“Well, I guess we know why she went to Peru,” Sam laughed disbelievingly. “But if you wanted to get some work done, my dad could’ve hooked you up with the best Hollywood has to offer.” Sam reached her finger out and poked at my left boob. Another grossly aggrandized asset I hadn’t noticed until then. “Wow! They feel so real!” She exclaimed, giddily excited.
I cupped my hand defensively over my boob, my face blank as I tried to arrange my brain enough to think my way out of whatever situation I had walked into.
“Only, if you were trying to keep people from noticing you, I don’t think this new look is going to work.” Obviously, Sam assumed my new look was an effort to conceal my identity. She prattled innocently with her eyes on the floor, a frown stealing her smile, wrongly assuming I had plastic surgery to escape the headlines that chased me through life. If only it were that simple. Facing friends with the truth had never been my strongest suit. Every time before, I had run or lied. But that wasn’t an answer anymore.
Their presence certainly complicated things. My plan was to get in, grab my necklace and key, and get out. I didn’t want to run into anyone. And now I had my two best friends sitting before me, clearly seeing how different I was, and knowing where I had been. How was I ever going to get out of this one?
“How did you know I went to Peru?’ I asked, not moving from the threshold, my feet stuck like glue to the checkerboard carpet that covered our room. Sam grabbed my arm, pulled me through the doorway, and shut it quickly behind me.
“My mom gets an email update when her buddy passes are booked. Sam and I assumed you would use the ticket to go to Ireland. But you obviously didn’t.” Mattie’s grey eyes were alarmingly hard as she stared at me, legs crossed, body leaning against the wall with her lips pursed into a thin line. She was so angry she was indifferent, which was the angriest Mattie got. “You’ve got some explaining to do, Faye.”
Two weeks ago, the old Faye Kent would have been so nervous she would have passed out on the floor, so scared of the situation and the danger of being discovered, too much of a wimp to face the situation head on. All the old familiar sensations were there. My stomach was knotted, my palms were sweaty, my brain was tangled in a million different directions, but it wasn’t the same.
No longer was I motivated by the fear of being found out. Something had irreversibly changed in the core of my being. This human world was no longer mine, if it had ever been mine to begin with. I was no longer bound by the rules of being human, no longer held in place by what other’s thought I should or should not be.
I was something entirely different, and knowing this world wouldn’t be mine after I left St. Anne’s gave me a peace with myself I had never known before. So what if my face was plastered on the front of every newspaper again? So what if people thought I was strange? So what if I didn’t fit in?
I was intended for things humans could never comprehend, and what I was in their world didn’t really matter anymore. If Mattie and Sam hated me when they learned the truth of what I was, what did it matter? I was leaving. I never had to see them again.
“I didn’t have any work done,” I answered with my eyes on the floor, making my way over to the fridge to grab a coke before pulling my desk chair even with where they sat on the bed.
“But you look so...different,” Sam marveled, her eyes following my graceful movements as she crawled back on the bed next to Mattie.
I straddled the chair, the back of it facing them, and popped the top of the cold can in my hand. Sam held out the grease stained pizza box to offer me a slice, her blank expression watching me intently, as if she needed reassurance I was her old friend. I took it out of habit, but tossed it back after one bite. Pizza used to be my favorite meal; now it tasted like chalk. I was really going to miss that.
Mattie hadn’t spoken again. Staring at me with a piercing glare that seemed to already know all my secrets. I could feel her eyes burrowing into the top of my head as I wiped the pizza grease on my jeans and tried to think of where I should begin.
“You two have been better friends than I deserved. I never would have made it through these past months without you, and I will never forget what you’ve done for me,” I began, shaking my head with regret.
“Are you breaking up with us?” Sam laughed in a sarcastic way, clearly not in on the joke like Mattie was.
“No, she’s saying she’s been lying to us, Sam,” Mattie’s voice was harsh to the point of brutality and I finally braved a glance at her impenetrable gaze. Mattie had never asked me questions about my past. She had only accepted me for the broken person she thought I was and tried to fix me. I could understand why she was so angry. They had given me everything, and I had given them nothing in return.
“I didn’t technically lie,” I corrected. “I just omitted some pertinent information. There’s only one person in this world who knows all my secrets.”
“Dayne,” Mattie said through gritted teeth, her voice totally deadpan. The severity of her tone snapped me to attention, a move that narrowed her eyes even more maddeningly closed.
Every woman who had ever laid eyes on Dayne had fallen in love with him. My media moment probably would have faded sooner had Dayne not stolen so many female hearts he had his own Facebook page. There was only one woman I knew of that hadn’t fallen for his charms—the overprotective friend that had dried my tears and tried to mend the mess he’d made of my heart. I nodded and looked back to the Coke in my hand.
“How could you deceive us like this, Faye? I’ve been a damn good friend to you!” Mattie was yelling so loudly Sam placed a calming hand on her shoulder, her own eyes wide with the dangerous turn our conversation had taken.
“Easy!” I held up my hands defensively when Mattie punched her fists in the mattress and leaned into me, tears begging to escape her eyes. But Mattie was too stubborn to let them fall.
“Faye, what’s all this about?” Sam implored with soft voice and worried eyes. “You disappear in some third world country, making us fear the worst. You come back like some ugly duckling transformed into a beautiful swan...no offense…” she shrugged in an apologetic way. “And you even smashed some poor woman’s cell phone at the airport for taking your picture. This isn’t the Faye we know.”
So, my episode at the airport had already hit the internet gossip sites. I closed my eyes and sighed. Awesome.
“I don’t think we have a clue who the real Faye Kent is,” Mattie answered icily, crossing her arms as she leaned back against the wall.
“I don’t really expect you guys to understand. Or care for that matter. I don’t deserve anymore kindness from you. I get that.” I wasn’t sure if I was explaining the situation to them or to myself. My nerves were getting shaky and as if my body was on autopilot I rose to retrieve a candle from beside the window sill. The instant I picked up the burning candle its flame crackled with new life, and then soared high on the little wick struggling to hold it.
“What the…” Sam’s voice was a high, trembling whisper as she watched the candle flame flicker a solid six inches higher than normal. Instinctively, the two girls reached out for each other’s hands on the bedspread, squeezing into a white knuckled grip on contact.
My brow furrowed, a confusing mix of sadness, regret and torment, knowing all my secrets were about to tumble out. I swept an apologetic look from the candle flame to their terrified faces, both pinched with fear, their bodies drawn as far away from me as they could get.
Evening had fallen over northern California. Shadows darkened the room and the candle was all that illuminated their terror.
Sam began to back away from me as if I was some sort of demonic presence, her body shrinking against the wall. Mattie was trying to keep the fear from showing on her face, but I knew she was terrified as well. Her heartbeat raced, sounding like a kick drum against her ribs.
Craving the flame’s hot kiss, I waved my hand over the candle. Again the fire flared on contact with my skin and a single trail of fire be
gan to engulf my fingers. It felt good. It felt right. It gave my body the calming satisfaction I used to get from a greasy slice of cheese pizza.
A contended sigh escaped my lips.
Sam screamed and tucked her head into Mattie’s shoulder for protection.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I shook my head as I looked at their horrified expressions and extinguished the fire on my hand with a gentle exhale.
I twisted my hand back and forth in the air, letting them see that it was neither charred nor singed in the slightest.
“I’m not at all what you thought I was, but I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else.” I softened my face into the most welcoming expression I could muster, pleading with my eyes and hoping I was having some sort of calming effect on them. “Honestly, I don’t know why I’m like this. But I was born to it for some reason.”
Mattie gulped so loudly both Sam and I turned to her.
“Your eyes!” Mattie whispered.
I twisted my head to the full length mirror that hung behind our door and saw a familiar glow. Dayne’s eyes always glowed jade green when his magic came alive in this world. Chassan’s took on the golden color of the sun. My eyes were now flecked with pin pricks of fiery red-orange, but not completely illuminated.
“What the hell, Faye?” Mattie said as she pulled a pillow in front of her as if it might protect her.
I set the candle on my bedside table, thinking it would ease their fears if I weren’t holding it, and switched on the lamp. The room was bathed in soft light, chasing the scary-ghost-story feeling from the room. Grabbing onto the back of the chair I leaned back and looked up at the ancient stone ceiling of our room as I thought about how to explain this to them.
“I knew I wasn’t normal in high school. Dayne confirmed it for me last summer.” I kept my head thrown back, my gaze off them, giving my eyes time to return to their normal color and not scare them any more. When my eyes blazed with fire my vision was magnified. I could count every invisible spiderweb on the stone ceiling with alarming accuracy. When the microscopic whispers of white string disappeared against the stone, I knew my eyes were human again.
“So, Dayne’s like you?” Mattie asked, releasing her death grip on the pillow.
I nodded slowly.
“That explains a lot.” Sam exhaled as if she had been holding her breath. “I mean, you’re a beautiful girl, even before all this.” She waved her hand up and down my new physique. “But Dayne is just too….perfect.”
“You have no idea,” I sighed longingly. Propping my elbow on my knee, I dropped my head and rested it in my palm, as if shaking it back and forth would release the painful images of Dayne’s perfection from my head.
“What was in Peru?” Mattie scooted forward on the bed, tentatively placing the pillow behind her.
“I was looking for answers.”
“What kind of answers?”
“Answers that will help me get back to Dayne.”
“Uh-uh, Faye.” At the mention of the guy who had done me wrong Mattie immediately switched from frightened witness to protective friend. How many times had she told me to forget him, that he wasn’t worth my tears? “I don’t care what he is. If he was dumb enough to let you go, he doesn’t deserve you.” Mattie ventured a hand out to grab onto mine, just as she would have done two weeks ago when I was just plain old Faye Kent from Atlanta, Georgia.
In her world she was right. Guys didn’t deserve a second chance after they had broken a girl’s heart. Chasing after a man that had already given you up was down right masochistic.
“It’s not that simple,” I squeezed her hand and shook my head. “I’m going to be with Dayne. I’ve seen our future together. I’ve even seen our kids.” I pulled the hand away from Mattie and wiped it down my face as if it might wash the memory away.
“You’re psychic?” Sam scooted forward on the bed now, her legs dangling off the mattress, inches from me, no longer frightened by me.
“Sort of. I can’t control what I see. But when I have a vision it always comes true.”
“How many kids?” Sam asked, her eyes suspicious as she chewed her lip. It was obvious her journalistic instincts were kicking in. She wanted the whole story, and she wanted to know if she should believe me or not.
“Two.” I smiled without hesitation, and my eyes hit the floor as I remembered the vision that seemed like an eternity ago. “A boy and a girl.” I sighed as I stood and walked to my closet.
“I knew you weren’t normal,” Sam teased at my back, obviously choosing to believe me.
“You did not!” Mattie scolded. They began to bicker behind my back about whether Sam knew what was going on with me the entire time. For someone like Sam, someone who prided herself in always knowing what was going on, having missed a story that was right under her nose had to be a huge blow to the ego.
Their voices faded away as I stood on my tiptoes and retrieved the treasures I had hidden away behind my suitcases. Opening the velvet box, relief washed over me to find them both exactly where I had left them. The golden key draped easily over my head and fell into the neck of my shirt, its cold metal shaft chilling my skin.
Stepping in front of the mirror, I pulled my hair to the side and fastened my locket into place.
“Where’s your bracelet, Faye?” Mattie asked as she watched me from the bed.
I looked down at my empty wrist, rubbing where Dayne’s gift used to live.
“Someone else needed it more than I did,” I answered, picturing Anyi’s dancing black eyes. After the miracles witnessed at her pyre, I was pretty sure Anyi would be idolized by now, if not worshipped as a goddess herself.
“You’re leaving us!” Sam gasped, noticing I had begun to gather a few things from my drawers. I caught her pained expression in the mirror over my dresser and it twisted my heart to see her so upset over the thought of losing me, even if I had become a monster in her eyes. “I guess you can’t really stay around here looking like that if you don’t want the secret to get out, huh?” Sam frowned as she said this, realization caving her shoulders.
“Guys, I don’t expect you to keep my secret. I plan on disappearing again, so it doesn’t really matter what people say about me anymore.”
“You’re leaving for good this time?” Mattie jumped off the bed, walking toward me and shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe I was leaving them.
“Well, yeah. Sam’s right. I can’t live this life anymore. I’m too different. Besides humans can’t keep secrets this big. You wouldn’t mean too, but eventually you’ll let some of what I’ve shown you tonight slip and it will be all over the place. It’s best if I leave.”
“How dare you, Faye!” Mattie stormed over to me, crossing her arms as if she weren’t the tiniest bit afraid of going to battle with someone whose body burned like fire and eyes glowed demon red.
I shrugged and shook my head at her, not understanding why she was so angry.
“Haven’t we kept every one of your secrets? Has anything you’ve ever told us, or a single photo ever made the papers? We could be seriously rich right now. But we haven’t because we’re your friends. Maybe humans—like you say— can’t keep secrets, but friends can!” She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. My mouth gaped open, not knowing what to say.
I didn’t expect this from them. I was prepared for them to run to Sam’s dad and blow my story wide open.
“Yeah!” Sam added. “Not to mention people would think we had gone insane in the membrane if we started claiming you were some magical creature.”
My gaze flickered from Mattie’s indignant glare to Sam’s wrinkled expression of utter consternation as she obviously thought about how she would try to explain this story to anyone.
“Why wouldn’t you tell everyone?” I asked.
“Why would we?” Mattie immediately answered.
“If you were dangerous you would’ve already burned us alive or something. Besides it’s kinda cool to have a friend like you.”
Sam blushed and bit her lip, pushing her unruly hair behind an ear.
“Me? Cool?” My nose and lip turned into one big wrinkle as the two words sunk into my head. I was a lot of things. Cool was certainly not one of them.
“Different,” Mattie nodded her head and furrowed her brow as she thought.
“You two would actually want to be friends with me, knowing what I am?”
“Why not? You’re still Faye. You’ve just got like the coolest party tricks ever,” Mattie reached out and tugged playfully at my hair.
“Yeah, and if anybody messes with us you can set their hair on fire or something!” Sam’s eyes danced excitedly as she thought about all the ways a friend like me could come in handy. “Too bad I don’t smoke. You’d be really convenient if I didn’t have a lighter!” Sam giggled.
I slumped back in my chair, hands over my face as I thought about what they were saying. For years, I had kept my secrets to myself for fear of people turning on me. I had always assumed that no one would ever believe me when I told them what I was. Or if they did, they would run screaming from me. But I had just revealed my secrets to Sam and Mattie, and instead of running from me, they wanted me to stay.
“Staying was never part of my plan, guys. I don’t see how I can. It’s too dangerous.” Chassan’s angry face flared in my memory and I sighed at the impossibility of staying, no matter how tempting it was.
“So, you disappear to Ireland for a while. Go find Dayne—even though he’s got some serious ass kissing to do if he wants my blessing to date my best friend.” Mattie’ eyes flared angrily and she poked a finger in my chest. “When you come back everyone will think you look so amazing because you are blissfully happy and in love.”
“Or that you had work done,” Sam piped up.
The thought of coming back to this old life with Dayne by my side suddenly made it all seem doable. If I had a Sidhe warrior at my side, Chassan wouldn’t have such an easy time killing me. And if Dayne could finish the lessons Chassan started, I was pretty sure we’d be too much for Chassan to handle on his own.
Son of Sun (Forgotten Gods (Book 2)) Page 24
