Intersections Read online

  Micah chewed on a pencil stub and shook his head, then showed his brother one of the cards in his hand. Declan scowled and scrubbed at his face, three days' growth of black beard shadowing his jaw. They were all unshaven, and she couldn't blame them. The hot water had gone icy yesterday.

  Tori hadn't been playing, but she knew who done it, because she'd been paying attention to all the guesses that they’d made so far. It was the poison, and it was the dining room, but sexy Miss Scarlett was not the murderess. Tori was sure it was Professor Plum.

  The only game Mother played was the Ouija board, but she watched the rest of them intently, pride clear in her expression. Sometimes, she would call out advice to one or the other of her sons, but for the most part she simply sat in silence as the board spelled out what seemed like several novels' worth of material. Sometimes, Tori tried to sneak a peek at what the board was saying, but the rest of the time, she sat with Rose on her lap and stayed quiet.

  Short days, long nights, monotony. Nobody asked anything of her. Her existence had become sleeping, devouring, and taking care of her baby.

  It had become easy to stay here.

  She'd stopped wondering when the snow might stop. When the plows might come. When she might be able to leave. Where would she even go, she thought now, watching with drooping eyelids as Jackson rolled the dice and moved his piece around the board. She had no place to go.

  Full belly.

  Hot room.

  She was drifting to sleep. Her head bobbed before she woke herself up, aware that she couldn't allow herself to nod off on the chaise lounge, not with the baby in her arms. She needed to get upstairs and into bed.

  "With the poison!"

  The words had a shape, hanging in the air between Tori and the table. She struggled to straighten. To open her eyes more than a sliver. In her arms, the baby wriggled and wailed with a constant, droning sound.

  Declan and Jackson had both stood. Jackson's chair teetered, on the verge of tipping. The chair didn't fall, held up as though by a phantom hand or the lethargic ticking of time as it slowed, oozing. Everything had gone blurry and unfocused, as though she were underwater. She struggled against the sudden weight of it, but couldn't manage to move.

  The brothers faced off across the dining room table. Teeth bared. Fists clenched. The Clue board had gone flying, knocked off the table by one of them in the endless span of time when Tori blinked. Now they snarled at each other, clawing. Micah joined them, snapping his jaws so that spittle sprayed across the table. It glistened in the flickering, inconsistent lighting. Only Luka sat still at his end of the table, watching his brothers go to battle over a board game.

  Beneath Mother's fingertips, the planchette spun and spun. Tori gathered Rose to her chest, muffling the baby's shrieks. Her stomach clenched, cramping, but this was a different sort of pain than she'd been having. Her muscles tensed, stiffening her arms and legs no matter how hard she tried to relax. A chill sweat trickled down the line of her spine, tickling. For a terrible moment, she thought she was going to be sick or pass out.

  "Poison," she croaked.

  Another blink took a lifetime. When she opened her eyes, she discovered she'd struggled to her feet. Everyone was staring at her, all of them seated neatly in their chairs with the game board in its place in front of them. Tori blinked rapidly this time, shaking her head to clear away the fuzziness.

  "It wasn't the poison, it was the lead pipe," Luka said.

  "No. No." Tori's lip curled at the way the word blurted out of her, like she was some kind of conduit for the Ouija board. She coughed, clearing her throat. "I mean...have you poisoned me?"

  Silence, broken after a moment by the bark of Mother's laughter. "Oh, my dear. You fell asleep. You must have been dreaming."

  Tori shook her head again, weaving a little on her feet. She was exhausted. She looked at them all. No snarling mouths, no clawing hands. True, all of them were as hairy and unmannered as beasts, but they were all still men, just men.

  Men could be scarier than animals, and Tori had always known it.

  "I can help you." Luka stood, offering to take Rose from her arms.

  The brothers rumbled commentary under their breaths, words she couldn’t make out.

  She shook her head. "No. I can do it myself."

  Without waiting for another word from any of them, Tori left the dining room. The heat from the fireplace kept that room sweltering, but as soon as she started climbing the stairs, the temperature dropped. She was shivering by the time she got to her bedroom door, but not from the cold. Her guts were roiling, her skin clammy. Something was definitely not quite right.

  When she settled the baby on the bed and unbuttoned the front of the reluctantly borrowed flannel gown, Tori let out a low groan. Her breasts were hard and throbbing. Hot to the touch, particularly close to her armpits. She cupped them, the size and weight so unfamiliar it was almost like touching someone else's body.

  She shivered again as her nipples tightened. The tingling that signaled letdown began, and she muttered a frustrated cry. The only way to stop it was to cross her arms over her chest, thumbs and forefingers pinching the nipples. Rose was quiet and might nurse if offered the breast, but first Tori had to get her body under control.

  "...Why do we have to wait?" The voice did not belong to Mother or to Luka, but beyond that, Tori couldn't tell which brother was speaking. "You should just do it now..."

  Tori turned toward the open heating grate. It wasn't the first time she'd overheard conversations from downstairs, but this one was the clearest. She couldn't get down on the floor to listen harder, though, not without spraying milk all over the place, so she settled for leaning.

  "Enough," Mother snapped, her voice carrying easily up through the grate. "You know it has to be the right time. The board will tell me when the moment is at hand. Remember what happened the last time? I certainly do. I'm the one who ended up in this chair, after all!"

  Tori held her breath, waiting for more. Dizziness washed over her again. She wanted to crack open the window and let in the snow-bitten air, but mindful of how it would affect the baby, she didn't.

  Mother's voice drifted upward again. "We waited a long time for this. The board told me we would be rewarded, when the time was right. It brought her to us, didn't it?"

  Her.

  They meant her, Tori. She recoiled, still pressing her nipples. She'd managed to stave off the flow for a few minutes, at least, although when Rose began to cry her body would respond the way it was meant to.

  A few moments later, she heard the tread of footsteps on the stairs. A soft knock at her door. She didn't say "come in," but it didn't matter.

  "Making sure you're alright," Luka said.

  Tori turned with her palms full of bosom. "I think something's wrong. I think I might be sick. I could have a fever."

  In three long strides he was across the room, one huge hand pressing her forehead. "I can't tell."

  "Here." She took his hand and placed it on her breast.

  Tori had never had much luck using her body to gain favors. Oh, men had been willing to fuck her, or more often, fuck her over, but she'd never been any great shakes at seduction. In truth, that hadn't been her intention now. She'd meant only to show him the heat of her skin, the swollen flesh. She wanted him to see that something was wrong.

  It might have been a mistake, having Luka touch her. He didn't let go, but his pale green eyes went wide. His nostrils flared. His lips skinned back from his teeth. He leaned in close to smell her, and his lips brushed her ear when he spoke.

  "You're sick. An infection."

  Tori shuddered, hating that he was right. She could feel it, but grateful he believed her. "Everything hurts."

  "You should get into bed. You need rest. I'll bring you something."

  "Medicine. I need medicine."

  "I'll ask Mother."

  "No!" Her voice, so loud it startled the baby into a wail, also surprised Tori. She softened it. "Please, do