“How much does it cost?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“No, I wouldn’t feel right—”
“No, seriously. Don’t worry about it. Just be ready at seven, and I’ll come by and pick you up.”
“Okay.”
“And wear comfortable clothes.”
“Okay,” I said again, going through my mental closet to see what I should wear. “Should I keep this from Brett?”
“Especially from Brett!” Her lips smiled but her eyes enforced it.
“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted her.
“It’s just that…” She shuffled her feet sideways until her swing was closer to mine. “He seems to wrap you up in cotton wool. Well,” she corrected, “when it comes to anything Lilithian.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you notice it? He’s okay to let you live as human a life as you want—dates with boys, walking home at night by yourself—but anything that brings you closer to being what you truly are, and he puts his foot down.”
“I still don’t get it. What has he ever done to stop me getting close to the Lilithian world?”
“You’re a killer, Ara. You were born to hunt vampires, and though we don’t do that these days, it’s in your nature—”
“And he understands that—”
“Yes, but he doesn’t understand that you need more than what you’re getting.”
“In what way?”
“I asked if you could come out training with me one day, and he said no.”
“Training?”
“Learning how to do this.” With a coy grin and a little jerk of her brow, the fountain in the middle of the pond burst up suddenly, making all the kids scream, before dying back down to its soft spatter.
I almost stood up in disbelief. “Did you do that?”
“And you can too,” she said, waving her fingers. “I can teach you if you want.”
“Yes! Definitely.”
“Great,” she said. “Just keep it between us, though.”
“Okay.”
Harry came running over then, and our conversation died out of necessity.
* * *
“This feels weird,” I said, arching my spine and then straightening it again, the hard wooden stool making my butt numb.
“Well, think yourself lucky I didn’t get you to pose naked,” Cal said, leaning around his canvas to wink at me.
I rolled my eyes. “You need to hurry up. I’ve got a date with Thomas tonight.”
“Thomas who?”
“Your friend.” I laughed. “You were there when he asked me out.”
“Oh,” was all I heard from behind the easel. “I thought you told him no.”
“No. I told him ‘no’ I don’t like seafood, but ‘yes’ to curry.”
Cal snorted.
“What?”
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to eat curry on a first date?”
“No. Why not?”
He just laughed obnoxiously.
“Cal, tell me!”
“No way. I want your date to go to shit.”
“Why would you say a thing like that?” I hopped down off the hard stool and walked around to his side.
“Don’t look at the painting!”
“I’m not looking!” I stepped behind the canvas again, his paintbrush narrowly missing my shirt as he waved me away. “But why would you want my date to go bad?”
“Really? You don’t know?” he asked in a tone I recently learned was sarcastic.
I folded my arms, waiting. Apparently, sarcasm didn’t need to be answered.
“Because I’m hoping that once you’ve made your way through all the losers in the school, you’ll finally realize you should just go out with me.”
I had to laugh at that. “Cal, I told you. I don’t want to ruin our friendship—”
“It won’t. If we date and you decide you don’t like me as a boyfriend, I’ll understand, Ara.” He came around the easel to stand in front of me, his paint-tinged hands taking mine. He felt warm and solid and real, and every time he touched me, I got a nice feeling in my blood, but I wasn’t sure what that really meant. “I know you, okay? I might not know you as well as I will in a year or more, but I at least understand enough about you to see that you don’t know who you are yet. And if that means I risk being a stepping stone on that journey just to have a shot at being with you, then I’ll take it.”
I softened a little more toward the idea. “You make me feel like maybe I wouldn’t be such a horrible person for changing my mind—”
“That’s because David made you feel like it was the worst thing a person could do,” he said, opening his hands and then closing them around mine again. “I’m glad you told me what he said, because I know he meant well, but he was wrong. You need to be free to explore your feelings, Ar—”
“I know, and make mistakes—”
“Right, and if I’m a true friend, then I’ll let you make those mistakes in a safe environment and not get mad or overly hurt when you do.”
“So you really wouldn’t hate me?”
“No.” He laughed. “Like I said, I understand what you’re going through, and I know it’s a risk dating you. I know how easily you change your mind about people.” We both smiled. “So I’d take it on the chin and—”
“And still be friends with me?”
“Yes!”
“Okay.” I looked at the ground. “I’ll think about it.”
His fist pumped in the air. “Yes!”
“After my date with Thomas.”
The grin dropped.
“If it’s anything like the disaster my date with Shaun was, you won’t need to worry about us liking each other enough for a second date. And if things go as badly as they have with every date I’ve organized lately, then I won’t even get to the curry house.”
“Then just in case things go smoothly this time, may I recommend you try the vindaloo.”
“Why, is it good?”
His mischievous grin swallowed his whole face. “Just make sure you get the extra hot one.”
I made a mental note of that, but I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be eating anything—not after my hunt last night. I’d never consumed so much in one go. I was still pretty full, and though I didn’t kill anyone, I came closer than I ever had before, and my whole body was still exhilarated by it. I hoped in some ways that the curry did make my date go to shit, because if it didn’t and Thomas asked me to go home with him—or to the backseat of his car—the blood desire still running through my system would make it almost impossible to refuse.
I knew I could refuse, but I’d just rather not be in that position. I even had to look up on the internet ‘how to masturbate’ in order to quell the pulsing sensation between my legs, but hadn’t yet been brave enough to do it with Brett just a few feet away in his room.
My body was almost desperate for it, though, and David had made matters worse by introducing me to that part of myself—one Elora said was very closely connected to the Lilithian side. Now, sex was all I could think about. And it was getting increasingly hard to resist. If I couldn’t get David alone soon to ask him if we could repeat the closet scene, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.
16
David
“The fuel line’s connected to the… oil filter. The oil filter’s connected to the…” I looked at Mike. “What’s this one?”
He shrugged. “Just plug it into that thing there.”
“The battery?”
He shrugged again. “Why not?”
I looked at the engine again. I wasn’t even sure the fuel line was the fuel line, or that the thing I just put that pipe onto was the oil filter. Cars looked nothing like cars these days. I’d have better luck with this thing if I had a computer on hand.
“That ought to do it,” I said, dusting my hands off as I closed the hood.
“Great!” Mike slapped me a victory high five and we walked away from the car, laughing
like a pair of schoolboys.
17
Ara
“Brett, have you seen my phone?” It started ringing then. “Never mind.”
I tossed the pile of indecision aside and dug through the many shoes and purses I’d tried to match with my top, messing up my newly-styled hair in the process, until I finally found my phone on my nightstand—where it had been the whole time.
As I slid my thumb across the screen and inhaled to answer, the thick cloud of perfume and hairspray made me choke. “He—hello!” I coughed.
“Hey, Ara.”
“Oh, hey Thomas.”
“Bad news,” he said dully.
“Oh no. What’s happened?” It was official. If he said he needed to cancel our date because he fell and broke a bone or had all of his bank cards stolen or some other tragedy, I was safely going to assume I was cursed. So far, of all the guys I’d arranged dates with, only one date had come to fruition, and that was Shaun, which ended terribly.
“My car broke down,” he said. “Some asshole completely ripped out all the hoses and shit. It’s not going anywhere, and I need it fixed before tomorrow. I gotta drive my dad to the airport.”
“That’s okay,” I said sadly. “Raincheck then?”
“Yeah. I’ll talk to you at school on Monday.”
“Okay, bye.” I hung up the phone and looked at Brett leaning in the doorway.
“Another cancellation?”
I nodded, my throat thickening.
“What’s the reason this time? Lost dog? Toothache?” He laughed, but I sobbed. “Aw, Ara, what’s wrong, kitten?”
“Am I cursed?”
“Cursed?” he screeched. “Why would you say that?”
“Because either I’m cursed to make every guy I plan to date have a bad day, or they’re just making up lame excuses to cancel.”
He held me to his chest and kissed my head, laughing softly to himself. “Kitten, you’re not cursed to ruin their day. Shit happens, you know that.”
I nodded, but it didn’t make me feel any better. These coincidences were happening too often to be coincidences.
“Hey, since you’re all dressed up and looking pretty, why don’t we go out and catch a movie—maybe get a bite to eat.”
I nodded again, wiping my wrist across my nose. “Hey, Brett?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would Cal tell me to order a really hot curry on my first date?”
Brett’s sudden burst of laughter shocked me a little. “He must really like you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because curry does awful things to your stomach, kiddo—makes you need the bathroom, among other things.”
I realized then what Cal was hoping would happen. “So it was sabotage?”
“Sounds like it.”
I smiled deviously. I’d totally get him back for this. But I also thought it was kind of sweet.
“Why not call Cal and go out with him instead?” he suggested. “Put the poor guy out of his misery.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’ll be downstairs when you decide what you’re doing.” He walked away but turned back to smile at me, the warmth and love radiating from it and making me feel a bit happier. “Cheer up, okay?”
“Okay.”
I slumped down on the pile of strewn clothes all over my bed and picked up my journal. Six guys in six weeks. Every Friday since I started at this school, I’d either asked some guy out or he’d asked me, and every Friday, despite that, I’d spent the night alone. Brett said I wasn’t cursed, but I sure as hell felt cursed. Which made the decision about whether or not to date Cal pretty cut and dried. I liked him too much to let anything bad happen to him, and judging by the last few weeks of dating attempts, a night out with him would only end in chaos.
But I picked up the phone again anyway. I’d usually ring David after another failed date, but I knew he had a parent-teacher meeting at Harry’s school tonight, so I dialed Cal instead.
* * *
With the ocean at my feet and high sand dunes at my back for miles on either side, Elora assured me it was safe to practice my Cerulean Magic, but I felt exposed, like people could see.
“Ara, there is no one around,” she assured me. “Look.”
“Want me to do a sweep?” Eric offered from his spectator’s seat on the towel behind us.
“Yes,” I said, as Elora said “No!”
“Mo… Ara.” She placed both hands on my shoulders, bending slightly to align our eyes. “You’re procrastinating because you don’t think you’ll be able to do this—”
“Okay, maybe I am,” I admitted, “but I don’t see how my hands, these simple and sort of pathetically small hands, can move the water.”
Elora laughed. “Just do what I told you to do and you’ll see. Look.” She positioned herself facing the ocean and closed her eyes, doing what she told me was ‘centering herself’. Not that I had any real idea what that meant. “Now, again, you draw on the energy in the ground—”
“What energy?”
She opened her eyes.
“Lors,” Eric said, coming up behind her. I loved how inhumanly fast he moved. It was awesome. “Remember how Morg… er, um… how you were taught. Didn’t your instructor first pulse her energy into the ground, so you knew how to recognize it?”
Elora slapped herself in the brow. “You’re right. It feels like that was forever ago. I forgot.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry. I’m a horrible teach—I told you to leave me alone!”
It took me a second to realize she wasn’t talking to me, but to the dripping wet man standing beside her. I was about to ask why she yelled at him, when Eric said, “It’s a ghost.”
“A ghost?”
“That’s why you can’t see anyone there,” he added.
I looked right at him though. I thought ghosts were mythical, like dragons. But this guy was as real as me—not at all like I imagined a ghost would be.
“And I’m ignoring it.” Elora tilted her nose to the air, forcibly bringing her rounded shoulders level. “It wants me to solve its murder, but I already happen to know exactly who killed it and why.”
My face stayed blank for a second, and then it cracked when I realized. “Oh, right, you’re joking with me!”
“No.” She turned her back on the man that was apparently a ghost. “I’m a spirit medium—”
“A what?” That was a word I’d never heard before.
“She can see and speak to ghosts,” Eric said. “And yes, it is freaky.”
“They can’t hurt you,” she said, taking me by the arm and walking us a few feet away. “They’re more annoying than harmful.”
My skin crawled with little bumps as I realized that I’d actually seen several of them in my short life. I just didn’t know they were ghosts. I did wonder how these people had vanished faster than a vampire, and how that one man got into my room late at night without Brett hearing him. And then I wondered if that made me a spirit medium too—and what the hell that actually meant—because Eric couldn’t see ghosts, obviously, so did that mean that not everyone was a spirit medium? Or was it only Eric that couldn’t see them? Maybe he had a closed mind.
“So how did it die—your ghost?” I asked.
She checked behind us again and sighed with relief at the empty beach. “He murdered himself.”
“What?”
“Yeah, drove his car off a bridge with his kids in it. One died, the other survived.”
My hand slowly came up to my mouth. “Why would anyone do that?”
“Sometimes people do evil things,” she said. “I looked it up in the news archives. Apparently, his wife got custody and he didn’t like that.”
“So… why didn’t you tell the ghost that?”
“Because I don’t want him to cross over—find peace. I want him to suffer in purgatory.”
“But won’t he go to hell?”
Elora laughed. “No. I’ve never known of one spirit to go anywhe
re but the peaceful place.”
“How do you know where they go?”
“I feel it.” She touched her chest, closing her eyes for a moment. And something about the look on her face felt familiar, as if maybe I knew that feeling too. Maybe because I’d died.
“Anyway, forget about him. Let’s get this lesson underway.” She waved it off, but I wanted to know more.
“Here, sit down.” Eric took me by the arm and made me sit in the sand. “Lors will show you what the energy feels like so you can recognize it.”
In the cold, slightly damp sand, none of this felt like a good idea. “Why do we need to learn this?”
Two pairs of confused eyes landed on me.
“I don’t get it,” I added, dusting the sand grains off my hands, “other than it being cool, what use is the ability to manipulate the elements?”
“It could save your life one day.” Elora sat down cross-legged in front of me.
“Save my life?” I laughed. “I’m not in any danger.”
“In this world, Ara, there is always danger—shifting power, alliances. You need to be able to protect yourself, and frankly, I am surprised and disgusted at Falcon for not teaching you any of this so far—”
“What would he know about it?”
They laughed, a short, contemptuous laugh.
“Falcon’s element is fire,” Elora said.
“I’ve never seen anyone work fire the way he does,” Eric added, his shoulders casting a shadow down on us.
I thought about that for a second and then my eyes went wide. So that’s how he lights the fire without matches? I always thought everyone could do that until I tried it. Then I just figured I was useless, and never gave it much more thought after that. Ignorance of a child, I guess, or a childlike mind. “Why didn’t he teach me?”
“I don’t know,” Elora said. “He might be trying to give you some time living a more human life before he immerses you in this world, but that could be dangerous—”
“How?”
“Your powers before—”
Bound by Secrets Page 16
