Page 80 of Some Kind of Haunted

“I am a Bellamy.” He says this with a great and heartbreaking sincerity. All that weight. All that responsibility.

“This falls to me,” he insists. “Not just because of my ancestor. Look, Grandpa . . . He’s not in the best health. I’m sure even you can see that. And he spent his whole life trying to stop this thing that took his parents.” He stands, then, paces a few steps away, then turns to me. “You didn’t know that, did you? The Feed took his parents from him when he was four.”

I see pain. And anguish. But I’m not thinking about Harrison. I’m thinking about Jack. I’m thinking about how his parents took off. I’m thinking about the weight Cleo spoke of and realizing these are weights no one put on him. He picked them up himself, and I find that kind of determined nobility . . . moving. Important. Jack.

So I clear the emotion clogging my throat. “The Feed took your parents, too.”

He waves that away. “They’re alive. They just don’t want to be here.”

“Except people leave, and they forget. So that doesn’t mean—”

“Trust me, Lexi. They forgot about me long before they left Midas.”

My heart aches for the little boy underneath all that stoic hurt. Under all that weight. “Just because you don’t have the answers now, doesn’t mean—”

“The clock is ticking, Lexi. What the hell am I supposed to do if I can’t stop it? Let those flood doors slam shut and trap all these innocent people?”

“Well.” I don’t have any real answers, but one strikes me in the way he phrases that. “Maybe change I to we, for a start. We’re a team, Jack. All of us.”

He lets out a frustrated grunt and crosses to the window, looking out at the dark night.

Maybe it really was his face in the window our first night. Wouldn’t that be funny?

Jack turns to look at me again.

Okay, it wouldn’t be funny.

He eyes me in a way that makes me very aware I am in my pajamas and not wearing a bra.

“You could try to run away,” he tells me, very seriously. “Head back to New York. Your dad did it. Maybe you can, too.” It’s almost like he’s hoping I’ll take this course of action. Like he thinks he can save me, if nothing else.

I hold his gaze the entire time he’s giving me this potential out. One I can’t believe he’d actually sanction.

“No, I can’t.”

Jack sighs. Deeply. And not that frustrated-with-me sigh I’ve kind of grown used to in this short period of time. There is a kind of resigned sadness to this sigh.

He crosses to me, but I realize it is not to me, because he is trying to pass me to get to the exit. When I move so I am in his way and blocking his retreat, he looks down at me.

“You should go to bed,” he says.

But his voice is a little rough, like something affects him.

I want to be the one affecting him. To hell with demons and clock towers and dead people I never knew. I want to lift some of that weight off his impressive shoulders. I want to know what this is.

So I press myself to him. I angle my mouth to his.

His mouth is exactly what I expected it to be. Hot. Stern. Fantastic.

I could melt into this man and never come up for air. But I knew that.

His move to set me away from him is abrupt. Final. Yet, he doesn’t walk away. Just maintains that distance.

And I felt the way he almost kissed me back.

“Am I that repulsive to you?” I ask, trying not to take it too personally, even though the rejection stings.

And not just because I’m not used to rejection. It’s deeper. More meaningful.