I cried quietly, their voices dulled now, but I could still pick up pieces.

“Oh, God,” my father groaned. “Yeah.”

I shrunk.

“Get off of me,” my mom demanded. “No!”

“Uh, come on.” My dad’s voice sounded labored. “I’ve still got her all over my dick. Your cunt will smell like hers. Sweet, like honey.”

I brought my hand up to cover the sobs escaping, and that’s when he brought me into his chest, still holding his hand over one ear, but pressing the other into his heart.

I breathed through my hand, and even though I wanted out of here, and I didn’t give a damn if they knew I’d heard them, I was afraid of the consequences. Since my father hadn’t actually wanted to bring me home from Montreal, he wouldn’t need a good excuse to send me back.

So I stayed in here, the boy’s heartbeat drumming in my ear, and after a few moments, everything had calmed. My tears stopped, my breathing got slower and more steady, and I couldn’t hear my parents anymore.

Just his heart, pumping heavy and fast and in a constant, perfect pace like a metronome, unchanging.

At some point I dropped my hand from my mouth, my arms hanging limply at my sides, but he never let me go. And the beating in his chest lulled me until my eyes grew too heavy to keep open anymore.

Exhaustion took over, and before I knew it, I was lost in it.

In his warmth. In his arms. In the thunder of his heartbeat.

The next morning, I woke up, slowly blinking my eyes awake and my body feeling like it weighed a ton.

Why did—?

But then my eyes popped open wide, and I shot up in bed, remembering last night.

“Hello?” I called out. “Is there anyone there?”

There was no answer, and I reached over, hitting my alarm clock.

“Nine-thirty a.m.,” the clock said.

It was morning. Late morning. I never slept this late.

I plastered my hands to my body, inventorying my clothes. I still wore my jeans and tank top, and I still had on my bra and my ballet slippers.

I darted my hand to my jeans zipper, wincing just in case.

But my jeans were buttoned and zipped, and my body, although tired, felt fine. I didn’t think he’d touched me. At least not in that way.

Throwing off my covers, I swung my legs over the side and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. How did I get in bed? I wasn’t sure which was the least mortifying option. Actually falling asleep after he’d scared me half to death and then him putting me to bed or my parents finding me passed out in the closet and discovering I’d been there the whole time. And them putting me to bed. I almost didn’t want to leave the room to find out the answer.

But I needed to face the music.

Standing up, I walked alongside my bed, toward the door, but I accidently kicked something in my way and stopped.

I held out my hands, finding a cardboard box.

No, actually… Two cardboard boxes, stacked on top of each other.

I opened the top one and reached hesitantly inside, feeling wood, ceramic, glass, and clay. There were miniature trees, glitter-capped roofs, and models of houses, buildings, and a clock tower.

Then my hand knocked a model, and Carol of the Bells began playing, and I knew it was the ice rink adorned with little trees and ice skaters.

I almost smiled. It was the Christmas village. Two boxes of components.

How did…

Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and I heard my mother call down to Arion, sounding completely different than she did last night. I veered around the boxes and opened the door, peeking my head out.

“Ari, is that you?”

“I’m getting my shower,” she said as she passed me.

“Did you get the snow village for me?” I inquired. I wanted to thank her if she did.

But she just barked back at me. “I said ask Mom. I have no idea where it is.”

Okay. Wasn’t her then. I ducked back into my room, scratching my head.

What the hell was going on?

“Hey, sweetie,” my mom greeted, entering my room. “Did you have a good night?”

Jesus, no. My mind flashed to what I’d heard with her and my dad—how they both sounded like they were killing each other. God, the things my father said…

Growing up, I remembered them fighting, but I’d been gone a long time, it seemed.

“Are…are you okay?” I asked hesitantly as she moved about my room, probably making my bed, because she still thought I needed help. “Last night, I mean. I thought I heard—”

“Oh, did Ari get the village for you?” She cut me off. “That was nice of her. See, she does love you.”

She pinched my chin, teasing me, and I jerked a little, not in the mood.

“Get dressed,” she told me. “We have brunch in an hour.”

She left the room as quickly as she’d come in, and I gathered she didn’t want to know how much I’d heard last night.

But she didn’t seem to know I was in the closet, at least. Thank goodness for that.

And Ari was acting completely normal. For Ari anyway.

Neither of them were responsible for the Christmas village in my room, either.

“What the hell?” I thought out loud, knitting my brow. “What the hell was that last night?”

Was it just some elaborate prank? Why would he threaten and scare me the way he did and then…and then shield me when my parents started fighting? He protected me and put me to bed and somehow knew I wanted the Christmas village that my sister wouldn’t get for me.

I knew I should tell my parents about what happened, but...

I don’t know. It could’ve been just a prank, right?

If I told them, it could get me sent back to Montreal where I was “safer and in my own element” like my father wanted. I really didn’t want to bring any drama to his attention, because I’d be the one to get punished.

No. The boy didn’t hurt me. Not yet, anyway.

In fact, he was kind of an angel at the end. An angel with really black batwings.

Psycho.

Damon

Present

“So this is Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Japan,” I said, walking into Banks’ classroom. “Part One.”

I added the last part sarcastically, unsure as to why this class needed to exist in the first place, much less needed more than one part to it.

My sister turned her head, locking eyes on me over her shoulder. Slowly, she dropped her pen and twisted in her seat, a cautious but faint smile on her lips at seeing me. The ‘I love him, but should I be worried he’s here?’ variety.

“Your course list is like a plate filled with every single food I refused to eat as a kid,” I told her.

“I like my course list.”

And then she broke into a full smile, and my heart skipped a beat. It was the same smile she gave me when we would do all the childish shit my friends were too cool to do with me in high school.

Sneaking into movies without paying.

Playing tag in the rain in the maze.

Midnight drives way over the speed limit on a school night, because we just needed to get out of the house.

She smiled less the older we got, but just now, it came so easily. I could tell already. She was different.

I descended the steps slowly, one at a time, the auditorium having emptied a few minutes earlier after her class was over. She always stayed, though, and graded the pop quizzes after every lesson for the professor.

Quite the little student now.

“It’s a lot of politics, history, and sociology,” I remarked on her course list. “Why those classes?”

She shrugged and dropped her eyes, looking thoughtful as she glanced back at the papers at her seat. She’d done most of my homework in high school, and it was always well above passing, so I knew she was smart and a quick learner. It gave me pause to hear she was in college, though. It never occurred to me she enjoyed it.

“The world was small growing up,” she finally answered, looking up at me again. “Now, everything I learn makes it bigger. I want to know everything. Every person who walked before me. Every war fought. Every culture that breathes the same air. I can’t explain it, I just…”

“You just did.” I stopped a few steps up, aggravated even though I didn’t want to be. I knew she meant me. Even though she didn’t come to live at my house until she was twelve, I was part of the reason her world was so small growing up. I wanted her to be happy, but I hadn’t outgrown that possessiveness. I still had a hard time being happy that she was happy, when the reason she was happy wasn’t because of me.

And this—I looked around the room—it was one more thing taking her away from me. The bigger her world became, the farther away from me she got, and out of any emotion that I avoided, I hated loss the most.

“I’m glad you’re in school,” I told her. “I never imagined you like this. But it suits you.”

She was beautiful.

And bright. Her dark brown hair hung down her back in loose curls, her jeans and short-sleeved black blouse fit a lot better than my clothes ever did, she wore lipstick and mascara, and the light caught the small ruby encrusted with diamonds on her left hand. Kai must’ve gotten her a proper ring after their quick nuptials.

Fucking Kai. He’d clearly treated her how she deserved.

But was she his now? Truly?

I sighed, looking around. “I hated college.”

“You hated being away from your family,” she corrected. “And I don’t mean Gabriel and me.”

I clenched my jaw. Yeah.

The year and two months I spent at college sucked, and even now, I look back on it as though time had been suspended as I existed without Michael, Will, and Kai.

And her.

“You were the only loner I knew who hated being alone,” she mused, gathering up her books and papers.

“So what will you do?” I asked, changing the subject. “With your education, I mean?”

“She’s already doing it.” A voice trailed down from the top of the stairs, and I glanced over my shoulder enough to see a skinny body with brown hair trot down.