Vengeance (Private 14)

By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was out of breath, both from exertion and nerves. What was I doing following a guy who had done nothing but glare at me and piss off my boyfriend for the past few weeks? But I couldn’t take it anymore. Down in St. Barths when we had first met, I had really liked Graham. He’d been so down-to-earth and funny and friendly. And I’d thought he’d liked me too. What had made him change so drastically in just a few short months?

I heard some books being slammed around somewhere to my right, and started searching. I found Graham in the third row and crossed my arms over my chest. He saw me from the corner of his eye and scoffed.

“What?” he blurted.

“Like you don’t know,” I whispered, walking toward him. “Graham, what the hell is going on with you lately?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. He pushed over a book at the end of a shelf, dominoing all the others over in the process. Lifting his shoulders, he turned his palms toward me and moved to the next section. “I just can’t stand that guy.”

“Josh,” I said. “You can’t stand Josh.”

“Bingo!” he said, his eyes lighting up with sarcasm.

“Graham, this makes no sense,” I said, leaning back against the shelf as he shoved some hardcover books back and forth into one another. “You guys used to be friends.”

“He doesn’t understand the concept,” he snapped.

“I know he had a history with your sister—”

Graham snorted and turned away from me, crossing to the other side of the aisle.

“But what are you going to do? Walk around being pissed at every guy she ever dated? Everyone who upset her in her life?” I asked.

One of the librarians walked past slowly, shooting us a silencing glare. Graham stopped messing with the books and finally turned to face me.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” he said, shoving his hands under his arms, bunching up his striped cotton sweater in the process. “That guy is not stable, Reed.”

My face burned, offended. “I know he’s manic-depressive,” I informed him. “That’s old news. And as long as he takes his meds, he’s fine.”

“Yeah. You keep telling yourself that,” Graham said sarcastically. He reached out and picked at a sticker on one of the shelves, an old label reading BRA–BRE.

My heart slammed against my rib cage and all of a sudden I was back in Mitchell Hall on the night Josh had been arrested on suspicion of Thomas’s murder. He’d been so scared, so manic, so not himself. He’d gone off his medication without consulting his doctor, and he’d been acting odd for such a long time I had even started to suspect him myself. Was this why he’d been acting all shifty and forgetful lately? Had he gone off his meds again?

Graham watched me closely, almost like he could tell what I was thinking. I lifted my chin in defiance.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” I told him. “I know Josh. I know he’s a good person.”

“Oh my God, Reed! Can you just think about it for five seconds?” he blurted, stepping closer to me. “His roommate at our old school killed himself. Then my sister, his girlfriend, killed herself. Do you really think that’s a coincidence?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “I do.”

Graham shook his head slightly, looking me in the eye as if he felt sorry for me. “I like you, Reed. I really do. And my brother . . . he’s, like, beyond in love with you.”

I felt a warm and prickly sensation around my heart and averted my eyes. I knew how Sawyer felt about me, but that didn’t mean I was comfortable with his brother saying it aloud.

“And it just makes me sick that you would choose a liar and a psycho like Josh Hollis over a good, honest guy like Sawyer.”

My jaw dropped.

“Is that what this is all about?” I demanded. “Are you trying to play matchmaker here? Because you’ve picked a sick and twisted way to do it.”

Graham blinked, then backed away. It was almost as if my words had just woken him up from some kind of crazy dream.

“No,” he said, knocking his fists together as he stepped backward. “No. It’s just . . . we just don’t want you to end up like our sister, that’s all. I’d hate to see that happen to you, Reed. I really would.”

I swallowed hard, my heart lodged somewhere between my breastplate and my voice box. Why did that sound more like a threat than an expression of concern? And what the hell did he mean by calling Josh a liar, anyway? I knew about Josh’s medical history, his meds, his therapy.

“Just think about it, okay?” Graham implored as he reached the end of the stacks. “That’s all I ask.”