by J. A. Saare
This was all in my head.
"It's not in your head," Gabriel informed me softly, reminding me that he was still in my mind. "It's very real."
I wanted to throw the picture at Bane and tell him to fuck off, but the idea of letting go of the picture terrified me. I didn't have pictures of her anymore. Ray had destroyed all of them when he'd tossed my shit into the trash when I'd been sent to his house of horrors.
"Where did you get this?" I whispered and started trembling.
Bane's focus remained on me. "Your grandmother."
"That's not possible," I said, keeping hold of the image but shaking my head. "I don't have a grandmother."
"Yes, you do," he corrected.
I responded before he finished, "No, I don't."
He folded his arms over his chest. "So you believe both of your parents were the result of immaculate conception?"
Ever the smart-ass. "Fuck you, Bane."
I wanted to leave but couldn't. Even when I tried. Gabriel prevented movement and, judging by his hold, he wanted me to listen. I couldn't believe he'd done this to me. He knew how fragile my emotions were. He had to have anticipated how I'd react to something like this. The mark was still open, so he glimpsed every ounce of agony this discussion caused me. That wasn't like him. He did everything he could to shelter me from hurt.
Why wasn't he talking to me or sharing his feelings?
I looked at the asshole in front of me and had my answer.
"I never met any grandparents. Not once."
"Your mother left her people to be with your father, who came from a broken home he wanted to forget. That was the only way they could be together since he was an outsider and didn't agree with our ways. If they wanted to be together, they had to start over. They got married, packed up their things, and left."
Oh, Jesus. I was losing my mind. "It's not possible."
"Why not?" He gentled his tone, becoming almost pacifying, which only made me want to slap him."What about this seems to illogical to you?"
He had to have something up his sleeve. I wasn't going to let him weasel his way through my defenses again."Because it's bullshit."
"No bull and no shit."
Fury and disbelief barreled through me. "You're lying."
"Why would I lie? What purpose would it serve?"
My eyes shot down, and I looked at the photo.
The girl looked just like Mom, only she'd been a teenager at the time—no more than fourteen or fifteen when the picture was taken. I'd known her when she was older. She had me when she was twenty. I knew I resembled her because I'd seen her so often in my dreams. Tears flooded my vision. I didn't have to close my eyes to see her for the first time in fifteen years.
"Tell me the truth." My voice cracked when I repeated, "Where did you get this, Bane?"
"I am telling you the truth. Your grandmother gave it to me five years ago. That's Selina on her fourteenth birthday."
I could end this entire thing here and now. I didn't know if the knowledge made me happy or upset. I was too conflicted. "My mother's name was Nora," I informed him.
"Leonora was Selina's middle name." He said it like he hated to prove me wrong but had to. "I could see her using a variation of it after she married your father."
Fuck. What did I say to that? "Listen, even if it's true..."
Family didn't let family suffer, especially their children. They didn't stand aside while the ones they were supposed to love were brutalized and abused. If someone had sent him, she'd sent him too late. The damage had been done. There wouldn't be any happy reunions in the future.
She let me rot.
"It doesn't matter. I don't want to hear anymore." I was going to keep the photo, but the conversation was over. If I did have extended family, I didn't care. They'd abandoned me long ago. "It's in the past."
He seemed agitated, like he knew what I was thinking. When he spoke, I discovered that somehow he did. "Your family didn't abandon you. Your grandmother moved to live with relatives after your grandfather died. She didn't learn what happened to your mother until the letters stopped coming and she reached out to travelers in the area. That's when she found out her daughter had been dead for years. By then, you were already in the system. She wanted to come get you." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, like he'd seen what I'd been through. "What happened to you made it impossible. You were moved, and she had to wait because the system is fucked. Your mother and father didn't have a will or list any living relatives in the event they died. When she finally got your address and planned to come to you, you'd already left."
I held his gaze, aware I was visibly shaking.
"Rhiannon, listen." He sounded exhausted as he dry washed his face with his hand. "You know I don't fuck around. You've known it since the first time we met. When I told you I'd come to New York to find my cousin, it was true. It took time because you suffered some awful shit and moved as soon as you got a chance. It wasn't easy to track you down. We couldn't even use magic since we didn't own anything of yours. You didn't say goodbye to anyone when you left Miami, vanished without a trace, and stopped calling home."
My teeth rattled, and I bit my tongue.
He couldn't know that. There was no way.
I was the only one with insight on how that went down.
"Leads eventually brought me here," he continued, pleading with me to listen in his own way, "but by the time I made it, you'd gotten involved with vampires. It did get you missing because you got your hands on a totem and took a trip you never should have made. Then you call me, say you need help, and then you go and kill some half-demons and drop off the face of the earth. I knew it had to be you, but I needed to be sure. When I give my word, I keep it. I told Lavinia I'd make sure you were safe, but I had to make absolutely sure you were the grandchild she only got to know in the letters she got from your mother. I didn't want to hurt either of you because I made a mistake."
"You're lying." I didn't know what else to say, so I kept repeating it. I thought I'd been slipped a dose of acid and was sinking headfirst into a bad trip. "It's not true."
He exhaled slowly and approached with caution, like he knew I'd lash out, punch him in the jaw, and rattle his teeth. "It is true, and you proved it tonight. I chose my inner circle for a reason. The woman who cursed Scott's home did it because his father killed her son when he took his wife and kids to the Drive-in. The car accident was just that, an accident, but she was so consumed with anger she evoked old magic and linked her spirit to their home when she killed them. She did it so the only child that wasn't in the car when it happened—the one she let live—would never forget what his family had done. The hex couldn't be removed by necromancy or spells. That kind of curse can only be reversed by a member of your bloodline."
He pulled back, almost like he was afraid to touch me. He stared at me, struggling for words. "We are kin, Rhiannon. I have a connection to your people because they raised me. I made the agreement with Gabriel because I felt our ties, much as I feel it with our relatives, even when I didn't have proof. We are both light and dark. It comes from our lineage. You aren't of my flesh and blood, but you are one of my people."
I'd gone into shell shock. "Why are you telling me this?"
"It's not only about keeping my word to Lavinia. It's about how this pertains to you and me. If you don't want to meet our people, that's your decision. But there's so much you don't know about yourself. It's no wonder you get into so much trouble with your big ass mouth and your gifts have been so difficult to define."
A car door slammed in the distance, and I heard Adrian shout something.
I tried to create words to convey what I was going through, but the vibrating under my skin had gotten so powerful I couldn't mask my tremors. Shadows swept around me, looking for a way in, and I wished the ground would open up and swallow me down.
I wanted to escape and run away.
It was too much. I couldn't take it.
"Peek-a-boo, Rhian
non Murphy," Lucifer whispered in my right ear, coming out of nowhere. His lips breezed over the left one and bit the lobe. "I see you."
I dropped the photo and brought my hands up to cover the places he'd been close to, wanting to block him and the entire world out. The hot summer night had already been dark, but somehow the streetlamps vanished. The world dissipated around me, falling apart like confetti. Black wisps snagged, came together, and formed into a room. In a blink, I stood in an onyx void where light didn't stand a chance.
I'd landed on the edge of darkness.
Thick and freezing fluid splashed my feet and started rising. The oil-like substance covered my ankles, went to my calves and thighs, and came to my waist. It was making its way to my head. The strength I'd tenuously held on to vanished. I was about to take a trip to Hell.
Lucifer would make sure I drowned before I got there.
In many ways, I wondered if I cared.
Bane snarled something I didn't understand, speaking in that strange language of his. He broke through the stupor, distorting the perimeter of the void, forcing it up and out. He shimmered through the very wall, pushing forward as he might through a layer of cling wrap. His body blurred as he moved, distorting his features as he fought his way through the barrier and came inside.
Then he became part of it.
He came to me and placed his hands over mine.
He was right in front of me, his eyes a mixture of blue, gray, and shades of black. The scar on his face moved, and I perceived it for what it was. A serpent, shifting and slithering over his face, baring its fangs. His shirt started tearing, ripping apart at his shoulders. Something sprang from his back, and my eyes widened when I took in a glorious pair of pristine ivory wings.
"Fuck you, Luci. You can't have her."
He brought his mouth to mine and pressed our lips together.
It wasn't a kiss at all and felt as appealing as carpet burn.
I struggled until the fluid stopped at my chest and reversed its course. The thick liquid rushed down my waist, thighs, calves and made its way to my feet. Bane's eyes remained open. The blue and gray receded, taking on a black hue until no color was visible. The sclera in both his eyes bled back and took on an ebony sheen. He didn't move, keeping our lips together. I realized he was absorbing the madness and taint, taking it into himself, using his mouth to consume it.
The exhaustion vanished, and a warm pulse of light covered my body.
It was much the same as what I'd felt at the bar.
It took a moment to comprehend it was coming from Bane.
The prickling sensation started at the hands he'd placed over mine and drifted up my arms. It flowed through my body, throbbing with vibrancy, sending energy through my muscles and limbs. As he took the darkness, he turned it into something else, bringing me back to myself. He still didn't let me go, keeping his fingers tight over the hands I'd cupped over my ears. His wings fluttered and curved around his torso, coming around me. I saw some of the feathers next to our heads dim, losing brilliance, becoming gray as spots speckled them and they turned black.
The void chipped and cracked like an eggshell, splintering and breaking in numerous places, and everything started to spin. The walls that formed my prison shattered outward. Particles that resembled black sand swept through the air and vanished. The sounds of the night returned, the warmth of the summer air eliminating the cold from the liquid that surrounded me.
We were back in the yard.
He let me go and staggered back.
I grasped the arm Gabriel had kept around my waist, shocked by what I was seeing. I was no longer angry or resentful, finding myself completely mystified. I'd seen many miraculous things in my life, but even those events didn't compare to this. Bane was telling the truth. He'd revealed something about himself that I intuitively knew wasn't something he readily shared.
Not with outsiders or strangers.
Bane's head flew back, and he opened his mouth, exhaling an enormous nebula of prismatic dust and smoke that had shades of black, purple, yellow, green, red, and blue. It swarmed around him like a mesmeric creature, surrounding his upper body. He didn't make a sound, keeping his mouth open as the steady stream fed the swirling vortex. The mass produced an eerie sound, like rushing wind, crashing trees, and distorted screams.
I heard whispers and recognized the voices.
Adrian, Nala, and Goose.
Bane closed his eyes and started coughing, choking out the last remnants of what he'd consumed. The cloud around him thinned, dissipated, and vanished. He bowed his head, created a fist, and punched his chest repeatedly, expectorating the last remnants. It sounded like he couldn't get enough oxygen, his lungs crackling as he inhaled.
He shuddered as he sank to his knees.
His wings folded, came together, and slid into his back, leaving no trace of themselves. He gulped for air, started breathing normally, and brought a hand to his face. His fingers came away bloodied. When he lifted his blond head, I saw twin rivers of blood streaming out of his nostrils.
Then I knew how he'd broken his nose so many times.
"You all right there?" Joshua called out.
I shifted my head and saw that those who'd been inside the house had seen everything. They didn't move, staying on the porch. They didn't seem surprised, but I supposed they wouldn't be.
Bane spat out the blood that had drained into his mouth. "I'm fine."
"I wanted to tell you," Disco informed me softly, sharing mental images that were short and to the point, revealing his immense dislike of keeping this part of things to himself. I watched Bane as he made it to his feet. "I'm sorry, Rhiannon."
"I get it." I didn't think I would but watching a man take that much filth, swallow it down, and force it back up changed a whole fucking lot. Someone would only endure that kind of torture if their motives were genuine. "You can let me go now. I want to make sure he's okay."
Gabriel lowered his arms but hooked a hand around my hip, making it apparent I wasn't doing anything without him. I picked up the picture when I moved, slid it into my back pocket, and approached the gargantuan man in front of us. Bane was in the process of using his shredded shirt to stem the flow from his nose. I didn't know what to say to him. He said we were family. Aside from the vampires who'd taken me in, or the BP employees I'd once considered a version of the same thing, I didn't have much experience with that sort of thing.
"Believe me now, princess?" Bane titled his head, nailing me in place with his normal bright blue peepers, keeping pressure on both nostrils. "Or do I have to do something else to prove it to you?"
Embarrassment made me very aware of myself.
He'd endured the putrid touch of Hell to help me. "I believe you."
He nodded, like it was about fucking time, and spat again. His fingers drifted from his shirt. Dark red stains marred the material, his hands, and patches of his bare chest. The scar over his face had stopped moving, although it had become a shade darker. The blood coming from his nose had slowed to a trickle.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
"We'll worry about the family dynamic later. We have bigger dicks to fry. Are you ready to end that bargain of yours?" He started dialing, acting like everything was fine despite what had just transpired, and added in his usual asshole way as he swiped blood from his nose, "I know I sure the fuck am."
Chapter Fifteen
I studied the softball-sized sphere Bane had retrieved from his ride and handed to me. He'd instructed me to keep the crystal ball close, get to know it, and give it a name as soon as I made it home. He seemed self-assured as he said he was going to get Marigold. He patted my head like a child, said he'd see me soon, and went to his SUV.
After what I'd seen him do, I had no doubt he'd come through.
There had also been something else, a realization that changed me. When he'd given me the light from himself, he'd altered my perception. The world wasn't some shithole I had to exist in. It wa
s a place with the potential to grant happiness if I decided to view it in a new way. There would always be darkness inside me, but I was the one who decided how to manipulate and use it.
I moved the orb and turned my hand to study it against the flames in the fireplace, letting the bright red blaze paint and change the color of the reflective glass. Apart from the center, which was illuminant and cloudy, it didn't seem different from the ones I'd seen in front of fortune-tellers at the beach. I'd been enchanted by the women with sparkling gold bracelets, dangling necklaces, and forehead tiaras who offered to tell you the future for a dollar. My mother had always pulled me away when I tried to make my way to them, telling me it wasn't real and not to put faith in it, and had lured me back to the beach.
She'd turned away from those she came from and made me as well.
For some reason, she didn't want to be part of it.
I didn't want to be angry at the woman I'd built up in my mind over the years. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if she'd had an inkling I might have the potential to see ghosts or other horrific things from the moment I was born. If I got my abilities from her side, she must have known something. Keeping it from me, if she had been aware, was completely fucking cruel.
I'd never understood what was happening to me after the first incident. I'd told myself I was seeing things. I hadn't gone to her or my father because I never wanted to upset or disappoint them. I only wanted to make them happy, desperate to keep a smile on their faces. When they praised me, I floated on cloud nine all day, feeling like I'd won a gold medal. I recognized what they'd sacrificed for me early on, aware of money and finances at an early age. They had always been hard workers and put supper on the table every night. They kept me clothed and content. They'd given me so much even when money was tight.
I could still picture them in the way I always wanted to, dancing and laughing in the living room or on the beach.
Lowering the orb to my lap, I lifted the picture from Bane.
The girl in the picture had become the woman who gave birth to me.