Dark Heart Surrender

by Lee Monroe

  ‘Not so.’ I yawned, though the last thing I was feeling was sleepy. ‘I’m just a little tired of your mind games.’

  There was a stark silence and, forcing myself to catch his reflection, I saw a granite-like set to his eyes.

  ‘Mind games,’ he echoed softly. ‘I see.’

  ‘You see what?’ Despite my determination not to react, I was fighting irritation. And nerves. And on top of that a mounting sense of déjà vu. I’d endured a similar car ride to this a long time before. With Evan – Raphael, as he really was. I could hardly believe this was happening again. Someone with a vendetta on their mind and me caught in the middle of it. Once again, Luca was nowhere to be seen.

  Though it was me who had sent him away. It had been a mistake. A stupid, childish mistake.

  Ade was taking his time to respond. A car flashed past us on the other side of the road and the headlights illuminated his profile, his sharp cheekbones, his large, intimidating frame.

  ‘Not everything is in your mind,’ he said at last, cryptically. ‘Some things are real. An intelligent girl like you – you know that. Perhaps you’ve been kidding yourself it was all your imagination?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I snapped, and my hand moved towards the door handle – though what good would that do me in a moving car? ‘You talk in riddles, you and your sister. Stupid riddles.’

  ‘But they’re riddles you have begun to make sense of.’ He paused, turning slightly. ‘Even though you are putting up this pretence, it’s been clear to me from the start that you are attracted to me. I can smell it.’

  I exhaled, to conceal the adrenalin that was starting to pump through me.

  ‘You are so arrogant.’ I tightened my grip on the handle. ‘And you’re wrong. How many times do I have to tell you? Luca is—’

  ‘Luca’s gone,’ said Ade icily. ‘Apparently where no one can find him.’

  ‘Just for a bit,’ I said. ‘He’s coming back.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ade turned down the road to Bale. ‘Is he?’

  The relief I felt at seeing the familiar shops, even Pete’s locked-up yard, was palpable within me. There was only a little while to go and I would be home, where my parents and my little sister were. And the next morning I would go to Nissilum. I would go and get Luca.

  But Ade was slowing the car down, creeping to a stop. He pulled up outside the diner and switched off the engine.

  ‘I’m starving,’ he announced. ‘How about some food?’

  I shook my head quickly. ‘I ate before I came out. I just want to go home…’

  ‘But I haven’t finished talking to you yet.’ Ade’s voice was stony. ‘And I like talking to you, Jane.’

  I closed my eyes, summoning every bit of strength I had. How could I have been so stupid?

  ‘So,’ Ade whispered, ‘talk to me.’

  Outside, there seemed to be a rustling and I realized how deserted the streets were. Looking out, I expected the bright lights of the diner, but the windows were black. A jolt of panic hit me as the street lights buzzed and flickered.

  ‘Ade. Stop it.’ I levelled my gaze at his eyes in the mirror, with real effort.

  ‘I can’t. It’s not that simple … There is a long, long history that you cannot be expected to understand.’ He tapped the steering wheel and I saw through the front seats that his hands were quivering. I knew that the car door was locked. I felt myself sweating.

  ‘I do understand,’ I said, watching Ade take a hand off the steering wheel and move to the key in the ignition. ‘But it isn’t Luca’s fault.’

  Ade dropped his hand and his shoulders slumped slightly. ‘He is in Nissilum,’ he said, his voice, his words, sounding crisp and forbidden, ‘where he is safe?’

  ‘So there’s no point,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘There is nothing for you to gain from me. It isn’t me you want.’

  ‘But he wants you – he loves you, doesn’t he? He would never want anything to happen to someone he cherishes – someone he crossed worlds to be with.’

  I swallowed, hot and cold at the same time. ‘He has made his choice.’

  ‘His choice?’ Ade turned to face me properly. ‘Or yours?’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Luca was helping his father chop wood when he felt a pain like lightning strike through him. He dropped the axe and bent over, gasping.

  ‘Boy?’ His father stuck his axe in the block and moved quickly to him, his large hands taking Luca by the shoulders. ‘What is it?’

  Luca sank to his knees, feeling a great pressure mounting in his brain. He held his head in his hands.

  ‘I’ll fetch your mother,’ Ulfred said anxiously.

  ‘No!’ Luca lifted his head and saw the shock on his father’s face. Ulfred put his hand out to touch his forehead, crouching down to be level with him.

  ‘What is it?’ he pleaded. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘I have to get back,’ Luca managed, feeling driven yet weak at the same time. ‘There’s something happening on Mortal Earth – to Jane.’ He closed his eyes as another jolt of pain went through him.

  Ulfred sighed. ‘The Vulpecula?’

  Luca found himself shaking now, so much so that he could hardly respond; he simply nodded.

  Ulfred seemed to be considering, watching Luca carefully, as though weighing something up in his mind. He pushed the boy’s hair back off his face in a tender gesture; seeing the pain in Luca’s eyes perhaps, he cleared his throat.

  ‘There is … there is a way you can finish this,’ he said.

  ‘Father, I can’t stay here while Jane is vulnerable.’ Luca looked up at Ulfred. ‘I love her. She is everything to me.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Ulfred said gently. ‘And there is another way …’

  ‘Another way?’ Luca grasped his father’s hand. ‘Tell me.’

  Ulfred glanced back at the house, where inside Henora was preparing the evening meal. He had such a troubled look on his face that Luca feared he would change his mind. But Ulfred knew he had already said too much to go back now.

  ‘You must listen very carefully, because this solution poses great danger, for you, for Jane – and for us, here on Nissilum.’

  ‘I’m listening.’ Luca got to his feet, gaining strength at this glimmer of hope. ‘I have no choice. I have to do anything in my power. You see that?’

  ‘I do.’ Ulfred held out his arm and drew his son to him. ‘And I am proud of you, boy. You’re going to need every ounce of bravery and strength you have if you do this. If it doesn’t work, the consequences are dire. If it does, then we have freedom from the Vulpecula for all eternity.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  She was lost. She didn’t know this place. She had only a vague memory of where Lydia lived. Olivia looked back at the empty, dark road and froze. She wasn’t used to the country, she was used to city streets.

  A single light in the distance made her step back automatically, but it was a bicycle, slowly approaching.

  The rider stopped some way from her and dismounted, removing her helmet; a lot of hair fell out. Olivia saw the girl only wore a dark T-shirt, her skin paler than anything Olivia had seen.

  Olivia raised a hand in nervous greeting and the girl led her bike over.

  At the sight of the girl closer up, Olivia shrank back. It was her. The sister. Polly. Olivia shook her head, but it was too late.

  ‘You?’ Polly’s face was hostile. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Something careered into Olivia’s mind: Polly’s hand pinching her wrist, her dark-red hair brushing against her sharp intent face. And her eyes, reddish-brown, fierce.

  ‘Please, leave me alone.’ Olivia moved to walk past her.

  ‘Wait.’ Polly reached out and grabbed her arm. ‘I can’t just let you go.’ She stared suspiciously at Olivia, who knew somehow that she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t reveal recognition.

  Polly’s face was so close to her. ‘You should never have come back,’ she whispered gutturally. ‘Yo
u were never meant to come back.’

  Olivia said nothing, but the tremor in her heart was taking over her whole body now.

  ‘We don’t want you in our family,’ Polly continued. ‘Nobody wants you – not even your own mother. Certainly not mine.’

  Olivia whimpered as the image of a woman’s face flashed into her head. A face she had only seen once.

  ‘She didn’t want you. And you come back here, asking to be loved,’ Polly sneered. ‘And you start to tell tales about us. We don’t like that, my brother and I. We don’t take kindly to that.’

  Olivia managed to nod, though suddenly memories were tumbling fast. As though they had been loaded, stored, and on release couldn’t get out fast enough. She had come back here to find her birth mother, come to Polly’s house and asked. Only Polly and her brother were home and she had never got further than the doorstep.

  The next thing she knew she had come to in that stinking cave.

  Polly and Ade had tried to kill her – they had tried to bury her alive.

  ’You tried to kill me!’ Olivia stated, clarity hitting her. ‘You and your brother.’ She felt calm all of a sudden, from the relief of her memories returning – and her sanity. She was surprised to realize she wasn’t scared. Not any more.

  Polly’s nose quivered. Her eyes were like ice. Emotionless.

  ‘And we didn’t succeed,’ she said then, in a bored tone. ‘Because here you are, kicking up a fuss. Again.’

  ‘I came here to find my family – to find my mother,’ Olivia went on, as much to prompt herself as anything. ‘Because that woman you live with – she’s my aunt. My mother’s sister. But you—’

  ‘We didn’t want you in our family,’ Polly said matter-of-factly. ‘We didn’t want someone else ruining things. Ade and I have managed very well over the years making sure that your Auntie Lydia never quite catches on to who we are. What kind of “monsters” she adopted. And then you come along – little homeless waif, Olivia. We couldn’t take the risk that mortal blood would prove to be thicker than ours.’

  ‘Mortal blood?’ The calm that Olivia had been feeling was pricked. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Never mind.’ Polly shook her head. ‘We had to get rid of you. We had something important we needed to do – and you would have been a serious distraction.’

  ‘Well, do it,’ Olivia said quickly. ‘I’m not here to bother you. I’m here to try and find out where my mother is. Lydia would know – she must know.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Polly snapped. ‘Lydia is insane, or near enough. More so now that her father is dead. And that’s the way we want her to stay – sedated, living in her own little world. Oblivious.’

  ‘My grandfather died?’ Olivia said sadly. ‘I didn’t know I had one.’

  ‘Oh boo hoo.’ Polly puffed out her cheeks. ‘What you never knew you can’t miss.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Olivia gaped at her. ‘You’re inhuman.’

  Polly stared at her, a look of mild amusement on her face. ‘Sharp as a tack, aren’t you, Olivia?’

  ‘I am not going to let you treat my aunt like that,’ said Olivia, not picking up on this. ‘And what have you done to her – are you drugging her or something?’

  ‘In a way …’ Polly said cryptically. ‘But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are in our way.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Olivia said, using every bit of courage she still had. ‘She’s my family. Not yours. Not really. And she can tell me how I can find my mum.’

  At that Polly let out a kind of sneering laugh. ‘I doubt that,’ she said.

  ‘Because you’ve totally brainwashed her?’ Olivia was disgusted.

  ‘No,’ Polly said, looking directly into Olivia’s eyes. ‘Because she is clueless. She doesn’t know that your mother is dead.’

  Olivia took a second to digest this, realization slowly dawning. ‘You killed her,’ she said slowly. ‘You killed my mother?’

  ‘So you see,’ Polly said, ‘we simply can’t have you hanging round like a stray. It’s far too messy.’

  Olivia stepped back. But there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Not in this bleak, empty countryside, for sure.

  ‘I just wanted to find my mother,’ she gasped. ‘I never meant to get in the way.’

  ‘Well, you did,’ said Polly nastily. ‘And you’re going to regret that, Olivia. You’re going to wish you’d never been born.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Ade was driving again, out of Bale. I sat helpless in the back seat.

  ‘Ade,’ I said quietly, ‘please. Can’t we talk about this?’

  ‘I offered you that opportunity,’ he told me, picking up speed. The sign for Bale flashed past us as he drove out of town. ‘But you haven’t exactly been cooperative.’

  ‘I told you. Luca left of his own volition.’ I kept my voice steady. ‘There was nothing I could do.’

  ‘Because he isn’t safe here.’ Ade half turned to me. ‘Yes, I get that. But he would never leave you with us – he will come and get you.’

  ‘No, he won’t. He doesn’t know—’

  ‘Whatever. One way or another we will have him,’ Ade said acidly. ‘You see, Luca is our only hope of righting a great injustice done to our family. Once upon a time, a member of his breed behaved very badly. Very ungratefully. And it was nearly too late. Polly and I are the only remaining members of that family. We have a quest passed down to us over centuries. We will not fail in that quest.’

  ‘But Luca is innocent. It isn’t his fault!’

  Ade laughed, low and dark. ‘You have no idea, do you, Jane, of what you’ve got yourself mixed up in?’ He picked up speed, as though to reinforce the danger.

  ‘Slow down!’ I leaned forward. ‘You’ll get us killed.’

  ‘Not me!’ Ade laughed. ‘I don’t die – didn’t you know that?’

  My lip curled at his recklessness. ‘Where are you taking me?’ I was amazed at how calm I sounded, because my heart was beating double time.

  ‘In time. We need to do a pit-stop first.’

  Ade slowed as he approached a crossroads. As he turned left it took a minute for me to figure it out. This road was horribly familiar to me. All because of one fated night. We were heading for the training ground.

  ‘My family will worry,’ I told him, pointlessly, ‘if I’m not home soon.’

  He shrugged. ‘They’ll be doing more than that come tomorrow morning.’

  My mother’s face flashed into my head, then Dad’s, and finally Dot’s. I blinked away frightened tears. I couldn’t cry, not now. If there was any way out of this situation, I needed to stay strong. I leaned back in the seat, my heart still pounding, and stuck my hands in the pockets of my jacket. Looking down at it, I felt a crashing sadness as I remembered I was wearing Luca’s old leather jacket. I told myself that if I was going to die, then I’d die wearing something of his. It was a tiny comfort.

  In my left pocket, my hand encountered what felt like a box. I drew it out and stared at it. Just a box of matches Luca must have picked up from Pete’s yard. I was about to stuff them back in when a light went on in my head.

  A box of matches.

  I quickly pushed them back into the pocket, wincing at the rattling of the matchsticks inside. But Ade hadn’t heard, he was intent on driving, his face in profile looking less human by the minute. Distinctly bestial, in fact.

  The sky was pitch-black, not a star to be seen. I craned out of the window to find the moon, finally seeing it, a sliver slicing through the darkness. I thought of Luca. I would never see him again.

  Don’t think about it, I told myself, just don’t think about it.

  Ade slowed the car down and ahead of us I saw two figures at the side of the road. Hopefully I thought about winding down the window and yelling for help, but as the car drew closer, I could see that familiar long, Titian hair and pale gamine face.

  Polly had her bike with her, leaning up against her as she stood with ano
ther girl I didn’t recognize. I looked back at Ade.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  Ade raised a hand in greeting at Polly, who nodded back, before giving me a supercilious look.

  ‘My sister’s coming along for the ride,’ he said. ‘If that’s all right with you?’

  ‘Who’s that with her?’ I craned out. The girl with Polly looked terrified. Her short blonde hair revealed a pretty, open face – at this moment a pretty, scared face. She was woefully underdressed, wearing only a thin dress and a denim jacket. She was shaking, I could see that even from a distance.

  ‘Ah. Our local celebrity,’ replied Ade, leaning over the passenger seat and opening the door. ‘That’s very convenient.’

  Polly climbed into the front seat, glancing cursorily at me in the back seat. She flicked her hair back.

  ‘I found her,’ she told her brother. ‘In the nick of time it looks like. The idiot was on her way to see Lydia.’

  The door next to me opened and the girl bent to get in. She looked at me as though I were the enemy. As I shuffled along to make room for her, she clutched her bag tightly to her and looked as though she were doing breathing exercises, slowly in and out. I recognized those; I used to do them when I was being terrorized at school. I stared at the side of her face. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right. But I couldn’t.

  ‘Jane, meet Olivia. Olivia, Jane,’ Polly introduced us crisply. Olivia and I exchanged a look and I smiled faintly at her. She looked so thin and wretched I wanted to hug her. Her eyes met mine in understanding for a second, before she twitched away, studiedly staring out of the window as the car pulled off again.

  ‘Isn’t this nice?’ Polly turned back, fixing her eyes on me. ‘Going on a little road trip, the four of us.’

  Beside me, I was aware of Olivia’s body shuddering and when I looked she was crying softly, tears rolling down her cheeks. Deciding it didn’t matter any more, I spoke up.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ I glared at Polly. ‘What has this girl done to you?’