Something Witchy (Mystics & Mayhem)

by AJ Myers

  Please let him be asleep, I prayed, ready to do anything I needed to do to have that prayer answered. I would stop cussing. I would become a missionary and devote my life to the needy. Hell, I would even give up coffee and gladly be my parents’ test dummy. I would do anything not to have to face Nathan after spending the night drooling on his chest.

  Uh-huh, right. Because the Bad Karma Fairy was going to let that dream come true…

  Very slowly, I forced my eyes up toward his. I had to stop at his nose to take a deep breath before I could bring myself to go any further. My humiliation became complete, though, when I saw that Nathan was not only awake, but watching me with a sweet, almost dreamy, look. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was…happy.

  “Oh, God,” I groaned, trying to squirm out of the death grip he had on me. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I got here and… I mean, I was asleep so… I’m so, so, sorry…”

  “I’m not,” he said softly, causing me to stop trying to remove his boa constrictor-like hold on me for about ten seconds.

  “You’re not what?” I asked, frowning in confusion as I tried to blow one of my curls out of my face. I immediately stopped myself when I thought about the green cloud of morning breath I had just doused him in. Why couldn’t everybody wake up like they did in the movies, with minty-fresh breath and perfect hair?

  “Sorry,” he murmured with a tender look as he rolled me onto my back and brushed the curl over my shoulder for me. “I’m not sorry. Do you have any idea what you look like in your sleep?”

  “No,” I whispered, too overwhelmed by the way he was looking at me to even push him away. I felt special and beautiful and cherished in that moment, a rarity for me, and I couldn’t bring myself to give up that feeling.

  “You look like an angel,” he murmured as he trailed a finger down my cheek, following its path with his eyes. “You look sweet and peaceful and so damned beautiful it took my breath away.”

  His fingers moved to my chin, his thumb brushing over my bottom lip, and the blush on my cheeks got a little hotter when I found myself having to force my traitorous body not to move. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and pull his lips down to mine to see if he tasted even half as good as he looked. I wanted to see if he could make me feel the way he had in my dreams.

  But dreams are just dreams. Eventually, you have to wake up. And it was way past time for my wake up call.

  “Well, I am sorry and it won’t happen again,” I told him, pushing at his shoulders to move him away from me. When he gave me a sad look, I rolled my eyes. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m a fast learner, Nathan. You’re bored, that’s all. Just get me to Washington, dump me off on your friend, and you’re free to go kidnap someone less…how did you put it? Oh, yeah, now I remember. Boring and frigid, right?”

  I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but his face paled a little bit more at that, and he slowly moved away from me. I was up and out of the bed so fast my head actually started to spin for a second. Without looking at him, I headed straight for the bathroom for another shower and my own clothes. The sooner I got every trace of him off of me, from his shirt to the scent of his skin that had seeped into my curls as I slept, the better off I’d be. I was already pushing the door open when his soft voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “What happened to you?” he whispered. “What happened to make you so afraid of trusting someone?”

  Oh, whatever. I trusted plenty of people! I trusted Kim and Blake and… Okay, well, maybe plenty was stretching it a little. Still, that wasn’t what he was really asking me, anyway. He was asking me why I didn’t trust him. And the answer to that should have been clear.

  He had destroyed my world and played with me like a toy before crushing my feelings like they were no more significant than clay beneath his feet. Then, when that wasn’t enough for him, he had taken everything I valued from me. My freedom? Gone. My independence? A fading memory I would never get back. Why would he think I would ever trust him?

  “I don’t understand, Em,” he said quietly, when I didn’t bother to point out the obvious. “You won’t believe the truth, but the one lie I’ve told you since we met you believed without even questioning it. Why?”

  “What can I say?” I asked, ignoring the ache in my chest. “The truth rings louder than bullshit.”

  “The truth,” he repeated softly with a bitter laugh. “And what is the truth? Do you even know? Or are you so determined to shut everyone out that the only truths you’ll believe are the ones that give you a reason to keep the people around you at arm’s length?”

  I hid my wince as I slowly turned back around to face him. How many times had my parents tried to psychoanalyze me over the years? A million? I was used to having my psyche picked apart on a daily basis, but this was the first time the analysis had ever hit anywhere close to home.

  “Don’t presume to think you know me,” I told him coldly. “You don’t know anything about me except that you liked me a whole lot better when I was asleep. And do you know what? I don’t really give a damn if you like me at all, Nathan. I didn’t ask you to kidnap me, I didn’t ask you to brand me like livestock, and I sure as hell didn’t ask for your opinion on my character.”

  “I do know you,” he said, getting out of the bed and moving toward me with an eerily beautiful grace. It was predatory, that grace. He was like a stalking panther, closing in on its prey.

  Unfortunately, that prey was me.

  I swallowed hard, my heart racing, as he loomed over me, the leashed strength of his body like a wall in front of me as he placed his hands on either side of my head, cutting off any escape. He trapped me there between him and the wood at my back, forcing me to listen to the truths I didn’t want to hear, truths he had no right to give me.

  “I know you better than your closest friends do,” he continued, his voice soft and compelling. “I know you’re terrified of fire and you always have been. I saw the way you tensed up when the smell in this room hit you and the instant flash of fear in your eyes. I know you hide that fear from most people because you can’t stand for anyone to think you’re weak. I know that, despite that biting sarcasm you love so much, you have a kind and gentle heart. You proved that last night when you offered yourself in trade for the life of a guy you didn’t even know.

  “I also know the walls you’ve built around you are so high and so thick that part of you is dying inside them,” he whispered with an almost tortured look on his face. “You’ve been pushed aside and ignored for so long that you’ve told yourself you don’t need anyone. But you do, Em. You need someone to love you and tell you that every day. You need someone to yell at you when you’re being reckless and someone to catch you when you fall. You need someone who’ll listen to you and be your shoulder to cry on.

  “And you need somebody to love,” he continued as my eyes started burning with tears I wasn’t about to shed. Not in front of him, anyway. “Not only do you need it, you want it. It’s why Kim and Blake make you jealous. It’s why for the last two years you have started to withdraw from them. You’re giving up the only two people you love because they have what you want so badly that seeing it every day makes you miserable.”

  I just stood there and glared at him, not confirming or denying anything he said. Why should I? I couldn’t help but notice that, while he kept on and on about this mysterious ‘somebody’ I wanted and needed, he wasn’t applying for the job. What did he care, then, if I was emotionally unavailable? As far as I was concerned, it was none of his damn business.

  “Bravo, Dr. Phil,” I sneered, furious that he had figured me out so easily. “Your analysis of my psyche has left me stunned. So you figured out all my deep, dark secrets. What now, Doc? Please tell me it’s my turn. And if it is, you’d better get comfortable. Psychoanalyzing your arrogant ass will probably take me the rest of the week.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said, smiling down at me like I was the cutest thing he’
d ever seen. I suddenly wanted to claw his eyes out. “You use that mouth of yours to keep people at a distance. I scare you. Therefore, you want to keep me so far away from you that you won’t have to chance someone chipping away at your armor. What you don’t realize is that it’s too late.

  “It was my kisses you craved in your dreams, dreams of another time and place that you’ve never known but that I know very well,” he murmured, caressing my cheek. “It was me holding you close. And you didn’t want to wake up, did you, Ember? You’re the one who’s so big on truth, so try telling it for once. If you don’t care, why did you want to stay there, in your dreams, with me?”

  I slapped his hand away and glared up at him. I had to give it to him, he was good. If it had been anyone other than me he’d just fed that load of crap to, they probably would have fallen into his arms and declared their undying love for him. But I had seen the dark side, the side of him that was cold and cruel and knew just where to stick the dagger to inflict the most pain when he didn’t get what he wanted.

  “It was a dream, Nathan, nothing more,” I said, coldly. He was so good at throwing all my flaws in my face, maybe it was time for me to give him a dose of his own medicine. “For all I know, you planted them with that auditory Jedi mind trick you do, then sat back and laughed yourself sick all night. Yeah, that sounds like something you’d do. It was probably really easy for you, too, now that I have this nice cattle brand on my neck, huh?”

  He flinched and a shadow of sadness crossed his eyes…and I’ll be damned if I didn’t actually feel bad for what I’d said. He hadn’t had a bit of problem tearing my character apart, but I actually felt really bad for hurting his feelings. Because, deep down, I knew it wasn’t true. He hadn’t made me have those dreams and I knew it. He could have, I have no doubt about that, but he hadn’t.

  I had dreamed of him because my subconscious could admit that I felt something for him that my conscious mind rebelled against at every turn. I had dreamed of his arms around me, because I wanted him to hold me. I had dreamed of his kisses because they were the only ones I wanted to taste.

  And I had dreamed I was someone else, someone prettier and more elegant, because I wasn’t what he wanted.

  “Where was your hand when you woke up, Ember?” he asked quietly. There was a gleam of victory in his eyes, and I felt a sick feeling of dread wash through me.

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Just answer the question,” he countered. “If it doesn’t make any difference, you shouldn’t have any problem answering me, right?

  “It was on your chest,” I grumbled as my cheeks got warm again at the memory. “So what? I’ve already apologized, so if you’re fishing for another one you’re shit out of luck.”

  “Where, precisely, on my chest?” he asked, smiling slightly as he started to back away.

  “You know, you’d be damn near perfect if you were only a mute,” I grumbled, refusing to answer the question. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get ready to go and carry on with our journey to the unknown. The sooner I get rid of you, the better. Wait! Finally! Something we agree on! Isn’t that exactly what you said about me last night?”

  “Your hand was over my heart, Em,” he said softly, answering the question I had declined to give an answer to. “Now, ask yourself one question, and I want you to really think about it before you smart off again. Were those your dreams…or were they mine?”

  I gaped at him with my mouth wide open, making him laugh again. With a wink, he threw himself back onto the bed and reached for the remote. When I just stood there, he made a shooing motion toward the bathroom door.

  “Weren’t you planning on taking a shower?” he asked, grinning devilishly, when I still didn’t move. “I was under the impression you were planning on…how did you put it? Oh, that’s right. Washing me off of you?”

  Not bothering to dignify that with a response, I walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind me. I couldn’t shake the possibility he had planted in my mind that I had been having his dreams as I tried to scrub my skin off in an effort to remove any and all traces of him from it. By the time I was rinsing the smell of him out of my hair, I had to admit that I wasn’t sure whose dreams I had been having. I had been touching him, and I grudgingly admitted there was a possibility my dreams hadn’t been mine.

  I felt tears burn the back of my eyes at the admission, though, because I also had to look at the alternative. Maybe he had made me have those dreams. Maybe it had just been another play for him, making me feel something for him in my dreams I wasn’t going to let myself feel when I was awake.

  He was a mind reader. He could make people stand on their heads and sing the national anthem with only his voice. How hard would it have been to do that to me while I was unconscious?

  Blinking away tears at the thought, I jerked on my clothes from the day before feeling like I was putting on a prison uniform. That feeling only intensified as I stared at the mark he had given me in the mirror. .

  When I slammed out of the bathroom, Nathan was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a steaming hot cup of coffee sitting on the table by the bed, filling the room with the delicious scent of caffeine-fueled courage, and next to it was a small bag with a dancing cupcake on the front. There were also several shopping bags on the bed.

  I gave the coffee a wary look—wondering what he might have drugged it with. But, after smelling the heavenly aroma of it for ten minutes, I decided I would take the chance he had drugged the Grande-sized cup for a tiny taste. It was just the way I liked it—coffee-flavored chocolate milk, basically, with more sugar and cream than actual coffee and just a hint of caramel.

  When I didn’t start to feel all fuzzy or disoriented in any way, I decided I’d give him the benefit of the doubt on the whole drugging thing and turned to the bags on the bed with a little more interest. He had bought me enough clothes to last me at least two weeks. Somehow, I didn’t think that was a good sign. I blushed when I pulled a mass of lace out of a pale pink bag and saw that it was new underwear and bras and the kind of nightgowns that I wouldn’t wear in front of him if he paid me. There were also jeans and sweaters and t-shirts—and some really pretty scarves to keep my mark hidden from the general public.

  The last bag I went through gave me chills. I dumped it on the bed and went through it piece by piece, starting to feel like I was missing something very important. The hair brush was the same brush that was on my sink at home. He’d managed to pick up the very gel and mousse I used to tame the mess I call hair. He’d gotten my shampoo and conditioner. He’d even bought my favorite brand of shower gel. My new toothbrush was the same color and brand as the one I used every single morning and night. The deodorant he had picked up for me was my brand and my scent.

  I picked up the mineral make-up that was the only kind I would even use and held it in my hand, turning it over and over as I started to tremble. There was no way he had gotten all of that by coincidence. I tried to think if I had thought about my shampoo or toothbrush the night before, but I knew I hadn’t. I had been too busy trying to form an escape plan…and then too busy trying not to pee myself when my escape plan failed. Yeah, thoughts of your favorite brand of make-up and the scent of your deodorant don’t exactly come up at time like that.

  Just how long had he been stalking me?

  I might have been creeped out by the things he’d brought me, but it didn’t stop me from taking advantage of them. By the time Nathan decided to join me again, carrying two more cups of coffee in a holder for the road, I was dressed in a new pair of jeans and a long-sleeved gray t-shirt that flattered my overabundant curves with my hair and make-up perfectly done.

  “You didn’t eat,” he noted, frowning and waving his hand at the cute little cartoon cupcake on the bag he had left for me.

  “I wasn’t hungry.” I shrugged, taking another sip of my coffee.

  “Em, you haven’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours,” Nathan said, walking over
to the table and emptying the contents of the bag.

  I glanced at it and added another bizarre Ember fact to the list he seemed to have compiled. It was my favorite diet cheat, a donut with sprinkles. I looked closer at it and felt another little chill. The blue, green, and yellow sprinkles were exactly where they were supposed to be, but I could see the little indents in the icing where the red ones had been. Only Kim and Blake knew I did that. I had always done it, just a weird little quirk I had, but there was no way Nathan should have known that.

  “Stalk much?” I asked without looking at him.

  “Stalking implies intent to harm,” he replied, holding out the donut again. “I like to think of it as gathering information.”

  I just shook my head at the donut, too creeped out to comment, and turned back to the uninteresting view and the coffee filling the void where food should have been in my stomach. With a deep sigh, Nathan walked over to stand next to me and propped himself up on the window ledge, facing me rather than the view, with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “You don’t eat anything red.” He said it so casually that I arched an eyebrow at him. Yeah, because it’s normal to know everything about someone you don’t know. Uh-huh. Right. “You don’t eat pizza unless they make it without the sauce. You won’t touch spaghetti. You won’t even eat strawberries. I removed the sprinkles because I thought you would appreciate the gesture.”

  “And the coffee?” I asked, shaking my cup at him for emphasis.

  “You order the same thing every morning from the Coffee Bean on the way to school,” he said, shrugging. “I charmed the little old lady who runs the place into giving me the exact recipe she uses. She thought it was sweet that your boyfriend wanted to make you coffee.”

  “You told Mrs. Stella you were my boyfriend?” I squeaked, my eyes going round. “And she believed you?”

  “Oh, I can be very convincing when I want to be,” he explained with a sexy little smirk. “Truth be told, she looked thrilled. Said it was a shame that a pretty girl like you was always alone.”