Fire & Shadows

by Rochelle Maya Callen

  She was face down on the ground. I ran to her and turned her on her back. She had passed out. “Jade! Jade!” I heard the beat of her heart, and for the first time, thought it was a beautiful sound. She was alive. She was breathing... but what had happened? She didn’t wake as I scooped her into my arms and looked for shelter for the night. She didn’t wake as her head rested against my shoulder. She didn’t wake when I pressed my lips to her forehead.

  She didn’t wake as she whispered in her sleep. “Monsters don’t keep promises.”

  All I could think was that neither do angels.

  30

  CONNOR

  THE DREAM LURCHED to a stop as I blinked open my eyes. I had seen myself mutilated, and rotten and lying on the ground. But in my dream, I was Jade. I was the creature looming over me. I was the person who reached for me with delicate fingers and an aching chest. And there I had been, dead, staring back at her, telling her that she was a monster. I kicked off my blanket, feeling the thin veil of sweat that made my t- shirt stick to my body and sat up. I rubbed my forehead. What kind of messed up dream was that? Then like a tickle in my mind, I felt a quivering presence. It was quiet and unobtrusive, but it was there. A cold, uncertain thing shuddering in the dark. I squeezed my eyes shut, and rubbed by fingertips in circles at my temples. It was such a strange sensation, like something other in my mind. I dreamed I was a monster... My eyes shot open, alert. I heard it like a crystal- clear violin stroke in my mind. I held my breath. Waiting. I dreamed I was a monster... and I am. The quiet mass in my mind started to shake and somehow I knew because it was crying. She was crying. Jade was crying.

  I jumped out of bed and rammed my legs into a pair of jeans. My heart was stuttering against my ribs. I was so anxious and excited. I heard Jade in my mind, and I was sure that it wasn’t a trick of sleep and shadows. It was Jade. The Ritual connection had worked. Our souls were linked. I would be able to find her.

  Now, I could be with her.

  I was flying down the steps and out the door so quickly that I barely noticed my mother calling back to me. I didn’t stop running. I ran until I saw the slightly lopsided roof of the pale -colored house with the attack light on. I ran until I was banging on Nanan’s door. I let my palms rest against the doorframe, heaving in huge breaths. My chest inflating and deflating. My lungs needed more air; my body needed to calm down. But I couldn’t. I was shaking with adrenaline. I head Nanan shuffling down the stairs mumbling. When she opened the door, her cheeks flushed and her eyes brimmed with red— no doubt from crying; I couldn’t stop smiling.

  I am coming, Jade. I am coming. I thought and realized that even my thoughts were breathless.

  She took one look at me and pulled me into her doughy arms. “It worked?”

  I hugged her back. “It worked.”

  31

  JADE

  I AM NOT going to stop! I am going to find her!

  I startled awake, warm and yet still shivering. His voice had been so clear and fierce in my head. The drawl, the urgency, the familiarity so comforting that it sparked a horrible sadness in me when I realized it was just a voice and not the actual boy next to me. Giovanni looked at me over the fire and I felt immediately defensive as if he could sense all my weaknesses and was marking them off one by one. “What?” I said sharply. I shouldn’t be the one embarrassed; he was the one I caught staring although I must have just flailed awake. His eyes seemed darker than usual, a redness flared up on the skin on his throat.

  “Will you ever shut up in your sleep?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t even remember my dream... just the voice that startled me awake. “What—what did I say?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you said. What matters is that you have to control your thoughts.”

  “How can I control my dreams?” I snapped back, angry.

  “You can control everything.”

  “So what, you can control your thoughts? Your dreams? The little things that creep into your mind?”

  Giovanni’s face flushed at that. At first, I thought he looked embarrassed, but then his composure slid back into place. “I control what I need to.” His face made a little wince and I wondered if he was hurt. I sat up straighter. “Are you okay?”

  He blinked at me. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean... you, you winced. It looked like you were in pain.”

  Giovanni’s expression darkened. “I wasn’t.”

  “Do you ever?”

  “What?”

  “Feel pain?”

  He let out an exasperated sound, and rubbed the stubble of his jaw and leaned back against the log at his back. “Yes. Of course, I feel pain!” he snapped.

  “Well, excuse me for asking,” I let out and snuggled back down on my blanket.

  “We feel all pain. We just recover faster.” I hadn’t expected him to keep talking, so this little admission was surprising.

  “Really?”

  “Yes...”

  “At least you heal fast,” I said stiffly.

  “Not all wounds heal.” His eyes were intense and staring into mine. It looked like he wanted me to understand something, but I didn’t know the words hidden in his eyes. I ran a hand over the tattoo on my forearm.

  I looked away from him, and settled back down on my blanket and turned my back to the fire and said, “I know.”

  32

  CONNOR

  “SO YOUR MOM burned them all?”

  I rubbed my palm against my forehead. “Everything.”

  “Well, not everything.” Matt lifted the papers he had brought home with him. “Just... not enough is left.”

  I wanted to yell and break something. “I know.”

  “Have you told her? Told her what’s going on?”

  “Are you kidding me? She didn’t believe I didn’t attempt suicide. You think she is going to believe that the world is about to the end and my almost-girlfriend is kinda a demon and I need to find her to save it all?”

  Matt blinked and then shrugged. “Nope. Probably not.”

  I looked at Matt’s bedroom walls. They were covered with posters from old movies and jokes, that even after reading a couple times, I had no idea what they meant. We couldn’t meet at my house anymore. Mom was going to lose it if she heard our whispers.

  I stood up and walked to the window, staring out at the grey sky and pressed my palm against the glass.

  “So, you... feel her?” Matt asked, cautiously.

  “Yeah, I do.” I took a deep breath. “It is like a presence in my head. Sometimes, I get a glimpse or a whisper, but then it’s gone.” It’s always gone too fast. I rest my head against the window.

  “What did the old lady say?”

  I looked over my shoulder and glared at him.

  He rolled his eyes. “Okay. What did Nanan say?”

  “She says that it is like we have to open the door. We are linked, but we aren’t bound so we have to push our thoughts into each other in order to hear them.”

  “But if she pushed a thought into your head, but doesn’t even know you are linked... how could she have done that?”

  I felt the heat rush to my cheeks. “Nanan says that means that her thoughts were intense when thinking of me and that’s why they came through.”

  Matt smirked. “Ah, stud, huh?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Look at you, you love that. You’ are blushing like a chick. Don’t worry, man; apparently, she still hearts you.”

  “What kind of guy says ‘hearts you’?”

  “What kind of guy has a demon for a girlfriend?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t say that. You know that’s not what she is.”

  “Well, not all she is.”

  My fingers splayed on the glass of the window, I felt a surge of cold up my arm. I stared at my fingertips on the glass. Frost laced its way from my fingertips to the rest of the square of the window. I blinked. The glass had completely frosted “Whoa... Matt! Check this out!”

  Matt ca
me over and peered over his glasses at my hand. I looked at him. Another smirk crept along his lips. “Dude, you’re Ice Man!”

  A laugh jumped out my throat.

  “Well, at least selling your soul has its perks.”

  I stopped laughing, and when Matt turned away, I snaked my hand back to trace the ridges on the back of my neck. A permanent mark of the ritual. A tie to Jade. I let a shaky breath go as I collapsed into the chair next to Matt’s bed.

  33

  JADE

  I LEANED FORWARD on my knees and let out a gasping breath. My lungs felt like they were protesting; my ribs felt like they were breaking. I was grateful for my hair falling over my shoulder like a curtain that shielded me from scrutiny.

  ”That was better.” Giovanni was circling me.

  “Sure it was.”

  “It was. You actually hit me that time.” I could hear the smug smirk on his face.

  I could hear the step of his boots on the snow circling me. “Next time, you just have to...” his words bit off and I tried to look up to spot him to see if he was sensing danger coming. He was standing to my right and staring at me.

  “If you are trying to check out my ass, then you aren’t really in the right spot,” I joked, breathlessly.

  He didn’t smile. His gaze didn’t even falter from the spot he was staring at. I looked at my shoulder and saw nothing. “What are you looking at?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he yanked me up to my feet by my arm and forcefully pivoted me around so my back was to him. He lifted up my hair, his large hands grazing the back of my neck. I felt a shiver steal down my spine and wanted to curse myself aloud for it. I stood straighter and clenched my jaw. He leaned down, inspecting something on my neck, and just below my hairline. His fingertips traced something, and then I felt him... his heat rose to a boiling rage. I stepped away before the explosion. He roared a growl and whipped his sword clean through a tall barren tree slicing it in half. The sound of it falling was a slow, cracking sound and I had plenty of time to get out of the way. The snap against the ground felt like it sent a slight vibration up through my feet and calves. Dazed, I spun toward Giovanni and the stump he was bracing himself on. His shoulders were rising and falling as if he was inflating and deflating. I was afraid to break the silence, but I had to ask. “What—what is wrong?” I asked, stunned. “What did you see?”

  “I—I saw.” His words clipped off and it was one of those rare moments where Giovanni seemed flustered and unsure. He shook his head and yanked the sword out of the stump he had stabbed with it and turned around. Desperation. Rage. Uncertainty. All flashed across his expression.

  Again, I asked, “What did you see?” I raised my hand to touch just under my hairline. He was quick to stride forward and grab my wrist. I could see the trained calm and authoritative mask slide back over his features. “I didn’t see anything.” With a rough shove, he flung my wrist back towards me and stalked off. “Let’s go. We, have to find a place to camp before sundown.”

  “But I—”

  “Let’s go!” The finality in his voice left little room for hesitation.

  I snatched up my things and followed him. Not before, however, I snuck my fingertips to the back of my neck and felt the slight raised ridges of something etched there. I gasped quietly.

  What was it? And why did Giovanni not want me to see it? And why did he become so enraged when he did?

  I couldn’t ask any of those questions, but with every step I searched for a possible answer. And with every step, I didn’t find not one.

  It wasn’t until later when I was lost in dreams that I found it. And it all started with his warm and tender voice and the words:

  “Do you know how much I love you?”

  34

  CONNOR

  “DO YOU KNOW how much I love you?”

  Jade slyly looked up at me from under a dark fan of long lashes, her brilliant green eyes sparkling. “Why don’t you show me?”

  Exhilaration was already pulsing through me like a heartbeat, banging against every nerve like a drum. It was too much for to me to be delicate, or soft with her, too much to tentatively touch her like I always had.

  “Maybe I will,” I grinned. I wasn’t sure what she would do. Push me away? I didn’t care. In a swift motion, I pushed her back against the wall and my lips were on hers. The first taste of her was intoxicating, and I needed more. So much more. I deepened the kiss, feeling her gasp under my lips, her tongue reaching back to touch mine. I was gasping too. Her fingers twined in my shirt, scratching my back only slightly, edging me on more. I moaned against her lips. She looked up at me, her lips ripe and swollen. They were so pink and delicious that I leaned down to taste them again. She was teasing me, letting me in for a quick kiss, then turning her head just to come back and nip at my lower lip. I ached for more of her. I craved to kiss her until there was no more oxygen in the world to gasp in. She let out a little giggle, and it sent a shudder of pleasure through me. I sighed, lifting my arms to bracket her in, not let her get away. She was mine now. All mine. I nuzzled her ear and kissed her neck—slow and deliberate. Her breath caught and I felt her heartbeat stutter and quicken as if it was fervently trying to get away. I smiled against her skin and kissed her again, letting my lips travel lower and lower. To her collarbone, down her shoulder. I hesitated as I leaned in to kiss just above the neckline of her shirt. I didn’t want to scare her away or overstep.

  I didn’t want her to move from within the little cage I had made for her between my arms. I must have hesitated too long, because she lifted my chin up and looked into my eyes. They searched me exploratory, studying the way my mouth was slightly open, the swallow of my throat, the way my shoulders rose and fell with my desperate, deep breaths. And she kissed me. She pressed against me, pushing me back. Her fingertips grazed the skin beneath my shirt, just above my jean’s waist button. “Jade, I—” I stammered as her fingers traced upwards and touched the muscles that were clenched along my torso, the expanse of my chest, curling and tracing at the base of my throat. She pulled off my shirt and I lifted my arms to let her do it. Before my shirt even touched the ground, her lips were on my chest kissing me. I let me head fall back and close my eyes. Her kisses were tender and sweet, but the jolt of desire that shot through me every time her lips touched my skin was not sweet or tender. No, it was primal, desperate and aching, and a pure storm of want and desire. I groaned and then tipped her face back up to mine. “Do you love me?” I asked. I held my breath, devastated and ashamed that I even asked. Why did I have to ruin this moment? Why didn’t I just shut the hell up. Her fingertips were still tracing lines along my chest. Her lips slowly edged their way up into a smirk and I wanted to kiss her again and forget the question, but then she started to speak. “Oh, Connor...I—”

  Wind gust into my bedroom and I flinched awake, flailing and falling out of bed. It took me a second to realize that I was in my room alone. It took me another second to realize that every touch, kiss and word that I had been clinging to was just a dream. Another icy chill blew into my room from the open window. I lifted my head and stared at it. I thought I had closed it before going to bed. I rolled up to my feet, my blanket tangling up my legs. I let out a shaky sigh and walked over to close it. I could almost still feel the warmth of Jade’s skin against mine. The shadow of the ache and want was still thrumming inside me. I could feel the heat rushing up to my cheeks as if someone could see the thoughts in my head. Even so, I replayed them as I locked the window and got back into bed pulling the covers over me. I replayed them and drifted back to sleep hoping the dream would continue and I would get to hear what Jade had to say. Even if it was a dream, I wanted to hear the words. Even if it was a dream, I loved the feeling of her being mine.

  “Everything all right?” Mom asked as I came down the stairs. I groggily nodded, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I wondered why she asked at first, but then I realized that it was because I was smiling. Even as I noticed it, I couldn’t stop
. “Yeah, I slept well,” I lied. I slept terribly. I kept waking up, the dream jolting to a stop right along with Jade’s last words. “Oh, Connor...I—” The frustration grew each time, but it couldn’t quite match the giddy intoxicating feeling of dreams with so much touching, so much kissing, so much Jade against me. I grabbed a cereal bowl, and a box of cereal and the milk, and sat down at the table. I poured everything, letting the cereal drown in the milk, and as I chewed, I still was grinning. I could see my mom’s worried face from my peripheral vision. She had no clue what was going on.

  It was then that I felt it, something quick and strong and familiar invading my mind in a flash, just to settle quietly there.

  Well, that was some dream.

  The milk and cereal came spitting out of my mouth as I flinched back knocking the cereal bowl over, spilling milk everywhere.

  “Oh, my gosh, honey, what happened?”

  Mom probably thought I was epileptic with the amount of flailing I’d been doing. “I’m fine, Mom. I just... saw a bee.” How lame was that. She looked around the kitchen, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t see...”

  I heard a sweet giggle in my mind and I immediately flushed red. I heard that exact giggle in my mind last night; and just the thought of it sent a little shudder through me. I swallowed hard, painfully aware of the girl in my head and the one outside it, both looking in and staring as I cleaned up spilled Cheerios. “Hey, Mom, aren’t you going somewhere today?”

  “Yes, I need to go into New Orleans today. I actually was going to leave in a minute, but do you need help?” She started to kneel down and her eyes became intense. “Do you need me to stay?”

  “No!” I barked and her eyes grew wide. “No,” I said softer, “just go ahead. I got this. I am just getting clumsier with old age.”

  “You sure? You sure you feel all right?”