“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know yet exactly where they are.” Nouria, this time. “And because you’re right: this whole thing is some kind of a trap.”
She’s looking at me like she feels sorry for me, and it sends another shot of anger through my blood. “We can’t go into this unprepared,” she says. “We need more time. More information.”
“We’re going to get them back,” Castle says, stepping forward. He drops his hands on my shoulders, peers into my face. “I swear to you we’ll get them back. James and Adam are going to be fine. We just need to form a plan first.”
“No,” I say angrily, breaking away. “None of this makes sense. Juliette needs to be here. This whole situation is fucked.”
“Kenji—”
I storm out of the room.
Six
I must be out of my mind.
That’s got to be it. There’s no other reason why I’d swear in Castle’s face, scream at his daughter, fight my own friends, and still be standing here at dawn, pressing this doorbell for the third time. It’s like I’m asking to be murdered. It’s like I want Warner to just punch me in the face or something. Even now, through the thick, dumb fog of my head, I know I shouldn’t be here. I know it’s not right.
But I’m either （a） too stupid, （b） too tired, （c） too angry, or （d） all of the above, to give a proper shit about their personal space or their privacy. And then, as if on cue, I hear his muffled, angry voice through the door.
“Please, love. Just ignore it.”
“What if something’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” he says. “It’s just Kenji.”
“Kenji?” I hear some kind of shuffle, and my heart picks up. J always comes through. She always comes through. “How do you know it’s Kenji?”
“Call it a wild guess,” Warner says.
I ring the doorbell again.
“Coming!” J. Finally.
“She’s not coming,” Warner shouts. “Go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I shout back. “I want to talk to Juliette. Ella. Jella. Jello. Whatever.”
“Ella, love, please—let me kill him.”
I hear J laugh, which is sweet, actually, because it’s clear she thinks Warner’s joking. Me, on the other hand—I’m pretty sure he’s not.
Warner says something then, something I don’t hear. The room goes quiet, and, for a moment, I’m confused. And then I realize I’ve been bested. Warner probably got her back into bed.
Goddammit.
“But that’s exactly why I should answer the door,” I hear her say. More silence. Then rustling. A muted thud. “If he needs to talk to me this early in the morning, it must be important.”
Warner sighs so loudly I actually hear it through the wall.
I press the doorbell again.
A single, unintelligible cry.
“Hey,” I call out. “Seriously—someone open the door. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
More angry mutters from Warner.
“I’ll be right there,” Jello shouts.
“What’s taking so long?” I ask.
“I’m trying to—” I hear her laugh, and then, in a soft, sweet voice clearly directed at someone else: “Aaron, please—I promise I’ll be right back.”
“J?”
“I’m trying to get dressed!”
“Oh.” I try really, really hard not to picture them both, undressed, in bed together, but somehow I can’t fight the image from materializing. “Okay, ew.”
Then: “Sweetheart, how long do you plan on being friends with him?”
J laughs again.
Man, that girl has no clue.
I mean, okay . . . It’s true that if for five seconds I stopped to put myself in Warner’s shoes, I’d understand exactly why he wants to kill me so often. If I were in bed with my girl and some needy asshole kept ringing the doorbell for no reason except that he wanted to talk through his feelings with her, I’d want to murder him, too.
Then again, I don’t have a girl, and at this rate, I probably never will. So I kind of don’t care—and Warner knows that. It’s half the reason he hates me so much. He can’t push me away without hurting J, but he can’t let me in without sharing her, either. He’s in a shitty position.
Works out for me, though.
And I’ve still got my finger hovering over the doorbell when I hear footsteps, growing closer. But when the door finally flies open, I take a sudden, jerky step back.