by Nicole Thorn
“Come on.” I had her get up. “We need to go find Travis.”
Anna got up without a fuss. I thought that if I brought her to the same place that she tapped into her powers, she might’ve been able to again.
She sat in the grass and tried to sense where he went. I had no clue how she did it, but I knew I had to pay attention. I was still supposed to collect information on her and her friends’ powers, and report back to Rupert. After an hour of pure silence, she sighed. “Nothing. I just can’t focus.”
Well damn. “Okay then. Let’s go.”
“Where?” She stood with me.
“We’ll find out together.”
I had no clue where to bring Anna, but I knew I had to get her mind off of her parents. She was a sentimental girl, so that might not have been easy. The right thing might send her off the deep end again.
We ended up near a campsite by the woods. I was out of other ideas, so I hoped that a walk and being around nature would help her.
“Where are we?” she asked when I handed her my jacket.
“We are in the woods, and we’re going for a walk.”
I felt grateful when I saw the empty trail. I wasn’t in the mood to be around anyone but Anna.
Turned out that walks were kind of boring. Borderline torture. But I had never been good at planning things.
“Is this supposed to be some kind of attempt to get me in touch with the Earth, so my powers will work again?” Anna asked, sounding as bored as me.
“Sort of. Walks are supposed to be calming and peaceful.”
“Well.” She stepped over a broken tree, “I think I’m past a place where I can find peace. We’re hunting an evil demon, and I’m waiting for the day you decide you’re done with me.”
Ouch. She wasn’t wrong, so I couldn’t be offended. I waited for that day too. It would be soon. When this assignment came to a close, she would be the only one I had left.
“Done with is such a harsh way to put it,” I decided.
She stopped walking. “Stabbing me to death is such a harsh thing to do, Ezra, so forgive me, please.”
When she started walking again, I said, “I won’t make it painful for you. You’ll be gone in a second, you won’t feel a thing.” Like she had never been here in the first place. The thought pained me in such a familiar way. I didn’t want to think that it might hurt in the same way. I didn’t care for the two girls in the same way, so it seemed silly to entertain the thought.
“Are you going to hate me once it’s done?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Once you’re back in purgatory—because I sent you there—will you hate me?”
She stopped again looking at the ground. “Why do you care what I’ll feel about you?”
Because the lie in me wants to know. The trick my brain is playing makes me think I care for you, and it might kill me to think you’d hate me.
“I’m just curious.”
Anna looked me in the eye, and it unsettled me. She left me feeling bare. “I won’t hate you.”
Did she lie to me? Anna didn’t have much reason to. Even if she did, I’d never really know. I’d let her words comfort me for now.
We found ourselves at a lake some time later. We stood atop a massive rock with the water beneath it.
“Wanna sit for a while?” Anna asked me.
“Why not?”
We walked to the edge of the rock and sat down. Anna wouldn’t stop staring at the water below.
“Anna, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about if it’s too cold for skinny dipping. I’ve never done it before, and now might be the time.”
Oh dear.
I didn’t know how I’d managed to not have my way with her at this point. But I knew that if she got naked in front of me, I’d lose all control. She deserved better than to lose her virginity in a lake, to a man that had to kill her.
“We can do it together if you want to,” she offered.
Damn… it… Why, oh, why is this happening to me? I’ve done terrible things but nothing to deserve this.
Anna stood up, and her jacket came off. “Well, I’m going. I just have to, or I’ll hate myself.”
“No,” I finally said. “Do not take your clothes off.” I sighed into my hands.
“Why? It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” Off came the shirt.
True. I had technically seen her naked. At the time, I hardly even noticed. I didn’t think about it until she covered herself, and I gave her a towel. That steam had obscured my vision, but even if it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the sight. She had been scared and crying.
She unbuttoned her shorts, and I stood up as fast as I could. I caught her hands and removed them, then I re-buttoned her shorts. “All clothes will remain on today.”
I bent down to pick up her shirt, and her shorts drop around her ankles. I slowly looked up, and she grinned with such pride in her disobedience.
Her hands went to her hips. “I just remembered that you can’t tell me what to do.” Anna went to unhook her bra, and I stopped her for some reason.
“Please, don’t do that. Just… don’t do that to me,” I begged.
Don’t be fun and playful and cute. Don’t be adventurous and sexy. Don’t be someone I want to keep.
She dropped her hands to her sides and chewed on her lip. Anna really wanted to do this. It had been the closest she’d come to looking happy all day. I gave in.
“Okay. The rule is that underwear stays on.” I pulled my shirt over my head, and she smiled.
“You’re swimming too?”
“I am.” I kicked my pants off, and we walked to the edge of the rock.
“We jumping?”
“We are.”
“All right. Worst-case scenario is that the water isn’t deep enough, and we both die. Again.”
“Sounds good.”
She took my hand. “Together then. One… two… three!”
We jumped into the cold water, and Anna gasped as we resurfaced. We floated on the top of the water, and her teeth started chattering.
“Move around more, and you’ll be warmer,” I told her.
“Okay.” She smiled before she pounced on me. We both went under, and when we came back up, she hung off my back.
“You may think you’ve won this round, Pet, but I assure you, I don’t lose.” She giggled as I pulled her off of me, only to push her underwater.
Anna kicked away and swam back to the base of the rock we’d jumped off of. She had her back against it, trapping herself. I swam up, and stopped in front of her. “Nowhere to go. You’ve really put yourself in a predicament.”
“Did I?” She sucked in a breath and went under. I grabbed her legs and pulled her back before she could get away again. I pushed her back up against the rock, and discovered that water was shallow enough for me to stand.
“Again, I win,” I informed Anna.
“Nope. I can get away. I just need to get you underwater.”
I laughed. “Try it.”
She put her hands on my shoulders and tried pushing me down. Human strength couldn’t beat a hellion. Anna kept struggling until she got annoyed. “Fine then. I’ll just weigh you down till you sink.” She wrapped herself around me again, but this time she faced me. I almost couldn’t focus on anything else.
“I can swim while I hold you,” I said after my hands went to her back.
“Doubt it.”
“I can.”
“Prove it,” she challenged me. The pure light in her eyes made me want to push her up against the rocks and take back my ‘underwear on’ policy.
I held on to Anna as I moved deeper into the water. Then I floated along on my back with her on me. We only dipped underwater about five times.
“See,” she said after the sixth time. “You can’t do it.”
I moved upright again and held her to me by her hips. “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
&nb
sp; “Do you?” She laughed.
I nodded slowly, and when my hands went up her body to her ribcage, she stopped smiling. Her eyes became serious, and I didn’t know what to do. I knew what I wanted to do.
I didn’t take what I wanted, no matter how much I believed in that second that she wanted it too.
I smiled at Anna before I tossed her a few feet away. When she resurfaced, she laughed.
For the most part.
We finished swimming, and then waited for our clothes to dry, after we found they’d gotten splashed. While we drove, I decided what we could do next. I found a bakery on the way back to the hotel, and took Anna inside.
The little shop had been decorated for Christmas and New Year’s. A huge sign in the back promoted their holiday sale.
“Pick whatever you want,” I told her when we got to the glass counter. They had a little of everything inside the glass cases. Mostly cake, though.
“We’re just gonna eat cake?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” She smiled. She hummed as her eyes scanned the desserts. “That one.” Anna pointed to a little square cake with every color frosting you could ever have seen.
The man behind the counter boxed it up for us and handed it to me. I thanked him and bought a bottle of apple cider. I would have preferred champagne, but getting drunk with Anna—though fun—wouldn’t be a good idea.
When we got back to the hotel, I put the cake and cider in the fridge while Anna showered the lake water off. She came back into the room in her blue pajamas. My favorite. Her hair had been tied up in a messy bun and, again, she looked so wonderfully human. Such a shame that she had no clue the affect she had on me.
She sat next to me in bed, and I went to get our dinner of cake and cider. We started digging in without bothering with plates. The cake sat between us as we watched the ball drop on TV.
I passed her the bottle of cider, and said, “Why do people insist on marking each passing year like it matters?”
She took a drink and passed it back. “Because for some people it’s the only way to mark the passing of time. If they don’t do anything of significance with their lives, then it all blurs together.”
“Does it not do that anyway?”
“You tell me, Grandpa Simpson.” She smiled. “You’re a lot older than me.”
I tipped the bottle back before giving it to her. “It blurs. Time, age, it means nothing in the end. Time goes on unaffected by anything. It destroys all things eventually. Nothing gets to escape.”
“Sounds pointless then, living.” She took a bite of frosting.
“No. It’s only pointless if you make it that way. If you waste the time you’re given.”
“Do you feel like you’ve spent your life well?”
“As a human or a hellion?”
She shrugged. “Either.”
“As a human, I didn’t do anything of worth. I was spoiled with money. The only thing I had that I cared about was…” I stopped myself from saying the name. Anna nodded with understanding. “I didn’t know how to be a good man. I still don’t, but she made me think I could be. When I died, and became this, I forgot every ounce of kindness that I learned from her.”
“You’re not unkind. You’ve been relatively nice to me with absolutely no reason to. I don’t think you’re as cold as you think you are.”
I smiled. “Any kindness you might see in me is a new development, I assure you.”
“Why’s that?”
I took a drink so I didn’t have to lie to her. “As a hellion, I think I’ve spent my time as well as I could have. I’ve killed those who would kill others. I suppose my time wasn’t wasted. You?”
“I didn’t get the chance to do anything with my life. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with it, so I guess it won’t be much of a waste when I die again.”
It will be.
The TV crowd started counting down from ten on the ball drop. Anna watched intently as it went down. She was young, so it didn’t surprise me.
I heard the excited screams from downstairs, in the room where the hotel held a party. They sounded happy as they went on with their carefree lives. None of them had to kill the only person in three hundred years that could make them feel.
When they got to zero, the humans on the TV partook in the silly tradition of kissing at midnight. Anna’s face sank a little. I wanted to kiss her, but I knew if I did, I’d never stop.
But she looked so sad.
And her lips looked soft and inviting.
And she wore the nightie I bought her.
Dammit.
Maybe this girl had been sent to me as a punishment from God. Finally making me pay for my crimes. What she did to me seemed like a far more severe punishment than I deserved.
I looked back over at Anna, and she still watched the people on TV kiss. She looked detached, and I couldn’t bear the thought.
I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. I moved away, but not far. Anna turned her head, and her eyes went to my lips. I couldn’t let her do what I wanted her to. I needed to take away the option.
“Happy New Year,” I said to her before I moved away and started eating again.
“Happy New Year.” She smiled sadly at me. She handed the bottle back, and got another spoonful of cake.
Chapter Nineteen: Dirty Magic
Anastasia
I had cake for breakfast, because I was an adult.
I laid on my back while Ezra wrote in his diary again. We laid tops and tails, and I tried to not find it adorable. Especially when he would occasionally smile at me, and bat at my feet.
“We should go soon,” he said without looking up from his book.
I frowned, then ate another huge bite of my cake. “But there is still cake to eat.”
One dark eyebrow went up along with the corner of his mouth. “Oh, you think that’s what we should do?”
I nodded. I’d rather eat cake than fail to track Travis again, and disappoint Ezra.
He set his book down, then laid on his stomach next to me. Then he grabbed my cake from me, and started eating it.
“Hey.” I flicked his shoulder. “My cake.”
“I can’t hear you,” he mumbled with a mouthful of my cake.
“You can’t hear me with a full mouth?” I laughed. He nodded his head and took another bite. “You are so mean.”
“Mean? Me? You must be mistaken, my dear,” he said after he swallowed.
“Yes, you.”
“I’ll show you mean.” He shoved the rest of the cake back at me.
“I can’t eat it now that you’ve used my spoon. I don’t want cooties.”
Both of his eyebrows shot up. “You can swim naked in a lake with God knows what swimming around in it, but you can’t share a spoon with me?”
“I was only mostly naked in that lake. And, yes. Who knows what horrible things you’ve done with that mouth.”
“Pet, I assure you that anything I might do with my mouth nothing short of superb.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure.”
“Don’t believe me?”
I shook my head.
“Okay then.” He pushed himself up with his hands and sat up on his knees. “I am hurt by your words, and now I will enact my revenge on you.”
“Oh, do your worst, old man.”
He got on top of me, and took a spoonful of cake, holding it up.
“Ezra,” I giggled. “Get off.”
“You should choose your words more carefully.” He didn’t move, and I hardly struggled under him. “And now I shall force feed you this cootie cake.”
“No! I don’t wanna catch something, like arrogance.”
He laughed at me. “Hush now. Have some cake.” He tried to feed it to me, but I covered my mouth and wiggled under him.
“Quit it,” I said through uncontrollable giggles.
He moved my hand away from my mouth, and the cake fell off of the spoon and onto my chest, narrowly missing my purple dres
s. “Look what you did!”
“I can see. I’ll clean it.” He licked the remaining frosting from the spoon, then put it down.
“No!” I tried to stop him, but it was no use.
“Perfect opportunity to give you some cooties.” His mouth came down on my collarbone where the cake ended up.
“Quit it. Your tongue tickles, and it’s gross!” Now I was covered in spit and frosting.
He just laughed, and continued eating cake off of me. I hadn’t been kidding about the tickling. I couldn’t control my laughter, and it made his head pop up.
“Are you ticklish there?” Ezra asked with a wicked glint in his eyes.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been tickled there until just now,” I snapped.
“Good.” Slower, his head went back down, and I heard a low rumble from him as his tongue trailed my skin. He paused to press his lips against a small birthmark on the top of my breast, just teasing me at the swell.
I should stop him. I really should…
“You’re really warm,” I whispered, and then felt embarrassed for how it sounded.
Ezra looked up at me through his eyelashes. “Is that bad?” He sounded almost worried about my answer.
I smiled as I grazed his cheek with the tips of my fingers. “I like it.”
He gripped my waist tightly. I could feel his heartbeat against the top of my stomach, and I envied him for it. Then the envy went away, replaced with joy. I made his heart race.
Ezra’s teeth nipped at my skin, and my hand knotted in his hair while his went up my dress. He let his fingers dig into the skin of my thigh while he pulled down the zipper on the front of my dress. Not much, but enough to make me even more aware of him, and what he intended to do.
He moved his face up, so it came level with mine. “Do you want me to keep going?” Ezra kissed my chest while he waited for his answer.
I almost laughed. How was it possible that he couldn’t see the pure need in my eyes? How desperately in love with him I was? Maybe he couldn’t know yet, because I didn’t even know till right in that moment.
This is it. The real thing. If I said yes, then there would be no going back, no pretending it didn’t happen or that I wasn’t head over heels in love with him. If I said no, I might never forgive myself. I’d die without ever feeling him touch me. That seemed so much worse than him knowing how much I loved him.
