Between (6 page)

Finn was in this
room earlier.

"Rose!" I tense. Caught in the act. Finn stands behind
me, holding a dish with vials, ready to take into the room.

I stumble away from the door. "Sorry, I…"

"You shouldn’t be here," he says in a low voice. "It’s wrong." Finn’s blue eyes register shock, looking from me to the door. "Intrusive, I mean. You’re not family or a nurse."

The urgent voices and beeping machines in the room connect with memories of the night in the road. The fog from my past creeps into the edges of the world and I can’t move. Finn takes my elbow and guides me away from the door.

The sensation of his touch shocks me, as if he’s plunged my arm into a bath of iced water. The intense cold burns my flesh and the ice shoots through my limbs until my hands and feet numb.

Finn pulls his hand back as if I burnt him
; he blinks away the shock in his eyes. I stare back, unable to speak as the cold creeps up my neck into my mind.

"Please
, leave now," he says in a flat voice.

As Finn walks into the room where the patient fights for life, I back against the wall and close my eyes. Rubbing my cold arm does no
good; the skin is warm to touch but the blood circulating inside takes the chill toward my heart. I suck in a breath and lean over. The fog has gone but this is even worse.

****

The trip home is hazy; the pain radiating from my arm doesn’t subside. When I stagger through the door, I don’t have any energy left to climb the stairs to my room. I crawl onto the sofa in the lounge and stare at the moulded cornice around the light above where the flaking paint shows several colours underneath. The sound of Alek’s music thumps through the silence and I drift off, head pounding.

I’m dozing but something alerts me. Half-asleep, I’m aware of someone else in the room with me. I open an eye and see the red-haired girl hovering
in the doorway, watching me. She’s wearing dirty jeans and a T-shirt with capped sleeves and a Guns 'n Roses print, but nothing on her feet. Alek’s music continues to thump through the ceiling.

"Hi," I say and smile.

Her eyes widen and she pulls her long hair over her shoulder. "Who
are
you?"

"Rose
; I moved in a few of weeks ago. Are you a friend of Alek’s?"

Her look darts in the direction of
the stairs. "Kind of. I’m staying with him as long as I can."

"Oh?"
What was that twinge? Jealousy? Over someone like Alek?
I slap myself in my mind.

"Yeah. I was just going upstairs." She turns and disappears.

I close my eyes again and Alek’s music stops, his footsteps banging down the stairs. Snuggling down into the sofa cushions, I pretend to be asleep. My heart thumps in my ears as the footsteps quiet. I wait for him to sweep out of the house, but he’s stopped. After a couple of minutes of silence, I open my eyes. Alek stands in the spot where the red-haired girl was. There’s a softness in his expression which disappears the moment he realises I’m looking at him.

"You got health problems, Casper?"

I push myself up. "No, and don’t call me that."

His sly smile indicates I just guaranteed he will call me this from now on. "You don’t seem to have a lot of energy."

"It’s tiring walking up and down that hill to work." His face indicates his disbelief. "Who’s the girl?"

"Which girl?"

"The red-haired girl."

He blinks. "Was she here again?"

"Yeah, she said she was staying with you. Didn’t you see her on the stairs?"

Alek
rubs his lips with a finger then approaches me without answering my question. I inhale as he sits next to me, on the other end of the sofa and twists his body toward me.

"Did she touch you?"

"Why would she touch me?" I tuck my legs under me and hug my knees.

Alek
appraises me. "I won’t touch you."

"What?"

"Though you look like you could do with a hug."

I splutter at him. "
What?
"

"Did you see Finn today?"

His subject changes are confusing my tired brain. "Why?"

"Because
I think you should keep away from him."

"Thanks for your concern again, big brother
, but Finn has nothing to do with my health."

"Don’t call me that.
” I’m curled into a ball in the corner and his long leg is close to mine, so close we’re almost touching. I have an image of myself pressed against his leather jacket, an image quickly replaced with me pressed against the naked chest I saw in the kitchen a few nights ago.
What the hell is this?
He must have too much testosterone, which is why he exudes sex and behaves like he owns the place and everyone in it.

"You okay? Now your breathing’s funny." Amusement lights his
eyes and I realise he’s sitting close deliberately.

I rest my
head on my lap, turning my cheek so he can’t see the colour I’ve turned. "I’m tired."

Alek
sits back and places his hands on his knees before standing. He looks back round at me. "Well, if you’re okay then I’m going to work. Sweet dreams, Casper."

I don
’t reply as I watch him leave the house. I’m exhausted; so tired I can’t move, and all I want to do is sleep. My limbs are weak and my muscles ache; I pray I’m not getting the flu. Shivering, I pull my coat around me and doze off.

****

"How many?" hisses a voice I recognise as Alek’s.

I jerk awake and lie still, listening. My neck is stiff from lying on the sofa and I squint at the LED display on the DVD player. 1:14
am.

Lizzie says something to him, but I can’t hear. They’re in the kitchen again and I’m not sure I want to hear the conversation.

"She doesn’t know; what if they attack her?" continues Alek.

Again,
a response I can’t hear. I pull myself to my feet and steady myself on the sofa arm. I swear I have the
flu; my limbs ache now. Edging closer, I peek around the corner into the short hallway to the kitchen. I can’t see the doorway because the kitchen is opposite the bottom of the stairs, but I can hear them more clearly.

"She’s not
well; I think Finn got to her."

"I doubt he’s touched her
; he wouldn’t want to risk her knowing yet. He obviously has other plans while he’s here, apart from her."

"Then what? Why is she unwell?"

"Maybe she needs more energy, but she shouldn't yet."

I rest my head on the wall, running my scalp along the wood chip. What the hell are they talking about? This can’t be about me.

"Some of the others know she’s living here. It’s dangerous."

Lizzie makes a derisive noise. "Well, you can protect her then."

"I don’t think she’s the ‘damsel in distress’ sort."

"Well
, seduce her then; it’s obvious you want to."

I don’t hear
Alek’s response, his voice is too low. The aching in my limbs worsens from standing, so I pull myself from the wall back toward the sofa. As I turn around, I find myself inches away from the red-haired girl’s face and stifle a scream.

"Fuck! What are you doing?"
I hiss.

The girl steps back and looks at me again. "I thought I imagined you."

Her voice is hardly audible, and her gaze darts from me to the kitchen behind.

"Yeah, I get the same feeling about you."

She smiles. "Did Alek bring you, too?"

"Bring me?"

"Here. To stay."

"I’m renting a room."

"Alek brought me."

"Yeah?" My tired legs are waking up as anxiety spikes
adrenaline into my muscles. Something is wrong. I carefully back toward the hallway.

The girl
steps toward me. "What happened to you?"

"Me? Nothing?"

She tips her head and reveals a large scar running from her neck to her shoulder. "I had an accident."

The fog rolls into my mind again, a memory of lying in the road blinding me.
No. I’m dreaming.
I dig my nails into my palms and look down. The pain registers; I’m not dreaming. I glance back at the red-haired girl, but she’s gone. Shaking my head, I stumble backwards, trip over my own feet and land on the floor with a thud.

A chair scrapes and light floods into the hallway from the kitchen. I squint up at
Alek, Lizzie standing just behind him.

"What happened?" he asks.

"The girl…"

Before I can finish the words,
Alek comes over to me and leans over. "Don’t talk about her."

"Help her up,
Alek." Lizzie’s voice is harder.

"No."

I struggle into a sitting position. Lizzie remains in the doorway, watching us curiously. "I don’t need help," I say.

"Did
the girl touch you?" he asks quietly.

"No. Why?"
What is his issue with people touching me?

"Nothing."

"What’s going on?"

Alek
moves his mouth close to my ear. "Don’t say anything else."

The side of my face tingles as his breath touches my skin, as if
his lips had brushed my cheek.

He pushes himself to his feet and steps between
Lizzie and me. "Maybe you should go to bed."

"Yeah, maybe."

"You can’t be comfortable sitting on the floor all night. Come on, Casper, up you get."

His sudden change in demeanour surprises me until
he moves his eyes to indicate Lizzie behind us. Understanding, I climb to my feet. The ground lurches, and I’m glad I have the wall to steady myself on. Evidently, Alek doesn’t want to touch me because he doesn't help.

Dragging one heavy foot in front of another, I climb the stairs, listening for any further conversation between Lizzie and
Alek.

"Sweet dreams, Casper!" calls
Alek, and I grit my teeth. That is getting very old, very quickly.

As I lie in bed, turning thoughts over in my head, I’m unable to put any puzzle pieces together in my cotton-wool brain.

****

Alek
appears in the doorway bare-chested in his low-slung trackies. A cup of chamomile tea steams in front of me, and I shiver in my flannel PJs, wondering how he can stand to walk around semi-naked in the cold of the night. I come down to the kitchen most nights because of the nightmares and Alek often appears, too. The Alek who sits with me at these times is different, one who’s less guarded and occasionally polite. The meetings are becoming more regular, and I toy with the idea he’s doing this deliberately.

"
Couldn’t sleep?" he asks.

"Weird dreams."

Alek walks in and takes a beer from the fridge. "Yeah? Good or bad?"

What do I say to him?
I’m currently unsure if I’m still dreaming or how much of the night was a dream. I thought the fog dreams from the night I almost died were bad enough, but this is weirder still.

"Did I dream tonight?" I ask him.

"You just told me you did."

"No, did I dream
tonight
?" Alek sits opposite me and cracks open his beer. I incline my head to his bottle. "It’s four am."

"So? And which part of tonight do you think you dreamt?"

My eyes sting with the need for sleep and my body aches. "I don’t know. All of it. Red-haired girls, conversations in kitchens, collapsing… And weird stuff at the hospital. Nearly passing out."

The bottle stops short at
Alek’s mouth; instead of drinking, he places it on the table. "Passing out?"

I shake a dismissive hand. "Yeah. I do sometimes."

"Was Finn with you?"

"What difference does that make?"

"Did he touch you?"

"
Whoa, there you go again… why do you keep asking me the same question? I don’t think I’m so irresistible every person I come across feels the need to touch me?"

He doesn’t reply and drinks from his bottle instead. The light from the street reflects in his eyes as he watches me.

"Who’s the girl with red hair?" I blurt.

"Just a visitor.
Clarissa."

"Why
didn’t you want me to mention her earlier?"

"Lizzie is a bit odd about who I bring here."

I smirk at the irony. "Really? Must be a thing about people who live here not wanting the others to have guests."