by Jeff Hale
Then Aerick was all over this other girl so I decided to get his attention by diving into the pool wearing nothing but bikini bottoms and a white t-shirt that didn’t leave anything to the imagination once it got wet. I knew where my assets lay. My breasts are very large, and I know guys like that. I guess I had been planning this because my sister winked at me as I told Aerick that I’d be upstairs waiting for him. He showed up at my bedroom door and I let him in. We made love that afternoon for the first time. It was… blissful.
The rest of the diary entries were quickly scribbled things. Half remembered dreams and memories of me and her actual life. She at one point stated that this life she had as Celeste seemed fake to her, like it was made up. She kept trying to explain her feelings for me in random poems and entries, none of which were coherent. It was like her mind was unraveling.
She talked more and more of the grey and the creatures in it that kept trying to drag her back. To what, she didn’t know, and this was not subject matter that I was familiar with. I had never heard of anything like what she was describing here. I was genuinely worried about her now. I needed to talk with her; I had to make sure she was going to be okay.
I felt a little better now since I had been slowly healing my injuries over the time I was reading the diary. I hadn’t really noticed until I sat up on the bed, trying to make out the unintelligible scribbles.
The door to my room suddenly opened and then closed and I heard a very feminine throat clearing. I looked up, expecting to see Kat. I was surprised to see Serena standing there, arms crossed under her breasts, making them seem that much larger in the clingy silvery shirt she was wearing along with an extremely tight and extremely short denim skirt. Her bangs were clipped back with the unicorn barrettes I had gotten her all those years ago, and I noticed that she was wearing the crystal unicorn necklace I had given her a long time ago, the one her sister Alysa had sent to me after her death. Only thing strange was that I had given that necklace to Kat last summer.
I tried to swallow the lump that was in my throat, and stood up and put the diary back on the nightstand, my heart beat rapidly for a few seconds before dropping into my stomach, and I suddenly felt sick.
I could kill shifters, go toe to toe with a demon, and even face down the Iron Hag, Baba Yaga. But… confronting my childhood love that was all of four foot eleven for the first time after her reincarnation? That was making me weak in the knees with fear. Irony. Gotta love it. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips pursed, and the hand to her side was clenched. Yep. She was severely pissed off.
“Where did ya get that?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Just, please. Hear me out,” I said, almost breaking into tears again. I didn’t normally cry over anything, but Serena was my one weak point when it came to that. I had cried for months when she died. I stood and took a step in her direction.
She stepped back. “Why should I? You’ve treated me like garbage fer the past week, and then I catch ya kissin’ that… that… that…” She was getting red in the face and I could see her shaking. “Mah friend. Now you’ve somehow gotten mah diary and are invadin’ mah privacy!”
“You remembered… didn’t you? Serena?” I asked softly.
“How… how did ya know?” Her anger fled as she stared at me in shock.
“Because only Serena called me Ricky.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess that’d give it away. I wanted ta surprise ya before I saw ya with her.”
“I’m sorry about that. Look she’s… we’re over. Were we together at one point? Yeah, but it just never worked out. And it never will. Not when I… not when I lo…” Damn it all, why couldn’t I just tell her? Why couldn’t I say those three words to her?
“Rick… this cain’t work. Not anymore. We’re not who we used ta be. Well I am, but ya… you’ve changed. A lot. And I’m not sure I can evah forgive ya fer how you’ve treated me. I don’t think ya really realize how much you’ve hurt me.”
“I’m sorry for that. I really am, it hurt me just as much, maybe more. I was trying to protect you. You don’t belong in my world. You just don’t. It’s too dangerous, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna put you in a situation where you end up dead again! Please understand what I was trying to do.”
“Wait. Let me get this straight. Ya wanted me ta go away an’ not be with the one man I have evah fallen truly an’ deeply in love with jus’ so ya wouldn’t lose me again? What kind of life did ya expect me ta have without you there ta share it with me?”
“A normal one? To begin with.”
“Shouldn’t I get ta choose that? Don’t I get a say in this? Maybe I want ta give up a normal life if it means bein’ with ya.” She reached over and grabbed her diary and threw it at my chest. “Besides, mah life has been anythin’ but normal. Ya read that, so I’m thinkin’ ya know what I’m talkin’ about.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Besides, I’ve been talking with, well, Alex.” I saw her blush at the mention of his name. Point for me for not getting jealous. “And I have friends that can protect you pretty well should it ever come to that. Other than that, we need to talk in a little bit about some of that.”
“I’m… I’m sorry about the Alex thing, by the way. Ya weren’t supposed ta see that,” she said, looking at the floor.
“Yeah, which is why you guys were in a public area, right?”
“Well, yeah, I guess I wanted ta get caught. I don’t know why. I guess we’ve both hurt each other quite a bit lately, huh?”
“Yeah, so can we talk this out?”
“Sure.” She walked over and sat on the bed next to me.
I looked at her. I thought I’d never see her again, but here she was. My Serena, sitting this close to me, looking up at me with those beautiful emerald green eyes of hers.
“I’ve missed you, darlin’,” I said as I hugged her tightly.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and held me for several minutes. “I missed ya too. I tried… I tried so hard ta remember. I knew who I was, I just couldn’t quite grasp it. I love ya, Ricky.”
“I love you, too,” I breathed out. It was done. I had told her. All those years after she died, of holding it in, and it was finally out. She knew. Tears ran unchecked down my face as I looked at her.
“What? Rick… did ya actually jus’…”
“Yeah. Don’t go having a heart attack on me. I said it.” I just held her for now, just so I could enjoy feeling her up against me while I could. I had a feeling that when we started to talk that it was going to be one long conversation and I wasn’t always going to like what I heard. But for now, it was just me and her. I was content. Happy even, for the first time in a very long time.
No way in hell that could last.
EIGHTEEN
After just holding Serena for a while, we left the Flame and went to her house in the same limo Lucien had used to pick her up. The trip was quiet as I just looked at her constantly and held her for the entire ride. Once we got to her house we sat on the couch in the living room together. I couldn’t stop staring at her, losing myself in those incredible green eyes of hers. She finally looked away and blushed.
“Ya want ta ask me something,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“I guess.” I looked at the wall. The floor. Anywhere but her. I wanted to ask her how she felt about me now. After all, she knew what I was capable of now, had to know that I wasn’t the same person she had known all those years ago. I didn’t think I’d survive her answer if I asked.
“Then ask me. It’s me, Ricky. You’ve nevah kept anythin’ from me.”
“I know, I just…”
“You’re not sure how ta act around me anymore, are ya?”
“No.”
“Just be yerself, Rick. Like you’ve always been around me before.”
“Myself isn’t the same as it used to be, Ser.”
“Sure it is. You’re still mah Ricky, like ya always were, even if ya nevah wanted ta admit it.” She gave me a brilliant smile fu
ll of confidence in me, a smile that I wasn’t sure I could bear to see disappear.
“No. I’m not. I’ve changed. A lot. Just like you said. The Aerick you knew could fight and hurt people, but kill? No. He couldn’t do that. Now… now I can kill, and not even give a second thought to it. Not only that… I’m good at it.” There, I’d said it. Now to deal with her reaction.
“You’ve only changed yer outward self. You’ve done what you’ve had ta in order ta survive in the world ya were thrust inta. I cain’t imagine what ya went through when I died. For that matter, I cain’t imagine what ya were going through when ya found me alive again and I didn’t know who ya were. I’m not sure which would have been worse.”
“Honestly? I don’t know which was worse either.”
“The question I have for ya now is, did ya really mean what ya said ta me at the club?” She gave me a hopeful, almost desperate look.
“Yes.”
“Then tell me again. Look me in the eyes and say it again.” She leaned a bit closer to me, her expression going serious.
I looked her square in the eyes, losing myself there for several seconds before speaking again. “I love you.”
“Ya couldn’t have done that if ya had changed that much. Ya couldn’t have done that if ya were a bad person,” she told me, smiling.
Some things never changed; Serena still had that innocent naiveté that let her believe that love was only found with good things. I knew better, but I wasn’t about to disabuse her of the notion, didn’t want her to run from me. Even so, I opened my mouth to protest. “But I’ve killed people. Doesn’t that make me a bad person?”
Serena just stared at me, her eyes narrowing in on my face, on my own eyes, as though searching for something. Finally, she nodded to herself and gave me a soft smile. “Of course it doesn’t. Did ya have a reason fer killing the people that ya did?”
“Well... yeah. At least I believe I did.” I nodded.
“Have ya killed humans?”
“Yeah.”
“Humans without abilities like yers?”
“Yeah.”
“Who? For what reason?”
“People from the Movement for Purity. Several shortly after the Barrier fell. They were trying to tear Lucien’s club down. And more when I was trying to evade capture so I could make it to your frat party.”
“Ya killed people just ta make it ta mah party?”
“Well. Yeah. I had to see you again.”
“Ricky… that’s so sweet.” She smiled at me and then laughed. “But they were tryin’ ta hurt and capture ya, right?”
“Yeah. And Malachai.”
“Who?” She was confused.
“The guy I went over and talked to at the mall. The one that actually killed those shifters.”
“Oh. Him. Is he like you?”
“Yeah. Exactly in fact. Which isn’t commonplace.”
“You’re a Sentinel, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. But I’m something much… more than that. Sentinels don’t have quite as much power as I do. I’m a Paragon, a special type of Sentinel. There’s not many of us Sentinels left, and it’s a long story, but seeing as we have plenty of time…”
I filled her in on everything I knew about Merlin, Arthur, Camelot, the Sentinels, the Barrier, and the Aether in general. She had managed to pick some stuff up in her cryptozoology class, but not a lot.
“Wow, well that explains how ya aced that test on yer first day,” she laughed.
“Yeah, that’s why,” I said.
“So you’re the person that told Ms. Haid that she could talk about Sentinels?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she doesn’t know as much as ya do, obviously.”
“Can’t really fault her on her Sentinel knowledge. MAGE didn’t know anything about them and I only told her so much.” I spent the next hour or so telling her about my time with MAGE and what I had been up to in the past five years.
“Wow. So Nina’s going ta be a shifter, and she cheated on poor Dave? That many times? That trollop! And ya slept with her? You’re not touching me until ya bathe in bleach!” She laughed, but I could hear a little truth in her words.
“Yeah. Can’t blame you on that, I suppose.” I laughed with her, enjoying the fact that I could even listen to her laugh.
“So mah friend, Kat…” Serena began.
“Serena, you’re here now. I don’t need anyone else,” I assured her.
“I know… but… do me a favor? Can ya not see her unless I’m around?”
“Yeah, I can do that. Wait… so are we together now?”
“Sure. Why not? Ya love me. I love ya. Seems pretty simple ta me,” she said, and my heart soared.
“Yeah. I guess it is. Are you sure? I mean… my life is pretty dangerous.”
“It’s mah risk ta take. I’d rather risk death again than not be with ya. If I’m only going ta live fer another year because I get killed by some weird supernatural creature, then at least I would have spent that year with ya.”
“Well, I’m gonna pull some favors and get you protected even when I’m not around.” I would go as far as round the clock bodyguards but I wasn’t sure Serena would appreciate it.
“So I guess you’re really mah white knight, literally?” Her grin was mischevious.
“Yeah, I guess you can say that.” I smiled slightly at the thought. She accepted me completely for what and who I was now. My biggest fear had been alleviated. My phone rang as we sat and talked about some of the more intricate aspects of Aetheric life. Things like vamp politics and shifter pecking order. I picked it up and heard a familiar voice on the other end.
“Hey, man, where the fuck have you been?!” Dave asked, his worry obvious.
“Around?” I said, feigning ignorance.
“Bullshit! First you go into some magical house that belongs to one of the most powerful witches around and is labeled a Russian boogeyman, and then I hear something about you being arrested by a fae and accused of murder by the shifters! What the fuck?” Now he started to sound angry, that kind of angry you get when you worry about someone then find out they’re all right.
“Uh… I was um… protecting Serena from them, and their leader got angry enough to bring in an Adjudicator pack to settle the issue,” I defended. Serena was scowling at the phone, having obviously heard Dave, not that he was using a quiet voice.
“Watch the language, Dave!” she called out.
Dave heard her because I heard him laugh, then he stopped suddenly. “Holy fuck! She remembers?” he asked incredulously while Serena yelled for him to watch his language again.
“Yeah. She remembers,” I confirmed, unable to keep the happiness from my voice.
“Are you two…?”
“Yeah. We’re together. In fact we just established that.”
“Good. You two crazy kids are good for each other. I’ll go ahead and let you go so you can have more time with her. I’m back at the apartment; just make sure to bring her by so I can give her a big hug sometime in the next few days, eh?”
“Sure thing, bro. By the way, sorry about making you worry.”
“Pffft. Don’t even worry about it. You’re okay, which is all that matters,” Dave said.
“How did you find out anyway?”
“Kat told me. Tell Serena I love her and give her a wet, sloppy kiss and a tit grab from me.”
“I’ll give her a hug and send your love, but that’s it.” I laughed and hung up the phone.
“So I guess Dave’s fine, then?”
“Yep.”
“Good. Wish Nina was around. I’d love ta give that girl a nice kick ta the crotch.” She scowled again.
“Does that even work?”
“Kick hard enough an’ use the point of yer toe, and it absolutely does.”
“I should have asked Kat how Nina was doing while I had the chance. Can’t believe I forgot to.” I shook my head. Cheating on Dave or not, I’d still known Nina for most of my life a
nd I still cared, despite everything.
“You were too busy sticking yer tongue down her throat ta think about that,” Serena reminded me petulantly.
“Hey, now. Are you just going to hold that over my head?”
“No. Just wanted ta take the one shot. I have, so now it’s in the past.”
“You never did like any of the other girls I was interested in.”
“No, I didn’t.” This time the scowl was for me.
“You’re so cute when you’re jealous, did I ever tell you that?”
“No.” She smiled and blushed, looking at the floor. Anyone else pulling that act and I’d think they were trying to be coy. Not Serena though. She was genuinely flustered. She was still the innocent, slightly naïve, southern belle I remembered.
Which meant she was a lady through and through. It was why she didn’t like being cussed around. She was brought up with some old fashioned traditions in her household, one of which was that gentlemen didn’t swear around ladies. She would have me believe that I was a gentleman. Whatever. I was happy to indulge her for now, but whatever delusions she had of me would have to be stripped away eventually. Of course that was something I’d been trying to do for years, and it never quite worked.
“So what’s this stuff you were writing about, this grey stuff? And the faces and such?” I asked, knowing I needed to try and figure out what was plaguing her.
“I don’t know. I jus’ know that sometimes I have this feeling of… dread. And of wrongness. Like I’m not right somehow. I don’t understand it. I’m scared of it. I do know that. Have ya ever heard of anythin’ like it?”
“No. I haven’t. I do know that it’s odd that even though you’re supposedly twenty years old, you still look the same as you did when you were sixteen. I better head into the office and let Raven know that everything is fine. She might know something about all this too.” I started to stand when Serena grabbed my hand in hers.
