Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

 The next day, I lied in bed, thinking about the day before. When we talked, Alaric had explained that he and Kara needed to go back to Seattle to take care of things so that they could stay with me at the loft. Meanwhile, Mac and Ana had put off going to Seattle and were planning to stay in LA until Alaric and Kara returned. That way, I wouldn’t be alone while they were gone. 

  It had been quickly decided that I wouldn’t be going back to the college anymore, since it was painfully evident that Hayden knew I was a student there now. Today I had to call and withdraw from my classes. Thankfully, I was still well within my partial refund time limit and Jonas said I would get back at least half of my money. Although, I was now stuck with trying to resell my textbooks I’d already purchased for the year.

  Also, there’d been a disagreement about Brian’s funeral, because though I wanted to go, I was the only person who thought I should. It was almost funny how quickly both Alaric and Jonas had both been to say, “Forget it,” in unison, as if they’d practiced it. Ana had laughed, and Jonas and Alaric had both looked at each other strangely for a brief moment, Jonas with an ever so slight bit of contempt.

  Jonas and I hadn’t been able to talk in private since he’d learned that he had a brother, and I desperately wanted to talk to him about it because it was obvious he resented Alaric’s presence among us. I hoped we’d get a chance to talk soon so that I could try to figure out what it was about Alaric that made Jonas so hostile towards him.

   I was startled from my thoughts by a light tapping on my door.

  “Come on in,” I called out, rolling over to face the door and see who was there. The door opened and Ana hurried through, hurling herself into my bed. She was snuggled in next to me before it even fully registered to me that she had come towards me.

  “Well good morning to you too,” I commented with a hint of sarcasm evident in my voice. “Exactly what’re you doing, Ana? I think you found the wrong bed to run back to,” I laughed. She shook her head and poked herself out of the blankets a little in order to talk.

  “I was just thinking about yesterday and everything that happened. I never even remembered my brother,” she said thoughtfully. “On one hand, I can’t believe my parent’s never told us about him, on the other, I’m so excited we finally found each other again after all this time.”

  “Jonas doesn’t seem to share your enthusiasm about suddenly having an older brother around,” I observed.

  Ana nodded, her head resting against my pillow and my blanket pulled up to her chin. I flopped down and settled in next to her, staring up at the ceiling as we continued talking.

  “I know. I’m worried about him and Alaric being over here together without a referee to step in when they finally butt heads,” admitted Ana, “and they will butt heads, of that I’m certain. Jonas has been in charge for almost four years now, and he’s not going to like having an older brother around telling him what to do. Unfortunately, Alaric appears to be just as headstrong and ‘alpha male-ish’ as Jonas.”

  “And cocky,” I tossed in. “They must be family traits,” I teased. I felt Ana playfully dig her elbow into my ribs, and yelped.

  “Alright, I suppose there might be some truth to that statement,” Ana acknowledged with a light laugh.

  “There is definite truth to it,” I corrected. “But if it helps any, I’ll do the best I can to keep them from killing each other,” I promised.

  “Thanks Britt,” Ana said with a grateful smile. “If you can’t stop them any other way, just jump between them,” she laughed. “Jonas will stop immediately.”

  At that moment, we heard Mac coming, and Ana ducked back under the covers, motioning me to not say anything. He came to the door a split second after she disappeared from sight.

  “Morning Britt, have you seen Ana? She promised to make eggs and waffles for breakfast while I went to get her some stuff from the store, but now that I’m back and can’t find her,” Mac explained. I tried to hide my smile as I heard a soft giggling come from underneath the blankets, but Mac heard it too.

  “No fair Ana!” complained Mac. Ana flung back the covers wearing a satisfied smile.

  “It worked though didn’t it? I got to stay home while you took care of my shopping for me,” she pointed out.

  “That was low Ana,” I said, laughing now. “You know he’ll do anything for food.”

  She sighed. “I know,” she admitted. Seeing the look of disgust on Mac’s face at having been cheated, she pushed off the blankets, rushed over to him, and stood on her toes to kiss him quickly with another carefree laugh.

  “I’ll make them, I’ll make them,” she promised before skipping off to get dressed and make breakfast with Mac right on her heels. I laughed and got up myself, shaking my head at the newly-weds’ antics, glad that I wouldn’t be going to Seattle and witnessing them this way constantly.

  When I was dressed, I went downstairs, heading for the door, glad to see that both Ana and Mac were apparently still upstairs. I seriously needed a good run this morning. Especially since I knew it could be a rather long time before I got the chance to do it again. It had been hard enough to get away from Jonas and Steve whenever they were around to keep me in sight. I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like having a permanent babysitting squad who were specifically staying here to keep an eye on me for Jonas. I had a feeling though that it was going to be my worst nightmare with Alaric around.

  I went out the door and ran down the steps and around the corner, planning only to go around the block the apartment was on. As I ran, I wondered what was next. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, stay in hiding forever. Eventually something would have to give, and from Hayden’s message of killing Brian, it was obvious he wasn’t going to just let this go. The question was; what was going to happen?

  I shivered, not from cold, but from the memory of Jonas telling Alaric that he didn’t want to kill anyone and Alaric’s apparent belief that it was how to handle our problem. I may dislike what my father had done to earn his money, but from what Steve had said, it sounded like those days were over for him, and as for Hayden...I hated him for what he’d done to Brian, but that didn’t mean I wished him dead. No, I was with Jonas on this one, there had to be another way.

  Thoughts of killing people also brought back the realization that Jonas’ father had been a hit man, just as my own father was. I cringed at the thought that Jonas was trained to kill, not just to hunt. It made sense now why Jonas had kept much of his past to himself, and why he hadn’t wanted to tell me why his father had requested protection for Jonas. He’d probably made the request knowing he would be found eventually and had wanted to be sure that someone would see to the well-being of his son and heir.

  I turned the last corner and ran straight into a wall of a human chest. I grunted when I ran into the man and looked up to find familiar sea green eyes looking back down at me. Only the eyes didn’t belong to either of the people I had come to associate them with. They were Alaric’s.

  “Alaric, what’re you doing here? I thought you and Kara were going back to Seattle for a bit,” I questioned with surprise at our unexpected meeting.

  “Kara insisted on going by herself and that I stayed behind here,” he explained. “She’s very excited about all this,” he commented with a half-smile that caused me to inhale sharply. “Something wrong?” he wondered , his smile disappearing immediately.

  “Uh, no, it’s just, umm, well, for as similar as you two are, it’s surprising that Jonas doesn’t seem to like you much,” I told him, blushing at my stuttering.

  “No, he doesn’t, does he?” Alaric mused, more to himself than to me. Seeming to remember I was standing there, he asked, “What’re you doing out here by yourself?”

  “Just going for a run around the block,” I replied, going around him and continuing back to the loft. He shook his head disparagingly.

  “I think I understand why no one wanted you here by yourself. You don’t have a very strong sense of self-preservation, do you Britney?”

  “I just don’t like having to have others around me all the time and following a bunch of rules of where I can and cannot go and what I can and cannot do,” I defended.

  “I can see that,” he remarked. “Don’t worry though, as long as you’re with me or Kara, you should be safe. So I don’t see anything wrong with you going out if you want to, providing one of us is with you of course.”

  I smiled at the news, happily astonished by his laxness. I’d been expecting something a little more like Jonas when it came to lock down.

  “Thanks, I appreciate that,” I thanked him with genuine gratefulness.

  “No problem,” he replied, brushing off my thanks. “Now, why don’t we go in to see Ana and Mac? I assume they’re up?”

  “Yes,” I assured him, relating the details of the morning to him regarding Ana and Mac. He laughed loudly at the story.

  “Ana sounds like she hasn’t changed so much since she was that little girl,” he mentioned. “Still a rascal at heart.”

  “But she can be very serious too, and she’s an excellent doctor,” I informed him. When we got inside, we found that Mac and Ana had already eaten, and were back upstairs. We wisely decided not to go in search of the pair.

  “We have some cereal and stuff if you’re hungry,” I let him know, pointing out the boxes of cereal in the cupboard to which he helped himself.

  “How did you and Jonas ever meet in the first place?” Alaric asked with open curiosity as he poured himself a heaping bowl of Ana’s favorite cereal, oatmeal squares. I cringed inwardly, knowing she wouldn’t be happy when she went to eat them next and found the box’s contents considerably depleted “I mean, it’s not like there’s an ‘LA’s most wanted’ ball.”

  “I ran away from home the night I found out about my father’s work. Somehow, I was stupid enough to never realize how he made all the money he did until I was almost eighteen. I noticed some men following me, and ducked into what I thought was a restaurant, but ended up being a bar. They followed me in and started harassing me. That’s when Jonas stepped between Ricky, the leader of the men following me, and me, drawing his gun. Somehow, we managed to get out of there in one piece, though I’m still not quite sure how. He took me home and gave me a place to stay for the night, promising to take me home the next day, not knowing who my father was.

  “Before I woke up the next morning, my dad called Jonas, asking him to come to him so he could talk to him. It turned out he wanted to hire Jonas to find me,” I explained.

  “Find you? Is that what my father started doing after they moved to the states? Finding people?” he asked, moving to the living room with his loaded bowl. I followed, nodding.

  “Yeah. Jonas didn’t tell him he’d already found me, promised to look, and then left. He made a deal with me to help me if I met some conditions,” I continued as I sat down on what had been unofficially labeled Jonas’ and my sofa.

  “What were the conditions?”

  “Not much really. I had to continue going to school and finish my senior year, get a job to save for college, and stay with him,” I told Alaric.

  He raised his eyebrows with surprise. “Really, stay with him? And I’d been thinking that he would have a problem with Kara and me sharing a room....”

  “No,” I shot out quickly with a deep blush. “We stayed in separate rooms. It was only until I could find another place to stay. I was staying with Ana before we even kissed for the first time and started dating,” I explained. “Not too long after we’d made our agreement, Ana stopped by Jonas’ place, found out about my situation, gave me a job, and offered to let me live with her here.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Alaric mumbled, looking a bit embarrassed himself for having jumped to conclusions. “So anyways, who’s this Hayden character then?” he wanted to know.

  “As far as we can figure, the guy my father planned to have me marry. He’s from Ireland, where my dad came from to marry my mother, and his family is close friends of my father. My dad brought him here after giving up on Jonas ever finding me,” I related, watching him shove heaping spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth and wondering how he managed to open his mouth wide enough to fit it.

  “So Jonas pretended to be looking for you? For how long?” he quizzed me around mouthfuls.

  “Yes. He created a false trail that he pretended to be following, and gave my father false evidence to make him believe he was on the right track. He only was able to make it last from around Christmas last year up until I graduated.”

  “Still, that’s amazing,” Alaric praised Jonas with a look of brotherly pride. Obviously, even though Jonas didn’t seem ready to accept Alaric as an older brother, Alaric seemed more than willing to accept Jonas for a younger brother. “It couldn’t have been easy for him to do.”

  “It wasn’t,” I agreed. “It had even fooled Hayden for awhile, but Jonas thinks he started to figure things out when the trail just ended abruptly.”

  My cell began ringing then, and I reached for it to see who it was. I frowned, not recognizing the number. I excused myself, stood up, and began walking off as I answered it.

  “Hello?” I asked cautiously, wondering if it was someone from school.

  “Britney,” the voice on the other end practically purred with triumph at having reached me, and goose bumps immediately formed on my skin. “We need to talk Britney.”

  “Who is this?” I asked, trying miserably to keep my voice strong and even, already guessing who it was.

  “Hayden, of course,” answered the voice.

  “Hayden?” I breathed in shock. “How…how did you find this number?” I asked in shock.

  “I have ways.”

  In a flash, the phone was whipped from my grasp and slammed against the wall. I turned in amazement towards Alaric, who was making sure that the phone had been thoroughly killed. Ana and Mac came running downstairs, and stared in bewilderment at the sight that met their eyes.

  “What happened?” demanded Ana, resting her hands on her hips, looking to Alaric for an answer since he was obviously the cause of her and Mac’s disturbance.

  “Hayden called her,” he informed them unapologetically. “I smashed the phone in case he was attempting to trace the phone.”

  “Whew,” Mac breathed. “Good thinking. How’d he get the number though?”

  “He was probably looking in on Jonas’ information and was calling all the phones registered to Jonas that he could dig up,” supplied Ana with sudden realization.

  “Great,” I moaned. “There goes my lifeline to Jonas,” I stated, holding back my tears. Jonas and I had never actually exchanged email, and as far as I knew, he didn’t have a Facebook. We had always called each other when we wanted to talk.

  “You can borrow my phone or Kara’s whenever you need to,” Alaric readily offered me. I smiled my thanks to him. “However, I think I need his number so I can call and tell him what happened so he knows not to call that phone anymore and to be wary of the calls he receives.”

   I dialed Jonas’ number on Alaric’s phone for him, and he stepped outside and called Jonas. Soon, he had come back in and rejoined us, handing me his phone.

  “I told him that I thought you might like to talk to him,” he explained. “Feel free to talk as long as you want.”

  “Thanks,” I said, accepting the phone and heading upstairs. When I got to my room, I closed my door and flopped across my bed. As soon as I hit the bed, Cinder came running out of hiding and pounced me, looking for attention. I stroked her smooth coat while I took the phone off hold.

  “Hey,” I greeted Jonas cheerfully.

  “Hey Britt. You’re alright, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I reassured him.

  “Good. I’m sorry, I had no idea he could find that number,” he apologized. “I should have realized he could track down the number through me.”

  “It’s hardly your fault,” I replied dismissively. “So, what’s the plan exactly?” I inquired. “I mean, this can only go on for so long.”

  “I know,” he sighed. “I’m still trying to figure out what to do. I just don’t know how we can handle this without anyone else getting hurt in the process.”

  “Jonas,” I began hesitantly. “I want you to know, that if it came down to either you or any of them, including my father, I don’t want you to waver even for a moment. I want you to survive,” I told him. “I don’t want anyone hurt, but I especially don’t want you, Steve, Alaric, Kara, or any of our friends and family to end up hurt or like...Brian.”

  “I’ll find a way to end this so that nothing like Brian happens again, on either side of this fight,” declared Jonas firmly.

  “I gave Alaric a basic overview of all that’s happened, since I left home.”

  “I suppose that was a good idea,” Jonas said grudgingly.

  “Jonas, what is it you have against Alaric? I mean, if I found out that I had a long lost brother who wanted to help me and get to know me, I’d be thrilled. Why do you hate him?” I queried softly, trying not to upset him, but wanting to know why he was so dead set against his own brother.

  “I don’t hate him, Britt,” Jonas defended himself. “I just don’t like him walking in, trying to take over, and treating me like a little brother.”

  I laughed. “Jonas, you are his little brother, how is he supposed to treat you? And he’s not trying to take over, he just wants to help.”

  “He may be my older brother in blood and age, but that’s it, Britt. He was never there before, I don’t see any need for him now,” he said, determined.

  “But that’s not his fault Jonas. Imagine, all these years, longing to have his family back and now he finds out his parents are dead and he has a younger brother. He thinks the world of you Jonas, you can tell just by how he looks at you for goodness sake! He even said that it was amazing that you were able to fool my father and Hayden for so long.”

  “I’m accepting he’s my brother, and I’m accepting his help, but that’s all I’m going to accept,” he stated with a note of finality. “I thought he was leaving for Seattle anyway, what’s he doing there?”

  I sighed, giving up for now. “He said Kara wanted to go by herself. He stopped by to see us.”

  We talked a bit longer about some other things before saying goodbye. I took Alaric’s phone back down to him when we had finished.

  “Thanks again,” I told him as I handed him the phone. He was now sitting on what had unofficially become Jonas’ and my sofa while Ana and Mac occupied the love seat, where Alaric had previously been sitting.

  “No problem,” he assured me, accepting the phone back. “Have a nice chat?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed, not willing to admit that it could have been better and had mostly consisted of talk about him.

  “Good,” he said, turning back to Ana and Mac. “Kara left last night, and thinks she should be able to be back in LA tomorrow morning. I do freelance work, so I’ll just be unavailable until further notice. We plan to move in tomorrow if that’s alright with all of you.”

  “Of course,” Mac guaranteed him. “Ana and I’ll head for Washington tomorrow then, and then off to France for a few weeks,” he announced with a broad smile, looking at Ana sitting next to him.

  “Right,” she agreed, leaning towards him and kissing him on the cheek quickly.

  “Well, until then,” Alaric announced, getting up and preparing to leave. “Kara and I will be right over after I pick her up from the airport,” he promised before leaving. Once he was gone, Ana turned to me. “I’ve known you long enough to know that yours and Jonas’ conversation didn’t really go that well, what happened?”

  “Jonas refuses to accept Alaric as anything more than a brother by blood and someone who may be able to help us. I think you’re right; sparks are going to fly between those too, and soon. Jonas doesn’t like being treated at all inferior to anyone, especially Alaric for some reason,” I related to them, knowing it would be useless to deny the truth.

  “Maybe we should delay our trip a littler longer then,” Mac suggested. “At least until the two of them have had a chance to get used to one another at least.”
  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You should go. They’re going to have to work out their problems, and you won’t be able to do them any good. They’re more likely to have it out sooner if Ana isn’t around anyway.”

  “Britt’s right,” Ana determined. “They’re not dumb enough to do anything with me around. Or, at least, I know Jonas isn’t, and the sooner they have this out the better in my opinion. We should just go as planned and hope they can work things out without hurting each other too much.”

  “What’s up with Matthews’ guys being all physical and stuff?” wondered Mac. “I mean, do they really bond by beating the life out of each other, because that’s sounding a lot like what you think is going to happen,” he joked.

 “It’s more like learning to respect each other,” explained Ana seriously. “Jonas needs to learn a little brotherly respect, and I think Alaric will teach him soon.”

  “Lovely,” Mac commented sarcastically. Inwardly, I agreed with him completely.

 

Reviews

[Zachary_James]

You kept me on the edge of my seat LOVED IT.