He lost his father and twin brother.
With a disgusted snort, he spins around and then exits the room. Mom blows out a breath, eyes glassy with tears, and scratches Bruno behind the ear.
I don’t like how rude Dominic is to Mom when all she’s done is give him a home and stability after his father died. She didn’t have to do that. Dominic isn’t her son, but she refuses to drop him because he is the son of the man she loves and has no other family. Responsibility runs deeper than death.
As silence settles over the house for a moment, it dawns on me how cold it is—much colder than outside. I rub my arms to ward off the chill, suppressing another shiver when something shifts in my periphery.
A darting shadow.
There and gone.
A trick of the eye.
“Let’s explore upstairs,” Mom says as she moves past me.
It takes me a long time to haul my suitcase up the warped stairs. Dominic is nowhere around to help, but as I near the top, rock music blasts from one of the bedrooms.
“You okay?” Mom asks, out of breath, a small smile gracing her lips. “We know to pack lighter for next time.”
Huffing a laugh, I head toward the sound of music.
“That’s your bedroom, I think,” Mom says, pointing out the one across from Dominic’s.
She takes a right and walks down the opposite hallway, and I roll my eyes, seeing it for what it is. She wants me to stay close to Dominic, hoping we will finally learn to get along.
It won’t happen any time soon.
Dominic has hated me from day one.
At first, because he didn’t want our parents to marry, and now because he blames me for the car crash that took his dad.
My chest tightens, but I shake off the thoughts and push open the bedroom door.
The room is small and has a double bed covered in a white sheet to keep the dust off, a wooden desk, a chair, and a large mahogany wardrobe. Torn curtains in a shade of deep green frame the large, cloudy windows overlooking the forest at the back of the property. I step up to the window seat and inhale the scent of musty upholstery and stale air. Outside, thick clouds roll in to suffocate the natural sunlight as a subtle breeze moves through the naked trees.
I wonder what I look like to an outsider as I stare out from the bedroom window, like a haunted silhouette?—
The floorboards creak behind me, and I whirl around to see Dominic leaning against the doorframe, ankles and arms crossed. His gaze falls down my body and then back up just as fast before he pushes off and leaves the room.
I try to swallow even as my dry throat constricts, hating how suffocated I feel around him. How he unnerves me with his heated looks of hatred and rage, as though he wants to peel the skin off my bones and feed me to the dog.
My gaze drifts back to the window and the thicket of trees outside. Something about the woods calls to me, urging me to explore, to disappear into its depths, to get lost.
Turning my back on the windows, I unpack my suitcase and put my clothes away. I don’t own much, and the rest of our belongings are in storage for now, so it doesn’t take long.
As long as I have the precious, tattered copy ofWuthering Heightsthat my grandma gifted me before she passed away, I’m fine.
Deciding to leave my room to help Mom clean up, I enter the hallway but stop short. Dominic’s door is open.
I shouldn’t invade his privacy. More importantly, I shouldn’t be this curious about him.
Glancing left and right, I worry my bottom lip. Then I cross the hallway and enter his room, careful not to let the noisy floorboards announce my presence.
His space is much larger than mine, with a four-poster king-size bed framed by heavy curtains, like something from medieval times.
Something for royalty.
I turn in a slow circle as I sweep my gaze over the chest of drawers, a mahogany desk—similar to the one in my room,stacked with a pile of his Vinyls—an armoire, and a large armchair by the window.
