Wicked Hunger (19 page)

“Zander? Zander, are you okay?”

Ivy’s voice pricks my bubble of torment and sends it skittering away on the sound wave. It doesn’t go far, though, only back into the recesses of my memory that will never be deep enough to keep it buried.

“Zander, what’s wrong?” Ivy begs.

“Nothing.” A shiver runs through my body as the last hint of her image fades away.

“Did I say something that upset you? I’m sorry I brought up your family. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Ivy says.

I shake my head and struggle to regain control. “No, it wasn’t my family. It was nothing. Just forget it, okay?”

“It wasn’t your family?” Ivy’s pleading expression is hard to resist, but I don’t answer her. She looks at me, a mixture of compassion and need to know filling her expression.  “What else happened to you?”

My arms cross over my chest. A single step back drops an invisible wall between us. I try to keep my voice normal when I speak, but I fail. “No more questions, Ivy.”

The hard edge to my words makes her chin fall. I can’t puzzle out her expression well enough to know whether it is in disappointment, hurt, or something else. It kills me to refuse Ivy anything, but I can’t talk about that night. Not now, not ever. That is one secret I plan on taking with me to Hell.

Zander hands me the drinks with barely a word and walks away. Not far, but far enough that I can’t hear anything he’s saying. It doesn’t stop me from seeing the odd expression on his face. Troubled would be an understatement. He’s trying to hide it, but I know my brother too well. No doubt Ivy is the source of his strangled mood.

“Are you going to give me one of those, or what?” Ketchup says.

I jump at the sound of his voice. I hadn’t noticed that he’d come up behind me. Without taking my eyes off Zander and Ivy, I hold his soda out to him. He takes it with a grumble, which I ignore. My attention is focused on my brother. He held her hand half an hour ago, but now he is back to keeping his distance. An impenetrable buffer of at least three feet separates them at all times.

“Your slushy is melting.”

Annoyed, I turn and glare at Ketchup.

“What? It is,” he says. “What’s your deal with Ivy anyway? One minute you’re ready to punch her teeth out, the next you’re chatting with her at lunch.”

I look around the area, and ask, “Where is Laney?”

“She got mad that I wasn’t listening to her and went to get some nachos.” Ketchup shrugs, showing how little Laney's whereabouts mean to him. That’s one thing he and Zander have in common. Neither one of them can stand talking to Laney for more than five minutes.

“Maybe I should go find her,” I say. I turn toward the concession line, but before I can get a good look, Ketchup hooks his arm around my shoulder and jerks me to his side. I look up at him, startled. “Ketchup, what was that for?”

Just then, a few of Zander’s teammates plow through the crowd like a pack of wildebeests. Not a one of them are paying attention to what’s in front of them. They knock a few others down as they charge forward. When I look back at Ketchup, he smirks at me. “You’re welcome.”

Throwing his arm off my shoulder, I wrinkle my nose at him and stalk over to a suddenly vacant bench to sit down. Ketchup follows, of course. He plops down on the bench and leans against the fence as he takes a drink. I do the same. The lightly carbonated slushy tickles my throat as it slides down. Usually it can make me smile, but not now. Not with Zander and Ivy chatting it up like everything is normal.

“I’ve seen you do some cool stuff, Van, but I seriously doubt Ivy is going to spontaneously burst into flames just because you keep glaring at her,” Ketchup says.

That thought brings a smile to my face. Ketchup laughs and elbows me in the side playfully. “Really, what do you have against Ivy?”

I’m about to burst with the need to talk to someone about Ivy. I’ve tried handling it all on my own, keeping the details and possibilities straight. There’s just too much going on to keep everything separate and orderly. When Noah and I were talking between classes, I tried telling him some of my concerns about Ivy, but he thought I was just being overprotective. I can’t keep this all to myself anymore. Ketchup stuck by me when I started talking about strange, phantom tastes. I cross my fingers that he won’t bail on me after this.

“I think Ivy is hiding something, and I think Zander is going to get hurt because of it.”

Ketchup’s eyebrows rise as he takes another long draw from his soda. His lips slide off the straw thoughtfully, drawing my attention. I turn away from him quickly. “You think she’s playing Zander?” he asks.

“I think she’s doing worse than that. I think she came here just to hurt him.” It’s a big accusation to make, one I couldn’t bring myself to mention to Noah. I wait for Ketchup to laugh or elbow me again.

Instead, he leans closer to me until our shoulders are touching. “What makes you think Ivy’s going to hurt him?”

The fact that he’s at least willing to hear me out is encouraging. In a hushed tone, I spill out all her odd comments, sneaking questions behind my back, insistence on being near my brother, and strange reactions to Zander’s bad treatment. As I’m telling him everything, it sounds a little crazy even to me. A small part of me orders my mouth to stop making noise. Deep down, I know I’m right. I watch Ketchup’s eyes narrow in thought, his mouth twist into something between believing and passing off everything I’ve said. I decide to take a big risk and tell Ketchup more than I should.

“He hurt her, Ketchup. She showed up after practice and he grabbed her arm hard enough that she was still favoring it a couple days later. Despite that, she kept making an effort to be around him. And
…” My voice trails off. Maybe I can’t tell him as much as I thought I could. The words stick in my throat. My fight with Zander earlier this week starts replaying in my head.
He would have left if you’d told him the truth.
I argued that he was wrong, but my confidence isn’t nearly so great sitting next to Ketchup with the words frozen on my lips.

“And what?” Ketchup asks. When I don’t answer, he sets his drink down and curls his hand around mine. “You can tell me, Van.”

Can I really? I stare at our hands intertwined. This isn’t just the guy futilely trying to get me to date him. This is also my lifelong friend. He’s backed me up plenty of times when I really needed someone on my side. And it’s cost him to do that. Ketchup is incredibly good looking. He’s fit and athletic, has strong features that could easily belong on film, thick jet black hair that reminds me of Superman, and the best smile I’ve ever seen. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this about him either. In any other reality, girls would be falling all over him, but because he’s friends with me, no one at school will even think of asking him out. He and I are a pair, even if not in the way he wants.

“You know the way Zander feels about you?” I ask him.

His brow crinkles, but he says, “Yeah. What does that have to do with Ivy?”

“He feels the same way about Ivy, and so do I.”

“What?” He stuck through the rest of my explanation with barely a comment, but this obviously doesn’t make any sense to him. “I don’t get it. I can believe you hate Ivy, but if Zander hated her, too, why would he be holding her hand and inviting her to football games?”

“Zander doesn’t hate Ivy. I don’t hate Ivy either.”

“But, you said it was the same way Zander felt about me.”

I sigh, knowing that explaining this without actually explaining everything isn’t working very well. “Ketchup, Zander doesn’t hate you.” Ketchup stares at me, not convinced. I try to give him a little more. “Zander may think you’re a little annoying and pushy, but he doesn’t hate you.”

“Annoying and pushy aren’t strong enough emotions to force his sister to dump me, Van. There has to be something more to it than that,” he says.

“There is,” I say, “but it’s not something I can explain to you right now.”

Frowning, his thumb starts wandering back and forth across my hand. The sensation pushes me to close my eyes and memorize the feeling. I don’t want him to stop. Ketchup’s voice seeps through my focus and pulls me back. “It has something to do with Oscar, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I say.

He nods slowly. “I still don’t understand what’s going on with Ivy.”

“There are certain people Zander and I shouldn’t be around. Ivy’s one of them. For Zander, you’re one of them.”

“I’m not one of those people for you, though?” he asks, hope visible in his eyes.

“No, not for me,” I admit, even though lying would probably make things considerably easier between us. His hand tightens around mine, and for a moment, I feel my fingers mimicking his.

“So why is Zander with Ivy?”

I shake my head wearily. “He thinks he’s in love with her. He knows he should stay away, but he can’t, or won’t. But that’s not really the strangest part. What’s really weird about Ivy is that she’s the only person Zander and I have both needed to stay away from. That’s never happened before. Along with everything else, I know there’s something wrong with her. She didn’t end up in Albuquerque with me and Zander by accident, and she isn’t interested in my brother because he’s tall, dark, and handsome. I just can’t figure out what she is after.”

I wait for Ketchup to say something, my eyes travelling to his mouth in anticipation. My thoughts get a little jumbled as I stare. The way his lips press together as he thinks makes me wonder how they would feel against mine. I almost got to taste him once. Seconds before Ketchup actually got up the nerve to kiss me, Zander had come home and nearly devoured him. Ketchup thought Zander flew at him because he saw him trying to make out with his little sister. I didn’t know what else to say at the time, so I let him believe it. Now, even with Zander standing only a few feet away, I’m desperate to pick up where we left off.

Ketchup’s head drops, stealing my focus, and reminding me of the impossibility of my secret desires. If my only problem was that Zander wanted to kill Ketchup, I know I could make it work. The sickness is a bigger problem. With how fast it progresses, I would have to see Zander every few days. We can never live very far apart. Zander will always be a very important part of my life.

At one time, I thought I could get around this by relying on Oscar. It would have worked perfectly since Oscar not only didn’t want to maim Ketchup, he actually liked him. But that’s hardly a possibility now. Maybe someday I will figure something out that will allow me to stay in my brother’s life and have the one person in this world I want most, but for now I have to stay focused on keeping us alive.

I make myself refocus on my discussion with Ketchup, and hold my breath for his reaction. Expecting either agreement or disbelief, when Ketchup doesn’t
do either it throws me for a loop.

“So, it isn’t just your brother being ridiculously overprotective that’s stopping you from letting me do more than this?” he asks, lifting our joined hands just enough to make sure I know what he’s talking about.

It
so
wasn’t what I was expecting him to say that all I can do is stare at our hands. I know I should pull mine away. Until I can offer Ketchup a real future with me, I’m only hurting him. I know this is true, but my hand stays where it’s at as I say, “No, it’s more than that. Zander can’t be around you.”

“He’s around Ivy, and you said it’s the same thing.”

“It’s killing him to be so close to her. The only thing stopping him from hurting her is that he loves her enough to hold back, and no offense, but even if Zander doesn’t hate you, he doesn’t love you either.” I smile, hoping it will soften the harshness of my words. The corner of Ketchup’s mouth turns up, but not far, and not for long. “Ketchup, it’s really, really dangerous for Zander to be spending so much time with Ivy. I’m terrified he’s going to screw up and end up locked up or dead. They shouldn’t be around each other. Ivy knows that, but she still hangs around. I don’t get it.”

“I do,” he says softly.

When I look back over at him, I find his eyes already focused on me. The ache reflected there tears at my soul. “What do you mean?” I ask, startled that my voice is suddenly so shaky.

“Look, Van, I won’t pretend to understand any of what you’ve told me tonight. I don’t get why Zander can’t be around me or Ivy, but I trust you enough to accept it. What I do know is that you are more than you’re willing to tell me. You’re just as dangerous as your brother, but just like Ivy, I’m not leaving.” His hand slips out of mine. I instantly miss his touch, but to keep myself from grabbing for him, I curl my fingers into a fist. I can’t give him false hope. That would just be cruel. He deserves better than that.

That’s when his arm drapes across my shoulder and pulls me in. So much for the high road. I sit beside him stiffly, but I don’t pull away. I want more than anything in this moment to let my body sink against his. Lulled by Ketchup’s touch, what he just said doesn’t make it to my brain immediately. When it does, the falseness of his comparison of himself and Ivy clangs like a raucous cow bell in my ears.

“Ketchup, Ivy isn’t in love with Zander.”

“It’s a pretty good reason to overlook certain things,” he says. “Believe me, I know.”

I have to close my eyes
and pretend I didn’t hear that. “That’s not why she’s still with him.”

Ketchup sighs at my refusal to acknowledge his feelings for me, but is good enough to lend some of his concentration back to our conversation. His brow crinkles as he thinks. I try to ignore the way his fingers tap on my shoulder, too, but it’s awfully hard. Not only does it remind me that his arm is around my shoulders when it shouldn’t be, it’s really irritating. I reach up to grab his fingers and make him stop tapping. Either he saw the move coming, or he planned it this way, but his hand curls around mine right as I reach for him, and he refuses to let go. Then he distracts me with an answer.