NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (24 page)

TRIGENTA
QUATUOR

Calla

When
we get home, Finn is in bed.
 
I
stand at his doorway and watch him sleep for a minute, watching the restless
way he tosses and turns and moans, and the way he’s got mud smeared on his
cheek.
 

What’s he been up to?

With utter trepidation, I know how to
find out.
 

I curl up in my room and stare at the
pages of his journal.
 
For some
reason, I can’t bring myself to read much at a time.
 
The words press down on me, suffocating
me, because it’s such a glaring piece of evidence of what Finn’s mind has come
to be.
 

The writing has become erratic, as his
thought processes spiral to and fro.
 
Scrawled, scratched words line the pages and they no longer make any
kind of sense.

Protect her Protect me st.
Michael.
 
Protect us her me me me.

Serva me, serva
bo
te. Save me, save her and me.

Calla calla
calla.

It’s
 
killing
me. Killing me killing killing killing mememememememe.

Put me out of my misery.

Do it do it do it.

I swallow hard, biting back helpless
tears as I flip through several pages of the nonsense.
 
But then I see one phrase.
 
One phrase that dries
my tears and freezes the breath on my lips.

Secrets.
 
Everybody’s got em.

I can practically hear those words coming
out Dare’s mouth.
 
But why did he
say such a thing to Finn?
 

If it weren’t so late, I’d barge into his
home right now and ask. But as it is, I wait.
 

I wait until I’ve slept through the
night, showered and have thought about it some more.
 
I still haven’t calmed down though.
 
Because something
isn’t right here.
  

As soon as it’s a decent hour, I head for
Dare’s cottage.
 
He answers his door
shirtless, and it takes great effort to ignore that.
 

“Have you talked to Finn lately?” I ask
him without greeting, my eyes frozen on his, never traveling south of his
chin.
 

He looks at me oddly. “No, why?”

“Because I was reading his journal last
night and he wrote something that you said.
 
Verbatim, Dare.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “And what piece of
wisdom was this?”

“I’m not kidding,” I snap.
 
“He said,
‘Secrets. Everybody’s got ‘em.’
 
That’s exactly what you said to me.
 
Why would you be talking about secrets
with Finn?
 
Has he told you what’s
going on with him?”

Dare seems utterly confused now, and he
gestures for me to come in.
 
I
hesitate.
 

“Please,” he urges.
 
“I should get a shirt on.”

I follow him in and wait on the sofa as
he pulls a shirt on.
 
When he comes
back out, he sits next to me, picking up my hand.

“To answer your question, no.
 
I haven’t spoken to Finn about any
secrets.
 
Is it possible that he
overheard us talking?
 
I think we
were discussing secrets here on the property one time.”

Maybe.
 

That actually makes sense. Finn does have
a way of quietly slipping around.
 

I relax, my shoulders slumping. Dare
stares at me.
 

“Did you really think Finn would get into
a deep conversation with me?” He eyes me doubtfully.
 
I shrug.

“No.
 
I guess not. I’m just… frustrated. He’s hiding something. It’s making
him worse and he won’t talk to me about it.
 
He’ll never be able to go to college
alone at this rate.”

Which means that I won’t be able to,
either.
 

It’s something that makes me feel
panicky, guilty and dejected about at once.
 

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” Dare
presses me.
 
“I thought you wanted to
go with him.”

“I do,” I say quickly, too quickly.
 
“I mean. Yes. I do. But at the same
time, I guess I was warming up to the idea that he wants some separation.
 
I thought it would give me an
opportunity to maybe have a love life. With you, for instance.”

I feel sheepish now, ashamed,
embarrassed.
 
What kind of sister am
I?

Dare lifts my chin with his finger.
 
“Don’t feel guilty about that,” he tells
me.
 
“You have the right to a life
of your own, too, you know. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

I nod, not believing him.

He grins at me, and for a second, just
one, I feel like everything is fine.
 
“Let’s get out of here today.”

I nod immediately.
 
“Ok.
 
Where?”

Dare stares out his window, toward the
ocean. “Out there. Where we’re boundless.”

LIVE
FREE.
 

“Ok,” I agree.
 

We’re in my boat within five
minutes.
 
Me in a short sundress and
sunscreen, and Dare in his dark jeans and none.
 

“You’re going to get skin cancer,” I
stare at him.
 

“I’m not,” he answers.
 
I don’t argue because I like his bare chest,
and the way the muscles ripple across his shoulders as he moves.
 
I pause on my way to the helm, long
enough to run my fingers over the letters of his tattoo.
 
His skin is hot beneath my fingertips,
and the friction makes me grit my teeth.
  

“I’m going to show you someplace new,” I
tell him, guiding the boat out of the bay and toward a small rock pier down the
beach.
 
It only takes ten minutes to
get there, and I urge the boat aground so that we can step out onto land.
 

I hold my hand out to
Dare
and he takes it, climbing down next to me.
 
We walk all the way out to the tip of the land finger, where the
fingernail would be.
 

Dare sits, and I sit next to him, our
feet splayed out in front of us on the
rocks.

We’re surrounded by nothing but the air
and water, we’re utterly alone out here, with no one to overhear or watch us
like we’re fish in a bowl.
 

The salty breeze blows Dare’s hair around
his face and I turn to him.

“I’m ready to use another question,” I
tell him. He grins.
 

“So soon?
 
It’s only been days since the last one.”

I ignore that.
 
“Why are you such a gentleman?”

Meaning,
why are you so resolute to keep your distance until I figure my shit
out?

He shifts his weight and crosses his feet
at the ankles.
 
“So you’ve noticed.”

His tone is wry. I roll my eyes.

“Seriously. Why are you trying to force
me into doing something for my own good that I don’t want to do?
 
All for the sake of
being a gentleman?
  
Maybe being a gentleman is overrated and archaic.”

He scoffs at that, shielding his eyes
from the sun with long fingers of one hand.
 
I stare at his silver ring glinting in
the light.
 

“It’s not, trust me.”
 
The way he said that is so knowing, so
strange.
 

I raise an eyebrow and he sighs.

“My step-father, while refined and rich,
was not a gentleman behind closed doors.
 
From the time I was very small, I decided that I would always be the
opposite of him. My mother always gave me lessons on what a gentleman should
do.
 
She spoke of those traits with
such…reverence that I knew that’s what I wanted to be.” He pauses. “Are you
going to make fun of me now?”

He stares at me, his jaw so sculpted, his
eyes so guarded.
 
I find all I want
to do is reach out and stroke the coarseness of his stubble with my hand.
 
“No,” I tell him.
 
“Not at all.”
 

Because he made that hidden part of me
ache, the maternal place, the place that wants to protect him from everything,
even if that means from me.
 

“What did your step-father do?”
 

My question is quiet in its simplicity
and Dare sighs again.

“You’re really burning through your
questions today.”

I nod, but I don’t back down.
 

“My stepfather was unfortunately, very
much like his mother.
 
A very calculating, controlling person.
 
He had to have everything his way
exactly and those people who didn’t comply were punished severely.”

I swallow hard at the closed look on
Dare’s beautiful face.

“How severely?”

He turns to look at me, his black eyes
staring into my soul.

“Severely.”

My heart twinges at the vulnerable pain
in Dare’s eyes. He thinks he’s concealing it, but he’s not.
 
“And being the rogue that you are, I’m
guessing you were punished a lot.”

He nods and looks out at the sea and I
pick up his hand, spinning his ring round and round.
 

“And no one interfered?
 
Not your mother or your grandmother?”

He looks at me now, stricken. “She’s my
step-grandmother.
 
And of course she
wouldn’t interfere.
 
She never
approved of me.
 
She thinks I
deserved everything I got and then some.
 
My mother… she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stand against the two of
them.
 
They were an unstoppable
force.”

“Why didn’t your mom leave him?
 
If he was so bad, I mean?” I ask
hesitantly.
 

“It’s not always that easy,” he answers
tiredly.
 
“Where would she have
gone?
 
She didn’t have anywhere to
go.”

The feel of this conversation is dark and
ominous and scary.
 
I examine his
face, the planes and angles, and grip his hand harder.
 
“Well, now that your mom is gone, you’re
done with your step-father’s family.
 
Thank goodness.
 
You’re here
in America and they can’t hurt you anymore.”

He sighs, a ragged sound, his slender
fingers weaving around my own.
 
“Can’t they?”

I start to answer and he interrupts. “You’ve
burned through most of your questions, Cal.
 
It seems to me like you’ve only got a
couple left.”

I nod, because he’s right.
 
“I’ve only got one more to ask today,
and then I’ll save my last one for later.”

Nerves cause my heart to pound,
adrenaline to rush, rush, rush through my veins as I look at him, the Adonis sitting
next to me.
 
Do it.
 
Do it.
 
Everything about him touches me… his
voice, his story, his vulnerability that he tries so hard to hide.
 
All of it.
 
I want him.
 
All of him.