Dangerous Lovers

by Becca Vincenza

  “Thanks for the insight, Mate. Don’t you have someone who is waiting on you?” Phoenix asked Guardian with a frustrated snap.

  “I do,” Guardian said, letting out a sigh. “I understand if you can’t be there tonight.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Guardian locked eyes with me and gave me a subtle smile, then a brisk shot of warm air took him away.

  “Need a minute,” Phoenix said to Skylynn. She looked down, then vanished.

  Shyly, I looked up at him. “Sounds like you are having a hard time getting votes for your options.”

  “I don’t need votes. This is my life.”

  “I thought my life was the only one in question?”

  Seriousness took over his expression. “Listen…there is a wolf hiding within the sheep.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you can’t trust anyone.”

  “Is this your jealousy surfacing again?”

  “This is me trying to protect you,” he said as he reached to trace my jaw with his fingertips. “Genevieve…it terrifies me to think how close you have lived to evil. At this point, living or not, I don’t know that you would be able to tell friend from foe.”

  “I think you have forgotten how to trust me.”

  “I trust you. I don’t trust this war.”

  “I cannot help you debate this war if I do not know every detail. You asked me if I trusted you. I trust the boy I knew so long ago. I have no idea what time and circumstance has done to you, but I know that time has left me bitter, empty, and full of grief. We had to fight apart for this long, what is the difference now? Why can’t you just leave me be?”

  I heard his sharp intake of breath and regretted saying those last few words. I said them trying to sound stronger than I was, but clearly he took them as if I saw him as some old fling that had resurfaced in my life.

  “If you think I can walk away, act like I didn’t discover that you have been here, blind to me, all this time…then you have no idea how I feel about you—and you have proved me right the one time I wanted you to prove me wrong.”

  I couldn’t figure out what he meant by that. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him that the memories of him that were becoming more real by the moment were life to me, an awakening, that unknowingly I’d been waiting for him and that I didn’t want him to leave. That I didn’t regret finding him now because even if I turned into a dark, vengeful spirit I would have this memory, these emotions, that they would be my anchor to my humanity.

  When I didn’t say anything, he looked to his side. “I have to go. Skylynn is going to stay with you. She’ll have to leave for a bit, but it will be after the frozen lake repeat…listen to her. She’ll keep you safe.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The second he vanished, the room iced over and I felt my heart break in two. Maybe he was wiser than me, knew that the less time we spent around each other, the better. Maybe that’s why he was leaving Skylynn to babysit me—someone he clearly didn’t care for. One thing was for sure: my guys never would have left me like that. I was getting a bitter taste of my own medicine, watching someone walk away right after they basically said that time and reason would not allow us to be together.

  I swallowed my pride, clutched the key, and began to make my way to the playroom. Just before I reached the door, Skylynn appeared.

  I couldn’t look her in the eye. “Listen, I know you have better things to do than watch over me. Go help them fight or whatever.”

  “You’re the only friend I have, the only best friend I’ve ever had in my existence…where else would I need to be?”

  “Flattered. I don’t know, with them, I guess. Looks like you guys have your own private club or war to deal with.”

  “It’s not private, and you, apparently, are very much a part of it.”

  “He doesn’t want me there. He pushed me off on you, someone he clearly disagrees with.”

  “Do you want to know what Phoenix’s issue is?”

  “Not really. I don’t need any more Karma.”

  “He thinks you’re an echo, a shell, that the real you is gone, left the night of your death. The fact that Guardian could not bring you back tells him that he is right, that you are too far gone.”

  I still could not get over how much Sebastian and Guardian had changed. I felt the grief I always carried in my soul intensify. I knew that the past that was ricocheting in my mind was gone forevermore. We had all escalated to some odd supernatural level. I was grieving for lost innocence, for a past I could never get back.

  Bravely, I locked stares with her. “If that boy needs any more proof that I am me—dead or not—then there is no hope for him, and I don’t have time to deal with it.”

  She grinned. “You’re messing with his head. Keep doing that. I know that nothing has changed. You may be a little confused, but you are holding on. As soon as he figures that out, he’ll get past his own dark thoughts.”

  “Why does he despise what he is? Why does he not want me to be that?”

  “He likes being a phoenix, all too well, and therein lies the problem.”

  Those words made my stomach cave in. I guess I was reading him the wrong way.

  “He likes it because it’s a perfect place for his dark energy to gain strength. I haven’t figured out why he is holding back yet, but I think he doesn’t want it for you because he thinks it will stifle the light you are, that your light has already dwindled down to nothing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Opposites attract. Soul mates come from light and dark; he was the dark, you were the light. Now you’re both bordering on the dark side. Basically, in some supernatural way you are very ill.”

  “I’m dead,” I said with an odd grin on my face. “Ill? Really?”

  “Only the vessel,” she said with a sigh.

  “So he thinks because I lived my life in anger and grief that I’m no longer bright or whatever?”

  “Somewhat. But I disagree. I think unconsciously you have hidden yourself in this life, that behind that ice wall is the boldest, brightest energy that has ever existed, that no change—whether it be death or into a phoenix—can harness it.”

  “I don’t know enough to agree or disagree…he was a stranger to the life I’m clinging to.”

  “He was not a stranger. You’ve screamed his name out in your sleep since the day I met you.”

  “You watched me sleep?” I asked, mystified, wondering exactly which name I screamed out.

  “At times, when you were scared.”

  “Good to know,” I murmured.

  “I’m really sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me the most. I still don’t understand why I didn’t feel that you were in pain or scared.”

  “How would you have felt that anyway?”

  “I spelled you to me. I have no idea what blocked me from you that night. The only thing I can think of is that you were not in pain, and you were not scared. You fought hard.”

  “Still fighting. I need to figure out this key, clock, Rasure thing.”

  She held her hand out, telling me to lead the way. “You can search for anything on these grounds, within the house, but you can’t go out.”

  “I went out yesterday.”

  “Yeah, and yesterday I didn’t know the house was protected.”

  “I’m going to have to go back to that lake. I think the other half of that key is in there. This time, we will all focus on it—know where to look.”

  “The second you zap out of here, I’m bringing you right back. Phoenix was not kidding. There is a wolf among you.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with her about what I would or would not do. I knew she had something to do with Phoenix and Guardian later, that if I really wanted to, I would go then.

  Before I went to the playroom, I wanted to go downstairs, look at that old clock, maybe see if I could find Ben or my other brothers and sisters down there. I needed to know for sure how much time I had le
ft, and I could figure that out by listening to them. I hoped Ben had gotten his way, that a machine was giving my body life right now.

  Right as I went to go down the stairs, I felt a bolt of energy stab me. It felt like razor blades were on the inside of my body, turning in place. I screamed in agony just as Skylynn pulled me back.

  “What the hell!” I shrieked. As soon as I was away from the stairs, the pain stopped.

  Skylynn stepped down one step. Along the creases where the next step began, she picked up a handful of white powder. “Salt.”

  “That much salt hurt me?”

  “No. It’s lined all the way across. Someone didn’t want you mingling with the others downstairs.”

  “Salt? How worried should I be about pepper?” I asked dryly.

  “Very funny. Salt and iron keep away. I don’t like the fact that you’re being corralled,” Skylynn said with disgust laced in her tone as she glared down the stairs. She must have decided that staying with me was more important than figuring out why I was being forced to stay up here. The ‘who’ was not a question. It was Rasure, no doubt about it.

  “You don’t like the fact that someone else is corralling me?” I said with a snap.

  She ignored me, instead scooping up what was on the floor, breaking the line of it, and causing it to vanish into thin air. “Let’s save those floors for later, when the living are sleeping.”

  “Give in to Rasure, who obviously put that there? Is that what you mean?” Going down there after my brothers and sisters had left defeated the purpose.

  “When someone strikes you, they expect you to strike back. You can’t be predictable right now because she’s counting on that to undermine and ultimately defeat you.”

  “Fine. Then I’m going to go and figure out when she moved those clocks. You can’t come. Cadence will know something is off if my imaginary friend comes to life. I want her to pass on.”

  “She won’t see me. That is why I’m here instead of Phoenix. I can hide myself. Side effect of having a shadowed soul.”

  I could see the pain in her eyes. Any fool could see that she hated how invisible she was to most. If I made it out of the mess I was in, I was going to make it a personal goal to set her free from whatever this was that she was fighting. “I’m sure whatever time and reason your soul needs to come back is close.”

  “We’ll see,” she said with a fake smile.

  I looked down as I made my way to the playroom on this floor. It was the room that all of my sisters and I would hang out in. It had a massive flat screen TV that took up nearly an entire wall, oversized couches and chairs, tables for us to do our homework, and every gadget or electronic device known to exist. The décor in the room held relics from across time like street signs and old radios. It reminded me of a really trendy restaurant, and that could have been because of the bar stretching the length of the back wall. It never once held alcohol, but it did hold its fair share of ice cream and late night snacks in the refrigerators under it.

  I didn’t spend nearly as much time in there as Cadence did. I only really went in when the guys wanted to play video games or I needed the space to lay out my work for school.

  When I got there, Cadence had five white boxes beside the bar and was laying out the shots I’d taken—that wasn’t even half of the images I’d captured.

  She glanced up at me when I walked in. Even though Skylynn was right next to me, she acted like she didn’t see her, which wasn’t odd. Skylynn had been by me most of my life, but a ghost to the others.

  “Where are the rest?” I said, noticing these were from the last six months.

  “This is everything you took for your project,” she said, straightening the piles out. Cadence was a bit neurotic about organization, everything having its place.

  “I’m not working on my project. I’m trying to take an inventory of the things in the house so I know what’s mine.”

  “Indie, do your project. Worry about that when your case is settled. Aggravating Rasure is not going to do anything but give her more leverage over you.”

  “That woman has nothing to hold over me, she never has,” I said as I went into the enormous closet that was in the back corner of the room. I found the box from my sixteenth year, the year that the addition was finished. I had the foresight then to photograph this entire manor. I wanted proof if anything was missing after she ‘moved in’ to her own wing.

  When I started to lay out the images, I quickly discovered they were the wrong ones. These were from when my family was alive: Christmas, birthdays, every special and ordinary event in our lives.

  “What the hell? Where are my images?”

  “I—I don’t know...maybe Rasure switched them out,” Cadence said as she focused on my painful expression. “You want to talk about this? How do those images make you feel?”

  “They make me feel like someone is trying to screw with me. And they’re cold-hearted.”

  “Because they are digging up these emotions?” she pressed.

  “No, because all of these were cataloged into a story, books I was going to give our family—it took me years to build them—and someone just ripped them apart and stuck them in a box. For what? To hide that Rasure has taken heirlooms from this house, heirlooms that are priceless to her because the energy in them doesn’t belong to her.”

  My response seemed to leave her baffled. I figured she would be angry, too. I guess it was a good thing she wasn’t.

  “Is that all, Indie? You’re not upset about looking into those moments?” she asked, once more glancing to the image in my hand. It was of me when I was five, sitting on my father’s lap as my mother stood behind him.

  “Why would I be upset? I feel bliss when I look at these shots. That is the glory of film. It captures the emotion,” I said with a weak smile as I remembered every moment of that day and felt warm bliss ease through my soul.

  “And the glory of theater is becoming someone else. You’re on stage right now, Indie, and playing the part rather poorly. You’re upset. I know you are. You were robbed. Life was cruel to you long before they left. You were cursed with nearly killing everything you touched. For God’s sake, you were born in a graveyard—no one even bothered to claim your mother’s body. You need to face this.”

  “On stage? Really? Call me crazy, but being adopted by the Falcons is hardly a bad break, and neither is having a birth mother with the foresight to deliver me into their arms. And the cold…I don’t think that was a curse anymore.”

  A look of disgust came over her innocent image. “It’s isolated you.”

  “No,” I said, nonchalantly glancing to where Skylynn was standing. “It shielded me, and it pointed to the one person that would give me warmth.”

  “Is this about Wilder? Has he reignited an old flame in you? If so, you need to know that that is an illusion and it will fade just like it did last time. He’s been less than faithful to the memory of the two of you.”

  “It’s not Wilder,” I said under my breath as flashes of Phoenix—new and old—exploded in my mind.

  “You’ve been seeing someone else? That guy that was in the darkroom? Why would you not tell me?” There was an accusing pain in her tone.

  “I’m not the only one keeping secrets around here,” I said as I glanced over Cadence, trying to see this different person Mason had said she was when she wasn’t around me.

  “So now you’re deflecting, too. You need to face this,” Cadence said again as she crossed her arms.

  “I have faced it! What is your problem? Why are you trying to get all of us to go back to our darkest days?”

  “Because it’s healthy.”

  “OK then, where are your pictures? Where are the images of the underfed, terrified girl my parents brought home? Where are the files that outline the abuse you went through before then?”

  “Don’t go there,” she said with a glare.

  “Doesn’t feel good, does it? If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.”

/>   “You’re mad about Mason and Wilder, and you’re taking it out on me.”

  “If I was mad about that, then you would be the only person who deserved to have that anger directed at. Why would you do that to Gavin? You know how he feels about ‘all or none.’ And why would you set Wilder up with some girl and not tell me about it?”

  “So you’re not over him.”

  “I was never into him, not in that way,” I said, slamming the images down onto the bar. The room began to freeze over, simply because I was beyond frustrated with her. I was ready to tell her she was dead and that she needed to get over it and move on.

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you play that ‘I’m-broken-and-can’t-be-adored’ card to a T—quick to tell your darling interests that you’re cursed just so they will fight harder for the girl they can’t have.”

  “‘Quick’ my ass. They figured it out.”

  “Yeah? How’d they do that again?”

  I was so furious that I violently shoved the box with my family’s images causing the pictures to fly across the room and rain down around us.

  “Three boys in six years...that hardly makes me out to be what you are insinuating. How many boys have dared to get close to you? Double my number and that is just the ones I know about. I was glad when you started dating Gavin because I knew he would calm you down, allow you to see that love is not a physical act.”

  “How would you know if it was, Miss ‘you-can’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-freeze-you-to-death’?”

  That was the coldest blow she had ever thrown at me. At first, all I could do was stare at her as if she were nothing more than a stranger. “I’m not fighting with you anymore. Life is too short. We have different ways of seeing the world around us, and that’s fine. You were by my side through my darkest years. You were the sister God spared me. I’m grateful for that. Grateful for you. I love you.”