by LJ Swallow
“I dream about you too, Jack.”
Dahlia says she's leaving. I don't know if I'll see her again, and I know I have to do this. I have to kiss her, experience the warmth of Dahlia’s mouth on mine. I ache to hold and discover what the girl from my dreams feels like. If she gets pissed off with me, slaps me, whatever, I don't give a crap. If I don't do this now, I might never have the chance.
I slide my hand down Dahlia’s cheek and across her shoulder, then hesitate before I carefully pull her towards me. So far so good. In response, she pushes the hair from my eyes. Her fingertips touch my lips, and my body fills with an electric energy I can't contain.
I am going to kiss her. Dahlia's look is expectant, hand still on my face. I inhale. Dahlia’s lips are softer than I imagined, as I place mine gently on hers. I wait for the slap, but none comes so I push my mouth harder against hers. Dahlia’s tongue slides across my bottom lip, and I'm gone. I groan and pull her close. I need her; need to surround her with my whole self and hold her so she'll never leave.
I've caught her, and she doesn't need to fall anymore.
DAHLIA
Jack's mouth is on mine, and the sensation is beyond anything I expected. Nobody has kissed me, held me, desired me. I never wanted anyone to. I don't want him to, but my body and soul aches for the boy from my dreams. He's hesitant, holding his warmth away from me; he doesn't understand that I want those muscled arms around me, or I want to experience how it feels to be surrounded by him.
I push myself against Jack, and he stumbles, half sitting on the wall. Leaning into him, hand on the back of his neck, I hold his face to mine. Jack makes a noise of surprise as I trip into him and place a palm on his chest; his coat is open and I can feel the sinewed muscle beneath his T-shirt. In response, desire courses through my body. I’m overwhelmed and surprised by my reaction. Jack winds his hand around my hair. I push closer, pulling his head towards mine. Jack's tongue darts into my mouth, and I fall into him completely as he crushes me closer, suffocating me.
I gasp and push him away. “I can't breathe.”
“Sorry, I didn't mean...”
Stepping back, I'm pulled back out of the magnetic field linking us. My scrambled mind can't deal with anymore tonight, and the overwhelming pull to him needs to be broken. Now.
“I have to go,” I whisper and, against my better judgment, brush my lips against his one last time.
As I walk away, I touch my mouth. How long will the sensation last? And when will the tingling power heating my blood leave?
Jack doesn't follow me.
8
MARCH 2010
JACK
No snow for a month now. If Dahlia only arrives with the snow, she's not coming back. I've always hated snow, but now I really bloody hate it. Each white day, my heart and head fill with hope the day will bring Dahlia. Now spring is here, and there's been no snow for weeks. I need to accept her return isn’t going to happen.
Four months. Sixteen and a bit weeks waiting for Dahlia and nothing fades. Not the demon, the dagger, or the sight of Kyle lying on the ground. Definitely not the images of our last few minutes together. I stopped thinking about our kiss because it gnaws at my insides, an aching want to see and touch her again. Stupid, because in reality, I knew her all of two weeks.
The dreams continue, the strange ones where I catch her. These images cement her into my mind so she's unable to fall out. If I wanted to shake her out of my consciousness, I couldn't. She's stuck.
Does Dahlia still dream of me too?
I think about all this as I stare at the game’s loading screen on my laptop. Shaking the thoughts out of my head, I stretch my hands in front, clicking my knuckles. Raid night. The team is progressing—if we down the last Boss, the achievement is ours and so is epic loot. I plug in my headphones and connect.
DAHLIA
Lost in a hotel room in a city I've never visited before, I flick through the channels on the TV. The small depressing, air conditioned box has been my base for a few days. I'm used to hotels; they're the place I stay on shorter assignments. This hotel is a rabbit warren of rooms, fifteen stories high, filled with business people. Identical rooms, identical lives. Fortunately, I won't be here long; my mission is to take souls from a couple of specific demons, and then I'm out again. I've found one, a disgusting creature feeding on animal corpses who never knew what hit it. The second one is trickier and taking longer to find.
And I'm distracted because I'm in the same country as Jack.
After the Phoebe incident, they returned me to Darius, my supervisor and the man I return the souls I collect to. I went beyond my allotted mission by killing Phoebe. I waited for Darius’s wrath but none came. Darius isn’t known for his goodwill so this confused me; maybe the fact I saved a human, drew attention away by stopping an inevitable death helped. I hoped Darius would send me back to Leeds because of this, but no.
Darius never mentioned Jack, but I suspect the connection to him is why they removed me before I finished the mission. However well I hid the demon, I exposed myself to a human.
Darius scares me more than any demon I've encountered; there's something about his long dark hair and angular face and cold, grey eyes. I don't trust him, but I have no choice. I signed the contract. Soul hunter. Darius tallied up the souls I've returned, and I’ve less than half a dozen to collect before they give me my Will and release me from servitude. For now, my life belongs to Darius and his superiors, the Caelestia, until I'm done. Or they're done with me.
I don't have a phone and suspect this is to deliberately cut me off from the human world. If I did, I could call Jack. My stomach flips. If he wants to talk to me.
On the bed lays a map and a train timetable. The last two days I've poured over them, fighting down the fear stopping me acting. I know the train times, the location, and how long it'll take me to reach Leeds. To find Jack. I’m torn. He fills my dreams, my mind, a thousand times more than before we kissed, and every cell in my body aches to see him again. I could take the chance, leave here, find him. No one will know if I’m only away a few hours, surely. Darius’s men only retrieve me when I have the collected souls, and I still have one to capture.
What else stops me?
Jack might not want me. He could've moved on and be with Faith.
Or Darius might find out I've lost focus again, and who knows what his reaction would be. Last time the situation with Jack was accidental; this time my actions will be deliberate. I scrub the thought of Darius.
Turning back to the TV, I click back through the channels, screen after screen of human lives. My clicking pauses on a channel with people kissing. Connecting.
I place the remote control on the bed. I have to do this.
The whole of the journey to Leeds, I stare out of the train window and listen to my heart drumming in my ears. Tickling excitement and fear fill my stomach each time Jack comes to mind. The afternoon turns to evening as I stare at the fields and houses whizzing by, the whoosh of the train comforting me. Finally, the train travels through a built up area, the houses of the suburbs make way for the grey of the city and the high-rise flats poking through the green. In the distance, the university clock tower is illuminated in the dusk.
I feel like I'm coming home.
I reach my destination and hesitate in the corridor outside Jack's room for ten minutes. Resting against the warm radiator, beneath the expanse of windows opposite his door, I summon the courage to knock. Other students wander by, footsteps loud on the tiled floor, their evenings planned and underway. Despite the warmth, I shiver.
Here I am, killer of demons and escapee of the Fated. A soul hunter terrified of knocking on a human's door. All because I think, he might reject me.
JACK
My heart pounds as I glance between my health bar and the raid boss's. We're on the third phase—five minutes and he’s almost dead. The sound of the music and battle from my laptop feed my excitement. Everyone is silent. Concentrating. Alive. The healers a
re doing an awesome job and Kyle's DPS has finally picked up. We've got this.
Through the noise of the game, I catch a soft knock on the door. I ignore it, manically clicking my mouse. Two minutes and we’re done.
The knock grows louder. I bet it's Faith; she keeps dropping by to hassle me about not attending class. She dropped out of raiding to concentrate on studying and comes over sometimes so Faith should know Thursday is a raid night; I’m sure she does it on purpose.
“Wait!” I yell.
“What?” A disembodied voice travels into my earphones.
“Not you, someone at the door. Holy crap, he's casting...”
I dodge the green spewing across the ground towards my character. The knocking continues.
“Just bloody come in, Faith, you don't have to knock!” I pull one headphone off my ear and listen. Reality is distracting me.
The knocking stops and the door opens as someone comes into the room.
Not Faith.
Dahlia hesitates in the doorway, eyes wide. Her beautiful hair frames her face, and she's wearing a dark jacket over a T-shirt and jeans, the image of the night she left. My heart dives out of my mouth and time stills. I don't know what to do, what to say. Dahlia smiles, the smile that tips her mouth up and lights her eyes. The smile that sends desire roaring through my body.
“Dahlia?”
“Hey, Jack.”
You heard the term “all Hell breaks loose”? Yeah. It does. My distraction finishes the fight and we wipe. Everyone dies and we’re done. Kyle screams obscenities over and over; everyone else falls silent.
“Ten fucking minutes, Jack! He was down to two percent. What the hell? You asshole!”
Normally, I'd shout back and give as good as he gave me, but not this time. Kyle’s words fade into the background as I continue to gaze at the apparition in my room. I don't even apologise to the team; I pull my headphones off and the awkward staring continues.
“Say something,” she says.
I've no idea where my voice went, but I can't speak to her.
DAHLIA
The heaviness of the atmosphere in this tense situation is about to lead me running back down the corridor to jump onto the first train back.
Jack thought I was Faith, and now he won't speak.
Jack's room smells odd. I can't tell if it's the half-eaten packet of corn chips on the desk next to his computer or the discarded clothing on the floor. The bed sheets are crumpled and open books are strewn across the bed. So he is studying a little. Jack continues to stare at me wordlessly, and a tinny sound echoes from his headphones. Voices—and they're shouting.
“Should I go?” I ask. “You're busy.”
Jack pulls off his headphones and stands. “No. No, don't go. Sorry about the mess, I wasn't expecting you...”
“No, I don't suppose you were.” I crane my head towards his laptop. “But you are busy.”
“Yeah, it's okay.” Jack puts a hand behind him and shuts the lid.
“Was that your gaming?”
“Yeah.” His eyes flicker to the laptop and back. “Do you want to sit down?”
Jack piles the books off his bed, then smoothes his bedclothes to make room. I sit on the very edge; he sits opposite me in his desk chair.
“I don't know what to say, Dahlia. I can honestly say you're the last person I expected to see tonight.”
“You were expecting Faith?”
Jack's eyebrows pull together. “Faith? No, why?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“Where've you been? Are you back now?”
I shift on the bed and place my palms either side of me, still unsure how much information he can deal with.
“I went back to the place I'm from. Then back to this... Here. Europe. But never anywhere near enough to see you.”
“But you're back now?
“No. I'm staying in Birmingham.”
“Birmingham?” He rubs his face, as if I've told him I live on the moon.
“I came to see you, for the evening. Do you want to go out somewhere?”
Jack's features fold. “Oh, so just this evening?”
This was a huge mistake. “I can't stay longer or I'll be missed.”
Silence re-enters the room as Jack stares at the floor. His lips move as if he's rehearsing something to say, and his jaw sets tight. I want to touch him, stroke his bare arms and face. I itch to trace my hand down the cheekbones he hides behind his hair, smooth Jack’s frowning brow and kiss him. Kiss Jack, the strange guy whose presence soothes me even when we're nowhere near. Through the distance, he pulls me to him without trying.
“Have you come to kill demons?” he says finally, looking up.
I blink at him and have no idea how to respond. There's a sparkle in his eyes, a teasing curl to his mouth.
I pout at him. “No, I'm taking the evening off.”
He laughs and his eyes glint back at mine, reconnecting us.
9
DAHLIA
Jack takes me to a quiet pub not populated by any students. The shiny wooden tables are covered with dry beer mats, clear of empty glasses. The few patrons congregate at the bar, chatting to the middle-aged barman. Jack ducks into a table in a quiet corner and I sit on a round, vinyl-covered stool.
My heart hasn't stopped racing since the moment I saw Jack. He removes his padded brown jacket, revealing a T-shirt with a print of “Chaos Ride” on the front. He rests toned arms on the table. A thin, blue string bracelet is tied around one wrist, nestling in the dark hair covering his arm. It's inexplicable how being in the same room as somebody else can fire up thoughts and feelings, without touching them. Memories of our hesitant kiss before I left replay in my mind as I stare at his mouth. Never in my life have I wanted to throw myself at somebody and have them hold me. His fringe half covers his eyes, and my fingers itch to push the hair away. We sit opposite each other. I'd prefer to sit closer, but hesitate in case he hasn’t decided what he thinks of me yet. I’d hate him to shift away if I moved closer than he wanted.
“You're not coming back for the rest of the year then?” he asks, frowning.
“No, I don't choose where I go. I might come back here again, but I doubt it.”
“Why? Who chooses?”
“The people I work for.”
The continued creasing of his forehead shows I've lost him already. Hell, there's no point beating around things. I'm here; I don't know when or if I'll see him again so dancing around isn't possible anymore.
“My superiors don't want me to come back to Leeds. They didn’t say why, but I think they know I was distracted.”
“Distracted?”
He could make this easier… Jack picks up his glass of orange juice and drinks.
“Distracted by you, Jack.”
As soon as I say the words, my cheeks heat and I want to pick up my cool glass and hold it against my face. Jack's brown eyes widen, and he still has a mouthful of orange juice. Judging by his full cheeks, he's trying not to spit the contents across the table. He gulps the juice down.
“Me?” He sets the glass down and picks at his bracelet with his long fingers, which are shaking and covered in blue ink.
“I wanted to come back here and explain to you what happened. I don't want you living the rest of your life wondering what the hell is wrong with the world. I wish I could take away what you saw that night.” I stammer the words out.
Jack pushes his fringe from his eyes. “Yeah, I’m trying to push it out of my mind and pretend it never happened. I was beginning to convince myself until I saw you again.”
Crap. I take a sharp breath. “Oh, sorry. I should've stayed away then.”
Rubbing his lips together, Jack briefly appraises my hair and face. “No, I wanted to see you again. I didn't think I would.”
I smile and instantly he reflects back with one of his own. He reaches across the table and touches my hand. My skin ignites; jolts of the strange something tingle up my arm.
“I sti
ll dream about you,” he says softly. “In my dreams, you're unhappy. Is that real? Are you sad?”
His words are like a punch in the stomach and I wince, willing the tears building behind my eyes to stay where they are. How does he know how I feel?
I shake my head vigorously, forcing a smile. “I just have a strange life, that's all.”
Jack strokes the back of my hand and my chest constricts. I turn my hand over, so we can lace our fingers together. Lips pursed, I can see from Jack’s returning frown he's considering what to say; he’s confused again.
“Will you tell me who you are?” he asks.
“Isn't it better you forget me?”
“I won't forget you, ever.” He looks down. “I mean… because of the dreams. They haven't left me since I saw you last winter.”
I trace my finger along the condensation of my glass. “I don't understand what's going on. The dreams, why I felt the need to see you again, all of this. I never even wanted to speak to a... anyone before.” I give Jack a half smile. “I don't know...”
“You’re doing it again. The last time I asked who you were, you distracted me. Was that deliberate?”
“No, I just wanted to kiss you.”
Jack grips my hand, chest rising and falling against the T-shirt. “Then you left.”
“I had to. I didn't have any choice.” I pause and extricate my fingers from his, placing both hands on the table.
“Why? Did someone threaten you? Was it demons?”
I glance at Jack and wonder why he's still sitting with me or why he believes me. Well, I guess he did see a demon disintegrate in front of him. But it's a huge step moving from telling him about demons to telling him about me.
“So you believe in demons, Jack?”
Jack studies me. “Kind of. Well, I've always believed in ghosts and stuff. And after the night... with Kyle. Yeah...”
