but his tone is anything but
casual.
 
I know it, and Finn knows
it, but thankfully, Dare doesn’t know him well enough to see that my father is
pumping him for information.
 

 
“My family lives outside of Kent, in the
English countryside by Sussex,” Dare answers just as easily.
 
I might be imagining things, but his
eyes seem guarded.
 

“Oh?” My father raises an eyebrow. “You
don’t say.
 
You’re a long way from
home then, fella.
 
What brings you
to the Pacific Northwest?”

I’m of course at attention now, blissful
that my father is asking him these questions so I don’t have to.
 
My questions are numbered and
valuable.
 

Dare smiles politely.

“I’m just here visiting.
 
America is beautiful, particularly this
area.”
 
He skillfully skirts the
actually question, something that we all clearly see. However, there’s no way
we can politely ask for a better answer.
 

Crack.
 
My father splits open another crab leg.
 
“I guess you’re used to the rain, coming
from Sussex.
 
My wife grew up in
England. That’s why she never minded the rain here.”

Dare nods.
 
“I’m very used to it.”

We all fall silent and continue eating,
and I can practically see my father wanting to ask more questions.
 

“You
are
twenty-one, right?” he asks as Dare takes a swig of his beer.
 
“I don’t want to contribute to the
delinquency of a minor.”
 
He says it
jokingly, but he means it.
 
Dare
smiles.
 

“I’m twenty-one exactly.”

 
I
knew it.
 
He’s definitely more
of a man than a boy.
 
Even more so than the calendar says.
  
His eyes are even older than
twenty-one.
 
He’s seen a lot. I can
tell.
 
Just how much though, is the
question.

As we eat, I watch him easily maneuver
the crab legs and eat without making a mess.
 
He eats four in the time it takes me to
eat two.
  
  

“Do you like lobster, too?” I ask him
after a few minutes.
 
“You seem to
like crab.”

Dare smiles a blindingly white smile.
 
“I love lobster.
 
Pretty much
any shellfish, really.”

“Me too,” I tell him.
 

We continue eating with the sounds of
cracking and dipping and chewing.
 

Finally, I glance at my father.
 
“Is Finn all right?”

My father nods slowly.
 
“Yeah.
 
I’m sure.”

Suddenly, the quietness of this house,
which is actually a mausoleum, my father’s tension, Finn’s strange absence…all
of it smothers me and I suck in a deep breath.
 

Dare glances at me, his eyes so freaking
dark.
 
“You ok?”