by Emily Shore
One knock on the door, announcing his presence.
Hunched over just a little, Luc braves one hand on the wall while the other holds a plate where a proud cupcake perches like a teacup.
I slump against the door and sigh just a little, gratified. “You spoke to Sky.”
“Your birthday should be celebrated. May I come in?”
“What flavor?” I double-check first before bidding him entry.
“Devil’s food with a rich chocolate cream-cheese frosting and chocolate ganache center.”
I open the door. Forget the fact it’s almost midnight. My guess is Jade has gone to the Shed. It must be Luc’s first chance to visit. Snatching the cupcake from the plate, I carry it to the bed where I pounce like a greedy cat and devour half the fist-sized cupcake in one bite. Careless of the crumbs or the way the frosting smears my face, I practically swoon against the pillows and close my eyes, reveling in the sugar rush. I leave the other half on the end table.
Luc approaches the bedside, lowers onto the end. “My brother told me about your plans. About Neil Bloode.”
I rub some frosting with my thumb. Bringing it to my mouth, I suck the sweetness off while eyeing him. “How much did he tell you?”
He leans toward me. “Enough. I know what Neil did to you, though neither of us know the details.”
“Probably better that way.” I stare up at the ceiling. “Regardless, I have to trust him. He’s the only one who can rid us of all these chains. My Garden ones. The ones in your body, and the ones keeping Sky in the shed.”
“Yes, but we all know the chains binding us to you are far stronger than the ones imprisoning us.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I warn, twirling my finger in the remaining frosting. “It’s my birthday. I call the shots. What did Jade do to you?”
“She has a punishment in store for me. I can’t presume to know what it may be, though I suspect it will involve you.”
When I begin to lick the stickiness off my fingers, Luc rolls his eyes and hands me a napkin from his pocket, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. Ever mindful of his inhibitor, I scoot away when he gets closer, but he touches my hand.
“As soon as we are well away from the Garden, I will be more than happy to dispatch him for you,” he offers. I know he is referring to Neil.
I shake my head. “And you’d be biting the hand that feeds me, Luc. He’s going to help me find my sister. And my mother and…Kerrick. Neil might not respect my modesty, but he respects my privacy. Which is more than I can say for you.” I roll off the bed, then amble toward the window, easing away the drape’s edge.
I hear him stand, feel his breath behind my ear after a minute or so. “Do you want to be alone?”
I don’t say anything. How can I? My thoughts have found solace in themselves most of the day. What I want are Sky’s shackles to turn into a child’s crude paper links. What I want is to place a stick of dynamite inside Luc’s arm that will enact a search-and-destroy mission for that damned piece of technology while leaving his flesh and blood alone. What I want is to leave Jade’s backyard, leave her to the abuse that deals its wear and tear through the years, since it’s obvious none of her Shed endeavors will ever fill her.
Luc’s lips are soft on the back of my neck, his fingers softer as they travel up my bare arms. How can his breath ignite my blood right before his touch chills it?
“I didn’t think so.”
“Careful, Luc,” I warn without turning around, tilting to nudge my nose against his chin.
“How long, Serenity?”
I shrug. “One more round of international clients. That’s what Neil suspects.”
“I won’t stop. I will be with you at every exhibit.”
“I know.”
He dips his head low, tugs at the dress strap on my shoulder to expose the tattoo there. I wonder if his mouth will turn the silver to hoarfrost when he kisses the skin. Even though it’s not his symbol anymore, he’s still reminding me of his prior claim. The telltale vibration stirs beneath his arm. Upon Luc’s deep inhale, I realize it’s his way of controlling himself.
“Someday, I will take you away. Away from everything. You will choose whatever destination, and I will take you there.” Slowly, Luc cups my chin, pivots my face to his, and nestles his thumb onto my lower lip. “Nothing but water and my love to surround you.”
He bends lower to kiss me, but I answer in the shadow of a whisper. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” An echo of my mother’s journal.
I won’t either. I won’t make promises to either man. Nor will I spare their feelings. One or both will get hurt. That is a bitter lemon I will suck because it doesn’t matter what I do. Life is a cruel kiss. It dazzles and dazes, promises and paralyzes, sensationalizes and saddens. Full of demons and ghosts. And I will chase mine. I’ll hunt the ghost of my twin until her face metamorphoses. She is so close. Bliss. Mara. Bliss. Mara.
Serenity. Swan. Skeleton Flower. Swan. Skeleton Flower. Serenity.
They are all part of me now. Luc is chasing a mirage. Sky is trying to keep his grip on the past to remind himself why he suffers in the present. And I am trapped in waist-deep earth with the silhouettes of my family just out of reach. Their voices echo like distant wind chimes. No rest until I find them. Until I reach my family, I will never settle. Nor will I stop fighting my body because I refuse to believe my feelings are stronger than the choices of my heart and mind and soul. Maybe Magnolia is right. Maybe there is no perfect alignment. But I’ll be damned if I don’t get as close as humanly possible.
And Sky—or Luc—will just have to wait.
Perhaps, I think, whoever waits the longest is the one who genuinely loves me.
Perhaps.
23
P u n i s H m e n t
After Luc has left, it isn’t long before I receive another visitor. An unexpected one.
“Cosmos?” I taper my brows as she sashays into my room.
She raises a hand. “I won’t be long. I just wanted to thank you for your help.”
Cosmos doesn’t look me in the eye at all. Not even after she sweeps past me. That’s when I notice her eyes wandering without focus. Similar to the other night.
“Are you on Bliss?” The thought pops out before I think about how it sounds. Ignoring my question, she weaves her way around to my table.
Giggling, she points to what’s left of my cupcake on the end table. “Chocolate,” she squeals. She dips her finger in the whipped cream dollop on top, blissfully sucking off the sweetness.
“Go ahead.” I give her permission, though she’s already indulged. Most Museum girls’ diets are more regulated. They don’t have an Immortal implant to burn fat cells like I do.
Giggling again, she steadies her gaze on the partially eaten cake, staring at it.
For her, I imagine there is little gravity in the room, so I take her hand, but she doesn’t say anything. No, Cosmos is far too caught up in the cupcake for that. Keeps dipping her finger in the whipped cream and dabbing the table, forming fluffy white splotches on the cloth as if she’s drawing.
“Cosmos…” I try to confront her about the previous night. “You shouldn’t be seeing clients after what happened.”
Cosmos plants her head on the table, drawing invisible designs in the air. “Magnolia takes care of it. She takes care of everything. She sneaks me pain pills sometimes. The Bliss helps for the rest.”
“How do you even get it?” I ask, almost afraid my question will go unanswered when she closes her eyes.
“I have a friend.” She giggles. “I spend lots of nights alone. Not like Forget-Me-Not. Bliss keeps me company.”
“Are you taking more because of the other night?”
She nods and shrugs at the same time. “It wasn’t finished. Why should I care?” she mumbles before her arms go limp, mouth opened. A little louder, she croons, “Your table is comfy.”
Then, her eyes roll backward before her eyelids beco
me their blanket with her head lolling. Sighing, I help her onto my bed. Once she’s situated, I ease the sheets over her, tucking her in before tiptoeing out of the room. Leaving Cosmos to sleep it off, I start progressing down the hall only to bump into Mockingbird.
She blinks once before scooting around my body. “Excuse me.”
Raising my brows, I watch her flit away. Same movements as in the Aviary. Body language is all there, but with her mind wiped clean. Just as she’d said—she became a blank slate. No hint of recognition in her eyes. No reminder of her ‘fast hands’. Just glitter-coated irises that can no longer see the darkness of her past. I remember Mockingbird was the first one to welcome me to the Aviary…
Where in the world did you find her?
You should know to never tell a secret to the Mockingbird.
Remember the clap of her hands like the beat of tiny wings.
I sort of hatched here. It’s my home
Never would have figured you for a wildcat given you’re so tiny…except for your rack of course.
I smile, thinking of the Mockingbird I once knew. Now, she is just Amnesia Rose. Regardless, I will still visit her display. The memory of my scars doesn’t mock me anymore. Or haunt me. Mockingbird’s spirit has passed from one plane to another. Nothing left. Not even a ghost.
I watch her disappear around the next hallway while I meander down this one. There is no way I can stay in my room with Cosmos trying to float down from her Bliss high. Bliss is still a popular tool for recruiters to get girls to enter the Glass District or a Museum. Addicted girls are much easier to control. And it becomes a coping mechanism. Along with dissociation, inurement, survival instincts…their minds just floating, floating, floating. Except in my case. It’s my heart that floats. Sky says I’m already so lighthearted I can grow my own wings at any time. Or is it lightheaded?
“Skeleton Flower.” Magnolia’s voice interrupts my musings as I round the corner. “I was just coming to get you. Mother sent me.”
I ask her why, but Magnolia provides no answers. When she escorts me to the elevator and pushes the button for the top floor, I realize we aren’t going to the Shed. I have no idea what to expect until she opens the door to one of the viewing rooms outside my exhibit, and I step inside.
Darkness impregnates the room. Not so much as a bobbing candle flame, but it doesn’t matter once the exhibit spotlights flood to life and roll across two figures in the center—one who kneels on the stone with his hands bound behind his shirtless back while the other stands over him dressed in nothing but a leather bustier that plumps half her ivory breasts. Tiny chains of crystal flowers drip from the sides of her hips along the lace edges of her bottoms. In her hand, Jade carries the routine flogger, though I never expected her to use it on—
“Luc.”
This is his punishment.
“Good, Skeleton Flower,” she commends with a nod to my viewing room. “I want him to hear your voice before this commences. He should understand that actions have consequences.”
“Get on with it, Jade,” Luc bristles, unlike Sky who never offers words. They both hold their own in opposite ways.
“And I’ll remind you not to try anything,” she advises him, keeping her spine rigid. “At any moment I choose, I can turn the switch to make the inhibitor fully functional again. But obviously, I want your adrenaline to pump freely for this experience.”
“Go on.” Luc flexes his muscles once, dragging air into his chest. “I’m ready.”
At first, Luc just winces when the flogger comes down despite its electric charge. Displeased with his lack of emotion, Jade snaps her wrist with more force, drawing blood this time and causing him to shake. So far, she’s only whipped his chest, but it doesn’t take long for her to crack the leather strip across his back. Where she’d usually brush Sky’s skin with the instrument or whisper syrupy words in his ear or disrupt his senses and touch him to stir the caldron of intimacy, this is the complete opposite. Here, there is just fire and blood—a worthy example that her rules are meant to be obeyed.
Whenever her whip licks Luc’s skin, it returns me to that time in the Shed where I struck Sky with the device. The essence of that power, of seeing the ribbons of sweat blossoming on his face, of watching how aware Sky was of the pain because he owned every chunk of it. Like he drew it into himself, wore the pain as a badge of honor—like a warrior’s battle scar. Not Luc. He doesn’t channel the pain. I can see the hollow he’s excavated in his eyes. As one with a history of dealing pain to others, Luc shuts himself off from it. In these moments, where does he go? Does he travel to his Aviary? Or to his tree that swings bottled treasures in the wind? Does he lose himself in digital ink from his voxel sketches? In the lines and curves of every girl who has crossed his path through the years?
“That’s enough, Jade!” I stumble upon my voice without realizing it. More aware of my fist pounding against the glass, I barely register my words until she stands in front of the window, confronting me like she can unearth my eyes from beyond the one-sided pane.
“You want him, Skeleton Flower? Come and take him.”
She chucks the flogger into the water—a curl of blood trickling from its end. The water will be cleaned before my weekend exhibit. I’ll demand it.
Part of me expects to find Luc doubled over on his side, but after I open the closest door just in time to see Jade exiting through another—securing her robe over her leather ensemble—I discover he’s sitting in the same position, head raised in my direction…waiting. Rolling my eyes, I ignore the water splashing around my knees as I dash through it to reach him. As liquid from my body splatters against his open wounds, he shakes his head once, the motion so slight it’s more of an irritated twitch. Like it’s a hummingbird flicking its wings against him, and he’s shaking it off. My fingers hurry to scoop up translucent aqua to rinse the blood from his back and chest. Luc doesn’t even flinch. The once-blank canvas of his eyes is now gone. Replaced with the stable blue I recognize. The smile is a surprise, however.
“What?” I worry my lower lip between my teeth.
He shakes his head, smile curling more. “You just seem disappointed,” he mutters while I work at the knots around his wrists.
“I’m not disappointed. I’m angry.”
“For trying?”
“Yes. And for not trying.”
“Explain,” Luc invites just as I untether the ropes and drop them into the water before he rises without leaning on me for support.
I hurl the question at him before turning away, “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” He follows me out of the exhibit, blood dribbling from his chest, which is infused now with sun-stricken gold from time spent in the Garden. Too damn beautiful with his delicate muscles.
“You went somewhere in there. The pain…it didn’t affect you. Like your body responded, but you weren’t aware. You didn’t care.”
“Serenity…” Luc catches up to me in the hall, touching my arm, but I notice him wince and roll one shoulder. “I’ve trained since I was a boy in the art of dealing torture and enduring it. Jade is making a professional point. Nothing else.”
“Is that why you said it wouldn’t work on you? The domination?”
“Why?” He leans closer, fingers fluttering up the skin of my arm with his lips twitching into a grin. “Do you want to dominate me?”
“No.” I retreat, but any other words catch in my throat before I can utter them. They stick there like a wedged hedgehog, its needles nicking my vocal chords. I do my best at summoning up an explanation, but it doesn’t work.
Instead, Luc does the speaking with his thumb pressing on my wrist. “If it’s what you want, I’d be pleased to let you. If you want my blood…” He draws my wrist to his chest. Urges the fingers into the open wounds so their pads can taste his blood. “It’s yours,” he finishes. “But I won’t give for nothing.” A lift of his finger is his reminder. “I will belong to you alone. But if you are mine, you are mine. A
nd we can spend our lives learning from each other. Our pain, our pleasures, our limits and barriers.” He reaches up to cup the side of my throat. Breathes warmth onto my face. “Our bare hearts. I imagine if you look into them, Serenity, you will find them similar. Same veins of passion, of fire and ice and power that cannot be crippled. Instead, let’s cripple the world together.”
It’s the second time I run from him. Make it farther than the hallway. Make it to the elevator where I hurry to push the button again and again. Ready to crush the button when the elevator doors finally open, giving me sweet access. Inside the walls, I can breathe again—at least until Neil’s hand blocks the doors just as they prepare to close. I jam my hand against the ‘close’ button, backpedaling into the corner before gripping onto the railing, almost thinking I can flatten the metal. I screech instead, thrashing my head like a caged owl.
“Impressive,” Neil muses just before stopping the elevator. “Your display in here and his out there. He’s correct. You know that, right?”
“I know he’s right,” I snap, temper hot enough to kick the wall. “Shit! Ow!” I fumble to grab my wounded foot, picturing a bruise forming around my toes.
“You’re pretty cute when you curse.”
“Shut up,” I yell, the daggers shooting from my eyes warning him not to get too close.
“He’ll make a good addition to our team. Him and Mr. Muscles in the Shed. What should we call ourselves, I wonder? Team Take Down Force? No, too long. How about the Bad Bloods? I think we can agree we’ve all got bad blood in us.”
“What are you blathering on about?”
“Wake up, Serenity. Stop trying to deny what’s inside of you! Don’t try to pretend to be someone else. Trust me, I tried that for many years. We’re our father’s children. Deny your genetics all you want. They’re still there, cackling away in your DNA. We all have our own talents and strengths. And I learned to use them. Not just lose myself in them. Took me a long time to come out of the fog—to realize they can be used against others. Like Force.”