Everlasting Flame

by Katelyn Anderson

  Chapter Four

  By the time we had finished shopping, the entire trunk and back seat of Lorenzo’s car was packed with shopping bags. He kept all the receipts tucked away in his wallet to give to Damian for reimbursement. Damian was going to have a heart attack when he saw how much we spent. In my defence, they didn’t set a price limit. Besides, I was starting over from scratch and needed everything. It’s not like I could drop by my old house and grab my clothes. Doing that would be utterly stupid.

  My ears stung a little after getting them pierced with silver studs. I even got a haircut. I didn’t get much chopped off. I just wanted it thinner and easier to brush. My hair still sat below my shoulders.

  Lorenzo had been very patient with me for the entire day. I dragged him through countless shops, made him wait while I tried clothes on, got my hair done, ears pierced, tried on shoes. I didn’t hear him complain, not once. He just let me do my thing and never said no to the price tags.

  “How mad is Damian going to be at how much I spent today?” I finally had the nerve to ask. The rustling bags in the back of the car were basically egging me on, pressuring me to ask that question.

  “It’s fine, Joan. If he wanted a limit, he would have said so,” Lorenzo replied, keeping his eyes on the road while he drove. “You were very responsible and didn’t buy out the whole mall.”

  I gently punched his arm. “Hey, no making fun of me.”

  “You make it too easy,” he teased.

  Lorenzo’s cell phone started ringing. He switched to one handed driving to pull his phone out of his pocket. He answered without glancing at the screen. He kept his eyes on the road the entire time.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t bring Joan home tonight.” Damian was on the other line.

  “Any particular reason?”

  “The shopping spree will make Isabelle extremely jealous. It’s drama that can be avoided if we unload the bags tomorrow while they’re at school.”

  “Stuff like that usually doesn’t bother you. There’s something more. I’m all ears.”

  “No, it doesn’t, but my wife is a different story. Isabelle’s riot leaves her with a broken nose, courtesy of Joan punching her in the face. Jacqueline will throw a fit and force me to choose. This can be avoided if you take care of Joan tonight.”

  Lorenzo took his hand off the wheel for a short moment to hush me before I had the chance to speak. His hand returned immediately to the wheel when I stayed quiet.

  “Joan must have an impressive swing to break Izzy’s nose in one–”

  “Lorenzo,” Damian warned.

  “Ok, ok. I’ll bring her home tomorrow. You owe me.”

  “In more ways than one. See you tomorrow.”

  “Yup, bye,” Lorenzo said, hanging up. He slipped his phone into the side pocket of his car and made a sharp U-turn. “Damian sees things that haven’t happened yet, usually in scattered pieces. Sometimes he can’t piece everything together due to missing parts. The future is always changing.”

  Interesting. It made me wonder if Damian had known about my parents’ death before it happened. Knowing the person he was, he would have stopped at nothing to save my mother and father. With that in mind, I knew he hadn’t seen it coming. Neither of us did, until it was too late.

  “I broke my cousin’s nose?” I asked, needing a subject change to avoid the memory lane trip.

  “Apparently. Wouldn’t have guessed that you had it in you, kiddo.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Princess Sparkles?”

  “I’ll break your nose if you keep up the name calling.”

  “Feisty,” he said, making growling cat noises.

  “You’re so immature.”

  “Being proper and formal is boring. What do you want for dinner? We can get takeout if you don’t trust my cooking.”

  “Takeout?”

  Lorenzo gave me a sideways look and started laughing.

  “You don’t know what takeout is?” he asked, snickering.

  “Shut up. Forget I asked.”

  “I’m sorry. That just caught me off guard. It’s cooked food from restaurants you take home and eat.”

  I blew a strand of hair out of my face. “Makes sense.”

  “You like pizza?”

  “Yeah, love it.”

  “Pizza it is. What flavour?”

  “Hawaiian.”

  “You have fruit on your pizza? Weirdo.”

  “Tomatoes are fruit too, genius.”

  “Technically they’re fruit but they fall under the vegetable category. Are you seriously that bored that you want to have an argument over tomatoes?”

  “I’d rather have an argument about tomatoes than face the reality that my parents are dead, that magic is much more dangerous than I thought, that my uncle is psychic and a little bit scary, and that there’s a magic council keeping mages in line. Yeah, so I’m having an argument about tomatoes.”

  “Well, ok then,” Lorenzo replied, taken aback by the sharpness in my voice. He grabbed his phone and dialled a number with quick taps on the screen.

  “You’re not supposed to be driving and using your phone.”

  “So you know about that rule but didn’t know what takeout was. You really need to sort out your priorities,” he said, holding up his hand to interrupt me before I had the chance to bite back. “Hey, I’d like to order a Hawaiian pizza and a Meat Lovers. Don’t worry about delivery, I’ll be there in like ten minutes to pick it up. Put Lorenzo for the order name.”

  “Anything else?” the guy on the other line asked.

  “Nope. I’ve spent enough money today. I’ll pay at the counter.”

  “Alright. Thanks for calling.”

  “Yup, bye.” Lorenzo hung up and put his phone back in the side pocket. “Joan, I understand how overwhelming it can be learning new things that people can’t even begin to imagine are real. Just know that you’re not on your own. You have me and Damian to help you. We can answer whatever questions you have.”

  We drove past several traffic lights before I asked my first question, “Damian told Maria that I wasn’t the child from the prophecy. Was he lying?”

  Lorenzo shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him. Wait, Maria was the one who paid you guys a visit?”

  “Yup. Damian didn’t even lift a finger. It was quite frightening.”

  “No wonder he didn’t hold back. She had it coming.”

  “I really don’t understand the laws around magic. Maria murdered another witch. Shouldn’t the council be punishing her?”

  “That’s where it gets complicated. Your mother was a witch and a Tainted Being. The council don’t involve themselves in those situations. They want to stay clear of Dane at any cost.”

  “But a council member helped Damian lift the bounty to protect me from being hunted. I was the only exception?”

  “Mmhm. As far as I’m aware, you’re the first.”

  “Why?”

  “You ask very difficult questions.”

  “You did say whatever questions, so I’m taking advantage of that.”

  “That I did,” he said, scratching his chin. “You’re probably better off asking Damian. I’m not sure how much he wants me to tell you.”

  “Will knowing these things put me in danger?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “Then he probably won’t tell me.”

  “Most likely. He knows you better than I do. If he thinks you’re ready, he will tell you,” Lorenzo said, parking the car outside the pizza place. “I’m gonna lock the doors while I go grab the pizza. I won’t be too long but I’m minimising risks. Don’t want anyone to steal your stuff.”

  “Or me,” I said when he made the move to get out of the car.

  “I doubt anyone will want to steal a stroppy teenager,” he teased, shutting the door behind him.

  I put the window down. “Jerk!”

  “See what I mean?” he called back, laughing, before slipping inside the pizza p
lace.

  I put the window back up and folded my arms, glaring at him through the windshield. He had his back to me so he couldn’t see. I was hoping my death stare would scorch holes in his shirt. Maybe that way I would get to see the dragon on his back. I could see bits of his tattoo since he was wearing a singlet. The pieces I could see were very detailed and precise. It was a mixture of cold tones – black, greens, blues, purples and silver – the colour of the Galaxy.

  Lorenzo had left his phone in the car. It started ringing, which was the only reason why I noticed he had left it behind in the first place.

  I leaned over to grab his phone in case the call was important. An unknown caller was flashing on the screen. I wasn’t sure if I should answer. What would be the worst thing to happen? I couldn’t come up with anything catastrophic.

  “Hello? Lorenzo’s phone,” I said, figuring that was the best way to answer the call.

  “And who might this be?” a male asked me. There was a honey coated silkiness to his American voice.

  “I could ask you the same thing. Lorenzo’s not here at the moment but I can take a message.”

  “Could you be the infamous prophecy child I’ve heard so much about?”

  “Depends who’s asking,” I stammered defensively. Now I was most curious.

  “Cyrus,” he said, nearly hissing the s like a snake. “Tell Lorenzo the resistance are no more and we no longer require his services. I’ve told you my name, it’s only fair you give me yours.”

  Wait, what? Lorenzo was in the resistance? He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who got his hands dirty. The resistance were freedom fighters that had lots of blood on their hands. I’d ask Lorenzo myself when I got the chance. I didn’t want to hear the truth secondhand. I needed to hear it from him.

  “Joan.”

  “We will be meeting soon, Joan. I have many plans for you, should you wish to become an assassin to avenge your family. You’ll become the key to bringing down the agency.”

  “Is there another way that doesn’t involve killing?”

  “This war will always involve killing. When you’re ready, I will find you.”

  “Wait,” I blurted but it was too late. Cyrus had already hung up.

  I jumped when the car bleeped to life. I scrambled to put Lorenzo’s phone back before he got to the car.

  What the hell just happened? The man I had been so eager to reach out to, to train me, already had plans for me. Cyrus was an assassin. That’s what Damian must have meant when he said Cyrus was bad news. I wanted to avenge my parents. I wanted to become the key to destroying the agency that ruined my life. The question was, though, was I ready to become a killer? Would I be able to switch off my humanity and take lives with no remorse if it meant paving the way to a brighter future? A future where humans and immortals could coexist without fighting each other. That was my dream. That dream could ultimately become my nightmare.

  “You ok?” Lorenzo asked, handing me two pizza boxes; they smelled delicious.

  I placed the warm boxes on my lap and nodded.

  “Yeah,” I replied, my voice quiet.

  “You know half the stuff I say I don’t mean. I’m just teasing,” he said, reversing the car.

  “It’s not that,” I murmured softly. I took a moment to word what I wanted to say in my head before speaking it aloud. “You got a phone call while you were getting dinner. I thought it was important so I answered it. What did Cyrus mean by the resistance is no more and that he no longer requires your services?”

  Lorenzo took a sharp intake of breath and stopped at the red traffic light. “Guess the cat is out of the bag. I didn’t participate in the fighting. I merely repaired their weapons. The resistance being no more can mean one of two things. They were either wiped out or they disbanded.”

  “Did Damian know you were working for them?”

  “Yeah,” Lorenzo said, reply blunt and to the point. “What else did Cyrus say to you? Did he work out who you were?”

  “He called me the prophecy child and said that he had plans for me. He said he would train me to become an assassin and that when I was ready, he’d find me.”

  “Him giving you a choice in the matter doesn’t sound like him at all. He’s up to something. At the end of the day it’s your decision to make. I’ve already voiced my opinion. I don’t want you to delve in darkness. Taking life changes you.”

  “Like it matters. There’s no way Damian would let me become an assassin.”

  “Keeping you safe is his top priority, yes, but he can’t force you to forget and forgive if you wish to take matters into your own hands. He knows what it’s like to make life changing decisions. If becoming an assassin is what you want, he will let you go.”

  I found that hard to believe.

  “I don’t know what I want,” I mumbled, looking away from Lorenzo. I gazed out the window, watching the lights pass in blurs. “Is becoming an assassin the only way to bring the agency down?”

  “Killing is a part of war; it always has been that way. Sacrifices are how peace is brought about.”

  “But what will becoming an assassin do to achieve results?” I asked, looking back at him to read his face.

  Lorenzo tilted his head to the side in thought, never taking his eyes off the road. “I’ve been around Cyrus long enough to know how he operates. He will bend and break you. He will make you do things you’ll never come back from. Are you really that prepared to go down that path, Joan?”

  “I said I don’t know!” I screamed exasperatedly. “I just want to go home.”

  “The agency burned your house down. There is no home to go back to. Damian is your home now, but for tonight he’s given me the task to look after you. We don’t need to talk about this if you’re hurting, Joan. We can talk about something else.”

  “There is nothing else. I lost everything in one night. I don’t know how to feel or what to do. I just feel so conflicted that it’s driving me insane. I want to kill every last one of them but I don’t know if I can cross that line. I don’t know what to do, Lorenzo. My chest aches. There’s a pain in my heart that won’t go away. I want it to go away and I don’t know how to make the pain stop.”

  Lorenzo grabbed my hand and gently squeezed it. “That ache will always be there but it will grow smaller with each day that passes, until you no longer remember that it’s there. Time heals all wounds but it also reminds us how fragile we can be.”

  “Yeah, ok,” I mumbled, wiping my eyes to stop the tears from falling down my cheeks.

  “You’ll get the pizza wet and salty if you keep that up,” he said with a smile, letting go of my hand. “I don’t think salty pineapple will taste very nice.”

  “Good thing the boxes have lids.”

  “Indeed,” he agreed, pulling into a driveway. “My second base of operations is a lot closer than my penthouse so we’ll be staying here tonight,” he said, pressing the garage remote hanging on his keys.

  The door slowly rose and he parked inside the garage. The door clanged shut behind us.

  “You have a penthouse?” I questioned with a raised eyebrow, not believing him. Next he was going to tell me he had three ponies named Sparkles, Princess and Pepper. I wasn’t sure where that came from; I think I had finally lost my marbles.

  “Mmhm. My own slice of paradise. I stay here sometimes when I need simplicity rather than riches.” He took the pizza boxes. “The bag closest to the left backseat door has overnight clothes in it. I had a feeling Damian was going to call so I made a separate bag. Saves you the trouble of going through everything and picking stuff out.”

  “I guess you’re not a total bonehead.”

  “I aim to please,” he beamed, slipping out of the car and nudging the door shut with his elbow.

  I held onto the seat when I leaned into the back to grab the overnight bag. I peeked inside to make sure I had the right one. There were a set of pyjamas, clothes to change into tomorrow, a hairbrush, and a toothbrush. Yup, definitely the ri
ght one.

  I got out of the car and knocked the door shut with my elbow. The garage light turned off by itself when I left, like it had known there was nobody in the garage.

  I wandered down the hallway after slipping out of my sandals. The abstract paintings on the wall caught my eye. Bursts of colour brought the hallway to life, a smoky sort of art style, puffy like clouds. I didn’t really know what it was I was looking at but they were beautiful in their own unique way. It was like gazing into a sea of colourful fog.

  “Want a drink?” Lorenzo called out from somewhere.

  “Alcoholic?”

  “Ha-ha, very funny. Lemonade it is. Ice?”

  “Yeah, sounds good. Where should I put my bag?”

  “Don’t worry about that right now. Come eat, drink, relax.”

  I jumped when something brushed by my feet. A white cat with dark green eyes rubbed up against my leg. Its tail was black and ginger, so were its ears. Everything else was white. The cat meowed and bumped its head against my other leg. It ran off when it heard a rattling saucer. Cats knew when it was dinner time.

  “I see Whiskers found you,” Lorenzo mentioned when he noticed my jeans were covered in cat fur.

  “You named your cat Whiskers?”

  “It was better than calling him Cat or Meow.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Not in the slightest,” he said, giving Whiskers a quick pat before placing the saucer down on the kitchen floor. “Damian thinks it’s hilarious.”

  I shook my head, disappointed in his sense of humour.

  I sat down at the dining room table, hanging the overnight bag on the back of my chair. I made myself comfortable.

  Lorenzo placed the glass of lemonade in front of me. The ice bobbed up and down, making quiet chinks against the glass. Next came the pizza box, which I immediately flipped open when it made contact with the table. I was starving. I snagged myself a piece and started eating.

  Lorenzo sat opposite me with his pizza box. Someone didn’t want to create extra dishes. That was the good thing about pizza. You could use the box as a plate and throw it out when you were finished. I guess that was the whole point about takeout. Eat food without the hassle of cooking or cleaning up dishes, right?

  “How long had you been working with the resistance for?” I asked.

  Lorenzo swallowed what he was eating and sipped his lemonade. “Long enough. Cyrus sought me out due to the nature of my magic. The thing you need to know about magic is that it comes in different shapes and forms. Not all power is designed for fighting.”

  “So you fixed their weapons with your magic?”

  Lorenzo nodded. “I knew the resistance wouldn’t succeed. They just wanted an excuse to fight and spill blood. They paid me well enough so I fixed what was broken. Like you said, a subtler approach is required to bring the agency down. They won’t see it coming until it’s too late.”

  “Do you think if I train with Cyrus, I could succeed?”

  “Not all prophecies need to be fulfilled. Cyrus will change you. He will take all the light inside you and replace it with darkness. You will lose yourself.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to make such assumptions.”

  “I know him well enough and I know what he expects of you. If you want to succeed, you’ll have no choice but to succumb to darkness. If you don’t, you’ll die.”

  I crunched down on a piece of ice. “If I don’t train with him, who else will bring the agency down? The magic council doesn’t want to involve themselves. The resistance failed. If I want immortals to be able to coexist with humans, it’s up to me to change that.”

  “You don’t have to do anything. Kids your age are thinking about school and exams, not becoming an assassin. The responsibility of changing the world doesn’t have to be yours. It’s not a burden you should have to carry for the rest of your life. Take some time to think it over. You don’t have to decide immediately. There’s heaps of time. You’re young.”

  “Yes, I’m young. Better to train now so I have more experience up my sleeve.”

  Lorenzo let out a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “You’re just as stubborn as Damian. I don’t think you realise just how hard this will be if you choose to go through with it. You’ll kill countless people. You’ll become a lethal weapon. You’ll lose your innocence. You don’t need to involve yourself in this war.”

  “I’m already involved. I’m not going to run away and bury my head in the sand. I want this.”

  “Did you not hear the part where I said you’ll kill people?”

  “I know what assassins are. Their expertise is in the name. That’s why it’s called an assassination, a surprise attack. I don’t care about the darkness. I just want this war to end, at whatever cost, at whatever sacrifice. I will not die trying. I will have my revenge.”

  Lorenzo waved his hand around, revealing a silver crescent moon with a ten-pointed star sitting inside the curve; the mark of his coven.

  “Fine, whatever. There’s no getting through to you,” Lorenzo began. “At least consider what this will do to Damian. He loves you and for what it’s worth, it will be a long time before you meet someone who loves you as much as he does.”

  “He won’t lose me.”

  “He won’t recognise you. He will slowly distance himself from you. He won’t lose you but you will lose him. He’s already lost a sister. He doesn’t need to lose a niece as well, not this soon.”

  I closed the lid of my pizza box. I had managed to eat half before I lost my appetite. I pushed the box away and grabbed the overnight bag when I stood up.

  I didn’t want to talk any longer. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to get away from Lorenzo before the crying started. My eyes were already welling up with tears.

  “Third on the right,” Lorenzo said; the question of which room was I staying in never had the chance to escape from my mouth.

  “Thanks,” I murmured in a choke, walking away from him. I was hoping he didn’t see my broken stride or my trembling shoulders as I tried my very best to stop my emotions from overwhelming me.