Chapter Nine

NINE

Martin had fallen asleep mid-sentence.

One moment he was telling me about the classification system he'd invented for his train collection that was colour-coded by era, which I chose not to point out was exactly the kind of thing I did with curriculum notes at two in the morning, and the next his head was drooping toward the table. 

No warning. Just gone.

I sat there for a moment watching him sleep, his cheek pressed against his forearm, with his model train, apparently his favourite one, still tucked under his elbow.

He trusted me enough to fall asleep in front of me.

I didn't know why that hit as hard as it did. I just sat with it for a second before I carefully gathered his papers, stacked them, capped his pen, and then walked him upstairs with one hand on his shoulder to keep him pointed in the right direction. 

He didn't wake up fully. Just shuffled alongside me on autopilot, climbed into his bed still mostly unconscious, and curled around his train as he'd probably done a thousand times before.

I pulled the door shut behind me.

Which left Jace.

Who I hadn't seen since he'd walked out of the kitchen two hours ago with that forced smile and those murderous eyes, and who had apparently spent those two hours doing everything in his power to shake the house off its foundations.

I stood at the bottom of the staircase and gave myself a small internal talk.

You dealt with Alison today. You dealt with Jace and all his threats and hatred for you. You dealt with your mother crying on the phone the day before your father's funeral and you haven’t fallen apart yet. You can knock on a door.

It's just a door.

He's just a boy.

A horrible, infuriating, deeply unreasonable boy, but still.

The music hit me halfway up the stairs, how Martin could sleep through all that noise, I had no idea.

Bass so heavy it came up through the floorboards and into the soles of my feet, rattling the framed family photos on the wall as I passed them. I

watched a picture of Martin at maybe four years old shudder against its nail and considered the fact that Jace Dawson was vibrating his own brother's face off the wall in the name of a tantrum.

I could feel it in my back teeth by the time I reached the landing.

He's doing this on purpose. The great Jace Dawson, acting like a petty little spoiled child. He couldn't throw an actual tantrum in front of his brother, so instead, he was doing this.

Shaking the walls, and making the whole floor uninhabitable, waiting for me to give up and go to bed, or come to him and beg, and either option probably suited him equally well.

I wasn't doing either of that. I had a job to do.

So I knocked.

No response.

I knocked again, harder this time, four solid raps with my knuckles that I immediately regretted because it hurt.

Still nothing, I could barely hear it myself over the bass.

I stood there for a moment, my hand still raised, and then gave up and pressed my back flat against the door and closed my eyes.

I'm so tired. That’s all I could think of.

The funeral was tomorrow. I'd lied to Coach Ellis today for the first time in three years, sat across from him in that chair and smiled and said everything was fine while he looked at me with that quiet, knowing expression and let me do it because he was kind enough to give me the choice. 

I'd been shoved against a wall in a bedroom that wasn't mine. I'd spent two hours with my heart bleeding for a seven-year-old who'd been let down by every adult sent to help him, and yet still so careful and patient and steady, and I had nothing left over.

I could really use your advice right now, Dad.

Out of nowhere, the door opened breaking me out of my thoughts as I collapsed backwards.

My back hit something solid, warm, and very much not a wall, and then hands caught my arms before I could go down and I looked up.

Jace looked down at and we stayed exactly like that for three full seconds. I felt my breath catch, he was shirtless, dressed in only grey sweatpants so I could see every single muscle across his chest and arms.

The smell of his masculine musk filled my senses as I watched his gaze sink from my eyes down to my lips and then stopped there. 

Unconsciously, without noticing that he’d done it, his tongue flicked out a little to lick his own while his lips parted, a deep primal hunger in his eyes.

Impossible! That was only the sort of face you made when you were attracted to someone. Could Jace Dawson be… attracted? TO ME?!

For one endless moment, neither of us moved, his hands wrapped around my arms and his face close enough that I could see the precise moment the surprise and want in his eyes became something else.

Hatred.

Suddenly he let go of me and I hit the floor tailbone first, my useless arm catching the doorframe on the way down, pain shooting clean up to my shoulder.

"Ow." I pressed my hand to my arm. "What is wrong with you…”

He leaned against the doorframe above me his lips curled with satisfaction as he watched me flail around. The sadist really loved watching me suffer.

I got up. Slowly, because my arm was genuinely hurting and my dignity had taken significant damage. But I got up, brushed myself off, and looked him directly in the face.

"Can you come downstairs please?" I had to raise my voice over the music. "It's time for your session."

He completely ignored me, then walked back to his bed. After that, he picked up the stereo remote from the nightstand, pointed it at the speaker in the corner, and turned the volume up.

I stared at him and he stared right back at me. Completely comfortable, and completely unbothered. Like he had nowhere else to be and this was just a pleasant Friday evening and I was a mildly annoying feature of it.

"Jace." Louder. "Turn it down and come downstairs. Please."

He responded by turning the volume up again.

"I'm not joking…”

He turned it up again, the bass was now practically pressing against my eardrums, vibrating my vision slightly at the edges. He cupped a hand around his ear and mouthed something.

Can't hear you.

And then he smirked.

That smirk. That satisfied, I-have-all-the-power-here-so-fuck-you smile that I had been on the receiving end of too many times today, and I was done. 

Completely, thoroughly, utterly done. Every reserve of patience I had scraped together since this morning was gone and there was nothing underneath it except a cold fury.

I crossed the room.

He saw me coming and sat up slightly, which was already more reaction than he'd intended to show. I reached out and took the remote clean out of his hand before he'd fully processed I was going for it. 

He grabbed for it and missed, because by then I was already at the speaker, a tower of black and chrome in the corner that was probably worth more than my family's car,

I noticed an extra-large pack of XXL condoms next to it, but I didn’t comment on that.

I simply turned the music all the way off.

I turned around. Walked back across the room. Crouched down in front of him until we were exactly eye level, until there was nowhere for him to look that wasn't directly at me.

"Get downstairs," I said. Very quietly. "Now."

He simply stared at me in disbelief.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“I’m sorry for taking your remote from you, but you weren’t listening, and this arrangement between us can’t work if you don’t listen.”

I continue, “So come downstairs…”

"Or I will unplug that speaker and drag it into the hallway," I said, same quiet voice, same steady tone, "and leave it there. And tomorrow morning I will sit down with your mother and give her a full report on everything that happened tonight. Which she will take to your coach. Which he will take to..."

It was a low blow but if I was right, then…

"Fine." He was on his feet before I finished. "For fucks sake. Just get the fuck out of my sight.”

Good, I thought to myself. Finally, the tables had turned, and for the first time ever, it would be Lena-1 and Jace-0.

Time to prepare for round two.