by J. E. Taylor
This time when I mentally ordered my body to obey, it did, and I found myself on shaky legs, shivering. I wanted my warm bed and old comforter my mother knitted for me. I wanted my clothes and knickknacks I collected over the years. I turned towards the building, stumbling to the front entrance.
A guard I hadn’t met before stepped into my path, preventing me from passing into the building.
“Excuse me,” he said, putting his hand out. “What business do you have with the Regent?”
“I would like to retrieve my things from the servants’ quarters,” I said.
“Identification, please,” he said.
I just stared at him. I had no identification on me. When I ran out earlier in the day, I didn’t have a thing. I had never had cause to show identification when coming and going before, but then again, most of the regular guards knew my face.
“Well?”
“I’m sorry. Everything I have is in my room.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The Regent has given the order that no one without proper identification is to enter the estate.”
“But...”
He just shook his head, his expression turning hard. “No exceptions.”
“Jaden Mallory will vouch for me,” I said.
The guard’s expression soured. “Ah, both the Regent and her son warned each and every one of us about you. They said you were unstable and would do anything to stop the marriage. Master Mallory does not want anything to do with you or your games, so I suggest you run along.” He waved me away.
The cold wrapped her cruel hand around my heart, wringing the last drop of hope. I stepped back, unsure of what to do, but it was clear I wasn’t going to get inside tonight.
“Jaden said he doesn’t want...”
The guard gave me a curt nod.
I turned away from the only home I ever had. My feet knew the way through the streets to my sanctuary, even as my brain fogged over the events of the last few hours. When I stood in the lobby of our tall dilapidated skyscraper, I realized there was no solace here. No peace with it draped in memories of Jaden at every turn, but it was the only place I had to go.
I climbed the stairs, stopping on the seventeenth floor, then slipped through the stairwell door. Wind seeped between the broken windows lining the hallway to my left. I navigated the dark, trying to remember if it was the third or fourth door on my right.
Just because I was unsure, I opened the first door I came to and found the ragged remains of metal. Beyond the bent iron, a wall of window frames stood. The wind pushed the door back on me, and I let it close as my teeth joined in the shiver accosting my form. If I didn’t find my room soon, I wasn’t going to last the night.
The second resulted in the same as the first. When I stepped in front of the third door, I said a little prayer to the elements to help sustain me. Darkness blanketed me when I opened the door. It lulled me, and I almost took that first step. Instead, I crouched and followed the doorframe down to where the floor should have been.
Closing my eyes, I sighed as my fingers passed the level of the hallway floor and my memory of the long dark shaft surfaced. If I had taken that step, I would have dropped seventeen floors, crashing to my death. And no one would have ever found me. Not even Jaden.
My heart jumped in my chest as I slammed the door closed. I glanced farther down the hallway, squinting to see where the next door was. Five paces and I stood before my last chance. I rested my forehead on the door and took a deep breath before I turned the knob.
The door blew open, and this time I did not trust the darkness. I licked my lips, trying to remember the rhyme my mother used to say when I was a kid and afraid of the dark.
“Goddess of the sun, make the dark become the light, help me make the sun shine in the night,” I whispered holding my hand out in the dark. A moment later, a small spark danced over my palm, lighting up the space like a dim nightlight.
This was the room we had found on one of our adventures. It had four solid walls, a ceiling, and a floor. That was all I could hope for at this point, and while it was cold, it wasn’t as frigid as the hallway. At least I would be sheltered for the night.
Holding my little light, I stepped inside and closed the door, looking for anything to provide warmth. My gaze fell on a metal rack stacked with reams of decayed paper. I couldn’t be picky, not if I wanted to survive the elements. I dumped a few packages on the floor, containing any stray pieces that tried to drift off. When I had enough bedding down, I grabbed more paper, layering it on top of me as I lay down on my shredded bedding.
Exhaustion strangled my muscles. I curled tighter into a ball, shifting papers to cover me. Soon, my little space began to capture and keep, my body heat, warming me to the point I wasn’t shivering anymore. With the last of the paper reams tucked under my head, I closed my hand around the light, dousing it until blackness surrounded me.
With a quiet sigh, I let my mind still. Sleep didn’t take long to arrive, and when it did, it plummeted me into a litany of nightmares. Nightmares filled with images of my burning mother, of Jaden’s glare, and of Samantha’s vicious laughter.
The door banged open and I jumped. My gaze flew around the room until it landed on a silhouette framed by the darkness of the doorway. I froze as a light shined in my direction.
“Star?” A voice drifted as the light scanned past me.
“Jaden?” I asked, sitting up. The papers covering me drifted to the ground.
He stepped in the room and closed the door. With the flashlight still shining in my eyes, I couldn’t tell if it was Jaden or not. Fear collected in my belly until a familiar backpack dropped on the ground. The light moved away, but the shadows still darkened my vision.
Jaden knelt by the bag and set the flashlight on the floor so it washed the ceiling with light, creating a halo that illuminated the entire room.
“I kind of figured you’d end up here,” he said without looking at me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize my mother gave the order to burn everything of yours, as well as your mother’s, until I saw the pile of stuff outside waiting to be thrown into the bonfire.” His lips pursed in disgust.
Instead of elaborating, he unzipped the backpack and pulled out the blanket my mother had made me. I pressed my lips together as mist clouded my vision, and then I forced the melon size lump forming in my throat into my fluttering stomach.
“I figured when I saw this, it was probably the one thing out of all the things in your room that you would need, for more than just warmth.” He blinked away the sudden sheen covering his eyes while he spread the warm blanket over me.
“Thank you,” I said with a shaking voice.
The next item he pulled out made me crack a small smile. I was instantly transported back to my bedroom on the night I broke my arm. Jaden had come by and given me a cute black and white stuffed bear to make me feel better. Now, he handed it over with the same sheepish smile he had worn then.
I slowly took it and hugged it to my chest.
When he pulled out a sundress, I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I have no idea. It was just there next to the blanket and the bear, so...” He shrugged and shoved the dress back into the bag. “That’s all I could grab.” He leaned back on his haunches and glanced at his watch.
“What’s the hurry?” I asked through a rash of shivers that made my teeth click.
“I put some food and water in the bottom of the backpack along with a little money so you can at least get a coat or a change of clothes,” he said, avoiding my question and any eye contact.
“Jaden,” I said.
It took him a minute to meet my gaze. Again that same pain flashed, and he tried to give me a smile, but it didn’t quite make it onto his lips. It certainly didn’t reflect in his eyes.
“This is goodbye,” he whispered.
All the air hissed from my lungs. A sucker punch to the gut would have been less painful. Hell, being decapitated would have been more pleasant than this crushin
g blow. I squeezed the bear closer to my chest like it could protect me from this utter devastation.
“You can’t...” His fists closed, followed by his eyes, as he struggled to get the words out. “You can’t come to the mansion to see me...and I can’t come here again.” He finally met my gaze. “I shouldn’t even be here now.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice as small as I felt. “What did I do that was so bad?”
His head dipped to his chest. “You didn’t do anything,” he whispered. “This is... This is just the way it has to be.” His head snapped up, and resolve lived next to the pain on his face.
“So everything earlier was just a farce,” I said, my voice carrying the edge cutting through me.
He slowly shook his head. “No. I meant everything I said, but it no longer matters. I made a choice.”
“You chose to marry that little pixie in return for my freedom and my safety,” I said, and he jerked like I had electrified him. “I heard everything. How could you do that? How could you agree to marry her?”
He looked up at the ceiling. When a tear traced his cheek, it was my turn to feel a jolt of surprise.
“You didn’t hear everything,” he said, and his gaze dropped to mine, his pain reflected as strongly as a shooting star on a clear night. “Unfortunately, my mother added an item...or two to the negotiations when she got back to her office. I have to publically denounce you, and I can never speak to you again.”
Silence settled between us as he tried to somehow relay the magnitude of what that meant with his steady gaze. But I couldn’t grasp what his silent communication was saying.
“Ever,” he added when I didn’t respond. His whisper was as morbid as the meaning behind that single word.
My mother’s death had removed the stranglehold Samantha had on me, and as much as I hated it, the fact was the tragedy had a silver lining, or so I thought. But now all that came crashing down, and my body went numb from more than just the cold.
“Did you know your mother had me dumped in the alley like a piece of trash?” I asked, choosing the flare of anger swirling inside instead of the crippling devastation circling like a rabid ravager.
His head cocked, and a crease appeared between his eyes. “She told me you left. You refused medical treatment.”
I let out a sarcastic laugh. “I nearly froze to death while I waited for that damn sedative to wear off.” I didn’t expand that it had actually been the ghost of my dead mother that got my ass moving. Instead, I glared at him.
He covered his face with his hands, slowly wiping down until his eyes appeared above his fingers. “Maybe that was her hedge,” he whispered, his voice shaking as much as his body. “Maybe she thought I wouldn’t agree to her terms,” he added and squeezed his eyes shut.
His blatant denial of his mother’s horrific actions burned. “What will happen if you disobey?” I blurted.
His gaze lowered to the ground. “My mother will make me watch as ravagers tear you to pieces.” He climbed to his feet and turned to leave.
He had no idea that I lived with that particular death threat every day of my life. Exile wasn’t as devastating a thought to me as it clearly was to Jaden.
“Stay,” I said. I jumped to my feet, dropping the bear on the makeshift bed. Desperation clung to my voice, and he hesitated at the door. I reached out, and the moment my fingers grazed his back, his chin dropped to his chest. “Please,” I added, stepping closer.
“I. Can’t.” He barely squeezed the words out before he bolted out the door.
Based on the lumbering footsteps, I gathered he was running blind. I almost followed him, but the pain in his voice sliced through my resolve, shattering what was left of my heart.
I closed the door and retreated to my bed, trying not to let the thoughts overwhelm me, but that was already a losing battle. The center of my being felt as if someone had put a shotgun to my chest and pulled the trigger, leaving a bloody, gaping hole.
I swept the backpack off the ground and put it between me and the wall before settling down on my paper bedding. I hesitated to turn off the flashlight because with the absence of light came the despair that would fracture my soul.
With the bear hugged close to my chest, a steady stream of tears heated my face, soaking the only friend I seemed to have left.
I reached out from under the warmth of my mother’s blanket and turned off the light, letting the darkness in.
Chapter 7
Sleep didn’t come. I stared at the blackness surrounding me, fresh out of tears. I’d lost everything. My mother, Jaden, my home, and it all stewed right under the surface.
I replayed ever second of the last day and a half, wondering when the gods had decided my life should be ruined. The chips were falling long before I actually concocted the potion that would protect Jaden from harm.
I couldn’t pinpoint the moment everything turned to shit. All I could think about was how warm and welcoming his lips had been. My chest hurt with the loss. Looking back, I reassessed every moment I had spent with the man since I turned thirteen. The hints he dropped were so clear on retrospect. Even the day he brought the bear to me under the guise that it was because I broke my arm, but there was more in that gesture, more in the gentle kiss he delivered to my cheek and the soft apology for not being there when it happened. All undertones of his true feelings and I had missed every single one.
I squeezed the stuffed animal tighter and stared at the darkness, beating myself up for my stupidity. Nine years worth of missed opportunities. Nine years worth of hints and actions that screamed his true intentions, but I was blinded by my station in life. Blinded by my mother’s warnings. I always assumed everything he did was because he was my friend and nothing more. How incredibly shortsighted of me.
Perhaps this was a lesson from the gods. I never took the risk with my heart. I was too afraid of the consequences. Now, it was too late.
I was destined to lose him because of my inability to see beyond what I had been conditioned to see.
I rolled towards the wall, slinging my arm over my head to block the assault of memories. Sweet thoughts of his lips on mine, his hands claiming me in a way I never thought they would, turned bitter. I would never be with Jaden, romantic or otherwise, ever again.
“Damn it.”
The hole in my heart widened as heat pooled in my eyes again. I squeezed my eyelids closed, willing the tears away.
My mind came back to the here and now, and the meaning he was trying so hard to convey to me started to seep in.
Denounced.
Jaden had to denounce me.
What kind of crap was that? Didn’t he understand what that meant?
If he truly denounced me, my life was over. I’d be toxic to anyone who befriended me. This isolated room would be my only solace away from the persecution. I would be an outcast. A freed slave who had no future.
If that was the case, my choices were bleak. Live out my days in this room until I either starved or froze to death, or venture out into public only to be assaulted by whatever words came to mind of every passing stranger. In some cases, I’d heard the people get violent with outcasts, and more than once the sector had run someone through the barrier. It wasn’t a life at all.
And as much as I’d like to see that pixie turn to dust, I couldn’t set foot on the estate.
“Baby girl.” My mother’s voice surrounded me, lifting me from my self-pity stupor.
“Mama, just let me curl into a ball and die.”
“I’m sorry. I cannot do that.” Her voice wrapped around me with the warmth of the comforter.
I stiffened under the blankets and looked up into the glowing mist. “Why don’t you move on? Why are you still hanging around?”
She crouched next to me. “You are not out of danger.”
I rolled my eyes. Danger wasn’t a new concept. All my life I lived with the idea that Samantha could smite me on a whim. “Mama, I love you, but you can’t expect me to worry about Samanth
a Mallory cursing me or exiling me. I simply don’t care right now.”
She knelt in front of me, and her misty hand landed on my shoulder. “You need to care,” she said, and her form wavered, like she was having issues holding on to it. “You need to watch your back.”
“Fine.” The need to appease that look of fear in her ghostly eyes made me bend to her will. “But you need to explain what you meant by not a breach,” I said, needing to know exactly what that cryptic message was all about.
“They are closer than the boundaries,” she said and then her form dissipated.
Frustration lined my throat, and I grumbled at the fact she couldn’t hold onto her form long enough to spill the truth. Pulling the covers over my head, the air stilled around me, letting my body heat warm the small space. I chanced a glance from under the blanket to see if she had been able to reanimate. Unfortunately the only thing that ruled the room was darkness.
Little by little as the night burned into morning, the sunlight bled around the doorframe, announcing daybreak. This new dawn was accompanied by my rumbling stomach. Instead of trying to get any more sleep, I pushed myself up and reached for the backpack to see what Jaden had scrounged for me. With the flashlight whitewashing the ceiling, I pulled out the dress he packed and sighed as I held it up. A sundress with spaghetti straps was not made for winter wear. I folded it and set it aside.
Wrapped in napkins, I found a small piece of chicken and three of my favorite cream cheese brownies. I debated and re-wrapped the brownies, opting for the chicken. To the side sat two bottles of water and a folded piece of paper neatly tucked under the plastic.
I pulled out the water and just stared at the folded paper while I slowly ate the chicken. After washing my meal down with the cool liquid, I wiped my fingers and plucked the note from the depths of the bag.
Unfolding the paper, I stared at Jaden’s elegant script filling the page. The date at the top gave me pause. This note was written a couple years ago, on my eighteenth birthday to be exact. I focused on the poem titled “Magic Star.”
Every minute I spend with you is pure heaven...
