Chapter Seven: Other Hunger
(Zander)
I think Van expects me to say something to her when she gets in the car. Any kind of explanation or apology I could offer refuses to make it past my lips. I take the familiar route home with very little thought, the pressure of my hands just short of snapping the steering wheel in half. Not once do I look directly at my little sister, but I can see the way her head hangs and the frown on her face that almost reaches her toes from the corner of my vision. What’s worse, though, is the fact that she sits very still and only moves when absolutely necessary. I know those precautions all too well.
She is scared. Of me.
Sicarius. That word rings over and over again in my head. It chimes like the bells of Notre Dame inside my skull, so loud they shake me to the core. Never, never, did I think Van would have to use it on me. I’ve used it on her… and Oscar, but I’m not like either of them. I can control my hunger. I’ve suffered and given up everything for that control. It’s the one thing that really keeps me going. If I lose that, lose faith in myself, I don’t know what it will do to me. I don’t want to turn into Oscar. I don’t want to end up like him, locked up and alone.
When I pull into the driveway, Van hesitates, probably hoping I’ll talk to her. My door slams behind me as I stalk up to the house. Sounds from the kitchen pull me in that direction, leading me to my cheerful and petite grandma. Dinner sits on the table, everything ready except the roast she’s carrying in her hands. She’s about to set it down when I walk in.
She freezes, her eyes widening, but she manages to set the heavy dish down softly before looking back up at me. “Zander,” she says slowly, “what’s wrong?”
“Van had to use the code word on me tonight.”
That’s all the explanation she needs. A few strands of wispy grey hair that have fallen out of her barrette start to quiver. So do her hands. “Did it work?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah, barely, but I need… I need to go.”
“Of course.” She nods and takes a plastic container from the cupboard so she can fix me a plate to go.
“I’m not hungry for that,” I snap. Her eyes pierce me for my tone, and I back down. “I don’t want to eat. Don’t bother with that, Grandma.”
“You do want food. You just can’t feel it under your other hunger. Trust me, this will help. Go wherever you need to go, eat, take some time to calm down. You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t think that will work this time,” I say. My head drops at the last word as shame ripples over me. I don’t notice my grandma has moved until her hand reaches up and touches my shoulder.
“What do you mean, Zander?”
Sighing, I shake my head. “I don’t know. It’s just so much harder with her than it’s ever been before. I don’t think I can control myself around her.”
“Her?”
“Ivy Guerra.”
“If… if we need to leave…”
I don’t let her finish. “We aren’t going anywhere. I won’t leave Oscar here by himself.”
“If I have to make the choice for you, I will,” my grandma says. “I won’t lose anyone else.”
Her words dig up anger that almost outweighs the hunger I still feel coursing through me. Grabbing the container of food, I turn my back on her and rush out of the house, blowing past a startled Van as I do. I toss the food onto the passenger’s seat and tear out of the driveway. I don’t care where I go. I just need to get away. Away from my grandma and her all too true words.
It would be best to go. We’ve always known that might have to happen. Keeping us safe and in check is more important than friends and opportunities we might leave behind. The way Van and I both react to Ivy, it would definitely be best to pick up and leave before someone ends up dead. I used Oscar as an excuse, but he isn’t the only reason I don’t want to move. There’s Ivy, too.
“I don’t want to leave her,” I whisper to myself.
Hearing those words come from my own mouth terrifies me. Everybody sees me as this guy who is always in control. They don’t know the truth, though. Van has no idea, and I’ll never tell her, but I think my grandma suspects. When I came home the night of the accident, I fell into my grandma’s arms and cried. I had never done that before, and I’ve never done it since. She knew something was wrong, but she didn’t press me. She didn’t bring up her suspicions tonight, either, but I know they were close to the surface when she said she’d make the choice if she had to.
My shoulders start shaking as I realize she doesn’t just wonder, she knows what really happened that night with Lisa. She must know. My foot leaves the accelerator. I’m too numb to keep driving. The truck rolls to a stop and I sit there staring through the windshield at nothing. Modest sized houses with neatly kept lawns line the streets. The sun is starting to fade behind the rooftops, stretching out the tame shadows into something more sinister. Fence posts become long, spindly fingers trying to close around my neck. Mailboxes morph into executioners’ axes that have come to claim their rightful prize. Even the street signs…
Dark thoughts trail off as the collection of letters printed on the sign sink into my brain and form actual words. “Vista Monte,” I say to myself in disbelief. “No. I didn’t.”
Light is fading fast, now, but I can see well enough to catch a house number. 1736. My chest constricts. Go home. Turn around. Don’t even think about it. I practically scream at myself to abandon any thought of pursuing my subconscious GPS. I don’t seem to have any control over my body or hunger, though, because my foot presses on the gas pedal and my hands keep me pointed in the wrong direction. No, in the right direction. I don’t want to turn back. But I should. I argue with myself as I scan the house numbers. 1753 looms on the house in front of me before I finally wrangle myself into stopping. I can’t pull right up to the house. She’ll see me.
So I stare at her driveway, wondering if she’s home, what she’s doing, what she would say if she saw me outside her house. That last question really plagues me. Van is wrong about Ivy, but there is definitely something intriguing about her. I was a jerk to her, yet she seemed to be waiting for me yesterday. I hurt her at that meeting, but she was glad to see me tonight. Until I almost killed her. I don’t know how I can say this, but even though she very nearly died tonight, I don’t think I scared her off. Maybe that makes her brave, or psychotic, or too trusting. I have no idea, but I’m glad for it.
I’ve been sitting, staring at her house for half an hour when a green sedan pulls into the driveway and parks. Instantly, my hands are on my seatbelt, one trying to unbuckle it, the other trying to keep it on. My hunger flares back to life and comes very close to winning the battle. I’m far enough away from her that I hold out, though my truck suffers for it. The creaking of the brackets holding my seatbelt in place makes me grimace. I tell myself I can’t be sure it’s even her, but I know her car. I saw her standing by it yesterday. I also looked up her license number in the parking permit logs in the office when I was working there today. It wasn’t the only thing I looked up. That’s how I got her address.
It’s sick, I know. I feel like some kind of twisted stalker. Ivy’s black and pink hair emerges from the car, followed by her fragile looking, but beautiful body. She’s still dressed in her workout clothes, and I can’t stop myself from letting my eyes wander up and down her legs. They look delicious. I want my hands on her body. I want to twist her flesh into fresh bruises, or stroke it softly. I’ve hurt her already, and I am desperate to do it again, but it kills me to think of causing her perfect, supple body even one second of pain. My heart breaks and races at the same time. Watching her hips sway back and forth as she walks to her door unhinges me.
My seatbelt is off, my hand on the door handle. It barely breaks the seal when Ivy freezes. Her hand is extended toward the door, but she doesn’t grab it. Reflex saves me, because my mind certainly wasn’t going to tell me what to do. I crouch down in the seat and hold my breath until
I hear the sound of a door closing a few minutes later. Even after I’m sure she’s gone, I stay in that position. My heart pounds against my chest, but for once, it’s not out of desire to demolish her pretty face. Fear that she would catch me here outweighs everything else in that moment.
To be honest, it is a strange feeling. I’m not afraid of her finding me and getting me into trouble. There is nothing Ivy could do that I wouldn’t be able to stop. Physically, it wouldn’t even be a contest. I could crush her before she even had a chance to yell for help. In a battle of “he said, she said,” well, I would win that, too. My reputation is impeccable. I’ve worked hard to make sure that’s true for just this kind of situation. If Ivy tried to tell someone I had hurt her, no one would believe the pink-haired new girl over me. Plus, I’m big and intimidating, and people don’t mess with me.
No, what I was afraid of was that Ivy would see me, sitting outside her house like a total creep, and finally realize she should stay as far away from me as possible. That is what scared me into ducking. I can’t be around her without wanting to kill her, but I can’t stay away from her either. Even now, after almost being caught, I don’t leave. I wait and watch.
I watch for any sign of her coming back outside. I wait for the lights in the house to slowly darken. The downstairs goes first. The lights on the east side of the house follow pretty soon after, first the front, then the back. The back west corner, that room’s lights stay on the longest. From where I am on the street, one house down, I can’t see anything happening behind the curtained windows. All I can see is the light.
It stays on past midnight, which makes me smile. Ivy must be a night owl, like me. I don’t mind getting up early, but I’d much rather stay up late than get up before the sun. It’s always so quiet and calm at night after everyone else has gone to bed. I don’t get a lot of that any other time of the day. Ivy must feel the same way. It’s a quarter to one when her light finally goes out.
Before I really know what I’m doing, I’m out of my car and quietly making my way toward Ivy’s house. The neighborhood is serene, with nobody around to see me slip over their fence. I have no plan. She’s on the second floor. I’m a lot more physically capable than most people, but that is too high of a jump even for me.
When I reach the back corner of the house, I realize I won’t have to jump to get to her. The covered porch that stretches the length of the back end of the house and wraps around the sides provides a railing for me to step on and lever myself onto the roof of the porch. Her window isn’t even as high as my waist once I make the small climb.
The ends of the curtains billow out of the window in the breeze. They brush against my shoulders as I sit to the side of the window. Silence filters out along with the breeze, but I know she probably isn’t asleep yet. It only took me a few minutes to get up here after the light went out. Once or twice, she shifts or rolls over. I hear the rustle of her sheets as she moves beneath them. After a while, even her body goes still. I don’t dare take out my phone to see what time it is by then because the light may wake her. I don’t care what time it is anyway. I’m not leaving yet.
Silently, I move in front of the window and peer through a break in the curtains. Ivy’s back is to me, but the pink stripe in her hair is unmistakable. My eyes slide from her hair to her shoulder and follow the curves of her body all the way to her toes peeking out from under the pink sheet. My hands ache to follow the same path. For maybe the first time tonight, I make a conscious decision. It’s undoubtedly the wrong one, but I make it anyway.
My leg slips through the window first, followed by the rest of me. I make very little sound as I intrude on her solace. The brush of my feet on her carpet, the slight creak of the window sill as I press my hand against it, are so subtle Ivy doesn’t even stir. She lies perfectly still. As I stare at her, I realize my hunger isn’t raging to the point I can’t control it. It isn’t absent, but it’s amazingly calm. I can’t understand it at first. Only when Ivy shifts and my hunger spikes do I think I understand what’s happening.
I’m a predator. I love a challenge, a chase, fresh meat. Van sat so still on the ride home tonight, trying not to accidently provoke me. Ivy is unknowingly doing the same thing. Quiet and still on her bed, she could be dead. Dead holds no interest for me. Not for my hunger, anyway. It seems to have its own mind, one separate from my consciousness. It still aches for nourishment right now, but it’s just a general need leftover from earlier. The other part of my brain, the more sane one, knows Ivy isn’t dead. It knows she is warm and soft and beautiful. That part of me wants to crawl in bed next to her and drown itself in the illusion that I could actually have her.
Luckily for both of us, I have a lot more control over my conscious mind than my hunger. I settle for sitting on a chair next to her bed where I can still see her clearly. At first, I don’t dare even move, but eventually, the desire to touch Ivy wins out. My fingers reach across the distance and touch a strand of her short hair. It feels like silk, slipping through my fingers and falling back to the bed with the slightest movement of my hand. A smile forms on my lips as I watch how the moonlight hitting her hair shifts and swirls each time I touch it.
There’s no warning before she suddenly rolls over. Her peaceful face turns right at me, and her hand lands on mine. Her movement arouses my hunger. Every muscle in my body tenses, and I close my eyes against any further movement. The heat of her hand on mine is a constant reminder that she is only sleeping. It does so much more than that, too. The only time I’ve substantially touched her is when I grabbed her arm in the parking lot. This is so much better.
I don’t risk opening my eyes. It’s easier to pretend she can’t do anything to fulfill my hunger if I can’t see the flutter of her eyelids as she dreams, or the way her chest rises and falls with each breath. Even more, I’m glad my eyes are closed when her fingers suddenly tighten around mine. I take a deep breath and squeeze her hand lightly. I can hear her shift, pulling her hand in more tightly, but I don’t see it. My hunger reacts, bringing my other hand straight to her neck. The desire to press down and deprive her lungs of oxygen threatens to overpower me.
For the longest time, we stay like that. Hand in hand, on the verge of death, though only one of us is actually aware of it, we share the perilous night. Time seems eternal as I fight my hunger for control. Only her absolute stillness eventually gives me the edge I need to withdraw both my hands from her and sit back.
Despite my weakness, I never want to leave. I’m not like Van. I can’t imagine and pretend that one day my life will be fixed. I have no illusions that I will ever be safe enough to let someone share my life. Dreams of a wife and family do not belong to me. I won’t ever experience that side of life. Sitting next to the bed of a girl who is asleep and has no idea I’m here is the closest I will ever get to having a romantic relationship. This is it for me, and I loathe the idea of going home even though I know this is a line I should never have crossed.
As my physical need for sleep starts overpowering everything else, my eyelids begin to droop. I’m right next to a bed, but if Ivy were to wake up next to me… well, that would obviously go very badly. More likely than not, she wouldn’t wake up at all.
I have to leave. More reluctant than I can ever remember being, I stand up. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t resist Ivy in more ways than one. Careful not to disturb her, I brush my fingers against her cheek. The resurgence of my hunger the touch costs is well worth the feel of her skin against mine. The slight contact affects Ivy as well. Her frown is replaced by a smile. I can’t help doing the same as I back away, regardless of my burgeoning hunger.
The smile stays with me all the way home. My own house is dark and quiet when I arrive. I walk to my room with extra care, not wanting to wake anyone and have to explain where I was, or why I’m getting back at three in the morning. I make it all the way to my bed and lie down before the fear hits me. One second, I’m smiling like an idiot, the next, my entire body is tre
mbling.
There was a chance, before, that I could have convinced myself to stay away from Ivy because of my hunger. After tonight, that small hope has disappeared completely. For a few precious moments, I was near her without wanting to kill her. I touched her silken skin, breathed in her scent, memorized every curve of her body. She has captured my hunger and soul alike, and I have no interest in escaping. I won’t be able to stay away. I’ll go after Ivy, and I won’t be able to stop myself from killing her.