Poison

by Dejana Vuletic

  “Just fine,” he answered in irritation. “I wish you all would stop worrying. Thanks to you, Dessa, I’m going to be fine.”

  “No,” I contradicted. “All of this happened to you thanks to me.”

  “I wish you’d stop it with that attitude,” he chastised. I looked down, ashamed, and put my hands in my lap.

  “It’s true though,” I murmured. “They’re after me.”

  “I told you before,” he reiterated, “It’s my job to protect you. Even if that means I have to give my own life to save yours, I’m ready and willing to pay that price. No,” he interrupted as I tried to argue with him, “The decision is mine, and I’ve made my choice. I will protect you. That’s a promise.”

  I smiled weakly. “I don’t want to lose you,” I protested.

  “Naturally,” he said. “But you’d never lose me. Physically, sure. But emotionally and mentally I would always be a part of you, and you a part of me.”

  “I don’t want to cause you pain,” I pressed earnestly.

  “And I won’t let you be in pain,” he retorted gently. “Until Skylar and this woman are dealt with, neither one of us is going to be happy. So I suggest you let me do my job, and I’ll let you do yours.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked, already sunken with defeat.

  “To save everyone,” he answered. His hand found my face and began to caress my cheek, trailing along my jaw bone and down to my collar bone. I felt my eyes close from the pleasure of his touch; I let out a sigh of relief. “And I know you’ll succeed,” he added with a smile. “I have faith in you, and the things you can accomplish.”

  I opened my mouth to thank him, but the words wouldn’t come. I leaned in and hugged him, letting his strong arms embrace me. I told him through my hold on him that I was thankful, and his return of the embrace told me, “You’re welcome,” without a single word being spoken.

  Venomous

  Ricky and Pa were waiting for us downstairs. I tried to convince Chris to let me help him get down the stairs and onto the couch where he could rest, but he shook me off, saying he had plenty of energy.

  I consented and followed him, ready at any moment to act if he fell.

  Pa was sitting in a chair alone, and Ricky sat on the couch beside the now-exhausted Chris, while I sat Indian style on the carpet. The look in Pa’s eyes was different. She didn’t look happy; she looked sad, down-trodden, afraid, insecure . . . It wasn’t like her at all.

  “Pa?” I asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “I hope so,” she said after a slight pause. “I’m going to break my engagement with Skylar. Officially,” she added. “I technically broke it quite a while ago, but I want it to be official that I’m no longer connected to that horrible man in any way. I’m taking everything of mine out of his apartment today.”

  I stared at her skeptically.

  “So you’re going to be with him—alone—somewhere?” I asked caustically. “Do you have any idea about the risk you’re putting yourself under?”

  She put up her hand to stop me. “D, this isn’t about being protected. It’s about protecting. As I’m sure Chris already told you, it’s our job to make sure no one can get to you. Skylar is our enemy, and I will not let him take advantage of me.”

  “So this is about your pride?” I asked angrily, standing up so I towered over her.

  Her eyes flamed, and she, too, stood and stared at me.

  “How dare you?” she accused. I blinked in disbelief. “I’m trying to do the right thing here!”

  “Then do what’s right and don’t go alone!” I shouted back. “For God’s sake, Pa, something will happen to you if you don’t!”

  “Nothing will happen,” she said shortly, “because there’s nothing to fear.”

  “If there’s nothing to fear,” I shot back, “Then why do I need protecting? Why did I have to be the one to save Chris instead of you? Why did he get shot in the first place? Pa, you’re not making any sense . . .”

  “Dess,” Ricky advised quietly. “Leave it be.”

  I stared at him. “You’re on her side?!” I spat. “Great.”

  Chris was looking at me in surprise, but I looked away, not quite ready to face the conviction in his gaze.

  “I’m not siding with anyone,” he said calmly. “Let Pa do what she needs to do.”

  “So you are siding with her,” I said coldly.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I am.”

  “Well if anything happens,” I said, “Don’t come blaming me for it. I told you this was a bad idea, but no! No one listens to me anymore. If I’m your supposed savior, why don’t you actually take into account the fear I feel at letting Pa do this alone?”

  None of them said anything. Pa was still staring at me, her emerald eyes blazing with anger. Ricky sat on the couch with his head in his hands as he leaned forward, and Chris lie there motionless, unsure what to do.

  “Nothing will happen,” she retorted.

  “Fine,” I spat back. “I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “Neither do I.” I didn’t bother replying to her. I simply turned my back on all three of them and stormed upstairs.

  I decided I’d try to calm myself down by taking a shower. As I let the hot water burn the surface of my skin, I started to regret the things I had said.

  Why had I gotten so angry?

  She shouldn’t have been stupid enough to think of going alone, that’s why . . .

  I was surprised at myself. The anger and condemnation in my words was starting to eat me alive. I wanted to punch something, but that probably wasn’t the best idea.

  The cold tears pouring from my eyes sent a chill through me, despite the scalding water that was now drenching my hair. I put a dime-sized portion of shampoo into my hair and began to smoothly lather it in. After a few seconds, I started scrubbing harder and harder, harder still until I was practically ripping my hair out.

  I fell to the floor of the shower, completely disheveled.

  “I’m sorry . . .” I murmured, but no one was there to hear me.

  I needed to apologize. I couldn’t fight with others. It wasn’t a part of my nature. Pa and I had never had a fight—not once—since we’d met and stuck to each other like glue. She and I had grown on each other, our relationship was born the minute I saw her face.

  And now I was angry with her . . .

  It made perfect sense to me: take someone with you. It’s smart and logical, right?

  Apparently not. Now I was being treated like the bad guy because I wanted Pa to be safe instead of sorry.

  I shook my head in irritation, but decided that this fight wasn’t worth losing our friendship.

  I put on one of Chris’ robes and brushed out my soaked hair with a comb. I sat on the bed for a few moments, wondering what I was going to say to her.

  Then, after about five minutes of silent contemplation, I stood up and walked downstairs. I walked across the floor to where Chris and Ricky were sitting on the couch, completely immersed in the conversation they were having.

  At my approach, they both fell silent. Ricky looked at me impassively—I was his little sister . . . he had already forgiven me—and Chris looked at me sympathetically.

  “Where’s Pa?” I asked, looking around for her.

  “She left,” Ricky said. “She went to end it today.”

  “Oh,” I said taken aback.

  “Why?” Chris asked curiously.

  “I wanted to apologize to her,” I said sadly. “I shouldn’t have acted that way, and I know it was wrong. I thought maybe I could say I was sorry.”

  “You can tell her when she gets back,” Ricky said as he walked over to me. He pulled me into an embrace and I could almost hear the smile in his voice when he said, “I love you, Dess. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Ricky,” I replied. “I really wish I could have caught up to her before she left.”

  “You needed the time to think things over,” Chris supplied. “So d
id she. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was thinking these exact things right now.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “So now what?”

  Ricky and Chris shrugged. “I have no idea,” Ricky said. “Anybody up for some food? I’ll cook it.”

  Chris nodded. “Sure, I’d like some food. What about you, Dessa?”

  “Sure,” I replied with a tiny smile. “I’m actually quite hungry now that you said something.”

  “What do ya’ll want?” Ricky asked through the kitchen archway.

  Chris looked at me with a smirk and shrugged.

  “Surprise us,” he said. Then he turned to me and added, “Want to watch a movie?”

  I nodded, still feeling a little guilty. “Sure.”

  “Which one?”

  “You pick.”

  “Okay,” he said. He picked up his glass of water from the table and walked effortlessly over to the little bookcase full of movies. While he chose a movie, I got one of those little fleece blankets from behind the couch and sprawled my body underneath it. He walked back over with the glass still in his hand, a DVD case in the other. “I chose this.”

  He showed me the cover of the case, which sported the words, “The Mask of Zorro,” and had a masked man standing tall with a backdrop of flaming letters.

  I loved the movie; I had watched it thousands of times. He popped in the DVD and came back to the couch. I got up and let him lie against the back of the couch. Once he got settled in, I sidled in beside him, letting my body fit against his. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck, letting his lips linger there as he breathed his sweet scent onto me.

  I watched as the rogue Zorro captured the heart of Diego de la Vega’s daughter, and along with her rid California of the Dons. Such an insignificant man—a nobody—had saved an entire country . . .

  Ricky called us in for dinner at the end of the movie, and the three of us sat at the little kitchen table instead of in the dining room. Chris sat to my right, and Ricky sat across from me. The seat to my left was empty—it’s where Pa would have been.

  Ricky had graciously cooked us lasagna and garlic bread, my favorite combination aside from chicken Alfredo and pumpkin cheesecake—yeah, I know I’m weird; you don’t have to tell that to me.

  “So . . .” I said awkwardly in efforts to break the silence. “What exactly are we up against?”

  “Isn’t it kind of obvious?” Ricky retorted quietly. I knew he hadn’t meant to say it that way—in a way that stabbed at me and reminded me of the fight I had with Pa earlier—but I felt horrible just the same. “We’re up against Skylar and Darkness, whoever she is.”

  “What’s so bad about her?” I asked. “I don’t understand. Why would she want this?”

  “Dessa,” Chris said, “Darkness is different from the rest of us. All she thinks about is power, greed, lust, anger—the vices of human emotion are her only thoughts. She does the things that she does because she’s a victim of herself.

  “Darkness is like a poison, Dessa,” he continued. “She’ll continue to spread through you until she’s completely taken over; and once she does, you’ve got little hope of making it out alive. This woman thrives on the pain and suffering of others, which explains why she went to Skylar before any of us.”

  “She saw his suffering,” Ricky supplied, “and used it against him?” His uncertainty changed his statement into a question, and he turned to look at Chris with concern plain in his eyes.

  “Exactly,” Chris replied. “She saw how much Skylar was suffering when Pa got angry and threw the ring at him. So she jumped on the opportunity as soon as it passed her by.”

  “But how did she know?” I asked.

  “What?” Ricky asked.

  “How did she know that Skylar would be at that restaurant? How did she know he would go into the bathroom? How did she even get into the bathroom?”

  All of my questions seemed to stump them. Chris shrugged. “I don’t really know,” he said.

  “What about what you said, Dessa?” Ricky recalled. “About seeing us with different eyes in the mirror . . . Do you think that has something to do with how she got into the bathroom?”

  “Possibly,” I admitted. “I mean, bathrooms have mirrors. Maybe she somehow knew he’d be in there, so she showed him his reflection?” I realized how stupid I was starting to sound, so I just stopped talking.

  “Maybe, since she’s Darkness, she had the ability to show Skylar the evil version of himself, just as you claim you’ve been seeing,” Chris supplied in an interested tone.

  “But that still doesn’t explain how she knew I was just outside the door. Unless this chick can see through walls like an x-ray machine,” I said, “there’s gotta be something more going on here.”

  “That’s true,” Ricky admitted. “I mean as far as we know, she was inside that mirror . . .”

  “So maybe she had already somehow gotten out of it,” Chris answered.

  “No,” I interjected. “She wasn’t able to get out of that mirror. There must be some other explanation.”

  “What?” Ricky asked, while Chris simultaneously asked, “Why?”

  “She couldn’t have gotten out of that mirror,” I argued. “First, that’s just ridiculous . . .”

  “But you can draw out poison just by touching my skin?” Chris asked. “Dessa, anything’s possible when it comes to the elements.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Anyway, she needed Skylar to set her free. That’s the whole point. I keep having clairvoyant visions, and they pretty much confirm every question I’ve had about Skylar’s involvement with this woman.”

  I thought about the most recent vision I had experienced, and suddenly I felt my insides go numb . . .

  “She used Skylar to set herself free, and she promised to help him if he would,” I finished.

  “Help him?” Ricky asked. “With what?”

  “I’m not sure,” I lied. “But the meaning behind it was all the same. She used his pain and suffering to convince him that he needed her help; and in exchange for her help, she wanted him to set her free, which he’s already done.

  “So now all that’s left to do is find out where they are, who this woman is, and how to get rid of her.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” Ricky said sarcastically. Suddenly side-tracked, he asked, “What time is it?”

  Chris looked at his phone briefly and replied, “It’s just past 7:30. Why?”

  “Pa should be back by now, don’t you think?” he asked worriedly.

  Chris shook his head with a small smile. “I wouldn’t worry, Rick. These things take time with the most amiable of people, so I’m sure with Pa and Skylar it’ll take just a bit longer.”

  I chuckled. He was right. Pa and Skylar were as compatible as jelly and horseradish.

  “If you say so,” Ricky resigned, standing from his seat. I hadn’t touched my food at all, too immersed in our conversation to even think about eating. Chris’ plate was half empty, while Ricky’s was completely clean—even all the sauce had been licked off, though I had never remembered seeing Ricky lick the plate until it shined.

  He looked at me with concern. “Dessa, you barely touched your food,” he said.

  “I’m just not hungry, that’s all,” I lied, looking at Chris with a worried expression. He seemed to understand the look in my eyes, because he was returning my gaze with an equal one.

  “Well, it’s gonna be right here in the fridge if you get hungry later,” Ricky said kindly.

  “Thanks, big bro,” I said with a smile.

  “Anytime, lil’ sis,” he replied as he smiled back.

  “Want to watch another movie?” Chris asked as he stood from his chair.

  “I suppose,” I replied. “I mean we’ve only got an evil, psychopathic maniac lady coming to kill us that has the power to travel through mirrors and manipulate the darkness. Surely the best antidote must be another movie.”

  Chris chuckled dryly at my sarcasm.

  “I love it wh
en you do that,” he returned, but I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or serious.

  “What do you want to watch this time?” I asked.

  “I really don’t mind,” he replied.

  “Ugh . . .” I said annoyed. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”

  “Because if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be very fun, would I?” he retorted playfully.

  “Ha. Sure, let’s go with that,” I said back. I followed him into the living room and plopped myself back onto the couch again. We settled with an old Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty. I sat with my back against Chris’ stomach, and he watched the cartoon with me.

  This story always fascinated me; how the power of love could overpower everything, even a spell designed to cause Aurora to die in her sleep. While her soul was slowly dying, fading away into nothingness, her body remained asleep . . . Her prince came to save her, gave her the kiss of love and life, and she was able to bring her soul back from that faraway place where it had been caged by Malifiscent’s spell.

  The movie was over by 9:00, but Pa still hadn’t come back. I had a feeling that I had been right. That she should have taken someone with her . . .

  I thought Chris and Ricky were beginning to think the same thing, because Ricky paced anxiously back and forth in front of the door, clutching something in his hand.

  Chris sat beside me on the couch, chaffing my arms with his hands slowly and gently to comfort me.

  “Ricky . . .” I said worriedly. “Sit down. Drink something; it’ll make you feel better.”

  He shook his head and continued his pacing. “She has to be okay. She just has to be . . .”

  “Ricky . . .” I began again.

  “I was going to give her this!” he suddenly shouted in anguish. He opened his hand, and sitting in his palm was my grandmother’s engagement ring, the diamond glistening like the sun. Tears were streaming down Ricky’s face—something I had never seen before.

  It frightened me . . .

  “Oh, Ricky . . .”

  “I was going to tell her I loved her! I wanted . . . I wanted her to . . . Where is she?”