“Because he got something else out of it, didn’t he?” I practically shouted. “Darkness struck a deal with him. If he set her free, she would bring Pa to his side, where Skylar believes she belongs.”
“You know this?” Ricky asked in a strained voice.
“As a matter of fact,” I said in irritation, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“How?” he asked.
“I had another vision,” I explained. I told both of them everything I had seen—about how Skylar spoke to himself, and how he and his reflection seemed to be one and the same now. Before, Skylar had normal red irises with white around them; but this time, they were blackened, just like his reflection—I also told them about what Skylar had said about his deal with Darkness. How he was frightened that she would do away with him now that she was revived . . .
“Dessa, how do we know that these visions are real?” Ricky asked. “Maybe they’re fake . . .”
“Richard Edward Ambrose!” I shouted at him. “How dare you?! What’s gotten into you? Since when have you doubted that?”
He shrugged. “Dessa, maybe this girl can make you see things—”
“That’s just ridiculous!” I shouted. “You can’t keep defending Pa! If you’re with her, then as far as I’m concerned, you’re against me!”
“Dessa, please,” he begged, “Don’t force me to pick a side—”
“Ricky, look,” I interrupted. “You need to realize that my visions are all we have right now. Darkness made a deal with him; that’s why Skylar’s still by her side, because he still doesn’t have Pa back.”
Or does he?
The annoying question irked me endlessly, and the fear that Skylar already had his hooks in too deep for us to cut them out began to eat at me. What if Pa was back with him? What would that do to Ricky?
“Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said dismally. “Let’s just let Pa alone for a few days and see what happens with her.”
“I agree with Dessa,” Chris supplied, and I smiled at him. “I mean how will we know what’s up with her if we keep bothering her? Perhaps it’s better for all of us if we just let her be.”
“And if she tries to leave?” Ricky asked.
“Let her,” Chris said cuttingly.
“But—”
“No, Ricky,” I contradicted. “We need to see what’s really wrong with her.”
After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Ricky nodded solemnly. “Okay.” I hugged him tightly, but didn’t speak, and I returned to stand beside Chris.
I imagined how Ricky must have felt: lonely, since Pa wouldn’t speak to him; upset, because now that he had found her, we still had no leads on what the hell was going on; confused now that Skylar was back in the equation; and yearning for affection from the woman he loved, who was probably extremely messed up in the head and confused.
My heart went out to him, but there was nothing more I could do than offer him my comfort. He was my older brother, and watching him suffer like this was the last thing I wanted to see.
Skylar had fallen to Darkness because of his suffering; her poison had spread through him like a disease . . .
How did I know that the same thing wouldn’t happen to Ricky, too? The mere possibility of losing him to this woman—to be fighting against him instead of beside him—made me want to cry.
He walked away from us solemnly and went to sit on the couch alone. He turned on the TV and stared at it, while Chris and I stayed where we were in the kitchen archway, watching him from a distance.
“He’ll be okay,” Chris said quietly.
“He’s got to be,” I added, glad that my voice didn’t betray me and show how frightened I was. “We need to talk to Pa. Find out what’s bothering her . . .”
“We can’t do that,” he said. “If Pa has been affected by her time with Skylar, we have to let her overcome it on her own. The choices are hers to make, and forcing her to speak to us will only make things worse.
“Plus there’s the little snippet about whether or not we can trust her anymore,” he added, and I gasped.
“You don’t think that—”
“I don’t know,” he said before I could voice the terrible thought circulating through my mind.
I turned away from the pitiful sight of Ricky—he had started crying on the couch in the other room—wishing with all my heart and mind that I could die.
I didn’t want my friends and family to suffer because of me . . . .
Darkness seemed so dangerous, yet she had made no move to destroy me. She’d constantly been hiding behind her minion, Skylar. I had never really liked that guy, but what reason did he have for hating me?
I knew the answer before I had taken another breath.
He thought I was the reason Pa was taken from him. I had been the one to convince her to get herself out of the hurtful situation she was in. I had been the one to come with her to that dinner where she had yelled at Skylar and thrown the ring in his face. I had been the one who hurt him . . .
It had never been my goal to harm Skylar; rather, it had been to save Pa. To get her out of a dangerous situation where she would only continue to get hurt. Had I been wrong?
“Dessa,” Chris said, putting his hand on my shoulder, “Don’t say anything to her. Until proven otherwise, she’s against us.”
I nodded, unable to find my voice.
“Don’t reveal anything to her, because she can use it against us,” he advised. I nodded again and felt a stinging sensation in my eyes. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and heard Chris groan softly. “Please don’t cry,” he begged softly.
“Sorry . . .” I murmured, burying my head in his shoulder. I let the tears fall freely now, not afraid to let him see how much this was hurting me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he rubbed my hair.
“Don’t you see what’s happening?” I asked insanely. “She’s taking all of you away from me . . . One by one she’s going to tear you away . . .”
“You don’t know that,” he argued softly. “We’re just suspicious about Pa being with Skylar and coming back unscathed. And Rick is just upset because of her behavior, that’s all. It’s nothing to worry about, Dessa.”
“Yeah . . .” I muttered as another tear escaped my eyes, but I didn’t believe a word he had said.
Pa didn’t come down for dinner, so Ricky had to leave her a plate outside her bedroom door. Ricky, who usually had an appetite bigger than the Pacific Ocean, didn’t eat anything. Chris ate about half of his plate of spaghetti, and I ate maybe a quarter of mine—give or take a fraction or two; I was never that good at percentages and fractions—before I lost my appetite completely.
I felt strangely anxious. For some reason, it seemed like we spent more of our time sitting around doing nothing. Chris had said we were biding our time. Biding it for what? Why would we bide it now when we were perfectly capable of hunting down Skylar and Darkness?
I wanted to hunt her down; I wanted her to pay. She was tearing Pa away from us—we hadn’t figured out if Pa was still just pissed off or if Skylar really had messed with her mind—and now Ricky was starting to act strange.
I left my plate on the table, not bothering to look at either of them as I departed. I walked out the back door into the yard where the lake was, stagnant and peaceful in the evening breeze. I took off my flip flops and ventured to the edge of the water and put my feet in.
I suddenly felt vigorous, like I had just kissed someone. I suddenly wanted to get up and do something—an impulse I completely ignored because I didn’t want to run into any of my friends. I felt hopeful, instead of hopeless; brave, instead of frightened; alive, instead of dead.
I wiggled my toes in the water and let it soak into my feet. I felt so alive; I couldn’t just sit here. I fought the impulse to get up and go speak to Pa; I knew we weren’t supposed to say anything, but I knew that if I tried and failed, I wouldn’t try again for a while. I needed to know if she was still on our side, and I nee
ded to know now.
I got up resolutely, put on my flip flops, and strode back into the house. I walked around the kitchen instead of through it, and up the stairs to the guest bedroom. The door was still closed; the plate of food lay untouched just outside it.
“Pa?” I called softly. “Are you okay?”
There was no reply. I called her again, but no answer. Again I addressed her, but there was silence beyond her door. I slid my back down the wall until I was sitting on the floor.
I knew she probably wouldn’t listen to me, or if she was even there, but I spoke to her just the same.
“Paola Helena Petrillo,” I said determinedly. “I came up here to apologize. You don’t have to accept my apology; I just want you to know that the things I said were totally out of line. You’re my best friend, Pa, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.
“You can have feelings for whomever you’d like; I’m just trying to remind you of what we’re fighting for . . . who we’re against . . .” I stopped, unable to continue for a few minutes as I saw Pa with blackened emerald eyes in my mind.
I could almost see her in her room as she sat there facing me through the closed door, her face in her hands, tears streaming down her face.
“Pa,” I said. “Why are you crying?”
I heard a startled gasp come from the other side of the door, and then silence.
“Pa, you don’t have to do this alone,” I continued. “You’ve still got me, and Chris, and Ricky, too! You’re scaring all of us . . . we’re worried about you and what happened to you. If you don’t want to tell us, we don’t have to know. We just want you to know that we’re always here.
“I know you had feelings for Skylar before, and that your whole purpose of leaving yesterday was to shut off all those feelings for good. Well . . .” I trailed off. “Did you?”
A few moments of silence, and her door opened a sliver, revealing a shining emerald eye.
“No. I didn’t,” she answered, her voice strained; she sounded like she was in pain.
“Did something happen?” I asked comfortingly. I turned to face her from where she stood, shadowed by the door.
She hesitated, but ultimately answered, “Yes.”
“Ah . . .” I said with a slow nod. “I see . . .”
“No,” she clipped back. “You don’t see. You don’t understand. Skylar’s different. He didn’t hurt me . . .”
I listened as she spoke, as she revealed exactly what had happened the night she went missing, not saying a word.
“I went to my apartment and he was there waiting for me. I told him I was getting my things from his place. He insisted that I take him with me. And the whole way there he tried to dissuade me. He kept saying, ‘But I love you’ and all that stuff. D, I parked the car at his house,”—my eyes widened at this—“and I just couldn’t take anything out of there. I couldn’t do it. We stayed at his house . . . he said he wouldn’t hurt me . . . and then he . . .”
She stopped and swallowed, obviously confused beyond her limits with Skylar’s actions. After all, Skylar was our enemy, and the way he was fraternizing with one of our own was slightly disconcerting.
“He kissed me. And after that, I’ve been having strange thoughts. Like . . . hatred toward you . . . and . . . and . . . dislike for Rick . . .”
I intervened then. “So that’s why you’re acting strange?” I asked gently. “Because Skylar kissed you?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly. “I’m trying to fight it. I know it’s not right, but there’s a force deeper inside me making me so angry that I can’t stay here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if I stay, this instinct is so thorough—so dangerously deep—that I might kill you.” She looked at me guiltily, like she had just been caught with her hands in the cookie jar. “I know it’s wrong, but you don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it feels like to fight this instinct. It burns; it hurts—”
“You feel it now.” I said it as a statement, because I saw through the deadly look in her eyes that, though she loved me with all her heart, she felt like killing me to please the instinct that was so deeply rooted within her. I was right, then.
Skylar had messed with her. She wasn’t safe for us. But we couldn’t let her go back to him . . . We couldn’t let her turn against us. We had to try . . .
“It’s actually really strong right now,” she said in an extremely pained voice. “Please leave, D. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Where’re you going?” I asked as she darted for the window.
“Away from here,” she said harshly, and I knew that the dark desire had filled her. I wanted to follow her, to embrace her and let her know that we forgave her, but she was already out the window by the time I blinked again.
I walked as calmly as I could down the stairs to join the others where they waited in the living room.
“Did she say anything?” Ricky asked worriedly.
“Yeah,” I said plainly. “She told me what’s wrong with her.”
“Well?” Ricky pressed impatiently.
“She says she feels this instinct deep inside her to fight us, to get rid of us. That’s why she’s keeping her distance. She doesn’t want us hurt. She also told me what happened the night she went missing.” Ricky’s eyes widened, but Chris’ expression remained impassive as he got into a more comfortable position on the couch.
“She said that she wanted to stay,” I said, but that was all I could say before Ricky practically jumped on me.
“What?!” he shouted. “She wanted to stay? Dessa, you must have heard her wrong—”
“No, I heard her correctly, Ricky,” I spat. “She couldn’t bring herself to leave because Skylar kept telling her . . . Well he kept saying stuff to her.”
“Stuff?” Chris said, speaking for the first time since I’d come downstairs.
“He kept telling her he loved her, that he was sorry, that he would make it up to her . . . and she listened to him,” I answered. “She stayed there with him, because he was acting so pitiful that she couldn’t leave out of pity for him. And then he . . . he . . .”
I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t do this to Ricky.
“He what?” Ricky asked in a strained voice.
“Are you sure you want me to tell you?” I asked quietly. “I’d rather not say, but if you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
“Just say it,” Ricky said cuttingly. “I can’t stand secrets anymore.”
“Fine, then,” I consented slowly. “You wanted me to. He kissed her.”
Several things happened at once. Ricky jumped up in anger, there was the crashing of glass against the walls, and Chris was up a half second later to pin Ricky against the wall. I stood where I was, completely amazed.
Chris was struggling to hold Ricky back before he broke something else, but Ricky broke free. Tears were streaming down his face as he stormed out the front door and got into his car, where I could see the twin knives resting on the velvet of the passenger seat.
“He’s going to—Chris, stop him!” I shouted, but Ricky’s car was already shooting down the road.
“Like we told Rick about Pa,” Chris reminded me. “Let him go.”
I looked fleetingly out into the street. “But Chris—”
“No,” he almost shouted it sounded so stern. “Where’s Pa? Is she still in her room?”
“No,” I said this time. “She stormed out after I’d finished talking to her. She ran away before she could hurt anyone.”
“If she doesn’t get this under control, soon it’ll start to control her,” Chris said in a quiet voice that sounded a little too menacing in the darkness spreading through the house. “The more time she spends with Skylar, the more detrimental it'll be for the emotions she's feeling.”
“Are you saying she's gone back to him?” I asked incredulously.
“I seriously doubt it,” Chris replied. “At least not now. She knows that he caused these emotions ins
ide her, so until she wants those emotions back, she won’t go anywhere near him.”
“Then shouldn’t we go looking for her?” I asked.
“We should, but the chances of us finding her are slim to none,” he admitted dismally.
“We have to try,” I said. “I have a light,” I added, snapping my fingers and watching as the tiny magical orb materialized in my palm. “We can search in the dark.”
“If that’s what you want . . .” he said slowly.
“It is,” I affirmed. “I’ll go get a hoodie and be right down.”
He nodded, but looked like he was against the idea. Now that I thought back, it had been a stupid suggestion: going out searching for my brother and best friend in the darkness of night, hoping by some miracle that we would run into them and be able to pretend things were back to normal again.
I ran up to Chris’ bedroom and found the drawer with my clothes in it. I fished out a neon yellow hoodie—I wanted Chris to be able to see me if we got separated—and threw it on before flying back down the stairs to find Chris holding the water board in his arms.
He looked as uneasy as I felt. We could end up searching for hours with the false hope that Pa and Ricky would actually stay in one place. I tried not to dwell on the negative, and smiled at Chris as I walked down the stairs.
“Feeling hopeful are we?” he asked quizzically.
I nodded. “We have to be,” I affirmed. “If we stay negative, we won’t find anything.”
He shrugged. “I suppose.”
“C’mon,” I said, pulling at his sleeve. “Let’s go.”
He opened the door and led me outside into the blinding darkness, holding my hand as we both struggled blindly down the steps into the yard. I snapped my fingers and the resulting tension caused the air molecules to vibrate, and in moments there sat in my palm an orb of magnificent light.
“Where should we look first?” Chris asked as we mounted the water board.
I shrugged. “Why don’t we go to Pa’s apartment? Maybe she went there before confronting Skylar?” My uncertainty—once again—changed my statement into a question.
“Sure,” Chris said indifferently, and he clicked his tongue. The water board zoomed off in the direction of Pa’s house, blurring the already obscured trees into a vast mirage of shadows in the light of the moon. After all the times I had been on Chris’ board this past week or so, I finally had gotten the hang of it. I could now stand upon the board on my own without falling off like the hopeless klutz I was.
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