Deception So Dark

by Clara Kensie

  Leg.

  Because I may always be Killers’ Spawn, but I will never be a killer.

  ❀

  Cole collapsed onto a pile of broken mirrors.

  I collapsed into a puddle of my own blood.

  The fog came. Swift. Thick. Dark. So dark.

  Each beat of my heart pumped more blood from the slice in my stomach.

  A shadow scrambled through the fog. Tristan. “Please, please, please, Tessa,” he begged as he scrambled over Nathan, over Cole, over the broken mirrors. “Don’t bleed out. Don’t die.”

  He reached me, breathless, and pulled me from the puddle of blood and into his arms.

  I tried to raise my arm to wipe away some blood from Tristan’s lip, but couldn’t. Tried to keep my eyes open, but couldn’t. Tried to speak, but couldn’t.

  Take care of Jillian and Logan, I told him.

  “I will,” he choked.

  I couldn’t have much blood left. It would be over soon.

  I braced myself for the Nightmare Eyes to appear, to triumphantly shove me into death.

  They never came. The Nightmare Eyes had been mine, but I’d destroyed them. No more Nightmare Eyes.

  But the fog was still there, looming, sinking, swooping, carrying me away in a tidal wave. The gray fog became tinged with pink, then soaked with red, then saturated with crimson.

  tristaniloveyou

  And as he howled with grief above me, the crimson fog flashed a blinding silver, then turned deep, endless, forever black.

  Soft.

  Furry.

  Mewling.

  A rough tongue licking my cheek.

  Funny the things the brain does as it shuts down. Mine brought Marmalade to me. My little Marma-lady.

  She felt so real. Her tongue almost tickled.

  Tristan’s murmur: “You miss her, don’t you, Marmalade?” Then a sigh. Then: “Don’t worry, she’ll come back to us. I know she will.”

  Marmalade stopped licking me and hopped off the bed.

  Don’t go, I cried out to her. I wanted my Marma-lady back.

  Huh.

  Marmalade had hopped off the bed.

  Was I… yes. I was on a bed.

  A soft bed. With blankets. And pillows. And Tristan, next to me.

  But how…

  No. It was just another trick of my brain. I was lying in Tristan’s arms in Cole’s hunting cabin by Lilybrook Lake. My blood was spilling. I was dying.

  ❀

  Deirdre’s whisper: “Tristan, sweetheart, go to bed.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “I’ll stay. She won’t be alone.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “You need to sleep.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “We don’t know how long this will last.”

  “I’m not leaving her.”

  “They say she may never—”

  “I am not leaving her.”

  Fog. Everywhere. Fog outside, fog inside. But Tristan was here, somewhere. I could feel him beyond the miles and eons and eternity of fog. Waiting. Waiting for me.

  Not waiting for me to die.

  Waiting for me to live.

  He didn’t plead. Didn’t squeeze my hand with desperation. He just held it, gently, sometimes raising it to his lips.

  There was no anxiety in his grasp. No panic. Only patience.

  And confidence. Faith.

  He was waiting for me to fight off the fog, and live.

  I’d fought off Cole and Nathan Gallagher. I’d destroyed the Nightmare Eyes. Now I had to battle the fog.

  I struggled against it. It held me tight, and the more I struggled, the tighter its grasp became, the deeper it dragged me inside its never-ending nothingness.

  Tethering me to the light, to life, was Tristan’s calm, patient grip on my hand.

  I couldn’t fight the fog.

  But I could run.

  So I ran.

  Slowly at first. Wobbly. Stumbling.

  I ran through the fog, so cold that the air in my lungs turned to ice with each breath. The fog, dark and heavy, surrounded me on all sides, stretching to eternal lengths.

  I ran.

  With each step I ran faster, and with each step the fog became lighter.

  I ran.

  I ran to life.

  I ran to love.

  I ran to Jillian and Logan. I ran to Dennis and Deirdre and Ember. I ran to Tristan.

  Faster and lighter. Faster and lighter.

  My steps drummed out the beat: Left right, fast-er, light-er, fast-er, light-er, faster, lighter, faster, lighter, fasterlighterfasterlighterfasterlighter—

  The fog thinned, dispersed, dissolved, disintegrated, until it was just a mist, so thin I could barely feel it, and then with one giant leap, I burst through.

  Into life.

  Into love.

  Into Tristan’s arms.

  I opened my eyes to see him at my bedside in my room, smiling gently down at me, not at all surprised that I’d woken up. “You did it, Clockwise,” he whispered. “I knew you would.”

  I reached out my hand to caress his cheek. You’re my hero after all.

  He became my hero, not because he’d found me in the cabin, not because he’d saved me from Cole and Nathan, not because he’d saved me from the fog.

  Tristan finally became my hero by having faith that I could save myself.

  While I’d been lost in the fog, the Connellys’ guest room had transformed into a hospital room; beeping medical machines lined the perimeter, and I was attached to tubes and an IV. But it was definitely the guest room—the celery-green walls, the white comforter with the little yellow flowers, the reading nook under the window. Marmalade purred at me from atop the bookcase, and Mac thumped his tail beside the bed.

  The only thing missing was the Nightmare Eyes. And those were never coming back.

  Tristan brushed my hair from my forehead. His own hair was tousled, the way I loved it. His eyes were so blue; I could see their brilliance even in the dark night.

  Jillian and Logan? I asked, still too weak to speak aloud. Where are they? Are they okay?

  “They’re fine,” he murmured, bringing my hand to his lips and kissing it. “They’re here. Jillian’s rooming with Ember, and Logan’s been using my room. I’ll go wake everyone up.”

  Not yet. I wanted to see Jillian and Logan and the Connellys, but I wanted to reunite with Tristan first. Lay down with me.

  He lifted the covers and crawled into my bed, careful not to pull out any tubes. I was wearing a hospital-type gown, and he wore his Lilybrook High tennis hoodie and sweatpants. Can I have your hoodie? I asked him. I wanted his hoodie, not for modesty, but because I loved the way I felt when I wore them—safe and cozy and loved. I missed the way they smelled—like soap and masculinity and strength. Like Tristan.

  He obliged, peeling off the hoodie and carefully helping me slide it on. The IV tube snaked out from the cuff, but it didn’t bother me. I felt whole again. Stronger. Now Tristan wore just a white T-shirt, stretched tight over his chest. We lay back together, and I rested my head on his shoulder and ran my finger over his chin, exploring him again. So scruffy. I motioned to the IV. How long was I in the fog?

  A long time, he said.

  What, like two days? Three?

  Fifteen.

  “Fifteen days?” I said out loud, my voice raspy from lack of use.

  “We’ve all been here the whole time. Jillian, Logan, my mom and dad, Ember, and me. It gets kind of crowded in here,” he added with a chuckle.

  “What happened to Cole and Nathan?” I asked. “Did they hurt you? What about Jillian and Logan? How did you find us in that cabin?”

  “Your brother and sister are fine,” he said. “They were groggy for a few hours, but they don’t remember a thing. I had a cut on my hand from one of the mirrors. The healers took care of it.” He held up his palm and flexed his fingers. “Not even a scar.”

  He caressed my cheek wi
th his thumb. “You have a new scar, though. When Cole stabbed you, the blade nicked your kidney. The healers got to you just in time.”

  I lifted the covers, then Tristan’s hoodie, and peered at my belly. I had a new scar there, a sixth, running down the side right next to one that my mother had given me. The new scar was just a short, thin white line. “A battle scar,” I boasted. I’d survived. I could be proud of that scar. Not ashamed.

  “And to answer everything else…” He held up his scar-free palm again. “I’ll show you.”

  I raised my hand too, placing my palm on his. We laced our fingers together.

  And, now fully in control of the fog, I raised it again.

  ❀

  “Okay,” Tessa says. “Five minutes.”

  Tessa is leaving. Not running away. She’s leaving Lilybrook with Jillian and Logan. But she finally relented to letting him come with. Thank God. He won’t lose her after all. He kisses her hard in relief, then sprints upstairs to pack.

  He’ll call his parents from the road. They’ll try to convince him to come back, to bring Tessa, Jillian and Logan back, but he will do what Tessa wants. Where she goes, he will go. They belong together.

  It takes him four minutes and thirty seconds to throw his stuff in his bag. Phone. Laptop. All of his cash. Jeans. Shoes. Lots of hoodies so Tessa can wear them. He zips up his bag, pats Mac goodbye, jogs down the stairs with his bag in hand.

  “I’m ready,” he calls out. “Let’s go.” But no one answers. The front door is open. Jillian and Logan are gone.

  And Tessa is gone too.

  ❀

  His chest empty and hollow, he sits slumped on the couch of the family room, holding the promise ring in his fingers. He reads her note, her eight-word note, for the hundredth time.

  He knows he can find her. Easily. She said they are going to use their real names. But Tessa asked him not to look for her. She thinks he’ll be happier without her.

  She is wrong.

  But he will do what she wants. He won’t look for her, even though he feels like he was roundhouse-kicked in the gut.

  ❀

  His parents come home with two new beds loaded in the minivan, two beds that will never be used now. He tells them that Tessa, Jillian, and Logan left. They try to console him, they tell him they’ll find her, there’s no way they’ll let the three Carson kids go off to live on their own. But their words don’t help. Tessa left. She didn’t want to stay.

  Mac and Aria whine and paw at the front door. For a moment, the emptiness in his chest is replaced by hope. Have they come back? Did Tessa change her mind? He throws the door open, and his chest goes hollow again. The porch is empty.

  He hears a tiny mew, looks down, and sees Tessa’s little orange kitten. How did Marmalade get home? Did Tessa drop her off and leave again?

  He scoops the kitten into his arms, looks up and down the street, but doesn’t see the white sedan.

  He goes back to the family room with Marmalade when a warning premonition slams into him like a speeding truck.

  Tessa. She’s on the floor of a small room. A silver room. Mirrors line the walls, and she’s blinded by silver. Jillian and Logan lay near her, not moving.

  He feels the blood drain from his face. This is his mother’s dream. Tessa left Lilybrook because of her brother and sister, and ended up in a little house with silver walls. And after silver, comes red.

  Tessa is going to die.

  His pulse races; his heart is an engine in his chest. He must stop it from happening. He must find her. He must save her. But where is she? Where is this little house with mirrors lining the walls? Who had taken her?

  Tessa’s looking up at Nathan. Nathan, his best friend since childhood. Nathan, who hates Tessa simply because of her parents.

  Nathan is going to kill Tessa, and her brother and sister.

  Tessa’s gaze swings to the other side of the mirror-lined room, and lands on Cole.

  Cole is there too. But Cole is an ally, a friend. He must be trying to stop Nathan.

  But wait. No. Cole is holding a knife. The knife from the evidence room. Cole is taunting her, tormenting her.

  Cole is in on it too. He’s going to help Nathan kill Tessa, Jillian, and Logan.

  But how can he be seeing this? Nathan knows he’d have a warning premonition. He’s blocked Tessa from him before. Why isn’t he blocking him now?

  Then he gets it.

  Nathan is purposely not blocking the events unfurling in that little silver room. Nathan’s not trying to kill Tessa. Nathan is letting him have a premonition about Tessa so he can come save her. Nathan, his best friend since childhood, is betraying his own brother so Tessa will live.

  Cole is the enemy. Nathan is an ally.

  He needs to find Tessa, fast, before Cole uses that knife.

  But where is she? Where is this little house with silver walls?

  In his arms, Marmalade mewls.

  He needs to get Ember.

  ❀

  Tristan uncurled his hand from mine, and I lowered the fog, ending the visions. “So that’s how I found you,” he said.

  “My hero,” I sighed, and snuggled into him.

  But he just chuckled. “Nathan was the real hero. And Ember. Even Marmalade. Ember looked into Marmalade’s mind, and she showed Ember where to find you.”

  “I still wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t come when you did,” I said.

  “And I wouldn’t have survived if you didn’t slide that glass over to me when Cole had me pinned. And then you stabbed him in the leg when he came after me. You’re a hero too, Clockwise. You’re my hero.”

  I propped myself up on my elbow to study him. To be the hero he’d always thought himself to be, Tristan had wanted to keep me safe in an ivory tower while he slew all my dragons for me. But now he knew that he could not slay my dragons all by himself—and that I was never going to let him. Was he okay with that?

  His face was open, his eyes clear. Our gazes locked in the brightening sunlight, and he grinned. A contented, serene, satisfied grin.

  “We’re heroes for each other,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  With the tip of my finger, I traced heart shapes on his chest. “What happened next?” I asked. “Did Cole get away?”

  He put his arm around me and stroked my arm. “Nope. My dad and a bunch of agents from the APR were a few minutes behind me. They captured him when he tried to leave the cabin. Now he’s locked up in the Underground. Forever. They’ll make sure to keep him away from your parents,” he added, before I could worry about that.

  Cole would spend the rest of his life locked up with the very people he hated most, and unable to do anything about it.

  “What about Nathan?” I asked. “He betrayed his own brother to help you find me. Why did he do it?”

  Tristan gave a little shrug. “I think whatever you said in that cabin convinced him that you shouldn’t have to suffer for what your parents did.”

  I’d convinced myself, too, at the same time.

  “Can you text him and ask him to come over tomorrow?” I asked. “I want to thank him.”

  “I can’t,” he murmured.

  “Why not?”

  “Tess.” The tightness had returned to his voice, and his body stiffened a little.

  I knew, then, why Tristan couldn’t text Nathan. My throat closed up, along with my lungs. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Tristan took a deep breath, held it, and finally let it out. “The knife, the one Cole threw at me when I burst in the cabin. Nathan dove in front of it to save me. It got him in the heart. He died instantly.” He drew me in closer. “He was my best friend, Tessa, and he died for me. He died for us.”

  I bundled up all of my bad memories of Nathan Gallagher and pushed them deep into the fog. Nathan had died a hero; he died to save Tristan’s life, and that was how I wanted to remember him.

  Tristan slid his hand behind my head, caressed my cheek wi
th his thumb and leaned in.

  But just before he kissed me, I pulled away. “Stop. There’s one thing you need to do before you can do that.”

  “Anything.”

  I held out my hand, palm down, and wiggled my fingers. “I’d like my promise ring back, please.”

  He laughed, then hopped out of the bed and strode to my bookcase. He took Marmalade from her top-shelf perch and brought her over. She was wearing a rhinestone-studded periwinkle collar now, and dangling from the collar was my band of pearls.

  “She’s been holding it for us,” Tristan said as he unhooked it. Then he took my hand and slid the ring onto the fourth finger of my left hand. Where it belonged.

  “Now you can kiss me,” I said, giggling.

  Grinning hungrily, he dove back under the covers, slid his hand back behind my head, but didn’t pause long enough to caress my cheek. He just pressed his lips to mine, and I pressed my body to his, and we didn’t part until the sun came up in the morning.

  When Marmalade’s meows woke me up again later that morning, Tristan was still next to me in bed, as I knew he would be. Waiting patiently for me to wake up, as he knew I would.

  While I was asleep, I’d had no dreams. There were no more Nightmare Eyes.

  I scratched Marmalade’s chin then snuggled back into Tristan. He slipped out of the bed just before everyone came in. Dennis, Deirdre, Ember, Jillian, and Logan.

  My family.

  I didn’t know whom to hug first.

  Jillian, clearly back to her old self, solved that dilemma for me by pushing past everyone and tackling me. Her hair was still blond, and she was no longer gaunt. I noticed that she still wore the gold bracelet with the heart charm from Gavin.

  Logan came next, dressed in pressed Dockers and a button-down shirt. His dark hair was short again, and combed conservatively.

  Ember, her hair turquoise with purple tips, carried a little gray ball of fur. A bunny rabbit. “This,” she said, “is Harmony. Tristan bought her for me.”

  “To thank her for helping me find you,” Tristan said.