I slammed on the breaks, and just in time. Any further and I'd have missed the turn off for home. I pulled into the driveway and made sure everything was locked before heading inside. As I cracked open the door, the sound of the local TV news station played out of the kitchen. As I got closer, a not-so-pleasant fishy smell hit me in the face.
"Jayson? You in the kitchen?" I dumped my messenger bag at the foot of the stairs and started my way down the hall.
"Who else cooks lobster ravioli and lives in this house?" I heard him shout back over the news broadcast talking about the recent power surges in Portland. "You want some?"
"Very funny, but pass," I said. Opening the door to the kitchen, I made a face of disgust. Jayson was standing in front of the stove, gently prodding at the stuffed ravioli cooking on the stove. He wore a laced apron that said 'Ready To Catch Some Tail' on it in pink cursive font.
I nearly lost it as soon as I laid eyes on him. "Did you lose a bet?"
Jayson place a hand to his chest and took a step back, a look of mock wounding on his face. "I'm offended! This was given to me by Sylvia."
Ah, his new pretty little girlfriend was already breaking him in. I had only met her a handful of times since they started dating two weeks ago, and she seemed nice enough. Part of me wondered if Jayson was trying to get the two of us girls to bond, in some hidden hope that I'd tell her what was eating me alive.
I wiggled my eyebrows mischievously. "And suddenly, I approve of it so much more."
"Essallie Miranda Lillian Hanley," Jayson said with actual shock this time. "Are you making a dirty joke about my apron?" He tugged at the girly print, pointing to a lobster tail I had conveniently missed before. "You do know where it says 'tail' it means lobster tail, right? Not having-"
"Ah, no! Don't you finish that sentence!" I half-screamed.
He placed a hand on his forehead and stuck his head up to the sky dramatically. "My own sister, a vulgar-minded teenager. I'll never look at you the same way again!" He paused and gave his ravioli a quick stir around the pan. "When you told me that joke about the bakery and buttered muffin the other day-"
"I'm not answering that."
He stared at me in horror, one hand slowly rising to cover his mouth. "I thought you meant an actual bakery and muffin!" He groaned. "No wonder the woman at the bakery thought I was gross when I told her the joke!"
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes and laughed hysterically. Sometimes I wondered if my brother was like any normal boy on the planet. He could cook, clean, had a girlfriend, didn't live for sports or politics; he was sort of like those dream come true boys you read about in chic-lit paperbacks at the checkout line in the grocery store. I was lucky to have him.
"Jayson, don't ever change." I said amidst the laughter. When I eventually caught my breath, I noticed he was staring at me with a weird look on his face.
"What, was it something I said?" I asked.
He shook his head, the weird face still going on. "Now that's the Essallie I've missed lately." I realized his weird face was his attempt at a kindred gaze. His smile touched his eyes, lighting up his whole face as he continued to beam. "I wish you'd tell me who put a damper on that fire of yours. I'd love nothing more than to see them burn."
Yeah, me too. Shame the list was far too long and impossible to achieve. I couldn't see Jayson holding his own against two demons, a super-ninja, a succubus, and my own blood.
Thumbing the edge of the table, I mumbled. "I didn't go anywhere. I just took a backseat to moody and ungrateful Essallie."
"Well, what ever Essallie you are, you're still my sister, understand? You can tell me anything, even if you think you can't."
"Thanks Jayson. I'm going to head upstairs and study. You, uh, might want to check on that before it burns some more."
As Jayson turned back to the stove, I made my exit. I dragged my messenger bag up the stairs and into my room, tossing it onto my bed with a thud.
Standing in the middle of my room, I thought back to Abigail's words earlier today. I wanted to call her so bad, say I'm sorry, but part of my was holding back. I was so fed up with all the secrets, the hiding, and the lies. It just wasn't right to go along with it.
"Less moody than before?" The shadows in a corner of my room shifted. Kayden materialized into my room, looking a little worse for wear. His normally tanned skin had paled, and a dark scruff covered most of his jaw line. Small purplish bruises bagged under his eyes, while his cheekbones stuck out further than I could ever recall seeing them. In a few hours he looked like he had aged at least thirty years.
"I'll be less moody if you stop lying to me," I replied coolly. I gave him a quick once-over with minimal interest. "You look like hell."
"When you're made of fire and brimstone-"
"Yeah, whatever. Unless you're here to say you're sorry, you can go. I've had enough crap to deal with today. First school, Ursula giving me death stares at all times, you being you, Abigail being some crazy ass ninja, it goes on. It's just too much."
"She's not some crazy ass ninja, she's a Satrix. She was only doing what she's been trained to do from birth."
"I don't care if she's a stripper working the corner of Suh-treex or-"
"Satrix, Essallie, and it's not a corner, it's a nickname. Be thankful you weren't around when it was customary to call them by their full name. Saying Fidei Defensatrix every time you had to reference to them got real old, fast."
"Ugh, whatever. Can we not talk about Abby?" I sat down on the middle of my bed with my arms on my knees, hands splayed palms up toward the ceiling. My eyes lingered on Kayden's hands, and I instinctively wished he'd take my hands into his and tell me everything would be okay. That the rampant chaos running my reality was all a terrible, horrible nightmare.
His voice brought me back from my wishful thinking. I watched as he ran a hand through his hair repeatedly. "She was just trying to help. It's in her blood." He came over to sit next to me, careful that we didn't touch in case we set the bed on fire. "Would you preferred being undefended?"
"I wasn't undefended. You were there," I pointed out.
"Yes, I was. But I was nowhere near you, Essie. If Abigail hadn't been there, you'd be dead. Would you rather she let you die?"
Yes, yes I would. My death could have been the end of all of this. A war everyone believes is coming now, all because of me. The countless deaths that could and would occur. Kayden had said Leo was just the beginning. Who else would I lose that meant everything to me?
I changed subject. "The Queen came to see me today."
Shoulders bunched, his body tensed at the mention of her. When he looked at me, I noticed his eyes had returned to the color of coal. I could barely make the words through his tightened jaw. "What did she want?"
"To warn me of people who may hurt me," I said carefully. His body tensed tighter, wound like a metal coil prepared to spring at the slightest snap. Cords of black smoke rose from his skin, as if he were barbecuing alive on my bed. I did my best to keep my lips pressed tight as I watched him. The Queen's words repeated in my head with a growing force.
You don't seem to be easily manipulated. Then again, I didn't kiss you like he had.
"You don't like her." The words slipped from off my tongue faster than I could catch them.
Kayden's eyes locked onto mine. His shoulders slowly deflated, tendrils of smoke dissipating into thin air. When he spoke, his voice sounded calm, but I could still hear the pressure it took him to keep his tone in check.
"Lucretia," he began with a barely contained sneer, "is like the Queen piece on a chess board. She has every move available in her arsenal, and any piece could be hers."
In that moment I wished I could see into his mind and understand the tumbling of emotions lying under his mask. Someone with such a level of dislike for a person had to have a reason for it.
I couldn't help it; I wanted to know more about why he disliked her so deeply. "She mentioned you. I was told that you were distrustfu
l." The words carefully left my tongue. "Dangerous, even."
"Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me."
I leaned in closer to get a better look at him, but he only shifted further from me. This was the game of cat and mouse we'd been tentatively playing since that night. Ever since the kiss he'd been aloof, distant. It was almost as if he'd reverted back to the Kayden I'd met in New York, not the Kayden who'd helped me understand what I was. Not the Kayden who'd encouraged me, pushed me to better myself, to prepare for the inevitable I still wasn't ready to accept.
An impulsive thought rooted in my brain. "Kiss me, Kayden."
He looked like I had asked him to lick the bottom of a salt barrel. "Are you that desperate?"
I was taken aback as his look brought on a sharp sensation of pain in my chest. "Of course not," I whispered quietly. I kept my eyes on my fists, watching them clench over, the skin over the knuckles parchment white. "Do you have a problem kissing me?"
"There's no need." He brushed me off so easily, and practically with a dash of humor. "Unless you've been poisoned by your new friend in the Queen. I see she's done a number on your mind, has she done it to your body too?"
I let my shoulders drop. Of course he wouldn't kiss me, there wasn't someone like Leo between us. Not with him six feet under in a cemetery in Charon. I swallowed down the bitter taste in my throat, rolling my shoulders to shake off my embarrassment. Of course Kayden had only kissed me to his own benefit; how could I have thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, something made him care inside his black-smoke of a soul?
The wounded beat of my heart told me I had been played a Fiddler's Fool.
"I should have known better." I stood up and crossed the room, counting the small steps until I came to a stop in front of the open window. Outside, silhouettes of trees shrouded my view of the moon. Small beams of milky light broke through the barrier the trees had created. "She told me, you know. And here I thought she was bluffing just to get a rise."
"What did she tell you?" The creak of floorboards under his weight told me he was standing, probably waiting for me to turn around and face him.
"That I was a fool for thinking you had a heart." I used my hands to lean against the window frame. Cool air tickled my face. I thought out my next words carefully, selecting them in hopes he'd make the crushing pressure in my chest vanish like the smoke that made up his body. "Tell me she's wrong, Kayden. Tell me that you would never stoop so low as to manipulate me so I wouldn't see the connection forming with Leo right in front of me."
Silence. It seemed to stretch on forever, and with it, my heart sank lower into the pit of my twisted stomach.
"I had to do what was right for me," he said, starting low. "I never meant for you to take our physical contact as... something more."
I spun around to face him, livid. Hot tears stung as they ran down the sides of my face. In one breath, everything had been ruined. The memory of that night would forever haunt me, remind me I fell for the trap of a demon. "How was I supposed to take it? Like it's normal to kiss you on a random basis? Like its normal to feel what happened between us?"
"Please," he sneered, laughing at me. "Did you really think those feelings were real? I merely did the same thing Ursula does with any human. I made you feel, and I don't regret it. I don't regret one second of manipulating you."
I pressed against the wall, leaning my head up in a last ditch effort to stop crying. Inside, it felt like I was dying all over again. "Did you know Leo was going to die, or was that a lucky gift that conveniently appeared in your deck of cards?"
"A lucky hand, if you will." He started to come closer to me, then thought better of it. Not an ounce of shame crossed his face, any form of guilt or humility nonexistent. "Trust me when I say this; you're better off not coming into your powers. You're better off not knowing that kind of battle for the rest of your life."
"Who are you to dictate my life?" I fought to control myself from screaming. Digging my nails into the skin of my palms, I rode the waves of pain so I didn't act on anger and set Kayden on fire. Above us, the bedroom light flickered. "I'm supposed to trust you now. What was your plan if he hadn't died? That you'd pretend to fall in love with me? Use me just like Ursula uses a human? Enrapture me until you could find another way to keep Leo out of my picture?"
"Is it so wrong to want to be free?'
"You're damn right it is," I growled. "It is when you put your own selfish immortal ass before the dying half-angel and the life of an innocent."
Once again, the room fell silent, only the sound of my beating heart filling the empty gaps. But I couldn't let the thought of Kayden planning my death die. It had to be a lie, just had to. I couldn't take another person I held feelings for set me up to die at their benefit.
My voice sounded barely above a whisper. "You kissed me to distract me from Leo. You killed him just so I could burn and you be free? Do you have any idea how convoluted that sounds? Whether I live for another five hundred years or die tomorrow you will still be an immortal. One way or another you would have been freed."
"One day you'll understand, Essallie," Kayden replied, not an ounce of an apology with it. The last fragment of my heart shattered into dust, bleeding for him as he went on. "We all do what we must to survive in our realm. If that means sacrificing a few to gain an upper hand, we do it."
I stared at him, jaw set. "Never. I never will do that to someone."
"Someday, you will."
Heat lanced at my fingertips, ready for a blood bath. It was all I could do to not see red. I imagined Kayden leaving my house later, joining his demon friends and laughing as he shared his tale that he fooled the gullible half-angel.
I let the words fire with force. "Get out. Just, get out, and never come back." When he didn't leave, I screamed at him louder, fire igniting my hands. "I never want to see you again."
He stared at me for one last second before he vanished, leaving me alone. I waited for the spoils of his black smoke trail out of window before I sunk to the floor and sobbed, my walls and flickering light the only comfort to my name. I kept my hand sealed over my mouth as I let the sobs shake my body. Because of me, everything has gone wrong. Because of me, someone died. My creation was unraveling everyone's lives, destroying everyone I came in contact with. Only a soulless, heartless monster could do such a thing and still want to live.
Monster. It seemed pretty accurate. Seeing as after this, I was fairly sure I didn't have a heart left to break.
CHAPTER THREE
PAINTED ON MY MEMORIES
Tuesday had turned into one of the best weather days in months. The sun stayed strong, bright and luminescent. What little traces of snow that had remained vanished as the temperature climbed, revealing fresh patches of rich grass and budding flowers. Belfast had turned into a colorful paradise practically overnight, and everyone was celebrating it. Everyone but me.
The last week had dissolved into a blur, a chunk of time lost to the masses. My fight with Kayden still stung like a freshly grazed wound, torn at the edges and too weak to heal. He kept to my words since I screamed at him to never come back. He didn't show up for finals, for any of the local parties held by seniors. Just gone, like ashes scattered to the wind.
My graduation ceremony went without a hitch. One second I had been stage-side, waiting for my name. The next, a thin little book rested in my hands as I joined the others before me back in the crowd. Jayson made sure to stand up and whistle when I stepped onto the stage and accepted my diploma. We'd gone to a little dinner out in Portland, his treat, and back home to a small party he'd thrown together to surprise me. But without Abigail there to snicker by my side, it felt pointless.
I'd slowly made my way up the steps and to my room for a moment of peace. Door shut behind me, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared out through the window, my funny little piece of paper twirling in my hands. It all felt fake. My dress, the party, Jayson's beaming smile at how proud he was of me, it all felt off.<
br />
There was a gentle knock at my door before it opened. I turned around to see Jayson poking his head in. His hair was a mess, tousled locks starting to fall into his eyes.
"Can I come in?"
I looked back down to the paper in my hands and nodded. He stepped inside, making sure to shut the door behind him, and came over to the edge of the bed to sit alongside me. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke, the silence oddly comforting yet equally smothering.
"It's funny," Jayson said, shattering the silence. "The memories of this place as a child were so terrifying."
It had been like he read my mind. My eyes landed on a small photo on the window ledge, two kids smiling at each other, covered in cake icing. "Do you remember my fourth birthday? How mad Mom was when we smashed my cake before she could take a photo?"
He chucked, a haunted smile lifting his lips. "How could I not? After that beating I swore I would never be able to sit again."
"I can't remember why we decided to tear into it, though."
"You said you hated the picture on top," Jayson's face took on a far-away look. "Mom had drawn on horns on your name when you had insisted on wings."
My face fell as the dim memory of plunging my hands into a cake made by spiteful mother played in my mind. With it came flashbacks of dark nights, hiding in hallway closets and flowerbeds to avoid a woman gone off the deep end. Everything turned back to her, and how she'd known from the start that she'd carried a half-breed for a daughter. A black mark on her pristine relationship with an angel named Michael.
"House of Horror was so befitting for this place," I barely whispered. No amount of bright paint or re-done kitchens could ever replace the nightmares I had experienced in this place. It had set me up for a life of time-ticking death. Some days, I wished she had aborted me when she had the chance.
Obumbrate (The Illumine Series) Page 3
