by Jen Stevens
When my plate was empty and rinsed, I quietly exited the kitchen without a word. I passed Blaire on the way, listening to her apologize profusely to the furious tourists who were demanding a refund for their room. With a simple wave, I left her alone and headed to my room.
I wanted to take a hot shower and try to process the past twenty-four hours. Possibly attempt to recall whatever events transpired before I was knocked out. I was worn down from the constant mental stimulation of interacting with the exhausting people of Beacon Grove, and it felt as if I hadn’t been alone with my own thoughts in days. I needed to decompress and refocus on the reason I was here before I got too caught up in the town’s drama.
By the time I was stripping down for a shower, I was convinced that’s all this was. My passing out was simply mental exhaustion and the sooner I got out of Beacon Grove and back into the real world, the sooner things could return to normal.
It wasn’t long after my shower that the moaning and screaming through the walls began again. The sounds were so distant, I could have blocked them out with the TV or popping my headphones in if I’d wanted to. But for some reason, I felt like I needed to hear it. To listen to whatever it was these women were calling out in anguish, so I could figure out if I could help them.
I sprawled out on the bed and relaxed into my pillow, slowing my breathing so I could really focus on the muffled sounds. This time, it was only one woman. Maybe it always has been. But her guttural moans and roars came in waves, with long stretches of silence in between. It was in those pockets of silence that I found myself lost in deep thought, accessing a part of my brain that felt unfamiliar and foreign to me. It wasn’t long before I fell into a deep meditative state, and with it, I was brought back to the place I’d left when I passed out the night before.
The waves were calmer this time, gently kissing the shore instead of the harsh pummeling they’d given it hours before. Perhaps the tides were a psychological metaphor, and they represented my subconscious thoughts. I was calmer now than I had been last night. The waters clearly symbolized that shift. I kept my mind focused on the soft swaying, too afraid to turn and look at any of my other surroundings for fear of losing this once again.
It wasn’t until I heard a voice behind me a few moments later that I was willing to tear my gaze away from the vast ocean. Remy’s tall figure filled my vision, his black hair lazily draped over tired, dark eyes. He was talking to someone, and though I couldn’t sense the other person or hear their words, the conversation felt intense. I could see it in his rigid back and the defensive tautness of his muscles.
“I told you, I don’t need your help,” his deep voice insisted.
Small details of my surroundings slowly fizzled into view as I spent more time looking at him. I took three steps in his direction, through the open French doors that appeared between us, and watched his expression shift while the other person spoke. I noted how hard he was trying to keep his composure. Whoever he was speaking with, he didn’t want them to see how badly they were affecting him.
The conversation ended abruptly, before Remy had a chance to retort whatever it was the other person had said. He was visibly upset and while I never heard a door close or saw them walk away, I could tell when his nuisance left by the obvious change in his demeanor.
Even if this were a dream or some twisted figment of my imagination, seeing him in such a vulnerable state felt like an invasion of his privacy, so I turned my back to his frustrated form and took in the new details of the room we were standing in.
The walls and ceiling were both covered in a deep, dark blue paint that made them feel like an endless pit. The furniture was sparse. A simple hand carved, maple-brown dresser was pushed against one wall with a bed set and matching nightstand directly across from it. The bed was neatly made, and nothing sat on the nightstand but a simple digital alarm clock. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere to be found and the shining floors hardly looked walked on.
If this was Remy's room, there was no evidence of him anywhere inside of it. My imagination was clearly lacking creativity.
He walked out the French doors and onto the balcony I'd come from, stopping to lean against the iron railing and stare off at the waters. I slowly followed, testing my footsteps to make sure he couldn't hear me approaching him. When he didn't react, I walked more confidently, stopping right at his side so I could get a good look at this mysterious, dangerous man.
From this close, I could see that his nearly black eyes had leaves of gold hiding deep inside their irises. I knew he was close to my age, but the shallow frown lines that adorned his pale forehead—deeper now that he was full-on pouting—aged him a few more years. His round, scarlet red lips were pulled down and every few minutes, whenever a troubling thought seemed to cross his mind, he tugged the bottom one into his mouth with his teeth.
I was supposed to be afraid of this man. If my intuition was correct, then we were natural born enemies. My family gave their lives to save me from him. Yet, everything about him pulled me in. His soul screamed to mine to come closer—to get to know him on our own terms, without our families’ history or influence.
When he released his lip from its assault once again, I couldn't stop myself. I reached out and gently touched it, rubbing my fingers across its soft, pillowy texture, positive now that this must have been a dream.
But he flinched at the contact.
No. He didn't just flinch, he recoiled and stumbled backward. Then, his own hand flew to his mouth to trace the exact spot my fingers had just left.
I froze, terrified that he might suddenly see me. What would he do to me if he knew I was here?
Was I really even here? I had no idea how this worked.
His frown deepened as his eyes found the spot I was standing in and lingered there. So much time had passed, I was sure he saw my terrified expression and was simply deciding what to do next.
Would he kill me? Hold me prisoner until he spoke to the other Quarters, and they could figure out who's Counter I was? What then?
My mind ran wild with every possible scenario.
But then, his shoulders turned back to face the water and he shook his head in disbelief. I backed into his room as quietly as possible and tried to bring myself out of whatever vision I was trapped in. Surely, if I could get here through deep meditation, all I had to do was break that concentration and snap myself out of it.
I tried focusing on the hotel room. I envisioned myself sprawled across the bed in a deep sleep and imagined shaking myself awake. When that didn't work, I screamed and pinched and punched, but nothing happened. I was stuck alone in Remy's bedroom and making a complete fool of myself.
Just as I was about to give up, Remy walked back through the doors and stopped dead in his tracks. I was standing in the center of the room, breathless from my ridiculous attempts to escape his space.
But he saw me.
Our eyes locked in on each other, and right when he opened his mouth to speak, my lids flickered open, and his terrified face was replaced with the water-stained ceiling in the hotel room.
Chapter 15
Remy
She had been here.
I'd seen Storie plain as day, standing in the middle of my bedroom, looking completely distraught and nearly translucent. I knew I'd felt something touch me on the balcony but chalked it up to nerves or paranoia.
I was going out of my mind trying to figure out how to tap into the power source that appeared beside me on the night of Mabon and refused to show me their true face. I knew that source was the key to helping the Quarters, if I could just figure out how to master it.
Then suddenly, she appeared in my bedroom.
Could it have been her that night?
How else was she able to project herself into my space?
The Wildes estates had enough protection spells surrounding it inside and out. No entity should have been able to penetrate those barriers and make it all the way up into my room. She had to have been using some
sort of ancient magic that was stronger than ours. Unless I was truly losing it.
But no, I was positive she was here.
What did she want, anyway?
She looked equally horrified, disappearing before I could even get a word out. How long was she watching me? Had she heard the conversation with my father?
I needed answers, and the only person who could give them to me was the one who posed the biggest threat. If anything, this encounter only brought me closer to believing she was my Counter. If that were the case, then being alone with her was incredibly risky. Especially with our fathers breathing down our necks and the Movement desperately trying to push us out.
Though Storie didn't fit into anything that had been drilled into our heads about Counters over the years. If she really were the entity I felt from before, why would she have saved me if she wanted me dead? Why would she have saved all of us? We were perfect targets at that moment.
Scattered thoughts bounced around my head, presenting themselves faster than I was able to comprehend. I was torn between following my gut or listening to a lifetime of warnings aimed against Counters from sources who have proven themselves untrustworthy. Our fathers want the same thing the Movement wants—for us to be burned so they could continue their reign as Quarters.
I decided I had to get out of my house and think. The energy here was constantly buzzing with chaos and aggression, just how my father liked it to keep everyone on their toes.
“The moment they get comfortable, you've lost all credibility,” he always said.
The close proximity to him didn't help.
I always found myself at the ocean when my head got like this. My feet carried me there when my mind was in too much of a flurry to focus. The waves calmed me in a way nothing else could, even when they were overwhelmed themselves.
No one else typically bothered coming to the black sandy shore, especially when the weather shifted and the breeze had a bite to it, scaring away the faint of heart. The only access to it was technically on private Wildes property. Sometimes, in the summer, the staff and their children would take advantage of the ocean's beauty and spend their time off swimming and playing on the beach. Outside of that, only the brave dared coming up here to swim in our waters, but we never punished them for it. After all, none of it would exist without their contributions to our wealth. Plus, I don't think I've witnessed my parents bother a glance at the ocean in years.
So, it was a surprise for me to find a single, petite black figure standing at the water's edge. Their focus was on the horizon, unaware that they now had an audience.
When a few moments passed and the figure hadn't moved, I closed the distance between us, pushing away the doubtful, cowardly thoughts that were trying to infiltrate my headspace. I could feel that it was her, and that terrified me more than I wanted to admit.
I was a Quarter. Nothing scared me. It was my job to protect people from the things that scared them. But this small girl had more power to destroy me than anything else in the world, and I had no idea if she was even aware of it.
When I took her into the woods, though I'd been on my best behavior, she had the nerve to act petrified of being alone with me. Didn't she realize how big of a threat she was to the future of the entire coven she was so greedily asking about? She had no business being on my property—then or now.
My nerves stopped me a couple of steps behind her, but I watched her shoulders tense as soon as she sensed my presence.
“It's real,” she muttered to the sea.
I swallowed my fear and loathing and walked up beside her. “Why are you here?”
“I thought I was hallucinating. Or maybe it could have been a weirdly vivid dream, I don't know. But it's not. It's real.” Storie had yet to turn in my direction. I was standing inches away at her side, completely facing her. But she continued to stare out into the distance.
“You were in my room.”
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie as her hooded head bobbed slowly.
Disbelievingly.
“Nothing about this place seems plausible. It goes against everything I've been taught in the real world. Every moment I spend here, I feel like I'm losing my mind even further.”
“Would that be so bad?”
She finally turned her face toward me and revealed the shimmer of tears running down her cheeks. “What?”
“It's only when you lose your mind that you can discover who you're truly meant to be.”
My mother had said that to me once, back before I'd taken in my gifts and we were closer. That felt like a lifetime ago. She was practically a stranger to me now.
“That… is exactly the kind of confusing thing I'd expect someone from Beacon Grove to say.”
I laughed, forgetting my reservations about her for a moment. She had a point. The waves sluggishly crept onto the shore, bringing me back down to Earth. “Why did you come here? To Beacon Grove?”
Storie's eyes roamed my features, bouncing back and forth as her scowl deepened. They looked pale and mauve against the blue and green landscape around us, and her reddened, raw lids only contributed to the ethereal effect of them.
“I thought I wanted answers. Now, I'm not so sure.”
Why would someone go through such great lengths to find answers about who they were? Did her family truly keep her in the dark? That seemed odd, given their reputation, which I'd shamelessly looked into after our time together in the woods.
The Graves were apparently a prideful and dangerous bunch. They'd never let their heroic tales remain hidden away and conveniently ensured all their faults were forgotten.
Unless there was a reason for it. Unless the information she was seeking couldn't be found in a simple online record search, or even at the local library.
I knew what it was like to feel like a visitor in your own body. Or to feel like life had a set path decided for you long before you were even born.
I could relate to her.
But was that enough of a reason to help her?
A potential Counter?
My nemesis?
It would be easier to kill her.
I could do it right here, on the beach and no one would know. I doubted she told Tabitha or Blaire where she'd gone—they would have discouraged it.
The others would help dispose of her body. They'd understand why I did it. She wouldn't even realize it was happening. The foolish girl kept her back to me the majority of our conversation, offering ample opportunity to quickly take her life. Perhaps, that was what she wanted to begin with. That was why she was truly here.
If I was anything like my father, I wouldn't even regret it. Wouldn't think twice about it. That was the price of offering your trust to a desperate Quarter. That's what the Movement wanted the rest of the town to believe, so they could isolate us.
But I wasn't my father. I couldn't take a life if there was a chance it wasn't mine to take—and a Counter's life was mine to take. I wasn't the dangerous vigilante that the Movement attempted to paint me as, eliminating anyone in my path who slightly resembled my enemies.
I was desperate for my full gift, but not desperate enough to senselessly kill for it.
No, I'd let her live through her pity party another day and continue to toy with her. I doubted that was much better than the alternative, anyway.
“I'm not even sure why I bothered coming here. All I've done is create more confusion.”
Her small hands wrung together nervously at her waist. When I didn't offer any comforting response, she turned to walk away.
I hesitated until she was nearly off the beach, her soft sighs of pain somehow overpowering the sound of the waves beside me as her bare feet met the rocky road that blended into the sand.
“Why does it matter?”
She stopped and turned. Her mouth was now pulled down into a frown. “Because it's my family. They'd want me to find answers.”
I could tell she didn't fully believe those words. Doubt and unease da
nced in her already sulking expression.
“Have you always done whatever your family wants you to do?” I goaded.
Who was I to even say that? My whole existence was centered around meeting my family's expectations. It felt good to project that frustration onto someone else—to see the rage that it ignited inside of her and know exactly how hot it burned.
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, have you ever considered that with them out of the picture, you should move on and live your own life?”
Her feet carried her back to me effortlessly through the dark sand and a thin finger shot into the air at me, stabbing my chest when she was close enough to reach.
The sensation it sent through my entire body was impossible to mask. I'd grown used to the constant ache that hummed inside my chest any time she was near, but we'd never touched before. This was a thousand times worse.
It felt as if I'd been struck by lightning, poisoning my blood and spreading through my veins from the spot her finger jabbed into the rest of my body. It didn't cease until it reached my fingers and toes, and I could swear I felt it beyond that as well.
It was the most alive I've felt in ages.
That was such a strange thing to admit. That this insignificant girl, who I was sure was my sworn enemy intent on killing me, was the one thing that had come along and brought me back to life.
I desperately wanted our contact to end. Yet, I wanted her to keep her finger on me forever. To spread her palm across my chest and see how far and hot we could burn together.
She appeared to feel it as well. Her large eyes widened even further, the strange color of her irises shrinking into the blackness of her growing, inky pupils. Her arm jerked back, and the pain stopped as soon as her skin left mine. She cradled her elbow and glared at me accusingly, as if I’d somehow managed to intentionally inflict the pain she was feeling.
