Another week passes, Justin's scratches and bruises fade almost completely, and his limp is barely noticeable. Alex catches him on the home gym a few more times, on the pretense of cleaning out a corner of the basement in which to maybe set up her own art studio. (Which, come to think of it, is not a half-bad idea, actually.) But Justin clearly doesn't buy it, and self-consciously cuts his workout short every time. Eventually, he seems to give up on the idea altogether. And Alex definitely does not feel a surge of disappointment when she goes down to the basement and doesn't find him there for the third day in a row. Because the whole point of catching him in the act was to discourage him from pushing himself too hard, and getting her blamed for it in the process. Not for any other reason at all. Nope. Nuh-uh.
Juliet drops by unannounced a day or two later, while Alex is hanging out with Harper and Justin isn't around, to show them some stupid vampire trick with a jelly doughnut. It's ridiculous (and, uh, more than a little gross), but Alex goes along with it. Juliet's clearly trying to smooth things over and make up for her behavior on the day Justin got hurt, and it's endearingly sweet. For the first time, Alex begins to understand what Justin sees in her. Uncharacteristically, she goes a little overboard in meeting her halfway, fawning over how cool Juliet is and how normal her feet are. It's only once she joins Juliet in bagging on Harper's marker-dress—which, duh, makes Harper super pissed—that Alex realizes she's gone a bridge too far. And that maybe she's overcompensating for something, somehow.
And then Justin goes out on monster hunting patrol again, for the first time since the wisp, and everything goes straight to hell.
Surprisingly, though, not in the way Alex would have expected. Rather than going off half-cocked and getting himself in over his head again in an effort to prove himself, Justin instead reverts to type and completely loses his shit at the first signal his monster detector registers. In a blind panic, he calls for back-up. Then one thing leads to another, and by lunch time, he's inadvertently wound up turning in his vampire girlfriend and her parents to the Monster Hunters' Council.
So, y'know...not his best day.
Fortunately for everyone, Alex comes through in the clutch, cleverly tricking the world's two best professional Monster Hunters—and seriously, these retards are the people Justin looks up to?—into taking two fake monsters away to Monster Jail instead of Juliet's family. And OK, so maybe Alex feels a little bad about Franken Girl, if only because it means Tribeca Prep's yell squad is down a cheerleader, and Frankie could toss a girl in the air like nobody's business. Tryouts to fill that slot are gonna be a bitch. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and if it has to be done, it might as well be by someone who isn't her.
Of course, Harper's still pissed—more about the 'turning her into a decoy and sending her to her possible doom' thing than the 'bagging on her marker-dress' thing, although she's not exactly over that yet, either—but Alex knows she'll come around eventually, because she always does. And Juliet doesn't go to jail, and miraculously doesn't wind up dumping Justin's idiot ass like he deserves. And now Alex can forever tell the story about how she once fearlessly goosed a vampire with a severed monster hand, just because she could. So all's well that ends well.
Except...
Justin goes all weird on her. Well, even weirder, if that's possible. Though bailing him out of his whole 'oops, I ratted my girlfriend out to the federales' predicament was kinda sorta intended as an unspoken olive branch—and OK, maybe a little bit of payback for all the times he's bailed her out over the years—Justin seems to take it more as a personal affront, somehow. Of course, that might have something to do with the way she keeps rubbing his nose in it.
"Contrary to how you remember it, Alex, you didn't exactly save the day single-handedly," he snaps at her, one morning over breakfast. "It took both of us to pull that off."
"Heh! Pulled it off? Single-handedly?" Max laughs into his Lucky Charms. Then, off of the blank look this earns him from Justin: "Get it? 'Cause you pulled off Frankie's arm, and that left her single-handed—"
"Don't talk with your mouth full, Max," Conscience scolds him from where he sits on the couch.
"Um, I so did save the day!" Alex says pointedly over the rim of the coffee mug, ignoring them. "In fact, I do believe that's the third time I've rescued your dorky butt this month, egghead. It's becoming a bad habit."
Standing over the sink in the kitchenette, Justin stops scraping off his toast and glares at her. "Not that I'm conceding the point, but who asked for your help, anyway? If it's such an inconvenience for you, maybe you should just start minding your own goddamned business."
"Oh, grow up, Justin," Alex says, rolling her eyes. "If I minded my own business, you'd be dead and/or single right now. Besides, I'm kind of enjoying being the one Russo child who isn't a screw-up, for a change. Might as well enjoy the ride while I can, huh?"
"Ohhhh dude," Max says, looking at Justin sympathetically. "She totally just called you a screw-up."
Justin shoots Max a look that is equal parts annoyance and pity, then shakes his head and focuses his ire back on Alex. "I could have handled any one of those situations myself, given enough time."
"Oh, sure!" Alex says brightly. "All you had to do was ask those monsters at Grand Central Station for a time out before they tore you apart. Ooo, but monsters don't take time outs, do they? Isn't that what you said, Justin? So maybe it's a good thing that I was there to—what would you call it? Oh yeah, SAVE THE DAY!"
"Save the—? Alex, you sent them to Spain!" Justin says, his voice raising an octave. "Along with a whole train full of New Yorkers! Several of whom got eaten en route! Can I even begin to tell you how unhappy the Madrid chapter of Monster Hunters is with me right now?"
"So? What, you'd rather I let them eat you instead?"
"I'd rather you not get involved at all! Let me fight my own damn battles!"
"Why? Just so I can carry your sorry ass home after you get the shit kicked out of you again?"
And whoops, there's that whole 'bridge too far' thing again. Immediately, Alex wishes she could call a do-over on the last five seconds, but her wand is downstairs in the lair, and McCreary Time Reary won't work without it.
Justin's whole body flinches, as if she's actually struck him. Conscience winces in empathy. And even Max—whose head has been gleefully swinging back and forth between his siblings as though he were watching a tennis match—has the good grace to avert his eyes and tilt his chin down towards the table, as if suddenly finding the magically delicious marshmallow shapes in his cereal very interesting.
Alex waits for the inevitable explosion to follow-the furious spitting of random consonants, the uncontrolled shaking in rage that makes Justin look like an epileptic on a caffiene drip—but it never comes. Instead, his lips pressed into a taut, thin line, Justin calmly sets his toast and his knife down on the counter, and leaves the room in silence, without once meeting Alex's gaze.
"Sooooo, he's pissed," Max says finally, after they hear his bedroom door shut upstairs.
"Really?" Alex deadpans, looking up at the ceiling. "Because he sure hides it well."
"I don't really understand why he's pissed, though," Max says around a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "I mean, I get that you did something, that much is obvious, but I don't get what, exactly."
Alex shrugs as she takes a sip of her coffee. "I saved his life twice, then kept his girlfriend out of Monster Jail. Does that make me an unbelievable bitch, or what?"
"You're infringing on his manhood," Conscience says from the couch, without looking up from his lesson plan he's been preparing for Max. "So from his perspective, yes it does."
"Wait, what?" Max asks, horrified. He turns to gawk at Alex with a wide-eyed mixture of fear and disgust. "She's doing what to Justin's wang?"
"What? No! I'm not doing anything with-I mean, to it!" Alex snaps, her face flushing deep crimson. "I've never even seen it, I swear!"
Conscience looks up sadly, and heaves a long-suffering sigh as he gently sets down his pen.
"No, you imbeciles," he says patiently. "I meant that by doing for him what Justin usually does for her, Alex has unintentionally called Justin's masculinity into question. That, combined with the beating he took from the wisp, has left him feeling weak and inadequate. And the fact that he's dating an immortal, super-powered vampire probably isn't helping things in that regard, either."
"Well, to me that sounds an awful lot like Justin's been turned into a girl," Max says, "which again makes me wonder what exactly Alex did to his wang..."
"Stop being gross!" Alex growls, kicking Max in the shin under the table. As he yelps and leaps out of his seat, she turns to narrow her eyes at the back of Conscience's head. "Look, I'm not sure I buy all this deeply insightful, touchy-feely Doctor Phil crap coming from somebody who used to be a part of Captain Oblivious, here. Give me one good reason why should I believe you."
"Hey, believe me or don't," Conscience shrugs. "My responsibility begins and ends with Max. It's no skin off my back, either way...but why else do you think Justin has been sneaking down to the basement to work out in the middle of the night?"
"He has? Dammit! I should have known he wouldn't give up that easily!"
"Every night this week," Conscience nods. "He's even set up some free weights and a bench press, out of sight under the stairs. I noticed them the other day, when I was trying to teach Max how to do his own laundry."
"Ooo yeah, important pro-tip there, by the way," Max volunteers. "Forgetting you have a dead lizard in your pocket when you throw your jeans in the wash? Baaaaaaad idea. Let's just say it doesn't end well...for the jeans, or the lizard."
"Ugh, but that's right where I was gonna set up my art studio!" Alex whines, stomping her foot impatiently, then heaves a heavy sigh. "Alright, Jiminy Cricket, so how do I fix this?"
"What, the lizard?" Max asks. "Oh, don't worry about it. A couple days to air out and little Krazy-Glu? He'll be good as new."
"With Justin, you moron!" Alex growls. "How do I fix things with Justin?"
"Uh, you don't?" Conscience scoffs, looking over his shoulder at her as though this should be obvious. "Anything you do to draw attention to it is only going to undermine him even further. Justin just has to work this out on his own."
And while 'ignore it, and it'll go away' is usually Alex's go-to solution to most problems, she still shakes her head sharply. "But he's pushing himself too hard! What if he overdoes it and hurts himself, again?"
"And you suddenly care, why?" Max asks. "I mean, isn't Justin hurting himself normally the kind of thing you find really, really funny?"
Alex scowls at him, but even as she opens her mouth to reply, Conscience beats her to it.
"Justin and Alex have a very complicated relationship, Max," he says, like he's explaining it to a five year-old. "Probably more complicated than even they understand."
And the knowing look he gives Alex as he says this actually makes Alex scoop up her coffee and flee the room without another word, retreating down the black spiral staircase into the Sub Station below. She can feel the weight of his gaze on her the whole way down, and it makes her cheeks burn.
So OK, Conscience knows. Or at least suspects. Which means that, on some level, Max suspects, too...or will, anyway, once Conscience finally gets put back inside him. (And ew, there's a mental image she didn't need.) Clearly, Conscience is going to have to go, one way or the other, because God forbid that one of them should tip Justin off.
Besides, there's no way she's gonna live with somebody giving her that look all the time, for the rest of her life. Seeing it in the mirror every day is bad enough.