Page 9 of Merrily Ever After
There’s an immediate spark, which makes us both flinch, and then … nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Everything remains dark. Dark and … weirdly silent? I flip the switch again. This time, there’s no spark at all.
Neither of us moves for a long time, and then Lara slowly turns to face me.
“Oliver?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you just trip the electricity?”
I stare into the room, eyeing the million little bulbs I’d strung up the day before.
“Maybe.”
Chapter Four
“I really am sorry.”
“I heard you the first hundred times,” Lara says beside me. “It’s fine. You were trying to do something nice. I forgive you. Stop looking so miserable.”
“But Ifeelmiserable.” I run my hand through my hair, aiming my phone’s light at the fuse box. Buttons and little red switches sit placidly as though to taunt me. Reaching out carefully, as I imagine a member of a bomb squad would a suspicious package, I press one.
Nothing happens.
Lara sighs. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
“Not a clue,” I tell her. But there’s no way we’ll get anyone out at this time of night. Not on Christmas Eve. Or Christmas Day or whatever it is now.
Shit.
I fight the urge to bang my head against the wall. Christmas Day and I’ve killed her electricity.
“It’s fine,” Lara repeats, obviously taking pity on me. “I was just going to sleep anyway. I’ll light a fire.”
“What? Why?”
“Uh, because I don’t want to get frostbite?”
“You want to stay?”
Here?She wants to spend Christmas in a cold, dark house on a cold, dark street? Like some sugarplum-eating orphan? My thoughts must be clear on my face because Lara holds up a hand before I can protest.
“I want to be inmyhouse,” she says. “With my things. I’ve been living out of a suitcase for three weeks and spent half that time sleeping in a hospital chair. I’m staying.”
“I’m not leaving you in the dark.”
“I don’t care. I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed.”
I frown as she turns and marches up the stairs.
“You can’t sleep in your bedroom,” I call after her. “You’ll freeze to death and I’ll have to go back to prison.”
“You weren’t in prison!”
“Thanks to you saving me,” I say, putting a hand to my heart as I wait by the banister.
