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I nod against his chest. He’s right. Shit things happen to good people all the time, and feeling sorry for ourselves isn’t going to help anything.

26

LEVI

So, he’s wormed his way back into her bedroom again.

I knew it was going to happen, and I suppose I should be happy about it. If she’s taken him back, it means she’ll be more receptive to Dov and me, too. But a protectiveness I’m unused to rises inside me. If she opens herself up to him, it means she’s giving him the power to hurt her all over again. And if Blake fucks this up for himself, he’ll be fucking it up for us, too.

I have this crazy idea that we should all be acting like one big happy family in this place, but the reality is the opposite. We’re existing as four individuals all sharing one space, and division means the possibility of one or more of us being cut out.

I find my brother in his room and fill him in on what’s happened.

“We need to be careful,” I tell Dov. “He’ll take her away from us.”

“Where could he take her?”

He asks me this question because of the fact the hotel is currently cut off and he’s taking me literally.

“Emotionally, I mean. He could take her from us emotionally.”

Dov shakes his head at me. “Since when have you been concerned about emotions, brother?”

“Hers. I’m concerned about hers.”

“And what do you suggest we do about it?”

“We need to make sure she knows she’s special.”

He stares at me blankly. “You understand that I have no idea how to do that.”

“Spend time with her. Don’t just stalk her like a fucking freak.”

His expression darkens at my choice of words. “I watch over her. I don’t stalk her. And I’m not a freak.”

“Sure, sure,” I say dismissively.

Sometimes it’s strange conversing with my brother. He’s so serious now. He used to joke about, act the clown, tease me and occasionally rough me up. Now he takes things far too literally, and I struggle to think of him as the same person as before. I know we’d have a completely different relationship if it wasn’t for the accident. Hell, he’d probably be in another city hundreds of miles from me, living his own life. Maybe he’d even have had a wife and a kid by now. He says he’s not a freak, but what else could you call him, living here, like this?

Then again, I guess that makes us all freaks.

“Have you felt it yet, Dov? The hotel?”

He holds my gaze. “No. Everything is normal.”

Does he mean that? “Really?”

“Maybe this year everything will be all right.”

“She said she saw someone on the road. Did you see anyone?”

He rises to his feet and crosses over to the window to look out at the world beyond. “Only her and the truck. The hotel might take it easy on us this year.”

Despite his size, he has a fluidity about his movements. He’d once been an excellent sportsman and had played college football. He could have gone far. A woman had fucked it all up for him. Well, Dov fighting with another guy over one. Then what happened after had brought us all here, and a woman was involved then as well. They’re trouble, I know this, and here is another one who’s set to ruin everything.

And I’m probably going to let her.

The following day, she catches me just after breakfast.