“Try not to get stuck alone with me today.” His voice was as rough as his grip, belying the smile he had used to lure me over.
I was too unsettled to reply immediately, but soon managed to force a word out. “What?”
“I’m just warning you,” he cautioned, his fingers flexing, his voice low. “I need to give you time; I need time. I did horrible things to you, Seph. I can’t forget that so quickly and you shouldn’t either.”
He released me and I almost fell backwards, but managed to catch myself at the last second, my eyes wide on his face. I bundled my clothes tighter to my chest as I forced my shaking legs to carry me back into the bathroom. I had no reply for him.
I finally give into the bond and they all go mental.
I almost wished that I could backtrack to last night’s meeting and demand to have the ground rules reinstated… but at least there was one line that they weren’t planning on crossing. I quickly changed and escaped the room, avoiding looking at any of them as I retreated to the door down the hallway that marked Quillan’s old room. I knocked and waited until Tariq pulled the door open.
“Hey little brother,” I greeted, pushing into the sitting room and flopping onto one of the couches.
He glanced into the hallway behind me and then closed the door. “You’re hiding from them, aren’t you?” He was grinning.
“Hiding from who?” I asked, my voice carefully free of inflection.
He laughed and shook his head, but didn’t push the subject. Instead, he moved to the small bar fridge set into a leather-padded bench in the wall. He pulled out two bottles of orange juice and two bananas, tossing one to me.
“Where’d you get these?” I asked, already peeling the banana and starting to stuff it into my mouth.
“Arnold—the driver, he picked up some supplies for me. Figured we wouldn’t want to eat with Weston. Smart guy.”
I nodded, because my mouth was full of banana, and he slouched into one of the chairs, ripping off the cap of his orange juice and chugging half of it.
“So,” he arched his brows at me, “should I ask why you’re hiding from them?”
“Definitely not.”
“Point taken. How’s college life?”
“I’ve barely been to any classes. Noah’s ex-girlfriend decided to team up with the messenger, and he decided to decorate the courtyard with a tombstone yesterday. The tombstone had my name on it.”
“What, no explosions?” Tariq rolled his eyes. “The guy is losing his edge.”
I gave him a strained smile, appreciating that he was trying to empower me by making light of the messenger. Unfortunately, it didn’t really work.
“Do you want to talk about Gerald?” I asked him.
I had confided in him about Gerald’s second death, but he had yet to show a proper reaction. Even now, he just gave a stiff shrug.
“I can’t mourn him twice. It was painful enough the first time. It hurts, but not in the sense that I’ve lost something. It’s more a hurt over something that I never had in the first place. But…” he forced a smile onto his face, “I still have my family. I have you.”
I reached over the coffee table that separated us, patting his knee. “You’ll always have me,” I promised.
Someone knocked on the door then, and Tariq jumped up to answer it.
Cabe appeared on the other side, seeming larger-than-life beside my lanky brother. He notched his shoulder against the inside of the door jamb, raising his eyebrows at me for a moment, though there was humour dancing in the depths of his toffee eyes.
“Car’s about to leave,” he informed us.
“Alright, I’ll just grab my bag.” Tariq disappeared into the bedroom and I moved out into the hallway, trying to avoid Cabe’s attention.
“Morning, pretty ghost.” He tugged on a lock of my hair, his tone teasing.
“Lucifer.” I finally looked at him, but only to narrow my eyes at him.
He shook his head as Tariq reappeared, and we met the others at the elevator. My face flamed red as I also avoided looking at them. Quillan didn’t tease me the way Cabe had. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding acknowledging me every bit as much as I was avoiding acknowledging him. When we realised that there were too many people to all sit in the back of the limo, I quickly opted to take the front passenger seat, next to Arnold.
“How’s it going, Miss?” Arnold asked me, turning the classical music playing on his radio down a notch.
“I’m good, Arnold.” I smiled at the older man. “How are you? Thanks for taking Tariq shopping, by the way.”
“I’ll take that boy shopping over driving Lord Weston back and forth from Seattle any day. It’s me who should be thanking you.” Arnold’s wrinkled face pulled into a grin, and I found myself liking him immensely.
“In that case, you’re welcome.” I laughed.
I reached over and turned his music back up, and his smile widened, setting into his cheeks. I relaxed into the seat, my mind wandering to the people sitting behind the film of glass that separated us. I could feel them: concentrated forms of energy all tethered to me. Cabe had a certain light to his essence, and I could almost reach out and feel the heat of his proximity. Noah felt different… he was more of pull, something that tugged at me every now and then, never allowing me to forget that he was there; never allowing my attention to stray from him for long. I even had a keener sense for Quillan since the second bonding: he was a force that hovered over me, a sort of darkness that chained me to where I stood, wrapping me in shadowy velvet. I wished Silas were in the back so that I could examine him, too.
When we pulled up to the campus, I thanked Arnold and said goodbye to Tariq before joining everyone in a huddle to watch the car drive away. The silent giants were as alert as ever; Andrei nodded in greeting but Hans didn’t pause in his scanning of the surrounds.
“You’re with me now,” Quillan said, checking his watch. “Might as well walk together.”
I shuffled to his side and Cabe patted my shoulder before moving off. “Be nice, Professor!” he called back to Quillan.
Noah punched him in the arm and shot a glance back to me before dragging his brother away. He looked as wary as I felt. Quillan ignored them both as I fell into step beside him, keeping quiet until we were inside the lecture hall. Quillan had paused inside the doorway, turning to look at the silent giants. Andrei grunted and backed out, allowing Quillan to shut the door on them. He made his way down the aisle to the bottom of the hall before pushing into the paper room, which had undergone another transformation. It now held a canvas propped up on an easel in the middle of the room, and a selection of paints scattered on a table beside it, along with a collection of brushes, and several clean rags.
I moved wordlessly to the canvas, sitting on the stool and running my fingers over the rough white surface.
“Are you angry at me?” I asked eventually.
“I’m angry at myself.” He exhaled, stretching his hands out by his sides as though he were nervous, before curling his fingers into loose fists. “It was much easier to stay away from you when you were resisting the bond. Now… it’s bordering on impossible, but I seem to be the only one trying to maintain any distance.”
I nodded at my lap, suddenly feeling the burn in my ears that hinted at my blush. “Do you want me to maintain distance? With all of them?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know. I don’t think that they’re the problem.”
“Then who’s the problem?” I asked, looking up from my lap.
“Not who. What. It was that kiss.” He walked to where I was perched, his eyes heavy on my face. “I kissed you. I surprised myself… and you surprised me.”
“You…” I frowned, trying to figure out what he was saying. “You didn’t think I would like it?”
His eyes widened a little bit, and I understood. He hadn’t expected me to like it. I frowned back down at my lap. A week ago, I would have been drowning in too many emotions to properly comprehend, but now… my
head was clear. I had liked it; it was as simple as that. Quillan was undeniably precious to me. I craved his influence hovering over me, and his disapproval was always like a raw wound against my soul. He was a steady presence in my heart and mind, and I had begun to rely on his touch every bit as much as the others.
“Should I not have liked it?” I re-phrased my question.
He caught my chin, lifting my face to his. He was shaking his head.
“No.” His tone was gentle. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t even realise what I was doing until it was over. I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it. But I’m not angry at you, Seph. Not at all.”
He stepped back, motioning the canvas, and I suspected that I wasn’t going to extract anything further from him, so I reached for one of the brushes and tried to clear my mind of worry. Almost as soon as my fingers closed around the brush, my mind repelled it from me, and I stumbled away from the canvas. Quillan frowned at me. I frowned back at him.
“Paper,” I said.
He nodded, moving to the desk in the other room and returning with a notebook and a pencil. I took both from him silently, folding myself onto the ground. He hovered behind me, his eyes on the page as I began to draw. My pencil skirted along the outline of a desk, carving the lines of age into the wood and smudging darkness over most of the image but for a bare spill of sunlight that glared off a figure slumped into a chair. He had an inky spill of dark hair falling over his eyes and he clutched at a pen, digging it into a sheet of paper. I felt the scratch of words beneath his pen, and I shaded in the lines of script as a voice echoed inside my head.
“Baby, baby, if he hears you,
As he gallops past the house,
Limb from limb he’ll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.
And he’ll beat you, beat you, beat you,
And he’ll beat you into pap,
And he’ll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap, snap.”
The voice was familiar, and it tugged at something in my memory that pulled-up short, as I seemed to be trying to tie two people that I was acquainted with into one. It was the voice of someone I knew, mixed with the ghostly echo that I had heard so many times whispering over my face as the messenger conducted some kind of evil.
My pencil moved to the arm of the figure as I forced the thoughts from my head, allowing the vision to pull me in. I shaded the tattoos down his arm, recognising each of the designs, and then sketched a brief impression of his face before drawing back, my breath shuddering inside my chest until I feared that the rattle of it had become audible to Quillan.
With the sudden knowledge of who the messenger was, the parts of my memory that Jayden had blocked from me suddenly crashed back into my head, forcing me to double-over and clutch at my skull.
“It’s getting worse, Lela,” he cried. “You have to save me.”
I caught his hand in mine, squeezing as he collapsed on the ground in front of me. Jayden would be coming to take my memories of the medical centre before my new mother came to pick me up, and my twin was terrified, because we would be separated for the first time in our lives, and we didn’t know when I would be brought back. Nobody would be there to protect him from the power that called to him every night. Nobody would be there to hold him as the regret crawled into his chest and made him cry for hours and hours over whatever new horror he had committed.
“I don’t know what to do,” I told him, crouching down beside him and desperately swallowing back my tears. “Tell me what to do… do you want me to read you some more stories? They always calm you down. What about the nursery rhymes? Danny? What do I do?”
“Make it end,” he pleaded, his grey eyes large on mine. “Use the valcrick. It’s the only way I can die. My power doesn’t work on me, only other people.”
I pulled away from him, horror blooming inside my chest. “No.” I shook my head until it hurt, backing all the way to the door. “No… I can’t. I’m going to tell Jayden. He can help you.”
“NO!” He stumbled to his feet, grabbing at my clothing and flinging me away from the door.
He was stronger than he realised, but I saw the regret that flashed over his face as soon as I picked myself up off the floor.
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to track down his cheeks again, and he was shaking. He crumpled to the ground, turning his hands flat against his chest. “Die,” he cried desperately. “Die. Die. Die. Die.”
It was the first time I had seen him trying to kill himself with his own power, but it obviously wasn’t the first time that he had tried. I stumbled backwards, wishing that he wasn’t in front of the door so that I could run for Jayden. Jayden would know what to do.
“Please…” I fell to the ground helplessly, knowing that I couldn’t get too close. “Please, Danny, stop… I’ll read you the stories, the rhymes, it’ll help like it always does. Just stop and I’ll get the book, okay? Danny!”
“DIE!” he screamed, pressing his hands harder, shuddering with the effort to hold them there, his knuckles beginning to turn white.
The door swung open and one of the nurses rushed in, immediately moving to grab a hold of Danny, as though he were about to attack me. I shouted out a warning to her, but it was too late. As soon as she grabbed him, he turned and shoved one of his hands against her arm, and the limb slackened, falling limply to her side as though it had simply been switched off. She screamed and another nurse appeared in the doorway. Danny scrambled to his feet, the angry tears still tracking his face as he shoved his hands against the legs of the two women, causing them to crumble to the ground.
“DANNY!” I screamed in tandem with them, my throat tearing with my urgency. “STOP!”
“Why won’t you help me?” he shrieked back at me, crawling up onto the first nurse’s torso and pressing his hands down against her chest.
“Please,” I sobbed, trying to pull the leg of the second nurse to get her out of the way.
Danny launched himself from the first nurse, who now lay unmoving, and advanced toward me, the fury trembling in his limbs.
“You’re supposed to be mine to look after,” he spat the words with venom. “Everyone tells me. They say my special power is protecting you. But who’s protecting me?”
He stopped, realising that he had backed me into a corner, and he simply stared down at me, thoughts ticking away behind his eyes as the doorway flocked with more people and an alarm was sounded, a red light flashing on to signal a warning in the hallway.
“Help me, Lela,” Danny pleaded, his hands outstretched as he inched toward me. “Kill me or I’ll kill them all.”
One of the Klovoda agents that I recognised made a move to grab him, but he placed his hands against the man’s legs, collapsing him before he crawled on top of him and pressed against his heart. I shouted at the others to leave, but they could only stand in the doorway and stare with terror-filled eyes, wondering how they had never known about the little boy with the horrible power.
“Leave,” I begged them all, curling into a ball as Danny began to move toward me again, pleading words of his own. “Please leave.” I continued to sob, and another one of the nurses made a grab for Danny a second before he would have reached me.
He screamed, slapping a hand against her face. Her eyes rolled backwards, and she collapsed immediately, twitching on the floor for a second before becoming still. Eva skidded into the room, her green eyes flashing in alarm, her red hair spilling around her face. She assessed the situation in a split second, and then she was summoning a wall of water to separate Danny from the remaining people that surrounded her. He knew better than to walk through the water—it was rotating so quickly that it would tear his skin off if he tried to pass through it. Unfortunately, Eva hadn’t noticed me curled up into a corner of the room, and when Danny started running toward me again, her eyes went wide with alarm. The water was released, flooding into the room and dren
ching Danny as I scrambled away from him, still pleading my useless words.
“This isn’t you,” I told him. “You’re just afraid. It’s the power. You know what it does to you. You’ll regret this tomorrow. You’ll cry and tell me you’re sorry. Danny… please…”
He swung around at the last second and caught Eva on the face as she tried to creep up behind him.
“Sleep,” he told her, and she crumpled to the ground. He looked at her, and then at the waterlogged room. He shook his head and held up his hands. I wondered why he hadn’t killed her as he had the others.
“Okay,” he said to the other people, his voice oddly calm. “Okay, I did a bad thing. I won’t do any more, I promise.” He walked toward the door and they jumped out of his way, not wanting to brush up against him. He moved into the hallway and then stiffened. “Wait, I forgot…” he said, turning back.
The people who had jumped out of the way before now did the same again, except they retreated into the room to get away from him. It looked familiar to me, and I remembered seeing a similar thing on television, of a clever dog herding frightened sheep. The clever dog had herded them right to the edge of a cliff, and the sheep had all jumped off, only to fall to their death on the rocks below. Danny closed the door as he re-entered the room, and the remaining upright bodies all crowded around me in the corner, realising that they had been tricked.
I couldn’t do anything to stop him, and with the water dripping from the walls and slicking over the floor, I couldn’t even use my valcrick to disable him without electrocuting everyone in the room.
He was too far gone; too lost to the dark power that called for death inside his veins.
“Danny.” I called over the noise of the others, all now pleading the same things as I had been pleading before. “Danny… I’ll do what you want. I’ll help you.”
“I know you will,” he replied, touching the legs of the people that tried to run past him, not even blinking an eye as they fell to the wet ground around him. He brushed their fallen faces, their chests, the backs of their heads, and they twitched and writhed before falling still. Eventually, it was only me and him, and I knew that he would force me to kill him, or he would kill me, because that was all that was left inside him.
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