Falter Page 19

  And I was frozen, rigid under the covers. I couldn’t even breathe. My lips wouldn’t move to tell him that I was incapable of touching him.

  But then, I did move. I turned on my side, and I gathered him into my arms.

  He burrowed close, burying his face against my breast, pulling me tight against his body. He made a tiny gasping sound.

  I stroked the back of his head.

  And it was okay. It was even nice to be close to him. I didn’t feel dirty or soiled by what had happened with Jude. This was Jason, and I was safe with him. If anything, being close to him was the most right feeling that I could imagine. I blinked hard. I felt like I might start crying in relief.

  He peered up at me. “We’re going to be okay,” he whispered. “Everything else might get fucked, but me and you? We’re always okay.”

  I nodded, biting my lip against tears.

  He caressed my cheek with his thumb, pulling my face down to his.

  And he kissed me.

  The feeling of rightness washed through me again, making me feel perfect and complete in his arms. “I love you,” I murmured.

  “I love you too,” he said softly.

  Our kiss deepened, and daggers of pleasure shot through me, piercing me and pinning me to him. His hand wandered over my skin, leaving the area behind my back and exploring other places. Places that made me sigh. His lips traveled away from my mouth, kissing along the line of my jaw, trailing to my ear, finding the place that undid me.

  I moaned.

  He pushed me into the bed, and repositioned us. Suddenly, he was on top of me, and I was trapped beneath his body.

  I stroked his shoulder blades, ran my fingers over the valleys of his back.

  He grabbed my hands, holding them above my head, pinning down my wrists. He kissed me again—deep and sweet and thorough.

  I squirmed against him, wanting to touch him, enjoying being captured by his hands and his body, enjoying how close we were.

  His hands trailed over my neck. He looked into my eyes.

  And we both seemed to remember the strangling at the same time.

  He let go of me. He sat up, moving to the other side of the bed.

  We weren’t touching at all anymore.

  I felt it like a loss, like losing a limb. It was wrenchingly painful. “Jason…” I whispered. I reached across the bed for him.

  He ran a hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”

  I sat up. I scooted across the bed and put my hand on his shoulder. “What are you sorry for?”

  “You know what.”

  I bit my lip. I took a deep breath. “Jason, I kind of liked it.”

  He looked at me sharply. “What?”

  I recoiled from him. I had been afraid he’d react like that. There was something wrong with me, deeply wrong with me, and it was worse than being attracted to someone as violent as Jason was. I was twisted. What kind of person could actually enjoy being strangled to death?

  “How could you like it?”

  “Never mind,” I said. I punched my pillow and lay down, my back to him.

  “Weren’t you afraid?” he asked me.

  I remembered it, then. I remembered the look in his eyes as it was happening, the dimming of the world, everything going dark. But it wasn’t as if I hadn’t died before. I knew what was happening. And it was happening right as I was climaxing, and the sensations were all blurred in my memory, the sweetness of the orgasm and the loss of breath and the dimness… “No,” I said. “I’ve died before. I knew I was coming back.”

  He settled down behind me. His arm snaked around my waist. “Are you serious?”

  “I know it’s fucked up. It makes me uncomfortable admitting it. It seems like it crosses a line, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It was definitely crossing a line. I never showed that part of myself to you, not like that. And I felt like it didn’t fit. That you and I should be one thing, and those other… impulses I have should be all be kept from you and buried. I thought that once you saw it, you would hate me.”

  “I don’t think I’m really capable of hating you,” I said. “No matter how hard I try to do that, it never seems to work.”

  He chuckled. He took hold of my shoulder and turned me to face him. “You really… liked it?”

  I struggled against him. “Don’t make me talk about it. You think I’m a freak, and I wish I’d never told you.”

  He held me in place, not letting me go. “I don’t think you’re a freak.” He considered. “Well, okay, yeah, you are. But in a good way.”

  “A good way?”

  “I liked it too. Not because I like hurting you, because I don’t. I mean, I don’t think I do. I…” He let go of my shoulder.

  I shifted so that I could look into his eyes. “Well, deep down, you knew you weren’t hurting me. It’s like when we cut you so I can drink your blood.” I felt a little excited just thinking about that.

  He swallowed. “I’m not sure, though. There was a moment where I could have stopped. Where I thought I saw fear in your eyes. And that… turned me on.”

  I pressed myself against him. “I know. Being a little bit afraid turns me on. And I kind of like it when you’re a little bit… vicious.” I was thinking about the way he’d look at me sometimes, like I was the most important thing on earth to him, like he wanted to devour me. It gave me shivers. It was a little bit scary and a lot sexy.

  He shut his eyes. “I don’t deserve you, you know.”

  “Yes, I’m pretty sure we established that a long time ago.” I reached down for the drawstring on his pajama bottoms.

  He seized my wrist, shaking his head. “You first,” he whispered fiercely.

  My body quivered, excitement shooting through me.

  We came together like an earthquake, and the tremors threatened to rip me apart. But after it was over, I felt more whole than I’d felt in a long time. Jason and I were strong again. We could face anything, as long as we were together.

  I dreamed of spring trees in a park, their branches covered in bright flowers. Jason and I were running through the falling blossoms after Chance, who was always just out of sight. I could hear his laughter, though. He sounded happy.

  * * *

  Jason knelt over the body of the caterer, tying his hands together.

  The caterer was fighting.

  “I need the syringe,” Jason was yelling.

  I was busy emptying my own syringe into another caterer’s neck. We’d taken their van off the road, and now we were wrestling the caterers into submission on the shoulder. Luckily, this road wasn’t highly traveled, and no one had driven by yet. We didn’t exactly look like we were doing something legal here. “We could just shoot them,” I said.

  My caterer slumped against me, the sedative taking effect.

  “We’re not killing the caterers,” said Jason. “Get a grip, Azazel.”

  “What if they wake up?”

  “Grace!” yelled Jason. “Syringe!” He looked at me. “So, what if they do? We’ll have their van and their food, and they’ll be stranded out here.”

  Grace scampered out from behind the van, holding out a syringe. “Here you go.”

  “Is it smart to run with that?” I said. “Is it like running with scissors, maybe?”

  Jason snatched it from her and plunged it into the caterer’s neck. “Would you just tie that lady up?” He nodded at the caterer I’d knocked out.

  I sighed and started to tie her hands.

  Jude ducked out of the back of the van. He had aprons over his arm. He handed me one.

  I began tying it around my waist.

  “No way,” said Jason, straightening. His caterer was out cold.

  “No, you’re not wearing an apron?” said Jude. “They’re our disguise.”

  “You can’t wear them over jeans,” said Jason, gesturing to my outfit. “We’ll have to strip the caterers. We need to be wearing slacks and button-up shirts.”

  I looked down
at the lady that I’d knocked out. “Seriously? But we’re hardly the same size.” She was a good deal bigger than I was.

  “Well, the jeans aren’t going to look good,” said Jude, eyeing me. “He’s probably right.”

  I made a face. “Great. Just great.”

  * * *

  ~jason~

  I sat down in the driver’s seat of the catering van, buttoning the shirt I’d taken off the caterer. I tapped my earpiece. “You there, Boone?”

  “Oh, finally. What took you guys so long?”

  “Syringe issues,” I said. “Wardrobe. You know.”

  “Whatever. You ready to go?”

  “I think we’re pretty close.”

  “How’s Grace?”

  “She’s fine,” I said. “You’ve been away from her for less than a half hour. I know it’s young love between the two of you, but don’t you think you’re being excessive?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” said Boone. “You know, stuff kind of happened with us last night.”

  “Yeah, everyone’s aware of that,” I said. “You don’t have to give me details, it’s cool. I’m very happy for both of you.”

  “Okay,” said Boone. “I guess it would be stupid for me to… talk about it or whatever.”

  I laughed. “You got laid, Boone. I’m sure it was awesome, but you don’t need to broadcast it. I bet Grace would hate that, in fact.”

  “I’m not trying to do that.” He sounded annoyed and disgusted by me.

  I really couldn’t get through to this guy. Whatever I said, he didn’t like. Apparently, I had no future as a teenage counselor.

  “She hated it anyway,” he said. “It kind of doesn’t matter what I do at this point.”

  “Oh,” I said. Right, there was the sticky, awkward part about teenage sex that I’d forgotten all about.

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m worried about her. Does she seem okay?”

  “Uh… she seems fine,” I said. Why was he talking to me about this stuff? Couldn’t he find someone else?

  On second thought, I guess it was kind of between me and Jude, and Jude really didn’t have much experience. I took a deep breath. Right. Okay. I was this kid’s only choice. I could do this.

  “Boone,” I said. “It’s really all about communication.”

  “What is?”

  “Sex,” I said. “I know it’s really awkward, but you have to have a conversation, and you have to get her to tell you…” Wait. Now that I thought about it, all the communicating I’d done with Azazel about this stuff had been really frustrating and demoralizing, because she was just as embarrassed and confused as I was.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Show you,” I said. “It’s probably better if it’s less talking and more… doing.” Geez, this was an uncomfortable conversation. Was I going to have to do this with Chance when he grew up? Ugh. I was not looking forward to that.

  “Show me what?”

  “How to make her… you know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  I took another deep breath and adopted as clinical a tone as I could muster. “So, there’s a thing called a clitoris, Boone, and it’s very sensitive and very elusive, and it’s in a different spot on every woman, and every woman likes it handled differently, so you need to get Grace to—”

  “Okay, stop,” he said. “I know about that.”

  “You do?”

  “Well…” He was quiet. “Maybe not. But that’s not even the really biggest problem. I mean, I don’t really know how to talk about this, but… we sort of did it more than once, because Grace was convinced that it would be better the next time, because she figured she would have like healed, and there wouldn’t be all the like blood or whatever. And she did. Heal. But…” His voice got even quieter. “It’s like she’s stuck. At whatever age she was when she died. So, when it heals, it goes back to… like the way it was.”

  I absorbed this, sitting in the front of the van. I wasn’t sure what to say. First of all, I didn’t have experience with what he was talking about. I vaguely understood the whole idea of a hymen breaking—mostly from watching medieval shows on HBO. But Azazel hadn’t had one, at least as far as I knew, and I’d never really thought much about why that was. We’d never talked about it. So, I had no frame of reference for something like this. At all.

  Azazel opened the other side of the van and hopped into the passenger seat. “We’re all set.”

  I nodded. “Good.”

  “Good?” said Boone.

  “Not you, Boone. Azazel’s here. We’re ready to ship out.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Great.”

  “Look, about what we were talking about—”

  “Forget it,” he said.

  Azazel tapped her earpiece. “Hey Boone. How are you feeling this morning?” She winked at me.

  “Shut up,” said Boone.

  I shook my head at her.

  She mouthed, “What?” at me.

  “You guys should get moving,” said Boone. “You’re going to end up late.”

  * * *

  ~azazel~

  The guard motioned for us to back the van up. “You’ve got two more feet. Keep coming.”

  Jason was leaning out the window, following the guard’s instructions. The sun was bright overhead, and we were in the back yard of a huge mansion. We’d been directed to park near a large green tent, which had been set up next to the driveway.

  “Okay,” said the guard. “Good.” He gave Jason a thumbs-up sign.

  We got out of the van and went around to the back to open the doors.

  Another guard walked over. “Now, Fleming said you guys didn’t need a kitchen, right? You’ve got everything you need?”

  “Um, that’s right,” I said. “We’ve got everything we need.” I opened the doors of the van.

  Jude and Grace jumped out, brandishing syringes.

  The guards fumbled for their guns.

  Jason and I grabbed them from behind, holding their arms in place.

  Jude plunged his syringe into the first guard’s neck. Grace got the other’s. They sputtered, flailing, trying to yell.

  And then they fell lifeless against us.

  We pushed them into the van.

  “Okay,” I said, hopping in after the guards. “Grace, you and Jude need to start bringing out the chafing dishes, acting normal.”

  “You got it,” said Grace, smiling. She picked up one of the silver-lidded platters and began to walk down the ramp.

  I yanked the guard’s shirt over his head. “All these wardrobe changes. I swear to god,” I mumbled.

  Jason laughed, tugging off his own shirt. “Yeah, I don’t mind it so much.”

  I glared at him. “You just like seeing me in my bra.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “So?”

  I rolled my eyes at him.

  We stashed the aprons, the catering clothes, and the nearly-naked guards in the back of the van. We threw a tablecloth over top of them.

  Then we went over to Grace and Jude.

  Jason spoke in a low voice to Jude. “So, don’t forget you’ve got to ditch those bodies before we make the getaway.”

  Jude was in the middle of wrapping silverware in napkins. “I know.”

  “And if we’re gone longer than an hour, they might need another syringe full of the sedative,” I said.

  “We got this. Stop freaking out,” said Grace.

  Jason nodded at them. He raised his voice. “All right. Thanks for your cooperation.”

  And Jason and I walked away. We strode across the lawn, past the big swimming pool, and onto the stone patio.

  Jason tapped his earpiece.

  I did the same.

  “Boone, we’re in position.”

  “On the patio?” came Boone’s voice.

  “Affirmative,” I said.

  “Okay, I’m looking at the plans for the house here,” said Boone. “You guys need to go in that back door. You see it?”

  Jason and
I started forward.

  “Wait,” said Boone. “Hold it.”

  “Why?”

  “Just give me a second. I need to hack back into the security system on the house. I lost the wi-fi for a second like a half hour ago, and then I got distracted with talking to Jason.”

  Jason and I stopped walking. We both folded our arms over our chests and peered out at the lawn with severe expressions on our faces.

  “Yeah?” I said. “What were you talking about with Boone, anyway, Jason?”

  “Nothing,” said Jason.

  Nothing? Sure. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Back in,” said Boone. “I’m unlocking the back door for you guys.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said.

  Jason and I turned around and started for the door again. This time, nothing interrupted us. We swung the door open and stepped into a wide hallway. The floor was marble. There were sculptures sitting in the corners, paintings on the walls of half-naked goddesses artfully almost-covered with draped fabric.

  “It’s, um, very Greek,” I said, looking around.

  Boone snorted. “Yeah. I’m just getting the security cameras online. I see what you’re talking about.”

  I looked at Jason. “Fleming doesn’t sound Greek to you, does it?”

  Jason shrugged. “Which way, Boone?”

  “Uh… I’m trying to find you…” Boone paused. “Okay, west wing. There you guys are. You want to go left.”

  We went left, walking down the hallway. There were more sculptures, more paintings. The few doors that we found open looked in on lounges with settees and polished floors. Everything was stark and elegant. Cold.

  “You’re going to come to a set of stairs,” said Boone.

  “Yup,” I said. “I see ‘em. White marble. Straight ahead.”

  “Yeah, well go up those,” said Boone.

  “Seriously, what were you and Boone talking about?” I said, heading up the steps.

  Jason was right beside me. We moved with a casual pace, as if we actually worked here and walking around the house was simply part of our job.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Boone. “We need to be focused.”

  “On going up steps?” I said. “Because, let me tell you, I find that tough to do if I don’t focus.”