Between (23 page)

"No reason. Are you going to work?"

"No, I'm coming with you to the party."
He places his bottle on the coffee table.

My stomach turns at the thought of
Alek, Finn, and a houseful of happy ghost hunters. "I didn't think you were going?"

Alek
picks my phone up from beside the bottle and holds it out to me. "I wasn't going to, but it appears your Reaper will be there."

"What the...
Alek, how dare you!" I snatch the phone from him. I’ve had a few texts from Finn asking if I was okay since our talk. "What are you doing reading my messages?"

"What are you doing sneaking round with him?" he demands.

"I am not sneaking!"

"You know he can't touch you, right?"
Alek's arms are folded tightly across his chest; normally he'd approach me and touch me.

"Are you jealous? Do you think I want him to or something?"

Alek snorts. "As if. I'm pissed off with you putting yourself in danger, that’s all."

"Danger from what? Dying properly so I'm not stuck in this weird life?"

"You can't die!" snaps Alek. "You'll end up stuck, which is worse than this. The only way to die is..." he pauses. "You can't die."

"What? Tell me what you mean! How?"

Alek's face darkens and he shakes his head as if shaking a thought away. "You can lose your existence, but your soul will always be lost. That's why we need each other." He approaches me, holding out a hand. "I need you, Rose," he says softly as he winds my long hair around his hand. "And you need me."

I brace myself for one of
Alek's hungry kisses, ready to resist. Instead, he presses his lips softly to mine and rubs his nose against my cheek. This intimate, almost-loving gesture takes me by surprise and has the opposite effect to what I intended.

Any attempt to fight against what connects and sparks between
us is useless. Anger with him is washed away, and for the first time, how terrifying this is strikes me. I don't want to need someone or be needed. However good this feels, or amazing the sex, I will always struggle with having choices made for me. How can I be strong, as Finn says, if I depend on Alek?

Alek
slides his hand down my back and pulls me closer, his body fusing to mine as if we were always meant to fit together. He nudges his face into my hair. "Come on, I promise not to attack anyone. Even Finn."

****

The noise from Tom's house carries toward us as I walk down the street with a hunched Alek. His arm is wrapped protectively around my shoulders, and he rubs a thumb along my neck. I shift away.

When we arrive,
I'm surprised by the number of guests; I didn’t take Tom as the popular kind. A lot of them look like students. There’re one or two faces I recognise from the hospital; colleagues of Tom's, I suppose. Tom greets me like his best friend and introduces me proudly to anybody who cares. Not many do, but I expected that. He and Alek exchange short greetings.

"I'm glad
there are plenty of people here," Alek says, close to my ear, and then disappears into the kitchen. He bumps into a girl in the doorway, and he puts a hand on her arm to get by. An unfamiliar feeling grips me at the sight of Alek touching someone else.
Jealousy
. The blonde-haired girl steps away from him and rubs her arm, but she watches him walk into the kitchen. As he disappears from sight, she rushes to another girl and whispers something. The girl cranes her neck for a view of Alek.

If only they knew
. I turn back to Tom. Alek returns and skulks in the corner of the lounge, beer bottle attached as usual. The loud music makes conversation difficult, and I'm amused when Tom decides to turn it down. Alek watches and after his talk of 'need' before, the intensity of his gaze unnerves me. I'm confused and unhappy; being at a party with people my own age sharply focuses my new reality.

As I talk to Tom, I notice Grace come downstairs.
The sudden realisation Alek doesn't know Grace is connected to Tom has me excuse myself and head over to him. Alek's already seen Grace and now he’s gripping his bottle, staring as if she's the ghost.

"What the fuck?" he growls.

Worried he'll get angry with Grace, I hang around as she approaches.

"Hey,
Alek, how’re things?" There’s no apprehension in her warm welcome, which appears to disarm Alek.

"How do you know Tom?" he asks. I place a hand on
Alek’s arm, hoping to calm him.

"I live here."

Alek drags a hand through his hair. "Are you a ghostbuster, too? Did you know about me when you lived at the house?"

Grace nods. "Not the nicest place to live. I couldn't stand all the ghosts."

"Why didn’t you bring your equipment to kill them?" he asks snidely.

Grace shakes her head at him and walks off. I laugh. "I guess she lived with you long enough to avoid your bad moods."

Alek mutters something under his breath. "I can’t deal with this shit. Want another beer?"

I hold up the bottle I'm holding. "I don't drink as quickly as you."

"Like I said, keeps me calm."

‘
Party’ is a loose description for the strange gathering. Tom appears to be stuck half-way between a kid's party and a student party. Tom's made a bizarre collection of party nibbles, including the cheese and pineapple chunks stuck on cocktail sticks protruding from a tinfoil-wrapped pineapple half. Some of the partygoers conclude he's being ironic. I suspect he isn't.

Nobody approaches
Alek, apart from Tom and Grace. Alek's disdain for Tom morphs into amusement, and then interest, as Tom fills Alek in on things he's learnt. After ten minutes or so, Tom switches his attentions to me, and Alek wanders back to his corner.

"Did Finn say he was definitely coming?" asks Tom, munching on crackers.

"Yes."

"Are you okay?
You seem unhappy tonight."

"I'm tired."

"Maybe you're lacking energy?" he asks. "You don't feel like you're going to...you know."

"What? Eat someone?" I snap.

"No, faint."

My cheeks heat. "Oh, sorry." An awkward silence follows. "Can you get me another drink?"

I glance at Alek as Tom disappears into the kitchen. He's changed position and sits on the floor with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. People need to step over him to move and anyone who knocks him is greeted with a withering look. I eye the girl from earlier who I'm sure keeps checking him out. Part of me would like her to approach him, so I can watch what happens.

As if aware of my scrutiny,
Alek looks up. He beckons me with one finger and I turn away. Power struggles will always be a feature of whatever we have, that I'm sure of.

Ten minutes later, I walk downstairs from the bathroom and find the place packed with more bodies, the volume of voices and laughter jar. There's a group in rugby shirts who bump each other raucously then head out
to the garden.

Finn has arrived
, too, his tall figure in the corner of the room, chatting to a girl, who's playing with her hair and standing close. Something surges. Jealousy again?
What right do I have?
No. Fear for her. I don't need to look at Alek to know his scrutiny is trained on Finn. There are many similarities between Finn and Alek, apart from their paranormal existence. They dress similarly, although Finn prefers hoodies to leather, and even though Finn is marginally taller, they are a similar build. The muscles beneath Finn’s shirt match Alek’s as far as I know. Alek’s, I clearly know about. If they fought, who would win? The Reaper or the psy-vamp? Even when I worried Finn was responsible for the hospital deaths, there was something inexplicable that attracted me to him. Not in the same, intense way as Alek, but a desire for his calm friendship.

Finn makes his excuses and
crosses to where I hover at the bottom of the stairs.

"Are you okay after our talk?" he asks cautiously.

I shrug to indicate the subject is closed. Alek shakes his fringe from his eyes and stares across the room at us.

Finn looks over his shoulder to see what I’m looking at. "I see
Crazy Boy is having fun."

"Don't speak to him," I warn him. "He's wound up about you."

Finn turns around and gives Alek a small wave. I make the mistake of pushing Finn’s hand and withdraw as soon as the cold hits. Finn’s mouth turns down.

"What do you feel when that happens?" I ask him.

Finn inhales and holds his breath before exhaling slowly. "Your life."

"But I'm dead."

"No, I said you're alive, but your soul is broken."

"I don't want to talk about this." I edge away from him
to sit on the stairs. Finn joins me, all the while under Alek's watchful eye.

"Why's
Alek not sitting with you?" he asks.

"I'm not sure. He's odd like that."

Finn chuckles. "Odd. Really?"

"I mean he's very hot and cold with me." Why am I speaking to Finn about this?

Finn sits next to me, close but not touching. "You have a weird connection."

"You're telling me
…"

"No, I mean literally
, a weird connection. There are few of you around, and as well as the physical reaction to each other, there's a fear of being alone, I think."

His insight is uncomfortable. I’m not
telling Finn about how the unity with Alek feels more than physical, or the need for him, which intensified the night we had sex.

"Not as weird as the connection with you," I inform Finn.

A flicker of something I can't fathom crosses Finn's face. "I know. It's only because I gave you life, though."

"Did one of you create
Alek, too?" I ask.

Finn chews his lip. "His creation was different to yours. He knows a little
, but not everything."

I glance at
Alek, unsure if I should go to him or not; if Alek doesn’t know, maybe I shouldn’t know either. But Alek has moved from his position and isn’t in the room anymore.

"What do you mean his creation was different to mine?" I ask.

Finn runs a hand across his face. "His situation was the reverse of yours. The Dark Reaper came for his sister and one of us came for Alek. Somehow he knew what was happening and, when he saw the Dark taking his sister, Alek fought against the one of us trying to take his soul."

"You didn’t help
Alek?" I ask, "Why not?"

"I wasn't there. People aren't usually aware they’re dying
, but somehow, Alek did; he hovered on the border of life and death and saw what was happening. He was on drugs at the time, maybe that's why. Alek bargained with the Dark Reaper, asked him to take his soul instead of his sister’s. The Dark agreed but the Reaper who’d come for Alek couldn't let that happen, so again the process was interrupted by one of us fighting with the Dark. His sister's soul was saved, but Alek’s was broken."

"So
, one of you gave him life, like you did me?"

"No, unlike me, this Reaper knew the action was forbidden.
” He huffs and watches me warily. “One of the Dark saved his soul from Hell, gave him demon energy and made him a Between. Between are rare and difficult to control once they’re created, so there’s a reason for Alek’s existence."

We meet each other's gaze and the realisation hits. "
Alek is Dark?"

"No, but they own him."

"Own him? What?"

"They own his soul.
In return for them saving his sister, he must help them. It’s why he's hidden himself for so many years, but he’ll have to do what they want eventually or he’ll end up in Hell. I have my suspicions what they’re going to ask of him. Remember I said Between are one of the few who can freely pass between the realms? I think that’s why he was created."

Finally
, I understand Alek's evasiveness wasn't deliberate. Alek never gave me answers because he doesn't have them. I’m about to ask Finn to elaborate when Alek appears.

"You okay, Rose
?” Alek addresses me but he stares at Finn.

"Fine
," I say and prepare myself for the inevitable clash.

The two men regard each other. Finn sighs and stands. "I need to chat
with Tom."

I guess fighting about who's the bad guy in front of a roomful of humans isn't wise
, despite looks that suggest they want to. Finn walks away and, I'm sure, he deliberately knocks Alek as he does. Alek tenses and turns to say something, so I grab his arm.

"
Alek..."

He puts his hand over mine, the connection immediately
soothes. His stiffened stance drops and he leans in to kiss my cheek. I fight the usual urge to reciprocate and step away.