The Ballad of Aramei (The Darkwoods Trilogy 3)

Alex glances over at the casual lounge pants and random Sailor Moon t-shirt Camilla gave me, sitting on the counter.

“Are those my pants?” she says, leaning up to peer over and get a better view.

“Uh, yeah I think they are, actually.”

We smile at one another for one more moment and I shut the bathroom door softly behind me.

Chapter 18

IT TAKES ALL OF the time Alex spent alone in the bathroom, and then some, for Isaac and me to decide that neither of us knows where Alex is going to sleep. Or, who’s going to babysit her while I’m babysitting Aramei. I can’t take her with me. Trajan will have her head on a pike.

I never anticipated that these sorts of petty things would be harder to figure out than more obvious things like whether to send her away or keep her chained in the basement. I thought that Isaac’s solution with the new shackles was the worst of it.

“I can stay with her,” I say.

Isaac and I are downstairs in the hideously yellow kitchen while he makes a sandwich. I spin around on the bar chair to see him as he moves over to the cabinet beside the fridge.

“No way in hell I’m leaving you alone with her like that,” he says as he rummages through the cabinet. “She could cut your throat in your sleep.”

“What if we make her a pallet on your bedroom floor?” I say, slouching my shoulders as a defeated breath drains right out of me.

He leans up with an unopened bottle of mustard clutched in his hand and looks at me like I’ve just said something dumb. He walks over to his foot-long sandwich on the counter and sets the mustard down.

I crinkle my nose up at it. I hate mustard.

“I know,” I say with a long, deep sigh, “but I really don’t want to put her back in the basement like a prisoner. Maybe if it didn’t stink down there and mold wasn’t growing on the walls, it’d be okay.”

Isaac pops the lid on the mustard and squeezes a sloppy line down the length of his sandwich with the mayonnaise and about a hundred random other things he put on it before. Then he puts the mustard away in the fridge.

“Want half?” he says, folding the top bun over onto the mound of meat and condiments.

“You know I don’t like mustard.”

His shoulders fall and he looks down at the sandwich briefly. “Sorry, babe. I forgot.”

“I’m not hungry, anyway,” I say, gazing off toward the kitchen entrance where on the other side of the wall, Alex sits in the den with shackles on her ankles and wrists. “I can’t eat with what’s going on.” My voice is distant.

Camilla runs into the kitchen, staring across at us with wide almond-shaped eyes. She turns her head to gesture toward the den and her long, silky ponytail swishes around when she looks back at us, restlessly. “You might want to get in there,” she says, pressing her hands on the doorjamb.

My heart sinks and I jump off the barstool faster than Isaac can get around the counter. Camilla moves to the side so that we can push out ahead of her, but then just before we get to the den entrance, Isaac moves me behind him and we stop. “Just wait,” he says.

Slowly we come around the corner to peer into the den, but we stay out of sight without putting any effort into actually hiding.

“Go ahead,” Alex says looking up at Rachel from the couch, “show everybody how you can win a fight with a girl in chains—you’ve already proven how you can win a fight after six other bitches hold me down first.”

Rachel snarls and her head sways gently around in a grinning, snide motion.

Alex reaches into a bowl of Chex Mix I had given her, sitting on the edge of the coffee table. She looks absolutely unafraid of Rachel, even makes it a point not to look directly at her much as if to show just how worried she is that Rachel is standing there. Zero worried. I’m a different story. My palms are sweating.

“Isaac—”

He reaches back and gently touches my wrist, “I won’t let it go too far,” he whispers, still keeping his eyes on Rachel and Alex.

“Well it’s not right that Adria’s sister is chained up,” Camilla says softly behind me and I feel her body pressing into my back as she tries to see between us.

I hear Rachel say, “You think you can just come here and be accepted because you’re Adria’s sister—wrong—It took me months to gain their trust.”

“Yeah,” Alex laughs and pops a pretzel in her mouth, “I hear you wore these same chains.” She stops chewing and brings the chains on her wrist up to her nose and sniffs. She pulls away with a mild disgusted expression. “Definitely smells like a skank wore them at some point.”

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.