“But you need me,” he countered.
I grunted in reply and spent the next ten minutes debating whether to use the valcrick to heal my hands or not. Jayden and Weston had both witnessed my inability to heal myself from the bullet in my shoulder, so maybe it was better that I pretended to still be unable… just so that they didn’t use me as collateral again.
“You still can’t use the valcrick?” Jayden asked, catching me staring intently at my own hands.
“No,” I lied easily, shoving the door open before the car had even stopped moving.
I walked toward the front of Jayden’s house, trying to take in everything at once. It was tiny compared to the usual Zev mansions that I was used to. The front yard was small and well-contained, leading up to a white-painted porch. His front door was blue, and I found that mildly amusing. He unlocked the door and motioned me to enter, so I slid past him. The house opened up into a bare-as-bones living room, with a single chaise pushed beneath one of the windows, and a few antique-looking side tables scattered about the room. Some of them held books and some of them held struggling potted plants.
“You should really water those.” I pointed at one of them: a fern with drooping, almost brown leaves.
“Yeah.” Jayden scratched the back of his neck, his cheeks gaining the faintest hint of colour. “I’m not here much.”
He turned right and I followed him down a short hallway, into a simple kitchen with blue stone bench tops. He filled up a glass with water and disappeared—I assumed to go water the fern. I stuck my hands under the tap while he was gone, ignoring the sting as I tried to wash away the mess of dirt and blood. When I was done I turned around to find him right behind me. I jumped, ready to fend off an attack, but he was holding up a hand-towel in one hand and a first aid kit in the other. He frowned at my reaction.
“Thanks,” I muttered, trying to take the towel from him.
He pulled the towel out of reach. “Have a seat.” He motioned to a stool on the other side of the counter. “I’m not going to hurt you, Seraph.”
“It would be nice if I believed you,” I said, moving to the stool and holding my hands out.
“When have I ever given you a reason to not believe me?” He dried my hands with surprising care before rooting around in the first aid kit and extracting an antiseptic cream.
“How about when you took away Noah and Cabe’s memories of…” I quickly snapped my mouth shut. He knew too much already; he didn’t need me confirming any of it out loud.
“Of your bond?” He smiled, uncapping the cream and dabbing it onto my knuckles. “Is that what you were about to say?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Weston forced me to do that, though he didn’t realise what he was asking. You see, someone managed to plant the idea in his head that the Adairs and Quillans were forging some kind of a relationship with you just to keep you away from him, to punish him for what he had done to Silas. Silas was the one who eventually offered a solution to the Klovoda’s problem of how to bring you back into the fold, after all. He was the one to finally connect with you, to earn your trust. Miro was doing it as well, but he wasn’t reporting back to the Klovoda. He was just doing it because he wanted to. Weston assumed that it was all to spite him, personally. Because you were so important to him. If I had truly wanted to do you harm, I would have taken away Silas’s and Miro’s memories too.”
“Okay… you said you wiped Cabe’s and Noah’s memories because Weston forced you… couldn’t you just say no?”
“He forced me the same way he forced Silas to shoot you. Well… actually, not entirely the same way, since Weston’s ability doesn’t work on me. But when he tries to use it, I still have to do what he wants, otherwise he’ll find out that his ability doesn’t work on me.”
“Why doesn’t his ability work on you?”
“Do you know how the Zevghéri are sworn in? How they are bound to Weston?”
“A blood transfusion.”
“That’s right. Dominic has—had—us all taking S19. It’s a pill that kills the Voda magic inside of us. As long as Weston doesn’t give us anymore blood, we’re immune to his control.”
“Who’s us?”
“Us, Seraph. The four test subjects.” He wiped his hands on the towel and dug into his pocket, pulling out a tiny pill box and placing it on the counter, sliding it over to me. “Dominic was going to start you on it after he kidnapped you, but then you escaped. You can have these. You have to take it once a month for a year to kill the magic completely.”
I stared at the little pill box, not touching it. After a few moments of tense silence, Jayden started wrapping a bandage around my right hand.
“Were you going to take me to Dominic that night?” I asked, watching him carefully.
He finished bandaging both of my hands and then walked around to the other side of the counter, his arms crossed over his chest, a blankness rising to cover any emotion in his mismatched eyes.
“I wasn’t part of that plan, I was just keeping tabs on you. I found out later that Dominic was trying to get pictures of you in a compromising situation, probably hoping to blackmail you with them. Maybe he thought it would be a good way to force you to meet with the Klovoda. He drugged you with S20 and S18, two more of his alchemic creations. Particularly nasty when combined, if you’re already bonded to a pair. Then again, he didn’t realise that you were bonded. He assumed that you would hurt the men once they started assaulting you—he wanted to see how powerful you were, but he didn’t want you remembering anything—that’s where the S18 comes into play. It only takes half an hour to make a person comatose if the dosage is high enough. In the end, you gave him everything he could have wanted, and more. He didn’t even care that the pictures were destroyed, if they even got that far. You killed all seven of the men in the limousine and seemingly stitched yourself right back together after the explosion.”
“You’re lying,” I choked out, jumping off the stool and planting my bandaged hands on the table. “I’m not a killer.”
“But you are.” He didn’t speak in an accusatory way—instead he sounded almost as though he pitied me. “You’ve forgotten that the Klovoda—me specifically—had to clean up after your first murder, so that the humans didn’t start meddling. I know you didn’t mean to, I know that you were only trying to protect your bond-mates, just like you were only trying to protect yourself in that car… but you have to accept what happened, Seraph.” He pulled back a little bit, moving to lean against the refrigerator. He threaded his hand into his hair, the gesture nervous. “You need to accept the other thing, too. You need to accept responsibility. If you do, everything will fall into place. It will give you the strength to do what you have to… you know what you have to do, don’t you?”
It annoyed me that he was avoiding speaking in specifics—not because I didn’t understand him, but because I knew exactly what he was talking about. He was pandering to the indecipherable mess of thoughts and memories that I was trying to drown my fears in; drawing attention to that fact that I was trying not to think of things in certain terms, trying to escape any kind of absolute reality.
He was talking about the fact that I…
That I…
“I stole him, didn’t I.” My voice was tiny, afraid. It was the most pathetic that I had ever sounded. “I stole all of them.”
Jayden moved back to me, holding his hand out over the counter, reaching for me. “Would you like to know?”
I stared at his hand, wondering if I could say no, run outside, and continue to ignore the fears that fought my mind for acknowledgment. I wouldn’t be able to save Silas if I ran. I knew that Jayden was my way forward. I knew that as soon as I understood, as soon as I remembered, I would trade everything for Silas. I would betray them all to save him—because everything would become my fault.
Everything.
“Do it,” I said.
He touched his hand to my cheek, and the memories flooded back to me.
Gerald had
survived my lightening power, and despite how much I hated him, despite how much pain he had caused our family… my guilt-ridden heart was swamped with relief. I didn’t want to be the reason that his blood stopped pumping, because it was the same blood that ran in my own veins. He had given me life; he was my father; how could I be the one to take his life away from him?
We were hiding from each other now. Him, in his room; me, in the garage. I didn’t want to see him because I feared what I would do to him. I feared… God, I feared him so badly. It seemed only a matter of time before that fear overrode my guilt, and my relief at his continued existence died a horrible, ugly death. I don’t know why he hid from me. Perhaps he feared as well. Perhaps he was coming to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the only monster beneath our roof.
He drowned himself in more liquor, and I drowned myself in colour. I painted the boy, only now realising that I had painted him before, along with others. It was as though I had been searching for a tangible version of something I had always known, needed, and yearned for. The fanciful notion terrified me, because last night, he had been real.
We had spoken.
In my head.
His name was Silas, and he was just like me.
I was almost certain that he was imaginary, and maybe that was why I understood him so well—why he battled the same demons as me. He was a part of me; born from the horrible union of my fear and desperation, I was sure of it. He was there, whispering in my mind at the first hint of booted feet on the floorboards outside my door. He commiserated in tune with my silent pleas as I cried them out into the busy night. I hunted through my old sketchbooks—really, they were just pieces of scrap-paper bound together with twine, but they were more precious than anything store-bought. I flipped the pages, smoothing out the one that I had been searching for.
Silas.
He was young in this one, much younger than I had seen him last night, but I couldn’t see his face. I had drawn him as he walked away, trying to escape the brush of pencil to page. Trying to escape me. The longer I stared at the image, the more unsettling it became, and eventually I reached for another: one where I could see his face. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something off about him.
“Lela,” a voice called from the mouth of the garage.
It was familiar, tinged in an accent that somehow made the word sound fuller. He pronounced it Ley-la. I turned, trepidation making the hairs on my arms stand up straight. Every fiber of my being was suddenly drenched in anticipation. Once again, I felt that I had been waiting, and once again, I fuelled my fear enough to chase the notion away.
“Silas,” I replied, ignoring the other boy that stood beside him. Though ‘boy’ was probably a stretch—he seemed a few years older than Silas, who was around twenty.
Silas shook his head, apparently nonplussed. “You know who I am.”
“Of course,” I said, unable to muster the shock I should have felt at seeing him—the boy I had supposedly conjured in my mind—standing right in front of me. In the flesh.
He looked just the same as I had seen him last night.
I had been waiting…
“How?” he asked simply.
I tore my eyes from his long enough to take in the hint of bandages peeking out from beneath his sweatshirt. There was a paleness beneath the dark tan of his skin, and a tightness around his mouth. When I met his eyes again, I fell right through and settled somewhere deep in the darkness of his mind. He cringed, like he had felt it.
“I’ve known you my whole life,” I said, shaking my head quickly. The odd sensation disappeared, and he quickly switched his gaze to a spot over my shoulder.
I held out the sketchbook, and he looked at the picture, sucking in a breath. The other stranger stepped forward suddenly, his eyes fixed on the picture.
“That’s not Silas,” he said, apparently confused. “That’s Miro.”
I stumbled back a step and Silas grabbed his arm, shooting him a warning look.
“Why did you call me Lela?” I asked.
“That’s your name.” Silas looked confused. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” I shook my head, flipping my sketchbook closed and setting it back onto the workbench. “My name is Seraph.”
“Maryanne changed her name,” the stranger said. He sounded amused. “Did she think that would be enough to hide Lela from the Klovoda?”
I switched my attention to the speaker, confused because he had cited my dead mother’s name, but I had no idea what the hell the Klovoda was. He had mismatched eyes, like me—and the sight of them unfurled a heavy emotion from my gut, spreading it out until it wedged in my throat and stole my words. He was like me. I didn’t know how I knew. But I did. He was like me, like Silas.
He arched a brow at me, and I realised that I had been standing there with my mouth hanging open, staring at him. I quickly categorised the rest of his appearance: brown hair, dusted with darker strands; tall, but thin; an easy smile.
“Who are you?” I blurted.
“Jayden Crassus.” His smile stretched, lighting something playful in his eyes. “Nice to see you again, Wonderkid.”
“Again? Wonderkid?”
He ignored me, turning to Silas. “We need to do this now, before Weston figures out that I helped you sneak out. It’ll all be for nothing if he sends someone after you and discovers who she is.”
“Fine.” Silas was still watching me. “Just give us a minute.”
Jayden looked from him to me, and then chuckled. “Don’t do anything stupid now.”
Silas rolled his eyes and waited for Jayden to exit the garage and walk back out to the front of the house before he moved to stand in front of me.
“You look different to how I imagined,” he said.
I glanced down at myself, at the floppy sneakers and the paint-splattered clothes. My hair was tumbling out of its bun, and I could feel something sticky coating the side of my face. He touched a finger to my temple and pulled it away. It was green. I quickly rubbed at the paint with the back of my hand. He laughed. I stared at him, momentarily bewitched. Did all boys look so beautiful when they laughed?
“You made it worse,” he said, pulling the arm of his sweatshirt over his hand and using it to clean off my face.
“How did you expect me to look?” I asked, trying to distract myself from how suddenly close he was.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, taking a step back. “Tougher. Older. More experienced. You really don’t have any idea what you’ve done, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You aren’t supposed to have a pair… but somehow, your power sought me out. You latched onto me and tore my Atmá away.” He paused, rubbing a hand over his chest, and then a laugh bubbled forth. “Hell, it should have killed me. Should have killed her. And my brother. Instead, you took her place. It’s unbelievable… but I felt everything.”
I staggered a step back, feeling one of my easels dig into my spine.
He was insane.
“I don’t know how it will affect me.” Silas continued watching me, his face etched in stone. I could see the emotions trying to break out: fear, amusement, confusion, pain; but they never made it. They collided with his impassive features and slinked back into the recesses of his mind. “But I can protect you, at least. Just like I protected her all these years. Nobody found out about her—not even Miro. And now I just need to make sure nobody finds out about you.”
“You’re crazy,” I muttered, feeling around on the bench behind me for a weapon.
Had I created a Frankenstein’s monster? Was I hallucinating? Why wasn’t he making any sense?
“Yeah,” he agreed, as Jayden returned to the garage. “And I’m pretty sure I’m only going to get crazier.”
“You done?” Jayden asked, walking straight past Silas and coming towards me.
I grabbed at the first thing that my fingers touched, and held it out threateningly.
“What are you going
to do with that?” Jayden asked, knocking the paintbrush to the side. “Stop moving.”
I froze, the breath knocked out of me with the force of my shock. I couldn’t move my body even if I wanted to. I couldn’t even blink. My eyes began to water, and he fit a hand to the side of my face. Behind him, Silas made an angry sound—it vibrated in the back of his throat, and I was sure that I would have flinched if I had been able.
“Easy,” Jayden muttered. “You know I have to touch her to do this. I’m still getting the hang of it.”
Silas started pacing, his eyes fixed to the hand on my face as Jayden closed his eyes, pinching his eyebrows together in furrowed concentration.
“I need you to forget everything,” he whispered.
Jayden pulled away from me, looking exhausted. He slumped forward, notching his elbows against the counter between us to support his weight. His head hung low, causing his hair to flop forward and brush the counter.
“There you have it,” he said simply.
“Yeah,” I managed, feeling numb. “I wasn’t having an identity crisis or anything before, but I might give one a go now. Special Subject Lela, the nefarious pair-thief.”
He chuckled weakly, still facing the counter. “Of all the things you had to pick-up from Miro, you had to take the awkward stress-humour.”
I jumped up from the stool, shoving both of my hands into my hair and pulling. Jayden was there in a second, loosening my grip and forcing me to sit back down. I pushed him back and even though we both knew that he could control me, he let it go, allowing me to start pacing furiously while I intermittently pulled at my hair.
“I can’t flip out.” I spoke to myself, pacing with my eyes screwed shut in concentration. “I knew… ever since you gave me that memory back at the boathouse—or the Komnata, whatever I’m supposed to call it—I just knew. I had this feeling… like I had somehow forced a connection with Silas. He had fought against it, but I… I needed him. This doesn’t make any sense. It has something to do with me being a test subject—” I rounded on him, my eyes opening half-way. “You have to tell me what it means.”
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