by AJ Myers
Something I hadn’t even known was broken repaired itself inside me, and I was finally whole and complete. He was right; I was never going to get over him. It was always going to be him because no one else was ever going to measure up. With that one kiss, he completely and totally ruined me for everyone else on the planet.
And I hated him for it.
When he finally drew away from me I was flushed and breathing raggedly from a potent mixture of desire and anger. Seemingly by itself, my hand flew up and a loud crack echoed around the dark garden as it made contact with flesh. For a second Nathan looked at me with something between surprise and admiration, then infuriated me further by laughing softly.
“Well, that was one way to react,” he said, arrogance dripping from every word. “It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but at least it was something.”
“Let. Me. Go.” I growled through clenched teeth. The look I was giving him was hot enough to melt steel—and not in an I-want-to-throw-you-on-the-nearest-bed-and-have-my-wicked-way-with-you kind of way, either. When he only held me tighter, I practically snarled, “Now, Nathan, or my next target will be much, much, lower.”
He released me and took a few steps back with his hands held up in a gesture of surrender. I turned on my heel and marched away with as much dignity as I could. When I heard him laugh again, I had to stop myself from going back and slapping him again. I was glad he could see something worth laughing about, because I sure as hell didn’t.
Grams was sitting at the battered old kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle when I burst through the door and slammed it hard enough to crack one of the glass panes. She didn’t even look up, merely waved her hand toward the door. I turned to look and watched in amazement as the glass repaired itself seamlessly, leaving no trace that it had ever been damaged. Even in my furious state I couldn’t deny how incredible that was.
“I’m going home,” I said, turning to face her with my anger returning full force. “Tonight, Grams.”
“Go ahead,” she said, shrugging. She looked up from her puzzle and gave me a long, assessing look. I could have sworn her lips twitched before she said, “It won’t do you any good to run, though. Even if he didn’t follow you, and he will, eventually you would find him.”
“Yeah? I think not,” I grumbled. I was almost to the hall when her voice stopped me cold.
“You have no choice, Ember. It’s fated. Fight it and you’ll be sorry.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response. Fate was what had doomed me and Nathan from the very start. He wasn’t fated to be mine. He was fated for his soul mate, that mysterious girl I was starting to hate on principle.
I left the kitchen and ran up the stairs two at a time. I gathered my things quickly and shoved them into a carry-on I found stored in the closet, trying to forget how Nathan’s arms had felt around me and how amazing that kiss had been. In less than five minutes I was running back down the stairs.
“I’m gone, Grams!” I yelled out as a farewell. “Tell Nathan I’ll leave his car in the parking lot!”
If she had any more ridiculous advice for me, I didn’t hear it. I slammed the door on my way out and had to force myself not to sprint to the car. Before I could reach it, though, Nathan was standing in front of me. The gleam of determination in his eyes was enough to have me backing up quick, fast and in a hurry. I had barely taken two steps when Nathan’s arms wrapped around me like a boa constrictor on steroids. When he spoke, his voice held a hard edge to it that sent me into panic mode.
“I tried it the easy way,” he said, lifting me clean off my feet and throwing me over his shoulder before heading to the car. “Now, we’re going to do it my way.”
“Let me go!” I howled, wiggling like mad and getting nowhere fast.
“That would be a no,” he grumbled, not even slowing down. “I’m getting you out of here for your own good.”
“I was getting out of here!” I yelled, beating on his back in a totally useless attempt to get him to put me down. “Damn it Nathan! Put me down! I don’t want to go to Goat Chalet, France or wherever the hell you’re taking me! I. Want. To. Go. Home!”
My screech had barely faded away when I felt a virtual tidal wave of power flow through me, making me light-headed. A tight, compressing feeling made me feel like I was being forced through a straw. The world blurred around me in a whirlwind of color like I had just caught a ride on the ultimate Tilt-A-Whirl. My stomach seized up painfully. I closed my eyes, praying I wouldn’t throw up all over the man holding me hostage.
It was a course of action it only took me a second to regret.
Suddenly, I hit the ground with a thud hard enough to knock the air out of me. For a second, I just laid there and moaned. I mean, I know I had told him to let me go, but damn! He could have been a little gentler about it. Still groaning like a little old lady, I lifted my head to glare at him and my mouth fell open, nearly hitting the ground.
“What the hell?!” I muttered as I stared up at the house before me, sure I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. It was another dream or vision or whatever, it had to be.
A dream or a vision that looked a whole lot like my house.
It was perfect right down to the last detail. The two story structure was painted a bright, clean, white with contrasting lavender trim, with landscaped lawns and big old trees that had probably been there since the beginning of time. It was pretty and pleasant and hid very well how dysfunctional my family actually was.
And yet, as perfect a reproduction as it was, whatever was showing it to me had gotten one very important detail wrong. My parents. For the first time in longer than I could remember, both of my parents’ cars were in the garage.
“You screwed up, Jack,” I grumbled, getting to my feet and brushing off the grass and dirt I had picked up during my oh-so-graceful faceplant in the front yard. Looking around, I peered into the darkness in search of my nemesis. “So, where are you, you prick? Waiting somewhere in the shadows for me to walk into another ring of fire?”
When he didn’t jump out from behind the closest tree and try to kill me again, I frowned. I waited to feel that creepy sensation I had felt when I’d ended up tied to a tree center stage, but it didn’t come. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn I was really home. But that wasn’t possible, was it?
Knowing there was only one way to find out, I took a hesitant step toward the front door. I thought I saw movement behind the curtains and immediately froze in place. What if I was just walking into another one of Jack’s traps? What if I walked in and the whole place was in flames? Just the thought of that scenario was enough to cause my pulse to jump into a sprint.
“But, if he’s in there I can get this over with,” I told myself, trying to psych myself up to take another step.
I wrapped my hand around my cross, feeling that instant wash of peace flow through me. It gave me the strength to walk forward again and I didn’t waste any time, afraid the effect would wear off before I could make it to the house. I gave myself a mental pat on the back when I reached the front door and then fished around under the mat for the spare key. The house was quiet when I entered and I took a deep breath in relief and let the door swing closed behind me.
The second it clicked shut, my mother’s lithe, lovely form appeared at the doorway to the living room. Camille Blaylock was perfection at its best, even barefoot and in lounge pants and a tank top. She was tall and slim, genes she obviously hadn’t passed on to me. Her long blonde hair was always stylish and perfect. She had made an art of letting people see whatever emotion she wanted them to see in her ice blue eyes.
I knew her better than most people, though, and she had quit trying to fool me a long time ago. Kim and I had nicknamed her the Ice Queen when we were eleven and the name had fit so well that we never changed it. She really was made of ice.
She stood there staring at me, a glass of wine in one perfectly manicured hand. I stared back, suddenly sure I wasn’t stuck in a vision created by
some monster. No monster would have known to add that little hint of disdain to my mother’s expression.
The girl I had been five days before would have been frantically trying to come up with a plausible reason for her disappearing act, but I wasn’t that girl anymore. Finding out my mother had let me suffer all those years in silence without trying to help me had changed me, hardened me. All those years I had tried to be perfect so she would love me had been a waste of time. It was about time she started accepting the daughter she had.
And if she couldn’t…well, I would cross that bridge when I got to it.
“Shea called. Did you enjoy your trip?” she asked frostily, as her eyes narrowed to slits. “I hope so, Ember, because it was your last.”
“You forgot again, didn’t you? I’m eighteen, Mother. By law that pretty much means I can go anywhere I please.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I returned her scowl, refusing to back down. “How long did it take you to figure out I was gone, anyway, Mom? Or was it Grams’ call that clued you in to the fact that your daughter was missing?”
“Ember, that’s enough.” I turned away from the murderous look on my mother’s face, slowly, to see my father coming down the hall from the kitchen. He was wiping his hands on a dishtowel and he looked tired and sad. “Don’t talk to your mother that way. Now, please, tell us what is going on here. We came home five days ago to find your car in the driveway, your purse and phone on the counter and blood all over the kitchen. We thought you were dead!”
“Were you worried?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Of course we were,” he said, giving me a strange look. “We called the hospitals and your friends and everyone we could think of who might have seen you.”
“And did Mom help you with that?” I asked, turning back to my mother and the cold glare she still had leveled at me.
“She was distraught,” my father said weakly, looking between my mother and I with an expression that said very clearly that he was waiting for one of us to blow up like a nuclear bomb.
“And yet, there were no police reports filed and no stories in the newspaper.” Nathan and Grams had both checked. “Was that your choice, Dad, or was it Mom’s?” He opened his mouth to answer, but I held up my hand to stop him. “Never mind. You don’t have to answer that. I already know.
“Of course, it’s understandable when a woman doesn’t freak out when her child comes up missing, right?” I continued, smiling maliciously. My mother had paled visibly and I could see her almost willing me to shut up. “But you know what I think, Dad? I think Mom knew I was okay, because Mom knows what I am. She’s always known. But, I guess there’s a lot about Mom you don’t know, huh? Like the fact that her mother is a blood witch…and so is your daughter.”
For a second, nobody said a word. I could feel the anger in my mother’s gaze burning me from across the hall, but I didn’t cower under it like I once would have. I was never going to do that again. When I thought of all the years she could have helped me and ignored me instead, I just wanted to throw something at her. She was lucky I wasn’t doing exactly that.
“Camille?” my father finally said, as calm and unruffled as always.
I just stared at him in shock. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he hear me? The word ‘witch’ should have set off warning bells in that shrink’s brain of his loud enough to cause an aneurysm. At the very least, he should have been mentally listing all the meds he was about to prescribe for his delusional child. Instead, he was acting like I had just told him grass is green.
“I should have left you there with her,” my mother hissed, advancing on me with a look of pure hatred in her eyes. “You two deserve each other. My own daughter, a freak! I’m just so proud!”
“Camille! Stop it!”
My father stepped in and took her arm before she actually reached me, his expression a mask of shock and horror, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. Her hateful words had cut deep. She couldn’t have hurt me more if she had actually hit me. So, that was why she had ignored me most of my life, had made a point to be anywhere but where I was. She was ashamed of me and some small part of me had always known it.
I started backing toward the stairs as something inside me died. Knowing my mother hated me, really seeing it for the first time, shattered me in a way that I never could have prepared myself for. I was on the second step when her frosty voice stopped me cold.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To pack!” I spat, turning on her with a lifetime of suppressed anger and hurt. “I’m not going to spend one more night where I’m not wanted. You want to pretend you don’t have a daughter? Well, now you don’t.”
I heard my father call me back as I ran up the stairs, but I just kept going. I went straight to my closet and dug through the mess there until I found my suitcase and carry-on bag hidden under a pile of clothes. When I heard footsteps on the stairs, I ran back to my door and slammed it and locked it—and then shoved my dresser in front of it when I remembered that my mother had one of those keys that unlocked every bedroom door in the house. When the doorknob began to jiggle, I backed away, giving it a wary look.
“Please let me in, Ember,” my father called softly through the door. “Honey, she didn’t mean that, any of it. She’s angry and she’s been so worried about you the last couple of days.”
“She meant every word, Dad, and you know it,” I yelled back, throwing my suitcase on the bed and beginning to fling things into it at random. “And if she’s been worried about anything it’s that I was about to come home and her lie of a life was going to be revealed for what it was.”
He didn’t say anything else, and I continued to pack with a heavy heart. Was that it, then? Was that his big plea for his daughter to stay? God, my parents sucked. My mother hated me, and my father just didn’t care. Wasn’t I just the luckiest girl in the world?
I finished packing the suitcase, zipped it closed, and took the carry-on into the bathroom. I jammed everything I could see into the bag angrily. Once I was pretty sure I had everything I might need, I emptied my jewelry box into the travel case I finally found shoved under my bed and added it to the bag before I zipped it up.
Just as I was getting ready to make my final exit, I took one last look at the room. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was different. The pink-striped wallpaper I had outgrown but never changed suddenly looked sad and faded. The battered stuffed animals on the window seat were depressing reminders of a childhood I’d never actually had. The pictures taped to the mirror seemed to belong to someone else, someone who didn’t really exist.
I should have been sad, right? Weren’t you supposed to be sad when you finally left home? But I wasn’t. There were no happy memories to leave behind, no tearful farewell waiting as I walked out. All I felt as I looked at the room around me was relief.
That room belonged to the ghost of a sad little girl with too much hair and eyes that were too big for her face. A little girl who had tried to be perfect and failed over and over. A child who kept her fears and hurt close to her heart and put on a happy face for everyone else to see.
And it was time for her to move on.
Without even a backward glance, I pushed the dresser aside, shoved my phone in my back pocket, and picked up my bags and my purse before unlocking the door. And there, sitting against the wall across from me, was my father.
I felt tears building behind my lids but blinked them away. My father had never been any more attentive than my mother, but I had always thought that maybe he loved me. He was just one of those people who became absorbed in something to the point that nothing else existed.
“You wouldn’t let me in,” he said, shrugging. “My only option was to wait for you to come out.”
My father still looked so young. The only indication that he was pushing fifty was the dashes of gray in his dark, unruly hair. He was still trim and fit and had only the bare minimum of laugh lines. He was handsome and kind a
nd gentle, even if he did have the parental capacity of a teaspoon. What on earth had he ever seen in my mother, the Ice Queen?
“Where are you going to go, baby girl?” he asked, his deep voice soft and calm. “What about school, your friends? There’s only a few months left of your senior year. Surely you can wait until then.”
“No, Dad, I can’t.” I closed my eyes against the stricken look on his face. “I’m not going to spend another night under her roof. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I’ll stay with Kim or something.”
“I can’t just let you go, Em,” he said, sighing and getting to his feet.
“I wasn’t giving you a choice.” I hitched the strap of my suitcase higher on my shoulder and prepared for battle. “I’m an adult and you can’t make me stay here.”
He gazed at me for a long moment, then held out his hand. “Give me your car keys and your credit card.”
“You gave me that car as a gift,” I reminded him, sure he couldn’t be serious.
“A gift I’m still paying for,” he countered, looking tired and sad.
I stared at him for a second, my stomach tying in knots, still unable to make myself believe my own father was going to screw me like that. When he just continued to hold his hand out, though, I dug around in my purse until I found my wallet and slapped the plastic into his outstretched palm, then did the same with my keys. If he thought being penniless and without a car would keep me there, he was insane. I would walk all the way back to Grams’ if I had to, and I still had the trust fund Grandpa Albert had left me when he died which had come under my control when I turned eighteen. I would be fine.
“And your phone.”
Now, that was low. The look I gave him was positively glacial. Reaching into my back pocket with difficulty, I extracted my phone and flung it at him.
“Happy now?”
“Not even remotely,” he muttered.
His face fell when I picked up the bags I had dropped during the purge of all my worldly goods. He really had thought that would make me stay. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as I had always thought he was, after all.