Flutter (8 page)

“Sorry,” I smiled guiltily at Ezra.

He waved me off as he sat up. His eyes searched the
hotel room, appraising it to make sure that nothing was out of
place. He had slept on the covers, fully clothed, and he was much
more alert than me.

“How long have you been awake?” Ezra asked Peter,
studying at him.

“Not long.” Peter tried to tuck his hair behind his
ears, but it was filthy, almost to the point of being matted.

“So what’s going on?” I asked.

They sat across from each other. Peter lowered his
eyes, but Ezra kept staring at him. I wrapped the comforter around
my shoulders and scooted across the bed, so I was sitting next to
Ezra. He glanced over at me and sighed.

“So… what?” I asked when neither of them said
anything. “The plan is a staring contest of some kind? Cause that’s
not a very good plan.”

“I have an idea,” Ezra said finally, and Peter gave
him a hard look. “I can make an exchange.”

“What kind of an exchange?” Peter narrowed his eyes.
“There’s nothing that you have that they want.”

“That’s not true,” Ezra shook his head. “They don’t
enjoy money, but they require it. They have to travel to the larger
cities to eat, and they can’t walk around in the rags they live
in.”

“They won’t take money. You’ve been gone for too
long. You don’t remember what they’re like,” Peter said.

“There’s got be something that they want,” Ezra said.
“These aren’t self-sufficient creatures. Gunnar is power hungry,
and there is always something he can use to make himself more
powerful.”

“Yeah, because we really wanna make
him
more
powerful,” Peter scoffed and stood up. “No. I appreciate the
rest and food, but I have to face them myself.”

“It’s too late!” Ezra got up and blocked Peter’s
path. “They’ve already seen us. They know we’re after you. Just
taking you won’t be enough anymore.”

Peter looked at the floor and tightened his lips into
a thin line. His jaw clenched tightly, and his mind worked
furiously to find fault with Ezra’s logic. The lycans had to put
the pieces together soon, if they hadn’t already.

“Let me go talk to them,” Ezra said. “I’m certain
that if I talk to them, we can arrange something.”

“There’s nothing they want. Except to hurt me.”

“Well, then I’ll convince them that whatever I’m
giving them is hurting you,” Ezra said.

“You can’t talk to them. They’ll just kill you!”
Peter was almost pleading with him.

“They won’t hurt me,” Ezra assured him. “Gunnar won’t
kill me. Not now, not like this.”

Peter shook his head again, growing irritated with
Ezra’s certainty. They stood next to each other, trying to change
the other’s mind and unwilling to back down themselves.

“Maybe we should just come up with something better,”
I said when they had been standing for an uncomfortable length of
time.

“She has a point,” Ezra softened.

Peter crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his
eyes between the two of us. He was skeptical about Ezra’s conceding
so easily, even momentarily, and so was I. Ezra had seemed
absolutely certain about his intentions, until I chimed in.

“Why don’t you take a shower and clear your head?
We’ll talk after,” Ezra said.

Despite being suspicious, Peter was in dire need of a
shower. He was a rather particular person to begin with, so his
current level of hygiene had to be driving him insane.

“Alright.” Peter looked at Ezra severely. “I’ll get
cleaned up. But we’ll talk after.”

“Of course,” Ezra agreed.

Peter gathered clothes Ezra brought for him and went
into the bathroom. As soon as we heard the water running, Ezra
rushed about the room. He grabbed the keys to the Range Rover and
his cell phone, and I jumped off the bed as he slipped on his
shoes.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I have to talk to them.” Ezra glanced at the
bathroom, making sure that Peter couldn’t hear us. “Stay here and
don’t let him leave.”

“But Peter doesn’t think you should go,” I said, and
I kept my voice low.

“He’s just paranoid.” Ezra brushed it off. “But he
needs to stay here. They will kill him. Our best chance of getting
out of here alive is bartering with them. And they won’t hurt
me.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“I just am,” he said simply. “You’re just gonna have
to trust me.”

I bit my lip and looked over at the bathroom door. If
I yelled for him, Peter would rush out and stop Ezra. But Ezra had
never given me any reason to doubt him. And I had to think about
more than just Ezra, Peter, and myself. We had a family back at
home that could be hurt if we didn’t put a stop to this.

“Hurry. And be careful.”

“I will.” Ezra smiled wanly at me. “I’ll be back as
soon as I can. But you both need to stay here until I get back.
Understood?”

I nodded, and he disappeared out the door. I stood in
the middle of the hotel room with the comforter wrapped around me,
wondering if I did the right thing letting him go.

When I heard the water shut off in the bathroom, I
winced. Peter came out of the bathroom, shirtless, and I tried not
to be wowed by the perfection of it. He wore drawstring sweats that
were a little too big and ran a towel through his long tangles of
dark hair. As soon as he looked over at me, still standing in the
middle of the room, he knew.

“He left?” Peter growled.

“He said everything’s going to be fine.”

“Bullshit.” He tossed the towel aside and searched
for a shirt.

“Okay, Peter, you can’t go!”

“Watch me,” he said as he tore through one of Ezra’s
dresser drawers.

I put my hand on his arm, attempting to physically
stop him. Some part of me still expected that electrical jolt I
always got from touching him, and when there wasn’t one, I felt
oddly lacking. His skin still felt warm and soft under my hand, but
it was nothing spectacular.

“Alice.” Peter rolled his shoulder and pushed my hand
off.

“You can’t go,” I repeated and let my hand fall to my
side.

“You keep saying that but you’re not telling me
why.”

“Because of me!” I shouted randomly.

It got his attention, which is all I really wanted.
He held a shirt in his hands, but instead of putting it on, he
turned back to me. The shower, along with eating and sleeping, had
done wonders for him. He hadn’t shaved yet, but he actually looked
really good.

“What do you have to do with anything?” Peter eyed me
dubiously.

“If you go, they will kill him to
spite you,” I said as calmly as I could. “But by himself, he has a
shot at reasoning with them. This is the
only
chance we have of all three of
us getting home alive. But if you go after him, we’re all dead, and
you know it.”

“But if they kill him, and I do nothing-”

“If that happens, we’ll do something,” I cut him off,
ending that train of thought. “Okay? But we have to believe he can
do this.”

Peter scoffed and sat back on the bed, tucking his
hair behind his ear. Unsure of what else to do, I leaned back
against the dresser and watched him. I was afraid that if I did or
said the wrong thing, I would accidentally change his mind, and
he’d rush out the door after Ezra.

“It’s ridiculous how much influence you still have
over me,” Peter muttered.

“What are you talking about?”“I shouldn’t even be
listening to you!” He said it like it should be incredibly obvious,
and he wouldn’t look at me.

“Yeah, you should. Cause I’m right.”

I wasn’t sure what he was insinuating, but it made me
feel strange inside. Like somehow after all of this, broken blood
and all, he managed to have feelings for me. And somehow, that
seemed to matter to me, when it most definitely should not.

“Maybe.” Abruptly he pulled on the tee shirt and
stood up. “I should go after him.”

“What? Why?” I asked. “

“I don’t know!” He sounded exasperated and rubbed his
temples. “It just doesn’t feel right! Sitting here, with you, while
he’s out there.”

“I agree with your sentiments, except for that random
dig at me,” I said.

“Oh, come on, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant
that I should be out there, with Ezra!”

“And not sitting around acting like me,” I finished
for him.

“Being impossible doesn’t make me want to be around
you more,” he said, casting me a look.

“Who says I want you to be around me?”

“Why are you here?” Peter asked honestly, looking at
me.

“Um, well…” I stammered. “Ezra told us that you were
in trouble, and um… I offered to go with.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you’re here,” he said,
sitting back on the bed.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You can’t still care about me.”

“Of course I do. Not like before, but I still care,”
I said. Then I floundered, feeling embarrassed. “I mean, don’t you?
Like… a little bit?”

“I don’t know that we were ever truly bonded anyway,”
Peter answered brusquely, ignoring my question entirely.

It was such a ridiculous statement, like saying that
the sky was purple, I didn’t even know how to argue with it. There
was no other way to describe what we had gone through together, and
he knew it.

“Why did you come out here then?” I asked.

“I like Finland.”

“Yeah, right.” The blanket slipped off my shoulder,
and I readjusted it. “You came out here to join a crazed pack of
vampires cause you like Finland? That sounds a lot more like you
were trying to get yourself killed.”

“Why would I wanna do that? Over
you?” He stood up quickly, smirking down at me. “That’s what you
think, right? That I couldn’t possibly live without
you
? That’s a little bit
of an ego trip you’re on, isn’t it?”

“Well… no… that’s not what…” I stammered out some
kind of response, then I straightened my shoulders. “After you lost
Elise you almost-”

“Don’t talk to me about Elise!”

“Peter, I am just trying to help you! I don’t know
why you’re so angry with me for that,” I said.

“This is you helping?” Peter laughed darkly.

“How do you want me to help? What do you want me to
do?” I shouted at him, frustrated.

“I want you to-” He looked pained and surprisingly
vulnerable, but he stopped and shook his head. His face fell, and
he sat heavily back on the bed. “I don’t want anything from you.
Not anymore.”

- 9 –

On the night stand, my phone started ringing. The
tone was familiar to both of us, and Peter eyed up my phone with
disgust. It was Jack calling, and since I didn’t really have
anything helpful to tell him, I didn’t want to answer.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Peter asked.

“Not right now. I’m busy.”

“Doesn’t he have you on some kind of string?” he
asked pointedly after the ringing stopped.

“You mean like you did?” I gave him a harsh look, but
he stared back at me, unaffected.

“Yeah, I do,” he nodded. “If I had called you before,
you would’ve answered no matter what you were doing. It just seems
odd to me that if you’re bonded-”

“That I’m capable of still thinking for myself?” I
raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I still can. And I did with you too,
otherwise I never would’ve been able to be with Jack.” His eyes
flashed hard again. “But I thought you said we weren’t really
bonded anyway.”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Why did you come here?” I asked gently, attempting
to really talk to him. “If it wasn’t because of what happened-”

“Of course it was because of what happened,” he
sighed. “Of course it was because of you.” He looked back up at me,
his eyes uncertain and exposed. “Is that what you want to
hear?”

“I don’t want anything from you except the
truth.”

“Everything with you has always been so complicated.”
Peter ran a hand through his dark hair, which looked amazingly
silky after the shower.

He chewed his lip and stared off at my empty bed. He
would’ve said more if my phone hadn’t started ringing again, and I
had to do something about it. If Jack called repeatedly in a short
time, that meant that he wants something. Or that something was
wrong. Either way, I didn’t feel right about just letting it
ring.

“I should get that.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Peter said, but his
expression had gone stony.

I had barely even hit the answer button when I heard
Jack yelling anxiously, “What the hell have you been doing, Alice?
Are you okay? What’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you for
days!”

“I’ve been busy, Jack.” I tried to sound irritated.
My heart ached for him, but with Peter sitting on the bed behind
me, I didn’t want to show it. “We’ve been looking for Peter.
Remember?”

“Why can’t you call? Or answer a text message? Or let
me know that you’re still alive?” Jack demanded.

“I’m sorry.” I swallowed back tears, and Peter got up
off the bed. “Where are you going?”

“What? I’m not going anywhere?” Jack was bewildered
on the phone.

“No, not you,” I told him and nodded at Peter. “What
are you doing?”

“Going to the bathroom. Is that okay with you?” Peter
tried to make a joke, but I could tell that he was distressed.

“Yeah. Just don’t leave the room, okay?” I didn’t
really trust him not to sneak away.

“Whatever you say.” Peter saluted me, then went into
the bathroom. A few seconds later, I heard the water running,
drowning out the sound of me talking to Jack.

“Who is that?” Jack’s voice had gotten icy, so he
knew exactly who it was.

“Peter.” I sat down on the bed, thankful for the bit
of privacy.

“You found him?” Jack shouted incredulously. “Why
didn’t you tell me? Why are you still there? When are you coming
home? Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”