by Tara Brown
I wrap myself in a sheet from the bed and drag it down the hall.
"So what happened with that Jimmy Stratton fellow?" He asks leading me down the hall.
I gasp, "How do you know that name?"
He arches an eyebrow, "Last time we did that for the first time you weren’t a virgin. It was intense enough without it being the blooming first time."
"What time? We've never done that before obviously."
"Well, it was the same time as this. It was now, but only in a different version of now. Like an alternate world where we did it and you weren’t a virgin."
My brain hurts. I put a hand up and shuffle along the cold floor, "Dude. It's cool. You sucked. We don’t need to make excuses for it."
He sniffs, "Well I was stupendous the other time in the other world." I roll my eyes and grip the sheet. The effects of him and the weird hunger I had are wearing off. Sanity makes an attempt at creeping back into my mind. My fingers are numb from the clenching of the sheet. He opens the door to a massive bathroom. It's marble and stunning. He closes the door behind himself. Closing us in there together.
My face, that’s already bright crimson, heats up more. "What are you doing?"
He grins, "I enjoy washing you." A devious smile crosses his lips, "You enjoy it also."
I shake my head and grip the towel. "What? No. Out." I point at the door. He chuckles and walks, still completely naked and slightly hard, to the shower and turns it on. The shower is a huge walk-in. He holds his hand under the stream of water, checking the temperature. I can't help but let my eyes wander down him. His ass is incredible. I have the strangest urge to bite it.
Something is horribly wrong with me.
He reaches back and grabs my hand, dragging me into the shower. He rips the sheets from my hands and pulls me into him. He grins, "No need to get shy now Hanna."
I cover my breasts and lower my face from his. "I'm not shy. I'm just not, whatever happened in that room, that’s not me. I'm eighteen years old and still a virgin. I don’t do that. You did something to me. Those eyes and the blonde, Aimee and the ghost people. Bowler hat." My voice fades with the last few words.
"You aren’t making sense."
I shake my head against his chest. "It's the frightening experiences and my father making me come here and the overwhelming ness of it all. It’s made me act crazy. And slutty."
"That's not a word. Actually, I don't believe slutty is either."
I laugh, "This was a mistake. A fun one but a mistake nonetheless."
He grabs my shoulders and pulls me back, "Hanna, I love you. I have for years, several times, whatever the bloody hell Ari does. I honestly am not going to try to explain that again. I have loved you through it all. You make me the man I want to be."
I frown and push on his chest, "Whoa. Isn't the virgin supposed to get all needy and clingy? Stage four virgin clinger?"
He looks exasperated, "What?"
I pull out of his grip, "You know Wedding Crashers? Dude, I get that you had a wicked orgasm and that’s cool for you. You got the V-card. Congrats. But I sort of saw this as one of those 'it was nice to meet you' encounters. You don’t have to like call or anything. I'm cool with it. I can just leave when I shower up. I have friends. They'll come and get me. It's cool." I'm still clutching my hands to my chest. My face is on fire.
His face drops, "Was any of that English? You did graduate high school this time? Ari made you stupid. Dear god."
"Who? What? I gradded. Why are you being mean to me? You're the one who finished back there."
His face is stoic. "Right. Excellent. I'll just wait outside of the bathroom for you to finish." He runs his hands through his dark thick hair and over his body, then steps out of the shower. He seems annoyed. I turn my back to him.
My face is flushed and my stomach feels weird. I swear I can still smell him when he leaves the bathroom.
Something is wrong with me.
Who is Ari?
A grin crosses my lips. I lost my virginity to the sexiest man I have ever seen.
Chapter Nineteen
Aimee
The air is hot and sticky. It feels like it weighs a ton.
"Ready?"
I glance at Oliver and nod.
He takes my hand in his and pulls me through the bayou forest.
"Where are we?"
"Blackwater Bayou. It's in Louisiana. Just outside of Baton Rouge." He is calm and quiet. I don’t think he will be the same as he was until he finds the necromancer. Even then I'm worried.
His warm hand wrapped around mine is the only comfort I have. The bayou stinks with blood and magic and stale air.
He pulls me to a cabin. It's a shack with a yard littered with old jawbones and old logs in weird shapes and the skinned hides of dead animals. The grass isn't grass but weeds and sticks with what looks like mini mounds of dirt. I grip his hand tighter.
I don’t know what a necromancer does, beyond the obvious translation.
"You know I had no choice right?" I ask.
He looks back, "It's all my fault Aimee. Not yours. She pulled the darkness from me. She pulled Henry and Marcus's memory wipe. She pulled it all. I'm free and clear again. Clean slate. Like a newborn and she is dead because of it."
The guilt on his face hurts my heart. Mostly because he is fallen and they make me feel funny.
"She died saving you."
He winces, "If it ever happens to you, let me know if it makes you feel any better to be the one who's still alive."
"I'm sorry."
He squeezes, "I know. I know you wouldn’t have hurt her if you didn’t have to." He looks at me but puts a hand up to the old wooden door and knocks.
The door creaks open. I nervous giggle. "Holy snap, it's the Blair Witch Project."
He pulls me inside the old cabin. The smells hit instantly. I almost gag, but hold my nose.
A pair of white eyes greets us from the darkest far corner. I jump when I see them. Her face is dark like the wood on the walls and the shadow she sits in, but her eyes are bright and white. Like Aleks's did, they glow like a light shines out of them.
"You know you no welcome. You know he no want me to help." Her accent is thick and Cajun. Her white eyes look as if they don’t see just us, like they see the things I can't. Which is saying a lot since I can see the dead. Sometimes.
He drops to his knees, "I need you momma Holt. I need your aid."
She is peeling something, a vegetable or a root of sorts. Maybe. Maybe it's the arm of the last person who was here. I cringe. She points her knife, "Momma Holt don’t eat no people. Don’t need skins from no people."
Oliver looks back at me and mutters, "Try not to think. Her kind are always readers. Among other things."
I blank my mind and think about science and Blake and how much I miss him.
"Momma Holt don’t help, no you. No demons in my house." She mutters it.
He puts a hand forward, "I am pure. No demon."
She stabs the blade into his hand, making him wince in pain. She pulls it out and tastes the blood and spits it in the pot next to her, "That be good, pure and good. Drip some in the pot demon."
He stands and holds his closed fist over her big black cooking pot I can't help but think is a cauldron.
"Momma Holt ain't no bad juju conjurer, demon."
Oliver gives me a look.
"I meant no offense Momma Holt." I whisper. She terrifies me. I don’t think I can kill her. I blank my mind quickly as she chuckles and peels the thing in her hands.
"You need da witch back?"
Oliver nods once.
"You trade Momma Holt."
Oliver shivers, "What would you like?"
She glances at me, "Dem souls. Dem souls she gone and ate."
Oliver looks back at me. He closes his eyes. "Done."
I panic inside, quietly. I don’t know what that means but I can guess it's bad. Oliver looks desperate and his hands are clenched together. Momma Holt even looks su
rprised at his agreeing.
When he opens his eyes he looks at me long and hard and then whispers, "I'm sorry Aimee."
I'm about to die. I understand. She's going to take everything from me. She is the thing that can kill me.
Fear and terror fill me.
Oliver looks back at Momma Holt, "You raise the witch first."
She spits on her hand and puts it out to him. Oliver spits on his hand and presses it into hers. They steam and sizzling.
She nods, "We raise dat witch den."
Oliver pulls his cell and sends a text. A second later a grin crosses the old woman's face. She sniffs the air and mumbles to herself. My insides are churning and twisting. I want to run and wink and free myself but I can't. We need O. I thought we needed me too, but I realize Dorian can just make another me. I'm replaceable.
A knock at the door startles me.
I jump and look back at the old wooden door as it opens. Dorian walks in with Aleks behind him holding Ophelia's limp body.
Dorian stops mid step and looks at Oliver. "What have you done?"
Oliver shakes his head, "It was her demand. Lorri said whatever it took to get her back."
Dorian steps into his face and shouts, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
Momma Holt grabs her walking stick and slams it to the hard wooden floorboards. Her white eyes are gone. Replacing them are dark crimson eyes.
Dorian bows his head, "Forgive me Momma Holt." He says it through a clenched jaw.
Momma Holt walks to the table, "You put da witch on da tableau."
Aleks lays her down on the wooden table amongst the jars and herbs.
Momma Holt starts mixing and chanting.
I look away. I should want to watch. I should want to see it, the greatest thing I will ever see, a necromancer raising the dead. A real act of god. But I don’t. I'm frozen.
I let silent tears stream down my cheeks and stare at the wall, away from everyone else. Knowing I'm about to die, horribly, is much worse than just dying. I'm like a pig. The memory of my father and I watching the show about how pigs can smell the day they're going to die, is rolling through my mind like a dense fog. It eats up all the self-pity and sadness. My father and mother and sister are there with me. Inside of me.
Aleks grabs my hand and pulls me into him, "What's going on?" He whispers.
I shake my head. I know he'll take me away. I can't let him. "Nothing. She just is asking a lot for payment."
"What is the payment, Aimee?" His voice is rough. I wonder if he's scared like I am, even though he doesn’t know the things I do. He doesn’t know what the payment is.
I look back at Momma Holt. Where her eyes are pressed shut, there a white light is fighting to break through her sealed lids. She shakes and chants softly.
She throws her arms into the air and screams and then slams them down on Ophelia's limp body. Ophelia shoots up screaming. Oliver grabs her instantly and is gone.
"Where is he going?" I ask panicked.
Dorian refuses to look at me. I can see it. He knows. "She's being taken to a cell she can't escape from. A place where the sisters will find her and release their magic to her." His words are dead and they break my heart. He won't look. He can't. I glance at Aleks. He kisses my head.
"Brother, go help him. He will need the help. I'll stay here and help cover the bill."
Aleks grabs me and looks at me intensely, "Hurry home. We need to talk."
I swallow hard and nod. I'm fighting the tears threatening me and taking my voice.
Aleks is gone, making the air in the cabin swirl with his warmth and her stink.
"Momma Holt, I have a better deal for you."
She shakes her head, "No. You no trick Momma Holt demon." She holds out her hand that shows where she spit into her old leathered brown palm. Where the burns are still.
He offers his hand to her, "I have taken more than her. I have more to give. She is new. Few souls."
Momma Holt grabs his hand and licks it. She tastes and spit on the floor nodding and muttering, "You go home demon."
My eyes widen. "No. Dorian, don’t do this." I don’t know why but the idea of him dying is worse than anything I can imagine. "No." The tears win over. My heart is breaking.
He looks back at me, "I'm glad you don’t remember the way I acted towards you. I'm glad this is the way you remember me. I just wish it could have been different. If I ever get the chance I will show you how much Aimee. How much this cost me."
"Why were you such an ass? Everyone tells me I hated you. I feel my disgust for you. It's old. Please tell me why?" I ask through the tears and sobs.
He shakes his head, "Because I couldn’t have you. I couldn’t do that to him. He is the only real brother I've ever had. He saw you first." His voice breaks and I heave slightly.
He grabs my face and presses his lips against mine. The salt from the tears makes its way into my mouth.
Our kiss tightens as I hear the stabs of the knife into his hand. I open one eye to see her put his black bloody hand up to her mouth. She sucks and pulls.
"I love you forever." He whispers into my mouth and then he jerks away from me and looks up at the ceiling. His jaw tightens, as his eyes turn white like hers had been. He drops to the floor and slowly becomes nothing more than a pile of black feathers. There is one white feather sitting at the top of the pile.
"His love for you. You take dat one. He leave it for you." She points at the white feather. I drop to my knees. My heart is broken. "I never knew." I whisper. With trembling hands I pick the single white feather from the pile. I hold it to my chest and rock back and forth.
Momma Holt shuffles towards me. She places her hands on my head and slowly, images of me fill my own mind. My smile, my eyes glowing molten steel, my laugh, me running and fighting, me sitting reading a book in the sunlight. There are more than I can count and I remember almost none of them. The final image is me, lying in the forest, sleeping on a bed of moss. His hand comes into sight and brushes my hair from my face. I recognize the ring and his leather jacket. His hand lingers as he brushes his thumb across my lips.
"How he see you." She pulls back her hands but the memories stay rolling around in my mind. I have no words.
I want to reach in and grab every feather. I want to hold them to me tightly. "I never knew." I cry out, shaking.
I wink and I'm in the yard at Lydia's, on my knees in a sobbing ball.
I'm grabbed and held.
"What happened? Where is he? WHERE IS HE AIMEE?" Lorri rips me from the arms encircling me. She shakes me. Her face changes slightly.
I shake. I have no answers. I hold up the single white feather. She drops me to the ground. Tears fly from her eyes.
She screams, looking up at the sky and then shakes with each sob and heave. She shakes her head, "No. No. Why would he do it?"
Oliver is there, beside her, holding her. His eyes meet mine and I know how he felt. I don’t feel better with Dorian saving me. I would trade places in a heartbeat. I am unworthy of the sacrifice that was made. Only he knows the pain I'm in.
I clutch the feather.
Lorri spins looking at me with hatred, "You never even loved him back. You never even cared for him."
Sam stands in front of me, "You know as well as I do, he did it the way he wanted to. He never would have seen her dead. How was she to know how he felt?"
Aleks walks out of the house. I feel sick when I see his face. He looks around, "Where's Dorian?"
Lorri cries harder, angrier. She's gone.
Sam looks at Aleks and shakes his head, "He didn’t make it."
Aleks stops, "He's fallen, he can't die. Not unless Aimee…" He looks at me accusingly.
Sam steps towards him, "No. She didn’t."
Oliver grabs his arm, "This is my fault. I made the deal trading her life for O's. Dorian saved Aimee and took her place."
Aleks looks confused, "Why? Oliver, why would you make that deal? Why would trade my girl for yours?"
; "Aleks, it wasn’t my girl for yours. It was the one witch we need for the death dealer who could be replaced."
Aleks grabs his shirt and lifts him off the ground. His face and arms are trembling. "HE LOVED HER. HE WOULD SAVE HER!"