Marked

by Jasmine Derriman

  “I put some fresh towels in the bathroom for you,” as I sat up I realised it was Hadley at the door, and she didn’t look as glamorous as she was last night. Her hair was in a messy pony-tail and she didn’t have any make-up on or anything. “I put some clothes there too for you. They’re mine and they should fit even though I’m taller, so they might be a little big.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I whispered to her.

  “I did,” Hadley answered vaguely.

  “Is Isaac back?” I called after Hadley as she started to leave the room.

  Hadley turned back holding the door in her hand. Eventually she just nodded at me. “He’s sleeping, he was out all night.”

  “And Rhys?”

  “Still asleep. Felix is going to check on him…but we’ll deal with it,” Hadley told me sternly.

  “Deal with it?” I repeated.

  “Just hurry up.”

  I decided not to argue with Hadley, almost seemed like she woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I hadn’t looked at my mark since I had shown Rhys, but now in the shower I kept finding myself looking at, and touching it. Whatever was happening right now, the mark was now a part of me, it wasn’t going to just disappear.

  Was it all a part of me though? Was it always a part of me, did I always have this in me? The way I felt when I saw the marks for the first time, I must’ve know. I must’ve known somehow. It’s why I know believed I had been seeing demons my whole life, why my whole life had never exactly felt right. I think today I wasn’t as scared as I was yesterday. Today, I was ready to understand whatever I could handle.

  Hadley was right about her clothes being just that little bit too big for me, but my own clothes were bloody and torn and I had no choice but to deal with the long white singlet and jeans she had given me. I felt fresh after the shower with new clothes on and it honestly made me feel a little better as well.

  I entered the longue room at a slow pace. Hadley was in the kitchen making breakfast with Felix near her as the two chatted. My attention wasn’t however turned to them. The moment I saw him, sitting on the couch, I just looked at him. He wasn’t facing me but I realised he was still wearing the same leather hoddie I had seen him in yesterday, and it was dusty and dirty. It wasn’t only him sitting there though. There was boy, a lot smaller than Isaac, sitting beside him. The boy didn’t really have any muscle and from the back he had roughly cut blonde hair.

  “Ah, morning, Lily,” Felix startled me a little as he exited the kitchen and walked towards me.

  “Morni...ng,” I stuttered out suddenly. “Is Rhys-?”

  “He’ll be awake soon I presume,” Felix told me.

  “And that is one of the first things we will deal with.”

  Isaac spoke as he stood up off the couch, turning around to face us. He looked tired, he looked exhausted; he really had been out all night.

  “What do you mean deal with it?” it was like Hadley had said before, and I still didn’t understand.

  “I need your phone,” Isaac said, ignoring the question.

  “My phone?” I frowned. I had tucked my phone in my back pocket earlier as I had considered calling my uncle.

  “I’ve been out there all night making sure no one comes looking for you, and no one should, but I need your phone,” Isaac repeated.

  He held out his hand and I found myself sighing, but doing what he asked, I took my phone from my back pocket and put it into his hand. “I’ll hang onto this.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve made sure no one will contact me?” I asked him. “My uncle will probably call any seco-.”

  “He won’t.”

  It was the other boy, the boy I didn’t know that spoke now. I had almost forgotten he was in the room, but now he stood up and was facing me from the other side of the longue. He had this look about him, this look that they all had, this look that made me think, he was one of them.

  “How?” I spoke.

  “This is Oliver,” Felix spoke suddenly stepping in. “He’s an Insigne like us…and has the mark that is known as memory manipulation.”

  “Memory…manipulation?” I repeated slowly.

  “I can make people think whatever I want,” Oliver said quickly.

  “So…so you’ve made my uncle think…something?” I frowned. The thought of it kind of enraged me, the idea of someone messing with my Uncle’s mind.

  “It’s nothing serious,” Oliver promised. “It’s just a thought…and idea I planted in his mind. This way he won’t worry about you and he won’t be involved with any of this.”

  “And you did this to others?” I guessed.

  “Rhys’ family, and the cops. Made the whole thing in his house seem like a break in, only thing that would work,” Isaac shrugged.

  “You can’t just mess with people’s heads” I muttered.

  “We can, and we did,” Isaac said bluntly.

  “Is that what you’re going to do to Rhys?”

  “You don’t understand anything that is going on right now... it will be safer for him.”

  “Well, tell me what’s going on! God knows I’m the one who needs to know right now.”

  Isaac was just staring at me now. Hadley was standing in the frame way of the kitchen and she was avoiding me. Felix however was the only one who wasn’t surprised by my outburst. I don’t think Isaac had any idea how I felt right now. Maybe I thought he did before, but now he just expected me to suck it up and get on with things.

  “We think… you have something do with the Sicam,” Felix said softly.

  I looked him and found myself shaking my head a little. “You mean…that dagger those demons kept asking me about?”

  “Demons don’t just go around asking anyone about the dagger,” Hadley said leaning on the door frame.

  “So…what…you think I can…do what?”

  “We think you know where the dagger is,” Isaac answered.

  I found myself laughing a little. “Not you too. I don’t know where it is. I don’t even know what is.”

  “We know you don’t know where it is, that’s not what Isaac means,” Felix cut in. “We… think…you can find it.”

  In my head, I was starting to understand what was going on. Starting to piece through what they were hinting at.

  “You…think…I’m some…chosen one?” I asked them.

  It was Isaac’s turn to laugh a little. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

  Felix merely rolled his eyes at him. “We think the demons attacked you because…you are the one who can find the dagger.”

  “Oh god, you’re serious?” I breathed out.

  “Look, our history states…that when the dagger is needed an Insigne will be brought into this world you can yield it,” Felix explained. “They went after you… it makes sense.”

  “How…you can you even know this, though? There’s no proof,” I said quickly.

  “The ‘chosen one’ as you want to call it, will be able to hold more than one mark,” Isaac answered.

  “I only have one mark,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, it’s new too, you’ve only just started out,” Isaac answered. “There’s still time.”

  “I’m not what you think I am,” I said immediately. “I’m just…a normal seventeen year old.”

  Isaac laughed at me again. “I can’t believe you can still say that after yesterday.”

  “Maybe I don’t want of this? Have you thought of that? I don’t care about demons, and you know what? I would rather not even know any of this. This wouldn’t be happening if I didn’t go to that stupid party, and I didn’t even want to go in the first place.”

  “You didn’t want to go?” Hadley suddenly inquired, stepping forward.

  “I don’t like parties,” I shrugged at her.

  “Then why did you go?” she frowned.

  “Rhys wanted to go…He really wanted to go. He actually begged me to go, for days.”

  Hadley turned to Oliver and I realis
ed he was looking directly at her also. I was just confused. Hadley’s line of questioning didn’t really mean anything to me, but as I looked at Isaac and Felix something between them all seemed to be catching on.

  “You don’t think-?” Oliver asked shaking his head.

  “Someone wanted to her to know?” Isaac answered, looking at Hadley.

  “They’ve been watching her longer than we thought,” Felix whispered.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  No one bothered to answer me, and that didn’t surprise me.

  “Ollie, if you look into his mind, do you think you’ll be able to find the thought?” Felix asked.

  “I should, unless they’re really good,” Oliver shrugged.

  “Good thing you’re really good,” Hadley said.

  “Come on, he’s in my room,” Isaac said, gesturing him down the hall.

  “Whoa,” I said immediately following after him.

  Isaac however continued to ignore me as him and Oliver barged into the bedroom. Rhys was laying the bed, the same way he had been left last night. He seemed so peaceful. He had been through more than I realised yesterday, and whilst he wasn’t exactly the toughest cookie, he didn’t usually faint as often as he did yesterday.

  “You’ll wake him,” I said immediately as Oliver sat on the bed, moving his hands to his head.

  “Don’t,” Isaac whispered, looking at me. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  “And what is he doing?” I said, stepping forward.

  Isaac sighed and turned back to Rhys and Oliver as Oliver careful placed his hands on the temples of Rhys’ head. Rhys barely moved, barely stirred; something wasn’t right.

  “There’s a possibility, that maybe someone wanted you at that party,” Isaac stated, still not looking at me. “They wanted you to see the marks. They knew that any Insigne whom had their true nature hidden would find it all unlocked from seeing any of the marks. We think…someone made Rhys want to go to that party to make sure you’d be there too.”

  “That’s crazy,” I muttered, shaking my head.

  “Did Rhys say how he found out about the party?” Isaac asked me.

  “Well…no, but-,” I started to say.

  “And did you know anyone else there?” Isaac cut in.

  “Not really,” I admitted. “It couldn’t all just be a set up.”

  “Lily, if you really are what we think you are, you could be in so much danger.”

  Isaac had turned to me when he spoke and it didn’t have the same aggressiveness when he spoke that I was used to. Our eyes met and for a moment I thought he was starting to realised that this wasn’t as easy to understand as he thought.

  “Someone has definitely messed with his mind.” Oliver’s words made both Isaac and I jump and little as my eyes drifted to him instead.

  “You were right,” I muttered.

  “I don’t always like to be right,” Isaac told me.

  “What do we do now then?”

  Isaac didn’t speak and he ended up just giving me this look and I didn’t like the look he ended up giving me. Maybe it was more than I did understand right now, as why I could be important. I wanted to protect Rhys though, that was something I felt strongly about. I really didn’t understand what was about to happen to me though.

  Chapter Eight

  “Are you going to hurt him?”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” Oliver promised, “but I will wait for him to wake up.”

  “Why?” I frowned.

  “So you can talk to him,” Isaac injected. “You…you won’t be able to see him for a while after this.”

  “You’re going to send him away?” I guessed.

  “They’ve used him once already, Lily,” Isaac reminded me. “They’ve been watching you longer than I thought, and they already got to him. If you’re not near him, they’ll leave him alone. Besides I have to take you to the council.”

  “Council? You said something about that before…what the hell is the council?” I asked, following Isaac as he left the bedroom for a second.

  “You’re taking her to the council?” Hadley was standing in the hallway and must’ve overheard our conversation.

  Felix and Hadley had been standing in the background whilst the rest of us had been in the bedroom. It was becoming apparent to me that Hadley had the tendency to argue with any of Isaac’s decisions, and I kind of liked it.

  “We need to know why demons are going after her, asking about the dagger, and we can’t just presume it’s some idea we made up,” Isaac told her.

  “Plus she doesn’t how to be an Insigne yet,” Felix shrugged. “She doesn’t even know what type of demon she killed yesterday…or that there is even different types of demons.”

  “And the council has all the knowledge, does it?” I asked them.

  “The council guides you through for a year, makes sure you can handle the big tough world out here,” Isaac explained. “You attend when you’re seventeen, as by then, you should have your mark. They train you in the best way to use your mark, as well as training you on how to really fight, even though it’s already physical hardwired into an Insigne. I mean we’re literally born with the ability to kick ass.”

  Hadley wasn’t the only one to roll her eyes at this point. “It also teaches you what most marks mean and how to identify demons and they easiest way to kill certain demons,” Hadley told me, giving Isaac a look.

  “She seems to already have the mark thing down,” Isaac muttered.

  “I don’t know how I knew what Felix mark is,” I told him again.

  “You know what yours mean too though, don’t you? No one had to tell you that,” Isaac reminded me.

  “Yeah…but…I also shot fire, so that helped,” I said quickly.

  “Still… no one had to tell you,” Isaac muttered again. “Look, the council is a good idea, and we all know it. They can help.”

  “Even if…she is what we think,” Felix said. “How will they know? I mean…I’m not one to doubt the council…but it’s not like its’ so easy to tell.”

  “They’ll know, they know everything, remember?” Isaac said giving him a look.

  “NO, where’s Lily?!”

  I jumped at the sound of my name and gave Isaac a little look before sprinting back down the hallway and into the bedroom. Rhys was sitting up-right and Oliver was now standing, looking slightly distressed.

  “Oh, Lily, thank god,” Rhys breathed out as he laid eyes on me.

  “Rhys,” I sighed slightly walking over to the bed.

  “Lily.” Isaac said from behind me and grabbed my arm, stopping me from walking to Rhys. “You can’t-.”

  “Let me just… say goodbye?” I suggested.

  Isaac’s eyes looked me up and down at little. I saw him swallow slightly as he slowly realised my arm from his grip. “Don’t take too long.”

  Isaac gave a small nod to Oliver and Oliver rose off the bed and glanced at me before he followed Isaac out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I sighed and turned myself to Rhys before walking to the bed and sitting myself down. I didn’t even know how to start, to say goodbye to him. I was so used to seeing him every day, having him there….and it was now, for once he couldn’t be there, and the thought killed me.

  “Lily, I don’t understand what’s going on,” he told me shaking his head.

  “And you don’t need to know,” I stated. “You can’t be a part of this…it’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? Lily, how can you be a part of this then?” Rhys stressed.

  I felt myself laugh a little. “If you’re thinking you need to protect me…you can’t.”

  “I always protect you,” he reminded me.

  “I know.”

  Oh god, was I really crying right now? Of course I was. I could feel my eyes stinging as I felt the first tear slowly fall down my cheek.

  “You saw what happened at your house,” I whispered. “It will just keep happening…and you can’t deal with i
t.”

  “And you can?” Rhys asked surprised. “Those things…we’re…”

  “Demons,” I told him calmly. “That’s what you call a demon apparently.”

  “Demons, Lily-.”

  “I know, okay, Rhys. I know it sounds crazy…but you saw them…they were…supernatural,” I told him, looking up at him, so our eyes met.

  “Has it got to do with that sy-? Why are crying?”

  I had tried my hardest to stop crying, but the more and more I thought about not being about to talk to Rhys every day, to not have him here when I really needed him was really killing me. I couldn’t even explain in words what it would mean to really lose Rhys, and right now, the thought of making him forget me for now make me feel like I was losing him. I didn’t do anything without him, I didn’t get through anything without his help, and for once I had to. I had to protect him though. For once it was my job to look after to him, to keep him away from whatever was happening. I had this mark, I was able to protect myself from this sort of this, or that’s the idea anyway….Rhys can’t though, and if it’s the only way to protect him I’ll do it.

  “You know you’re one of the most important people in the world to me, don’t you?” I whispered, between sniffing and wiping my eyes.

  “Lily-,” Rhys said confused, taking hold of my wrists.

  “You know that, don’t you?” I repeated.

  “Of course I know that,” Rhys replied quickly. “And you are the one of the most important people to me.”

  “I need you to…understand that I’m doing this because it’s my turn to protect you,” I was crying harder, there was no stopping, “and I don’t exactly want to do this…but I know I need to.”

  “Do what, Lily? What are you talking about?” Rhys asked. “This crazy, you know that? We can just go.”

  “No, no,” I shook my head, pulling my arms out of the Rhys’ grip. “I can’t go, I really can’t.”

  “What is this then?!” Rhys asked, explain this to me.