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“You of all people should know how I feel about it,” Eli says. “Maybe I think he deserves it.”
“Alec deserves what he got, even if he didn’t hurt Queen Boudica. Call it revenge in advance. As for Noah, I am sorry about his stepmom, but I can’t do anything about it now. He’s got to learn to move the fuck on.”
“And me?” Eli stares straight ahead, deliberately not meeting my eyes. It’s almost more concerning than his usual intense focus. “You scared my cat. Does that make us even for my perceived slight?”
“You have a cat?”
“Yeah. A little black-and-white ball of energy named Gizmo. Maria found her living in the basement of her brother’s apartment complex. It was the year after you disappeared, and I wasn’t doing so hot. She thought caring for an animal might help me move on.” Eli tries for a smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It worked.”
It didn’t work, that much is obvious. Suddenly, more than anything in the world, I want to meet this Gizmo. “Tell her I’m sorry I scared her. I thought—”
Eli pulls up at a stoplight and whips his head around, focusing those ocean eyes on me. “I’m going crazy here, Mackenzie. What’s happened to you? Where are your parents? If I didn’t tell anyone about the maintenance shed, then who snuck into your house? The look on your face this morning… you looked terrified. I’ve never seen you look like that, ever. Not even when your dad—”
“It’s nothing.”
Eli punches the wheel. “It’s not fucking nothing. You’re in danger and you won’t let me help. You disappeared on me all those years ago, and after the news about Noah’s brother came out, I thought… I thought maybe you’d skipped the country so your dad could avoid some kind of blowback from Noah’s family, but that’s not what your eyes say. You’re not afraid of Noah, so what is it?”
His chest heaves. A lock of golden hair falls over his eye. When he’s upset like this, his Tennessee accent comes in full force, and it’s fucking hot as hell. I watch him peel back those layers of rigid perfection to reveal the broken man beneath. Noah may have lost his brother, but Eli’s been in mourning for four years, and the pain of losing me still burns as bright as the day I left him without a goodbye.
I want nothing more than to take his pain away, but I can’t. It doesn’t belong to me. Eli’s heart is reserved for another Mackenzie, a Mackenzie trapped in time.
I take a deep breath.
I do a selfish thing. Or a selfless thing, depending on how you look at it. I throw up a barrier to protect my heart and his.
“I have an agreement with Gabriel, and I’m making the same one with you,” I say. “I’m not talking about my family or what happened four years ago. All you need to know is that my parents aren’t coming back. I’m the ghost of Malloy Manor, and it’s imperative I graduate Stonehurst Prep this year, with my sanity and my head intact. Actually, the former is optional.”
“And you don’t remember anything about your life before.” Eli swipes at that uncooperative lock of hair. “Dissociative amnesia, right? I’ve been researching it. It’s when your mind rejects memories and feeling and events that surround trauma—”
“Yes, amnesia. Exactly. So even if I wanted to talk about it, which I don’t, I wouldn’t have anything to say.”
Eli sighs. “Fine. I agree. On one condition.”
“I don’t do conditions.”
“Not even for an old friend?” Eli tries for one of his warm smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I promise not to ask, but you have to promise not to lie to me. I can’t take it, not after losing you once already. I only want to protect you, because even after all this time you’re still everything to me. If you lie… I’ll break. I’ll fucking come apart.”
Oh, super.
“Deal. No lies. Just evasive not-answers.” Eli turns into Harrington Road. “Take me along the back road.”
“Why not the front gates?” Tension hunches Eli’s shoulders.
I glare at him. “That counts as asking.”
Eli throws up his hands. “Why won’t you tell us anything?”
“Jesus.” I grab the wheel before the car spins out of control. “You’re too pretty and I’m too amazing to die in a car crash, okay?”
Eli takes the wheel again, drumming his fingers against the leather. “The other two I get. Gabe is Gabe and Noah hated your guts until yesterday. But we’ve been friends since we were five years old, Mackenzie. We’ve been through hell together, and I’ve always proven myself to you. Why can’t you talk to me?”
I fix him with my Ice Queen glare. It’s all I have to hold Eli’s gaze; that’s how intense his eyes are right now. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m trying to protect your ass for a change?”
“Or maybe you’re just trying to protect yourself.” Eli’s gaze drops to the locket at my throat. He swallows and tears his eyes away. “Even though he’s not here, your father’s still coming between us.”
He pulls over in front of the woods at the rear of my house, out of view of the other mansions on the hill. I give him one final glare as I slide out, but he pulls away before I can get the final word in. The Porsche roars around the corner and out of sight. I remain fixed in place, still watching the road, part of me expecting him to come back. My chest heaves. Finally, I pull myself together and duck into the trees, letting myself in through the maintenance door.
“Meow.” Queen Boudica leaps from hood to hood across the rows of ghost cars. She skids to a stop just as I reach the top of the metal stairs, and lets out a howl of anguish.
