Sarah follows him down the stairs and back to the kitchen, where she resumes setting the table. “I’ll get Elijah,” Caleb says, heading for the sunroom before she can tell him she saw Elijah outside.
The front door squeaks open, and she hears Elijah stomping the snow off his boots on the doormat. She goes to meet him. If she tells him she wants to leave, maybe he can convince Caleb it’s the right thing to do.
Elijah clutches a long, pale object. “I dug this up in the woods,” he says proudly.
“Elijah,no!” Caleb roars, storming down the hall.
Sarah startles, and Elijah freezes like a deer in headlights. “It’s just a branch,” he says in a small voice. He looks pathetic with his black eye and scarred lip. “All the bark got stripped off, so it looks like a bone. I thought it was cool. I wanted to show Sarah.”
Caleb sags against the staircase bannister, and the tension in Sarah’s body eases. He’s not turning into Jacob Vass. Yet. “Fuck. I’m sorry, Elijah. I didn’t mean to yell like that. I thought you were going to show her something gross. Go wash up for dinner.”
Elijah sets the branch on the side table and retreats into the downstairs bathroom to wash his hands.
Caleb gives a shaky laugh. “He’s always digging stuff up in the woods. The last time I had a girl over for dinner, he dragged in a rotting squirrel head. He was so proud of it, too. That didn’t help our reputation as the town weirdos.” He pinches the spot between his eyes. “I hate it when I yell at Elijah. But sometimes it just comes out.”
He lifts his head to meet Sarah’s gaze. “Do you ever feel like you’re becoming someone you hate?”
It’s so easy to lie. Why didn’t she figure this out before? So easy to swear that up is down and black is white. She learned from the best, after all.
Sarah smiles. “No, never.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sarah lies that night in Caleb’s arms again, him wrapped around her as if she could slip away at any moment. He doesn’t talk to her about leaving, as he’d promised, only touches her as if he can convince her to stay with the ferocity of his adoration.
This time she remembers to lock the door.
Before she falls asleep, she realizes the keys are missing from his pants, as if he’s intentionally hidden them from her.
At dawn she wakes to a dead weight slung over her body. Panic sweeps through her as she tries to struggle free. “Where do you think you’re going?” a male voice growls. A beefy arm tightens around her waist. It’s Jacob Vass, reclaiming his place in the bed.
She kicks and Caleb says, “Hey, hey, easy there,” and she remembers she’s safe. For now. Though she might as well be in bed with his father, the way the storm crashes inside him, trying to batter its way out.
“I have to pee,” she says, and he releases her, laughing, his fingers scraping her bare back as she wriggles away. Tracing the invisible target between her shoulder blades.
When she returns to bed, he kisses that spot, reminding her it can never be taken off. She shivers. Caleb’s arms constrict around her, assuming she’d shivered out of pleasure and not dread.
Sleep doesn’t return to either of them, and after a slow, unhurried tangling of breath and limbs, Caleb climbs out of bed with a grunt.
She admires the broadness of his shoulders as he stretches, the muscles shifting across his back. He doesn’t have a target there. “I have to go into town again. I need to pick up some things before the grocery store gets busy,” he says.
She sits up and pulls the quilt up under her arms. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
She bites her lip, partly from concern, partly from resentment.Hecan drive through town, and no one will shoot at him like they tried to shoot Graham. The worse they’ll do is refuse to serve him, like yesterday. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she says petulantly.
“I can ask about the garage again if you like, but they’ll still be closed.”
“Sure,” she says, hugging her knees. “Whatever.”
“Don’t be mad. Please. Can you blame me if I want you to stay a little longer?”
“You said you want me to be happy, but you don’t care about what I need.”
“That’s not true.”
“I need to get out of Sweetside. It’s not safe for me. It’s barely safe foryounow. They’re coming to the house. How long until they break your windows? Break down the door?”
