Resistance (The Variant Series #2) (31 page)

But she wasn’t about to stop trying.

“As a matter of fact,” she continued. “You’re just
dying
to kiss me.”

In her peripheral vision, Jessica watched as Alex approached the wooden porch railing. She’d seen them.

Perfect timing
.

“I’m… dying to…”

“Declan?” Alex’s voice called from the deck, roughly thirty feet away. 

Declan blinked tiredly, working against Jessica’s will and trying desperately to turn his head toward the girl calling out his name.

She was about to lose him.

Frustrated, Jessica pulled out all the stops.

“
Kiss me
, Declan,” she ordered.

And so he did. In the next moment, he had Jessica’s back pressed against the door to Alex’s jeep and was kissing her as though his life depended on it.

As it turned out, this
particular
flavor of revenge tasted sweetly of cinnamon.

Once she’d decided enough time had passed, Jessica finally pushed the poor dupe back to arms length.

Declan wore the dazed expression of a man utterly lost in a fog.

His soon to be ex-girlfriend, however, looked for all the world as though someone had just ripped her heart right out of her chest.

Jessica smirked as she locked eyes with Alex.

I said I’d make you pay, Lexie,
she thought.

Taking Declan by the hand, she guided him back toward her car.

“Why don’t you give Alex a wave?” she suggested as they walked. “Oh, and don’t forget to
smile
.”

He did as she asked. When they reached the car, she gave him one last order.

“Get in,” she instructed.

Declan climbed into the passenger side of the Lexus without hesitation.

Jessica looked back toward the patio. Alex was still watching them with a hollow expression.

Mission accomplished
.

* * *

Alex refused to cry.

She didn’t want to give Jessica the satisfaction.

Instead, she waited until the girl sauntered back to her car with Declan in tow, climbed behind the driver’s seat and drove away. Only
then
had Alex pushed off from the railing, walked back to their conspicuously
silent
table, picked up her purse, and headed back out into the night.

Alex’s friends called after her as she slowly crossed the gravel lot, but she never turned.

Reaching the Wrangler, she found her red sweater lying forgotten on the ground beside it. Alex bent to pick up the discarded material and carefully dusted it off.

For a long moment, Alex stared at the driver’s side door to her jeep.

The same door Declan had pressed Jessica up against while he… while he…

Biting down hard on her lower lip, Alex jumped.

She reappeared on the front porch of her home and sat down heavily on the top step. The motion sensor light attached to the garage flicked on at her arrival, illuminating the driveway and the tree covered front lawn.

Alex twisted the red cloth in her hand and stared off into the darkened distance. The tears would come later.

She’d successfully replaced the initial surge of pain with numbness—and confusion.

How
could
he?

And why would
she
?

They hated each other!

Didn’t they?

Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to hide from what had just happened. Cassie or Kenzie—or
both
—would soon be showing up on her doorstep to check on her.

The same doorstep on which she was currently seated.

Alex got to her feet. She wasn’t ready for that. She didn’t
want
to talk about it. Not now. Not ever.

“Hey, birthday girl!” Cil was seated on the couch in the living room, piles of assorted paperwork scattered on the coffee table before her. “Back so soon?”

Alex didn’t answer.

Her aunt, distracted by her work, didn’t appear to notice.

“Don’t forget,” she called as Alex started up the staircase. “I need you to pick up my dress from the alterations place on your way home from school tomorrow afternoon. They’ll be closed by the time I get out of that meeting with the gallery owners. Oh, and I hope you’ve decided on your
own
dress. You’ve only got another day left to choose one.”

At that, Alex missed a step and nearly tumbled backward down the stairs. Thankfully, she managed to catch herself by grabbing hold of the railing.

The opening gala
.

She’d completely forgotten.

The opening night celebration of her aunt’s gallery installation had been moved from next Monday up to Friday, in the hopes of drawing a bigger crowd. It would take place the day after tomorrow.

Swallowing a sigh, Alex said, “No worries, Aunt Cil. I decided on one two weeks ago.”

Her aunt finally looked up from her work, having recognized the odd timbre of Alex’s voice. “Is everything alright, Lee-Lee?”

She kept climbing. Her aunt disappeared from view as Alex reached the second floor landing.

“Everything’s fine, Aunt Cil,” she managed. “I’m just tired. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

“Alright, love,” her aunt called. “Sleep well.”

Alex closed the door softly behind her.

She stared down at the doorknob beneath her palm, imagining Declan’s long fingers wrapped around it as he opened the door and walked out into the hall.

Turning to her desk chair, she could almost see Declan sitting there with his arms folded over the back of it, nudging the edge of her bare foot with his rain slick boot and telling Alex that he was worried about her.

Desperate now, she turned toward the bay window—only to be accosted by the memory of him appearing in the gnarled limbs of the oak tree outside, grinning.

And that was the final straw. The dam holding back the pain shattered, and Alex’s tears finally began to flow.

Angry and aching and desperate for a location that
hadn’t
been tainted with memories of Declan, Alex traded her bedroom for her bathroom and slammed the adjoining door closed behind her.

Locking both the door to her room and the door leading out into the hall, Alex turned on the shower and stepped, fully clothed, into the tub.

What did it matter, anyway?

Nothing mattered
.

Not anymore.

She’d allowed herself to fall for Declan, even though she knew it to be a bad idea.

She’d
ignored
the little voice inside her thoughts that warned her this would happen, eventually. The same voice that told her Declan wasn’t the sort of guy that would
ever
be content to settle for someone like her.

The voice that insisted she just wasn’t enough—wasn’t sexy enough, wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t
experienced
enough…

Not for a guy like Decks.

Alex was lacking in every area that probably mattered. And she’d been a
fool
to think that Declan wouldn’t see through to that reality sooner rather than later.

Though she’d never expected it to play out like
this
.

In the middle of her birthday party—and with
Jessica
, of all people. First Connor, now Declan. Was Alex destined to lose
every
guy she loved to Jessica?

Love
.

Alex sat still beneath the scalding hot shower of droplets raining down on her from above, her dress and tights already soaked through. With her arms wrapped around her legs, she rested her forehead against the crook of her knees.

She was in love with Declan.

In truth, it hadn’t taken her long at all to fall for him, it was
admitting to it
that had taken some time. And now that she’d owned up to it—even if only to herself—it was as though a gaping chasm had taken the place of her heart.

She didn’t feel lighter for the confession. Instead, she felt shackled by it.

Acknowledging the emotion meant she was also forced to acknowledge the pain the events of the night had caused her.

Watching him with Jessica earlier had been the single most
painful
thing Alex had experienced since the loss of her parents, years before.

The knock she’d been waiting for sounded at the bathroom door.

“Lexie?” Cassie’s voice carried softly over the hiss of falling water. “Lexie, open up. We need to talk.”

Alex didn’t move or attempt a reply.

If she ignored her for long enough, her friend would eventually go away.

Or so she hoped.

“C’mon, Lexie,” said Cassie. “Don’t make me pick this lock.”

Alex sniffed. Her tears mingled with the falling water as she wiped tiredly at her face.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Alex replied.

“Yeah, see,” Kenzie’s voice carried through the door. “That’s where you’d be wrong. There’s a whole hell of a
lot
to talk about, really.”

Alex sighed. Looks like Cassie hadn’t come alone after all.

“For instance,” said Cassie. “There’s the fact that Jessica Huffman is probably a Variant. Which, to me, seems like
quite
the conversation starter.”

Alex blinked dumbly at the shower curtain for a moment, before reaching out and turning off the tap.

“Thought that might get your attention,” said Cassie. “Now let us in.”

Using her borrowed TK—left over from her afternoon spent training with Nathaniel—Alex unlocked the door to the hall.

The girls stepped inside.

Kenzie arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t have time to strip first? Or were you just trying to find a more cost-effective way of doing laundry?”

The joke fell flat.

“Alex, I love you, but… the
shower
?
Really
? You look like a flippin’ teenage cliché right about now,” said Cassie, her voice wry. When Alex didn’t reply, she sighed, then softened her tone. “Are you alright?”

Alex shrugged.

Kenzie took a seat on the tiled floor beside the tub. “Under normal circumstances, this is the point where I’d leave you for a while in order to go murder my brother, but… Alex, I don’t think what we saw tonight was… well, was
what we saw
.”

Alex furrowed her brow.

“What Kenzie’s trying and failing to say,” said Cassie, “is that we’re pretty sure Jessica’s actually a Variant, and that she was using some sort of psychic whammy on your idiot boyfriend.”

“Psychic…
whammy
?” Alex repeated.

“Not the technical term,” Kenzie said. “In the Variant world, people like Jessica are known as
pushers
. They can make the people around them do whatever they want through a form of mind control. Most pushers usually end up working as politicians or salesmen—”

“—Or as spoiled-terrors-turned-homecoming-queens who spend their free time moonlighting as boyfriend thieves,” added Cassie.

Alex blinked dumbly up at her friends.

Mind control?

“So you’re saying Declan was… what?
Pushed
into kissing Jessica in the parking lot tonight?”

“It’s pretty much the only thing that makes sense,” said Kenzie.

Alex didn’t bother to hide her skepticism. “It’s not the
only
thing, Kenzie.”

She frowned. “The push can be hard to resist, Alex. Especially if the pusher is determined to get their way.”

“Hard, but not impossible?” asked Alex.

Kenzie and Cassie exchanged a look.

“Well,” said Kenzie, “I mean, it is
possible
to resist a push, but it takes an insane amount of concentration and willpower. It’s not an easy thing to overcome.”

“But it’s still possible.” Alex fixed her gaze back on the shower curtain. “So even if you’re right, and Jessica
was
using some sort of special mind control ability on Declan, he
could
have resisted her if only he wanted to badly enough?”

“Um,” said Kenzie. “He wouldn’t—I mean, I don’t
think
—”

Alex shook her head. “Don’t, Kenzie,” she said. “Listen, it’s been a long day. We should probably just call it a night. I really don’t want to talk about what happened any more.”

Cassie huffed. “Well, too damn bad, chica.” She sat herself down on the floor beside Kenzie. “’Cause we’re not leaving this bathroom until you’ve at least accepted the
possibility
that what happened at McRae’s wasn’t Declan’s fault.”

Groaning, Alex ran her hands over her face and leaned back against the wall of the tub.

“Fine,” she said.

“Fine,
what
?” prompted Cassie.

“
Fine
,” said Alex. “I accept the possibility that maybe Declan didn’t kiss Jessica willingly.”

“And?” asked Kenzie.

Alex sighed. “And
I promise to stop spazzing about it until I’ve heard Declan’s side of the story.”

Cassie scrutinized Alex’s expression for a long moment.

“Happy now?” asked Alex.

“Ecstatic,” said Cassie, finally. She climbed to her feet. “Now dry yourself off and get some sleep, Lexie. We’ll sort all this out tomorrow.”

As the girls made their way back out into the hall, Kenzie paused in the doorway. “Don’t give up on Decks just yet, Alex. My brother might be an incorrigible
jackass
, but he cares about you. A
lot
. There’s no way he would have kissed Jessica of his own free will. I’m certain of it.”

Alex didn’t reply.

Kenzie and Cassie were worried about the wrong thing.

Alex had already accepted the fact that Jessica had probably pushed Declan. Once she moved past the overwhelming surprise that
Jessica
(of all people) might be a Variant, it was actually a pretty reasonable explanation for what had happened…

The push itself wasn’t what hurt.

It was the fact that Declan hadn’t cared strongly enough for Alex to want to
resist
it that was killing her.

“Goodnight, Lexie,” said Cassie from the hall.