Stepping back was awkward. It would have been easier if someone had walked in on them, severing the fused being they’d become back into their own separate selves. Instead, as Marc’s sobs slowly dissolved, Lara became more aware of her body. One of her arms had gotten trapped between them in their embrace and it began to tingle from the impeded circulation. The cotton of his shirt tickled her nose. There was an itch on the back of her leg. But Marc’s hold on her was still strong and it seemed rude to try to pull away from him. It would be profane to disturb the tranquility that had settled around them.
But as a bead of sweat trickled down her back, Lara couldn’t stand still any longer. Feeling itchy and claustrophobic, she jolted out of Marc’s arms and scratched her legs, back, and nose desperately.
“Sorry,” she said to him. “I’m really sorry.”
Marc’s expression was unreadable. It was unfair that he could see through her so easily while she never knew what he was thinking. “It’s all right,” he replied.
Lara breathed and ran her fingers through her hair. She didn’t know what to say next. This young man had cried for her and yet she was the one who was embarrassed while Marc looked at her without the slightest vestige of self-consciousness. His tears had made her crash. She felt like a puddle of sludge on the ground.
“What happens now?” she finally asked him.
“I don’t know.” He glanced away from her, as if he was studying the woods beyond the house. “Do you want him gone?”
She bit her lip nervously. Of course, she knew what the right answer was, but Lara couldn’t bring herself to say it. She thought of the volatile euphoria that had swelled within her only minutes ago and even though it was wrong, she still craved it. The need to feel indestructible, invincible, burned in her gut. What she wouldn’t give for it—the power and the oblivion. With Kabran, it was within her reach. He’d made her grief seem small and insignificant. He had shown her that there was more to her than the abhorrent life she’d been laboring through. How could she give that up?
Marc found his answer in Lara’s silence and he nodded slowly. But then his unflinching gaze met hers. “He hurts you.”
“I need it,” she whispered, closing her eyes and turning away. It was terrible how effortlessly he shamed her. If it were anyone else with her at that moment, Lara would have been sarcastic and malicious, as she’d been with Paige before. But she had already played all of those games with Marc and she’d lost. There was nothing left for her to say but the truth, no matter how mortifying it was. “It makes things right. It takes the pain away, moves it inside out.”
“Makes it tangible?”
“Yes.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I get that.”
Lara stared at the porch underneath her bare feet. Do you really? she was tempted to ask. But the words slipped away.
“Who is he?” Marc asked. “Why is he after you?”
She was quiet, unsure of what to tell him. She hadn’t wanted him to know about her ghost in the first place. What she had with Kabran felt almost sacred to her. Spilling her secrets, sharing him with someone else would ruin that.
But this moment with Marc was strange. There was a closeness, a connection between them that she couldn’t deny, even if she didn’t understand it. He had only known her for a few short days and she had already hurt and confused him more times than she cared to remember. But here he was, still by her side. She didn’t deserve it. She knew that much. She didn’t deserve his kindness, his concern, or his tears.
God, his tears. He had cried for her. He had cried for what she had done to her parents and for the hell she had gone through since their deaths. Her guilt, her hatred, her despair, her shame and remorse—Marc had cried for it all, even as she’d tried to push it all away.
But why? And for what? She would never understand.
Kabran felt her pain and he accepted it as part of her. They reveled in it together, just as they had when they’d both been alive. They were kindred.
But Marc...he was different. And she didn’t know what that meant.
“We knew each other…before,” Lara told him uneasily. The phrase “past life” seemed too trite. “Kabran doesn’t want anything from me. He only wants me.”
“Kabran? That’s his name?”
She nodded.
“Christ, I can’t believe this,” he breathed. “We’re standing here talking about a ghost for Christ’s sake. A ghost with a name like Kabran. This is unreal.”
Lara finally looked at Marc. He was disturbed and freaked out, but there was no trace of skepticism in his expression. He honestly believed what he’d seen and what she’d told him. “I know,” she replied. “I started seeing him the day I left Virginia. Since then, I’ve had dreams. Flashbacks. It’s hard to describe, but I know it’s real.”
“Do you think—” he started. But the screen door opened and he abruptly stopped talking.
Tim came out onto the porch, his eyes locked on Marc. “Are you going to do some work today, boy?” he asked. Lara could see that he was trying hard to keep his voice normal, but he couldn’t hide his anger. Paige must have told him what had happened earlier.
Marc pushed away from the railing of the porch, giving Tim an easy smile. “Try and stop me,” he said cheerfully. He seemed so genuine that it surprised her. She wouldn’t have thought that he could lie so well. “Sorry I’m a little late.”
“No problem. Go on in.” Then Tim looked at Lara and his face hardened. “And you,” he said to her, “go clean up. You look like hell.”
“Tim,” Marc broke in, “would you mind if I helped her out before I start work? It’s the least that I can do. It’s my fault that she got hurt.”
Lara’s eyes widened in alarm, but she kept her mouth shut. What was he doing?
“Your fault?” Tim asked.
“Well, yeah. A fight broke out at the party we went to last night. Lara got caught in the middle of it. I feel really bad for bringing her there.”
Tim looked at Marc uncertainly. “Paige said that Lara didn’t look hurt when you brought her home.”
“I know,” he replied. “I didn’t realize that she’d gotten this banged up either. I guess it took a while for all of the bruises to show.”
Her uncle turned his gaze on Lara and she could practically hear the arguments churning in his head. Maybe Paige could have missed bruises, but how could she not see the scratches and cuts on her face? Well, the light in the front hallway was dim and Lara had stormed past Paige without stopping when she had come in last night. It was possible.
But in the end, Lara thought that it was Tim’s trust in Marc that convinced him. Like her, he didn’t believe that Marc could lie. “Well…that’s no excuse for treating your aunt the way that you did,” he said sternly.
“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Tim nodded. “Well, I’m not the one you need to apologize to. Let Marc help you get cleaned up and then you go put on something decent. And then I want you to apologize to Paige. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And no more parties for the next month,” he ordered with the conviction of a man who hadn’t had much practice at being a parent. He’d obviously pulled the punishment out of his ass and was proud of himself for it.
But Lara just nodded and said, “I understand.”
She and Marc followed Tim into the house and then Marc led her into the downstairs bathroom. She sat on the side of the tub while he rummaged through the medicine cabinet.
“So what did you say to Paige?” he asked off-handedly.
Lara shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing, really. I think that was the problem.”
He gave her a wry smile. “I think you’re the only person I’ve ever met who offends people more with her silence than her words.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult?”
“Just an observation.” He retrieved a bag of cotton balls from a draw under the sink. “Are you going to tell them about what’s going on?”
Lara snorted. “And be carted off in a straight-jacket? No. They think I’m crazy enough as it is.”
“If you opened up and talked more, or just acted normally they wouldn’t think that.”
“Like you?” There was a bitterness in her words that she hadn’t anticipated.
Marc put a box of band-aids on the bathroom counter and faced her. “Meaning what?”
The defensiveness in his eyes scared her a little. Lara realized that she’d struck a nerve. But hell, he assaulted hers all the time. “You lie really well,” she said softly. “The smile you gave Tim was perfect. It was the same one you gave your friends at the party last night. And the story about the fight…you almost made me believe it.”
“So?”
“So, you come across as honest and straight-forward, but now I wonder what’s real about you.”
Marc didn’t respond. He sat down on the side of the tub next to her and reached for her arm.
Lara hissed in pain as he poured alcohol over a gash. “Jesus,” she gasped. “That hurt more than when he slashed me in the first place.”
He pasted a band-aid over the wound. “Maybe. But I promise this hurts less than an infection.”
“You have a real sadistic streak, you know that?”
“Now there’s the pot calling the kettle black,” he replied dryly.
For some reason that made her laugh. “Touche.”
“Hey, hold still.” Marc worked on her, one cut at a time, with detached precision. His long fingers moved over her skin with a delicacy that mesmerized her. It was like he was touching something fragile and precious, but he was somehow dispassionate at the same time. And it left her feeling very peculiar. Under his care, she felt like a child as well as an adult. Someone and no one.
He kneeled on the floor before her and held her bare thigh to swab Neosporin on a scrape. Lara shivered.
“Cold?” he asked softly, looking up at her.
His eyes were beautiful. She wondered if anyone had ever told him that before. The swirls of green and gold stole her breath. To stare into eyes like his was to fall into a lush field of grass in the springtime. The calming warmth of the sun was encompassed in them. But instead of soothing her, it heated her blood.
He sensed it. His eyes never moving from her face, Marc’s fingers trailed down her thigh, caressing the back of her knee. Lara had to bite her lip to keep from making some kind of humiliating moan or sigh.
No, this wasn’t right. She couldn’t do this to him. It was true what he’d said—she had been jerking him around for days. She didn’t want to do it any more.
But she didn’t stop him. His touch felt too good. His hands were warmer and gentler than Kabran’s. Where the ghost devoured, Marc revered. And it was such a simple thing, his fingers stroking her leg, sliding higher now, but it felt absurdly intimate.
The dispassion was gone from his face. Or maybe it had never really been there. His green eyes had darkened slightly and the desire that she saw almost frightened her. The Marc that she knew was kind. Safe. But the boy touching her now was flesh and blood, and he wanted.
Lara flinched and the spell between them broke. “Stop,” she whispered.
His hands froze on her leg, just above her knee, and he looked at her with concern. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “This is just…this is too much. I can’t.”
She stood up to leave, but Marc got to the door first and shut it, blocking her way. “Wait. I’m sorry if I crossed a line,” he said. Then he let out a tired breath. “I don’t know which way is up with you.”
“Yeah. You said it before. I’ve been using you.”
“Were you using me just now?”
Like all of his devastating questions, this one seemed so simple. But Lara couldn’t answer. “I honestly don’t know.” She turned and boosted herself up onto the counter. “God, I didn’t used to be this screwed up, I swear.”
Marc casually leaned back against the door and gave her a half-smile. “What did you used to be like?”
“Boring,” she replied firmly. “Nice and boring.”
“Now that I can’t imagine.”
Lara made a face at him. “Well, it’s true. It was pretty nice. But…”
“But?” he prompted her.
“Nothing. Just something Kabran said. That even before my parents died, I was sad for no real reason. He was right.”
Marc shrugged. “Everyone feels like that,” he said.
Lara looked at him sharply. “Even you?”
“Sure.” He glanced down at her leg. “I didn’t finish patching you up.”
She was taken aback by the sudden change in topic. “So you can dodge questions, but I can’t?”
He gave her an amused look. “Lara, you dodge them all the time.”
“I mean it. You seem to be privy to every humiliating thing that I think and feel. I want to know something about you.”
“I’ve already told you a lot. You’re the one hiding a secret relationship with some kind of sick, twisted bastard.”
His words stung like a slap. “He loves me,” she spat.
Something flashed in his eyes. “That’s bullshit. He beats you, Lara.”
“Because I want it. He knows that.”
“I’m sure. There’s always a reason why it’s your fault. ‘I wanted it. I was asking for it. I didn’t have dinner on the table on time. I shouldn’t have started to pester him after he’s had such a long day.’”
Lara gaped at him. “Marc, what are you talking about?”
“You!” he snapped. “Women. I don’t understand how you let yourself believe that you deserve the way he abuses you.”
“I killed my parents.”
Marc continued as if he hadn’t even heard her. His eyes were wild with anger and he was breathing hard. “But you still convince yourself that he loves you and that you can’t live without him. But you know what? You can. And you’re going to have to. Because once he’s done breaking you down, he’ll just move on and you’ll be left with nothing but yourself.”
Lara slid off the counter and grabbed his arms, shaking him lightly. “Marc.”
He looked at her. “And here I am and I would never hurt you and you look at me like I’m an animal just for touching you.” His eyes burned into hers. “I would never hurt you. I am not like him.”
She just nodded. The muscles of his arms strained and trembled as he tried to reel in his rage. His fists were clenched tightly and it reminded her of the way she dug her nails into her palms. She reached for his hands and opened his fist, interlacing his fingers with her own.
“Who’s ‘him’?” she asked him softly after his breath had slowed.
Marc turned his head away. “My dad,” he said in a muted voice.
“He hit you?”
“No, never me. My mom.”
“And then he left?”
“Yeah. And then my mother tried to commit suicide. He’d always told her that she couldn’t live without him. She believed him.”
“But she got better?”
He exhaled and disentangled his fingers from hers, then combed them through his hair. “Eventually. It took a long time. She still has trouble, though.”
“And you?”
“I hate him. I hated her. Sometimes I still do.”
Lara moved closer and started to put her arms around him, but Marc gently pushed her away. “I’ve got work to do,” he said hoarsely.
He opened the door and walked down the hall. Lara stared after him in shock. What had just happened? How could he feel so much and then simply turn it off. She’d never been able to do that. When she was drowning in grief, she couldn’t act any other way. And when she tried to turn off the pain, she turned off everything else as well. The emotional blockades that she tried to build had no specificity.
She left the bathroom and started up the stairs, where she knew he had gone.
When she reached the second floor, she saw Marc talking to Tim about the layout of the guest bedroom. He gestured to the walls and nodded. His bright green eyes and good-natured smile betrayed none of the anger she’d seen in him downstairs. It made her wonder if his breakdown had happened at all.
Part 7
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