Marked

by Jasmine Derriman

  “Lily.”

  He said my name softly as he started to walk back over to me. Even the way he looked at me now was soft and sympathetic. When he reached me it took a seconds for anything to happen, but eventually he brought up his hand and brush my hair away from my face. I felt the tips of his fingers brush my skin and I felt my stomach flip with butterflies. His touch was so soft and calming I just wanted to fall into him and never let go.

  “The council can’t know you have the dagger,” Isaac whispered. “I want to protect you, and I know that’s how. They will use you, use your power and control you, and I can’t let that happen. Lily…I need you.”

  “You need me?” I asked back surprised, suddenly aware of how close we were to each other. I could feel his warm breath grace my face.

  He smiled a little. “I can’t explain it, but I feel…sane around you, and I haven’t felt sane for years. You aren’t like Felix or Hadley or me yet. Demons haven’t consumed your everyday life, you still have such an innocence that we all wish we still had.”

  I shook my head at him. “You don’t need me. You’re Isaac.”

  He smiled and his fingers brushed my hair again. “That’s where you are wrong, Lily. I do need you, we all need you…and you proved that today.”

  I shook my head again but Isaac pulled up his other hand to hold the other side of my face. He stopped me from shaking my head and I kept my head still. I didn’t know where else to look but his eyes and I thought it may be uncomfortable, but it was absolutely the complete opposite.

  I felt his fingers move slightly, just a little but his touch was like electricity on my skin. I knew I wanted to feel his touch all the time. I knew that if he had died today I would’ve been even more hopeless than I was now. He had been distant lately but it wasn’t because he didn’t care, and I was starting to understand that it was because he cared too much.

  Isaac wasn’t an easy person to understand but as each day went on I was starting to understand him. He wasn’t exactly good at showing emotions, something I had realised a while ago. He needed to keep his emotions close to his chest. He couldn’t let himself care about anyone else, because he knew the pain of someone he loved dearly dying, he knew the pain from his mother. He knew disappointment and rejection all too well from being in the council. He knew how to only take care of himself as that’s how he had lived most of his life.

  Right now though, he had let his guard down. He didn’t care if I saw how much he cared for me because after everything today I wasn’t the same girl he thought I was. I was still innocent like he said, but I was wrong, I had proved something today. I had proved that I was strong, even if it was just a little bit.

  Isaac moved his head forward and I saw him tilt his head slightly. I knew what he was about to do, and I knew what this moment was and I realised now how much I wanted it, how much I really wanted him. I let myself move forward slightly, lean more on my toes so that my height was closer to his rather than him arching his back down towards and I also let my head tilt opposite to his.

  I let my eyes close maybe only a moment before I felt his lips brush over mine. It wasn’t quite a kiss, not straight away anyway. I could feel his breath against mine and the hesitation to kiss me. If he kisses me now he’ll completely let his guard down completely, and he knew it too.

  I suddenly felt his lips hit mine, at full strength and his hands tighten around my cheeks. My lips parted a little as I fell into the kiss. I had never imagined kissing him would feel like this, but then again I had never let myself imagine it before, and I almost wished I had because this moment felt so good.

  I think that the one kiss lasted for quite a while, but I honestly couldn’t be sure because time moved so differently in that one movement. Our lips parted from each other and let my eyes open slowly to see Isaac’s eyes looking back onto mine. We both just paused and stared at each other, neither of us daring to speak and break this moment.

  We both moved back in at the same time and started to kiss again. This time it was more passionate, it wasn’t so cautious. Isaac’s hand moved from my face and down towards my waist. I brought my hands up towards Isaac’s neck and let my arms wrap around him and I let myself move more onto my toes so now our bodies touched, and now nearly every inch of us finally touched.

  I had kissed someone before, but it wasn’t much of a great kiss, it was at a party from a boy who I went to middle school with and since then my love life was pretty none existent, and so I had never experienced anything close to this. I didn’t want to let go of Isaac, I wanted to feel everything I felt right now as I kissed him over and over again. I wanted to feel the nerves and the excitement and passion and the electricity all the time, but then again…there’s something that just didn’t feel right.

  “Please tell me you have something to get the blood out of these clothes, Isaac! Cause I am not your maid!”

  I broke away from Isaac so fast I was surprised I could even move that fast. I moved out of Isaac’s arms and stepped back and looked back at his closed bedroom door. The feeling of guilt swept over me so immediately I wanted to curl up in a ball. Hadley would hate me is she knew Isaac and I just kissed, and whilst I needed Isaac, I also needed Hadley and I needed Felix. This wasn’t about some little crush I had developed for Isaac.

  I looked back at Isaac who has his mouth open a little and I could tell that I had definitely confused him. This wasn’t right though, not now anyway, not with everything going on. I couldn’t really be with someone like Isaac and I couldn’t afford to have someone like Hadley hate me. Gosh, what was I doing? I didn’t just kiss people, I don’t just kiss someone, this wasn’t me, but I still wanted to kiss him again.

  I swallowed and I sighed as I ran my fingers through my hair to push it out of my face. Isaac didn’t say anything and the longer we stood there in silence the more I saw his expression change. I couldn’t think right now, that was all I knew and whatever I could say to Isaac now wouldn’t sound good or justify what was going on in my head, so I just kept my mouth shut.

  That was when Isaac sighed. “I’m coming, Hadley!”

  I realised I had been holding my breath and I let myself breathe out once he had spoken. He seemed to just gather himself before he decided to walk near me.

  “We’ll talk later,” he told me as he opened the bedroom door to leave.

  I sighed again and nodded at him as he left. I wasn’t sure if I could even talk, or if I could even deal with everything going on right now. I really did just want to run away.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  I sat in Isaac’s room alone for most of the next day. It was easy to avoid Isaac, and it was easier than I expected, actually as easy as giving him the cold shoulder. It wasn’t really anything I wanted to do, but then again I didn’t know what wanted. This kiss was good, well actually it was great, but that wasn’t why I suddenly felt so weird.

  I had thought about Hadley’s reaction if she found out and I had come up with three possible outcomes. One involved Hadley slapping me and another involved her stabbing me with her telum and the third involved her hurting Isaac. Either way no matter what, Hadley’s reaction wasn’t ever going to be a good one, well that was the conclusion I had come to.

  I had enough going on in my head as it was. The dagger had moved from the lounge room to Isaac’s desk and since then no one had touched. Actually besides me no one had touched it and I wanted to keep it that. I knew I felt a new found fear and I knew it was because of the dagger that radiated most of that fear.

  I realised that a month ago I was stressing over this thing, stressing whether or not I would find it, but now I had it, it felt like it was more trouble than it was worth. It had almost got Isaac killed for one, and it had this power, a power I thought might control anyone. I think what scared me more than anything was that I could feel it. I mean, I could feel its presence, like it was a sixth sense to me. It’s like when you know someone is standing behind you, expect I knew I would feel it even if it wa
s on the other side of the world.

  I needed to distract myself because I knew the longer I even thought about the dagger or anything Isaac related I thought my head was going to explode. It was common for me to start cleaning when I felt stressed, and that’s exactly what I did, or tried to at least.

  Considering it wasn’t my room, it wasn’t exactly easy to clean as I couldn’t go through everything, like Isaac’s wardrobe for example, which felt too invasive. It was easier to take my clothes out of my bag and fold them again and pack them again, even though it definitely wasn’t necessary. I even found myself picking up all the books Eve had given me, which had actually been scattered all over his room. I found myself alphabetising them, which was a little over the top of me for even me, especially when I found myself annoyed over one of the books not having a title to alphabetising it by.

  I felt myself instantly stop when I picked up Annabeth’s diary. I had touched the diary for weeks, in fact I had been avoiding reading any more than I had. As I looked at this torn and weathered book I realised though it might contain the only person who could relate to what I was going through. I think that’s why I had avoided reading any more than the first entry of her travelling to New York. The more I read about her experience the more I would have realised what I was in for, but now I really was going to experience it all.

  I sat down at Isaac’s desk and opened her diary to her next entry but found myself struggling to read it. Her cursive as impressive but also hard for me to read, plus in some of the spots of the diary the ink had nearly completely faded. I decided the best way to read this was to re-write it out. So I picked up a pen and some paper and started to re-write what I could read.

  I found myself lazily going through it at first, scanning the pages where Annabeth talked about her and Will finding a place to live, about him finding a job, about her finding her job, at St. Jude, something I had already read. I was going back over what I had read, the beginning, and as I flipped through it faster I realised I was looking for something specific, and eventually I found it.

  It was the entry where Annabeth decided to hide the dagger in the hospital walls. It was hard to read but I tried my best to write it out. I sat in that office for hours with the dagger in front of me. I thought about leaving it behind in London, William begged me to leave it there too, but I just couldn’t. I know I could feel it, even here in America, I would still feel it, and I cannot have it fall into the wrong hands. It was safest for it to come with me, but now I wanted nothing more than to get rid of it.

  I had done what I could with the demon war but it had almost killed my friends, and the only man I could ever love. It had so much power, but this power is danger. It now feels like responsibility to me though that I keep it safe, or at least away from anyone it could hurt. It all felt like it was more trouble than it was worth.

  The hole in the wall of office was more than perfect opportunity I hide this dagger, and whilst I didn’t make the decision lightly, it was the right thing to do. At least there I could feel its presence, know what it was, make sure no one ever touched, and there no one would ever be able to find it. Unless they deserve to find it because not everyone does deserve this kind of power. This dagger isn’t a weapon like Thanos believes, he doesn’t think he needs me for it. I wonder if he sent those demons, but that would mean he could control them, and that isn’t possible, surely, but they came after all of us in large numbers….I couldn’t understand it.

  I didn’t need to understand it anymore though. They were never going to find us again and with the dagger in the wall, and with the wall due to be plastered over tomorrow, it will never be found until it is supposed to be found. I hope whoever finds it is stronger than me, and braver, because I failed the responsibility of it, and I don’t’ deserve the power anymore.

  The dagger felt like more responsibility then it was worth and she was right when she wrote that because that’s how I felt too. The dagger wasn’t power everyone deserved, it wasn’t just a weapon, it was more than that, and Annabeth seemed to believe that whoever in her life was trying to get the dagger from here believed that they could use the dagger without her. She almost mentioned something about the control of demons, and that someone had to be controlling them. She had no other explanation for the build-up in demons, finding more than one together was strange, someone I had been told was strange, but she was talking bigger numbers than four, numbers like I saw in the hospital.

  After what felt like a few hours of writing down whatever I could read I decided that I had to tell someone about all of this, about the entry in the hospital anyway. I picked everything up and really hoped that when I ran outside there would only be Hadley or Felix, but the moment I stepped into the lounge I saw the one person I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to yet.

  I stopped dead in front of Isaac and I breathed out heavily and clutched to the book and the paper I had written on and put it closer to my chest as I breathed out. I really misjudged the wave of feelings that would hit me at the sight of him.

  “We need to talk,” he said plainly.

  I breathed out and shook my head a little. “Now…are you sure now…is a good-?”

  I thought I knew what he wanted to talk about. I thought he wanted to talk about yesterday but as I saw Felix and Hadley sitting on the couch I suddenly realised that Isaac didn’t want to talk about us.

  Isaac’s eyes met mine and I realised he knew what I had thought, but also chose to ignore it. “Sit down.”

  I sighed a little and walked past Isaac and sat down on the empty armchair next to the lounge. Isaac stood across from me next to Felix who was on the lounge. Isaac looked at me slightly and he crossed his arm over his chest.

  “So…what is this about?” I asked him. “If it’s about the dagger-.”

  “It’s not about the dagger,” Isaac said to me immediately, “well okay it is a little, but it’s more than that.”

  I slowly looked over at Felix and Hadley who both were trying to avoid eye contact with me. It was making me feel nervous, like something was wrong.

  “What? What is it?” I asked, turning my gaze to Isaac. “Tell me.”

  “Lily,” he sighed a little. “Okay, you know what we did to Rhys and your uncle…”

  “Yes, you use Oliver who’s mark can manipulate one’s memory, and you manipulated their memories to forget me,” I answered him plainly.

  “Well, we put a kind of failsafe in their memories,” Isaac said cautiously.

  “Failsafe?” I frowned.

  “With Rhys, if…if we were to see a demon or something that we made him forget…the failsafe would be triggered,” Isaac explained. “His failsafe would mean he would suddenly remember everything we made him forget…and he’d call you.”

  “Call…you have my phone,” I said quickly shaking my head as I slowly started to work everything out. “Oh my god, he called didn’t he?”

  Isaac and I made eye contact and the moment we did he broke away and looked down. I put the paper and the book down on the coffee in front of me and moved onto the edge of my chair. There were suddenly a million more thoughts racing through my head, and none of them were good.

  “Is Rhys okay?” I asked Isaac who still refused to look at me. “Tell me!”

  Isaac jumped as I shot up off the chair. He stood up straight and Felix and Hadley both shifted in the lounge uncomfortably and I saw Felix shaking his head a little.

  “Oliver…Oliver went to find Rhys,” Felix muttered, looking back at Isaac and me.

  “And, what-?”

  “He wasn’t there, Lily,” Isaac cut in.

  “Wasn’t…there?” I choked out. I could feel it. My breathing was getting out of hand and my blood was rushing to my head. “So he could be hurt or worse and we’re just standing around here?”

  “Lily,” Isaac said sharply as I stepped forward and he stepped towards me. “We don’t know much yet.”

  “We know he saw a demon or something similar,” I argued. “
They took him…they took him again because of me, right?’

  “We think…this might be a retaliation to you getting the dagger, yes,” Felix nodded, glancing at me.

  “They only took him to get to you,” Isaac said immediately.

  “Well, what do you know, it worked.”

  I tried to walk to the front door but before I could even get close I felt Isaac grab onto my forearm. I felt his strength kick in and he quite literally swung me around on the spot and turned me back away from the door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him as I angrily triedto get his hand off me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he shot back at me in a different tone.

  “I’m going to save Rhys, what do you think I’m doing?” I asked him, as I shook my arm desperately trying to get it free.

  “I think you’re walking yourself into a trap,” Isaac stated.

  “And what they are going to do with me if they get me, because they won’t kill me, they can’t,” I told him. “They need me to use that stupid dagger.”

  “And you think handing yourself over to them will save Rhys?” he asked angrily. “They could kill you, the demons will anyway. They only wanted to keep you alive to find the dagger themselves.”

  “Then I won’t take the dagger with me.”

  “And then they’ll torture you until they tell you where it is.”

  “Torture me? What about Rhys?” I said into his face. “He…he would be so scared right now…he suddenly would remember all of it…and it’s my fault this is happening to him…mine, no one else’s. They will torture him for information on where I am, and he doesn’t have any idea. You don’t understand, I would do anything to save, Rhys. Anything.”