The Voyeur Next Door (25 page)

“In case,” I said when Gabriel arched a brow at me.

He didn’t comment. Instead, he locked the car, set the alarm, and motioned me to follow.

The scuffle of our feet broke the tranquility only found in isolated places. Gabriel seemed in no hurry. I wasn’t sure if that was because he really wasn’t in any hurry, or if he was keeping pace with me, but I was grateful either way. Tamara’s boots may have fit me, but that didn’t mean they were comfortable.

“Tell me about when you were a kid,” I panted, scrambling up an incline made up of mud, twigs, and wet leaves.

“Not really much to tell,” he answered, twisting his body to offer me his hand. I accepted it appreciatively and let him haul me up. “After my dad died, my mom wasn’t fit to raise me so Earl and my grandmother stepped in.”

“Is Earl your mom’s dad?”

“Dad’s.”

“Did you live with him?”

He nodded, relinquishing my hand and continuing onward over the trail. “Until I was fifteen. Then I moved back with my mom.”

“Why?”

“Because she needed someone to look after her.” He stopped walking and faced me, eyes narrowed. “Now that I’ve told you about me, I think you need to share some stuff about you.”

Fuck.
I hadn’t seen that coming.

“Why are you so interested?” I muttered.

“Why are you?” he countered. “Why do you get to ask questions, but I can’t?”

I huffed. “Fine, but for every one question, I get to ask you one in return.”

“Fair enough.” He started walking once more. “You’ve asked me, what? Four questions, so I get four off the bat.”

I hated that he was smart.

“Don’t sulk. Fair is fair.”

“Yeah, yeah, ask already.”

Gabriel laughed. “You really don’t like being asked questions, huh?”

I shot him a sidelong glower. “I don’t like talking about myself.”

“I promise to start off small.” He held back a low branch and waited for me to pass. “Where are you from?”

“Alberta.”

“Why did you leave?”

“School.”

“Why did you pick a school out of the country?”

“Are you going to use all four questions on my education?”

“Possibly.”

I rolled my eyes. “The experience.”

“You’re lying. You could have gotten that same experience just by going to another province, but you chose to move out of the country. Why?”

I was really beginning to hate this game.

“I don’t know. I just did.”

He glanced over at me and I looked away.

“What’s your favorite color?”

That momentarily threw me for a loop before I caught myself.

“Green.”

“Like your eyes?”

Heat prickled my cheeks. “Jade green. That was more than four questions.”

“Okay, your turn.”

But I didn’t ask any more questions. I knew that if I did, he would ask questions in return and I didn’t want to answer anymore.

“It’s getting dark,” he observed, peering up at the canopy of tree branches overhead.

“Hold on.” I fished into my purse and came out with a flashlight. “Here. It has a built in compass.” I pointed to the spinning needle just above the button. “The GPS said we needed to go south east.”

“You’re like a girl scout,” he mused.

I snorted. “This is as close to nature as I have ever gotten.”

“You’ve never been camping?”

I thought of my mom’s idea of
camping,
which consisted mostly of luxury hotels with spas and white sandy beaches.

“Not really. My mom doesn’t like nature unless it comes with a side order of low fat salad dressing.”

Gabriel laughed and the sound made me laugh. Together, it rang through the trees.

“Does she still live in Alberta?”

“Oh, God no. She hated it there. Last I heard, she was somewhere in Europe. Spain, I think.”

“Don’t talk to her much?”

It was only when my boot caught a root and I stumbled that I realized what he was doing. It hadn’t even dawned on me that he was asking sly little questions, distracting me into answering.

“No,” I answered. “I don’t and don’t ask me why.”

“I wasn’t,” he said, as though expecting that. “I was going to ask if you liked seafood.”

He was so random. I almost missed the quiet, sullen Gabriel.

“I’m allergic to seafood,” I stated.

“Good to know.”

Thankfully, that was the end of our twenty questions. I think a lot of that had to do with the steep incline we had to clump our way up. He didn’t seem to have any trouble at all, while I was practically crawling to keep my footing.

“Are you sure this is the right way?” I panted. “I don’t see a bunch of teenagers trudging their way…”

The ground slid out from beneath my boot and I went down with enough force to knock my glasses off as I tumbled back down to the bottom. Twigs snapped beneath my weight and the world kaleidoscoped around me in a blur of darkness. Then it all stopped. I found myself on my back, staring up at a wall of black that had become the sky. My frantic breaths fanned out around my face, hot against the evening chill. I lay there, feeling the damp earth soak into my jeans and mat in my hair and tried to determine if anything was broken.

“Ali!”

A beam of light swung wildly overhead, mirroring the pounding of feet. Then Gabriel was there, leaning over me. The light was gone from his hands and his hands were cradling my face, brushing away hair and dirt.

“Ali? Say something!”

“I lost my glasses,” I blurted.

I felt his hot exhalation wash over my face.

“Forget your glasses, are you okay?”

“Nothing’s broken.” I assured him. “Except maybe my pride and I think I might have fractured my dignity.”

He chuckled. “You’re fine. Come on.”

I let him haul me back to my feet. I even let him brush some of the dirt off with his hands, just because it felt nice. But I knew it was no good. I was a mud covered monster.

He took the flashlight in one hand and my hand in the other and we started back up the hill.

“Are you humming Jack and Jill?”

I sighed. “It seemed appropriate.”

With his help, I made it all the way to the top. Unfortunately, my glasses were gone. Even with Gabriel using the light to search, they had been swallowed by nature. That meant I had to rely on him to get us to where we needed to go, which thankfully, wasn’t too far off once we stumbled our way down the other side of the hill once more.

The noise assured us first. It was insanely loud, like a rave without the fun lights and acid. I could just make out the shadowed humps surrounding a column of fire that crackled eight feet into the air. Ambers blew away with the wind towards some unknown location and I prayed to God it wouldn’t start a forest fire. Faces were obscured, but I could make out their silhouettes bumping and grinding to the heavy thump of bass and laughter. No one even glanced up when we stepped into the clearing. Beer cans, discarded chip bags and the occasional article of clothing littered the ground. Most of the tent flaps sat open, but the majority were zipped closed and, judging from the sounds coming from inside, were occupied.

“How do we find her?” I wondered, squinting at the figures, trying to make out faces.

“The normal way,” Gabriel muttered. Then, before I could ask what that meant, he shouted, “Tamara! Get your ass out here now, or I’ll open every tent to find you!”

He started moving towards the tent closest to us, and for a horrified second, I honestly thought he was actually going to do it.

“Gabe?” The tent on the other side of the fire rustled. The zipper hissed open and Tamara’s head poked out and parts of a bare shoulder. She kept the tent flap held firmly to her chin, but I had a feeling she wasn’t wearing a whole lot on the other side. “What are you doing here?”

Abandoning me to find my own way around drunken pyros, Gabriel stalked forward.

“Me? What the hell are you doing here? Get the hell out now!”

“One sec!”

She disappeared inside. There was several seconds of the tent jerking and twitching before she stumbled out, yanking on her boots. Behind her, another figure emerged.

“Who the fuck are you?” Gabriel growled.

“Just chill. This is Eddy,” Tamara said, as if that was going to appease him.

“Hey, Eddy, did you know she’s only sixteen?” Gabriel bit out.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” Eddy slurred out, putting both hands up.

“How old are you, Eddy?” Gabriel pressed. “Because I’m guessing you’re not in high school.”

“He’s twenty,” Tamara answered. “Which is only like—”

“Statutory rape,” Gabriel finished for her. “You’re sixteen. I have every right to beat the ever loving shit out of this guy right now.”

“Will you calm down!” Tamara cried. “We weren’t doing anything.”

“Where’re your friends?” Gabriel swung a glance over the group now watching the show. “Tell them to come out. I’m taking you all back.”

“It’s just me,” Tamara said. “They couldn’t get away.”

“You mean they actually listened to their parents,” Gabriel corrected. “They stayed home where it was safe, but not you.”

“I’ve known Eddy for like forever, okay?” Tamara waved a hand towards the guy standing next to her, swaying slightly as she did so. “He’s cool.”

“Are you...” Gabriel grabbed Tamara’s arm and yanked her closer to him to sniff. “Were you drinking?”

“Oh my God!” Tamara wrenched free of him. “I had like one beer! Jesus, Gabe, what’s the matter with you? You act like you didn’t have fun when you were my age.”

“Fun? You call this fun? Sneaking off, worrying the hell out of your family to party with people who are too old for you in the middle of godforsaken nowhere … that’s fun? What’s the matter with
you
? Do you have any idea how dangerous this was? Did you even stop to think what could have happened?”

“I’m not Regina!” Tamara screamed.

I wasn’t sure who froze first, me or Gabriel. But it was around that time I realized the music had died and the only sound came from the roaring inferno a few feet away and Tamara’s labored breathing.

“I’m not going to get myself used and killed in some fucking sewer, okay?”

Gabriel reared back like she’d slapped him, and maybe she had. Just not physically.

“You have no idea…” He broke off, took several steps away from his sister. “Get your things. Now. We’re leaving.”

That didn’t seem to be in the cards when rain began to splatter down over the clearing in rapid successions. Most of those around the fire darted for cover. A few of the boys stayed to help extinguish the fire and I knew that once it was out, we would plummet into a darkness found only in the wilderness. But I couldn’t bring myself to move. I could scarcely tell if I was even breathing. I was stuck on a single fact that refused to be ignored: Gabriel was Q. I wasn’t sure how that was possible, but I had no doubt. What was worse, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed. Maybe because it was such an impossibility, or maybe it was because I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but the fact remained … Q was Gabriel. Gabriel was Q. I was having cybersex with a guy who hated me.

Okay, maybe
hate
was a strong word, but definitely didn’t like. I had shown him my … everything. God, I had come for him. I had watched him come. I had done things with him … for him I wouldn’t have done with anyone. I had told him things, secret things that I hadn’t shared with even my diary. He knew things about me that could potentially destroy me and he didn’t even know it was me.

Or did he?

Did he know I was Aoife? Had he known all along? Had everything we shared been a sick joke?

I wanted to vomit. I would have too if I could just focus.

“Ali?” He was standing in front of me. His hands were on my arms. Rain slashed down on us, soaking through our clothes and skin and still I couldn’t move. “Ali?”

Did you know?
I wanted to scream.
Were you secretly laughing at me while I bared myself to you?
I couldn’t do it. Already the hurt, betrayal, and mortification burned behind my eyes. His touch made my skin crawl and my chest hurt.

“Ali, say something!” He shook me.

“Did you know?” I croaked.

His hands stilled. “What?”

I nicked my tongue between my chattering teeth. The sharp tang of blood filled my mouth but I ignored it.

“Did you know?” I repeated, my voice breaking, adding to my humiliation.

“Know what? What’s wrong?”

I wasn’t sure if it was rain or tears, but they slid down the hot contour of my cheeks. It was a wonder steam didn’t rise from the surface. I warred with myself about telling him. Somehow, admitting it felt like defeat, like I had allowed myself to be conquered. But I had to know.