Tainted Heart (The Tainted Series Book 2)

by Marie, Tarisa

  “Mindy?!” I cry and shake her violently. She stirs a little but doesn’t wake up. I cuss and pull her across the floor to the couch and muster up all of my strength to throw her up onto the couch. Then I go into the kitchen and fill a cup full with water. I throw it onto her face and the water runs down her cheeks, no longer clear but a murky dirty color. She’s filthy. What’s happened to her?

  I check her body over for scrapes or cuts or anything of anything but find nothing. Like my father taught me, I take her pulse. It’s faster than it should be but still not outrageous. What do I do? How the hell did she find me here?

  I get a wet cloth and begin wiping away the dirt from her body. It’s like she’s been living outside like an animal.

  “Ariella?” she croaks finally and sits up quickly. “Where am I?”

  “You’re at my mother’s house,” I say and then remember that she thinks my mom is dead. She looks at me confused and then seems to be thinking.

  “How did you find me?” I demand. There’s no way a witch could find me or a Tario let alone a human.

  She also seems confused. “I don’t remember,” she says and my confusion deepens.

  “What is the last thing you remember?” I try.

  She thinks, “I’d gotten back from your house after the school caught on fire and…”

  Holy shit that was forever ago. “And what?” I push her.

  “And a man was there waiting for me. That’s all I remember,” she admits. “Wait, are you alright? Your father, oh god, Ariella, I’m so sorry.”

  My father? Then I remember that she also thinks he is dead.

  “Wait, isn’t your mom dead? You told me your mom died?” she suddenly realizes, her dark brows moving together in confusion.

  “She is, but this is or was her house,” I answer. I know she wants to hear more but I change the subject. “Mindy, the last thing you remember is getting home from my house and there being a guy at your house? What did he look like?” I ask. I can’t help wondering if it was Marco.

  When she describes the man as being short with glasses and long blonde hair. I know she isn’t talking about Marco who is short but has no glasses and has short dark hair. I have no idea who she’s talking about and wonder if maybe she was kidnapped by just some regular dude, not some supernatural one. But then I remember what Nathan told me all those months ago when I found him in front of her house. He’d said that Marco had sent a vampire to turn her. Looking at Mindy now, she is definitely not a vampire. Would Nathan lie?

  “Mindy, the fire at the school and the last day you remember was just over eleven months ago…” I explain to her gently. This seems to blow her away. “You’ve been missing for almost a year.”

  A hand flies up to her mouth, and she begins to cry.

  She wants to call her mother but I tell her I don’t have a phone and she needs rest. She eventually gives in and falls asleep.

  Meanwhile, Tyler returns having not found Daymon and decides to try to break Baylon, my father, and brother Jacob out of the Tarot prison by himself as he doesn’t know how else this ball is going to be destroyed. I, for one think this is absolute insanity but there is no stopping him when his mind is set, he is just like my father. He thinks that Baylon might be able to destroy the ball and so off he goes.

  When Mindy wakes up she is shaking. She calls my name and I come rushing from the kitchen with a sandwich I made her and a glass of peach juice. She scarfs it down as if she’s starving and then says, “Ariella, I remembered something.”

  “What?” I demand.

  “I was in a cellar for a long time. I think. I remember being cold and on a cement floor,” she continues while shaking as if she’s freezing.

  I feel sick to my stomach. I will kill the bastard who did this to her.

  “But then someone got me out and took me to their home and the rest is pretty blurry,” she admits sadly. “Something strange is going on, Ariella. I don’t know what but I can feel it in every inch of my body.” I’m not sure what she’s referring to but I can only hope that she doesn’t mean anything supernatural. I’d prefer her not to have to know this world’s existence.

  “I really think you should get some more rest, you still look terrible,” I tell her. “Would you like another sandwich?”

  She nods. “Sorry, I’m starving,” she apologizes and lays her head back down to rest. I can’t help wondering what she’s been through. I know though that if Marco had her, she’d have been in a lot worse shape and I doubt that he’d just let her go. This isn’t benefiting him at all and that’s unlike him.

  When I come back with the other sandwich, she’s already asleep. I feel bad for her in the sense that she too has been through hell. I feel her pain. I wonder if she’s better off not remembering what happened. Maybe her brain blocked it out for a reason. I’ve heard of people who went through terrible things and their brains blocked it out because it was too painful.

  When Tyler comes back empty handed I’m confused. I thought he was either going to succeed or get caught. He tells me that he can get into the prison but the power sealing the cells shut is too great. He wants to take the ball to Baylon to try to destroy while in prison although using power inside the cells is very difficult. He confirms that my father and brother are in there and that they’re fine.

  When Mindy wakes up to see Tyler staring at her, she jumps up and runs her fingers through her hair quickly as if trying to brush out the tangles. Yep, she’s still the same vain Mindy. Tyler laughs as if she’s hilarious and helps her to the shower although she requests that I help. Great, she has a crush on my dad and my brother. When Mindy comes out of the shower and I explain to her who Tyler is she blushes and I know exactly what she’s thinking. I make a mental note to tell her he, like my father, is also off limits.

  It’s nice to have her back. I missed her upbeat attitude. We spend the afternoon watching romance movies while Tyler is out taking the ball to Baylon.

  “Ariella, I’m not feeling so well,” Mindy whines later that night.

  When I look over to her on the couch I see that she is drenched in sweat. I run to the kitchen and grab a cold, wet cloth for her forehead. Now I’m really wondering if I shouldn’t take her to the doctor. I’m putting my shoes on and about to wake her up to help her walk out to my brother’s car so I can take her to the hospital when she’s suddenly no longer on the couch.

  Confused, I search both of the bathrooms, thinking maybe she got sick. When I come up empty, I rush back to the living room and freeze dead in my tracks when I see what stares back at me. Then I scream.

  A huge black wolf stands in my kitchen staring at me. How in the hell did that get in here? I begin to panic. One leap and that thing has me. It stares at me and then trots off in the opposite direction as if I’m uninteresting. It lies down on the kitchen floor and closes its eyes.

  What the heck do I do? Did it hurt Mindy? Where the hell is she? We need to get out of here and call animal control. I glance at the front door and the patio door, both are closed which deepens my confusion. That is until I glance back at the wolf on the floor and see that it’s gone. In its place is Mindy. Curled up in a ball.

  What the hell? Ariella, you’re losing it. I approach Mindy and shake her. Her eyes slowly open. I see what looks to be fur around where she lays and I begin questioning my sanity. That’s when something an elderly woman once told me surfaces in my brain. Natalie Silver, a young girl from Taverd, her grandmother had once mentioned something about hunters who killed beasts and Daymon had explained to me that the hunters believed that there were shape shifters in existence. Daymon seemed to have written her off as a little nuts but what if she was right? What if I’m staring at a shape shifter? What if my best friend is a werewolf? This might offer some sort of explanation as to how she found me. I mean I don’t know how but it can’t be a coincidence, can it?

  “What?” Mindy asks before taking in her surroundings and realizing she’s on the floor.

  “Are yo
u feeling okay?” I ask her, in a strained, nervous voice.

  She nods. “I feel much better. I must’ve been sleep walking.”

  “Mindy, have you ever wondered if things like vampires and werewolves actually exist?” I ask her nervously, just throwing it right out there.

  She looks at me as if I’m dumb and shakes her head. “Outside of fantasy books? No, Ariella, that’s just nuts.”

  If she is a shape shifter, she has no idea that she is. I realize that I’m going to be taking a road trip to Canada to visit the elderly woman and see if I can’t dig up some answers. I mean it’s not like I’m doing much hanging around here while waiting for someone to fix all my problems. I may as well be doing something. I think about taking Mindy with me but decide that she’s probably better off here. Before I take off on a plane to Calgary, Canada using some of my father’s money, I write a note for Tyler and seal it in an envelope. I put it in the safe my mother showed me for emergencies and leave a note on the counter for Tyler saying I left something for him in the safe.

  I tell Mindy that I have a family emergency and I’ll be back in 24 hours, where from there I will take her to her mother who she insists on seeing or calling every five minutes. I can’t let her do that until I know what’s going on. She seems too exhausted to hear much of what I’ve said and I wonder what’s brought on her cat-like sleep schedule.

  I take off in Tyler’s car and eventually find my way to the airport, where I book a ticket to Calgary. From there I will have to get a rental car to drive to Taverd. I’ve never been on a plane and so this is going to be an experience.

  After I fumble my way through security which earns me a few too many glares, I get a coffee at one of the stores and find my gate. I get there just in time for the plane to board and use the fake passport my father had gotten me for emergencies and my boarding ticket to get onto the plane. I always thought having a fake passport was silly seeing as that there were always so many people around who could just use their power to get me across border but now I’m happy that I have one.

  While on the plane I take advantage of the age on my passport to order an alcoholic beverage. After everything that’s happened, I need a drink.

  I’m surprised by how I’m not frightened by the plane. Maybe it’s because I know that even if this thing crashes, I’ll still supposedly live. Or maybe it’s just because being in the air is smoother than being in a car and it really just doesn’t bother me.

  I have to admit that it does bother me a bit more when we’re landing. That second before the wheels hit the concrete…not the best moment of my life. I think I was envisioning the plane landing too rough and colliding with the cement, sending it flipping and sliding down the runway.

  Although the plane wasn’t the worst experience I’ve had, I’m happy to get off of it and get back to the ground. It takes me only a few minutes to find the exit. I didn’t bring any baggage so I don’t have to worry about picking any up. I find the rental car station fairly easily and when I jump into my rental car I take a sigh of relief. I’ve made it this far, I’ve overcome my fear of flying and travelled across continent. I take a deep breath before starting the car and beginning my trek to Taverd.

  Chapter 14

  When I arrive in Taverd I’m bombarded by memories of Daymon and I find myself having to pull over a cry for a few minutes. He was such a huge part of my life. He helped me through everything, all the bullshit that was thrown at me for months and now he’s one of my enemies. I seem to have too many enemies these days without having done a single thing wrong.

  I wipe away my tears. I need to stay strong. I need to figure things out for Mindy.

  I knock on the elderly lady’s home and I’m happy to see Natalie when she opens the door. The smile on her face is contagious and I can’t help wrapping her in a huge hug. She invites me in and I feel sad when I have to have her leave the room so I can speak privately with her grandmother who I now remember likes to be called Grey.

  The old lady brings me a small sandwich and a cup of coffee and seems very interested in why I’ve come to speak to her.

  “Grey, I’m here to talk to you about the ‘beasts’,” I explain using the word she used last time I was in this house.

  “Ah, you’ve come to the right place,” she approves and sets down her coffee. “What about them would you like to know, dear?”

  “Everything,” I answer and take a gulp of coffee.

  “Well, dear, I’m not sure where to start,” she admits.

  “From the beginning,” I suggest and sit up in my seat.

  She smiles. “Very well then. Years ago…I’m not sure how long ago exactly but centuries ago, the legend goes that there were these magic casters and they accidentally opened a portal to another realm. From this realm came the beasts. The magic casters managed to close the portal, but it was too late, some of the beasts were already here.”

  I nod for her to continue when she stops for a moment.

  “They began attacking villages of people and killing. So a group of hunters formed to eradicate the beasts. The magic casters seemed to not care much about the beasts and so the burden of getting rid of them was left on the humans. The beasts were men and women who looked like humans but would every so often shift into wolves. They preyed on human flesh. Not many came into this world and eventually, around seventy years ago, the hunters managed to kill them all off. After they were gone we turned our attempts towards ridding the world of the magic casters but they were virtually not killable and began hunting down our men and so we made a truce with them. We would keep the secret of their existence from other humans and stop attacking them if they would stop killing our many men. The group of hunters was very large and though the magic casters tried to exterminate the group, more of us kept popping up and attacking them. They agreed to the truce.”

  I wonder if the magic casters she is speaking about are the Tario or the witches and warlocks. “How many centuries ago would you say that these things came here?”

  “I would say nearly ten centuries ago. Close to a millennium, dear. No worries, though, they’re all gone,” she chides.

  This means she must be speaking of the Tario as the Tario used to extinguish all halflings born back then and so witches and warlocks didn’t exist. Then again if she is talking about the attacking them around seventy years ago, she could be talking about the witches and warlocks. This sort of seems to mesh with Daymon’s story. Maybe they first met the Tario but then later met the witches and warlocks and confused them for one and the same.

  “Why do you ask about these creatures?” she wonders.

  “Just curious,” I answer. “Do you think that these magic casters are still out there?”

  “I don’t have a doubt they are. From what I understood from my father’s stories as a child was that they were immortal. They’ve kept their side of the deal and as have we. We are at peace which is all we can ask from beings as great and powerful as they who could easily rid the planet of us with a snap of their fingers,” she says and snaps her fingers lightly. “We were nothing but an annoyance to them, a fly buzzing in their ears now and again. The way the stories went, I think these beings could knock out all life on this planet if they wanted to, but yet they could not manage to pick out only the hunters from the population as they were humans and it’d be impossible to pick them out from a crowd of other humans.”

  I laugh, imaging how that might be difficult.

  “You know something, dear, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. What have you seen?” she asks, catching me a little off guard. “You have not come here out of mere curiosity, have you?”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s nothing, Grey. I should really be going though, I have a long commute ahead of me.”

  “Ariella, dear, you can tell me, I am old and no one believes a word I say anyhow. I will not tell a soul what you tell me. I have no one to tell, dear,” she insists in a crackly voice and smiles kindly. I know she means well, but I can’t bri
ng herself to tell her anything.

  I’m not sure what to say in reply so I say nothing.

  She smiles sweetly and sips her coffee.

  “I’ve heard many stories about the magic casters, Ariella. About their strange stature and their eyes. You cannot lie to someone as old as me, dear. I knew from the moment my granddaughter let you and that other boy in my home that you were not part of our world but part of theirs,” she says, and this scares me slightly. She knows? How? I begin panicking little. “Do not fear me, Ariella. As I said, the magic casters have kept their end of the deal, I shall keep our end as well. I will not give away your secret and I will not try to kill you a long as you do the same. I see kindness in you,” Grey explains. “I am good at reading others and I believe that if you wished to cause me harm you would have done so by now. I owe you for treating my granddaughter Natalie so well as well. I have intention to harm you, not that I could of course.”

  I definitely didn’t come here expecting this much. I didn’t even really realize that witches and warlocks looked any different than humans. Then it occurs to me that the descriptions she would’ve been given may have been of the Tario. I’ve never thought of myself as looking Tario but now that I think about it, I do share their stature and maybe even my eyes resemble something of theirs.

  “You look as though you have places to be. There’s an anxiety in your expression. Go now, if I have told you all you need. I trust that you will do only good with the information I’ve shared with you,” she changes her mindset and motions to the door.

  With this, I feel the need for fresh air. I need to get out of here right now.

  “Thank you for all your help, Grey,” I stutter and walk towards the door as quickly as possible.

  “I will tell Natalie you said goodbye,” Grey replies.

  I feel bad leaving Natalie without having so much as a conversation with her but what can I do? I make a mental note to come visit her one day if this all blows over.