It leaps to life again, shadows swirling like ash. Then the shadows disintegrate and the mirror fills with light.
Instinctively, I take a step back, but of course it’s only an image. The sunlight in the mirror can’t hurt me.
But the rest of what I see does.
It’s Ander, alright, but he’s not alone. He’s standing outside with Naomi. She has her back to him, and he’s behind her, very close, almost touching. As I watch, he takes something from his pocket—something small that glints golden in the sunlight. A necklace? Why is he giving her a necklace? She pulls her long, red gold hair aside as he drapes it around her neck, and I’m immediately reminded of the night of the dance, when I stood in front of a mirror like this one and watched as Luke fastened the antique necklace around my neck. I remember how intimate it felt, the way his fingers brushed against my neck… Naomi’s hair falls forward in a curtain as she bows her head to let him fasten the chain, his big hands struggling a little with the tiny clasp. When he’s got it, she turns to smile at him, pleased, her fingers moving to the charm that hangs against her chest. He smiles back, and she lowers her hand and I can see what the charm is, for one passing second before she slips it down inside her shirt and presses it to her heart.
It’s a tiny, golden cross.
I cringe, and it isn’t just fear. I suddenly understand why Ander went back into the thrift shop: he went in to buy the crosses, the very things that freaked me out, and now he’s giving one to this girl he just met, to protect her from me. As if she’s his responsibility. As if I’m the enemy.
Fury sweeps through me like fire up a fuse. I can’t see straight. The image in the mirror seems move in slow motion. They’re talking, but I can’t hear them, I can only see them. Ander holds out his hand, and I realize she is giving him something in return—another charm on a chain, but this time it’s something long and white.
The key to my room.
I’m on the stairs before I even know I’m in motion, down two flights and through the door at vampire speed. The door isn’t locked—not yet. But I know it will be. Isn’t that why she gave him the key? So he could lock me in? Is this how it’s going to be from now on, the animal and the animal charmer united against me? It makes perfect sense, of course. Oh, wouldn’t it be easy for him to be with her! I race through the kitchen, headed for the door.
“Cicely?” Luke sticks his head in from the living room. He must have been awake, listening for me.
I don’t need a mirror any more to see how I look… it’s written in the horror on Luke’s face. “Querida, what’s wrong?” He grabs me by the arm. “Cicely don’t!”
Luke yanks me backwards. I turn on him, hissing, fangs bared.
“But, Cicely, the sun!”
I freeze. He’s right, of course. I am only feet from the back door with its glass window. A square of yellow sunlight lies on the linoleum like a trap.
I was so angry I forgot about the sun.
The thought knocks the anger right out of me, but only for a moment. Then Ander comes barging through the back door with Naomi right behind him. His big body blocks the light, his shadow falling over me. “Cissa! What are you doing? It’s daylight! You should be in your room.”
“Maybe you should have locked me in there.” My voice comes out low and dangerous.
Ander looks genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I was watching on the mirror,” I say. “I saw what you did.”
Ander blanches. Well, at least he has the decency to look guilty. He keeps his voice low. “Listen, Cissa, it wasn’t anything. Naomi just wanted to see me change, to prove I was in control—”
“What are you talking about?” It’s my turn to look confused. “I saw you give her the cross!”
“Oh!” Ander looks relieved. “That. I just bought a few of them as a precaution.”
“A precaution.” I give his words back to him slowly.
“Precaution! Caution! Caution!” Naomi’s bird jumps nervously from the kitchen counter to her shoulder.
“Yeah.” Ander is looking at me like I’ve gone crazy. “What?”
Does he really not see it? Not realize this is a total betrayal? And what else was he talking about? What did he think I saw? “Did you get a cross for Emmie?” I say evenly. “Because I need to know if you’re going to turn her against me, too.”
Ander’s laugh is bitter. “It would take a lot more than that to turn a thrall against a vamp.”
Something about the way he says vamp cuts me. “Good,” I say, “because I’ve lost enough people lately. I can’t afford to lose any more.”
He takes a step closer, lowers his voice. “Hey, you’re not the only one who lost people, you know.”
“I know,” I say. “You lost Michael and Danny—”
“I was talking about you.”
I stare at him in shock. “You haven’t lost me, Ander! I’m standing right here!”
He looks away. “You know what I mean.”
No. I don’t. Can he really not see I’m still here, still me? I feel like I’m back in front of the mirror, begging it to show my face.
“Lost!” The raven echoes, “Lost!” It makes me want to wring its neck.
“Maybe you two want to talk alone.” Naomi sounds as nervous as her bird.
“Yes. You should go.” Ander is using his most alpha voice. Naomi backs two steps away, then turns and bolts for the living room, her bird fluttering behind her.
“You, too,” Ander growls at Luke.
Luke’s hand is still on my arm. “I’m staying.”
Part of me wants him to. It’s reassuring, having him here. But Ander and I really do need to talk alone. “No,” I say. “You should go.” I turn and look him in the eye. “Please.”
Luke hesitates, looking back and forth between Ander and me. I can tell he’s torn: if he stays, he can protect me. If he leaves, there’s a chance Ander and I will break up once and for all. If we’re even together, that is.
“Fine.” Luke fixes Ander with a threatening look. “But I won’t go far.” He turns and stalks into the living room.
“What gives?” Ander demands the second Luke is out of the room. He’s keeping his voice low, but he’s angry—which is ridiculous, because I’m the one who has the right to be angry. “Cissa, Naomi just invited us to stay on after today. This is the best safe haven we’ve got and we’re trying not to blow it. If you come in here acting all crazy, Naomi’s gonna think—”
“I don’t care what Naomi thinks!” My voice comes out louder than I intended. “And I’m not crazy. What’s crazy is that you snuck back into that thrift store and—”
“I didn’t sneak!” His volume matches mine. I can see the muscles in his neck tense as he clenches his teeth. The sensible part of me says don’t piss off the werewolf, but the sensible part of me has been over-ruled.
I look him in the eye. “You don’t trust me.”
“You don’t have the self-control to—”
I yell. “I am completely in control!”
Ander barks a laugh. “Yeah? Because you don’t sound like it. You sound like a newborn vamp!”
“Yeah?” I spit at him. “Well, you sound like a Hunter!”
Silence. We both stand there, him breathing hard, me not breathing at all. For a second, I think he’s going to change.
Then he shuts his eyes, takes a deep, weary breath. “I don’t want to fight.”
I don’t either, but I’m still mad. “Ander, you saw how those things freaked me out.” I don’t want to sound hurt. I want to sound angry. But the memory of the crosses puts the fear back in my voice.
“No offense, Cicely, but that’s the point.” He rakes his big hand through his hair, leaving it standing up every which way. “No matter what you think, you’re dangerous right now, and frankly the fact that you don’t see that is making me really nervous. I gave the cross to Naomi so she’d have an extra line of defense if she needed it.”
“Be
cause you were worried about her.” I say. Because you’re on her side, even though you’ve only known her a few hours, even though I’m the one who saved your life.
“Because I’m worried about both of you. Cicely, setting up defenses for the humans around us—that’s for your sake, too.” His eyes meet mine, and I can see the pain in them. “You don’t know what it’s like to hurt somebody because you were out of control. It’s the worst feeling you can have. The guilt. The shame of it. I don’t want that for you, Cicely.” He reaches out and lays one big hand on my shoulder. I want to shrug him away, but I’ve been longing for his touch for so long.
“You don’t trust me.” My voice comes out small.
“Cissa,” says gently, “I don’t even trust me.”
“But I’m not you!” I say. “My situation isn’t the same.”
“You’re right,” he says. “But I still don’t trust you. Not right now. For your sake, I don’t trust you, and you shouldn’t either.”
For my sake. I look at the floor, at the sunlight staining the linoleum like bile, and I draw a little deeper into the shadows. How did this get turned around? Ander did something wrong. He hurt me. And now he’s being the sensible one and I’m the one who can’t be trusted. My thoughts swirl like the shadows in the mirror, but the picture doesn’t come clear. “I trusted you,” I say. “That day in your room, when I first saw you as a werewolf. I trusted you enough to kiss you.”
At the mention of that day, he looks away. “I told you not to trust me. I told you like a million times. You just…” He shrugs, defeated. “You just did it any way.”
“Can’t you just do it anyway?” I sound like a child pleading.
He looks pained. “Look, Cicely, it’s for your own good. It isn’t personal.”
“Because you don’t think I’m a person any more.”
Ander freezes. His voice is very quiet. “Is that what you think?”
I don’t look at him. “I hear the way you guys talk about me, like I’m a risk to be managed or a problem to be solved. You think I should be locked in the tower, put in the back of the van—”
“That’s not what I think.” His jaw is set. His blue eyes burn. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Cicely, because that’s not how I think of you.”
“How then?” I ask. “How do you think of me?”
“I…”
For a second I think he’s going to say the words I’ve been waiting to hear: I love you. That must be what he wants to say. What else would make him look so pained? But aren’t love and trust the same thing? And will he ever trust me completely? Can I truly trust him, when I know the Hunter in him isn’t on my side?
Suddenly I feel very tired, like I’ve been fighting against a strong current. There’s so much to overcome.
“I want to be with you,” he says. “I told you, I’m trying. I want this to work.”
His sincerity softens me. “I do, too.”
Ander looks relieved. “Good.” He smiles at me, cautiously. “No more fights, okay?”
I nod. “No more fights.”
He leans in and kisses me. It’s not like when he kissed me in the attic, quickly, like he dared himself to do it. This is a real kiss, full of need to prove he loves me, to say with his body what he doesn’t know how to say in words. I let my fangs melt away, along with the sharp edge of my anger. I kiss him back deeply, savoring his soft lips, his hard chest pressed against mine, the strength of his arms around me. He wants this, I can tell.
And so do I. I love Ander, and I really want to make this work.
But as we kiss, I steal my hands up the back of his neck, to the chain that holds the skeleton key. With vampire swiftness, I undo the clasp and slip the key off him, sliding it into my own pocket.
Maybe love and trust are not the same.
Chapter 6: Luke
Through the open crack in the door, I watch as the girl I love kisses someone else.
And not just anyone. A werewolf. The thing that should repulse her most. God, I think, what’s wrong with me that I can’t compete with a monster? I never intended for Cicely to become an enluzante—it is, literally, a fate worse than death—but once she changed I thought there would be one advantage to her horrible situation: Cicely would finally realize just how wrong Ander was for her. She would finally see everything she and I have in common. How could she not? And when I left them alone in the kitchen, I was hoping this fight might be their last.
Yet there she is, letting him wrap his arms around her, letting him kiss her in that hungry, feral way. Just the sight of them is enough to make me feel sick. I should burst in there and tear the werewolf off her, or, if I can’t, I should at least slink off to be alone with my humiliation, but I can’t seem to move at all. I feel like Cicely must have felt when she saw the case full of crosses: frozen with fear.
I’m losing her.
Watching them kiss feels like watching her die all over again. I remember the thin stream of blood that slid from Cicely during death, how it reminded me of a single red thread being slowly tugged until everything unraveled at once: her life, our bond, her human future. All I had left was the hope she might come around to loving me. Now even that is unraveling, too.
“Luke, what are you doing?”
I spin, pulling the door shut behind me. “What?”
Emmie is standing in the other doorway, at the far side of the room. She has clearly come from the shower; her copper-colored curls are damp and she’s dressed for sleep in an oversized t-shirt and loose, drawstring pants. The shirt has a picture of a big-eyed deer on it.
It annoys me.
“What is it you want?” I snap.
“Nothing.’’ Emmie eyes me curiously. “Were you just watchin’ somebody through the door?”
“That,” I say, “is none of your concern.”
She laughs. “You were,” she says, “or you wouldn’t be keeping your voice so low.” She shakes her finger at me scoldingly. I notice her nails have been painted bright pink. “You shouldn’t go stalking people, Mr. Marianez. Or at least,” she adds with a smile, “you should stick to folks who want to be stalked.”
“Noted,” I say. “Now, I don’t want to keep you up, so—”
“Good!” she says. “If you’re not stalkin’ anybody, you won’t mind if I hang out in here, right?” She sashays into the living room and sits herself down on the piano bench, just a few feet away.
I grind my teeth with annoyance and curse myself for instinctively shutting the door. Now I have no idea if Cicely and Ander are still kissing. I strain my hearing, and catch a voice. D.J., perhaps? Has he interrupted them? That’s a good thing if it puts a stop to the kissing, but not if it means they go somewhere more private. Have they gone? I might be able to tell by their scent, if only Emmie weren’t so close to me. Her own scent is overwhelming—the appetizing smell of thrall mixed with the fake strawberries in her shampoo and the sickly sweet Juice she’s always drinking. Taken together, it’s too much. Add the giant eyes of the cartoon deer on her shirt and the thick, slow drawl of her accent, and the entire effect is cloying, like stepping into a carriage with someone wearing too much perfume.
“So!” She crosses her legs daintily in spite of the fact that she’s in her pajamas, and plumps her damp hair with one hand. “We’ve been in the same car for three days, and we’ve still barely got to know each other!”
“Really?” I say sarcastically. “Because I felt like I learned a lot about you from our game of Spot the License Plate, and the time you hit me because you saw a slapping-car.”
“It’s a slug bug! You know, because it’s a Volkswagen bug?”
“No,” I say. “I do not know.” I can’t hear anything from the other room and it’s driving me insane.
“You don’t like slug bug?” She reaches out one pink-nailed hand and rubs my arm. “I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?” Her hand is warm and soft.
I pull away. “No,” I say. “Now will you please leave me alone?”
>
Emmie’s big eyes make her look like the deer on her shirt. “Sorry,” she says. “I was just kiddin’ around.” She sits back on the piano bench and studies me, her head tilted to one side. For a few blessed seconds, she is quiet. Then, “You know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“I think you’re cranky because you’re hungry.”
I want to snap something back at her, but I can’t think of anything to say—mainly because I know she’s right.
Her eyes are full of sympathy. “You haven’t fed since we left Minneapolis,” she says. “I know that much, because I haven’t fed you and we haven’t stopped anywhere long enough for you to find someone else. That’s three whole days, honey. That’s a long time.”
“I’ve gone much longer,” I say.
“Sure, when you were in torpor,” she says. “But you’re awake now, and you want to stay that way, right? Which means you need to keep your strength up.”
Do I want to stay awake? Right at the moment, torpor sounds like a relief. I could just fall asleep for another hundred years and forget all about Cicely Watson. But with my luck, I would dream of her the whole time, then wake up to fall in love with her descendant.
“Luke?” Emmie is watching me with concern. “You really don’t look so good.” She raises her wrist to her full lips and begins to nibble thoughtfully on the candy necklace she has wrapped around it. Watching her, it is all too easy to imagine my own lips on the soft pulse point of that wrist.
“Muñeca.”
She furrows her brow. “Moon-what, now?”
“Muñeca.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “It’s what we call thralls where I’m from. It means doll in Spanish, but also wrist.”
“For the bite points in the wrist.” She smiles. “I like that.”
“Yes,” I say. “But what I was going to say is I’m sorry, muñeca, but you are not my type.”
Emmie’s smile falters, but she recovers quickly. “I’m O Negative, the universal donor. I’m everybody’s type.”
Crossfire (Book Two of the Darkride Chronicles) Page 7
