by Lynne Ewing
“It chose you because you were vulnerable,” she insisted.
Then a soft white glow caught his eyes. He glanced down and his heart lurched. Her amulet was radiant. Did it sense the part of him that remained loyal to the Atrox, the part that even now was gaining control? He started to back away.
“Where are you going?” Serena asked.
He turned and ran.
“Don’t go!” she yelled after him.
The urge to go back was strong. His heart pounded with fury, pumping evil into every cell. He had to get away from her before he could no longer resist the need to destroy her.
Serena’s quick steps tapped on the cement behind him.
He shot into oncoming traffic. Cars screeched to a stop. Drivers cursed.
Stanton pounded their car hoods and looked in their eyes, daring them to say more, his violence ready to explode.
CHAPTER TEN
AT THE END OF Olvera Street the rich smells of frying garlic, onions, and tortillas drifted into the air. Stanton paused and took three breaths. The compulsion had subsided. Still he was anxious to get back to his car and drive away before something happened that could trigger the urge to turn and destroy Serena.
A shadow moved inside the dark interior of the small restaurant Cielito Lindo. Cassandra appeared beside him, startling him. She had been apprenticed to him once, but he hadn’t seen her since she had tried to betray him. He didn’t want to talk to her today. He started walking.
“Hey, Stanton,” she said as if nothing had ever happened between them.
When he didn’t acknowledge her, she stepped in front of him and walked backward for a few paces, offering him a bite of her taquito. Her long skirt rustled about her.
He drew back and shook his head.
“It’s good.” Cassandra shrugged and pushed the last bite into her mouth, then licked the guacamole from her fingers.
He tried to push around her, but she stayed next to him.
“You seem to be in a bad mood,” she teased. “Why are you so upset when you should be celebrating?”
He finally looked down at her. She had been so perfectly beautiful at one time, and wildly in love with him.
“I’m in a hurry,” he muttered, and quickened his pace.
“Well, I guess I can see you’re trying to outrun whatever is bothering you.” She had a smug smile as if she knew something important. “Funny. I always thought you were the kind of guy who didn’t have any problems. Guess I was wrong, huh?”
He stared at the parade of children ahead of them, faces painted like skeletons, and didn’t answer.
She ran her fingers through her black hair. Streaks of maroon and blue flashed in the sunlight. He had loved her hair once. Her sultry eyes stared at him. She knew what she was doing, teasing him.
“It’s been a while,” she whispered and touched his cheek lightly. Her fingernails were long and painted black.
“A long while.”
She giggled. “So you could at least slow down and talk to me.”
There had been a time before when she could have let her words slip enticingly across his mind in a secret whisper. Stanton shuddered with the memory of how easily their minds had melded once.
“Don’t you owe that to your favorite pupil?” she asked in a seductive voice.
He slowed. After Cassandra had been accepted by the Atrox, she had been eager to master the art of reading minds.
She seemed to know what he was thinking. “Love made me an eager student,” she whispered, her voice filled with longing.
“Too eager,” he added.
She made a face and looked quickly away. She had never attained the power of an Immortal because she had failed in her attempt to please the Atrox. Now she lived as an outcast.
“Maybe I was too eager.” She shrugged prettily. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. What can I say? I tried.”
“Where do you live now?” he asked. He had never really considered how she survived. She wasn’t allowed in the squat, but she didn’t look homeless.
“Around,” she answered. “It’s amazing how many friends you can find in this city.” She shook her hair, and her long gold earrings jangled against her neck. Then she changed the subject. “I have something important to tell you.” She closed her eyes and waited as if she were eager for him to enter her mind and read her thoughts.
“I don’t have the energy to read your mind,” he said with annoyance. He didn’t want that kind of intimacy with her. Besides, she would have too many memories to show him, hoping to tantalize him with recollections he did not want to relive.
“It’s easier if you just go inside my head and see.”
“What’s up?” His voice was firm. He could see the disappointment on her face.
“Everyone’s talking about it.” She peeled off her sweater as if the cool day had suddenly grown too hot. She wore a skimpy T under the sweater. She stretched luxuriously in the sun.
He glanced down, then away, but not before he saw the scars that spelled S T A on her chest. She had tried to slice his name into her skin with a razor blade once.
She caught his eyes looking at her body and smiled with triumph, then licked her lips and touched the pale white scars. One finger traced over the jagged T. “You remember this night?”
He remembered the blood trickling down from the cuts before Vanessa had stopped her from cutting the A. Stanton had taken the razor blade. But later she had added it anyway.
“Too bad I never got around to writing your full name.” She pulled a lipstick from her pocket and brushed red across her full lips. “I tell people the S-T-A stands for Stalin.” She laughed.
She had never finished the other letters because her emotions had changed from love to hate.
“You’ve seen the tattoo?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but lifted her skirt high. Traffic honked as she exposed her thigh. His name curled on her hip inside a bleeding heart, pierced by a dagger. She took his hand and pressed his fingers onto the warm flesh. “It’s what you did to my heart.”
He jerked his fingers back. Maybe the tattoo was her strange way of claiming him and thinking it would keep others away. He had thought she was a cutter, and that she cut herself to escape not being able to feel. But now he wondered if it had been her way of showing love. She had his attention. He owed her that much.
She smirked as if she knew. “Let’s not fight today.” She hooked her hands around his arm and walked with him, her hips sinuous, slow and brushing against him. The silver rings on her fingers pressed hard into his skin. “Aren’t you even going to ask me what I know?”
“Just talk, Cassandra.” He pulled his arm away and checked the oncoming cars. He didn’t want to be stuck at a traffic light with her.
“I’ve heard rumors,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer or coax her to speak. If she wanted him to know, she would tell him, but part of him understood that she was also trying to entice him into her mind. He suspected that there was something else she wanted him to see, something perhaps dangerous to know.
She inclined her head as if she were studying him. “Things are about to change.”
“I don’t need to hear about that from you.”
He shook his head. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have heard by now?”
He increased his step, anxious to get away from her.
“I know someone who wants to meet you.” Her shoes made heavy raps on the street behind him as she hurried to catch up. “Someone who can help you be an important part in the new regime.”
“You know where I live. Tell whoever it is to drop by.”
“He can’t be seen with you just like that. Not at a squat anyway.”
Stanton turned quickly. “You know someone so powerful that he can’t be seen visiting a squat?” He smirked. “That’s a lie, Cassandra.”
“It’s not.” She grabbed his arm and made him stop. “I know someone important who can make our dreams come true.”<
br />
“Our dreams?” he said in disbelief. She was still attracted to him but he also knew that even if he liked her, it would be impossible to trust her now, no Follower could. She was an outcast and she would do anything to get her power and position back. “We don’t share any dreams, Cassandra.”
“We did once,” she said, defiantly.
“Only in your daydreams.”
She scowled. Her face seemed prettier when she was angry. Maybe that’s why she was always on edge. She stared back at him as he checked the traffic again.
“I’m telling the truth,” she insisted. “Someone powerful is going to help us.”
He smiled. “Help you, you mean.”
“Why won’t you trust me?”
“Why would any Follower trust you or want your help?” He looked at her with scorn. “You’re an outcast now.”
“Not for long,” Cassandra replied with determination. He could feel the promise in her words.
He saw a break in the traffic and ran into the wide street. Cassandra ran after him. A distant car bore down on them. It increased its speed. He grabbed Cassandra’s hand and yanked her onto the curb.
Cassandra turned and yelled after the driver. “You could at least slow down! Dumbass!”
Stanton felt the anger burning inside her. A short time back when she still had her powers she would have pushed into the rude driver’s mind and forced him to have an accident. She had liked being a Follower—the intrigue, the dishonesty, the alliances and deceptions.
She turned back to Stanton and tried to force a smile. “You trusted me once and you should trust me again.”
“I can’t, Cassandra.” He stepped through the parked cars and headed for his.
“Because I’m an outcast? I thought you were tougher than that.”
“No, because you betrayed me,” he said flatly. She had gone to the Cincti with a plan to destroy the Daughters of the Moon. Her real plan had been to win a place of power higher than his.
“I wanted revenge then,” she admitted.
Her confession surprised him. He stopped and looked at her to see if she was telling the truth. He could feel her inviting him into her mind and again he wondered why she was so eager to have him look inside.
“Well, if you won’t look in my mind and see for yourself, I’ll just tell you. I was a woman scorned and all that.”
He leaned down so that he was in her face when he spoke to her. “Don’t you understand, Cassandra? We never had that kind of relationship. We were never a couple. I couldn’t have jilted you. We didn’t have anything but friendship to cast aside and I remained your friend until you betrayed me.”
She moved her head from side to side. “You don’t need to lie to me, Stanton. I know how you felt about me once. I could go in your mind, remember? So I wanted to get even with you. When you stopped loving me—”
“I never—” He stopped and sighed.
A satisfied grin crossed her face. “But that was then,” she continued. “I’m looking into the future now, not the past. I don’t even care who she was.”
He had known she had worshiped him, but that frequently happened with Followers who were assigned to him. He had paid more attention to her than the others, perhaps too much, but he had never loved her.
Finally he spoke. “We were never more than friends, Cassandra. It’s my duty to look after the Followers who are apprenticed to me.”
“Friends?” she spit out the word and a tight smile crept across her lips. “You don’t hurt friends the way you hurt me.”
They reached his car. He unlocked the door.
“Stanton.” Her tone had changed. She now sounded worried.
He opened the car door and turned back.
“Be careful. That’s all.” Her eyes looked surprisingly sincere, as if she still cared for him. “I’ve heard rumors about Regulators planning to destroy a Follower who is in love with a Daughter of the Moon as soon as they learn his identity. Any idea who that could be?”
“No.” He got in and stuck the key in the ignition.
She leaned through the car window, her breath warm on his face, but when she spoke her eyes were downcast. “If Regulators knew you were with another Follower, they would never suspect you. You’d be safe.”
He touched the tip of her hair. “You’re no longer a Follower, Cassandra,” he reminded her softly.
She snapped her head back and stepped away as if she had been slapped. Her lips carved into a practiced smile, revealing perfect teeth that failed to mask her disappointment.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“TUESDAY NIGHT STANTON stood alone in the back of Planet Bang. It was hot, and smoky mist circled the room, waiting to reflect the lasers. The night before, worry had startled him from his sleep and he had decided that despite the danger, he needed to stay near Serena, unseen, eyes watchful and ready. Followers were saying that the transition was only days away.
He had listened to the rumors, hoping for a clue to help him understand Malcolm’s warning. The name Lamp still meant nothing to him, but his foreboding had only grown stronger.
He scanned the crowd for Serena. She stood next to Jimena in silver hip huggers and a frosty top. Rhinestones and crystals sparkled in her hair like stars. Jimena wore a sequin-covered purple velvet dress. Their bodies glowed. He wanted to see a sadness on Serena’s face that matched his own. Some sign that she missed him the way he ached for her.
The music started. Drums hit hard and blue lasers slashed the mist, mimicking the beat. Two guys asked Serena to dance. She laughed and twirled between them, her hands reaching over her head.
Raw pain spread through his chest. He didn’t want to see more. He had come here to protect her, not to watch her have fun.
Jimena danced with Serena’s brother, Collin. Collin was a surfer, sunburned with pale white-blond hair. You didn’t need to be a mind reader to know how much he cared for Jimena. Stanton watched them jealously, then glanced back for Serena. She had disappeared into the crowd. He stepped around two kids kissing in the shadows, and tried to find her again. His throat tightened. Had she gone off with another guy so easily? He pushed through the people talking in the back and headed for the dance floor.
Someone grabbed his arm.
Irritated, he turned. Serena stood behind him.
“Serena?” He hadn’t prepared himself for a chance encounter. He had only planned to spy.
“You could say hi, I guess,” Serena teased, but her tone was caustic.
He nodded, but he still couldn’t find his voice. This was chancy. The spirit of the Atrox claimed him tonight.
“I want to talk to you.” Something in the pitch of her voice told him that she was giving him one last chance. “Just listen.”
“All right.” He dug his hands into his pockets and waited.
“I don’t understand why you walked away from me on Olvera Street last week.”
“I—” he started to explain, but she interrupted him.
“I know you’ve been visiting me at night when I’m asleep. Why?”
But before he could answer, she continued with a brusqueness that he had never heard in her voice before.
“My alarm clock. That’s how I know. You always turn it to face the wall because you don’t like to be reminded…”
He touched her lips with the tip of his finger. He didn’t want to be reminded even now. His finger lingered on her chin until she pushed it away.
“So I know you’ve been visiting me,” she continued. “That tells me you still care. Why else would you come?”
“I do care,” he whispered, quelling the demon inside.
“You’re either a masterful liar or you need to explain.”
Her harsh answer surprised him.
She tilted her head. “Answer me.”
When he didn’t, she placed her hands on her hips and spoke low. “You were once willing to risk everything to be with me. Now I’m willing to risk everything to be with you and you’re avoiding me.�
��
The music changed to something sultry and the lasers flashed slow and easy in the smoky air. He glanced down at her moon amulet; its milky glow throbbed against her chest. She looked beautiful in the strange light.
A sudden rush of uninvited memories came from deep within him—memories of other times when he had lost control. Faces of girls flashed in his mind. It chilled him, remembering what they had become. Girls like Cassandra now dedicated to the Atrox and worshiping its evil.
He shuddered. “Get away from me, Serena.”
She looked confused and hurt. “I know you love me.”
“Once maybe, not now,” he answered as his heart tightened with the lie. He bit his lips so that other words could not come out, then turned and threaded through the dancers toward the exit.
What’s wrong? Her words traced across his mind.
His head snapped back. How had she reached his thoughts so easily? He didn’t want her to venture there, not now, and see the truth. With a burst of energy he pushed her from his head.
She staggered back as if she had been physically assaulted, then she looked up at him with shock. “You won’t even let me into your mind? What are you trying to hide from me?”
Everything seemed to move in slow motion then, the dancers and lights became a whirling pattern of color and brightness around him. He wanted to tell Serena the real reason he couldn’t see her anymore, but he was afraid that if he did she would only think it was something they could conquer together. She couldn’t understand the pressure building inside him.
“I’m not trying to hide anything,” he said finally. “Go back to your friends. Stay with your kind where you belong.”
“Then why are you here?” Her voice was petulant again. “If you believe what you say, then you should be over at the Dungeon.”
He shook his head. “Leave me alone.”
She stood there, staring at him, so darkly beautiful in the patterned light. Why wouldn’t she go? He wanted to tell her how much he’d been suffering, trying to control himself, hoping that if he could resist the urge long enough, he would finally have power over it. But he couldn’t, not tonight, with his dark side so strong. He needed to go.
