I shrug in reply, swallowing down the lump slowing rising up my throat. Maybe I shouldn’t tell them anything at all until I’ve figured things out more for myself. Maybe they really don’t need to know yet. What’s one more secret, right?
Liv sits up, folding her legs underneath her. “Okay spill. I know you’re hiding something.” She waves a hand encompassing my body. “You’re acting all squirrely. And while having Sebastian here is nice…” Trailing off she pauses way too long to ogle his abs through the tightness of his shirt and the way his bicep strains against the cotton sleeve every time he brings his arm up to take a bite of his pastry. I roll my eyes. I mean, he looks good, and I would ogle him, too, if my cousins weren’t in the room, but Liv… she views very male within ten feet of her as eye candy at all times. The girl is shameless, and it’s gotten her into trouble more than once.
She clears her throat. “He’s not one to just hang around the house all willy-nilly like. There’s always some kind of training involved, and you’re not training, so what gives?” she asks, finally finishing her sentence.
She’s not exactly wrong. I’ve never had Sebastian over to just chill. We’ve never just chilled, period. Our whole relationship has been based off of one intense situation after another with training thrown in. Hell, in the beginning I was convinced he was some creepy stalker with a staring problem, even after he’d saved my life at Night Life. It wasn’t until after I’d saved him too when a vampire attacked us on our way to Evan’s football game that I couldn’t deny there wasn’t something pulling us together. Something cosmic. And once I learned what that cosmic thing was, things only got more complicated from there. How could it not when it turned out I’d already brought him back once before when we were children and it had created this tether of familiarity between the both of us?
Saving him that day when we were kids is what set my life on a whole new path. I just wouldn’t remember it or him for the next eleven years. But once I did, how could I really trust that what I was feeling for him was real and not some byproduct of my actions, especially when the link had only grown stronger after I’d saved him the second time?
Then there’s Evan. After breaking up with him, I didn’t think it was right to bring over, get close to, or hang out with another guy so soon after. My aunt and uncle really loved Evan. For a while I thought maybe I could too, but then Sebastian stole my heart and made me realize the truth. Evan and I were only ever meant to be friends, and on some level, deep down, I’d always known it. What I felt for him doesn’t even compare to what I’ve been feeling for Sebastian.
Admittedly, it took me a while to sort my feelings for Sebastian out, considering the I brought him back from death’s door connection we have, but now that I have, I know it’s so much more than our cosmic connection to each other. I don’t want all our time spent with one another to be only about training or worrying about what bad thing is going to happen next. It would be really nice to spend some time with him without all the other drama in the mix. No training, no vampires, no witchcraft, no doom and gloom—just him and me. Before it’s too late and all the time we think we have and take for granted is gone.
“We should go on a date,” I blurt out.
Sebastian grins with his mouth half full, and I smile right back. With our lives the way they are—danger around every corner—it seems silly to keep him at arm’s length because I’m afraid of what my friends will say. Or what Evan might do. Or even my own fears when it comes to our connection when tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. The Big Bad could take me down next week, or Sebastian could get sent out on another case somewhere far from here. Point is, I don’t want to hold back anymore. What’s the sense in fighting to get my life back if I don’t experience the things I’m fighting for along the way?
The whole room melts away under the intensity of Sebastian’s gaze, and for a moment I forget we’re sitting in Jack’s room—until Liv’s voice comes crashing through my little bubble of bliss. “Aw. While I think it’s sweet you’re finally asking him out on a real date—which I will of course want every single detail of—no more avoiding my question. What are you hiding, Indi?”
My stomach twists under her stare. “Let me finish this delicious raspberry filled donut first.” I open my mouth to take a bite, hoping for a few more minutes to gather my thoughts. I might want to be a badass nephilim-witch hybrid who stands tall on her own two feet, but coming clean with my cousins—that’s a whole other story. Liv smacks the pastry out of my hand before it can reach my lips. “Hey!” It lands in Sebastian’s lap, squirting out a dark pink glop onto his white shirt.
She pinches her lips between her teeth to keep from laughing, then forces her features back into a stern scowl. “Just tell us what it is, Indi. You promised there would be no more secrets. We can’t help you if you’re not honest with us.”
“She’s afraid it’s bad enough I’ll take it to Mom and Dad,” Jack states. “Aren’t you, Indi?”
Sebastian hands me back my donut, then lifts his shirt to lick off the raspberry filling. His flash of skin is enough to redirect Liv’s attention, but not Jack’s. His piercing gaze threatens to rip my secret right out of my head.
“Okay, fine. There is something I need to tell you both, but you have to swear you won’t breathe a word of it to Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb.” Liv is way better at the puppy eyes than me, but I throw it out there, anyway. If I’m lucky, maybe it will sway Jack into giving me a little more time before he confesses everything to the parentals. I’m really not ready to face my aunt and uncle with this yet. At least not until I can prove I’m strong enough to hold my own against whatever threat comes at me so they can see it’s unnecessary to force me back in the dark.
“Yeah, sure,” Liv mumbles without paying attention to what she’s agreeing to. She’s so distracted by Sebastian’s abs, I could probably get her to agree to anything.
“You know I can’t make that promise.” Jack leans back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
I do know, and it’s scaring the hell out of me. He was dead serious the day he said he’d only keep quiet so long as things didn’t become too dangerous. I have a feeling what I’m about to tell him and Liv is going to cross that line. Being the target of every vampire in the city isn’t exactly safe.
My lungs squeeze within my chest, my ribs suddenly too small to house them under the weight of Jack’s stare. There’s no getting out of this, so I might as well rip off the Band-Aid and get it over with. “Just… hear me out first, okay? And if you still think we should tell them, then I guess I can’t stop you. All I can ask is that you carefully consider the consequences if you do.”
Jack lets out a huff. “Fine.” With a piercing gaze and his lips pinched into a thin line, he waves a hand, motioning for me to come out with it.
In this moment, I really miss his usual laid-back self. Jack has always been the cool one. The happy-go-lucky guy going with the flow, but with this morning’s incident of being unreachable he’s moved another step closer to becoming a more stressed out, worried, always-on-the-edge version who is beginning to second guess himself.
It’s my fault. Informing him about my being the target of vampires and my insistence at fighting my own battles when he’s lived his whole life protecting me is throwing him for a loop. He doesn’t know how to handle it, and he’s losing himself because of it. I don’t want him to be forced to change like that. Too afraid to relax because he’s worried about something happening to me every time I’m out of his sight for too long. Somehow, I’ve got to find the right words to put his mind at ease. Too bad there’s not some magic spell to make them appear, because that would be great.
“Okay.” Dropping my donut back into the box, I haul myself up and drag my feet across the room to close the door. Two pairs of eyes weigh me down while the third set reminds me I’m a badass witch-nephilim hybrid. Well, badass-in-training anyway.
I can do this.
Jack studies my every move, his agit
ated expression enticing my stomach contents to crawl up my esophagus inch by inch.
Then again, maybe I can’t do this.
Ugh! I should just blurt it out with my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m imagining it will be. Maybe being an impossible cure to vampirism isn’t as life-altering as I think it is and no one will need to speak of it again outside this room.
Yeah, right. More like I’m deluding myself because I don’t want to admit I’m about to be totally screwed. Jack’s going to freak out and tell no matter what I say. I know it because he’s already sworn to do just that if things get to heavy and this—this is pretty heavy. And when he does, Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb are going to freak out even more and I’m probably going to have to run away to keep them from suppressing me again.
Maybe I can move in with Sebastian?
My eyes gravitate in his direction, the butterflies housed in my belly fluttering to life with thoughts of he and I… all alone… in his motel room… without supervision.
Sebastian tilts his head a little to the side, his eyebrow slowly rising as the corner of his mouth lifts in the slightest of ways. It’s like he knows the sudden change in my thoughts, and that’s when I realize I’m staring. Heat spreads out all over my body with the highest concentration no doubt being in my face.
Focus, Indi.
With my thoughts going back to stressing over every terrible reaction my revelation could bring, I start to pace, hoping the movement will spark some grand speech to suddenly pop into my head. One that will make Jack sympathetic to my plight and not want to rat me out the moment the words leave my mouth.
Maybe I can compel him to not say anything? I compelled Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb that one time into thinking they’d already suppressed my magic and erased my memories after they told me the truth about my mom and dad. And they seem to be okay. Maybe I can do it again with Jack?
No. No, I can’t. What if he ends up going psycho like I suspect Evan is? It’s bad enough I’m trying to find a way to fix that mistake. I don’t need to add Jack to the list too. I’ve got enough problems as it is. Besides, what if my compelling abilities are vampire related and not angelic like Liv thinks? And if it turns out they are vampire related, what if using them pushes me further into vampire territory, and I lose myself in the darkness, becoming the very thing I’m fighting against?
Unwanted images dredged up from my nightmares assault my mind until all I can see is drained bodies at my feet. Their lifeless, wide-open eyes staring at me from the other side while the taste of their blood dances across my tongue. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing myself to think of anything else, anything at all, something happy, but all I see is one tragedy after another.
Gah! When did my life become so hard?
Oh yeah, right around the time I got attacked by a vampire and found out I’m a part of a supernatural world where others in it want me dead.
Just once, I wish things could be easy.
I spare a glance at my cousins and immediately wish I hadn’t. I also wish I hadn’t eaten half my donut because it’s really wanting to come back up. Perspiration beads along my hairline and down my back, my whole body growing so hot spontaneous combust doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. The room shifts under my feet, no longer feeling quite as solid as it once did. I rest a hand against the dresser, hoping it’ll anchor me in a room spinning out of control in dizzying circles. At least long enough for me to get a few breaths of air in my ever-constricting lungs.
“How bad is this thing you’re hiding?” Liv questions. “You’ve been pacing back-and-forth for like five minutes.” She’s sitting only a few feet from me, but her voice sounds miles away under the whooshing in my ears.
I jump and stiffen at the touch of Sebastian’s hand on my back. He rubs soothing circles over my shoulder blades, whispering things in my ear I can barely hear over the roaring sounds of my own blood pumping through my body. Turning my head to meet his eyes takes so long everything moves in slow motion. The floor dips beneath my feet, and I sway to the side. One of the knobs on the dresser digs into my rib, and he takes hold of my upper arm to help keep me steady.
“Just breathe, Indi. In for seven, out for eleven like I taught you at the water tower, remember?” His voice whispers against my eardrum, getting a little louder each time he repeats himself.
“That’s it. I’m getting Dad.” Jack pushes up from the chair, walking with purpose toward the door. Liv reaches out for him, her fingers brushing along his arm as he twists out of reach. “Don’t try to stop me, Liv. Whatever’s going on with Indi is obviously bad if it’s giving her a panic attack. We need to tell Mom and Dad before things get any more out of hand. We should never have kept it a secret from them to begin with.”
“Wait.” I close my eyes, forcing myself to pull it together. Sebastian’s soothing words surround me in soft encouragement, helping me to relax further. The floor steadies below my feet, my lungs finally able to get air without feeling like I’m breathing through a wet washcloth. “It’s really not that bad.” Total lie. “You know me with my anxiety issues over everything.”
Jack leans his back against the door with his hand still clasped firmly around the doorknob. “I’ll give you five minutes to tell me what’s going on and convince me to not go to Mom and Dad.”
“Okay.” I wring my hands, my insides trembling so hard I’ve got to give props to my skin for keeping it contained. “I’m a cure for vampirism.” So much for eloquent speeches.
5
Liv bursts into a fit of laugher, catching me off guard. “A cure for vampirism? You really had me going there for a second. Who knew you were such a talented actress with the whole mock panic attack and everything. You had me thinking there was something catastrophic about to happen. I’ll never say you suck at pranks again.”
“It’s not a joke, Liv. I wish it were, but it’s not.”
“Yeah, right.” Her eyes bounce between Sebastian and me, narrowing as she studies our faces for any signs of deceit. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
Jack’s hand falls from the knob. “There’s no such thing as a cure for vampirism.” Taking a step away from the door, he shakes his head as though my revelation is nothing more than absurd. “Vampires are dead. There is no coming back from that. They can mimic life by drinking blood to keep from desiccating, but they can’t come back to life life.”
“Well, they can now.”
Jack stares at me for half a second, then shakes his head again. “What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. Vampirism isn’t a disease, so how can there be a cure?” He turns to Sebastian. “Have you ever heard of this?” Without giving him a chance to answer, he redirects his line of questioning back to me. “What makes you think you’re a cure anyway?”
“Remember Seth? The—”
“The vampire who destroyed our lives at Night Life? Why? He’s not back, is he?” Liv’s eyes widen, her gaze slashing back and forth across the room as though she’s expecting him to jump out from the closet any minute. Can’t say I blame her. Our lives changed that night in horrible ways, and if the very thought of his name still sends chills down my spine, it’s not hard to imagine what it does to her, especially when the trauma Ben caused before I got there is added in.
She fists her hands around the blankets on the bed, the pulse at her neck fluttering rapidly beneath her skin. “Is he… is he back?” Her voice cracks over broken, whispered words as all the color drains from her face, leaving her green eyes unnaturally bright. “Did he come after you again?”
“Well… yes and no.” Seth’s face flashes in my mind, his features shifting between the vampire who duped me into a false security and the human who asked for my forgiveness. “It’s… complicated. He—”
“This whole thing is my fault.” Tucking her knees to her chest, she rocks back and forth, holding them so tight her knuckles turn white. “I never should have talked you into going to the c
lub that night. I was so stupid. I was so hung up on trying to impress Ben; I couldn’t see him or Seth for what they were when I should have. I’m a witch. I should have known. I should have sensed it, but I didn’t, and I… If Sebastian hadn’t gotten there when he did…” Tears slip down her cheeks, her gaze becoming more and more unfocused. “You were covered in so much blood, Indi. So much blood and I… I didn’t think my magic was going to be enough to heal you. I was so scared you weren’t going to make it. If you’d died…”
Taking a seat beside her, I grab onto her shoulders to hold her still. “But I didn’t die—at least not for long, anyway,” I say in a teasing lilt, hoping it will lighten the mood. It doesn’t. So I change tactics, forcing her to look at me before her panic sends me into a panic. “What happened at Night Life wasn’t your fault, Liv, so please stop blaming yourself.” The crazy look in her eye softens a bit, even though I have my doubts she’ll take what I’m telling her to heart. Not blaming yourself for something you hold yourself responsible for isn’t always easy to do. I should know. I still blame myself for what happened to my mom. “I’m okay. I’m alive, and you and I are both fine. We survived, and we’ll continue to survive, okay?” She nods and I pull her in for a hug.
Taking a breath, I meet Sebastian’s gaze. The look held within his eyes encourages me to continue even though I’m half-afraid to. I had no idea Liv was holding all this guilt and fear inside. But I should have. I should have recognized the signs and seen through her façade because I’ve been hiding behind the same everything is fine mask for most of my life. I let myself get so wrapped up in my own stuff, I became blind to hers. I’m a horrible cousin. “Liv, I’m—”
Of Darkness & Light: Blood Descent Book 2 Page 4
