“This isn’t about Archie Monterello. Or about some little girl whose parents haven’t taken care of her.”
“And how the hell would you know what this is about?” I snap. With our bodies drawn together, I can feel the heat flowing off him, see the heartbeat pulsing in the hollow of his neck. I try to pull back but he shakes his head at me, his face a mask of blank control.
“This is about the fact that you kissed me and I got mad at you. And now you’re mad at me. And,” he adds, his voice deep and low, yet unbearably quiet, “then I disappeared for two weeks and haven’t called or come to see you.”
I try to snatch my hands back, pulling against him, but this only leads to him crushing me to his chest. I pant in two infuriated breaths, then hiss, “Like I care if you haven’t been to see me, Zeth! Like I give a fuck!”
A low sound, half hum, half growl, builds in his throat. “Of course you give a fuck.”
I scoff at that, but I don’t think I’m very successful in convincing him that he’s wrong. “So you’re telling me you do at least know you’ve been a dick, then?”
“I know you’re upset.”
I want to cover my face, but I can’t. I do the next best thing and close my eyes. Once I’ve given myself a second to breathe, I open them, fixing him with a stony gaze. “Let me go, Zeth.”
“No.”
I just can’t believe this guy. “What the hell do you want from me? You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t want to be around me, so why—”
He makes a derisive sound at the back of his throat. Couples the sound with a crooked eyebrow. “How have I made that abundantly clear?”
“I think the whole, don’t ever fucking kiss me again, thing and then vanishing for two weeks speaks for itself, don’t you? Your attitude speaks for itself.”
This whole conversation seems to be entertaining him greatly. He battles the beginnings of a smirk as he says, “I don’t have an attitude. I just have me.” This statement doesn’t makes things any better. I consider hitting him with my purse. “Ask me where I’ve been the last two weeks,” he says.
Damn him. I exhale, trying to keep my temper under wraps. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been making the necessary arrangements to go and collect your sister.”
Oh. I stop struggling a little.
Alexis.
A deep wave of grief washes over me. It’s like a small part of me has convinced itself that she’s dead and every time he says her name, it’s preparing me for the moment he returns without her. The moment when he tells me he was mistaken. That this person he’s found isn’t her at all, and that Alexis is already dead. I let the grief sink deep, back into my bones, and then say the only thing I can say, since he’s been working to help me. “Well. Thank you. I guess.”
“You’re welcome. Now ask me why I stayed away.”
I really don’t want to play this game anymore. I don’t want to feel so powerless, crushed up against him, unable to get away, either. I also don’t like how, thus far, he’s coming out of this smelling of roses. “Fine.” I fix defiant eyes on him. “Why have you stayed away?”
“I stayed away because you needed time to not feel stupid over me rejecting you.”
Whoa! What. The. Fuck? He is…he is un-fucking-believable! “You did not reject me. You’d just screwed me, asshole!”
“I know that. But you felt rejected at the time, right? If I’d come to see you two weeks ago, you still would have felt like that.”
“So you wait two weeks until I’m fucking furious at you instead?”
He shrugs. “Furious is easier to fix.”
I want to castrate the motherfucker. I want to literally kick him in the balls repeatedly until there’s no chance he’ll ever reproduce. At least that way the future of younger female generations will be safe from the possibility that there will ever be anyone as dangerously manipulative and clever as him.
He’s right. I hate that he is, but he’s right. I did feel rejected, and I would have hated to see him fourteen days ago. Urgh. I’m suddenly gripped by an extreme exhaustion that turns my limbs to lead.
“I need to go home, Zeth. I can’t do this with you right now.”
He doesn’t say another word. He releases me from his grip, keeping hold of one hand so that he can guide me through the maze of hallways on the ground floor; the ease with which he does this makes me think he knows this place. Knows it a little better than I might like. He keeps his head down at least, eyes to the floor until we reach the exit. Gracie, the head nurse on shift, gives me a wave as we leave but apart from that we aren’t stopped.
Outside, Zeth leads me away from the brightly lit area of the lot where I parked my Volvo to the far back section. The shady, dark corner of the lot where the security cameras don’t work.
“What are you doing?” I try to pull my hand free but he has a solid grip on me. “Zeth. Zeth!” He stops. Turns. When I have his attention, I ask for the information I need to know before I can go a single step farther with him. “Did you shoot that kid?”