by J. L. Myers
Kendrick sat at her desk chair. “What took you so long?”
I raised a brow at the cupboard’s open roller doors that lined the right wall. The shelves were in disarray compared to their normal neat stacking and filing. Lucky for us, Mom was out with one of her socialite charity friends, otherwise she’d flip out. “You went snooping.” Kendrick’s thoughts were blocked as I walked around the desk. “What’d you find?”
Kendrick held out two sheets of paper and Dorian shot in front of me to snatch them. He frowned as he scanned over the first, the lineless planes of his face creasing as he scanned over the second. “His name’s not here.”
“Whose name?”
Dorian handed them over. It took a second for me to understand what his comment had meant. The documents were Dorian’s and my birth certificates. Each listed our birthplace as Anchorage and our mom’s maiden name, the name she still went by, Lamayli Lamont. Next to the details for the mother of the child was space for the father’s information. Name. Address. Phone number. The address and phone number fields were blank, but the block next to ‘Full Name of Father’ wasn’t. It was filled in with typed letters, rather than the handwritten ones that had clearly been our mom’s handwriting.
“No father listed?” My throat felt dry, and I swallowed, looking from Dorian to Kendrick. “Why wouldn’t she write his name?”
Dorian laid a cold hand over my forearm. “Well, she did tell us his name under my sparkling ability to compel her. Maybe she never intended for us to know his name.”
“Or,” Kendrick said pushing the chair back to stand, “maybe John Athobry isn’t your father’s name.”
I leaned against the edge of the desk. “But how could it not be?”
“She was compelled to believe that other stuff,” Dorian said. He went to the cupboards and began straightening the contents. “Caius could have compelled her to believe his name was John.”
As I shifted my weight, the glass lamp cast a glow over the framed photo below it. I picked it up. The photo was so old, the colors faded even though they rarely saw sunlight in this curtain-shielded room. Mom barely looked a day older than the day this photo had been taken. It couldn’t have been more than weeks after our birth, judging by the two babies she held in her arms. I was on the left, white blond hair and pale as a ghost. Dorian was on the right, equally as pale but with a thick halo of chocolate-brown hair.
“Where was that photo taken?” Kendrick asked, seeing through my eyes. Although he didn’t need to, he took the frame from my hands and studied it. The internal stone walls resembled the Armaya’s castle decor. “Looks like you’ve visited the Armaya a few times before…well, you know.”
“Before Caius made a meal out of me?” Flashes of that night struck my mind like electric probes. I slid a hand down my face, wishing Kendrick could compel the memories away permanently. But forgetting wasn’t an option. I blinked hard and pushed off the desk. “But that’s not at the Armaya. Mom’s never been there.”
“So where was this photo taken?” Kendrick shoved the frame back into my hands.
Dorian abandoned the cupboard and moved to stand beside me. In the photo our mom sat in her green armchair. It was the very same one she’d kept for all these years, which now stood out of place in the opulently decorated living room beyond the wall of this office. Behind her was a wall that was made up of a mixture of stone and horizontal set logs. There was an ice-crusted, glossy window, reflecting the pitch black of a night-darkened forest.
“That’s at the cabin,” Dorian said, face lifting as he shrugged. “Why?”
Kendrick arched his brows at me. “Do you still have that picture of Caius with you and Marcus as infants?”
I nodded, unable to sort through the clatter swirling through his mind. “It’s in the jewelry box in my room.”
In a blurred rush Kendrick disappeared from the office. A few seconds later he reappeared through the doorway. The black and white photo he held out to me was difficult to look at. Caius appeared much the same as he did now, except his hair was less salt and pepper and more pale than it was these days. His face was a proud beam, the smile of a man who had taken this photo as a kind of trophy of the experiments he had succeeded in. Kind of like a serial killer keeping a lock of hair. It was a memento, a keepsake.
“Do you remember how I said this photo was taken at the Armaya?” Kendrick asked.
Fingers prodded over my brain. Somehow I understood that the sensation was the insertion of information rather than the retrieval of it. My eyes widened, darting up from the photo to my best friend. “You were wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” Dorian stared at the photo as if trying to decipher a puzzle.
“Dorian,” I said, pushing the photo back into Kendrick’s hands. The longer I stared at it the sicker it made me feel. “This photo was taken at the same place as the one on Mom’s desk.”
“The cabin.” A light behind Dorian’s eyes went off, beaming like a torch. “Whatever Caius did to us all, it was done there,” he said, pointing at the photo of Caius.
“You know what this means?” Kendrick said.
Unfortunately I did. “The answers we need are linked to the cabin.” Ice shards undulated up my spine, making me shiver. “We’re going back to Alaska.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I wriggled in the passenger seat of our rental car, feeling like I was sitting on a bed of spikes. This trip was taking forever. With Kendrick in the backseat and at least forty minutes to go, the tension had reached breaking point. Staring blankly at the increasing rush of snow that blanketed the forest bordering the winding road only did so much.
After three connecting flights and two days, we were on our way to the cabin. Dorian had volunteered to remain at home to keep an eye on our mom and monitor her calls, just in case Caius tried anything. He’d also stayed back to cover for Kendrick and me not being around in the hours she was at home and awake.
I sighed and Ty’s hand broke from the steering wheel, his hungry eyes catching mine as he cupped my thigh. The heat of his firm hand traveled through the thick denim of my jeans. Without meaning to I imagined his palm sliding upwards and my face grew hot. Instant resentment squeezed my heart and I felt the undeniable urge to smash Ty in the face. “Dammit, Kendrick!”
“What?” He tore his glare from the side view of Ty’s face and clamped his arms over his chest.
We’d kept any previous tension throughout this long journey hidden between our bond, but the constant intrusion of his emotions was wearing thin. I twisted my neck to glower at him. “Can’t you at least try to control yourself?”
“What’s wrong?” Ty asked, patting my thigh.
The venom lancing from Kendrick to me shot faster, poisoning his words. “You think I’m enjoying this? You think I want to see the way he touches you? The way he looks at you?” He beat a hand against his chest as if trying to rid the pain that crippled his heart. “The way you respond to him?”
“You’re a dick,” Ty snapped. “Amelia hasn’t done anything wrong. We haven’t even kissed. And I’ve tried to be respectful, for her sake, not yours. But you’re being a total jerk. She picked me. Not you.”
“Yeah, and that’s gonna last,” Kendrick muttered, his tone dripping with arrogance. “Your life is a blip compared to our extended life spans. Who do you think will still be there once you’re dead and gone?”
Kendrick’s last words hit a nerve, flooding my body with frustration. They reminded me too much of Caius’s words back at the Armaya—that Ty would die before I’d even lived out a tenth of my life. “Shut up!” I spun in my seat to smack Kendrick in the face. The shock rather than the force of the hit made him rock back. “You,” I said pointing a thin finger at him, “don’t get to speak anymore.”
“But,” Kendrick said, about to apologize. He felt bad for what he’d said, even if the words did hold mountains of truth. The last thing he wanted to do was cause me pain in any way.
“No.” I blew out an
exacerbated breath, holding tight to a sliver of frustration. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Ty removed his hand. “Amelia, I didn’t mean to start anything.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. Part of the anger I felt was reserved for Ty. When he touched or kissed me, I knew that apart from it being a way to show me how he felt, how much he wanted me even with my link to Kendrick, that it was also a way to show Kendrick that he had won. That he had me, and Kendrick didn’t. “Not now.”
My head lolled back against the headrest, eyes blinking away the rush of white-covered green outside my window. Without sight I plugged in my iPod’s earbuds and pressed play. The piano intro to Write This Down’s song Citadel calmed my anger and ignited my need to not give up. Love and life were a war, and I wasn’t going down without a fight.
I turned everything inward, focusing on the brick wall I needed to block Kendrick’s thoughts. Right now they were guilt-riddled and weighing against my heart, like a smothering blanket that made my lungs tight and my head heavy. And I couldn’t stand it. One by one I imagined my thin hands placing bricks in a line then stacking one row after the next. It was a tediously slow and exhausting process. Behind the wall was a translucent image of Kendrick’s face, his expression speaking of the regret he felt. As the wall grew higher and the view of his face became blocked by bricks, the weight of his emotions eased. With the last brick of this enormous wall that towered over my mind, the last sliver of his emotions shut off.
The weightlessness that rolled down my entire body was calming, letting my exhaustion become the only thing I felt. My own exhaustion, not someone else’s, and my own thoughts, free from his.
Without opening my eyelids, my hand lifted from my lap, reaching across the center console to find Ty’s warm forearm. I let my fingers slide along his arm, basking in the feel of his scarred skin which clung tight to the muscles that ran down to his wrist. Ty’s hand opened as my fingers slid over his palm. There was a little intake of breath at my touch, before my fingers threaded through his. My lips lifted at the sides. “Wake me when we get there.”
Despite the thoughts spinning through my mind, the exhaustion of our complicated threesome was enough to knock me out. As the conflict of their argument washed away, I found myself in a place I hadn’t seen for years.
Dorian and I sat on the single bed upstairs in his room, playing a fast-paced game of Uno. His face was rounder than it was now, blue eyes large and filled with childhood innocence. Wooden logs made up the walls along with a number of rocks. A single six-paned window bordered a snowy landscape of pine trees. Each tree’s branches hung heavy with a collection of white dust.
A young pale girl’s reflection stared back at me, matching blue irises to my brother’s, but with white-blond hair. I blinked and so did the girl. She’s me, I realized, a younger version. No more than six years old.
I’d seen photos of Dorian and me during our younger years, but those memories, the early years we had spent at the cabin before moving to Anchorage, had always seemed a fog. Most of the time it was a few snippets here and there, but nothing concrete, nothing as clear as what I could see now. I wondered if Kendrick’s compulsion to remember at Marcus’s command was clearing out more than what Caius had covered up at the Armaya.
I lifted a small child-sized hand to my cheek. As I did, something traveled across the soft snow below. It was a man, a man who was familiar, but different. His hair was lighter than it was now, more light brown with natural blond highlights than its current salt and pepper. His face was less wrinkled too, though he still appeared old. Caius.
I wanted to suck in my breath, but I wasn’t really there. The little girl who had been me was. And Caius wasn’t alone.
His hand was curled around the back of another man’s neck, forcing him to stumble forward through the sinking snow. The man was very pale, sickly looking. Thick chains connected his wrists and ankles, like an inmate on death row. Except these chains weren’t dark and dirty, they were shiny and silver in color. Blistering welts were left across the man’s flesh where the metal touched. He stumbled when Caius pushed him harder, a gleaming dagger jabbing the guy in the back. He hissed as red wetness blotted the back of his dirty and torn shirt.
A little squeal escaped my throat and Caius’s silver-gray eyes shot up. Fear rocketed through me and I sprang, flattening Dorian against the bed.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Dorian demanded in a boy’s voice. He pushed himself free and sat up.
I scrambled to the window and peered out. “Didn’t you see?” My own childlike voice surprised me.
Caius forced the man up the steps and through the front door. Then the heavy steps stalled.
“Oh dear, what happened?” Mom’s startled voice drifted through the floorboards.
There were more steps then Caius spoke. “You saw nothing, and you will hear nothing. Go to bed, Lamayli.”
As my mom’s shuffled steps moved away, I heard something shift, sliding. More footsteps sounded as the shifting repeated. The noise I heard next lasted a second, before being cut off with a thud. Hair rose across the back of my neck and my small forearms prickled. It was the sound of cries and chains being rattled, of snarls and the threats of desperation.
“What’s going on, sis?” Dorian peered out the window and down at the disturbed snow that was swiftly being covered by a thicker fall of snowflakes.
“Unky Caius had a man,” I said, voice so young and terrified. “He had chains on him.”
“It’s not Halloween,” Dorian said.
Before I could speak, I heard the sliding again, followed by the distinct tone of booted steps climbing the wooden stairs.
The door to Dorian’s room swung open and Caius strode in. He took hold of Dorian who cried out at how tight Caius gripped his shoulders. Caius stared into my brother’s eyes. “You saw and heard nothing.”
Protectiveness surged through me, and my small child’s body lunged at Caius. I landed on his arm and tugged with all my might. “Stop, Unky Caius. You’re hurting him!”
Uncle Caius dropped Dorian and threw me off. I flew, hitting the toy box across the room with a cry of pain. I stumbled to get up, terrified eyes wide. But I was too slow. Caius was already before me, strong hands curled around my upper arms and lifting me from the ground.
Dorian stood still as a statue behind him, his face an empty mask.
I struggled, knowing I needed to get us away, then whimpered. Caius squeezed harder, shaking me until my eyes met his. “Amelia, stop moving. I do not want to hurt you.”
Out of my own volition, my child-sized body ceased struggling.
Uncle Caius lowered my bare feet to the ground and touched my cheek. It stung for a moment and his hand came away with a smear of scarlet. He frowned. “I am so very sorry, my dear. I never meant to…” He broke off and shook his head before staring into my wide eyes. “You have been up here all night playing with your brother. You even tripped while running up the stairs and cut your cheek. But it is only a small cut. There is no pain. You will forget ever seeing me and that other man outside, and any noises you may have heard. Amelia, I wish it did not have to be this way. But it does. Please know that I love you.”
“Get the fuck off me!” I gasped, shocked by my suddenly normal and un-childlike voice and language. My eyelids fluttered, the cabin room warping into moving white-laced plains behind a red lens.
“Whoa, what’s going on?” Ty stared at me curiously from the driver’s seat. “What’s wrong?”
Kendrick sat forward to see me through the center console. “She had a vision, genius.”
Ty ignored Kendrick and went to grab my hand. My knees shot up and I shrank back against the car door. There was way too little space in this car. Blood dominated the air. Ty’s and Kendrick’s. The thrumming of both their pulses pounded in my ears. “Don’t.” I batted Ty’s hand away as my fangs shot free. “Stop the car.”
“Why?” Ty saw my fangs but didn’t even flinch
. “Amelia, what’s going on?”
“She’s starving.” Kendrick scooted back to untie the knot on his backpack. “It’s a vision thing. The reactions are getting worse.”
Ty glanced away from the straightening road and held out his hand, wrist up. “Take my blood.”
Kendrick snorted and I cringed, blurry vision darting to see that Ty’s driving had slowed. Jumping out of the car wouldn’t cause much damage at this speed.
I groped for the door handle, but before I could escape, the smell of peppery blood invaded my nose. Unable to think, I snatched the source and pressed my lips to its cool round edge. About half way through I realized I was draining a bottle. Right in front of Ty. I hunched away, increasingly aware of Kendrick’s and Ty’s voices.
“She still could have drunk from me.” Ty yanked on the steering wheel, rounding a bend sharper than necessary.
Kendrick snorted a laugh. “Yeah, if you’re into beating down your own girlfriend.”
Ty punched the clutch and shifted gears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That she wouldn’t have been able to stop.” There was a clank from the backseat as the red left my vision and my voice started to return. “And I sure as shit wouldn’t have stepped in to save your pretty-boy ass.”
“Stop it,” I croaked, blinking away the last of the red. “Please don’t fight. Not about this.”
Ty smiled at me but kept his hands to himself. “You’re alright now?”
I nodded, wondering if he was worried about my still extended fangs or if he was trying to keep the peace.
My brain tingled and Kendrick eased back into his seat. “Wanna tell him what you saw?”
After reliving my vision through the bond, Kendrick knew what I’d seen. I sighed, glancing away from the thickening fog and snowfall through the windshield to look at Ty. “Caius imprisoned vampires at the cabin.” I shuddered, hearing even now their cries and the rattling chains. “He was experimenting on them too.”
