The Mask of the Damned (The Damned of Lost Creek Book 2)

by Danae Ayusso

  And he continued to look at me with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

  That was fun!

  It was slightly amusing.

  He’s in shock still! Well played.

  Thank you.

  Time to get back to the discussion we were initially having before the gender and tiny tit talk started.

  “I was assuming,” I started, “that the curse doesn’t effect, in the shackling to the land sense, the offspring of the damned. However, after speaking with Draven some, and the weird offspring of the damned bonding moment in English Lit with all of us, it made me realize that we’re tethered as well. Aren’t we?”

  That snapped him out of it, and he blinked a few times, clearing the father-daughter tit talk from his mind.

  Price nodded.

  “But the twins were gone for more than ten years and yet the hellhounds didn’t get them, and I was gone for seventeen years but that was cutting it close… I understand but I don’t understand. I need details. What have you and the others figured out over the centuries? Please tell me you, a genius, tested and proved and disproved theories so your daughters can catch up to the rest of the damned class and not have to rely on people like Draven Van Zul for details.”

  He gave me a look. “Tone noted, Girls.”

  We smiled wide.

  “If you’re born on the land, you are shackled at birth. If you’re born off the land you have until your eighteenth birthday to step foot on it or else you are considered a lost soul. Through trial and error, testing of hypothesis, we were able to get more of an idea of the severity of the situation we found ourselves in. Billy discovered having heirs off the land we are shackled to wouldn’t save them. He tried to keep his family safe by having children away from the anchor, and while he was here serving his ten year sentence, hellhounds killed his son Simon the day after his eighteenth birthday.”

  Shit. That’s what I thought.

  This isn’t good.

  We have to figure out a way to see De’Von. I can’t handle not seeing our boy for ten years! I will not miss his graduations and all of the milestones those in the hood don’t see.

  I completely agree with you, but one thing at a time, Sis. Calm down.

  Don’t you dare tell me to calm down. I am fucking calm!

  If this is calm, we really need to be reevaluated because our genius is greatly overrated.

  Jerk.

  Bitch.

  “So if Mr. Smith hadn’t located you, I would have…” I prompted.

  Price nodded. “You would have been ripped apart without knowing why. I’m sorry, Mikhail, Justice. I never wanted this for you.”

  Dismissively I waved; it isn’t a conversation that needs brought up again.

  I’m over it.

  “I should send him a thank you note or something. As annoying as that caseworker was, he saved my life and then some.”

  He nodded his agreement.

  “I have to stay here ten years before I can leave?”

  Jesus! You couldn’t ease into that?

  No, I need to know.

  Price’s face dropped, and he nodded once.

  “Daddy, that isn’t what I meant,” I said, groaning.

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “I’m not all hot to trot to up and leave, as Grams worded it. I’m just making sure that I understand the technicalities. I still haven’t fully processed the other stuff you told me, and I didn’t sleep last night and am still trying to process everything that Grams told me, and, not to mention, Draven and the other brats of the damned… I talked to De’Von today while at school. Somehow he got a cell phone and my number and called.”

  Price chuckled. “Jacquie I’m sure.”

  “Tell him thanks for me. Now that little brat is going to be blowing up my phone… He’s resolving something, but I don’t know what. I’m scared. I’m not there with him so I can’t force him to do what’s right: go to school, treat his grandmother with respect, not act a fool, stay away from bitches, just say no… To name a few. He feels as if I’ve abandoned him. And I have, in a matter of speaking. I don’t know how to make him understand, Dad. I can’t tell him that I’m a white eyed cursed bitch. I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules.”

  Price nodded. “In a matter of speaking,” he agreed. “If you need to see De’Von we can, once I have deemed it is safe for you back east, visit him.”

  “I can?” I asked. “Before I’m eighteen?”

  Price shook his head. “After if you need to. While serving our term, we can only leave the county for a few days at a time. Soren discovered it’s seven consecutive days before you’re considered a lost soul. If you’re gone for seven consecutive days, you are on county-arrest for one year starting on the eighth day, or when you return, if you return. When on county arrest, you can only be gone for four consecutive days at a time during the arrest period, with ten days between them.”

  I gave him a look. “That seems exceptionally nonsensical and the linguistics involved are derisory and ridiculously random,” I pointed out.

  A smile filled his face.

  “Seriously, Dad, you accuse me of lacking humility but any time I whip out my genius you smile like a fat kid getting cake for the first time,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Perhaps your overabundance of humility you inherited from your stunningly handsome father after all,” he teased with a wink.

  Of course I laughed, how can you not?

  “I sure didn’t get his comedic timing,” I agreed.

  Price laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “That, we can all agree, you got from your Uncle Simian.”

  I dramatically rolled my eyes for show. “Don’t tell him that. Next thing I’ll know he’ll be trying to enroll me in the police academy so he has someone to hang out with that gets his fart jokes.”

  Price chuckled. “He did mention it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I grumbled.

  Yeah, not happening.

  “We figured most of the technicalities out after the first century,” he assured us. “Thus you needn’t worry about being used as a guinea pig to test a theory or three. You are untouchable, just as Draven is.”

  “You just had to ruin the moment, didn’t you?” I complained.

  Again, he chuckled.

  “I talked to Mama during second period,” I said.

  Price’s smile fell; I think he was waiting for this.

  “I don’t like Miss Lea,” I said.

  “I heard,” he said.

  “There’s something about her that neither of us like,” I tried to explain. “Justice get this vibe from her, this weird sense of… I don’t know. I’ve never felt that before and it scares the hell out of me but intrigues her. In French she completely ignored me while glaring at Draven all period. Did he sleep with her?”

  Price shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny what Draven may have done, or who. I hope not. That’s gross.”

  I snorted.

  “Miss Lea is the one that advocated for Draven to enter the art competition representing the U.S.,” he admitted. “She may be irritated at him that he turned the opportunity that anyone would kill for down. Between Miss Lea and Principal Wallace, they worked extremely hard to open the competition up to those in rural Montana. Draven clearly won; he is a phenomenal artist in a wide variety of mediums.”

  That’s what everyone keeps saying but I’ve yet to see it.

  “Do you know why he stayed?” I asked. “Was it because of being considered a lost soul?”

  Price shook his head. “No. Draven’s served his ten years. If you want to know why he turned down his freedom for the next decade at the last minute, ask him. No one knows but Draven. Soren is still irritated about it. Dannette isn’t happy either because she was going to accompany her precious son to Paris. She’s tired of Anaconda and wants to go home, but she’ll never leave her son.”

  Told you he was a douche. What kind of son does that to his mother and teachers, those that w
orked their asses off to get him the hell out of this shit hole?!

  Maybe he has a good reason.

  There is nothing that would keep me here if I had a free pass to anywhere but here without having to worry about hellhounds tearing me apart…and Daddy came with me of course.

  Your daddy issues are truly therapy worthy.

  Shut up

  Make me.

  Jerk.

  Bitch.

  “Something to add to the ever growing list of questions for that one,” I said. “What’s Miss Lea’s issue with me then?”

  Price shook his head. “She only wants what’s best for you-”

  “Taking my sister is what’s best for me?” I interrupted. “No. That is the worst possible thing someone could do to me!”

  He put his hand up to stop me.

  We’ve had this conversation already.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “That’s why I don’t agree with her when it pertains to Justice. If you like, I will have a talk with her-”

  “No. I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

  Seriously, your daddy issues are therapy worthy.

  I don’t like her.

  Tenderly Price caressed the skin around my eyes. “Your mask is presenting,” he whispered.

  “Sorry, but I don’t like her. I get a weird feeling from her, and not the normal weird warning feeling either. This is different. I don’t know if it’s because she’s trying to take you from me, me from you, me from my sister, my sister from me, whatever, but I don’t like it.”

  “Warning feelings?” he mumbled, as if saying it to himself would translate it for him.

  Way to go.

  Shit. That wasn’t my intention.

  Would you like me to try to fix it now? Or did you want to continue to let that awesome temper you say you have total and complete control over put both feet in our mouth?

  Hmm… You can handle this one, Sis?

  Uh huh.

  “Do you have dreams that you remember of warning?” Price asked, his eyes moving over my face many times.

  Weird way of wording it.

  “No, that wouldn’t really help since I don’t remember my dreams,” I reminded him. “Sometimes I get weird feelings in the pit of my stomach. That’s all.”

  He nodded. “Girls, what are you omitting?”

  Yeah, thanks for that one, Sis.

  Oops, my bad. It isn’t my fault he can read us as well as he does.

  Uh huh.

  Absently I fiddled with my red string bracelet. “Sometimes I get feelings before something bad happens. I don’t know what’s going to happen or why, or to who even. It isn’t as if I have cool seeing into the future powers or anything useful like that. It’s more of an annoying voice in the back of my head that’s more in my stomach. Sometimes it’s nothing but gas, other times it’s me diving to the ground moments before bullets litter the building I was just standing in front of. I’ve learned not to ignore it.”

  Price continued to look at me as he cracked his knuckles, yet another bad habit that I got from him, and I could tell that he was scrambling to figure something out, or was connecting dots I was unaware were there, let alone them being connectable.

  Goddamn it. I knew I should have handled this one.

  Shut up.

  “Will you say something?” I grumbled.

  “Will you tell me,” he whispered “if something is going to happen, or if you get a feeling that pertains to you?”

  Is this one of those parental things we’ve seen on the television?

  I think so.

  It’s kind of weird.

  A little.

  White people are weird.

  Shut up. I hope he doesn’t try to hug us or something… I’m not in the mood for that.

  I am.

  “Yes and no,” I reluctantly agreed. “It isn’t an exact science, Dad. I never know specifics, and they don’t always apply to me. You know, you have a super power that I don’t particularly care for,” I informed him, and his head tilted to the side to regard me. “You’re one of the only people that can get me rambling and talking like this. Usually I bottle it all up, or argue it out with Justice. But you somehow uncork it, and I’m sorry for that. I know you don’t expect these progressively getting more and more awkward talks with me… Especially when you only ask how my day was or if it’s raining outside, and I somehow turn it into three hours of rambling and emotional roller coasters for both of us, so I’m sorry for that. But at the same time I like that about you, but I hate that about you as well, but I like it enough not to get pissed off about it.”

  You lost me. What?

  It made sense in my head.

  And that should scare you.

  Price chuckled. “I’m glad to hear that. I assure you I don’t mean to do it, but it’s rather refreshing… Minus talking about your breasts, which are fine, and you don’t need surgery.” He shook his head. “Moving on,” he groaned, and I laughed. “Did you feel something when… When your mom died?”

  Of course I...wait.

  That can’t be right.

  Whoa. We didn’t feel shit.

  I was scared.

  Who wouldn’t be if they walked in on that big bastard stabbing the hell out of a crackwhore?

  We should have felt something, right?

  I felt relief that she was out of the picture.

  Really, Sis?

  Think about it. When she was gone, what was the first thing we felt?

  “Relief… Freedom,” I whispered, shaking my head. “That isn’t right. She was our mom, not our warden.”

  That whore hadn’t been our mother in years, Sis. She was nothing more than the holder of the key to our cell, to our freedom.

  “Girls?” Price asked.

  “Give us a moment, Daddy,” I said. “Mikhail is processing something now that it has context.”

  He nodded. “Take your time, Justice.”

  The moment that vile woman no longer drew breath, it was as if the weight holding us down was lifted. Whether it was mental or if it was the excessive emotional baggage, that bitch forced us to carry, I don’t know. But what I do know is the moment her life was taken, we were given ours.

  If what you say is true, doesn’t that make us no better than her or the dealer that killed her?

  No. It means we’re better because we survived. We have to survive, Sis.

  Is that why you’re here so much now?

  I don’t think so. I was always around. It was just harder when we were younger. Stepping between you and the threat, it took more than I knew I was capable of. But I don’t regret it. Never think that I do, okay? I did what I did to protect you, to protect us.

  “I should have felt something other than relief,” I mumbled.

  Was she worthy of our warning of danger?

  “Of course she wasn’t, but she was our mom,” I argued.

  That woman hadn’t been our mother since the moment she tried to drown us. Don’t you dare shed a single tear for that vile creature. I didn’t and you won’t either.

  “Do you think it means that I wanted her to die? Did I kill her because I didn’t feel anything then or now?” I stammered.

  Don’t you dare cry for that Salem Whore.

  “I need your help with Mikhail,” Price pleaded.

  Stubborn, I shook my head. “No, Justice doesn’t control me, doesn’t speak for me. I’m not like her! Mom didn’t deserve that, no one did. Just because she allowed the unimaginable to happen to us doesn’t mean she deserved to be brutally murdered like that! That would make me no better than her. I’m nothing like her. I won’t be like her… Never will I be like her,” I stammered, closing my eyes and starting to rock. “I’m not like her. I’m not like her,” I said, over and over, trying to convince Justice that the reason Mom was dead was because we’re broken, not because we wanted her dead.

  Suddenly my legs were out from under me and my breathing shuddered in my chest and my body went from numb to warm
and tingly. Strong arms contracted around me and protectively held me tight to their chest.

  I was home.

  “Shh. You are safe, I promise,” he whispered against my hair, an accent flaring.

  Wait, that can’t be right.

  I was imagining things.

  It isn’t possible.

  Price must have pulled our sobbing, hysterical ass into his arms, and was carrying us to the house.

  It isn’t that annoying Frenchman.

  It can’t be.

  Draven has a date. I watched the smirking man whore climb in his Porsche and peel out in the parking lot, littering Shep’s truck with rocks in the process, before speeding down Main Street.

  It’s Price, our father, that carried us, protected us during our meltdown, and that has to think we’re completely insane and that we need the professional help that everyone has been telling him we need.

  Not Draven Van Zul.

  I was merely hearing things, my worst nightmare come to life, in a moment of weakness and mental incoherency.

  That’s all it was.

  I hope Price doesn’t see this as a sign of our lack of mental well-being. We were doing so much better, progressing I thought even though according to professionals we were the farthest thing from moving forward in our struggle against mental illness.

  You did this.

  All you had to do was tell me yes we felt something before Mom was killed and that you didn’t tell me, hid it from me in order to protect me from the truth, but no. You couldn’t. You had to tell me the truth. I hate that you tell me the truth!

  Lie to me, I beg of you.

  “I would never, that you know of,” an amused voice said from the other side of me.

  It was a struggle, but eventually my eyes opened and focused on the figure on the other side of the bed, hunched over the open textbook on his lap while spinning a highlighter around his fingers like a baton.

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “You were talking in your sleep again,” Draven said before highlighting something in the book.

  I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around.

  “Why are you in my room?” I asked the least important question.

  He shrugged. “You drool in your sleep and I don’t like sleeping with wet pillows unless I’m the reason why they’re wet, sticky, or crusted with potential mini-Dravens.”