Page 55 of Act Like You Don't Care
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, counting the seconds while I searched for the words that would make him understand. “You won’t find what you’re looking for there. I don’t know how to explain it, except that this is all in his head and, in there, it seems reasonable and real to him. That’s what the world is when you look through his eyes. There won’t be any sense in it, not what we would think was sensible. That lens that he looks through was probably years in the making. You’re not going to be able to understand him, no matter how good an actor you are and how well you can pull on the skin of another person for the camera. It just doesn’t work that way.” I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, waiting for the explosion, and caught a look of surprise on his face, like he’d thought I wouldn’t know what it was he was planning to do. He met my eyes and I nodded at him. “Besides, the kind of mind that could do the things he was planning to do—do you really want to carry that around with you for the rest of your life?”
He looked away then, out the passenger side window, but his leg had started that restless jig and his fingers were keeping time to it on the armrest between us. It didn’t bode well, for me anyway.
I put my foot down a little harder and resigned myself to fighting about this all the way back to Los Angeles.
Tam
It took me two days, more swearing than I remembered doing in a long time, and threatening to hire my own lawyer before I could get in to see Joshua. They brought me in to the jail early, before visiting hours had started. I still had to go through the security process, the identification, the search to make sure I wasn’t bringing in anything I wasn’t supposed to.
As if I’d give this guy more than the time of day.
Miles, damn him, was right behind me the whole time. Like I couldn’t be trusted to look after myself. Or like I’d somehow get myself into trouble. Here. Surrounded by cops and guards.
I ignored him solidly and made sure I was super pleasant to the guards as we went over everything and they walked me down to the visitors’ room.
I took the chair they showed me to, Miles hovering like a worried shadow behind me. It looked a lot like the visitor’s rooms in TV shows and movies, a long row of stalls with chairs and telephones. My heart raced like a terrified bird trying to batter its way out of my chest. The edges of the stall were worn in places where people had leaned up against it, I guessed in a fruitless attempt to get closer to the person on the other side. Well, that wouldn’t be happening today.
What would he look like in person? They’d showed me a picture the day before yesterday, but aside from looking like about half of that inbred community, he still didn’t bring up any memories. Could it really be that random?
Automatically, I wiped damp palms on the sides of my jeans and forced myself to think about other things while I waited.
This morning, my agent had called to let me know I’d gotten the part I’d read for in Wirechild. I’d swung by her office to sign the contract on the way down here. Parts of me were still flying on that high and I hugged the memory of that signature to myself, doing that mental imagery thing where you make up pictures in your head of what you consider success, the idea being that if you could see it, you would automatically make the right moves to get there. I almost turned around to ask Miles what his opinion of it was—he was sure to have an opinion on it—then I remembered that I was annoyed with him for treating me like I was helpless and didn’t know what I was doing. Stubbornly, I rolled my shoulders to work some of the tension out of them and stared grimly at the plate glass between me and the empty chair where my stalker would soon sit.
What was taking so long? I realized I was bouncing my leg again, made myself stop, then decided it didn’t matter. Of course I’d be anxious, coming in here for my first meeting with the man who’d expressly intended to kill me if he couldn’t make me over in the image of a proper omega. Like the story of Bezer in the Vinist Bible, who had traded his independence and his alphahood for the love of his friend Obadiah and had supposedly been the first omega, blessed by God.
Blech.
Miles’s presence behind me was still comforting, even if I was annoyed with him. I was kind of glad he’d come after all.
Suddenly, the guard that was keeping us company on our side of the room stiffened. Miles straightened too and I just barely suppressed an impulse to stand up to see what was going on. Honestly, the only thing that stopped me was that I wasn’t sure my knees wouldn’t buckle. My stomach flip-flopped and I started to wish I hadn’t had breakfast this morning.
Then, there he was. I’d been expecting something…different. He didn’t look crazy. He didn’t look like anything other than a hundred or so other young Vinist alphas that I’d met back in the day. I doubted I could have picked him out of a line-up if they’d asked me to.
His eyes widened as he sat down and excitement bloomed across his face. The guard on his side said something to him, he glanced up, then reached for the phone with a broad smile.
Automatically, I reached for my phone too.
“Thomas!” he exclaimed, like we were friends meeting again after too long a time. “You look well.”
I stared at him, wordless with disbelief. “It’s Tam,” I stammered out after a long moment. “No one calls me Thomas anymore. I’ve changed it.”
His expression changed from delight to disapproval. “You have a perfectly good name.”
“True. It’s Tam.” Movement in the corner of my vision caught my attention and I saw Miles shaking his head gently at me.Right. Don’t rile up the lunatic.For someone who’d been sworn at, ignored, and had dodged at least one punch over the past two days, he was awful supportive. “Why were you stalking me?”
“Stalking is a strong word,” he replied, with that tiny bit of condescension in his tone that used to drive me wild with frustration when my father or Joseph or any of the Vinist elders would use it with me.
I gritted my teeth and refused to let it get to me. I needed to know why. I couldn’t sleep until I knew why. “Why the letters? Why the pig? What did you think that would get you?”
“Not me, Thomas! No, it was all for you. I’m so glad you’re here. It’s very hard to see you when you’re working all the time, but now that you’re here, we can talk.”
“I don’t think we have much to talk about,” I told him. “You threatened my life, you invaded my home, you threatened my career. Why would I want to have anything to do with you?”
He leaned back in his chair and his smile turned to a smirk. “Now, Thomas, you know better than that. Do you not remember your teachings? I know your father, weak though he was, taught you the proper place of an omega. Can’t you feel the dissonance in your life, fighting against your proper place in the world? Weren’t you happy with Joseph, or as happy as you could have been? He was weak too, but with only your father for an example of a proper alpha, I have to forgive you that error in judgment. Of course, you did leave him, which tells me you have some better notion of what you need than you like the world to believe. A strong alpha, Thomas. You are a strong omega and you could never be happy with a flawed and powerless alpha like Joseph. One too weak to control your nature and bind you to his superior nature. I know that. You know it too, at heart.”
“You knew my ex?” I demanded, leaning toward the glass.
“We weren’t friends,” he said coldly. “I have more respect for myself than that.”
