Storm and Fury

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Misha was quiet for several moments. “I want you to stay in the house until they’re gone.”

  “Are you for real?” I demanded as we crossed the driveway. Floodlights kicked on, alerted our presence; their brightness caused me to wince. “I can’t stay in the house while they’re here.”

  “Have you’ve forgotten why we don’t have visitors here? Or are you just being recklessly selfish?”

  “Is there a third option?”

  Misha stopped in front of the wide steps and lit porch. He stared down at me as the tips of his fingers touched my cheeks, keeping my gaze focused on him. “Can you just do it? Stay hidden?”

  Frustration pounded through me like a summer storm. “I can’t just stay in the house, Misha. That’s ridiculous. I’m not a prisoner.”

  A look of exasperation settled onto his face. “It’s just for a week, and that’s if they’re really here for that long.”

  “A week is an eternity.”

  “A couple of days in a house that has virtually everything to keep you occupied is not an eternity, you little brat,” he went on, dropping his hands. “You can sit and eat and marathon TV shows instead of training.”

  “I don’t want to sit around and do nothing. That’ll drive me to do something entirely irresponsible and reckless.”

  “Really?”

  “Hey! I know my limits.”

  “You know most people would be happy that they’re done with schooling and can just chill out.”

  “I’m not most people.” Our classes ended mid-May, so Misha and I had gone from training four hours a day to about eight, which meant I was still incredibly bored an additional ten hours or so.

  He ignored my very valid point. “You could treat it is a vacation.”

  “A vacation from what exactly?” I snapped, beyond irritated now. “What do I do that I need a vacation from?”

  “Trin,” Misha sighed.

  “Don’t talk to me like that, Misha. You can leave this community whenever you please—”

  “That’s not exactly true and you know it.” Anger tightened Misha’s jaw. “If you’re suggesting that I have freedom when you don’t, you’re not being fair.”

  Guilt churned in the pit of my stomach, quickly followed by the all too bitter bite of heartache. He was right, and I was being a brat. Wasn’t like Thierry had given him a choice, pairing him with me before either of us knew what that really meant, preparing both of us for the—

  I sucked in a sharp breath as I stared at the boy I’d grown up with. The boy I’d watched turn into a young man, and for the first time, something struck me with the force of being hit by a semi-truck.

  “Do you want this?” I whispered.

  His brows knitted together. “Want what?”

  “Us,” I said. “Being bonded to me. This life.”

  Understanding flickered across his face. “Trin—”

  I grabbed his hands with mine. “Be honest with me, Misha. I know it’s not like we can change anything. It’s already been done, but I...I just need to know.”

  He was silent, and the longer he was silent, the more my heart began to pound. “It’s what I’ve been raised to do, Trin. It’s all I know, and like you said, it’s not like we can change anything.”

  Feeling a little sick, I looked away as I dropped his hands. “That isn’t the same thing as wanting to do this.”

  Misha turned, and I looked at him, saw him thrust his hand through his unruly curls. He hated them, but I’d always thought they were adorable, and as he stared up at the house we both lived in, the house where our bedrooms were separated only by a couple of walls, I suddenly felt like...crying.

  Maybe it was my time of month, because I never cried.

  But it wasn’t.

  The burn in the back of my throat was there, because I’d spent nearly my whole life beside Misha and our lives were irrevocably tied together. I hadn’t thought about how he might feel about any of this, had I?

  I had, but superficially, and mostly about how it impacted me.

  “I am selfish,” I whispered.

  Misha’s head whipped toward me. “Normally I’d appreciate this rare sense of self-awareness and not question it, but why do you think that?”

  My lower lip trembled. “Because I never realized that you might not want this.”

  “Trin, stop.” He was in front of me again, his hands on my shoulders. “I do want this. It’s an honor to be your bonded Protector.”

  “Really?” I laughed hoarsely. “Because I don’t—”

  “It is an honor,” he repeated, squeezing my shoulders, and the weight of his hands was both comforting and at the same time suffocating. “And I do mean that. What you are? What it means for me to be chosen to be there beside you? That is the highest honor.”

  He sounded like he meant that, he really did, but I sounded like I meant things all the time and I really didn’t, especially when I wanted nothing more than to be what I was pretending I already was.

  Misha pulled me to his chest and I went, loosely wrapping my arms around his waist as he folded his around my shoulders. When I was younger, I’d welcomed these hugs more than I could even understand, and even as I’d grown older, I could always find solace in his embrace. But now?

  Now I felt itchy.

  Misha was quiet for a long moment. “I was being ridiculous to suggest that you stay in the house. You’d end up burning it down or something.”

  I cracked a grin.

  “But can you do me one favor?” he asked, and I nodded against his chest. “Can you stay away from Zayne?”

  That I wasn’t expecting.

  I pulled back and stared up at him. “Not that I’m expecting to become his next best friend forever or anything, but what’s the big deal?”

  “I’ve... I’ve heard of him,” he said, dropping his arms. “He’s bad news, Trin. Zayne is not someone you want to be around.”

  4

  I behaved and stayed in my room like a good little Trinity even though Misha had gone out after escorting me to my bedroom, because I felt bad after last night. I had stayed up pretty late waiting for him to return, but he hadn’t, and I figured he’d run into Jada or her boyfriend, Ty.

  So, I’d been left alone, which meant I spent a lot of time thinking, and I thought, well... I might owe Zayne an apology.

  He hadn’t grabbed me last night, and maybe he had called out to me and I hadn’t heard him, aaand it was quite possible that my reaction had been a bit excessive and impulsive.

  I probably should apologize when—if—I saw him again. Not that I was going to look for him. If Misha said he was bad news, he was bad news.

  Then again, I was dying with curiosity to find out exactly why Zayne was such a big no-no.

  Because I was that bored.

  Rolling my eyes, I dropped my toothbrush into the holder, then glanced at my reflection. Fine wisps of damp hair clung to my cheeks as I picked up my glasses from the sink and placed them on.

  I shuffled over to my bed and flopped onto my back. My glasses slipped up the bridge of my nose as I stared at the glow in the dark stars splattered across my ceiling. They were barely visibly now, as it was daytime.

  At least Netflix had just dropped The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and there were, like, six seasons of Will Smith to enjoy.

  As I rolled onto my side, my gaze fell to the framed photo on my nightstand and the old, tattered book that lay beside it. The photo was of my mom and me, taken two years ago. May 20. My sixteenth birthday. The photo was just a blob, but I knew what it looked like in my heart and in my mind.

  The pic had been snapped by Thierry at the Pit, during the day. Mom and I were sitting on the stone bench, my cheek resting on her shoulder, and I was holding a pink Barbie car. I had jokingly asked for a car for my birthday. Jokingly for two reasons: no one
had cars within the community. Everyone walked...or flew. And I would never drive. Didn’t have the eyeballs for that. So, Mom being Mom, she had given me the car as one of my gifts.

  That was...so her.

  The book was also Mom’s. Her favorite. An old paperback from the late ’80s, with a couple on the cover embracing while the woman looked at the man with longing. Johanna Lindsey’s Hearts Aflame. She’d been a huge historical romance fan, and she’d read that book a hundred times.

  I’d read it at least a dozen times before the print became too small for me to read even with my glasses on.

  God, I missed reading it, because it made me feel close to Mom in some way. I had downloaded the ebook on my iPad, but it wasn’t the same as holding the paper copy.

  It was never the same.

  Sitting up, I straightened my glasses. The images on the TV were mostly a blur even after Thierry had upgraded my television from a thirty inch to a fifty inch. I picked up the remote—

  “Who are the stranger dangers in the Great Hall? One of them just moved into my bedroom, Trinity. Into my bedroom.”

  I jumped at the question, dropping the remote on the bed as Peanut walked through my bedroom door—my closed bedroom door.

  Peanut was a weird nickname, but he’d told me that was what his friends had called him, because he was barely taller than five feet. It was the name he preferred, and I had no idea what his real name was.

  Peanut was... Well, he had passed away under bizarre circumstances—at a Whitesnake concert, of all things, sometime in the 1980s. He’d died after idiotically climbing one of the concert speaker towers during a storm, proving he hadn’t been the brightest lightbulb in the bunch. The story goes, lightning struck near the tower, startling him, and he subsequently fell to his death.

  It had been his seventeenth birthday.

  Tragic.

  I’d seen him for first time about eight years ago, when my mother and Thierry had taken me to an eye specialist in Morgantown, which was only about two hours from here. By the time I was ten, I had already seen enough ghosts and spirits to know what he was when I saw him standing on the sidewalk, looking bored and a bit lost.

  The concert venue he’d died at had been nearby, and he’d spent God knows how long roaming the streets of Morgantown. He’d formed an attachment to me the moment he realized I could see and talk to him, and he’d done what some ghosts will do.

  Peanut had followed me home.

  I’d tried to get him to cross over, but he’d refused to move on. Meaning he was stuck in his death state and looked the way he had when he died instead of, like spirits, healthy and whole. He wore a shirt that was obviously vintage—the band’s name written in white and the lead singer screened onto the shirt. His jeans were black and tight, and he wore a pair of red Chuck Taylors.

  Ironically, what he wore was kind of in fashion now.

  His hair was shaggy and black, which was a good thing, because it hid the slight indent on the back of his head that I’d had the misfortune of seeing once. Some massive head trauma had gone down.

  So, yeah, Peanut was a ghost—a ghost who was so stuck in the ’80s that half the time I didn’t even know what he was trying to communicate to me.

  He was a rarity—one who knew he was dead and could interact with his surroundings, had died decades ago and hadn’t crossed over to the great beyond and still managed to be decent and kind.

  Peanut was now kind of like a roommate, one that only I could see, who was supposed to knock before he floated through walls and doors.

  Literally that was the only rule.

  Well, that and not to mess with my stuff, especially since he’d learned how to access my iPad and my laptop and he also had this horrible habit of turning all my clothes inside out.

  Which was notably weird.

  “You’re supposed to knock,” I reminded him, heart slowing down. “Those are the rules.”

  “Sorry, my little dudette.” Peanut raised transparent arms, flipping the peace signs for some reason. “Do you want me to go back out into the hall and knock? I’ll do it and I’ll be perfect at it. I’ll knock until the house—”

  “No. I don’t need you to do that now.” I rolled my eyes. “Where have you been?”

  “Chillin’...like a villain.” He glided to the window—glided, because his feet didn’t touch the floor. The upper half of his body disappeared through the curtain as he peered outside. “Who is the dude in my bedroom?”

  I frowned at him. “What room do you think is your bedroom?”

  “All the rooms in the Great Hall are my bedroom.”

  “Those rooms are not your bedrooms.”

  He pulled away from the window, his hands popping to his hips. “And why not?”

  “You’re a ghost, Peanut. You don’t need a bedroom.”

  “I need space to roam and live and breathe and be creative—”

  “You’re not living or breathing, and there are extra, empty guest bedrooms here,” I pointed out. “So, you can be creative in them.”

  “But I like that room in the Great Hall,” Peanut whined. “The one that overlooks the garden. And it has its own bathroom.”

  I stared at him. “You’re dead. You don’t need a bathroom.”

  Peanut met my stare. “You don’t know me. You don’t know my life, my wants or needs.”

  “Oh my God, Peanut. Seriously.” I scooted to the edge of the bed, dropping my feet to the floor. “The other bedrooms are just fine.”

  “I do not accept this.”

  I shook my head. “Who is in your room that’s not really your room?”

  “Some really big blond guy.”

  My heart skipped a beat. Had to be indigestion...even though I didn’t have indigestion before. “Zayne?”

  “Is that his name?” Peanut floated to me, his feet about six inches off the floor. “Is Thierry doing some kind of hot foreign Warden exchange student college edition thing now?”

  I snorted. “Um, no. Those are the visiting Wardens from the capital.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s totes something different, isn’t it? Like he’s not accepting littlies into training right now.”

  “No, it’s not time for new classes, and it is different that they’re here.” I paused. “I met one of them last night. The blond. Zayne.”

  “Do tell?” He popped his chin on his fist. “I have all the time in the world, but it better involve what kind of workout that guy does to get those abs, because I just saw him in all his glory—”

  “Wait. How did you see him in all his glory?” My face flushed at the thought of all Zayne’s glory. I might find him exceedingly annoying and judgmental, but that did not change the fact that the guy was flush-inducing. “Please tell me you were not peeping on him.”

  “It was an accident!” He threw his hands up. “I was going into my room—”

  “It’s not your room.”

  “And he was coming out of the shower, in just a towel, and I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you.” Peanut sat down on my bed and sank several inches, causing half his torso and legs to disappear.

  It looked like my bed ate half of him.

  “So, he started getting dressed, and I was like hold me closer, tiny dancer, this is not the America I was promised, but it is the afterlife I’m here for.”

  “I don’t even know where to start with that.”

  “Start by giving me the 411 on this DC clan.”

  The 411? I shook my head. “I don’t know much about them. They’re here for reinforcements.”

  “That’s boring. Why did they come all the way from DC to ask?” Peanut rose so that it looked like he was actually sitting on my bed. “I mean, hello, McFly, you have FaceTime and Skype.”

  I stared at him, and it took me a moment to refocus. “Yeah, it is weird that they came here—that t
hey were even given permission.”

  “Huh.” Peanut floated off the bed. “Maybe—”

  A knock on the door interrupted us, and then I heard Misha call out, “Trin, you awake?”

  “He knocked,” Peanut pointed out.

  “I am.” I vaulted off the bed. “Come in!”

  The door opened and Misha walked into my room, dressed in black nylon pants, tank top and sneakers. He looked like he’d just come back from a run.

  He grinned as he closed the door. “You seem awfully chipper this morning.”

  “I’m just excited to see you,” I said, and then winced as Misha walked straight through Peanut. “Uh...”

  Peanut dispersed like smoke caught in a strong breeze and Misha jerked to a stop, his bright blue eyes widening. “Did I just walk through that ghost?”

  “Yeeaah...” I drew the word out.

  Piecing back together behind Misha, Peanut crossed his arms. “How rude!”

  Misha shuddered. “That is so freaky and makes me so uncomfortable.”

  “How do you think I feel?” Peanut snapped back, even though Misha couldn’t hear him. “You were literally inside my body. Inside every part of me. Every. Part.”

  I wrinkled my nose.

  “What is he saying?” Misha demanded.

  “You do not want to know,” I warned. “He’s here because he’s mad that our visitors are taking over ‘his’ bedrooms, and I tried to explain to him that since he’s dead he doesn’t need a bedroom, but he’s not getting it.”

  “You dismiss my feelings.” Flinging out his arms, Peanut flounced toward the door. “I’m going to go see if Zayne is getting undressed again. Tootles!”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “Is he still in here?” Misha asked, looking around the room.

  “No. He’s currently being a pervert.”

  His nose wrinkled. “You’re right, I really don’t want to know. I’m actually surprised.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t expect you to be here.” He grinned when I rolled my eyes. “Are you actually laying low?”