Page 19 of Half-Blood


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When I didn’t say anything, he sighed and continued.

“I came to ask for your help, Jace. I’m in a tight spot and I need some cash. I wouldn’t ask, except…” He gave a shaky little sigh. “I’m desperate.”

He was acting and I knew it, I didn’t used to be able to tell. I sat down across from him and took a sip of my beer. There once was a time when I would have moved heaven and earth to help him, but it had been a while now since his theatrical sighs had affected me. Since New York City.

Or maybe not even that long. After he followed me to Atlanta and contacted me again, I had quickly fallen into the same old patterns, but recently, I hadn’t been quite as easily influenced by Dylan. He could still make me do things, but my feelings remained unaffected and I had only just realized that I could see through him now. His little subterfuges didn’t work as well as they used to.

“I don’t have any money, Dylan. You know things are tight for me right now too. Sorry—I’d help you if I could, but I just don’t have any extra cash.”

“You could get it, though. It would be like a loan. I’ve got a role in the new play at the Playhouse—I’m going to play Iago—a fantastic part and a two-month run, so I can pay you back.” He was talking aboutThe Bard’s Playhouse, a small Shakespearean dinner theater with live music, period costumes, and some pretty outrageous and fun sword fights. He said he was one of their actors, though I’d never seen him in any performances there. He always made excuses to keep me away. He was a wonderful, popular actor in New York, though, and as intense and compelling onstage as he was in real life. Only in real life, that kind of intensity was hard to be around all the time. Like exposing yourself to uranium—dangerous and eventually deadly.

“How can I get it, Dylan? By mortgaging the house? I’ve already told you I can’t do that. My dad got two mortgages on it already that I’m trying to pay off now, and I can’t get any more. I doubt the bank would give me a loan of any kind. I can’t even believe you’re asking me again. You know how I feel.”

“Damn you!” he yelled and crashed his fist down on the table. I hated myself for wincing, and I sat very still. Only my thumb was busy, peeling the label off my bottle of beer. It was a nervous habit I’d developed since I’d known him, along with a few others.

“This stupid, fucking little house is worth a lot of money because of where it is, despite the fact that it’s a dump. But I knew you’d be a self-absorbed, selfish prick about it! I said I’d pay you back, damn it! It would only be for a little while.”

I don’t know where I got the nerve, but I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

“Yeah, you said you’d pay me back the last time I ‘loaned’ you money, too, but I never saw a penny. You always manage to find some excuse, Dylan.”

I saw his face flush and his eyes change, and before I could move, he slapped me so hard across just under my jaw that I fell out of my chair. He was so fucking strong. I knew he hadn’t hit me nearly as hard as he could, because he could have put me through the wall if he’d wanted to.

I was so shocked I couldn’t react at first and then sanity returned. I jumped back up to my feet to run, but not quite in time. He made a lunge for me, and his fingernails got me on the chin as I scrambled backward. I almost made it to the door when he grabbed me from behind and slammed me into the refrigerator, bunching up my shirt in his hands and putting his face down next to mine. “Don’t you fucking run from me,” he said, blowing his hot, musky breath in my face. “Don’t youeverfucking run from me!”

I could hear the audience laughing on the Judge Judy show in the next room and knew Tyler was close and must be hearing us. Dylan never paid much attention to Tyler in any way, and vice versa, but when Dylan got like this, I never knew what he might do.

Suddenly, my worst fears were realized when the door flew back with a bang, and Tyler stood there in the opening, staring straightat Dylan. Dylan suddenly laughed out loud.

“What the fuck do you want, dummy?”

“Don’t call him that!” I yelled, and when he pulled back his fist, I knew it was coming for me. I didn’t know what Tyler might try to do if he saw Dylan hit me. He might try to help me, and I knew Dylan well enough to know that Tyler’s disability wouldn’t stop him for a moment. He could and would hurt him badly.

I tried patting Dylan’s chest soothingly.

“Okay, okay, I won’t run. I’m sorry I yelled, okay? Calm down please, Dylan? Please, please. “I won’t run. I’m so sorry.’

“You’re fucking right, you’re sorry. I’ll fucking make you sorry!” He leaned down closer to my face, tilting his face, and his eyes got that funny look in them they sometimes did. The one that made him look the way I thought a predator must, just before it ripped you to pieces.That’s when Tyler held up his hand and made a kind of sign with his fingers. He looked right at Dylan and said something that sounded like,“Ah be diablo.”

The words were spoken in Tyler’s deep voice but not even all that loud. But suddenly, Dylan froze. He glared at Tyler like he wanted to kill him. His lips drew back from his teeth, and he made a hissing sound. It scared me so much I almost fainted.

“Tyler, please!I managed to gasp out. “Go back in the living room. Watch TV, okay? It’s fine. I’m fine and nobody is going to hurt me.Please, Tyler!”

That’s when my mother walked in and looked at us all with an incredulous and angry look on her face. Her eyes got big behind her glasses, and her cheeks went bright pink. “You stop all this right now, young man. Let him go!”

She was talking to Dylan and incredibly, he did as she told him.

He dropped his hands and took a step back, cursing and mumbling under his breath, and my mother pushed all the way inside, still fussing. She scared the crap out of me by putting herself between us, and I grabbed her arm to pull her away, but she shook me off.

“I heard all three of you, and I won’t put up with that kind of behavior in my house. Not for a minute, do you hear me? Tyler, you go to the living room. Now, son.”

Tyler turned and left, going down the hall.

My mother fixed her gaze on Dylan. “Now I think it’s best if you leave this house, Dylan.”

I pulled her behind me. “Mom, I can handle this.”

“Handle it? Like the last time you handled it? I don’t think so.” She peered around my shoulder to speak to Dylan. “I’m asking you nicely. Leave my home.”

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