Chapter Twelve

We settled into life as easily and normally as we could. Kaley ate her meals in bed for the first few days, only venturing as far as the bathroom and back, but appeared in the kitchen, to little fanfare, for breakfast the following week. She was invariably the centre of attention whether she was partaking in conversation, reading a book quietly, or not in the room at all. Annabelle and Maya clung to her; Gregory and Edwin hovered protectively; Tristan watched her every move as though scared that as soon as he looked away she’d disappear again. I felt myself fading back into obscurity despite everyone’s profuse words of thanks.

I knew it was time for me to leave. Being seen as an honorary member of the family and actually being part of the family were vastly different and I felt as though I’d outstayed my welcome; as though I was intruding on this important reunion period between Kaley and her family. I was in the way.

It was sort of an uncomfortable subject to bring up, though. My contract said I was to work til the end of the summer, but I had a feeling that that was null and void at this point and that, actually, if anybody did a little investigative probing, we’d find the contract wasn’t exactly legally binding. Still, I didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself while everyone was so busy fussing over Kaley, so I waited a while until an opportunity presented itself.

That is, I followed Edwin around until he finally ended up alone in the kitchen.

‘Hey,’ I said in my most authoritative tone, hoisting myself up to sit on the counter while he pottered around in the cupboards aimlessly.

‘Hello,’ Edwin replied, amusement tickling his tone. He’d noticed me tailing him then. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Going home,’ I cut right to the chase. ‘I came, I saw, I helped defeat some weird-looking alien mutants and rescue the princess. I’m done, right?’

Edwin turned to look at me, his mirth glittering in his eyes. ‘Not even nearly,’ he said pleasantly.

I blinked at him. Half-hearted assurances that I was always welcome, I’d been expecting. Outright refusal, not so much. ‘What?’

‘There’s plenty more to do here before you go home,’ he added cheerfully, turning back to his fabricated task of looking busy even though he wasn’t. ‘And afterwards I don’t think you’re going to want to go home anyway.’

I paused, considering the gravity of this. ‘But I will go home at some point, right? Like, for school and stuff? My friends and family? My normal life that hasn’t got magic and evil and British people in it?’

Edwin shrugged one shoulder carefully. ‘Sure.’

That sounded upsettingly vague. ‘When?’ I pressed.

‘When what?’ We turned to see Tristan entering the room and sauntering to the fridge before opening it to peer inside. ‘When what?’ he asked again when neither of us answered.

‘Cody wants to know when he can home,’ Edwin supplied at last. I glared at him. So much for not drawing attention to myself.

I turned to Tristan just in time to see him arranging his features into impassivity. ‘You can’t leave yet,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘There’s more to do.’

My eyes widened. ‘Are we going to get revenge on that Aldrich dude?’ I demanded.

Tristan shot a disapproving look at Edwin. ‘You told him?’

Edwin shrugged again. ‘What harm can it do? It’s not like he can Google him or add him on Facebook.’

I clicked my tongue in irritation; this habit of talking about me like I wasn’t in the room was going to have to break. ‘What else aren’t you telling me?’ I asked flatly, not even expecting an answer.

Edwin turned with exaggerated expectation to Tristan, tilting his head to one side and raising his eyebrows. Tristan merely scowled. I wondered absently if this non-verbal communication was also going on in their heads, but I decided it probably wasn’t. They knew each other well enough to express themselves without projecting their voices.

‘This is why I want to go home,’ I announced suddenly. ‘You guys don’t need me anymore and I’m not exactly part of the group, am I? Annabelle is six years old and she knows more than I do. I’ve done what you wanted me to do so I’m respectfully requesting that you let me go home. I’m not comfortable here.’

Edwin and Tristan both looked at me with inscrutable expressions on their faces for a moment before Edwin raised his hands in surrender and started moving towards the door. ‘This one’s on you, Tristan,’ he said, rightfully. ‘Even Gregory wasn’t this secretive with me at first.’

He closed the door gently behind him, leaving Tristan and I alone in the kitchen. The former leaned against the marble counter beside the fridge, arms folded across his chest, watching me with those dark eyes. I held his gaze, even though being alone with Tristan lately is one of those rare treats that makes me both nervous and excited.

‘Well?’ I asked, breaking the tension after a few moments when it didn’t seem like he was going to say anything. He still didn’t, so I added sarcastically, ‘May I go home, Master?’

A muscle twitched in his jaw at that, but I couldn’t tell if it was amusement or irritation.

‘You have to know why I’m keeping things from you,’ he said in that deep voice that he gets sometimes when he’s being really serious.

‘Yeah,’ I said longsufferingly, rolling my eyes. ‘I’m the useless newbie who’s immature and volatile. I get it. All the more reason to let me go,’ I finished, though being alone with him was sort of counteracting my desire to leave in the first place. I tried to shake myself out of it. The longer I stayed, the harder it would be to leave and I had to leave at some point. Even if I lived in some alternate universe where Tristan wasn’t mildly repulsed by me I’d have to go home at the end of the summer. Staying here and torturing myself with foolish hope was more than I was willing to put up with.

‘That’s not the reason,’ Tristan replied. He was at other side of the kitchen ten feet away, but I could still feel his presence all around me. My body was tingling with the urge to be closer to him. ‘Which you would realise if you ever put an ounce of thought into anything rather than basing everything you say on emotion.’

That got my hackles up. ‘At least I actually have emotions,’ I snapped, sadistically hoping to sting him, but he just smiled sardonically.

‘There you go again,’ he said mildly.

I snapped my mouth shut, my jaw clenching painfully.

Tristan pushed himself away from the counter and walked over to stand in front of me. I knew what he was doing; using my not-so-well-hidden feelings for him to try and disconcert me, but I wouldn’t let him. I could feel my heartbeat and the rising temperature under my skin but I forced myself to ignore it.

‘Have you even paused to consider about how much your life has changed since you got here?’ Tristan demanded. ‘You are literally a different person. Everything about the old you has been altered: your body, your beliefs, your soul. And none of it can be reversed. You’re going to live forever and you can’t change.’

I swallowed uncomfortably. He was right; I hadn’t thought of any of this and the way he said it made it sound scary.

‘For all your emotional responsiveness, you haven’t once considered how you feel about any of that. From the day you got here I’ve been doing my best to do that for you and you’ve fought me every step of the way. You think I’m treating you like a child but I’m not, I’m just trying to treat you like a human being. You think you can handle everything but that’s because you’re going through this blindly ignoring anything that isn’t fun and exciting.’

He must have recognised the fear that was building behind my eyes because he took another step closer so he was right in front of me and added softly, ‘I’m just trying to protect you.’

Before I even knew what I was doing I’d thrown my arms around his neck and clung on tightly, sliding down from the counter, trying to control the waves of nervousness washing over me that I should have been feeling all along. It was like his words had caused the dam to break.

Tristan hesitated with surprise for a second before wrapping his arms around me tightly and making me feel safe, like I always inexplicably do whenever he touches me.

‘I’ll tell you everything eventually,’ he assured me quietly. ‘I just don’t want to push it all on you at once, in case it overwhelms you. But for the record, the reason we need you around is because Aldrich will come looking for Kaley again. I know you feel ostracized, but we do actually need you.’

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, standing in the kitchen holding each other, but we sprang apart – or rather, I sprang away from him – when the door opened and Kaley, Maya, and Annabelle tumbled in.

They all stopped short when they saw us; Tristan gazing at them coolly and me looking like a rabbit about to be run over.

‘Whoops,’ Kaley said cheerfully. ‘Sorry.’

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I don’t know if it was coincidence or if Tristan had a word with everyone else, but suddenly I was Mr Popular in the Darlington household. It was kind of embarrassing because obviously I was the least important person – everybody had been rightfully fussing over Kaley and now they were fussing over me just to protect my pride. Nevertheless, it did make my day-to-day life more pleasant, especially now that it was clear Annabelle didn’t exactly need an au pair to look after her – even if she wasn’t by her older sister’s side twenty four hours a day, the kid was more independent and responsible than I was.

Pleasant, stimulating, and exciting days turned into pleasant, stimulating, and exciting weeks as Kaley reintegrated into normal life, reacquainted herself with her family, and an re-emerged into general society. As she became more talkative and open, conversations became more animated and energetic, family outings became more frequent, and the atmosphere in general became more relaxed.

But no matter how we fooled ourselves, how comfortable we felt in settling into this satisfying new incarnation, there was the ever-present cloud hovering just overhead, reminding us that Aldrich wasn’t the type to give up so easily.