Darkly Sweet

by Juliann Whicker

  I held my breath and stared at his face, stepping forward, close to cup his face in my hands, smooth up his jaw and cheeks but everywhere I touched left a trial of red. I stared into his eyes, dark in the shadows that gazed at me unblinking, unafraid, a challenge in them to own what I’d done, what I wanted, to own him.

  I shook my head and stumbled away. My shoulders were bare, one of my straps snapped without me noticing. My cloak spilled across the ground, an oil spill shot through with light. I was that cloak, all black except for the tiny flickers of light I tried to capture, but I’d failed. I’d tried so hard to be someone Zach could really like, fun, happy, cute, but I couldn’t keep that up forever, not when I wasn’t that person. I didn’t want to be a person, I wanted to be busy with work that never ended and kept me focused away from the pain, the fear.

  I pulled the cloak around my shoulders, settling it in place before I looked at Drake one last time.

  He stared at me, willing me with his eyes to touch him, to hold him, to love him as though I had love inside of my broken heart to give.

  “Penny…”

  Chapter 36

  When I got to Lilac Stories, I stopped short when I heard the voices of Zach and Viney arguing.

  Viney’s voice was shrill. “He talked to Jackson. He knows who broke into Penny’s room. He was going to confront you with it. If he hadn’t gone to your room before going to the ball, I wouldn’t have gotten there in time and you…”

  “Do you think I’m afraid of Drake?” Zach’s low growl made my stomach lurch. He sounded like a wolf.

  I leaned against the wall outside of the Lilac Commons while my heart pounded.

  Viney hissed. “You should be. He wants her.”

  Zach barked a short laugh. “I know. I can’t blame him, but if you think I’m going to stand by and let my friend throw his life away on a witch who knows how to be precisely the poison he craves... He actually likes it, the tea parties, the community service,

  somehow she figured out exactly what he couldn’t resist and then put on that whole act, not wanting him so that he’d find her even more irresistible.”

  “You’re full of it! I saw you dancing with her. That wasn’t you helping out a friend, it was you stealing your friend’s girl. You were going to kiss her.”

  “Yes, and then I was going to take her and…”

  I walked in the room because I didn’t want to listen anymore. They turned quickly to stare at me while I ran my fingers over the edges of the cloak.

  Viney glared at me before whirling away, heading towards her room.

  Zach’s jaw tightened while he stared at me, his eyes alight with wild energy as he studied me. “Penny. I thought you’d be with Drake longer.”

  I tried to beam brightly, but my face was numb. “Did you?”

  His eyes narrowed as he took a step towards me. “Did you hear that?”

  “All I hear is the drone of disaffected arrogance.” I walked towards him, well, towards my door which was behind him, but when I veered to walk past him, he side-stepped, blocking me.

  I stared at his chest, the beautiful jacket mocking me.

  “You heard that I’m the one who trashed your room?”

  I flinched before I shook my head. “No. I’ve already heard too much today. My ears are full. I will have to hear that tomorrow.”

  “You hacked into my limo, my room. That would have been enough, but the way you seduced Drake…”

  I looked up at his face, shock breaking through. “You’re mental. Seriously deranged.

  Move, Zach, I’m going to bed now.”

  He grabbed my shoulders, his fingers biting into my skin, but not painfully, just firm.

  “No. Since I’m deranged, you understand that I’m not letting you go until you explain how you knew how to seduce Drake, using me and Viney in your whole plan.”

  I blinked at him. “Well it started when I was eight. I saw my first telenovela and realized that my life’s mission was seducing arrogant rich jerks who had nothing better to do than run around hurting people and playing polo, while hurting people. When I saw Drake’s photo on the Rosewood page I thought to myself, ‘that looks like the kind of guy that Marionetta would try to seduce,’ so naturally, I packed all the clothing that he would like, you know, because I thought a complete and absolute ass like Drake Huntsman would be helplessly drawn to someone sweet and fun, cute and kind.

  Because that makes sense. And then I got a room here, with you and Viney, not because I also saw you on that Rosewood page and thought that you looked nice and kind of fun, but because you were old friends with Drake, which I knew because you don’t have

  any pictures together, and the only interaction I saw was of him kicking the crap out of you after he tried to hang you. So, obviously me being roommates with Drake’s friend Zach would totally make him fall in love with me, but to make sure, I had to draw it out.

  Separate booths at the restaurant? My diabolical way of giving him a sample of Szechuan bliss without getting the whole fortune cookie.” I stared at him and shook my head. “You are a complete imbecile. I thought you had sort of a brain floating beneath that hard head, but turns out, not even a flicker of intelligence.”

  His eyes flared bright blue and he gripped my shoulders harder while he turned me, pushing me against my door, knocking my head back against the wood. I stared at him, waiting for more violence, but he only stared back.

  “You expect me to think that you’re actually this sweet little bonbon? That you really care about children and animals?”

  I swallowed hard and struggled not to cry. I’d worked so freaking hard to make him like me. All this time wasted, all this effort… I’d actually thought he was my friend, maybe a little bit more, maybe enough that I wouldn’t be miserable with him.

  “I guess I did. But I’m kind of stupid too. I thought you were actually a nice guy.

  Instead you’re just a jerk who knows how to pretend to be something else. I used to wear black clothes, though. You nailed that part. I also didn’t smile, but I didn’t really have anyone to smile at, so maybe that was part of it.”

  He pushed me against the door again, his face close to mine, as close as it had been when I’d thought he was going to kiss me, but he looked like he was about to bite my face. “Are you going to stand here and let me push you around?”

  I frowned at him. “You want me to fight you? En garde.”

  He brushed my cheek with his lips. “Penny, I’m going to hold you like this, touch you until you finally break, finally curse me.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the door. “Psychotic. You want me to curse you? All right. Bon-bons and ho-hos, I turn you into a toad, oops, you’re already a slimy newt. I’ll have to work on it.”

  He gripped my shoulders, digging his fingers into my skin until it really did hurt. “I’m going to hurt you.”

  “So, hurt me. I can’t cast a spell on you because I don’t have magic. If I had magic, I wouldn’t have picked a roommate who I thought was as picked on and hated as I was certain I’d be at this pisshole school. Make me feel like my eyeballs are going to explode, fill me with your mage fire until my skin threatens to melt off my bones. Drown me in your pain until my brain shuts down. It doesn’t matter anymore. That kind of pain doesn’t bother me. Have fun with it. Enjoy yourself.”

  His blue eyes burned brighter. “If you don’t mind me hurting you, then you won’t mind if I check you, see for myself.”

  “Wait! No, please don’t…”

  But he’d already started the spell, muttering syllables that made my skin prickle and then the horrible sensation of having my insides sucked out of me and my whole body filled up with radioactive melted marshmallows, sticky, cloying, sickening while he searched me for the magic that I’d never had.

  I went limp until only his grasp on my shoulders held me upright, my head bobbing forward until it hit his shoulder, the perfect suit coat beneath my cheek the integral reverse
of my own wrecked insides.

  He pushed away from me, holding me up against the door while my own legs seemed to belong to someone else. The pink shoes beneath the black skirt didn’t match.

  I stared at those shoes, then the hallucination of toes that flickered into my vision, toes covered in blood with a field past them. I blinked slowly and the floor beneath my shoes came into focus, a swirling purple carpet that was about to be thrown up on.

  Yep.

  I closed my eyes tight, tears leaking out the corners anyway. From puke getting in my hair. I wasn’t crying because after everything I’d done, all the effort I’d put into being

  a lovely nice girl any boy would love, I was being tortured by some imbecile who thought I was trying to seduce Drake. Drake who I’d left tied to a tree in the woods with my name carved in his chest.

  Black flickered in my vision as darkness stirred in my heart. Impotent fury? Just because I didn’t have magic didn’t mean that I couldn’t hurt him. I raised my head until I could see Zach’s face.

  He looked like someone else had just chopped off his leg and stolen it, leaving him to hop after it pathetically. No, like someone who just heard that their favorite barbecue machine was used to capture a skunk. No, like he’d just realized what a complete and total asinine imbecile he truly was. That was always a shock.

  “You’re going to have to clean up the puke. It’s in my hair.” My voice came out low, terse as my throat tightened and my stomach hardened.

  He mumbled a word and immediately the pile of vomit on both of our shoes decomposed along with the bits in my hair, until it was nothing but black compost. That was incredibly useful. Most magic I’d seen was from Poppy when she showed me how weak and disgusting, pathetic and worthless I was without the power she held over me.

  She liked to torment me until I broke. It took a lot to break me, much more than potatoes in my hair or groups of catty girls publicly humiliating me. I’d spent my entire life learning how to control the demons, the darkness. They never helped, only hurt. I

  stared at Zach and when I looked at him, I still saw my friend, the idiot who was in love with a poster, the loser who brought me soup and played easy video games with me, the guy who liked all the flavors of my lollipops.

  I didn’t want to hurt him. I straightened my legs and stared at him, chin lifted. “Is that all you’ve got? I can do this all day.”

  He stepped away from me, clenching his fists until they were white. “You have no magic? How is that possible?”

  I was against my door. I turned around, moving so very slowly as I hit in the code and pressed my palm against the reader.

  “Penny, I…”

  “Don’t care.” I stepped into my room and slammed the door behind me, locking the device in every possible way, including pushing the big red button in the middle that armed it with magic spells that would be impossible to undo. Magic in machinery was as close as I got to magic, well that and hurters.

  I leaned against the inside door while I tried to breathe, to figure out a new strategy, a new plan, but I couldn’t untangle my thoughts. I walked over to the mirror and stared at my reflection.

  My face was red, chapped from rubbing against Drake’s skin, my lipstick long gone and my eyes bloodshot while my shoulders were red from Zach’s fingerprints. A glance down at my hands showed red, which should be red because I’d slashed Drake to pieces, and he’d still looked at me like he wanted me no matter what I did to him. I spun away from the mirror and went in the bathroom, ran a bath and sat on the edge, sliding black silk through my fingers while I tried not to think of Zach or Drake.

  I slid the single strap off my shoulder and the dress spooled to the ground like an oil slick. So beautiful. I washed my face, scrubbing until my skin was raw all over instead of just around my mouth, then worked on my hands and nails until I didn’t have a speck of Drake’s skin beneath them.

  I sank under the water and stayed there, holding my breath until I had an image come into my head of Drake standing there, bleeding, blood filling the air while wolves gathered around, wolves from the woods and him helpless.

  I burst from the water and clambered out of the tub. I squeezed water out of my hair as quickly as I could before I wrapped a pink and white polka dot towel around my body. I left wet footprints across the floor while I hurried to my bag where I’d left it on my bed.

  I climbed up and sat cross-legged, phone in my hand. I checked my contacts and there was Poppy’s number. I enlarged her picture for a minute, staring into that wide

  smile. She was a lot like Zach, my friend who couldn’t help hurting me. It was his nature like it had been hers. My nature? Did I have one? I was a nothing, a mess of nothings.

  Still, I couldn’t leave Drake defenseless. If he hadn’t gotten out of my rope, I would have to tell Viney to go rescue him.

  I pushed the button with his name and stared at the empty box waiting for a text message. ‘Hey Drake, just wondered if wolves have ripped out your liver yet,’ or ‘had so much fun tonight, did you happen to see a cloak cord, I seem to have misplaced it,’ or

  ‘Surprise! I’m psycho!’

  I shook my head and put a question mark in the box. I hesitated and then sent it. I sat there, rivulets of water running down my shoulders and onto the bed, the rose quilt Drake had gotten for me. I traced the swirls of vines while I waited.

  My phone beeped and I stared at his message.

  ?

  He’d responded with a question mark? What was that supposed to mean? It meant that his hands were free so he could text. That’s what it meant. That’s all I cared about. I was done pretending to be nice, pretending to like anything about him or any other person in this world.

  Done being Penny Macaroon Lane.

  Chapter 37

  Drake

  I stood tied to the tree for a long time.

  “She’s not coming back, Drake. You should probably untie your arms before you’re permanently numb.” My voice trembled. And I was talking to myself. “She might come back.”

  I shook my head because I could still see her face, the shock when she realized exactly what she’d done. Probably it was good that she didn't want to be the sort of witch who took whatever she wanted, but why resist when I wanted it even more than she did?

  I shivered as a ghost touch of her fingers brushed over my skin. I had to capture those touches, memorialize them and I couldn’t do that tied to a tree. I twisted my wrists and ran my fingers over the complicated pattern of knots that I wasn’t familiar with.

  Darkside knots. I could have broken the cord, dissolved it, but she’d made the effort to tie the knots. I should at least put in as much effort in escaping them.

  It took me fifteen minutes before I could untangle the knots. Me and my genius fingers. Genius numb fingers. By the time I felt the cord give, I’d come to a conclusion about something. The next time Penny Lane tied me to a tree, I would step into Darkside then back into Dayside, so I could retrieve the cord with knots intact. Such resolve and decisiveness.

  I stood in that clearing while I wrapped the cord around my wrist. I wanted to stay in the woods, to close my eyes and feel the breeze whisper across the gashes in my chest and pretend it was her, but there were things to do. If I didn’t put something on those gashes, they would heal without a scar.

  With a sigh, I stepped into Darkside then back into Dayside, in my room. I walked towards the bed, pressed my palm on the compartment above it and then took out the red top hat when the door opened. I dumped the contents of the hat on the bed and added the cord to them.

  A lollipop stick, a hot-pink hairband, a handful of receipts from the Chinese Restaurant, and a folded bag with a weasel applique. I ran my hand above the objects, sending green sparks from my palm. Images formed in sparks, her face with the teasing

  smile that lit her eyes, thoughtful, afraid, emotions so close to the surface she could barely restrain them.

  She kept the witch deeply buried. I’d unearth
ed it tenaciously. I’d been pushing her from the first time I saw her, wanting to know more, to see beneath the rich and decadent frosting. Tonight, I’d finally tasted her anger, her possession, her darkness and it was delicious, but no more than her sweetness. I wanted more. I wanted everything.

  I smiled when my phone beeped and I saw her name, the image of her in profile, curls swirling around her face.

  ?

  What next?

  I responded.

  ?

  I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.

  Thanks so much for reading! If you’d like to check out the sequel, be sure to leave a review on AMAZON. Also, if you want to subscribe to my newsletter, which might have some cool stuff, go HERE. Also, my weird FB group HERE.