The Darkness Within

by Jaime Rush

  “Goodness, girl, you look like you ran all the way here,” the receptionist said.

  Del could only imagine that her hair was disheveled, clothes damp and wrinkled. “Is Mom here?” Her desk was unoccupied.

  “She hasn’t come back from lunch yet. She had a window of about twenty minutes to eat, poor thing, before she was due back for a meeting.” Tammy checked her watch. “Hmm. She’s late. That’s not like her. You know your mom. She’s the most responsible person I know.”

  Del had to choke back a sob at those words. “Do you know where she went?”

  “She usually grabs lunch from one of those carts; God knows what’s in their food.” Her expression became concerned. “Maybe she got food poisoning.”

  Del dashed out, having spotted two of those carts as she’d come in. She asked the vendors if they’d seen a woman of her mom’s description.

  “Oh, yeah, nice lady. She was here about twenty, thirty minutes ago,” one man said as he filled a taco for a customer. “She went that way.”

  Del followed where the Hispanic man pointed, searching everywhere. Maybe she was hiding and would spot Del. She found a courtyard, the secluded kind of place her mother would seek out. She walked to one of the benches and ran her fingers along the wood slats. A barrage of feelings hit her like a cold wave of water: a murmur of a kiss, an argument about money, both muted from the wood. Nothing as dramatic as fear.

  She tried another bench and sensed her mother’s energy here . . . and yes, fear. Del flattened her palm against the wood. Hard to get a sense of what had frightened her. Just like with electricity, wood didn’t conduct feelings or imprints well.

  She sank onto the bench and pulled out her phone, hoping for a new message. Taking a chance, she sent her mom a text back, just a question mark.

  The ding her mom’s phone made when it received a text message sounded from a short distance away, though slightly muffled. Del sent another text, a period this time. The sound chimed again. Her heart tightening, she sent more texts and followed the sounds to a garbage can. Baffled, she took off the lid and started digging, fighting nausea at the smell of food and stale coffee.

  She found the phone with the pink cover, and fear vibrated from it. Still no images to go with it. Her mom had ditched her phone. She would only do that if the situation was dire, to keep someone from looking at her contacts, especially the entry for her daughter.

  I think they found me.

  Cold waves washed over her body. She couldn’t notify the police. Who could she call for help?

  Tuck.

  The name reverberated in her mind as clearly as the emotions she picked up from objects.

  Her first thought: he wouldn’t help her. Clearly he’d pushed her into the black box in his heart where he buried all the terrible things that had happened to him. Her mother would engender no warm feelings either.

  She wrapped her arms around herself. Tucker was the only person who knew who they were, who understood the danger. She had to find him, at the least to tell him there might be trouble.

  She drove into the area of the city where she’d found him a year ago, near the Strip. She’d been on her way to one of the casino hotels for a quick visit with a birth parent who was trying to get her act together. A crowd on the sidewalk oohing and ahhing over something in the center of the circle they’d formed wasn’t unusual, but she was drawn to it anyway.

  That something turned out to be Tucker, dressed in a tight black shirt and pants, performing tricks of illusion. He’d learned to use his particular skills to earn money—not conning but entertaining.

  When he’d moved in with her and her mother, he’d been a thirteen-year-old con artist. He conned her right out of her heart. Her mom, too. Four years later, one kiss changed everything.

  She pulled into a parking spot, but her mind was back in that moment seven years ago. It was as vivid as though it had happened last week . . .

  Del and Tuck burst into the house, laughing so hard they were clutching their stomachs.

  “Do you think he’s figured it out yet?” Tuck asked, falling back against the wall while trying to catch his breath.

  “Probably not. God, did he deserve that. He’s been ripping off kids for years.”

  Tuck pulled out a wad of mangled bills from his jeans pocket. “Here, take half. Take it all, I don’t care. You were brilliant.”

  She took the wad, knowing that his offering it all to her was a great honor. His early years of hoarding every scrap of food or penny to survive were ingrained in his cells. She threw the bills into the air, and they rained down over them. Which started them laughing again.

  Tuck hadn’t laughed much during the first years he’d come to live with them, implicitly following the rules as though he expected her mother to change her mind and send him away. Carrie’s biggest rule: they were not to get romantically involved. The idea seemed preposterous at first, but as they’d grown older, she’d started to become ultra-aware of him. She’d caught his gaze lingering on her at times, too, a spark of hunger in his eyes.

  Now Tuck’s eyes lit with mirth; his mouth curved with it, carving dimples in his cheeks. She knew he was gorgeous, but seeing him all the time, she’d gotten used to it. Now . . . oh, now, it hit her all over—the way his face had become lean, his chin square, his muscles defined and shoulders broader.

  She and Tuck shared a bond with the psychic skills that made them different from everyone else; now that she was sixteen and he, seventeen, their bond centered on how he used his skills to pull cons.

  Their laughter faded by degrees as she realized she was staring at him, and he was returning that stare, eyes heavy, smoky.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth, and she knew he was going to kiss her. Suddenly any bit of excitement from a con paled to the flutter of her heart, like a dozen finches released inside. She licked her lips as he moved closer. She met him halfway, and everything changed.

  He pulled her against his body, his hands sliding through her hair, tilting her head for a perfect angle. His tongue knocked at the door of her lips, slid in when she parted them, and moved languidly through her mouth.

  His body gave away his desire, and that stepped up her already racing heartbeat. He wanted her, that’s what that hard ridge pressing against her stomach told her.

  His hands moved down her arms, to her sides, thumbs brushing the curves of her small breasts. She leaned into him, rubbing her pelvis against his . . . My God, she’d done that to him, made him hard. She wanted him, too, and the forbidden lure, the thought of going there washed over her like hot, thick honey.

  “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he said, his voice low and rich.

  “Me, too,” she said between kisses.

  Vaguely she heard the sound, one she realized later was the door opening. But Tuck’s mouth was on her ear, his breath hot and moist, and then on her neck, so she didn’t give it much thought because her mom wasn’t due back for an hour—

  “What are you doing?”

  They both lurched at the screeched words. Her mom stood at the door, looking shocked and betrayed.

  “Mom . . .”

  Carrie threw her purse down, sending a tube of lipstick and a pen skittering across the floor. “No. You are not doing this.”

  He stood rigid, hands clasped in front of him. “We haven’t done anything.”

  “Yet. If I hadn’t come home, you sure as hell would have.”

  “Miss Carrie, I know you don’t want us involved, and I tried, I did. But Del’s an amazing girl. She—”

  Carrie’s gaze had dropped to the bills on the floor. “What’s this?” She pinned him with furious eyes. “You’re still gambling. And you, Del . . . you’re doing it with him, aren’t you?”

  “She was trying to talk me out of it,” Tuck said.

  Carrie’s anger morphed to sadness, resignation, and somehow that alarmed Del more than the anger. “I should have known. Put a boy and a girl together, throw in hormones .
. .”

  He’d called her amazing. The word echoed, warming the coldness that gripped her. “Mom, Tucker’s special. Okay, he gambles, but only with jerks who deserve to lose their money. This is the first time we’ve done this. Any of it.”

  “It’ll be the last.”

  “Why? You’re always saying what a great kid he is, how far he’s come. He is great. And I like him. A lot.”

  Carrie took them in. “Sit down.”

  Was she going to give them the talk? Use condoms, be responsible. Wasn’t that what she was worried about?

  They sat next to each other, but a respectable distance apart.

  Carrie sank wearily to the chair across from them. “I need to tell you both something. I’ve been putting it off, but it’s time. Past time.” She clasped her hands together. “You’re not like the other kids. You know that. You both have abilities. Gifts, I called them. But they are not gifts; they’re curses. Not because of what they are, but where they came from.”

  She twined her fingers, staring at them for a moment before looking at them. “Have you heard of string theory, quantum physics? There are respected scientists who believe in other dimensions, worlds that exist side by side with this one. I’m from one of those other dimensions. Tuck, so is your father. We are human; at least that’s the theory. But centuries ago, our people descended far below the surface. The Earth’s magnetic energy changed us. It gave us a different body consistency, and the ability to manipulate energy. Or read it. Both of you hold the essence of a Callorian. That’s what we’re called.”

  Carrie turned to Tuck. “When I met you, I knew you had Callorian blood. We can feel each other, like the vibration of a strong electrical current. I also suspected your father is my former husband, Elgin. You have his eyes and facial structure. He would go to the casinos and find the prostitutes who worked there. I’d rather he go to other women for that. Callorians have no feelings, or at least we are taught to bury them. But some of the people who came here hold an energy called Darkness. Elgin didn’t have it when we married; he came by it later. I don’t know what it is; he wouldn’t tell me, only that he’d tapped into a powerful energy source and he now ‘held Darkness.’ ”

  She made finger quotes. “It changed him, turning him from a cold man to one with too much passion. He became possessive, territorial, and volatile. He lost his temper once and became a beast. That’s what Darkness does, he said. Allows you to change your energy to become something else. Something of your choosing.”

  Carrie rubbed her arms, and seeing that she had their attention, disbelieving and shocked as it was, continued. “I was afraid of him, so I left, changing my appearance and name and hiding in Vegas. I met Tony, Del’s father, and fell in love. But Elgin came after me because I was his. Tony tried to fight him, but he didn’t know . . .” Her voice broke. “I hadn’t told him yet, afraid to lose him. Especially since I was pregnant. He only knew my husband was violent. I ran, thinking Tony was behind me. But he stayed behind to fight Elgin, who became a beast and tore him apart.”

  Del knew about that part, but not about her mother’s ex becoming a beast.

  Carrie turned her teary gaze to Tucker. “You hold Darkness. I can feel it in you as I felt it in him, a peculiar heaviness. I know you would never intentionally harm Del. I have seen your friendship grow, your protective nature. That’s one of the marks of Darkness. You will kill to protect her. That would be hard enough on her. But if you thought she was cheating, you might kill her. You wouldn’t mean to, but it would overtake you.”

  He was shaking his head. “No. This is crazy.”

  “I wish it was.” Carrie shook her head, her expression one of genuine agony. “But think about it: you’ve always felt different. You have abilities no one else has. And haven’t you sensed something dark inside you?”

  The dreams. Tucker had confided recurrent nightmares about turning into a beast.

  Carrie said, “Hold out your hand. Focus on an animal you admire. Think of its paw.”

  He held out his hand, fingers splayed. Nothing happened.

  “Now, think of Del kissing another boy.”

  His eyes narrowed as he concentrated, then widened as a shadow surrounded his hand. With claws. He jerked his hand back and shook it, as though it were on fire. It looked normal again.

  Carrie shuddered, turning away. “I’m sorry, but you had to know sometime. Better now, before you accidentally Become and expose yourself. People would think you demonic. They would kill you. You have to do everything you can to keep your abilities, and Darkness, hidden. You don’t want to hurt Del, do you?”

  “No. Hell, no.”

  Carrie looked as though she were going to cry. “I’m so sorry, Tucker, but you have to go. You and Del have crossed the line, one I know can never be uncrossed.”

  “Del.” That word, filled with agony, drew her attention from his hand. “Del, look at me.”

  Fear kept her from meeting his gaze. She could not reconcile the beast her mother had just told her about with the man sitting beside her.

  “No, Mom. I don’t believe it!” Not Tucker. He could never possess the evil that had killed her father.

  Carrie sighed. “See for yourself. Get your father’s ring.”

  The ring Del wasn’t allowed to touch, for fear she would experience the end of her father’s life. Del ran to her mother’s room, flipping open the old jewelry box. Del pulled the ring from the box. She needed to see it for herself.

  The images hit her: a man who looked like Tucker stalking toward him. “She’s mine,” he growled, the words soaked in possessiveness. In front of her, his body morphed to a smoky substance, and then formed into something not human, not animal. It vaguely resembled a lion, made of black oil.

  Her father’s fear and confusion rocked her, her mother’s screams for Tony to run. But the sight of the unholy beast froze him, and Elgin lunged. She felt the claws tear into Tony’s neck, the warm blood gushing down his chest and spraying across the floor. Pain and fear rocked her. She dropped the ring with a gasp and dashed to her mother’s bathroom, retching in the toilet.

  Her stomach kept heaving until nothing more came up. She washed her face and rinsed her mouth, startled at the pale but blotchy girl staring back from the mirror. Weak, wasted, she stumbled back out. Tucker’s bedroom door was half open, and she pushed it. He wasn’t in there.

  “Where’s Tucker?” she asked when she walked to the living room and didn’t see him there.

  “He’s gone,” Carrie said, staring at the door.

  Del ran to it, but her mother grabbed her around the waist. “Let him go, Del.”

  She fought, calling out his name, but she was so weak. Her mother’s arms were like iron clamps, and finally Del sank to the floor and cried.

  She went to school the next day, unsure whether he’d be there. The school year was nearly over, and Tucker hadn’t been overly fond of going anyway. At P.E. she spotted him on the other side of the chain link fence that divided the different areas. He was looking at her with an expression of desolation. She couldn’t stop herself from leaving the track where she was running laps, drawn as always to him.

  He met her there, his fingers curled around the fence wire. “You turned away from me . . . ran away.”

  She shook her head. “I had to see what my mother had described. It was horrible. I got sick. You were gone when I came out. Where did you go? Where did you sleep last night?”

  “Mrs. Markham’s house. She’s visiting her kids, so I slept on her couch.” He held out his other hand, long fingers, nails trimmed. “Look. Nothing. No shadow or paw or whatever it was. Maybe it was some optical illusion, because we expected to see something. I tried all night, Del. I tried to Become something. It didn’t work. She’s wrong. Your mom is wrong.” Desperation permeated his voice. “She’s just freaked out, or maybe she’s crazy. You heard what she said. ‘Another dimension’? That’s insane. Right?”

  He laughed, the sound hollow. “She kicked me
out. I did nothing but kiss you and she kicked me out. Del, you have to get out of there. She might see some shadow in you, too, and kick you out. What will you do then? Leave with me. Tonight.”

  His order shot panic into her. “I can’t just leave my mother. Yeah, she’s paranoid, and kicking you out was an overreaction, but if you’d seen my father being murdered”—she swallowed hard, remembering those wild gray eyes, so much like Tuck’s—“you’d understand. I touched his ring and experienced everything that happened in those last minutes of his life. I had to see for myself, because I didn’t believe her.”

  “And you believe her now?”

  Del nodded. “Your father morphed into a beast, just like she said.”

  He winced. “Don’t look at me like that. Like it was me, like I’d do something so terrible. Maybe she made you see it. Like she made us see the paw.” He reached through the fence and gripped her wrist. “Come with me, Del. You’re mine.”

  She’s mine. She heard that man’s possessive statement in Tucker’s words and, with a yelp, jerked her hand away. “Did you hear yourself?”

  He took a step back, his expression shell-shocked. “I didn’t mean it . . . like that.”

  Her mother’s words echoed: You wouldn’t mean to, but it would overtake you.

  “We didn’t imagine it,” Del said, tears in her voice and in her eyes. “We can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”

  She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to go back to when it was just her and Tucker, and she knew nothing of desire or Darkness or death. But she couldn’t erase the images. The truth burned in her mind, a relentless recital of her father’s pain and fear and murder.

  He shook his head. “No. We can’t.” He strode to the back edge of the fence where it was shorter, and launched over it, tearing off down the street. A coach yelled after him, but Tucker never stopped.