by Aly Westman
I was a sobbing mess as I came to, still sitting on the disgusting toilet. I cried as I pulled my pants up and went to wash my hands, scrubbing as hard as I could. I had to be clean, I had to be clean. My knuckles were raw by the time I was satisfied and the tears dried up. With a quick wash of my face I left the bathroom as quickly as I could.
I left the bathroom and headed toward Corey and Damion in the candy aisle and as they argued over a bag of sour screamers I noticed something odd.
In the store there was two other men who were looking at the drinks in the fridge, a lady and child going through the chip stand, and the cashier at the front of the store. What was odd was the smell…sulphur. My stomach churned, I lived in that smell long enough to know it meant demon.
I walked as normally as I could to the guys and grabbed Corey’s arm. Right away he looked at me, slightly confused. “Demons…” I whispered. Damn it! Why couldn’t I have a gun! The question now was…who was it?
“Dame.” Corey’s eyes met his as they briefly had a silent communication.
Damion nodded and put all the candy down. He pulled a sucker from his pocket and quickly unwrapped it, popping it in his mouth as he slung his arm around my shoulders. Calmly he turned me and we began walking towards the door.
I could feel Corey behind me and as we reached the door I thought, maybe I had been mistaken. Only I was proven right when Damion tried to push the door open and found it to be locked. “Well crap,” he whispered.
“You’re not going to leave us are you?” The little girl’s voice brought chills to my body. I turned and saw a pair of black eyes staring back at me. It seemed so wrong coming from such a small girl. I looked around to find they all had black eyes, the question hadn’t been who was a demon, it was more like who wasn’t a demon.
Damion shoved me behind him, my back was against the glass door. Corey and Damion both drew out their guns and held them in front of us.
My palms were sweaty, my throat constricted as I stared into their black eyes. It was happening again. They were going to take me. Inside I was screaming at my body to move, to go for the knife, to take on a defensive stance, anything! But on the outside nothing was working. Nothing obeyed my brain, I was useless.
“Give her to us or we will kill you,” the cashier hissed.
I could feel my body sway, was I really going to pass out?
“Yeah, as if you wouldn’t kill us anyways.” Corey laughed.
The cashier shrugged. “True.”
The five demons lunged just as the sound of glass shattering startled me. I fell through the used to be door and landed in someone’s arms. I smelled cinnamon and clung to him, closing my eyes.
Guns fired behind us as Quinn ran towards the SUV, I was pushed into the back seat. The truck lurched forward, Quinn behind the driver’s wheel. I heard the tires squeal as he spun around and drove closer to the loud bangs of gunshots. I wasn’t even sure if the vehicle had stopped as Corey and Damion hoped in the back with me, shoving me over to the other side. Seth jumped into the passenger seat and just like that, Quinn sped out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.
“Should I drive?” Damion asked.
“No!” Seth, Corey, and Quinn shouted at the same time.
Seth looked at me, blood spatters across his face. He turned to the others beside me. “That is why I said no to the damn gun. She froze.”
My heart stopped as did all sound in the car. All eyes were on me, Corey and Damion breathing heavily.
He was right…I had froze. I saw their black eyes and I froze. “Fffffuck,” I yelled in frustration, my fist coming out and punching the seat in front of me. Finally my body released from the state of shock and responded to my brains delayed commands.
I froze! I God damn froze. I was a damn coward. And Corey and Damion handled it as if it were nothing, they didn’t even blink an eye. I turned into chopped liver and had to be carried away by a damn guy.
“Uh…Quinn…You may need to pull over. I can’t handle this.” Damion’s voice seemed quiet as so many thoughts ran through my mind. What would my father think of me, if he saw me shaking with my damn tail between my legs. I was pitiful! But isn’t this what happened before? When I was in that damn room tied up with him. “Quinn!”
“I can’t Dame.”
“I have nothing, Quinn, I have no candy.” Damion seemed frantic as he searched his pockets. “I left it all at the store.”
Seth was ripping apart the glove box looking for something. This brought me out of my haze, though my chest still hurt with the hatred I had for myself. “What’s going on?” I frowned, noticing Corey was hanging over the back seat shuffling through a bag.
“Here,” Corey said, holding up a bag of cherry suckers.
Damion moved so quickly, grabbing one and unwrapping it. He shoved it into his mouth and took a deep breath, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the seat.
“What happened?” I asked again.
The car was silent, everyone looked out their own windows, avoiding eye contact. No one was going to spill. Why should they though…who was I. I fell back against the seat and looked out my window.
“I’m an empath,” Damion whispered.
“Dame,” Seth warned.
I sighed and laid my head against the window.
“Ava.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Damion hold out his hand. “It’s fine Aves.” I reached out and gently put my hand in his soft ones. “I’m an empath. We don’t know why, we don’t know how, and we are still learning what that is.” His hand was comforting wrapped around mine, but beneath the comfort I felt a flurry of emotions. “I feel what you feel, and what Corey feels, and Seth, and Quinn, plus what I myself feel…all at once. The candy helps me regulate. Trust me, your anger plus Quinn’s fear for your safety, plus Corey’s–”
“Enough,” Corey snapped. “This isn’t ‘share our feelings time.’”
A small smirk formed on Damion’s lips. “Let me help you,” he whispered to me. “Let me show you how I can help. I will be in your thoughts, but I can help.”
An empath? So…was he human? I wanted to tell him no, my thoughts were my own and I didn’t need him searching through them.
I looked back at Damion, he looked in pain. He was breathing heavy, sweat had broken out across his forehead, and he had a worried look in his eyes. “Will it hurt you?” I asked.
“Maybe… But sometimes it heals me to heal you. Sometimes…”
Heal me? I thought back to the store. I had froze…and put aside the fact that by freezing I could have seriously got Corey and Damion killed. Put aside the fact that I could have been taken again, easily, if it hadn’t been for Quinn and Seth. I hadn’t just froze…I hadn’t…I was broken and empty. My whole body just shut down, my soul was crippled, my mind was blank. I wasn’t Ava, I wasn’t Evangeline, I wasn’t who I once was, I was a pathetic excuse for a woman.
I squeezed my eyes shut at the same time my grip on Damion’s hand tightened and I gave a small nod. I’d allow him in.
Instantly my whole body became light, almost like something was relaxing every single muscle except it was so much more than that, like my soul was being lifted up and I was physically weightless. I felt him…I felt him with me, inside me, around me. Like hot chocolate warming your insides on a cold winter day, like a heated blanket surrounding me with pure warmth, he was in my thoughts…searching.
At first, I was afraid…afraid he would see what they had done. The games that the demons had played with me. But he quickly pushed that fear aside. It felt as if the fear was a ball of fire and the minute he found it he took it in his hands, smothering it. When he found a memory he liked he held it gently, breathing into it and giving it life. My eyes were closed everything was dark, so I didn’t physically see him doing this. However I did see it. It was the most difficult experience to explain. It was almost as if my energy was watching him and I didn’t need my vision, I just knew it was happening.
The g
low within Damion’s hands grew and grew with more energy he poured into it until my whole body was consumed with this warm energy that danced all around. Suddenly I was no longer in the SUV. The warmth never left me as the sun fell upon my face, warming my body right down to the bone. The glow of the summer’s day left me so relaxed that I couldn’t help but breath in the glorious lakeside air.
“Hey girly.” My dad’s voice filled my ears and quickly I spun around to see him standing on the grassy hill, holding a tackle box and fishing rod.
This wasn’t a memory…my memories, at this point, had been blurry, lacked life, lacked…well…memory. I knew my dad's eyes were blue but here I could see they weren’t just blue, the were a gorgeous ocean blue. So many details about his face that I had forgotten, details about how he stood, how tall he was, how many grey hairs he had running though his brown locks. I had forgotten, but this was crisp. It was more than a memory.
I could feel the cool prickly grass beneath my feet as I stood there. I could feel the heat of the sun on my back and smell the freshness of the lake. This was such a crisp memory that I could hear the birds singing their song and the cicadas buzzing on a nearby tree. Most of all…I couldn’t take my eyes off my dad. He was just as the last happy time I had seen him. His dark hair was peppered with grey, his laugh lines were pushed up by the big smile that spread across his cheeks… and then his blue eyes met mine.
My breath left me and he kept walking by, towards the water.
“What? Not going to give me heck for calling you girly?” he asked with a laugh.
“This isn’t a memory,” I whispered and turned around. “Dad?” He looked back over his shoulder at me.
“No, it’s not.”
Tears burst from my eyes as I ran to him, jumping into his open arms, and forcing him to drop the tackle box and fishing rod. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I cried. “They…They killed you because of me.”
“Ava, no…” His calloused hands rubbed my back, comforting me. “They killed me, because they were demons.”
I pulled back and stared at his face. Shaking my head. “How is he doing this?” I reached out and ran my fingers along my father’s cheek. My dad leaned into my hand.
“Mostly memories,” he said, knowing I was talking about Damion. “Hidden thoughts and forgotten memories.” He stepped back and took my hand, picking up the fishing gear and pulling me towards a dock that went out into the water. I followed without a second thought.
“So you’re not real,” I said.
“It’s my essence. I am real, because I’m your real memories converged together.” He opened the tackle box and began working at his rod, setting a lure up.
This seemed surreal to me, unnatural. But I didn’t want to look too far into it. I just wanted to pretend…pretend I wasn’t really in a truck full of guys that hunt monsters. Pretend that this was a normal weekend, that the last six weeks had never happened.
I sat down beside my dad as he cast his lure. I put my bare feet into the water, surprised to find it lukewarm.
“Remember when we used to come here, every weekend?” My dad looked out over the small lake. It was surrounded by trees and tall grass, no sandy shore here. It was not much bigger than a large pond but for us it was perfect, and the fish were plenty.
I smiled. “When you’d switch the answering machine to ‘gone fishing for the weekend, don’t try calling back, won’t get your message until Monday.’” I laughed.
“Yeah, it was fun.”
My smile slowly faded as I thought back on it. “And then I got older…I cared more about my friends than hanging out at the lake.” I sat forward and looked at my reflection in the lake, not surprised to see that my father didn’t have one. A lump formed in my throat and I tried to clear it but tears slowly filled in my eyes. He didn’t know, he didn’t realise he had no reflection. He just kept fishing. “What I would give for one more weekend,” I choked out.
My dad set the fishing rod down and pushed my hair back behind my ear gently with his fingers. “Hey now, none of that. We have right now.”
I shook my head slowly. “But we don’t.” The tears sprang freely now, falling with little drip sounds into the water below. “You’re not real.”
“No…” There was a shift in the air, and the voice that followed wasn’t my father’s. “But I am.” I looked over to see my father’s non-existent reflection be replaced by Damion’s very real one. I looked up into Damion’s honey eyes and the emotion he had within them made me cry harder. “I miss him.”
Damion’s arms wrapped around me, my head fitting perfectly on his chest as I buried my face into the warm fabric of his shirt. “I know.” I wanted to pretend, I wanted it to be real so badly. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at the memory of my father and just be okay with it.
“I ki-ki-killed him.” I tried to get out. My chest constricted so tightly I didn’t think I could get another breath in. How can I pretend? How can I pretend when I was the reason he was dead.
“No Ava.”
“Yes.” I pulled away, looking him right in the eyes. “I did. I had a knife Damion. I had a knife in my boot, I had brass knuckles in my pocket. I was weak.” I tried to stop the sobs but I couldn’t, I had been keeping this secret for much too long. “I f-froze.” I closed my eyes in shame.
“Look at me Ava.” His hands came up and cupped my face. “Baby, look at me.” I did, only because I could hear the desperation in his voice. “You are strong. You are powerful. In no freakin way were you expected to free yourself and him and get away. I’ve seen the memory, they had you and him locked in a curse box. That’s why there were no windows, that’s why Ty couldn’t get your location no matter how many Seers he tried. That’s why we didn’t get to you in time. We tried, as soon as your dad called we were sent out, we tried baby, and I wish like hell I had made it sooner.” He pulled me in again, strong arms holding me steady, and he let me cry.
When finally my sobs had stopped I leaned back and wiped my eyes, taking in a large shaky breath. “I just wish–”
“We all do.” He intertwined his fingers with mine. “We all wish it had gone differently.”
I leaned my body against him so our arms were touching. My head resting against his arm. I tried hard to control my breathing and stop the tears, Damion was patient. “Thank you Dame. For reminding me of him…I had forgotten what he looked like.”
Damion laughed. “You took it a lot better than Seth. I wasn’t sure if you would like it or come out swinging like he did. I’m not allowed in his memories anymore.”
I could see that. “Do you go into their memories often? Corey and Quinn?” I was enjoying talking to him and relaxing in the sun. My chest still felt tight but the breaths came in and out easily.
“No… Sometimes Quinn will ask, just so he can remember again, but for the most part I stay out.”
We sat on the dock in silence for a while before I took in a deep shaky breath and sat up, ready to move forward. “Damion?” I looked up at him, my eyes big and innocent.
“Yeah?” He smiled, leaning in close to me.
“Don’t call me baby again.” And with that I gave him a big shove off the dock.
With a yelp he fell into the water, creating a splash and coming up sputtering and laughing. “What shall I call you then?” He was still laughing as he gave me a small splash. I was so amazed how real this place felt. “Princess? Love? Sweetheart.”
“Yuck. How about Ava?” I kicked water at him. “Why does every guy have to give a girl some cutesy nickname that is somewhat degrading?”
With that he grabbed my leg and pulled hard. It was my turn to yelp as I fell into the water, feeling the freshness wash over my head. I came up sputtering just as he had and splashed at him. Damion grab my hand and pulled me in close to him, water dripping down his face. “How about beautiful? It’s not a cutesy nickname, I would never say it in a degrading way because Ava you could never be below me, you are beautiful. Inside and out. I c
an see it, and I can feel it.”
My heart skipped a beat and I began to shiver, but not from the cool lake. I shivered because of the way he held me, the way he had cared for me, the way he looked at me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, smiling as his hands slipped around my waist and held me close. “Only if I get to call you beautiful too.”
“Deal.” With that I pushed my lips to his, he wasted no time accepting and deepening the kiss.
The last thought I had before everything went black and I was pulled back into my body was that he tasted just like a cherry lollipop.
The physical aches, pains, and heaviness all came back to me as I opened my eyes. I was sitting in the SUV again. Quinn was driving still, though it felt like I had been gone for hours and surely I thought Seth would have taken over again. Instead Seth remained quiet in the passenger seat, staring out his window.
Corey didn’t look at me, his eyes remained on the passing terrain outside, however in his lap Damion lay, sound asleep. Corey ran his fingers through Damion’s hair almost subconsciously.
My finger’s went to my lips, I swear I could still feel Damion’s kiss, even though it hadn’t really happened… had it? “Is he okay?” I asked Corey.
Corey’s fingers stopped and he looked at me. “Yeah, he just needs to rest. It helps when he knows we are here,” he said, as if explaining why he was holding onto Damion. “He will wake up hungrier than a hellhound soon enough.” He looked back out his window.
I caught a glimpse of Quinn’s eyes on me through the rear view mirror but when I met his gaze he quickly looked back to the road. With a sigh I laid my head against the window and closed my eyes, relieved to learn that when I thought about my father I could picture him as if it were yesterday.
