Awaken: Book 1 of the Dark Paradise Trilogy

by Isadora Brown

  Keirah still didn’t know how she felt about being Noir’s accomplice. In fact, she didn’t know how she felt about her entire situation. He had yet to actually spend any of the money he stole, and whenever Keirah brought the topic up, he either ignored her or changed the subject. He actually kept tallies of their takes and gave her fifty percent of their profit. She hadn’t spent her share either, so there was about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash in the spare bedroom of the apartment. The two were conscious to stay away from the room unless he wanted to add money to their pile. She didn’t like the fact that what she was doing—what they were doing—was wrong. But she knew she couldn’t change Noir, and to be honest, she really didn’t want to.

  “Miss what?” she asked as she pulled her hair into a high ponytail.

  “Life-ah, princess,” he said, walking over to her so he stood at her side. He was still fiddling with his tie, so Keirah grabbed it and helped him fix it. He watched her intently, much like a church-goer would watch the cement floor during a prayer. “Mom, Dad, brother, sister. Your job-ah. Your home.”

  Keirah was silent for a moment and smoothed down the wrinkles before tilting her chin up so her eyes locked with his. “My sister,” she told him quietly. “I miss my sister.” She exhaled and looked down at her handiwork. Satisfied, she took a step back and cocked her head to the side. “What about you? Do you ever miss your family?”

  Noir’s gold eyes bronzed, hardening with such anger that Keirah could feel the tension brimming off of him. “I have no family,” he drawled.

  Keirah swallowed, but took a step forward. She knew Noir well enough to know that when he was angry, he reacted with violence. She was playing with fire by coming closer to him, but the confidence that built inside of her wouldn’t be trifled with. Without breaking eye contact with him, she reached toward him until her hands cupped his cheeks. Then, before she lost her determination, she pushed onto her toes, closed her eyes, and gently kissed the right side of his cheek, brushing her lips across his scar. As she moved her face to his right, her nose brushed his. She kissed the other side the same way before rolling back to the ground and slowly opening her eyes. She dropped her hands from his face, her cheeks pink, and went to get ready. He let her pretend that nothing significant had passed between them, something she was grateful for. When she was ready, the two left separately for the same destination.

  Keirah couldn’t breathe. Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. One of the henchmen Noir recruited must have had a problem with paranoia because he was currently holding Noir hostage rather than her. She had no idea what to do; she couldn’t exactly get up and attempt to reason with the man without giving herself away. She could feel sweat start to accumulate on her brow as she sat under the counters, huddled with other bank patrons, but her eyes were focused on the gun pointed at the pulse in Noir’s throat. The henchman was yelling, but nobody could make out what he was saying. Something about money, about snipers, about dying. Then he threw Noir onto the ground. He was stronger than he looked, and she flinched when she heard a crack as Noir’s head hit the tile. Keirah swallowed and clenched her teeth together. When the man pointed the gun at Noir again, she knew she had to do something. She pushed off the floor as best she could with her bound wrists, and then, as fast as she could, dashed over to where he was.

  The next few moments went in slow motion for Keirah. She pushed her weight into Noir’s stationary frame and pushed him over just as the man fired the gun. The occupants in the bank were silent, but when she realized she was all right—she and Noir were – they started yelling. To them, she was just a citizen who saved the city’s most dangerous criminal. She was in such shock that she didn’t feel Noir push her away, jump up, and wrestle the gun easily away from the threat. In a manner of seconds, the man was dead on the bank floor, staining it with his blood, and Keirah was thrown over Noir’s shoulder. They rushed out of the building with nothing but their lives.

  It was only when they arrived safely back at the apartment did Keirah realize she was in any pain. She let out a whimper as soon as Noir placed her on the sofa. Hearing it, he turned back to face her and noticed blood dripping from her shoulder. She watched as his brow perked, and he plopped onto the coffee table in front of her, gently taking her arm in his hand to get a better look at it. He looked visibly upset at seeing her injured, causing Keirah’s stomach to flutter.

  Without a word, he left to grab necessary supplies to disinfect and sew up a small bullet wound. Once everything was collected, he sat down and took his time repairing her wound. As he applied alcohol to it, she hissed and made sure the tears in her eyes didn’t fall by biting her bottom lip. Once it was clean, he began to sew the wound shut. It didn’t look serious, only a graze. He must have sewed wounds up quite often because he was quick and careful. Before Keirah knew it, he was applying Neosporin to cool the wound and finished by bandaging it up.

  “You saved my, uh … well, my life,” he stated as he gazed into her eyes. It was a mere statement, with no inflection in any word except the last. It wasn’t surprise or condescending or grateful. It was just a fact. Yet the way he looked at her, so questioning, so curious, said much more than words.

  And then, without warning, he grabbed her neck and pulled her face toward him so he captured her lips with his. She felt her eyes slip shut, and as he probed her mouth with his tongue, she felt herself start to respond. Time went by, but neither took any notice of it, completely lost in their own world.

  It was only when breathing became a priority that the two were forced apart. Keirah had no idea how he did it, but when Noir spoke, he gave no hint of breathlessness.

  “You won’t say it,” he said against her lips, his eyes forcing hers into his, “but hum … you love me too.”

  30

  Reese woke up with pain in her back. She hadn’t slept this badly since … well, she couldn’t remember. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep; she had stayed up past midnight in order to clean Ollo’s apartment. Surprisingly enough, once she cleared the bottles from the apartment, it wasn’t as messy as she thought it would be. If anything, the place looked empty. There weren’t any pictures or décor, nothing that signified that this was his apartment. It was like he was here for only a temporary amount of time. Reese understood up to a point—who would actually want to live above a bar?—but she couldn’t help but feel sad at the fact that it didn’t seem as though he had somewhere he could belong.

  She pulled herself up and headed over to the fridge, hoping to make breakfast for the two of them and shower before Henry picked her up for school. She completely forgot that it was empty, and knowing Ollo, she highly doubted he was motivated enough to leave the apartment to buy food, especially since he could just go downstairs during the bar’s business hours and get a free meal there. Like that was healthy by any means. Reese scrunched her nose. She couldn’t imagine living off of bar food and wondered how he didn’t have a potbelly because of his unhealthy eating habits and excessive drinking. If she was being completely honest, he had an admirable amount of definition to his torso, from what she could see. Not that she’d ever admit this out loud, of course. It would go straight to his already astronomical ego.

  Since Reese knew she was forced to skip breakfast, she decided to think of what to do about her outfit. In her entire life, she had never worn the same outfit to school, and she wasn’t about to start now. There was no way she could go home and change because then she’d be caught in a lie; her mother would ask why Piper, a girl with the same body type as her—though Piper was taller by several inches—couldn’t lend Reese clothes. And even though Reese had inherited her mother’s inscrutable poker face, she still couldn’t lie to her.

  Maybe Ollo had a girl he slept with who kept a drawer of her things at his place. She frowned at the thought. Even if such a thing was possible, there was no way Reese would consider wearing them. Who knew where the girl had been?

  When she walked past a crumpled purple dress
shirt, she paused. It looked store-bought rather than handmade and she wondered why he had this in the first place. Not that it mattered really. She bent down and picked it up, pressing it against her face in order to smell it. Besides the hint of alcohol still trapped in the wrinkles of the shirt, it smelled fine, like something clean and fresh and … She furrowed her brow. Was that peppermint?

  After a few minutes in the bathroom, Reese stepped out wearing nothing but the shirt. It came to the middle of her thighs. She cinched the brown belt she had worn yesterday around her waist, and instead of wearing knee-highs, she opted to leave her legs bare, with yesterday’s flats on her feet. Ollo didn’t seem to have a brush, and if he did, Reese doubted she would even use it. All she could do was run her fingers through her hair, deciding to leave it down, and in order to mask her morning breath since she didn’t have a toothbrush, popped in a stick of gum.

  She was almost ready to leave, but there was one thing she had to do before she did. She walked into Ollo’s room to check on him one last time. She still felt uncomfortable leaving him here by himself after the night he had. Maybe she could get Henry to skip school and watch over him.

  He was still sleeping, and besides some snoring, wasn’t making any noise. The closer she got to him, the more she saw the majority of his skin color had returned. The sweat that had previously matted his hair together had dried, the brown locks filling his face so his features were obscured from view. His breathing was steady rather than shaky, and the bowl she had placed by his bed was empty. She wasn’t too familiar with how to treat withdrawal symptoms, but she knew enough to know he wasn’t out of the woods yet. At least he had taken the first step in the right direction. When she reached his bed, she slid onto the side as slowly and gently as possible so she wouldn’t wake him. All she wanted to do was make sure he didn’t have a temperature and then leave him a glass of water. Once she finished, she could leave.

  Reese looked down at Ollo’s face. It was weird seeing how vulnerable he looked when he slept. If he wasn’t snoring, he’d be peaceful. She rolled her eyes, smiling to herself. Ollo could never be completely untainted, not even when he slept. She reached out, turning her hand with the intent of having the back of it touching his forehead. Somehow, her mother had the power of simply touching her and her brother’s skin and knowing whether they had a fever or not. Without a thermometer, Reese hoped that maybe she had inherited the power. The minute her skin touched his, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, his muddy blue eyes snapping open to instantly lock with hers.

  She couldn’t breathe. The intensity of his gaze wouldn’t let her.

  He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the irises softened, as though he recognized who she was. Another blink, and it all vanished, the careful walls that had temporarily opened his eyes to rare emotions were reconstructed to keep them safely hidden. Reese felt her stomach pinch with disappointment.

  “You stayed.” His voice was neutral if sleep-ridden, but Reese knew he was surprised. She wouldn’t go as far as to say he was touched by her action, but she knew he was thankful, even if he would never say it.

  “I did.” She paused. “Let me touch your forehead, Ollo. I want to make sure you don’t have a fever.”

  He released her hand and closed his eyes, a small smirk touching his lips. There was the Ollo she knew, and she had to fight her own smile of relief from her face as she gently touched her hand to his head. It was nice and warm and normal. He was okay. For now. No temperature. Maybe she had inherited her mom’s talent.

  “Be careful, darl,” he murmured, his voice still slightly slurred but the smirk still present. “You actually sound like you care.”

  “Someone has to,” she said. Before she could stop herself, her fingers brushed away Ollo’s heavy bangs so she could see him better. It might have been her imagination, but when her fingertips accidentally brushed the furrow in his brow, the wrinkles disappeared. When she realized what she was doing, she dropped her hand into her lap. She should get him a glass of water and leave, but for some reason, she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to. Not yet, anyway.

  “If Noir and the Black Wing can’t die, if angels and demons can’t die, then why are you training me to fight? My arrows won’t be able to kill them, and they won’t be able to kill each other. So … what’s the point?”

  “They can’t die,” he agreed, his eyes tracing the column of her throat, “but they can get sent to Purgatory.” He paused and then his smirk deepened. “Are you wearing my shirt?”

  Reese ignored his comment as her blush warmed up her face. She refused to notice the sparkle currently occupying his eyes. “I don’t get it,” she forced herself to say. “If Purgatory is a place where angels and demons go once they get fatally injured, why not send the Excoms there? Why send them to the desert?”

  “Purgatory is a place for confinement, possibly punishment, set for a specific time until the soul is redeemed,” he explained. “It’s not up to God or Satan when that is; it’s a natural progression that works itself out. Excoms aren’t being punished. They choose not to be in either Heaven or Hell so they’re placed in the desert where redemption can be attained through the physical world rather than the spiritual one. Does this make sense?”

  Reese scrunched her nose. “Kind of.” She sucked in her bottom lip and glanced away. There were still so many questions she wanted to ask, but she had to get going. One refused to let her go until it was answered, however, so she turned her head to look at Ollo only to find his eyes narrowed on her lip. Her breath hitched and she knew she was blushing again. “What? What are you looking at?”

  “I need something to focus on,” he said, lifting his eyes until they reached hers. “Distracts from the migraine.”

  “I can get you aspirin—” she offered but was cut off.

  “Don’t have any,” he said. “Now what do you want to know? You bite your lip and your eyes get blue when you want to know something.”

  Reese paused, taking a long look at him. He noticed that about her? She didn’t even know that. “Do you think we can change the future?” she asked.

  It took him a while before he replied. His lips were gently pressed together, his eyes darting between her own. She knew he knew the answer but was trying to figure out the right way to tell her. If it really was what she thought it was, there wasn’t a right way to tell her.

  “You’re asking the wrong question, darl,” he drawled. “Right at this moment, you have an infinite amount of choices you could make. You could leave. You could stay. You could kiss me. You could slap me. God has foreseen every choice you have and planned for each one. Let’s say you leave. Then you have an infinite amount of choices of where to go: school? Home? The mall? God has planned for those. Ultimately, you make your own choices in life, but God has a plan for each one of those choices.”

  “So it’s like a mixture of freewill and destiny,” she said.

  “That might be oversimplifying it just a tad, but sure,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Let’s go with that.”

  Reese stopped waiting for her thoughts to catch up with her mouth. “My power that I inherited,” she began slowly. “The visions that I get. Are they set in stone?”

  The lazy look that had been occupying Ollo’s face vanished. Replacing it was taut facial inflections and a furrowed brow. “Why?” he asked. “What have you seen?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me, darl.” His gaze paralyzed her and she flinched at its intensity. “I don’t think you fully realize the power that you have. This isn’t a game. If you’ve seen something, you need to tell me so we can plan accordingly.”

  Despite his cutting tone, Ollo’s words caused Reese’s heart to thump with anticipated hope. “So we can prevent my visions from coming true?” she asked, pushing up her brow.

  “That’s not what I said,” he corrected. “Now tell me what you saw.”

  Reese scrunched her brow together. She was starting to get mad at his na
gging. As far as she was concerned, her visions were none of his business. They had more to do with her, not the war, and because they were hers, she didn’t feel as though she had to share them whatsoever. “I’m not telling you,” she said.

  Without warning, Ollo grabbed her shoulders and brought her torso down on top of his so she was straddling his stationary form and her face was mere inches away from his. “This isn’t a game,” he repeated through clenched teeth.

  “I never said it was,” she hissed.

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Darl—”

  “Don’t call me that. I still don’t know what it means.”

  “If you don’t tell me—”

  “Can we change it?” She hadn’t meant to sound so desperate, but the conversation was going nowhere and Reese needed to know one way or the other if it was possible she could save her family. “Can I change my vision? Just tell me. Please just tell me.”

  Ollo’s face softened for the second time. She wasn’t sure what was on her face, what caused him to stop pushing her for the moment, but it didn’t matter. His hands loosened, but she didn’t pull away from him. They made her feel warm, welcomed, protected from whatever it was he was going to say.

  “God gave you this gift so you could see bits and pieces of the future,” Ollo said slowly, his voice low and raw. “It lets you know first-hand the path that will be taken, despite the number of options people can take. When I said we can plan according to your vision, I didn’t mean as a way to prevent the vision from happening, I meant that we can plan for all possible outcomes when your visions happen.”

  Reese swallowed. “So there’s no possible way for me to change my vision?” she asked. She didn’t need Ollo to reply, and he didn’t. Instead, he kept pleading with her, using his greatest asset—those eyes—silently asking her for her vision.