Angelic Nightmare

by H G Lynch

  Not, he thought bitterly, self-scathingly, that I’ve been making that easy for her. He sighed, feeling like an asshole. Again.

  “And by the way, you should stop arguing with her, not so she can control you, but so she doesn’t end up shredding your face and setting you on fire.” Ricky chuckled.

  Reid arched a brow at him, trying not to laugh, too. “Yeah, right,” he smirked, then bit his lip. Shook his head. Sighed. He really did feel like crap about being so harsh on her. But, he was a guy, so of course, he couldn’t admit to her that he was wrong. He’d just have to hope she’d come get him and give him a reason to suddenly act like all was forgiven. Everything was already forgiven, and more, but he couldn’t let her know that. She’d think she’d won and he’d never live it down. Sometimes, dealing with Ember was like dealing with a feral tiger. If you let it bite you once and didn’t smack it over the head for it, it’d think it was okay and try to take another bite.

  “God, I love her half to death, but, dude, she’s killing me,” he muttered, kicked a chunk of snow across the park.

  Ricky laughed. “Well, that’s how you know you really love her.” Then Ricky got up off his swing, the chains giving a squeaking sigh of relief. “I’d better go see what Sherry’s doing. Will you be okay here? You won’t go and maul any woodland creatures, right?”

  Reid snorted, rolled his eyes. “Don’t count on it.”

  Ricky just sighed and walked away, pausing only to call back, “You know she’ll be pissed if you kill more squirrels!”

  At that, Reid chuckled. Mostly because he knew Ricky was right. Not that it would stop him draining another squirrel if he really wanted to.

  He really hated squirrels.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hiro was lounging on the sofa, and he motioned for her to sit in the armchair nearest him.

  She went and sat, giving him a suspicious glance. “What do we need to talk about exactly?” she inquired.

  Hiro rarely actually talked to anyone as far as she could tell; He sniped and joked, but very infrequently did he ever say anything really important or meaningful.

  “Reid’s right,” Hiro said bluntly.

  Ember blinked, taken aback. Her stomach knotted, but trying not to jump to conclusions she couldn’t handle, she said slowly, “Right about what precisely?” Her fingers twitched with heat, and she swore she’d take him out if he told her he was working for The Society. But, somewhere inside, she knew she couldn’t.

  Oh, sure, she’d taken out a friend before; she’d destroyed Owen without a single speck of guilt for it. But that was different. Owen had actually kidnapped her and Sherry, essentially tortured her best friend. And they hadn’t been close in years in the first place.

  Hiro, though…It wasn’t really an unshakable friendship and fondness that made her think she couldn’t stand to watch him burn to ashes. It was, well, the fact that he was a Kitsune. Every time she looked at him, she could see him with fluffy ears and a swishing tail. And whenever she thought of hurting him, in those moments where she did doubt him, she could imagine him the way he looked as a fox. She simply couldn’t bring herself to hurt an animal, even a traitorous half-human one.

  “Right that you can’t trust me. I get it. I’m practically a stranger, I just came waltzing in here the day before trouble kicked off, and I’m...I’m not the most easy person to get along with. I know that,” Hiro explained, oblivious to her thoughts.

  She looked at him, really looked at him.

  With his caramel skin and strange eyes and bright hair. He really did look young, and sometimes she forgot he was only fifteen. There was something sad in his eyes just now, and he wouldn’t meet her gaze directly. It was clear he was lonely.

  “I like you, Ember, I do. I’m not so sure about your boyfriend, but I like you and Sherry and Ricky. I want to stay with you guys. I want you all to be able to trust me, but there’s only one way you’ll be able to do that.” Hiro sat up straighter and Ember stared at him in confusion, speechless.

  First Raz, now Hiro. Why was it that she seemed to have such an effect on people without even knowing? How could she make an angel feel again, and give a broken Kitsune boy hope, but not be able to get over her own bad dreams?

  “How? What’s the one way you can make us trust you?” she asked cautiously, her mouth dry.

  Hiro stood up and came over to her, looked down into her face intently. “I can give you my loyalty as a Kitsune. To us, loyalty isn’t just a word. It’s how we live, how we survive. We don’t give each other up to the humans, we protect each other. To give loyalty to anyone but another Kitsune is almost unheard of. But I want to give it to you.”

  Ember stared at him, stunned. He knelt in front of her armchair and looked up at her. “There’s a ritual for doing it. Like I said, it isn’t just a word to us. You’ll feel it, my loyalty, after this. But first, all I need you to do is put your hand on my head while I Change. If you take your hand away before I’m fully Changed, it’ll stop me giving you my loyalty. It’s a way of ensuring the person receiving the loyalty deserves it.” His strange, cat-like eyes shone with a mix of emotions she couldn’t untangle, but he seemed deadly serious about this. He wanted to…pledge his allegiance to her, or something.

  Her jaw almost dropped open. But at the same time, it’d be nice to not have to worry about him turning her over to The Society, to not have Reid yelling at for being too trusting. “This…it won’t make you like…my eternal slave or something will it? I don’t want your servitude. I just want to be able to really trust you. I think that’s all Reid really wants too.” She was only half-joking.

  Hiro grinned at her through strands of his messy, scarlet hair, his teeth sharp and white against his caramel skin. “It just means you’ll know when I’m lying to you. And I’ll be inclined to protect you whenever you need it, whether you ask for my protection or not,” he said, then sobered a little, “I’d protect you anyway, you know? I don’t have any romantic interest in you —though I’m not sure Reid totally believes that — but I think of you like my big sister. You’re the first person I’ve really trusted since Maiung, which is why I think you deserve to be able to trust me.”

  Ember couldn’t think of a damned thing to say to that, so she just nodded. Hiro bent his head and she hesitantly put her hand on his hair. It was softer than she’d thought it would be, but still kind of coarse, like animal pelt. Well, that makes sense, she thought to herself.

  Under her hand, Hiro started to vibrate, his shape blurring. Slowly, he began Changing. Fluffy ears sprouted on either side of her hand, and he began to shrink so she had to lean down to keep her hand on him. As he Changed, a warmth spread from him to her fingers, up her arm, and slowly spread out to her chest. She could feel the warmth as a link to him, an invisible connection. She realised she could feel his thoughts. She couldn’t read them, but she could get a sense of them. He was thinking happy, proud things. Thinking about her, and her friends.

  Finally, the Change was done, and Hiro sat on the floor in front of her as a fox. With a nervous smile, she scratched his ears gently, and he made a soft, approving noise. Cautiously, she took her hand off his head and looked at her fingers like she expected them to be stained red or something. They were clean and fine. The warm feeling was dissipating, but she could still sense Hiro’s thoughts. She could only sense from them what she might sense from his expression or his tone if he were in human form —and if he wasn’t putting on a face. It was helpful while he was in fox form, since it was hard to tell what a fox was thinking.

  Hiro Changed back to his human form and grinned at her. “Want to test it?” he asked cheerily.

  She nodded.

  Hiro thought for a moment, and then said casually, “You know, I think my new favourite colour is blue.”

  It was a perfectly ordinary thing to say…and it was a lie. She could feel it.

  “Liar. What’s really your favourite colour?”

  Hiro beamed like a child being handed an ice
-cream. “Red, of course,” he answered wryly.

  Ah. Of course. Red fox.

  She laughed, and Hiro joined in. It was good to see him really laugh, knew it was genuine for once. But, still, she had to ask him something serious. “Hiro?”

  Sensing her change in tone, he met her eyes, his thoughts turning wary. “What?” he asked cautiously.

  “You know I have to ask. Are you working with The Society?” She hated to ask, but she had to. She just had to be one hundred percent sure.

  Hiro didn’t seem offended or hurt that she’d ask; He understood it was necessary. “No. I’m not working with The Society. I never have. I think they can all take their plans for world domination and shove them where the sun don’t shine.” He winked at her.

  She let out a sigh of relief. His thoughts were honest. He was telling the truth. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Hiro blinked at her in surprise. “For what? I should be thanking you. You can’t imagine how…awful it is to be so alone for so long. You’re lucky you have Reid and Sherry,” he said gently.

  She smiled tenderly. “Well, you don’t have to be alone now. You’ve got us. I’ll convince Reid to trust you somehow…” An idea formed in her head. “Wait, can angels feel the truth of anyone?”

  Hiro nodded. “That’s how he knew what I was the second he got here.”

  She tucked that little scrap of info away in her head in her planning folder, saving it for later. For now, she had something else to do. She sighed. “I guess I should go get Reid. I feel kind of bad about earlier,” she admitted, frowning.

  “You shouldn’t. I mean, come on, the guy was strangling you.” Hiro didn’t seem happy about that. Hell, she knew he wasn’t happy about it.

  “Not really. I could still breathe. He wasn’t hurting me. He would never hurt me.” But even as she said it, she realised it wasn’t true. Not completely. He wouldn’t hurt her physically, no, but mentally? Emotionally? He already had. At least twice. You did that to yourself, you know, a little voice in her head reminded her. She told it to shut up.

  Hiro was oblivious to her mental argument, and simply shrugged. “I hope not. I’m your guard-fox now, but I don’t think I could take him in a fight. Vampires, unfortunately, are stronger than even old Kitsune.” He rolled his eyes.

  Ember smiled and patted him on the head. “Don’t worry. The only person you’re likely to have to fight is me. Now scram, fox-boy. I need to attend to my rogue boyfriend and hope he hasn’t gone and killed a group of squirrels.”

  Hiro chuckled at that, and slunk off down the hall, pausing only to shoot her a grateful smile.

  Now, she thought, sighing, this is going to be fun.

  Ember pulled on her shoes and a jumper before heading outside. She had no idea where to start looking for Reid, considering he could be a hundred miles away by now, but she figured the park was a good place to start.

  She walked into the park, and frowned when she saw it was empty. She moved further into the park, aiming for the woods behind it. If she could follow the trail all the way along, maybe she’d find him up a tree or something. Possibly staring broodingly the sky like he was waiting for the clouds explode and send down lightning to smite him.

  She stopped dead when she spotted Reid, leaning gracefully against a tree, with a cigarette held loosely between the fingers of one elegant hand. As she watched, he raised the cigarette to his lips, drew a breath on it, and blew out the smoke in a white stream. Normally, Ember hated people who smoked, especially since the smoke used to irritate her asthma —not a problem now that she was half-vamp, but she still gagged on the thick, cloying smell —but, like everything else he did, Reid made it look dead sexy. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, curling her fingers into the belt loops of her jeans, and walked over to him.

  He glanced at her only when she leaned back against the tree opposite his. Silently, she watched him for a moment as he lifted the cigarette to his lips again. Realising she was watching him, he stared right back, with narrowed blue eyes, through the cloud of misty white smoke. They stood like that, just watching each other, for a long minute.

  Eventually, Ember said in as indifferent a voice as she could, “I didn’t realise you smoked.”

  Reid glanced down at the cigarette in his hand as if he’d forgotten it, and shrugged lightly. “I don’t usually. Old habit,” he said, like it explained some other unanswered question she hadn’t asked. Maybe a question he’d asked himself. Whatever. Who cared?

  Then his eyes flicked back to hers, a faint glimmer in the blue. “Does it bother you?” he asked it like a challenge.

  She shrugged, looked up at the sky through the jittering tree branches for a second, glanced back at him. “It usually does,” she said blandly. Let him make of that what he would. If he was looking to pick another fight, he wasn’t getting it. If he was waiting for her to boss him about and tell him what he could and couldn’t do, he’d have to find someone else to do it.

  He continued to stare at her for a long time, waiting apparently, though she wasn’t sure what for. Still watching her, he raised the cigarette for another puff, tipped his head back, and blew the smoke upward. Ember bit her tongue, wondering how, even when she was still hugely pissed off at him, even when he was acting like an arrogant prick, she was still so attracted to him.

  They stood in a heavy silence that might’ve almost been peaceful if it weren’t for the nerve-pulling tension. Reid dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out in the snow with the toe of one immaculate, black leather boot. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapped out one disgusting stick, and held it between his lips to shove the packet back into his pocket and search for his lighter.

  Ember, deliberately not looking at him, clicked her fingers, lighting the cigarette effortlessly from three feet away. Sometimes, she really loved how cool her fire ability was.

  Reid blinked, drew on the lit cigarette, and blew out the smoke. He was staring at her again, but with a different light in his eyes. She turned her head to meet his gaze, and saw a smile spread slowly across his mouth. Tentatively, she smiled back. He bowed his head, chuckled softly, and glanced back up at her through the locks of golden hair falling over his face. Ember shrugged a little.

  With a sharp sigh that somehow sounded like a laugh, Reid threw his barely-touched cigarette down and held out his now-empty hand to her instead. She placed her hand lightly in his, smiled gently when he curled his fingers around hers.

  They walked back through the chilly park in a cosy silence. There was no need for words; they’d just had a whole discussion without saying a single thing.

  Of course, the peace didn’t last long. The girls finally got around to telling the guys what Julie had said about the mirror —that it might be cursed or charmed — seeing as they hadn’t really gotten the chance until now. Predictably, they weren’t happy with the idea of a cursed mirror. Unpredictably, though, the guys were dead set that they should get rid of the mirror, which Ember couldn’t understand.

  Even if the thing was cursed, it could be helpful. The wards had already been broken —or at least, bypassed with some tricky intentions — and they’d seen that not everyone they came across was entirely human. Having something which could give them a heads up about what kind of psycho they were dealing with if one should get into the house somehow would be useful.

  But, Reid didn’t see it that way. Of course. “It’s dangerous!” he yelled, throwing up his hands.

  Sherry and Ricky, in Ember’s peripheral vision she could see, slipped out of the living room, clearly going to debate the issue together in quieter voices.

  She was so fed up of Reid acting like she was clueless, like she had no idea what she was doing. What was his problem lately? He’d turned into a complete ass, negating everything she said.

  “It could be helpful!” Ember yelled back, motioning to the gilt-framed mirror sitting on the dining table, where they’d placed it to examine it better.
>
  “Ember, if anything happens to that mirror, it could kill us all!” he retorted, furious.

  She snorted.

  Exaggerating much? she thought, trying not to roll her eyes.

  “Or it could save us the next time a ‘seemingly normal’ person breaks in here!” Was there some sort of roadblock in his head, preventing him from understanding that? Or was he being intentionally dense? Her palms tingled with a heat that was building to a flashpoint, even with her hands curled into tight fists. She wondered just what would happen when the fire couldn’t spark up on her hands normally? Would her fists combust? That would be cool. She could throw a flaming punch at Reid.

  Reid’s eyes flashed, his expression livid. “For God’s sake, Ember, you have no idea what you’re talking about! You’ve never come across a cursed object before! You have no clue of the damage they can cause, especially to the fools who think they can use it to their advantage!”

  Stunned, Ember felt her mouth drop open a little, her eyebrows shooting up. She could’ve sworn he just called her a fool. But there was no way he was really that stupid. Right?

  A swift review of his words, played over in her head, revealed that he was indeed that stupid.

  Something inside Ember exploded, all the stress and worry and fear combined with rage and hurt and the warning burning in her hands, blowing up in one wave.

  “Reid, would you just shut the fuck up!” she screamed, then choked as a shockwave of something burst out from her head and chest, knocking her backwards a few steps. She stumbled, sucked in a gasp. What the hell was that? She had no idea, but it had left her panting hard, and all her muscles were suddenly quivering. She took another step back, eyes wide, but not really seeing what was in front of her. Her vision was cloudy, clearing slowly.

  Shocked and confused, she sat down —more like fell — on the floor and blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision. It worked, but her chest tightened when she saw the damage she’d caused.

  Reid was kneeling on the ground, clutching his head in his hands like he thought it might explode, and drops of blood fell onto his jean-clad knees from his bowed head. Because his hair was in his face, she couldn’t see where the blood was coming from.