by Tara Brown
Ari shook her head walking along looking dumbfounded.
He smiled at Aimee, "You left all the explaining to me?"
Aimee smiled, "We didn’t know what she was Daniel."
"Fair enough, Ari lets have seat in here before we get you settled into a room." He pointed to a lounge with blue fluffy couches and steel coffee tables. It was modern but comfortable.
"In the world there is light and dark, good and bad, gods and devils, it doesn’t matter how its spoken there is a fine line between the balance between what is right and wrong. Taking a human life, an innocents life is wrong. Many like us have done it." His eyes flashed toward Aimee who lowered her gaze knowing the innocents she had taken in the beginning.
She looked at Ari seeing the same look on her face and smiled.
Daniel laughed, "Everyone is guilty of it. Especially in the first phases of whatever changes occur. I myself have committed a few atrocities in my time. Here we offer the chance at not only learning to control whatever urges or hungers you face but also in a select group of people like Aimee, we offer the chance at redemption."
Ari lifted her face to Aimee surprise, "Redemption?"
Daniel smiled, "Yes love." He held up his platinum ring with the thin red line running through it, "We are the thin red line that keeps the balance in society. We are the protection between good and evil."
Ari smiled harder, "Like a superhero?"
He laughed, "Yes exactly. Obviously we can't have someone who is mortal running about trying to stop the chaos that sometimes occurs but your DNA has proved to be interesting."
"Like a superhero? Did I get bit by a radioactive spider?" She was still smiling but it was a sarcastic smile.
Aimee laughed, "Ari just keep an open mind." She knew what it was like to have it all explained.
"Well you probably noticed Gladys at the front desk, she is a weretiger. Her eyes always look like a cats eye. She can't help it. She wears contacts in front of regular people but in front of us she lets it be the way it is."
"I don't know what that is. I know Brandon is a shifter but he never stays around long enough to explain it to me and no one else will." Ari looked at Aimee.
"She, like Brandon, turns into a cat. Like a Bengal tiger. They are shifters. They can transform into certain animals. Panthers, wolves, bears, tigers, and oddly enough dogs." Aimee smiled.
Ari frowned, "I don’t understand. What happens to their body?"
Daniel sighed, "Ari it changes, they are still themselves they just shift."
Ari frowned, "Only those animals?"
Daniel nodded, "Yes well we believe the other species have died off, not strong enough. The predators have managed to live because they're strong. Then there are people like me." He smiled letting his fangs drop. His blue eyes turned black filling his entire eye so no whites remained.
Ari screamed jumping off her chair.
Aimee leapt after her catching her, "It's okay Ari."
Daniel frowned, "I'm still me Ari. I just have these." He put his fangs away and the black pulled back into his pupils.
Aimee held her trembling friend. She lifted Ari's face to meet hers, "It's okay. He wont hurt you."
Ari nodded watching Daniel, "So what could I possibly do to you? How could I superhero fight against someone like you who could drink my blood and kill me?" She seemed very panicked.
Ari took a deep breath and pulled away from Aimee sitting back down in the chair still on edge.
"Well for starts your blood would kill me, you're part demon Ari. You're actually very rare, a born demon. They rarely survive and the mother never survives unless she is the demon. You're very lucky."
Aimee watched Ari get lost in it all and the switch occurred, "Yeah well I don’t feel very lucky. One version of me never existed and the other me has lived on the streets my whole life except for the time I've spent in orphanages. I have no family. We obviously have a different idea of what lucky is." She started to shake with anger, "You people are freaks."
"You must be the other Ari that Lydia told me about."
Ari sniffed at him, "You and Lydia can go fuck yourselves. This three ring circus is a joke." She turned to Aimee and scowled, "You want me to stay here with the cat lady and fangs over there? You trying to punish me for something Aimee? I wanna go home."
Aimee met her stare intensifying her own, "Ari I want you to push her down into the darkness. Find your way back up. You're safe here. Do you trust me?"
She could see the switch as Ari's face flushed, "I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to swear at you." She looked at Daniel shocked.
He laughed, "You are very entertaining Ari. That must be some battle going on inside of you. You are a born demon, which means we will have to have you trained by a demon. You must snuff out the other you in there to ensure you're not a danger to people, or yourself."
Ari looked at Aimee, "What happens if I'm a danger?"
Aimee felt her face flinch, "We deal with it."
Ari looked at Daniel, "What do you do?"
He clasped his hands together, "Ari we don’t just let people like us run around killing or amassing armies. We remove them before they break the laws."
"What laws? Where do they go?"
Aimee felt a lump in her throat, "We send them to heaven Ari."
Ari looked frightened, "You'd kill me?"
Daniel straightened, "Ari its very unlikely that you would continue to be a threat once you got rid of the other you. She is out of control, like a caged animal she is not to be trusted. You however had a very normal life before this all happened. You're level headed and really the perfect candidate to become a Rose."
Ari looked distant, Aimee knew it was a hard concept to understand in the beginning. She too had had problems grasping that if she didn’t gain control they would end her life.
Daniel smiled, "Lets not dwell Ari, lets not cross that bridge until we have to. Right now let's focus on the now. The laws are firstly keep the secret. No humans can know we exist. Every time they find out about us huge problems arise. They need ignorance. Secondly Do what ye will but harm none. No human or being like us can be harmed in your efforts to live."
Ari winced, "That man. I sent him to jail for a crime he never committed."
Daniel nodded, "Right exactly but how could you know. You need to learn to discern what's right and wrong. Since we don’t have anyone like you we need a demon to teach you to figure this out."
Aimee stood, "I'm going to let you guys get this all going. I need to get back to work. I'm following a girl who is a huge threat. She hasn’t woken yet so we don’t know anything yet but if she does wake we could be in trouble. Can you let me see her cell you're going to give her so I can add her contacts she'll need for the next few months."
Daniel stood hugging Aimee quickly, "yes of course just ask Gladys, she'll be the one arranging all of that."
Aimee bent and hugged Ari, "Hang in there kid. It is going to get easier every day. Text me as soon as you get some alone time k?"
"Come see me when you can please." Ari's eyes were huge. Aimee kissed the top of her forehead, "Yup."
She walked from the room. She smelled it instantly as she left the room. She turned her head to see Dorian walking into an office next to her. He smiled and blew her a kiss. She felt her hackles come up, "What are you doing here?" She whispered knowing he could hear her perfectly.
"Training the new girl." He smiled stopping in the doorway.
Aimee frowned, "You?"
He shrugged, "Hey I'm a demon."
Aimee always felt sick around him, she had been beyond stunned to learn the evil demon who saved her life by killing her was a good guy. He had been so cruel and horrid to her when he was changing her. He was the one who had let her kill an innocent, which he later lied about claiming it was part of her training. A lesson in what not to do. Aimee couldn’t help but hate him. She felt her stomach drop thinking about Ari in his filthy hands for the next few months as he trained her.
She stepped toward him, "You lay a finger on her and I'll kill you even if it means my own death. I will find a way to drag you to hell with me."
"You've gotten sassy Aimee." His obsidian eyes flashed at her, "I like it." He grabbed her face pulling her to him, kissing her. As always when his mouth met hers she couldn’t fight it. The smell and taste of Dorian was something no woman could resist. His tongue explored her mouth right there in the hallway of the office.
He pulled back, "You really are a naughty girl Aimee." His dark hair and beautiful face always killed her.
"Your soul is as black as your eyes Dorian."
She turned and walked away from him trying to ignore her weak knees and the taste of his kiss upon her lips.
"I don’t have a soul sweetheart." He laughed. His laugh grated on her last nerve.
Worry built in her stomach as she walked up to Gladys's desk. She knew she would be back every few days even if it meant trouble for her. She needed to keep Ari safe from Dorian.
Chapter Fifteen- Grandmother What Big Eyes You Have
Ari
She watched out the window of the high-rise seeing the life scurry below her on the street. New York was exactly as she imagined it would be, dirty, smelly and nonstop action. It had taken her a month just to get used to the noise at night. The mansion had been so quiet.
She looked behind as the door to her room opened and smiled seeing Daniel walking in, "Just wanted to say great job today Ari, really. That was perfect the way you read that man and chose not to send him back. I saw the control you had over it all. How do you feel?"
She laughed, "Good I just wish I could get rid of her forever, the other me."
"You're getting closer everyday. It's time for your theory lesson and then boxing okay."
She nodded and looked back at the window as he left the room quietly. She knew she was doing better but she missed home. She sent Lucas a text nearly every hour but he still barely answered her. She didn’t know how to fix the gap that her behavior had caused. She wondered about his part in everything, was he like her? He answered none of her questions except that he was doing fine and he missed her too. She had started to doubt that.
Ben cheered her up and had developed quite the friendship with her. He sent her a birthday card and flowers, he sent her messages every day, he phoned every week and he met her once in the three months when he came with Aimee.
Ari liked him a lot but she wanted his brother. Lucas drove her insane. Ben had been an amazing friend.
She turned and left for theory class. There were other kids like her in the class, they all joked about how they were in an X-Men movie. They learned about witches, demons, vampires, shifters, zombies, monsters, mad scientists, trolls and elves. She had had a hard time taking it all in at first. A lot of history was explained through the classes. Everyone was amazed by the atrocities that had been committed against completely innocent monsters. Some monsters were extinct, murdered by humans. Giants no longer roamed the earth, no one had seen a mermaid in ages and fairies had been gone since before the First World War.
She breezed through class, floated in her mind through boxing and was back in her room looking at her phone again wondering what Lucas was doing. She iced her jaw thanks to daydreaming in boxing class.
She looked at the phone and decided it was time. Her heart hurt and she wasn’t feeling anything anymore. She needed closure, well that’s what Marcia had told her. Marcia was her bathroom mate. They all had their own rooms but everyone had a shared bathroom with one person. Their rooms were beautiful on the top floor of the building and set up like dorms.
Marcia had been in love with a human before she changed. She was a weretiger but never knew. When she turned the first time she ate her own cat. It was devastating for her. Marcia knew then there was no way she could be trusted to be around her boyfriend. She had messaged him for the first couple months in New York but had decided to free him and break up with him. She cried for weeks at first but seemed a lot happier in recent weeks. Ari knew she needed that too.
She started to tap the letters sending the message.
'Lucas I'll be sorry for the rest of my life for what happened between us. I can't fix it and I see that now. I'm sorry I hurt you. I hope one day you can be my friend and stop hating me. I wont text or phone you anymore. Ari.'
She read it again and felt the tears popping from her eyes. She pressed the send and took a breath. She regretted it instantly. She put the phone under her pillow and left for dinner. She needed distracting.
She sat in the dining room picking at her dinner. It was her favorite meal, spaghetti and meatballs with fresh asiago and garlic bread. She twirled her fork in the noodles.
"Earth to Ari."
She looked up to see Marcia smiling at her, "I can't believe you left without me. I was waiting for you to tell me you were done. Did you do it?"
Marcia was very pretty which Ari had learned was a natural trait of all shifters, they looked the way they did so they could naturally keep their population alive. Ari suspected Lucas and Ben were shifters because they were both so handsome.
Marcia flicked her red hair behind her face and started to eat her spaghetti. Her bright green eyes were mesmerizing.
"I did." Ari sighed.
Marcia frowned, "Ari I'm really sorry things didn’t work out with you guys. I know how much you like him. Maybe when you go home things will work out."
Ari shrugged, "Maybe but I think he hates me still so whatever."
"How's the nose there sunshine?"
Ari looked up at Henry smirking at her. He was by far the sexiest Asian guy she had ever seen. He was tall and built with naturally tanned skin and an incredibly handsome face. His dark eyes has the slightest hint of grey to them which she thought was cool. Marcia had been eyeing him up to no avail. Henry was a player and he had loved living in New York. Ari hadn’t gone out with them all terrified of being on the streets and the other Ari taking over out of habit. Marci had said the clubs were amazing but that she got tired of watching Henry make his moves on other girls.
"Ari?"
She looked at Henry and smiled, "What?"
He laughed, "I think I hit you pretty hard on the head, you're acting funny."
"Pu-lease, she heals faster than any of us and the only reason you even got a shot off before she sent you into a nice little nap was because she was distracted."
Ari looked at Marcia and blushed.
"Well if you wanna tuck me in Ari I'm more than happy to take a nap if you come along."
He leaned over the table and moved in close to her face taunting her. She felt her face flushing, "Uh Henry if I tuck you in it'll involve a coma."
He laughed and kissed her on the cheek as she swatted him in the head.
She could hear a growl, it was a familiar sound. She looked at Marcia who was no doubt bothered by the flirting Henry was doing but it wasn’t her growling. Her eyes were fixed staring on something behind Henry who was blocking Ari's view.
"Ari back away from Henry slowly." Marcia whispered, "I'm guessing that you’re his still in his mind Ari."
Ari backed up seeing a panic on Henry's face as he trembled, she imagined he was fighting the change, she had never seen him turn into a wolf before but she had heard it was incredibly scary.
She leaned back in her chair looking past his head at the angry face staring at her, Lucas. It made her stomach drop, she was afraid of his response even though she had no cause, Lucas had never done anything to frighten her, nothing beyond protect her even if it was from herself.
"Lucas?" She felt her face tighten, she didn’t want to cry in front of everyone, she hadn’t really cried much in months. Lydia and Lucas were the only ones who made her cry.
"Ari he's fixed on Henry, if Henry turns around they'll both shift and we will have injuries and a lot of mess to clean up. Henry don’t you dare turn. Ari just get him outta here."
Ari stood from her chair running to Lucas. His massive
body trembled with anger and whatever else he was controlling. She worried more about the whatever else. She put a hand on his chest to try to talk to him but Henry turned at the wrong second. They both shifted with Ari right in the middle. She screamed seeing the fur and snarling faces suddenly. She wanted to run away but her legs were paralyzed in terror. Lucas had become a shaggy brown wolf with green eyes and Henry had become a black wolf with steel black eyes. Both their faces were gnashing and growling as they started to circle her but seeing only each other. Ari felt her hand heating up, she felt the room start to tremble. As they jumped for each other her mind cleared completely. She knew what she needed to do. She reached into the air as if they moved in slow motion and pressed a hand to each wolf. Her hands dug into their fur finding the skin beneath. She pushed faster than she had before. It nearly shot from her freezing them instantly. Both huge wolves dropped from the air onto the hardwood floor.
Ari stepped back not exhausted, she felt rejuvenated. She looked down at her hands and back at the wolves on the floor. Realizing what she'd done she leapt to the brown shaggy wolf kneeling and cradling his muzzle on her lap. She loved him, she loved him so much. She couldn’t help but be a tiny bit excited about the fact he'd shown up after her text message ending everything.
"Ari what did you do?" She looked up at Daniel walking in.
"She saved us all probably, at least from some nasty injuries. Henry moved in on Ari, it was all teasing but Lucas came into the room at the wrong moment seeing another wolf hovering over his girlfriend. Then Henry kissed her on the cheek and Lucas freaked."
Daniel knelt touching the black wolf, "They're alive still though I'm pretty sure they wont be very excited about it in an hour when they wake up. Ari you did this to them?"
She looked up confused, "My hands knew, they just knew they-I could stop them. I pushed into them both at the same time."
A woman Ari didn’t know stood beside Daniel and spoke softly, "Daniel it shot from her hands, like a bolt."
Ari felt ashamed, "I didn’t mean to hurt them." Everyone in the hall who had been standing around them all and whispering to each other turned back to their tables and resumed eating. Only Marcia stayed beside Ari with a hand on her back.
