Shadows of Ourselves (The Charmers Series Book 1)

by Apollo Blake

  “That’s a lie,” he told my back, “you’re lying.”

  I stopped, but didn’t look back. “Yes,” I said. “It’s a lie, and I mean it.”

  The energy drained from my body. There was nothing left for me here. There was nothing for me, period.

  I was used to that. I could work with that.

  “Sky!” he shouted at my retreating back, trying to reason with me. “Sky! Wait! Don’t!”

  But I didn’t stop, I didn’t go back, And in the end he let me walk away. It was over before it began. I was alone, and I would be alone. Still ruined maybe, but at the very least safe from further destruction.

  ~

  I hitchhiked. First time for everything, right? But the problem with first times is that they usually come when you’d rather be doing anything else. Like drinking. Or throwing furniture. Or putting yourself into a medically-induced coma so your problems can’t touch you ever again.

  No such luck. But I did get a ride.

  Fifteen minutes after I stumbled onto the main road—the pack’s driveway went on forever and ever—I’d almost given up hope. When I finally found my way off the property, I was standing on a lonely stretch of road on another side lane.

  I started walking in the direction of what I hoped was the main road, where I could catch a ride back to town, but when a truck drove by I figured I’d take a chance, and stuck my thumb out. I expected it to drive right past—and it did—but then it stopped, wheels sending up so much dust I choked on it. Through the shower of dirt filling the air I saw light glance off chrome as the driver shoved the rusty green door open.

  The man that leaned out was stout and chubby and looked sort of like a Canadian cowboy. His grey hair was flecked with black and he had a handlebar mustache that muffled his speech. “Hop on in, son!”

  If this guy tried to rape or murder me I was going to feed him his own eyeballs.

  I’d had enough pain for one day without having to fight off a demented Western Santa Claus.

  I paused near the door, watching smoke curl up from the cigarette he was smoking. He didn’t offer to put it out, and I didn’t ask.

  “Can I bum a smoke?”

  They grossed me the hell out, but I needed something to distract me.

  The man didn’t look bothered. He dug a pack out of his pocket and tossed it to me, and I tossed it back after I’d pulled out one of the slim white darts. It felt like poison and relief in my hand. For a minute I just stared at it, uncomprehending.

  Hunter was somewhere behind me, taking the sword from that Werewolf girl to bring back to the Fae. Would he be okay, going back to the court on his own?

  “You coming?” the man asked.

  “Guess so.” I climbed in. Regretted it. Not as much as I’d regret getting back out.

  The interior of the truck wasn’t much better than the outside. The beige seats were torn and scratched, brown padding spilling out in tufts, and I could see the springs in a few places. The windshield was cracked in a long line across its bottom half, and the entire interior reeked of tobacco.

  He handed me a tarnished silver lighter as he kicked the truck into motion, and we flew forward. Engine chugging, truck spitting out fumes behind us, burning fuel like I burned my reservations. I rolled down my window and lit my gifted smoke, relishing the first inhale.

  Considered pressing the hot tip to my flesh.

  See? None of you can hurt me anymore but I’ll always find ways to hurt myself. I can set fires just as easily as anyone.

  This was something to focus on. Get into town. That was my goal, that was what I had to think about.

  Not Hunter. Not magik—even though it was impossible to stop thinking about magik, the fierce crack and jolt of it.

  “I need to get to the main road,” I told the man, puffing smoke. “Think you can get me there in one piece?”

  “I can get you further than that, if you need. I’m heading into the city anyway.” He paused for a minute, considering me. Black combat boots and black leather and torn black skinny jeans. “You don’t look like you listen to country music.”

  “Oh, dear god.”

  “My ride, my rules!” He chuckled so hard I thought he might have a stroke then and there, red-faced and wheezing, but he clapped me on the back and sped up.

  True to his word the man started blasting banjo ballads right away. Some raspy male voice crooned about how his ex stole his dog and took off with his trailer or some shit. The guy introduced himself as Chuck— “But you can call me Big Chuckie!” —and asked how I’d ended up so far out in the country with no way back. I mumbled something about my ride ditching me and stared out the window. I was not in the mood for a chat. To his credit, Big Chuckie just turned his awful music up louder and hummed along. He was so happy I kind of wanted to punch him. What was there to be happy about on this ugly, godforsaken road on this ugly, godforsaken day?

  I had no idea where I was going.

  Mom’s wasn’t a place I ever wanted to call home again (not that she’d be calling it that either unless she got a job pretty damn soon) and I really never wanted to see Hunter again. Or I did, which was just as bad. Worse, maybe. Definitely.

  It didn’t really matter what I wanted: I wasn’t going to let myself go there. I was closing the door on us before he shoved it open wide enough to slip through the opening he’d made.

  Riley’s seemed like the best bet, and I knew I’d be welcomed with open arms. But right now I didn’t know if I could take being around her parents, hovering, worrying, always perceiving so much more about me than I gave them credit for.

  I didn’t want sympathy. I wanted oblivion.

  Thinking was so hard, and I’d been on my feet for so long. Being chased, being hurt, being tricked and pulled around.

  The only decision I wanted to have to make right now was which kind of drink to order.

  It turned out Chuck had to go to the West Side, so he had no problem dropping me off uptown. He let me out at the top of King Street, and I wanted to say more than the quick thanks I called over my shoulder, but someone behind us honked as soon as the car slowed, and I didn’t want to hold up traffic, so it was all I could do.

  I stood on the curb and watched the truck fade into the distance and regretted so many of the things I’d done in the last few days. I didn’t know if this was one of them, or if it wasn’t, or if it was both.

  I wished I cold see the future.

  I started walking.

  My feet carried me in the direction of Jetstreams, and I sort of knew I was heading there before I realized it consciously. I needed a drink and a place to think outside of the cold and the company of someone who wouldn’t ask me what the hell was wrong.

  Kelly was good at minding her own business. Though I had heard plenty of the drunk old guys who always seemed to linger at the dive spill out their sob stories to her, I’d never once heard her repeating one of them.

  Plus, I liked Jetstreams. It was dark, dingy, and warm. A typical Saint John pub. A long, gleaming mahogany bar pockmarked with scratches and stained with moisture marks. Tall booths with chipped green vinyl seats and wooden beams that stretched to the ceiling created tiny cocoons of privacy. Ironwork chandeliers that hung on chains from the ceiling. The candles had been replaced with bulbs, but the lights still reflected brightly off of the white and green tiled floors, caked with a layer of grime.

  It smelled like burnt hair, nail polish, and cheap beer inside. Home away from home.

  The air here was hot and muggy, and I felt as if I’d stepped into the kitchen of some old castle. I was glad to leave the cold outside. Too bad I couldn’t leave my fucking problems with it.

  By the time I got to the bar I was at least trying to think of normal things. Things like getting my practise back up—much as I hated it, it paid better than a day job would. Restocking my wardrobe and my paint collection. Finding a new place to live. Buying a bus ticket to Toronto, or anywhere really, and watching the skyline of this city fade int
o the horizon behind me.

  I definitely wasn’t thinking about Hunter. Or Hunter’s lips. Or Hunter’s eyes watching me walk away, his words bouncing off my back to shatter on the ground behind me.

  I definitely, definitely was not thinking about how it felt weird not to have him at my side.

  Nope. Not at all.

  I was kind of thinking about how exposed I felt without backup, though. Whatever. I’d been taking care of myself for years, and I may not have his strength, but I sure as hell knew how to defend myself if the need arose. Part of me wished it would, like hitting something could make me feel better. It would make me feel better. I knew myself well enough to know that.

  The thing about real life is that hot boy + pretty words = Disney style happily ever after is never the way the equation actually works out.

  You can’t fuck yourself out of mental traps and faulty wiring, can’t cure mental illness or change someone’s nature with love, let alone adoration, infatuation.

  “Sky!” My head whipped up at the sound of my name, and I looked around the nearly empty bar.

  Riley was sitting in a booth back near the bathroom, partially in the shadows, drinking alone. Her eyes were on me, and she waved me over frantically. Her purple strands were pulled into a messy bun, and she looked like she’d just crawled out of bed—sweatpants and a baggy hoodie replacing her normal goth-nerd couture look.

  Riley’s fashion sense was always flicking back and forth like the reception on a shitty old TV. Some days she was hipster lite, and others she was a sexed-up Morticia Addams or rocking journalist chic. One thing that was always the same was a choker—she had a collection of them, black leather and glittery plastic and bleached hemp. Today’s was a frayed pink hemp one, with a tiny aqua stone hanging from it.

  But the distinctive feature that stood out no matter what she wore or how she did her makeup was the sharp arch of her brows and the intelligent glint in her eye.

  “Everyone has it wrong,” she told me once. “About the purpose of life? They all think it’s to chase adrenaline or find happiness, but that’s bull. The purpose of life is to gather as much knowledge as we can. It’s the only power that has any real sway.”

  That about summed her up: cravings for wisdom and words that could be taken at face value.

  My best friend. God, I might weep with relief.

  She would want explanations, answers, details I wasn’t sure I was willing to give.

  I could talk about Hunter without breaking down or flying into a rage. But I didn’t particularly want to.

  And I didn’t want to talk about what I’d been through, either. I didn’t want her worrying about me, and freaking out. I didn’t need it. As far as Riley was concerned, I was always two steps ahead. Always cool and calm and collected. I dealt with shit, I got things done, and I moved on. And she certainly didn’t get to see the process. More of it than anyone else, maybe, but not the entire thing. If she knew something was wrong, she also knew I didn’t want to talk about it.

  This time, I didn’t think she’d really care.

  But I had already decided not to lie to her. I lied so much, to so many people, even without saying anything out loud. I didn’t want to do it again unless I had to. So when I sat down in the booth after calling out a greeting to Kelly, I was prepared to tell the truth.

  I was not prepared to get slapped on the head.

  “Ouch!” I shoved myself back against the leather seat, out of her reach, though she’d already leaned back. “What the hell?”

  “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?” she whisper-yelled. “I’ve been going out of my mind for three days, half thinking you were dead in a ditch somewhere! It’s not like Penn will tell me anything useful. Where the hell have you been, Sky? And I want the truth this time—none of your bullshit. I can tell when you lie, you know; you wince like it hurts you.”

  “It does hurt me,” I said. She knew this. “So fine. You want the truth? I want a drink.”

  Riley didn’t miss a beat. “Kelly! Sky needs a beer!”

  She was only eighteen, but Kelly never carded her. The first night we ever came in it was me she carded, and she must have assumed Riley was the same age. Or she suspected her age and just didn’t care enough to card her. Either way it worked out in our favour.

  Riley hung out here more often than I did. The difference was she was passing time, not trying to escape it.

  I liked to drink. I liked to smoke. Most of the shit I did was meant to take me away from the world in one way or another, whether it was painting or getting trashed or sleeping for three days straight.

  The problem with craving escape is that it creates a lot of possibilities to lose control. I don’t like to lose control.

  So I kept my drinking in check. I’d seen enough of my mother’s sloppy, drunken mishaps to know that I had to keep myself at least halfway aware of my surroundings. I never wanted to be in the position where I reminded myself of her, where I looked in the mirror and saw I’d become her. Getting blackout drunk lost it’s appeal when you saw Mommy Dearest barfing up her own stomach lining at eight years old.

  Tonight, I felt like I could drink the entire bar empty and it still wouldn’t be enough to take the edge of. I had a lot on my plate, and in order to shove it off I’d have to look at it, which was not an option.

  Magik, though, I could talk about. Charmers, the power, the world that was now partly mine—that was one thing I didn’t want to run from.

  “I’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “Hell of a week,” Riley corrected. “So far, at least. Do you have any idea how fucking crazy I’ve been going?”

  She shoved her phone into my face and I took it, scanning the window that was open. Shadow dog, she’d typed into Google. I skimmed the results.

  Conspiracy blogs, role playing games, the usual.

  “It’s called a Hound.”

  “I know that!” she swiped her phone back. “No thanks to you. But Penn told me some things. I’ve just been trying different names to see if I can find different myths.”

  “Nerd. Doing your homework when I’m missing.”

  Suddenly Kelly appeared and set a beer in front of me. She shot me a wink. She was a pale, chubby woman with carrot orange hair, and she wore the kind of busty tops you might find on a medieval kitchen wench. Usually with skinny jeans and ankle boots and a cup that was almost entirely vodka clutched in her hand with the grip a drowning man might have on a life raft.

  The only other person here had just ducked out the door, which meant she had free time now to get more sloshed than she already was and mess around on her tablet, so I doubted she was mad about the slow night.

  “On the house,” she said. “Because I dumped my asshole ex!”

  “Cheers to that,” I mumbled, draining half my beer in one gulp.

  Kelly nodded enthusiastically, dancing away, and I took a second massive drink before slamming the glass down and meeting Riley’s stare. “Okay.”

  It was early afternoon and I had to drink just to tell the truth.

  Mom would be proud to see what a mess she’d made of me, such a fuck-up.

  “Okay?”

  “Ask away.”

  She crossed her arms. “Where the hell have you been since Saturday night, Sky? I almost thought you were dead.”

  “I did call you.”

  “Oh yes, that phone call was so reassuring.” She mimicked my voice eerily well, “Oh, hey Riley, I just called to let you know that those literal monsters chasing us didn’t eat my face off, but I’m not going to tell you anything else because I refuse to think about the people who care about me, now I’ve gotta go fuck around and angst while you spend the next two days wondering if I’m dead—”

  “I see your point.”

  “—because it’s not like I care that my actions affect you, because God forbid I admit that I have any investment in another human being—”

  “I said I get it!”

  Riley let he
r hands drop and glared at me. Her eyes were suspiciously glossy, and she looked away. “You can’t just drop off the face of the earth like this, Davenport. Especially after something like that.”

  “Ri, I’m sorry.” I winced. “Fuck. I—if I had been able to. . .you have no idea, the things I’ve—” I shook my head. “I’m gonna need another drink.”

  Or a lobotomy.

  I was going to have to talk about Hunter. At least a little bit. And how could I do that without thinking about what had just happened?