The sound of Liv gasping has me opening my eyes. The flower is fully bloomed. It’s stem a luscious green, its petals bright white and silky smooth. I smile. If I were destined for darkness, I couldn’t have done this.
I jump to my feet; the plant clutched between my hands. “I did it. I brought it back.” A rush like I’ve never felt before courses through my veins. I feel so alive, like I can do anything.
And then the memories come.
The plant falls from my fingers. Liv catches the daisy. Sebastian catches me.
“Indi!” Mama yells.
“Coming, Mama.” I turn back to the dark-haired boy still gripping my hand. “I have to go. Mama will be mad if she finds me in the trees. I’m supposed to stay where she can see me.” I pull away, but he tightens his grip. “Don’t worry. You’ll be okay now.” I slip my hand from his.
I run toward the sound of Mama’s voice, leaving the dark-haired boy with the peculiar eyes, staring after me. I jump up and down when I see her by the swing sets. I can’t wait to tell her what I did. She’s going to be so proud of me.
“Mama! Mama!”
“Indi?” She whips around at the sound of my voice. “Indi! Where have you been?” Mama drops to her knees, holding me by the shoulders. Her gaze races over my face then down to my toes. She presses me against her chest, squeezing until I can’t breathe. “You had me so worried when I couldn’t find you.” She pushes me out at arm’s length, looking me straight in the eye. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mama.” I bite my lip and force my gaze to the ground.
“Where were you?”
“In there.” I point to the line of trees behind me without taking my eyes from the tips of my dirty shoes. “I know you told me not to, but I wanted to play with the other kids. I’m sorry I scared you, Mama.”
“I know you are, honey.” The panic on her face melts away. “At least you’re safe. But next time, Indiana Grace, when I tell you not to do something I expect you to listen.” She straightens the strap of her purse over her shoulder, then takes my hand. “It’s time to go home now.”
The dark-haired boy stares at me from the edge of the tree line. I wave at him; he lifts his hand in return, a dazed expression over his face. The excitement of how I helped him has me jumping up and down again. I tug on Mama’s hand.
“Got ants in your pants?” Mama asks, teasingly. She always asks me that when I’m excited about something.
“I helped someone today.”
“How so?”
“A boy from the park fell from a tree. He hit his head really hard and there was all this blood. And I…”
All the color drains from Mama’s face. She stops us right in the middle of the parking lot then drops to one knee, her fingers digging into my arms. I blink fast, the sting of tears burning my eyes. I’ve done something bad.
A car horn blares, but Mama doesn’t move us out of the way. The lady in the van drives around us, yelling bad things. Mama ignores her as though she weren’t even there. “Tell me exactly what you did, Indi.”
“Are you mad at me?” My bottom lip quivers. I try to keep it still.
“No honey, I’m not mad,” Mama says in a soothing voice. Her features soften, but the look in her eyes is sharp. “Please tell me what happened. How did you help the boy who fell?” She wipes the tears from beneath my eyes then smiles.
“I stopped him from dying. When I touched him we were in this dark place with a door, but he didn’t want to go through it. I didn’t want him to go through it either. And then a new door appeared. We went through that one and then he was okay. He wasn’t hurt anymore.” I swallow, my eyes filling with more tears at the look of terror on Mama’s face. “Did I do something bad? Was I not supposed to help him?”
She scoops me into a hug, her whole body trembling. “No honey, you did nothing bad. You did something amazing.”
The memory fades, shifting into a progression of new ones from the same day. A day I was made to forget, a day that would irrevocably change my life forever on a fundamental level.
The day my powers emerged.
The day my mom died.
Every horrifying detail becomes crystal clear. No longer hidden in the shadows of my mind, I see it all. The frantic call to Uncle Caleb asking for help with protecting me before Mama caught me listening and sent me to my room to play. The fearful look in Mama’s eyes when she woke me up in the middle of the night because a man with a scarred face was sent to kill me. The way she fought to protect me with magic. It was the first time I’d ever seen her cast a spell. I was too scared to ask her what it meant and if I had magic too since I’d saved the boy in the park. Watching her die because she took time we didn’t have to give me a birthday present she had hidden in the attic. If we had just went through the portal, maybe the man with the scarred face wouldn’t have been able to pull her back. But he did, and I became powerless to do anything other than watch my world burn down before my eyes while my uncle held onto me as I fought and screamed to save her. My world ended that night, the only reminders left behind a present I could never bring myself to open, and the brass knuckles my mom sent through the portal I was spelled to forget.
I open my eyes up to three worried faces staring down at me. Sebastian has me cradled against his chest, his other arm draped over my stomach, a package of smelling salts in his hand. He tosses it to the side then cups my face, his thumb wiping away the wetness on my cheek, while his eyes seek answers.
“You had us worried. Are you okay?” Sebastian asks. The concern rolling off of him in waves should melt my heart. What it does is fuel my anger. Uncle Caleb told me my mom called him the day she died, upset about something that had happened earlier that day and she needed help with a protection spell to keep me safe. She wouldn’t tell him what it was upsetting her, but now I know it was what I did. I had messed with the balance of life and death and it had led the bounty hunter straight to us. Saving Sebastian cost me my mom. If I had listened to her and stayed out of the woods, she’d still be here.
And Sebastian would be dead.
I shove the thought to the back of my mind, ignoring the way it makes me feel because I want to blame him. I want to make it his fault she’s gone. For so long I’ve blamed myself for her death without ever really knowing the real reason why. But now I know Sebastian is the reason. I may have pulled the trigger when I saved him, but he was the bullet who tore through my life, leaving me motherless. If he hadn’t stupidly climbed up the tree and then fallen, I wouldn’t have had to save him. If I hadn’t saved him, the bounty hunter never would have come. If the bounty hunter never came, my mom would still be here and I wouldn’t have had to spend the last eleven years living in a lie.
I rip myself out of his arms, shoving him back in my haste to get away. I can’t stand to look at him right now let alone have him hold me the way he is, all protective like when he’s responsible for tearing my world apart. On some level I know I’m being irrational, but I don’t care. When I look at him, I see her dying all over again. “It’s your fault.”
Sebastian stares up at me from the ground. Tiny lines branch out from the corners of his eyes under the weight of furrowed brows. “What is my fault?”
“All of it.” I dust the dirt from my jeans and then walk away. Around me the world seems to hold its breath. The breeze once dancing through the trees becomes still. The birds chirping become silent. The colors of the sky become dull. And inside of me everything becomes too intense. Agony and anger collide in a mess of claws and teeth, biting and shredding, leaving me torn between wanting to lash out and falling to my knees.
“All of what? You’re not making any sense.” Sebastian’s boots scrape over the gravel, a grunt tumbling out of his mouth as he hauls himself up. “Will you stop walking away?” He demands more than asks. “Indi?”
“No. I have to go. I can’t… I can’t talk to you right now.” Or look at you, or be near you, or think straight. I’m
too raw. Cracked open and exposed to harsh realities I can’t deal with. My chest hurts too much and my eyes burn from the things they’d witnessed in my memories, while all my hands want to do is ball into fists. I want to cry and I want to fall to my knees and I want to pound my fists into whatever or whoever is nearby until I’m spent, until the slew of feelings and thoughts raging inside sort themselves out. I clutch at my chest, pulling my shirt away to breathe because I can’t get any air when my world is turned upside down and all the blood is rushing to my head and nothing makes sense anymore.
I need to get away.
I just need to get away.
“Where are you going?” Liv calls after me. Her voice sounds hollow and far away and so loud in my ears.
“Home. I’m going home,” I hear myself say. I need time to think, time to deal, time to be alone where I can fracture apart without anyone trying to put me back together, because the pieces don’t fit anymore.
The world takes a breath and my eyes open to the expanse of it spread before me in all its harshness. It’s not done with me yet. Getting my memories back was just the beginning. There will be more trials to face, one of which is making it home because it’s going to take me all night to walk there… alone in the dark… with the threat of vampires lying in wait around every corner. But maybe that’s how it should be. Facing fangs is better than facing the conflicting emotions my rising memories are bringing to the surface. It’s better than facing Sebastian and hating him for the consequences of my own actions. Consequences he wouldn’t have known he’d even created, but I blame him for anyway, despite his innocence. No. Running into vampires wouldn’t be so bad. At least it would keep my mind off of being emotionally torn to shreds…
Because I’d probably be physically torn to shreds instead.
The thought is like a glass of cold water to the face, sobering me up. I’m not ready to face vampires on my own yet, but I can’t go back and face my cousins or Sebastian either.
I slip my phone out of my back pocket. There’s no harm in calling a cab. Just because I’m drowning in a sea of messed up emotions and memories I’m not equipped to handle doesn’t mean I’ve got to have a death wish to go with it.
My thumb is hovering over the number to the cab company when Jack catches up to me. Grabbing hold of my arm, he spins me around to face him, causing me to drop my phone. I stare at it lying in the dirt, my emotions too volatile and undecided to do anything else.
Words tumble out of Jack’s mouth at a hundred miles an hour. He pulls my arm, his other hand now gripping my shoulder as he shakes me until my gaze drags from my phone to his face. “What the heck is going on with you? One second you’re excited about saving the daisy, the next you’re... you’re… I don’t know. Having some kind of crisis. I don’t get it. What happened?”
I glare at his hand still wrapped around my arm. I clench my teeth, anger, despair, and a million other emotions, warring for some kind of control over my tongue. “What happened, Jack, is I remember,” I ground out harshly. Being mean is the only thing strong enough right now to keep me from dropping to the dirt in a fetal position and confessing everything tearing me apart, unfiltered.
“What are you talking about? Remember what?” His hazel eyes shift back and forth over my face, the green dominating over the brown. They only ever do that when he’s really worried about something or really happy about something. I doubt in this moment it’s the latter.
“Everything, Jack. I remember everything.” I swallow the emotions climbing up my throat making me want to confide and cry. I pull my arm from his grasp keeping my mouth zipped shut. I resume walking away hoping he’ll figure out what I mean without actual words. I’m not ready to talk yet. I’m still trying to process.
“What do you mean you remember everything?” Liv asks, from behind me.
Closing my eyes, I sigh and turn back around. Liv swipes strands of curly red hair from her face, her gaze bouncing between Jack and me. Why can’t they just go away? “I found my magic and all the walls Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb put up around my memories came tumbling down. So when I say I remember everything, I mean I remember everything. Now will you both please leave me alone because I really don’t feel like having a heart to heart right now, okay?” I head down the road without waiting for their reply.
Crap, I forgot to pick up my phone. Damn it. It’s too late to go back and get it now. I can hear Liv and Jack whispering to each other behind me. Sebastian too, and I can’t face him right now. I’ll have to go on without it and hope for the best.
I wrap my hand around the charm Ivy gave me at Books and Brew, hoping its mojo works like it did on the jogging path and I stay off the supernatural radar. The vampires only found me then because they were tracking Sebastian. If it’s just me walking home, and I’m lucky, no vampires will attack. I used to walk at night all the time. Of course it was under well-lit streets and not dark highways outside of town.
The apparition of the jogger’s lifeless body lies on the road before me. His gray dead eyes roll to the side, his lips flapping without words. I squeeze my eyes shut. You’re not real. When I reopen them he’s gone. However, the fear keeping a tight hold over all my internal organs, not so much.
Who am I kidding? I can’t walk home. Walking home would be stupid. But facing Sebastian would be just as hard. Maybe the world will throw me a bone just this once and I can grab my phone, ignore everyone, and be on my way without having to utter a word.
When I turn around Sebastian is standing in the middle of the road, my phone held in his hand. So much for the world throwing me a bone. As if he senses my change of direction, he looks up. Without looking away he says something to Liv and Jack, too low for me to hear. My cousins both glance in my direction then head toward the car. Jack slaps Sebastian on the back as though to say ‘good luck’.
I square my shoulders and hold my head high. “Give me my phone,” I say once Sebastian reaches me. I hold out my hand, keeping my eyes anywhere but on his because if I meet his gaze, I’m afraid of what may come out of my mouth. It could be more vague accusations of blame he doesn’t deserve or the truth about everything, which might actually be worse.
“Not until you start talking. You can’t shove me down, say everything is my fault, and then not explain. What did I do?” He tucks my phone into his jacket pocket. I curse under my breath. Why does he always have to make everything so difficult?
“Fine. Keep it. I don’t need it, anyway.” I drop my hand then let my stubborn pride propel my feet down the winding road toward the main highway.
“Will you stop? You can’t walk home, Indi. It’s miles away and it’ll be dark soon.” His boots crunch over the loose gravel of the road not far behind me.
“Watch me.” Instead of it coming out sounding mean and headstrong like I’d intended it comes out broken and hitched, tripping over breath and tears.
“Indi. Come on. Please talk to me. Tell me what happened back there.” The tips of his fingers scrape over the fabric of my jacket along my arm. I jerk away and speed up. He speeds up too.
“No.” Home. I just want to go home. Away from Sebastian, away from the pleading tone of his voice, away from the confusion and hurt I saw in his eyes, away from the questions neither one of us are ready to hear the answers to.
The air around me becomes heavy. Thick. It presses against my body, wrapping around my skin like a warm blanket against the cold. The sky, the trees, everything around me momentarily blurs in a whoosh as I become weightless just before it all returns in sharp focus. Except instead of seeing the road ahead, I’m staring at the walls of my bedroom. I stumble back a step, a little disoriented but not quite so unsteady this time.
I did it again.
Just like I did at school when one minute I was in the vending machine alcove and the next I was in the library. Or when I whooshed from the jogging path to the parking lot. I whooshed. It’s probably not the technical term, but it works.
I rush forward to the full-
length mirror while slapping a hand over my shoulder in search of wings for in case there’s a chance Sebastian’s theory could be correct. All I feel is my jacket. Huh. I’m not sure if I’m happy, disappointed, scared, relieved, or some combination. My head is too messed up right now to know up from down, let alone be able to sort out my feelings.
A loud thud hits the floor behind me, freezing me in mid pat down. I spin around. Sebastian is sprawled across the ground. He sits up, resting on the palms of his hands. He sways a little, then shakes his head as though trying to clear it.
I wipe the tears from my face with the palms of my hands, hoping when I remove them he won’t be here. Sebastian stares up at me from the floor with unfocused eyes and a dazed expression. “What are you doing here?” It comes out in an aggravated rush, my voice an octave higher than normal. I slap a hand over my mouth as I stare at the door. I hope Aunt Claudia and Uncle Caleb aren’t home. I have no idea how I would explain anything if they were to barge in right now.
“At the moment, suffering through the worst case of vertigo I’ve ever experienced.” Sitting up a little straighter, Sebastian presses the palm of his hand against his forehead. He shakes his head again then rubs his closed eyes with the tips of his fingers. He blinks a few times, clearing his sight before gazing around my room. “What the…” He jumps to his feet too quick. Off balance he sways, staggers, and then falls flat on his back across my bed.
“Shh!” I press my finger to my mouth then quickly tiptoe to the door. Opening it a crack, I stick my head out into the hallway, listening for the sounds of my aunt and uncle milling about. All I get is silence. They must be out. I let out a long breath. Thank heavens.
Of Blood & Magic: Blood Descent Book 1 Page 30
