Dark Child

by Jo Raven

  “You’ll talk?” Gigi looks so relieved I feel even more like an ass for delaying this discussion for so long. “For real?”

  I frown down at the covers Cos pulled over my legs. “I can tell you what I dream about, but you… you have to tell me what could be real. Where to find the clues.” I look at Gigi, then at Octavia. “I can’t really remember what happened that night in my past. I’m not lying about that, Ginger. I just can’t remember. Whether it’s repressed memories or not, I can’t access them. I need your help.”

  Cos shifts away from me. “Maybe I should let you talk—”

  “Please stay.” I grab her before she gets away. “Please, Cos. Need you here.”

  And yeah, I totally blame the lingering effects of the sleeping pills for saying this in front of everyone.

  But her eyes brighten, and she smiles at me so fucking sweetly I draw her in for a kiss. “Then I’m staying,” she whispers against my mouth, and again my body sags in relief.

  Matt hoots.

  Yeah, the air is definitely clearing.

  All the best for me to spill my guts into, right? Given the amount of blood present in my dreams, it seems fitting.

  Am I ready for this? Hell, no. But at this point, I don’t give a shit. It’s time to air the past, reset it, see what the fuck I got myself into when I was too little to know any better.

  So yeah… Let’s do this.

  “Once upon a time,” I say, “in the small town of Destiny, there lived a little boy called Mercury Tyson Watson.”

  “Tyson?” Cos snickers. “That’s your middle name?”

  “What’s wrong with Tyson?”

  “Nothing. It’s cute.”

  “May I then continue?”

  She waves a hand at me, still snickering.

  “Do you have to tell it like a fairytale?” Gigi mutters. “It was real.”

  “This is my story. I tell it any way I like.”

  “After the night you put us through, you could at least be serious about this,” she grumbles.

  “Guys, please,” Octavia says, ever the peacemaker. “Can we talk about the dreams now, Merc? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”

  I rub at my temple. “Mercury Tyson went out one night and came back with a bunch of nightmares for his nightly viewing pleasure. He returned covered in mud—or rather, Gigi found him.” I turn to her. “Where did you find me?”

  She leans forward in her chair, lacing her hands together on her knees, eyes wide. “Nearby the Kirbys’ Farm.”

  “That’s not far from Little Stream and the Pagoda,” Octavia says.

  “What pagoda?” Cos glances between my sisters, then looks back at me.

  “A small pagoda on a private property by the stream. It comes up in my dreams,” I explain.

  “The body,” she whispers.

  “Yeah, the body.” I fight the shiver that racks me. “The body, the stream, the temple, the swan.”

  “Sounds like a Tarot reading,” Jarett mutters.

  “It’s a dream, what did you expect? A map and instructions?” Yeah, I’m cranky, no matter how I fight it. So damn tired.

  “A map for what, though? Are we…” Cos licks her lips. “Are we talking murder? Did you witness a murder?”

  Fuck, fuck. My chest aches. It’s like a band tightening around my middle, cutting off my air supply. I hit my chest with my fist. Come on.

  “Hey, Merc.” That’s Matt. He sounds annoyed, or maybe worried? “What’s wrong?”

  This is ridiculous. Yeah, what is wrong with me?

  “Hey…” Cos rubs her small hand over my heart, dark eyes lifted to mine. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  Yeah, fuck, okay. I look at her, and force air into my lungs. Let it out. “Just remembering stuff, is all,” I manage, my voice like rust and nails.

  “Tell us.”

  “There was a silver swan. A stream, a temple, a swan, a body. Footsteps. I can’t…” My head hurts like a bitch, like nails raking the inside of my skull. “Fuck…”

  “Take it easy,” Matt says, heavy brows knit. “Maybe we should wait for the effects of the sleeping pills to pass.”

  “Or maybe not,” I all but snarl, because fatherly figure or not, I thought the point of this whole show was to solve the mystery today, now. “I have to remember.”

  He lifts his hands, backing off.

  Good. I’m not sure how much bullshit bravado I can work up when just hearing the word murder cuts off my air supply.

  Murder.

  That’s it. This is it.

  “He killed her,” I mutter.

  Octavia’s cheeks are pale, her eyes round. “Who? Who was there, Merc?”

  “I don’t fucking know.” And I could be wrong. I’m probably dead wrong.

  But if I am, what was that body doing there? Where did the blood come from? If we assume I am remembering… then what the hell went down that night?

  “My boy.” Mom is back, and she insists on checking my forehead for a fever, for some unfathomable reason. Her hands are actually warm against my skin and rough like sandpaper. “You gave us a—”

  “—scare. I know. And I’m sorry. Nothing happened, I’m f—”

  “Why would you do such a thing?” Her eyes fill up. “Is this how I raised you? To take… pills to sleep?”

  I stare at her. “Mom. They’re just over-the-counter sleeping pills. Not hard drugs.”

  A nod. Then, “You have to stop taking them, Merc.”

  “I will. I swear.” I put a hand over my heart, and her gaze softens. “Okay?”

  “My boy.” She pats my arm. “Eat something. You’re not eating enough.”

  I consider arguing the point—I eat like I’ve always eaten, like a goddamn truck driver, and I’m not sick—but I gauge I’ve put her through enough stress and just dig in.

  We’re taking a break from brainstorming for some breakfast, and it feels weird to be sitting in my kitchen—well, JC’s kitchen—with my family all around the table.

  Even weirder is having JC serve us coffee and donuts, moving quietly about, being a gracious host to my family.

  Not that JC isn’t a good host. He’s been nothing short of a saint lately, or let’s face it, since the start, though he seems to be battling his own ghosts.

  “Merc?” Gigi says, kind of impatiently, as if she’s called my name at least once before.

  “Hm? Yeah.” I tear my gaze off my roommate, who, I just realized, is wearing black dress pants and a shimmery white shirt, as if he just came back from a fundraiser ball. “What?”

  “I said, what did you tell Ross to make him spring into action and call Tati?”

  I stuff a donut into my mouth to buy myself time to think. “I guess I…” Yeah, what did I do? “Asked him how he’s doing.”

  “That can’t be it,” Gigi says, shattering my theory with one blow, and it’s a sort of a relief. I don’t wanna feel pity for Ross. “He said something about a swan. What did he say when he called, Tati?”

  Octavia looks up from her phone. “Something about a swan, yeah. Said he had to talk to you.”

  She’s been texting Matt’s mom every ten minutes for updates on the kids. Maybe she thinks Matt’s mom can’t use a phone to call if something’s wrong?

  Wait a sec… “He wants to talk to me?”

  “Yeah. Why are you so surprised?” Octavia sends off her text and puts her phone down on the table. “I told you Ross needs us.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Gigi mutters.

  “That boy is troubled,” Mom puts in.

  “What troubles him is that he’s a douchebag. What right does he have to expect anything from us? He bullied us for most of his life, so—”

  A crash makes us all jump.

  “Holy shit,” Jarett breathes, twisting around to see, starting to rise from his chair.

  JC mutters something and starts picking shards of ceramic off the kitchen floor. “Sorry.”

  “You okay, JC?” I start to get up, too, but h
e lifts a hand to stop me.

  “I got this,” he says, and won’t look at me. I can see the strip of his neck above his T-shirt, and it looks red.

  What’s going on with him? Wait a minute… I stare at him. What the hell, was JC bullied? That would sure explain the whole “I need a roommate I can trust” thing and the sleepless nights. Does JC have nightmares, like me?

  Now is not the time to ask, though. We all go back to drinking coffee and eating donuts, licking sugar off our fingers and pretending nothing happened.

  “You can’t judge Ross,” Octavia says, returning to her favorite topic, ever the stubborn, lovable sister. “You can’t, because you’re holding him to your standards as someone who grew up in a loving family.”

  “Good people often come from bad families,” Gigi interjects. “And vice-versa. You’re oversimplifying this and giving him a way out when he doesn’t deserve one.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Jesus, Tati, you’re the one he was after the most. How can you say that?”

  “I…” She looks away, lashes lowering. “I forgive him.”

  I expect Matt to grumble about this, but he seems strangely accepting of Octavia’s position. Jarett’s eyes are narrowed. Mom looks moved, for some reason.

  So I almost miss the white-faced look JC gives us.

  Okay what is going on with him today? If it’s the bullying thing, then we need to talk. Later, when the world stops spinning off its axis.

  Because this is all confusing. Not by Octavia’s stand on Ross. I’ve known how she feels about this for a while. But I’m damn confused about why I felt the need to talk to him, why lately he’s assumed a role in my nightmares.

  “I dreamed that the body had Ross’s face,” I mumble.

  It doesn’t matter that I said it under my breath, the words caught between my teeth. Another hush falls over the table, an incredulous one.

  “Wasn’t the body a woman’s?” Cos asks.

  “It was.”

  Mom frowns. “Ross is trans?”

  “No, Mom. It’s a dream.”

  “I thought you said it was memories.”

  “Yeah, that’s the problem.” I look into my mug, searching the dark depths for answers. “Gigi thinks it’s memories. But they are dreams. They change every night. They don’t make much sense.”

  “The core details repeat themselves,” she says mulishly.

  “She’s right,” I admit. I lean back and steeple my fingers. “Question is, which details, if any, are based on a real event?”

  Cos snorts.

  Did I mention I love her? She doesn’t say I should be serious as this is a serious matter, that I should act like it. She gets me. She gets that humor is my defense mechanism, my armor as I smash through the walls of my memory to something that apparently scared me shitless as a kid.

  Justice…

  “Obviously the body is real. And the location.” Gigi glares.

  “All right, Sherlock. Answer me this: Are we really considering that I witnessed a murder as a child? “Did someone go missing those days? Do we have missing people in Destiny? Because we only assume that my dreams are real.”

  “Merc.” Gigi looks like she’s about to cry again. “You saw something. I’m not crazy. You’ve been fighting that knowledge most of your life. You didn’t sleep well. Got sick too often. You can’t dismiss what happened.”

  “I’m not. I’m not dismissing anything.” I huff, rub at my aching head. “So… Ross seemed interested in my mentioning a swan from my dream, huh?”

  “Doesn’t he have a swan tattoo?” Octavia says.

  “Ross?” I gape at her. “You shitting me, right? It just… doesn’t seem like Ross. Not macho enough.”

  “Yeah, but what if the swan has a special significance for him?”

  Yeah, what if?

  Lots of what ifs in this story. But it does sound like I’ll have to talk to Ross again, sober this time. I’m so fucking pissed at the prospect.

  And yet I know I should.

  “I think,” I say, “I think I should go back to Destiny. Talk to Ross. Walk by the stream, see if anything comes back to me.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Gigi says immediately. “I’m coming with you.”

  No surprise there.

  “We’re also coming,” Matt says before anyone else has a chance to speak up.

  “We’re going,” Jarett says.

  “I’ll come, too,” Mom pipes in.

  My headache flares. “Now wait a minute…”

  “I’m coming, too,” Cos whispers, slipping her hand over mine, on top of the table. Her mouth curves into a faint smile. “Let’s go find this body of yours.”

  “You say the sexiest things,” I tell her, and her smile widens. “You don’t have to come on this wild goose chase, Cos.”

  Although truth is, I’d really like her by my side, no matter the outcome.

  “I love wild goose chases,” she whispers. “And I love you, so...”

  I love you. She said that. To me.

  Nothing else matters.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Cosima

  Sitting around the table with Merc’s family, discussing his dreams and the possibility of a murder that happened fifteen odd years ago is bizarre, but also bizarrely cozy and nice.

  Makes me feel like a part of his family much more than the Sunday lunch I had with them what feels like ages ago. Maybe it’s because today everyone’s less concerned with appearances and still raw from the scare Merc put us through, focused on understanding what lies behind his nightmares.

  Merc sits close to me, holding my hand, and just like that, I’m a part of it. Of the group. Of the present, and somehow the past. Part of Merc’s life.

  No, I’m not taking it back. He hasn’t said he loves me, but I don’t need to hear it, I decide. I can see it, feel it in his every word and gesture, the way he leans toward me and seeks my gaze, reading my face every time he asks a question or makes a decision. It’s as if he’s aware of me all the time, even when he’s speaking to someone else, thinking of something else.

  Being the focus of Merc’s attention is electrifying. It’s like flying too close to the sun. Let’s hope these fragile wings will hold.

  Then again, since he’s my own private sun, maybe I’ll let go and fall into him in a blaze of glory. I stare at his beautiful mouth and realize how much I missed him the few days I was away, how much I missed kissing him, touching him, feeling him inside of—

  “We’re heading home,” Octavia says, tearing me out of my overheated, gutter-oriented thoughts. “When do you want to go?”

  “To Destiny?” Merc asks.

  “Anyplace else you were thinking of visiting?” Jarett drawls.

  Merc shakes his head, chuckling. He’s looking much better after his sugar-heavy breakfast of donuts and coffee. There’s color in his cheeks. “Tomorrow?”

  Of course. He needs to sleep those chemicals off. I’m glad he didn’t announce we’re going today, now. I’ve seen how stubborn he can be, refusing to admit he was in trouble, going sleepless night after night.

  Now he’s set on solving the mystery, and I have a feeling he won’t let go until it’s done.

  From the glimpses he gave us of those dreams, I can understand why he held back until now. What would you do if you found out that your nightmares were real?

  It takes a lot of courage to face the possibility, face your worst fears—not that I expected anything less from Merc.

  Our gazes meet as he pushes up from the table, unfolding that long, strong body, and my heart is full. I know I’m still young, but it is true that I’ve never loved anyone so much.

  I don’t know what the future holds, but I’d very much like to spend the rest of my life with this man.

  He pulls me into his bedroom and to his bed, and I switch off, sitting down on the edge of the mattress, watching him undress. He took the pills and fell asleep fully dressed last night—was it only last ni
ght? Jeez—and now he’s peeling off his T-shirt, holding me in a trance.

  I swear to God, he’s doing it to tease me, the soft cotton rising, revealing the expanse of his ripped chest, making my blood run hot with need.

  But he looks too exhausted for that. He chucks the T-shirt to the floor and starts on the buttons of his jeans.

  Oh boy. I should help him. He totally needs help with that.

  Only my phone dings with a message and I fumble for it, unable to tear my gaze off him, annoyed at whoever is intruding on this moment, intent on turning the sound off for the day.

  It’s a text from my sister and I frown down at it, knocked out of the moment. In the mess of the past few days, and my world narrowing on Merc, I kind of forgot about my sister and her problems.

  She’s asking if I talked to Mom recently. Why would she ask me that?

  From the corner of my eye I see Merc pushing his jeans down his muscular thighs, and my breath catches. He’s wearing nothing underneath, like usual, and he’s half-hard, his cock swinging upward as he sits down on the bed beside me to finish getting his jeans off.

  Good Lord. Was he always so hung? It’s always a shock to my system, seeing him bared, miles of golden skin stretched over thick muscle, those ripped abs, those hard pecs…

  His blue eyes slide to me, and his mouth tilts up in a crooked grin. “If you’re a good girl, I’ll let you touch.”

  I lick my lips, my mouth gone dry. “And if I’m bad?”

  His eyes darken and his voice goes rough. “Then I guess it’s open house. I’ll punish you for being bad. Would you like that?”

  A wave of dark heat rips through me and I draw a sharp breath. “Oh God…”

  “Lots of walls here,” he goes on and winks. “We could do our thing.”

  The thought of him taking me up against the wall never fails to get me wet and breathless. But… “You must be tired.”

  “Never too tired for you. Come here.” He slides his arms around me. “I missed you so damn much.”

  “Same,” I murmur as his mouth descends on mine, firm and hot, demanding. His tongue pushes between my lips, and I moan as it thrusts against mine, as he deepens the kiss, his hand cradling the back of my head, his lips bruising.