The Ballad of Aramei (25 page)

She reaches impassively into the Chex Mix again and pops another piece in her mouth.

I just wince and grab Camilla’s hand without knowing it’s her hand at first.

Rachel’s smirking face becomes much more heated; both sides of her nostrils flare up as she presses her lips together tightly.

I catch a confident smile in Alex’s eyes and then I hear
crunch
,
crunch
as she happily chews. A few seconds pass and when Rachel hasn’t decided on what to say, Alex swallows and looks up at her, cocking her head to one side. “Do you like watching me eat?” She bats her eyes.

Rachel slams her palms down on the coffee table, leaning over and glaring at Alex, eye-level. “You have no idea who you’re screwing with,” she growls.

Alex leans toward her, boldly, “Neither. Do. You.”

They’re practically face-to-face, their noses only a few inches apart. When it looks like a draw, they both pull away at the same time, neither of them letting the other believe they are the slightest bit intimidated. Rachel stands up straight again and crosses her arms. Two of her six friends step up behind her as if to have her back, but she throws up her hand in a harsh gesture, telling them to back off.

They step away with their figurative tails between their legs.

“So, rumor is you were infected by a Vargas bastard, too,” Alex says injecting a tiny bit of mock laughter. She continues to eat, appearing more interested in her food than in Rachel.

“Yeah,” Rachel says and her hip pops to one side. “So what if I was?” She gets a chance to inject laughter now and a devious grin tugs one corner of her lips. “Don’t think for a second that means we’re related in any way.”

Alex stops chewing and finally looks up at her with that oh-hell-no look on her face. “Yeah, you don’t have to worry about that. Trust me. I’d slit my wrists before I considered a blood relation to you.”

“I can help you with that,” Rachel says, sneering.

I’m really getting tired of this back and forth, but Isaac insists I stay put and maybe he’s onto something. Camilla is pressed so closely behind us now I feel her breath on my shoulder. I glance back once at her and she sort of smile-grimaces and whispers, “Sorry,” before pulling away just a little. Really, she wasn’t bothering me, but that’s just Camilla.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of Nathan and Daisy standing in the hallway on the opposite side of the den. Daisy looks as worried as I know I do, but Nathan looks thoroughly excited.

I just roll my eyes.

“So who was it?” Rachel says, suddenly showing a tiny bit of curiosity without letting down her wall of hatred. “That infected
you
?”

Alex crunches away a few last bites, brushes her hands together to wipe away any leftover crumbs and then she leans her back casually into the couch. She goes to cross her legs, but forgets the chain around her ankles and tries again more strategically.

Nathan’s grin is getting bigger and bigger. Daisy notices and she elbows him in the ribs.

Alex looks up at Rachel, purses her lips and says, “Why do you care?”

Rachel sneers. “I don’t care, you stupid rogue
freak
. It was just a question.”

Alex jumps to her feet and the coffee table is sent flying across the room as she shoves it away to clear the barrier between her and Rachel.

Camilla yelps behind me and grabs onto my bicep, practically digging her fingernails into my skin. But I barely notice; I push past Isaac and step into the full light of the den with Isaac at my side.

Alex and Rachel stand toe-to-toe, black claws at the ready down by their sides, eyes like black, endless pools of rage.

Nathan is like a little boy in the bathroom with a Sports Illustrated magazine.

“Isaac, do some—”

“I thought this pack knew all about what went on in the Vargas family?” Alex growls, the tiny black veins rising to the surface of her skin all around her eyes and cheeks.

Rachel moves in so close that they could kiss if they didn’t hate each other so much. “I only care about what goes on with them when they threaten us
here
.” She looks Alex over quickly, her dark eyes flashing for a brief, detestable moment. “Like why you’re here and why I caught you sneaking around. I don’t waste any energy on your kind outside of our pack!”

“Wow,” Alex says, sneering, “he must’ve really screwed you over, huh?”

Oh great…that tone of hers was a taunt if I’ve never heard one.

Rachel’s entire face flares up; her lips twist open, revealing her teeth and a series of raging lines deepen around her mouth and nose. “
He
?” she rips the word out. “What makes you think it was a guy?”

Alex laughs a little and her smirk grows.

“It’s obvious. Whoever infected you only wanted you long enough to get his rocks off. Maybe you were infertile. Or, maybe he just got tired of the missionary position—”

Rachel jumps on Alex and pins her to the couch; her claws tight around Alex’s throat.

Alex is unaffected. She’s smiling up at Rachel’s angry face. Smiling!

Oh no…this can’t happen.

Isaac, me, Nathan and Daisy all rush the rest of the way into the den to surround them. Isaac starts to reach for Rachel to pull her off Alex, but stops abruptly.

“It was Ashe,” Alex says and Rachel freezes on top of her, stunned.

“
Ashe
?” Rachel looks like she just got hit in the back of the head with a rock.

“Mind getting off of me?” Alex says sarcastically. “I’m not into girls.”

Rachel does move off her, but not because Alex asked her to; it’s as if she’s trying to get her head together.

It’s already obvious to all of us that Ashe was who sired Rachel, too, before she even admits it aloud.

And Alex is the first to bring it out in the open.

“Yeah,” she says, pretending to dust herself off once Rachel has moved away, “he mentioned you a few times. Said you were one crazy bitch.” She looks her over. “I see he was right,” she adds casually.

Rachel finally pulls her stupefied thoughts together and looks downward at Alex, but she doesn’t say anything. Something different is taking place between them and I’m not sure I’m believing what I’m seeing.

Alex goes on, “But really, Ashe has no room to talk about someone else being crazy. He should be in a nut house…without nuts.”

“He did the same to you?” Rachel says.

Nathan throws his hands up in the air, his dreams crushed, and Daisy laughs under her breath as he leaves back down the hallway.

Isaac looks back at me, takes me by the hand and we quietly move back toward the hall leading into the kitchen.

“What just happened?” Camilla says still standing at the den entrance where we left her.

“I’m going to eat my sandwich,” Isaac says. He leans over and pecks me on the lips. “I think Rachel just solved our babysitting problems, babe.”

I nod absently, still not quite believing how things just happened. “I think you’re right….”

Isaac slips back down the hall and into the kitchen.

“…You’re frickin’ serious?” I hear Rachel say as I listen in on the middle of a conversation. “Well, I totally believe it. The second that Lyla girl joined the pack, I was last week’s news. Stupid blond whore.” Rachel’s nostril’s flare again.

“
Lyla
?” Alex laughs. “Well, I guess you can say she got what was coming in the cycle of paybacks because when Ashe sired me,
she
was last week’s news.”

Rachel smiles first before bursting into laughter.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rachel actually smile. At least not in the happy, spirited sense.

It’s kind of freaking me out.

Camilla and I look at one another simultaneously, both a little baffled.

“Come on,” Rachel says with the nod of her head, “I’ll show you my room.”

As Alex walks in short, confined steps with Rachel toward the staircase, she looks back at me and winks before heading upstairs.

A smile breaks in my face and I just shake my head. Alex always was as slick as oil, but in this situation, I couldn’t be more impressed. Not only did she refrain from all-out war with Rachel right there in the den, but she just became Rachel’s new best friend all in a matter of a few minutes.

~~~

After thinking on it for a while, I decide to head upstairs to talk to Zia. I stand outside her bedroom door and knock a few times, knowing she’s inside because I hear her talking plain as day. It’s when her voice stops abruptly and then rises even higher that I realize she knows full well that I’m out here, but she’s not ready to talk to me. My shoulders fall over in a slump and I start to walk back down the hall when I hear her door click open.

Sebastian steps out and closes the door behind him.

“She hates me, doesn’t she?”

“Nah,” he says, shaking his shaved head. “She’ll get over it.”

I sigh and lean my back against the wall. The red-haired girl who apparently
used
to be Rachel’s number one sidekick shuffles past, smiling at me. Positions in Rachel’s little clique are shifting fast with Alex here; already Rachel’s ‘old’ friends are looking for sides to change loyalties to. I smile back faintly as she slips down the stairs, hoping not to give her any hopes. I really want no part of that.

“I want to tell Zia everything,” I say to Sebastian as he leans against the opposite wall, crossing his arms, “but I can’t. Like
really
can’t. I have no control over it. I wish she understood.”

“Between you and me,” Sebastian says quietly, looking back once toward Zia’s door, “Zia is dealing with a lot of rejection lately.”

“Rejection?”

“Yeah,” he says, “even her brothers have pretty much blown her off and she never sees them anymore. They’re too busy doing their own things, y’know?”

Zia’s brothers, Damien and Dwarf, are rarely ever at the Mayfair house anymore. I haven’t seen much of them since Seth’s going-away ceremony the day Nataša was here and I fainted in front of her. And even before then, it was like they had moved out of here and only stopped by on occasion. New girlfriends are to blame. But I admit that I kind of miss Damien’s dark natured playful attitude and Dwarf’s big mouth.

“I wish she would talk to me.”

“Just give her time to cool off,” Sebastian says. “It’s really not about you, so don’t put too much into it.”

He looks towards the door once more and moves over closer to me and whispers, “What is this thing you guys are looking for anyway?”

I pause, suddenly untrusting of him, or just being paranoid again.

“A Praverian,” I say. “Like Genna who had been following me. And Malachi, the one I met when we were all in Portland last month.”

Sebastian nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“Why do you ask?”

He shrugs. “Just looking for something to tell Zia when I go back in there.” He smiles and runs the palm of his hand across his bald head. “I hope it grows back soon.”

“Seriously?” I say, looking surprised. I’m glad the topic has shifted. “It’s a good look for you, like I said before.”

Sebastian crinkles his nose a bit. “It makes me feel naked—Well, I better get back in there with the…,” he holds up his fingers in quotations, “…
info
, before Zia has my head.”

“Ah, so she sent you out here?”

The right side of his mouth lifts into a confirmation, “Yeah.” Then he leans in and adds quietly, “So if you could help me out with a little more than what she already knows, that’d kick ass.” He leans away, grinning.

“Hmmm…,” I purse my lips and mull it over for a moment, “well, you can tell her that I wouldn’t tell you jack because I’d tell Zia before I ever told you.”

His grin gets bigger. “Very smart,” he says, nodding.

And then he disappears back inside Zia’s room.

I want to go see my sister, but I think I’m going to give her and Rachel time to hang out and get to know each other. It’s important for both of them, I think. They technically are the outcasts here, if I think about it. Both of them of the Vargas bloodline. Both of them pretty much rogue, but strong enough not to give into rogue behavior completely. Now I actually feel bad for Rachel, realizing that she’s been the way she is because she can’t help it. But she’s never done anything to lose the Mayfair’s trust; in fact, she attacked and beat Alex because she thought Alex was a threat to us.

As much as I want to catch up with Alex and do all of the things two long lost siblings might naturally do after being reunited, I know that Alex fitting in is important right now. But more than that, I’m still not sure she can be trusted and I’m not going to jump into anything with her too soon. I need to feel her out. We need to trap the traitor. There are several things that need to happen before I can commit my heart fully to my sister again.

And Aramei is one of them.

Chapter 19

Balkan Mountains – Eastern Serbia – Winter 1761

FIRES HAVE BEEN BURNING on the horizon for six days; plumes of smoke spiraling into the heavily overcast sky. And at night, the fires are more frightening as the flames lick the black sky all over the mountainside and throughout the vast valley and beyond. A war is spreading. It’s drawing closer to Aramei’s village and everyday life here has all but come to a halt. The people have boarded up their homes and stables. Families sit huddled around a low, inadequate fire for fear of too much smoke rising from their chimneys and drawing attention. “Maybe it’ll pass us up and head west,” a man said during the village meeting earlier this morning.

But none of the villagers believes that. Aramei doesn’t believe it. She knows more than anyone about what is coming and although she doesn’t truly understand the extreme of it, she still knows more than they do. She’s afraid to tell anyone about Viktor. She committed murder and if they knew, she would be ripped from her family and hanged. But this hasn’t stopped her from doing everything in her power to convince the people of her village to prepare. It was because of her they decided to board up early rather than later. She had told her father how afraid the fires on the horizon had made her and begged him to call a meeting in the village.