The Temple

by Emily Shore

  “Kerrick…” I say the name in no more than a whisper.

  She nods. “I can’t describe the expression on his face when I let him touch my belly. His eyes were gentle like silk roses. Nothing like your father’s. During those days, I was just a vessel carting around his precious cargo. But not for Kerrick. To him, I was more like a beautiful puzzle box. Something he had to work long and hard to unravel because anything good in this world requires effort. To Kerrick, the treasure wasn’t just the life inside me—it was my heart.”

  I can sense my mother’s story is over. On some level, I want to feel happy for her, but I can’t summon up that emotion. Especially not considering where she is now and what will eventually become of her. I can’t imagine it was worth it. Staying behind would have been the safer option. In any case, I suppose it’s good to have some insight into my mother’s past. At least it puts a story to the photograph I’ve spent years looking at.

  There’s a small sense of anxiety she will try to apply her story to my own life. That she’ll don a maternal hat and tell me there is hope for me—or someone out there who will love me—but she doesn’t. Serafina lets the silence fill up the room. That is…good.

  For some reason, my father doesn’t cut our time off. So, my mother and I linger in the empty room. Words slip out every now and then. Serafina seems to recognize that not even a herd of wild flying horses could drag a word out of me. I haven’t had much use for talking over the years. My clients aren’t too interested in my words. Only my body. Of course, I know all the right words necessary for any situation.

  After another hour or two passes, my father finally opens the door. I almost sigh at the invasion of sound because the quiet is a welcome reprieve.

  We both stand at the new presence.

  A sigh catches in my throat as soon as he murmurs to someone behind him before urging the figure into the room, hand on the small of her back. Her movements are so flighty my eyes must race to catch up with her. I can almost imagine swan wings growing from her shoulders with the right shifting of light.

  She stops short. Inertia should cause her to tumble forward, shouldn’t it? Her eyes dash back and forth between us. They settle on me. Every feature is similar. Same eye shape, yet her expressions remind me of Father. She puts a bad taste in my mouth. There is no armor in her stance. She doesn’t guard herself whatsoever. But I register something else—she may move like our father and have his eyes, but she does not stare at me the same way. No, her gaze is more like Serafina’s, but unhindered and unbound. Like her emotions are bursting. Like she’s ready to lunge for me and hug me hard.

  And she does.

  I don’t hug her back. How could she expect me to? Her body may hold my identical DNA, but she is little more than a ghost to me.

  Serenity is not my sister.

  When she turns with no offense at my chilly indifference to embrace our mother, I note their bond. Rooted. Like invisible vines kissing one another. I become an infant again, fading into the background, too weak to breathe, needing a ventilator. Even if Serafina’s always been an illusion, I’ve managed to clear the fog away. Now, it returns with abandon. It consumes me, creating a film over my eyes because I could never share what they have.

  I never will.

  4

  R e V e n g e S e r V e d C o L d

  Serenity

  I want to yank my mother out of this room. With each passing moment, it’s becoming more cramped. Behind me, Neil enters alongside Luc, though I can’t imagine what my father’s motive is. It makes me even angrier since this moment should only belong to my family and no one else.

  Family.

  I contemplate that word when I peer at my sister, twisting my head from my mother’s warm shoulder so I can see Bliss. She seems more like a mirage standing so still, but her hands never pause. Maybe that’s the one bit of chaos she’s taken from our father, but then I deny it because there’s a rhythm to them. They are waiting. Waiting for what? Certainly not me. I confirm that when I step toward her, but she doesn’t lift her head or so much as acknowledge my presence. Like I’m no more than a moth to her.

  “Serenity.” My mother draws my attention back to her.

  I shake my head, staring at my mother. Does she know I’m checking her for bruises? Whether she does or not, she doesn’t hide from me. It’s a new dynamic because she spent all my life hiding everything from me, protecting me. Maybe she understands parents shouldn’t always try to protect their children from the truth.

  Content when I find no bruises or marks on her, I turn around and march right to Force, but I jerk a finger to Luc and Neil.

  “What are they doing here? I want to see my father now. My real father!”

  My father brings a fist to his chin, musing aloud, “They are here for a purpose, but I am curious what power you think you have to give orders? Especially here?”

  I do a double-take before glancing around.

  “Don’t you know where you are, Serenity?”

  When I don’t respond, my father extends a hand to Bliss. A shock-wave stuns the butterflies in my stomach when she accepts. Revulsion sours the wave even more when he slides a hand around her waist and then motions to our environs.

  “Perhaps you’d like to enlighten her, Mara.”

  Why does he call her Mara? There’s a history here I don’t know. I’m already getting a sense the past seventeen years are about to be packed into the next few days I will share with Bliss. Except my mother and I have always shared a bond. Bliss and I share nothing but our DNA. Will that be enough?

  “This is the Breakable Room.”

  Bliss’s voice is mysterious. Like some window covered in a thousand layers of winter frost. How could I ever hope to reach her?

  “It is the oldest room in the Penthouse, and it was the original client room. The Temple’s founding father found inspiration here, and the urban legend is the original Glass District owner coined the term ‘Breakables’ in this room because everyone inside it always breaks.”

  “Very good, Mara.”

  “We get it, Daddy-O,” Neil huffs while crossing his arms over his chest. “This is the place you’d always bring Serafina to have ‘your way’ with her. Get to the point.”

  Force chortles just a little, eyeing the young man standing in the entryway beside a grim Luc. “Bluntly put, son. And despite how much I’m enjoying this buildup, I believe you are right for once in your pathetic existence. It is time to get to the point.”

  My father mentally activates the technology inside his brain that connects him to the Temple network. After, he states, “Send him in.”

  Less than a minute later, the Breakable door opens. One more familiar face emerges. Even though I’m closer, my mother reaches him before me. I find myself stopping short of them so my parents may reunite first. Kerrick’s hands aren’t even bound. Instead, they roam my mother’s face, touch her skin, and rub away the tears on her cheeks. Finally, they cup her face as he leans in to kiss her. I notice my ‘father’s’ expression. I expect him to cringe, to wrinkle his nose, or to roll his eyes, but he does none of this. He simply stands with hands casually folded behind his back as he studies the three of us once I join my parents.

  Kerrick’s arms are long enough to hold us both. This is what matters. We are so close I can feel their heartbeats pumping against my chest. I breathe in the scent of my real father. Nothing has changed. No bruises defile his skin. His strong arms are just as composed as ever. They hold more of my mother than me, which is just the way it should be. I’m not jealous. Right now, I’m standing beneath the one glowing lantern on a dark night. This is our bit of home in the glassy Temple.

  Our circle would be more complete with Sky, but it’s not broken without him. He’s just another curve that sits on top, just lingering on the edge.

  Kerrick is the first one to break the silence. Part of me wants to interrupt him, delay whatever Force has planned, but this should be my real father’s moment. He’s spent years cle
aning up after Force. It’s now time for him to confront the vampire who took so much of his wife’s life from her.

  “You always have an agenda,” Kerrick growls, stepping forward with fist braced.

  They are equally matched. Kerrick has always been tall, but he and Force are the same height. Kerrick’s body is still muscle-packed. Not as much as it was while I was growing up, but he’s always tended to his muscles over the years. It wouldn’t take much for him to bring my biological, silver-spoon father down physically. But mentally, Force is ready with cards he is dying to play. There’s anticipation in his uninhibited stride. His body swings back and forth as he approaches Kerrick, sizing him up. More than anything, I want to step forward to confront him, but I’ve already done my part. This is Kerrick’s moment. I’m not about to ruin it.

  “I don’t care what it is,” Kerrick spits the words. “You will not hurt my family ever again.”

  My father’s laugh is expected. It bobs, skips, and bounces, ricocheting off the walls around us as he begins to circle Kerrick. “Right you are, Kerrick. I never will hurt your family because they are not your family. They never were. And they never will be.”

  My father rounds Kerrick’s side. That’s when I catch the glint of the object. Kerrick is too late in turning around. I’m too late in lunging. In this moment, he is Force incarnate. He is not the director of the Temple. When he grabs my father by the hair, yanking his head back so he may slash one thin line with the knife, so he may paint blood across Kerrick’s throat, Force is the head of the Syndicate.

  “No!”

  My scream should shatter the earth. It should burst all the glass walls so I can get my hands around one chunk. I’ve never been fast enough. Blood licks up what’s left of my real father’s life threads, snapping them one by one as it spills all over the glass floor. He was the calm in our vortex. Our balance. Our compass. Our touchstone. We can’t touch Kerrick anymore.

  Even without a glass chunk, I lunge for my father. Luc is closing in on my heels, but Force is more than ready. He doesn’t even let my mother reach her husband’s side. He doesn’t let her tears mingle with his blood before seizing her by the waist and dragging her against his chest. He coils one hand—the one holding the knife—around her throat. Smearing Kerrick’s blood against her skin, he kisses her jaw directly beneath her ear, cooing words I cannot hear just before wagging one finger at Luc and me.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” he warns us before we can take a step forward. “Trust me, Serenity. I am more than certain you could kill me in this moment. I recognize it. It’s what I’ve waited all these years to witness. But what you and Director Aldaine must understand is an old proverb—when you go out for revenge, you must dig two graves. In this case, the second grave would be your mother’s.”

  Through gritted teeth, I say, “What are you talking about?”

  “Sweet Serafina,” my father murmurs, rubbing his mouth against the side of her head. She shivers against him. “You never disappoint. You should have learned years ago you can never run from me. I will always find you. Our hearts have always beat as one. This time, it has more meaning.”

  He directs his attention back to us. “I’ve equipped your mother with the same type of technology Jade used in the Garden. Except I took it to a much grander level. Serafina’s heart is directly connected with mine. Our heartbeats are more synchronized than ever. Mine beats. Hers beats. Mine flatlines. Hers flatlines.”

  Releasing my mother, he chucks her to the floor. He wipes the knife blade on his own clothes before approaching me. All I can see is my mother and the way her fingers curl around Kerrick’s lifeless head, careless of his blood staining the ends of her dress.

  I want to bite my father’s hand when it cups my shoulder, but I whip around.

  “You wanted a reunion, Serenity. How does it sit with you?” he asks, smile toying with me.

  “Someday, somehow, I will kill you.” I don’t threaten. It’s a promise. “Nothing on earth could ever keep me from killing you.”

  Force leans in to whisper in my ear. “If you do, I’ll be sure to wait for you and we can stroll down to hell together.”

  5

  O u R F a C e s

  Bliss

  I don’t know what to say or do. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen my father kill. It isn’t the first time I’ve smelled blood. But it is the first time my stomach has lurched. Not from the sight of the blade. Not from Serenity’s hair-raising scream. Not from the life seeping out of Kerrick’s eyes. The lurching comes when I see my mother shrink into herself. I can see the effort in her eyes, the way she’s fighting so hard not to cry. Like she wants to catch all the tears that escape and send them back. Or how she forces herself to stare at the crumpled body of her husband, pretending he’s just a ghost. Nothing works. Everything is too sudden for her. She hasn’t had enough time to build up her armor again. In some ways, she lost most of it thanks to the lifeless man on the floor.

  And the man gripping her now has ripped her heart right open. She’s bleeding. My father is an expert in making people bleed. Both inside and out.

  He chose this room. Planned for the witnesses. Not only due to his desire for an audience but to usurp his dominance. This is his Temple after all. Slitting Kerrick’s throat in front of Serafina’s daughters is the gateway, the doorway for my mother to become the Unicorn once again. We cannot escape our pasts. Our ghosts never leave us. Even when we try to deny their existence, we keep them closer than anyone else. They are part of us.

  I understand the two men here are for Serenity’s sake. Neil doesn’t move, but he does drag a hand through his hair. A helpless hand. A son who outgrew trying to please his father long ago. Instead, he put as much distance as he could between him and the Temple. Except I know Neil brought the Temple with him to each international modeling shoot, every lingerie-stuffed boudoir, every paradisiacal body-painted beach.

  When the other man advances to join Serenity, I pause to study him. Curious at his closeness to her, I tilt my head to the side, more interested in him than my father’s words because they are always the same. The man standing next to Serenity now is no lover, no client. I recognize him. The Aviary director. Like my father, he reeks of power, but he wears it in a subtler way. In some ways, he reminds me of Neil, though I can’t imagine why. Something in the curves of each hand, but his eyes are a fierce contradiction. With just one glance, I can tell he has killed before. Unlike Serenity’s, his eyes are not senseless wrath. They are etched in purpose. He knows just how to sink his brows low and tighten the muscled seams into more than a threat—a threatening promise.

  I remember her final Swan dive. His proximity to Serenity is more than understandable now. Rumors have escalated throughout the Boroughs ever since the auction. Serenity and Luc have become the modern-day Romeo and Juliet, a veritable pair of star-crossed lovers, though they seem more storm-tossed to me.

  Only when my father touches Serenity do I pause from my study of Director Aldaine. I can’t hear what my father tells her. All I see is her reaction. Her fighter instinct is so potent and so childish—the innocent, golden child he’s always wanted. The radiant sun to my bitter moon.

  “Mara, would you please escort your sister to her room?”

  Stoic as ever, I step toward a shell-shocked Serenity, but she throws her body back from Force and refuses, “I won’t leave her!”

  “Yes, you will.” Force doesn’t allow any argument. “Whether you want to or not, you will. I’m giving your mother a little time alone to grieve. We have unfinished business, you see.”

  She gnashes her teeth and raises her hand, but he only chuckles and reminds her of the connected heart device.

  “I can certainly have you dragged out,” he offers. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  Serenity doesn’t bat an eye when she blows a curl out of her face, narrows her eyes, and utters, “I never do things the easy way.”

  “And I love you all the more for it, my beautif
ul daughter.”

  He sends for two guards, who arrive and lock their hands around her arms.

  “No marks,” my father reminds them.

  I truly don’t understand her logic or her mindset. Why this pointless exhibit? He always gets his way. I sway past Luc, whose eyes pause from Serenity for just one moment to look upon me. No amount of curiosity, nor judgment. Our gazes don’t linger on one another’s, but somehow, I still sense his eyes on me when I turn my back to follow the guards pulling along a thrashing Serenity.

  “Never a dull moment, eh, sissies?” Neil remarks on our way out the door.

  “Shut up!” Serenity kicks one leg up, aiming for his groin.

  He curses when it connects, doubling over just a little.

  I pat him on his shoulder. “Never a dull moment indeed.”

  6

  F a C e s o f t h e T e m P l e

  Serenity

  “Why did you do that?”

  It’s the first question out of my sister’s mouth when we arrive in my bedroom. Rather, when I was forced.

  I’m confused. “Do what?”

  “Why did you bother with the guards? It was going to happen either way. Just like he said. It didn’t matter.”

  “It wasn’t for him. It was for me. It mattered to me,” I defend myself before slumping onto the bed, wanting Sky’s warmth more than ever. The weather inside me has changed. Frost cakes my butterflies’ heads. As everything starts to sink in, I imagine there will be snow and then ice.

  Bliss doesn’t respond. All she does is stand there in the center of the room without saying anything, hands all fidgety. Just like my mother. A million different secrets must breed inside Bliss, too. Growing up, there were times I could steal glimpses of my mother’s, but I doubt that will happen with Bliss. Nor do I think she will be obliging to share.