by Celeste Buie
I hoped feeling never returned. It would save me from living with the agony every day for the rest of my life.
I knew there wasn’t much I could do to change the course of my life. I knew looking back on all the things I could have done differently, including not forcing myself into their secret lives, wouldn’t do anything other than make me hate myself and my selfish choices. I knew that this had been planned, thought out. I had been used, set up, a pawn in his game.
I also knew that every person who played a part in breaking me would live to regret it.
That truth sent another shockwave through me, a dark one. But this time instead of pushing it away, I welcomed the blackness. I accepted the void of my absent heart. I invited vengeance to fill it. Desire for retribution fueled my cells. It dulled the numbness, replacing it with a frostiness I didn’t think myself capable of. I viewed the world through different eyes. I analyzed the situation as a new, dangerous predator. I felt it. I owned it.
A new sensation started then. My empty heart space warmed just enough for me to miss the chill. What started out as the size of a needle point grew to a thousand needle points, then hundreds of thousands, gaining momentum in the blink of an eye, until I was sure my clothes would erupt in flames. It pierced me. I wondered briefly if this was how quickly rage and desire for revenge filled a person, and if I’d feel this all over, every moment of every day, until the moment it was satiated.
How long would I blaze with violence?
The answer was immediate: as long as it took to settle the score.
Soon, the hole in my chest was on fire, consuming me, burning me where I stood. It overshadowed the pain of my missing heart, distracting me from the drama unfolding before me. Wasn’t anyone going to help me, prevent me from burning alive? Couldn’t they see the torture displayed on my face?
How was I even able to stand? I opened my eyes to realize a force other than myself held me up.
Landon and Trevor stood on either side of me, equally supporting my weight. Everyone else in the room was frozen in place. Now he used it.
And as suddenly as it came, the warmth diminished, fading until it was a single flame, flickering gently, warming my skin. Its own entity, it lived with me, breathing its own reprisal.
“It wasn’t supposed to cause that level of physical pain,” Landon said urgently in my ear. “It’s painful, sure, but that seemed extreme,” his distant voice said. How could I not feel extreme pain? He was so close, I could cause him pain. The new wave of anger gave me strength to stand on my own.
Landon and Trevor flashed back in place across from me.
The guard surrounding them unfolded to make a solid line of defense.
I looked past them into the only faces I cared to see. They both wore masks of tightly controlled emotions, barely hidden beneath their facades. Hiding their true emotions was killing them as much as it was killing me.
But I could feel their individual triumph and elation.
I felt how they felt, more connected than ever before.
They faded before my eyes and took the last of my strength with them.
I fell to my knees and woke up in my bed.
It was morning, the beginning of a new day.
I stared at my ceiling as realization set in.
What an incredible plan.
I sat up, pushing the covers away. I pulled down on my pajama neckline and gazed at the intricate tattoo decorating the skin over my heart.
I smiled wryly at it. Its location was no surprise after what Landon had put me through: they both held places in my heart. Landon covered as many of the bases as possible, making me feel a variety of extreme emotions at once. He went far beyond the original intent of having me endure a single strong one. He pulled us all into the same dream, or at least made me think everyone was there. The threat to Trevor’s safety—his life even—and the possibility of Landon’s deceit destroyed me enough to allow the transfer.
I placed my hand over my new tattoo. It radiated authority. I felt the power it contained and accepted the changes within myself.
I had more clarity of what I was meant to do.
My future realigned to the one I was always supposed to have.
I felt less conflicted than ever before.
Sample of
ENDLESS EVENING
THE BESTOWED ONES, BOOK 2
Celeste Buie
I accepted that I had a special tattooed mark on my chest in the very spot I felt the needle-like pins stabbing me, burning their mark into my skin. When Landon threatened to drop Trevor off in a remote location and leave him there to die as a means to advance himself within their secret group, emotions had exploded from my previously calm demeanor. First disbelief, shock, and betrayal that he would do this to me. Then determination to find Trevor and bring him back. And of course revenge. Revenge for Trevor. Revenge for myself.
Landon had told me that the only way he could safely share his mark with me was if we had an emotional connection, and I had to feel at least one extreme emotion toward him at the moment of transfer. Threatening to kill a good friend produced enough strong feelings to do the job. The benefit to doing it under the radar was that I wasn’t positive I wanted to be part of the corrupt group, which had special abilities passed down generation to generation.
I called Landon soon after I woke up and realized it had all been a ruse. He had orchestrated a dream to convince me it had happened in real life. We had a few line-items to settle. He knew I was upset with him. Upset didn’t begin to describe it, but he still offered to pick me up and take me to the library.
I knew what his method of “picking me up” was and declined. I had to see my parents before I went anywhere. I couldn’t disappear without talking to them first.
• • •
My parents sat opposite each other at the kitchen table. They didn’t talk or even seem to acknowledge each other. Both exchanged glances between a carved, antique, wooden box on the table and each other. It vied for my attention, and I had to fight not to stare at it. I dragged my eyes away and focused on my dad.
I suddenly doubted I wanted to hear what they had to say.
“Your mom and I wanted to wait until things calmed down before talking to you more about this, but seeing you interact with Trevor and Landon last night convinced us we need to have it now. When Trevor told his parents what had happened to him, they encouraged him to tell us. It took us time to accept it, even after Trevor showed us what he could do, but once we did, we wondered how we could learn more without drawing attention to our family. We had to protect you from discovery. I thought of my family, and anything I might have from them that could shed some light on this. I remembered your great-grandmother gave me a cardboard box many, many years ago to keep safe. She talked about important stuff that could never be lost, that must always be passed onto the next generation. I always thought she meant old pictures or china.”
He smiled like the joke was on him. He picked up a tattered journal that sat in front of him and handed it to me. Its worn binding made the cover sit crooked after years of use, and the frayed ribbon used to tie it together tickled my wrist. It overflowed with extra pieces of paper, some handwritten, some newspaper clippings. “Grandma always wrote when she was faced with a difficult decision. She says she learned it from her mother. This was no exception. Great-grandma was the first generation not to jump in in our family. This contains her notes, her reasoning.”
I sighed as I stared at it, wondering how long they’d kept it from me, knowing my choice had already been made. Would it have made a difference if I had known about this a week ago? A month? If I had been aware of it all my life?
My mom said, “Sweetie, we just want you to have a sense of our family history and what we’ve gone through to get to where we are.”
“It’s not a choice to be made lightly,” my dad added. “I’m not saying you get to make a choice, but at least you will know what’s out there and who to avoid.”
“Dad, I’m fine. It’s going to all work out.”
“You say that, but you don’t know the depth of this. Just being around Landon puts you in danger.”
“That’s not even a valid argument anymore.” I didn’t have to say that since Trevor had made an extra-special deal on my behalf, he guaranteed my exclusion from the secretive group. My parents had reminded me of that recently.
“You defend him, but you don’t know his true motivation for being here, do you? And before you ask, no, I don’t know what’s going on, but this journal will give you some clues.” He paused and motioned to the deep mahogany box. His acknowledging it allowed me to focus on it. I wanted to hold it. I fought the urge to pick it up. “I have no idea what’s in it. We couldn’t open it. Maybe it’s been spelled only for a specific generation to open. Maybe it’s only for you. Maybe it contains notes or artifacts. You might learn more about our family’s true history than we know,” his solemn voice said. Hearing my dad talk about the possibility of spells and magic things unsettled me on several levels.
My dad stood and left the kitchen. My mom enveloped me in a warm hug and followed him.
I regarded the box with a mixture of grim fascination and remorse. I couldn’t deal with this now. I had someone waiting for me. I had to insist he didn’t pluck me from my room when I called him, and I was surprised I didn’t feel him hovering invisibly by. I had to do this on my own terms, and that included driving myself to meet him.
I tied the ribbon tightly around the journal and slipped it into my bag. I didn’t know what to do with the box. It was easy to pick up and hold with one hand but felt too important to carry around. I ran up to my room and stored it in the back of my closet.
I headed to the library to confront Landon.