I squirmed as the brick pressed into my back where he’d pinned me against the wall.
I’d assumed they believed I’d died after they killed Destiny.
Apparently not.
His warm breath caressed my face. I turned away, pressing my cheek against the cold stone of the building. The wall cutting into my skin kept me bound to a tenuous grasp on reality. If he tried to lure me into another hypnotic trance, I was dead.
My nerves wound tight as thoughts of Destiny’s death slunk out of the corner of my mind where I’d stashed them and poured over my awareness.
I pulled but couldn’t budge my wrists from his grasp. “Let me go. I wasn’t doing anything. I was just—”
“Don’t.” He let the word roll out. “Don’t try and play me for a fool. You were following me.” He glanced over his shoulder as a piece of trash escaped from the overflowing Dumpster and blew by. “Into an empty alley, no less.” His eyes ran over me from head to toe. “You’re a brave little thing. You’re fortunate it was me, or you might not have been so lucky.” He ran his tongue up my neck and then stepped back to release me.
I stumbled and tried to pretend I’d lost my balance and not that I’d weakened from the effect of his tongue. As my legs lost their strength, I grabbed the Dumpster so I didn’t crumple to the ground. When I straightened to face him, ignoring the tingle running through my body, I avoided looking directly into his eyes.
That was too painful, like looking at the sun. But before I turned away, he couldn’t hide the hurt underlying the anger in his eyes.
“You actually think it was me, don’t you?” Griffith took a step closer, his shadow looming over me.
I bit my lower lip. “I…” My voice trailed away as I struggled with how to respond. I studied the trash cluttering the alley, as if it had the answer to my doubt. Anything was easier than looking at him.
“I don’t know what to think.” Nor did I know what I’d planned to do when I’d set off intent to find him.
“Look at me.” He cupped my chin and turned my head toward him. As he bent down, his lips were directly in view. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see them—full and lush and begging to be kissed, or ready to spew more lies, luring me to my death.
“Do you think I killed Destiny?”
I tried to turn my head, but Griffith wouldn’t relinquish my chin. I didn’t want to think he killed my sister, but what if he did? His father was a killer. A rapist. Who’s to say he hadn’t been playing me along the entire time? Although his father could also be Chance’s father. Sweet Chance who didn’t seem capable of hurting a fly.
But if Griffith had lured my sister to her death thinking she was me…
As I squeezed my eyes to block out the thought, a tear escaped. I was more upset that he saw me in this weakened state, than the fact that I’d walked into the perfect place for him to easily kill me and dispose of my body.
“Do you think I killed Destiny?” he repeated with more force.
I looked into his face. The sparkling gray lights danced around his head. They could easily gather and fill my body with dread and hopelessness, but I wasn’t afraid, because I didn’t see that—I just saw Griffith, and he was beautiful.
I didn’t fear him. “No.”
He studied my face and must have been satisfied with my response, because some of the tension faded from his jaw.
“You say you’ve dreamt of me?” I asked the question that haunted me.
He nodded, his hair brushing the top of mine as he bent over me.
“Why? What do you dream? Tell me what it means,” I said.
He spoke in clipped words. “There are two dreams. Very similar, but not the same, as each ends differently. They are from Hecate to bring us together. To our…fate.” He fell silent.
“How? Tell me how it ends.” I averted my gaze, watching a crow picking through the trash trapped in the corner after being ushered there by the wind.
“In one dream I find it is my destiny to be with you.” He fell silent.
As the silence dragged on, I looked back to him. “And the other?”
“In the other…I kill you.”
Reaching behind his neck, I slid my fingers into the hair curling at the base of his skull. His eyes fell shut, and his mouth gaped slightly as his shoulders relaxed. I pulled him toward me and kissed him.
He tensed in surprise and then reached around my waist. Bracing against the wall with his other hand as he leaned into me, devouring my mouth like it was his last meal, his body molded against mine as the kiss deepened. I circled the small of his back with my hand and slid it up under his shirt to touch the warmth of his skin.
I pressed forward for more as Griffith pulled back. “How do you know you can trust me, when I don’t trust myself? How do you know the dream will end with us together?” His eyes sought mine for the answer.
“I don’t,” I said.
“Hecate no longer has faith in you.”
“Fuck that bitch.” I moved toward him.
“Are you all right, miss?” The man stood at the opening of the alley, shifting in his loafers, as if he’d suddenly found them too small. Clutching a briefcase in one hand that he swung back and forth.
Griffith pushed me behind him as he tensed into a fighter’s stance.
Briefcase man leaned back, as if struggling to do the right thing, but hoping the force of gravity would pull him away from the alley and this situation.
“I’m fine, thank you.” I waved him off. His face sagged with relief as he hurried down the street. At least a few people were still unwilling to turn a blind eye in this town.
“Are you?” Griffith said.
“Am I what?” I ran my hand through my hair and thought of Chance as I did, feeling a pang of guilt for leaving him alone at the house.
“Are you…fine?” Griffith slid his hand down my arm and took my hand.
“I don’t know.” I studied his hand clasped with mine. The warmth of his flesh felt nice. It wasn’t often I could touch someone for the comfort of it. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Okay.”
I pulled Griffith along out of the alley, anxious to be away from the filth. “Where were you going?”
His step lingered behind mine, despite having legs twice the length.
He scanned the alley with a wary eye as we approached the street. “To work.”
“That’s not the way to the liquor store.” Even with my limited sense of direction, I knew the store was the other way.
Griffith stopped short before I stepped out onto the sidewalk, and I sprang back a few inches at his resistance. I turned, and he stared down at me. “Hope, you’re going to have to accept there are things I can’t tell you. It’s for your own good, if not your safety.”
I opened my mouth to protest, and he held up his hand.
“If you do trust me like you say you do, then you’ll have to accept that. I’ll tell you what I can and only when the information is needed. It’s best that way,” Griffith said.
“Who killed my sister?”
“You mean what. What killed your sister?”
“I don’t understand. It was Drake, wasn’t it? Is that who you’re going to see? Or are you saying it wasn’t an Oppressor? Or it’s a lower level one.” I shrugged. “Well, that’s what Chance and…”
Her name lodged in my throat. I swallowed once, hard. “What we call them. I don’t know if it’s the right term. That book of yours didn’t let me see much, not that it had all the answers or anything.” I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop.
Griffith pulled me back farther into the alley.
“What?” I lowered my voice. “Are you afraid of someone hearing me?”
Another thought struck me. “Wait, or is it me?” I giggled as my hysteria rose. Griffith looked at me with concern. “Don’t worry, this wouldn’t be my first date ending awkwardly, and then I wasn’t dealing with potential desperation or death of the human race.”
I took in the deserted alley, wondering if this would be the last thing I’d see. My mind was swirling, the past and the present all mixed up into one big cluster-fuck mess leading up to today.
“Hope.” Griffith grasped my shoulders and shook me so my mouth clapped shut. “I didn’t realize you were going to fit your life story into one minute. Calm yourself.”
I took a step back. “Calm myself? I think I’ve maintained pretty well. Considering, since I arrived here, I’ve found out I have some kind of magical obligation.” I made air quotes with my fingers.
“Have had several creatures try to kill me, been kidnapped, by my own brother—I might add. Dead people keep turning up in mirrors and talking in my mind. Plus my sister was murdered—”
Griffith’s mouth closing over mine stopped my protests. All my anger and tension evaporated as I melted into him. His arms encircled me, and he pressed me against him.
“You aren’t going to be happy until you get rid of all of us, are you, half-breed?” Chance said.
Griffith pushed me aside. I hit the pavement moments before Chance barreled into him. Griffith stumbled back a few feet, but easily maintained his ground. The advantage he had with physical strength matched Chance’s fury.
“You bastard.” Chance’s fists pummeled Griffith’s chest until Griffith restrained them. Chance came at him with a head butt. “If you were a real man, you’d have come for me first instead of going after my sisters. But then again, you aren’t a real man, are you? You’re an animal, just like your father.”
The mist around Griffith intensified and grew. The shimmer surrounding him turned black, casting the alley into a dusk of fog.
“Chance, Griffith, stop it,” I said.
Chance’s crazed, grief-stricken face sought mine from the chokehold Griffith had on him. He pulled at Griffith’s forearm. “How could you go to him? He killed Destiny. How could you? You didn’t even care about her, did you? You’re probably glad she’s dead.”
His lips twisted into a snarl, and his eyes narrowed. “Just so she doesn’t take away from your spotlight.”
I stopped short, as Chance’s words penetrated more deeply than I realized were possible. “I…how…how could you say that?” He made me sound so cold, heartless. It had to be his grief talking. Chance couldn’t think this of me. Could he?
“Shut up.” Griffith pushed Chance to the ground. “Don’t talk about Hope that way. Can’t you see you’re hurting her?”
My mouth gaped as I looked at Griffith. I’d never had a man, or anyone but Tessa, speak up for me like that.
Chance sprung up with unnatural energy. “Like what you’re going to do isn’t going to hurt her one way or the other?” Chance stalked around Griffith like a predator. “Or kill her?”
Chance sprang at Griffith, who batted him away like a fly. Chance crashed into the brick wall and crumpled to the ground.
“Chance.” I scuttled across the alley to him and brushed aside the litter he lay in. I grabbed his shoulders, but he slumped to the side. I glared at Griffith. “How could you do this to him?” Tears streamed down my face as I pulled Chance’s lifeless form to me. “I’m sorry, Chance.”
“It’s not him,” Griffith said.
“It’s still him. He didn’t mean what he said. It was his grief talking.”
“No. That’s not him. Look at him.” Griffith pointed.
The weight of Chance’s body began to dissipate in my arms, as if dissolving. “What?” As his feather-light form slid to the side, I noticed a tear in the side of his pants and pulled at it. Where his birthmark should be, there was nothing.
It was a clone.
“He’s right, that wasn’t me.” Chance stumbled into the alley, using the wall for support from the toll of the cloning. “But I’m here now.” He glared at Griffith.
“To finish what I started.” His words slurred with the effort.
The air rippled between Griffith and Chance. It looked as if a small tear opened and snakes of blackness poured out. The blackness twisted and turned throughout the alley until it overtook the dusky gray Griffith had created. The blackness gathered taking on a human-like form.
“Well, well, well, isn’t this the family reunion.” Drake held his arms out. “All one big happy family.”
Chance stumbled away, but Drake’s arm shot out with the speed of a cannon ball and grabbed Chance, yanking him toward him. Chance skittered across the alley, unable to stop Drake’s pull.
Drake held Chance aloft, dragging him with the tips of his toes scraping across the ground until Drake held him close to his face. The black smog accompanying Drake encompassed Chance and pursued entry into every orifice. Chance’s eyes rolled back into his head.
Drake’s eyes sought mine through the filth surrounding him. “Want this to be your first kill?” He shook Chance, who flopped like a rag doll. “Come on, I know you want to. He’s been nothing but a pain in your ass, raining on your parade. You can’t help it, you’re better than him.” He smiled and raised his brows. “Better at being bad, that is.”
He shrugged. “Not your fault. It’s in your blood.”
Griffith glared at Drake. “Leave them out of this Drake. This is between us.”
Drake smirked. “Haven’t you told her yet? That it was supposed to be you that killed her all those years ago?”
I turned to Griffith, but his focus didn’t leave Drake. Part of me had already suspected that. That’s why I believed him, now. Because he could’ve easily killed me the day I left the orphanage, but he chose to save me.
I only hoped he’d make the same choice again.
“I had to do your dirty work even then, but this time I’m going to finish it. Because you’ve proven being a Splice isn’t more useful, than not…” Drake flicked his finger. A black mass shot out and encapsulated a bird picking through the trash and the bird fell over, dead. “Than not existing.”
“She knows what I am.” Griffith scowled at Drake.
While Drake was distracted, I struggled to stand, but the movement brought his attention back to me.
“Don’t worry, Red, you won’t have to choose between your brother and your lover.” The last word oozed out of his mouth as his tongue rolled out and a red saliva-like substance dripped from it. But it wasn’t saliva. It was blood. “I will.”
Drake swung an arm toward me as if volleying a ball. A mass of black abyss like nothing I’d ever seen barreled toward me. I dropped and rolled to the side as the pocket of despair hit the brick wall, shattering into an oily mess, and slithered down. I crab-walked away as fast as I could, grimacing in disgust.
“Let him go.” Griffith lowered his voice to an ominous tone as he stalked Drake.
Drake spun toward Griffith, his streaked hair flying across his face and clinging briefly to one pointed tooth. “Or what?” He cocked his head to the side. “You gonna do something to your brother?” He looked toward Chance then Griffith.
“Yes.” Griffith stopped in front of him, his hands balled at his sides, clenching and unclenching.
“Which one?” He inclined his head toward Chance. “The one who’s a half-breed, like you? Or Dad’s favorite?” His thin lips pulled back into what was intended to be a smile, but made him look more like the ghoul he was. “I can finish what our father started and gain the rightful place beside our Queen.”
“I only have one brother.” Griffith met Drake’s glare with one of his own.
The iridescent haze accompanying Griffith darkened and grew until it became a deep black making only the whites of his eyes and a faint outline of him visible. I cringed back as the weight of the air became heavy with hate. Drake opened his hand, and Chance slid to the ground in a heap.
I crawled toward him, trying to stay below the black cloud of despair and oppression whispering in my ear. It called me to its depths, told me the fruitlessness of my efforts, and tried to convince me how it wasn’t worth it. I pushed it back with all my might, holding out hope for Chance e
ven as the despair whispered back the painful words Chance had said.
Griffith opened his arms, as if to embrace Drake.
Drake took a step toward him, his head cocked to the side. “It can be like before, brother. I’ve taken care of one of them. Now we can take care of the other two.” Drake gestured toward us.
“Destiny,” I whispered, as what he’d said registered.
“Nothing,” Drake said, without taking his gaze from Griffith. “She was nothing, just a pretty little plaything that loved my attention. I guess it’d been a long time since she had attention from a man.”
Drake stopped in front of Griffith’s outstretched arms and looked at me. “Like I said, I do love a redhead. I must’ve inherited that from Dad. Your mother was a redhead, wasn’t she?” He smirked then turned back to Griffith. “You like the gingers, too, don’t you brother?”
“I told you before…I’m not your brother.” Griffith swung his arms together with such force that the air rippled with their speed, crushing together right as Drake’s eyes widened with understanding.
I’d reached Chance and threw my body on top of him.
Drake shattered like broken glass and exploded throughout the alley.
The air pulled together forming a wind tunnel. My hair beat on my face in a riot, obscuring my vision. My skin pulled tighter than any face-lift could ever achieve. I squeezed my eyes shut as bits of trash and dirt assaulted my body and face.
As the howling of the wind reached a crescendo, I cupped a hand over one of my eyes and cracked it open trying to see. The mini-tornado had gathered in the middle of the alley, drilling directly into the ground. The debris danced around, bouncing off the walls and then was sucked into the wind tunnel. The sound of a giant drain emptying echoed through the street, shaking the ground so violently that a large crack stemmed from the concrete and ran up the wall of the adjacent building.
Then it, or what had been Drake, was gone, leaving the pavement as broken as it had been prior to his arrival.
The sound of litter fluttering to the ground broke the silence, seeking a new place to nest until someone came along who cared enough to pick up the unwanted trash. Griffith sat looking dazed on the opposite end of the alley.
Destiny Calling Page 23