Page 7

Chapter 7

A Bit of a Mess

N atalie wraps me in a protective cocoon against the wall as the explosion rips through the room. Her body, warm and solid, presses into mine. Her absurdly soft skin brushes my temple, and her forearms bracket my head as she covers her ears.

The blast rattles my bones, sending wisps of torn bed linens into the air.

As it dissipates, I take my hands away from my ears to cover my mouth, trying to keep the dust out. It’s on my lips, bitter and dry. I’m cold, trembling, my breaths fast and shallow—but as Natalie’s scent mixes with the acrid smoke, a sense of safety wraps around me like a blanket.

I can’t believe she protected me like that. Her back was totally exposed.

Where the doll was, there’s a black, jagged crater in the bed, as if a mine detonated.

I’m going to need a new mattress.

The rest of my room is in shambles, looking like a home demolition in progress.

I try to ask Natalie if she’s okay but can’t find my voice, terror constricting my airway. Loose strands of her hair tickle my face, and she’s so close that her breath brushes over my lips, cool and minty. The candles have extinguished, their light replaced by the soft glow from the street lamps outside. It bathes her face in shadows, accentuating her jawline, her narrowed gaze, her pinched brow. She’s furious.

“What were you thinking ?” she growls.

“I—I didn’t know it would do that.” My voice quakes, and I swallow hard, clinging to the comfort of having her between me and the wreckage.

But she steps away, leaving a chill where her body used to be. Fear rushes back, and I fold my arms over my stomach.

She turns on the bedroom light, and in the sudden brightness, I blink, my eyes stinging.

Three vibrant purple butterflies rise from the crater, spiraling in a hypnotic dance before flying out the open window. Another butterfly circles where the hawk was, and there’s another that I can only assume was the massive spider—or has taken the place of the spider? Animals don’t morph into butterflies. That’s impossible.

Their wings flap in chaotic blurs, and then they dart through the window too, disappearing into the blackness and leaving me wondering if they were just a hallucination.

“Total Eclipse of the Heart” ends, then starts over. I grab my phone and hit pause, and a ringing silence descends in place of the power ballad.

I gulp down air, willing my hands to stop shaking. It’s over. Rebecca is gone.

Natalie walks back to me, her expression smoldering. “You saw how the cat was. Why would you want another…?” she grinds her teeth, leaving me to wonder how that sentence is supposed to end.

“Another what ?” My voice is still weak. “I don’t understand what Lucy and an old doll have in common.”

“So you bought the doll to try and figure it out? ”

I feel small as I look up at her. “I got it because I knew that was how I could see you again.”

The crease between her eyebrows softens. She searches my face. “And you wanted to see me again because…”

“The kitten,” I say quickly, heat flooding my face. “Because of Lucy. Not like—not like in a stalker way, like I’m trying to force you to see me—” My tongue is suddenly too big, tripping me into silence.

Oh, God, put me out of my misery.

The corner of Natalie’s mouth twitches for the briefest moment, revealing a dimple, and then her scowl returns. She steps back. “If you’re hoping I’ll give you back your old cat, you’re fighting a losing battle.”

“Why? What did you do with her?” My focus pulls to the crater in my bed, nausea overcoming me. “Did you dump a vial on her and make her melt—”

“No, I didn’t melt a kitten! Jesus Christ.” She lets out an exasperated growl, turning away. “That cat wasn’t a her . It wasn’t even a cat. That—” She points to Not-Lucy, who’s returned to watch us curiously from the doorway. “ That is a cat. That’s the one you were meant to have. Not that other thing.”

“What do you mean, she wasn’t a cat?” My words come out roughly, hurting my throat. My grip on reality is slipping away, leaving me grasping at nothing.

She runs both hands over her head, raising her arms in a way that shows off the curve of her waist beneath the open blazer. “Katie…”

My brain stalls, pausing my bewilderment over everything that just happened. It’s the first time she’s called me that instead of Miss Alexander , and I like the sound of it coming from her lips.

When she drops her arms, her expression softens. “I can’t explain the way you want me to.”

I clench my teeth, frustration rising. None of this makes sense, but what choice do I have but to accept it ?

She must see my helpless confusion because her shoulders sag. She glances between me and the kitten, exhaling slowly. “What’s her name?”

The kitten meows—in protest, probably, because what kind of a name is Not-Lucy?

“Ethel,” I decide. My older sister went through a phase of binging old TV shows like I Love Lucy . I guess it fits. Lucy was the chaotic one.

Natalie’s mouth quirks, teasing me with a grin that doesn’t quite come. I have yet to see her smile, and it makes me yearn for what I’m missing out on.

“I hoped you wouldn’t notice Ethel wasn’t the same cat,” she says. “I wanted you to be able to move on.”

I furrow my brow, the pieces coming together. “Is that why you took so long to get back to me? You were searching for a replacement kitten who looked like her?”

She hesitates, then turns toward the bed, answering with her back to me. “Yes.”

“Oh.” As furious as I want to be with her, she went to a lot of trouble for me. “You could have told me she died.”

Natalie shakes her head once. “I could tell how much that would’ve upset you.”

I watch her, numb, as she pries a lump out of the mattress. The whole doll seems to have shrunken into a purple gemstone. She pockets it.

Something strange is happening inside me, weakening my legs until I have to sit down in my desk chair. It was sweet of her to find me a new kitten—but a conclusion settles over me, heavy and somber.

Lucy is gone. Worse, she never really was.

But if she wasn’t a cat, what was she?

I rub my face. This is all so confusing and impossible.

I’ve stopped shaking, my pulse returning to normal—but as the adrenaline leaves my body, a sharp sting comes to my attention on the backs of my hands and forearms. I’m bleeding where Ethel used me as a ramp to dive for safety. The cuts have slowed to an ooze, but the red has smudged across my skin, making it look worse.

Natalie notices and sucks in a breath. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “It was Ethel. She got scared of Rebecca.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Rebecca?”

“The doll’s name.”

The dimple makes another appearance.

Her reddened hand snags my attention, and my stomach lurches. She didn’t get through unscathed, either. Her sleeve covers her wrist where the hawk tried to eat her, but blood trickles down to her fingers.

My fault. The reality of what I’ve done hits me like a kick in the ribs.

“How about you?” I ask. “Do you need stitches or… a rabies vaccine?”

She tugs her sleeve further down. “I’ll take care of it at home.”

We stare at each other, a stalemate.

Natalie swears under her breath and walks a small circle, rubbing a hand over her throat. “I can’t believe you saw—this wasn’t supposed to—”

Guilt rises in me to see her distressed, but I can’t give in. I want an explanation.

“Listen, you cannot tell anyone about this.” Her tone is firm, but her eyebrows arch downward—something desperate hiding beneath her expression.

Her moment of weakness bolsters me. I cross my arms, my need for answers surging back full-force. “Uh-huh. In exchange for keeping your secret, are you going to tell me what’s going on and why my room is in shambles?”

A muscle in her jaw flexes, a storm passing behind her eyes. “You shouldn’t have brought that doll home. That’s on you.”

A familiar defiance sparks inside me. “How was I supposed to know it was dangerous? You haven’t told me anything! I just felt the same feeling I did with Lucy, and… ”

“About that.” She picks up the psychology textbook I used as a weapon, looks at the cover, and places it back on my desk. “What, exactly, did you feel?”

I try to recall the sensations in my body when I saw the doll—the ones that strangely lined up with seeing Lucy at the shelter. “It’s like my heart jumps, and there’s a pull toward it, like I have to have it. I don’t know.” I try to find more words, but nothing comes. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Hm.” She picks up another textbook, and I clue in that she’s tidying up.

“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I’ll clean up. Don’t worry about it.”

She gives me a look like, “Yeah, right,” and picks my lamp off the floor.

I hurry to help, going to the photos that fell off the shelf before she can get to them. She doesn’t need a tour of all the absurd selfies I’ve taken with Hazel and my sisters over the years.

We work in silence for a moment, the tension as thick as the dust settling over every surface. The idea of her picking up my personal belongings, touching the intimate pieces of my life, twists my stomach.

“Are you studying psychology because you’re good at reading people?” Natalie asks.

“Maybe. Friends have told me I’m good at listening. Good at empathizing.”

She sets the fallen candles on my desk. “Would you say you’re an empath?”

I lift a shoulder. I’ve used the word, but when a high school classmate once rolled her eyes at it, I stopped. “Maybe.”

She picks up one of the books that were in a neat stack beside the photos—a spicy romance novel with two women making out on the cover.

“I’ll—I’ll get those,” I splutter, snatching it out of her hand and stooping to collect the rest. My face is so hot I could cook an egg on it.

I feel her gaze on me for an unbearably long moment before she turns to fix my pillows.

And now she’s touching my bed.

Breathe, Katie.

“You say that word a lot,” Natalie says.

I fight to get my brain back on track. “What word?”

“ Maybe . Like you’re afraid to commit to an answer.”

Oh, thank God, she’s moving on with the conversation without mentioning my smut pile.

“Well, I grew up with three opinionated sisters,” I say. “Life’s easier if I roll with things.”

She comes back to look at the photos I placed on the shelf, and there goes my plan to avoid that awkwardness. She moves close, the heat of her body tingling on my left side. There’s her scent again, comforting, almost woodsy, like cozying up in a cabin while it snows outside.

“Are you the eldest?” she asks, her voice rippling through me.

My mouth is dry. “Second-eldest.”

She studies a picture of my sisters and me with our arms over each other’s shoulders. It’s the least absurd photo, to my intense relief.

“That was at Alyssa’s bachelorette party last year. She’s the oldest.” I point to Alyssa in her white dress with the veil hairpiece. The rest of us are in little black dresses. As Natalie stares, I’m uncomfortably aware of how low-cut mine is. “Alyssa’s married now and trying to have a baby. Which is… soon, if you ask me. She’s twenty-three. But she’s been talking about babies for years, so…” I shrug. “And that’s Pearl—she’s finishing high school this year—and Nicky’s in Grade 10.”

Natalie’s eyes are soft and curious. “Who are you closest with?”

“Pearl and I were always a pair. Middle kids, I guess. But we all get along.”

My throat tightens as I talk about them. Pearl is the first person I tell about major life events. She was the first person I came out to in Grade 10. With her support and encouraging smile, I knew I’d be able to handle telling the rest of the family I was dating a girl.

As Natalie peers into my world, I’m hyper-aware of her—every fleck of dust clinging to her skin, the sheen of sweat on her neck, her slow, even breaths.

“Was it hard to leave them to come to Vancouver?” she murmurs.

“Meh, a little.” The real answer makes my eyes sting. I turn away, ready to change the subject back to the matter at hand. “Thanks for helping me clean up. It looks—” I gasp. The bed is repaired. Completely. There’s not even a dent. “You—you fixed it!”

“Fixed what?” she asks, still facing the photos.

“The crater!” I wave my hands at the bed.

She cocks an eyebrow. “What crater?”

I glare at her. “Don’t you dare.”

“What?” she asks, infuriatingly innocent.

“I’m not that dense, and what you’re doing is called gaslighting, jerk.”

Her mouth opens in surprise, and before I can feel guilty about calling her a jerk, she grimaces. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

She rubs the back of her neck, looking genuinely ashamed.

The apology catches me off-guard. “It’s fine. Just don’t insult my intelligence again.”

She nods.

“And tell me how you fixed the bed,” I say.

The corners of her lips tug upward. “Not a chance.”

I huff. It was worth a shot.

“Look…” She steps closer, making my breath hitch. Her gaze locks mine, forcing me to tilt my head back. “It’s not my intention to lie to you, Katie. But I have to. You don’t understand what you’re prying into, and you’re going to regret it.”

“You say that like you know me. ”

Natalie backs up, glancing out the window. She tugs her blazer straight.

“Are you really a doctor?” I scan the coat for clues about what other mysterious vials she might be keeping in secret pockets.

“I’m not faking my title.”

“Okay…” It feels like she dodged the question. “So you have a Ph.D?”

“In a way.” She meets my eye for a fraction of a second. “I’m not a veterinarian, and I didn’t study at a traditional university.”

“But you went to… a non-traditional one?”

“The equivalent of one. I studied for a long time and earned something like a doctorate.”

I wait for her to go on, but she doesn’t.

“What if this happens again?” I ask. Not that I would go out of my way to find another Rebecca, but I could by accident.

She looks at me sharply. “Don’t tell me you anticipate this happening again.”

I shrug. “It’s hard to know what to anticipate when I don’t even know what’s going on.”

She sighs pointedly.

“And you’re still not going to tell me,” I say, more of a statement than a question.

“Nope.”

I sigh back. “You know that makes me even more determined to figure it out.”

She frowns, her expression getting further from the smile I keep hoping for. “For your sake, Katie, I hope you don’t.”

Her words settle over me the same way the sight of the giant spider did. She’s dead serious.

But so am I. I might believe her about Lucy—that the kitten wasn’t what I thought, and I’m not going to get her back—but as for Natalie? She’s a mystery that needs to be solved. I’ve crossed over a threshold, peeled back the covers on a dark secret, and there’s no coming back from it.

I need to be able to contact her again. I don’t want this to be goodbye.

As she turns to the door, my heartbeat quickens. My mouth goes dry as the question I want to ask burns in my throat.

Say it. Just say it.

“Can I have your number?” My lips tingle as the words come out. I dip my chin and look up at her, trying to seem small and harmless. “Just in case?”

Natalie hesitates. I give her my best innocent face—one that says, in case I need you to come rescue me again?

Not the truth, which is, so I can crack you open like a puzzle box and find out what you’re hiding.

I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, casually letting the bloody scratches on my arm linger in her line of sight. Poor me, so helpless.

I’m taking a chance here. I know this would work on a man—putting them in the position to become a hero in the face of a damsel in distress. The question is: does Natalie Zacharias care about a damsel?

Her gaze roves over me. She catches her bottom lip on her teeth, thinking.

Slowly, her expression softens. There’s a subtle lift in her posture as she breaks.

As she crosses to my desk and writes her phone number on a sticky note, I press my lips together to keep from smiling.