The stillness about him frightened me, and yet pulled me to him. Randal knew more than he was telling me, but maybe that was a good thing because I wasn’t sure I had fully processed what I’d learned so far anyway.
“Will you stay the night?” I couldn’t believe I’d asked. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
My cell chimed with an incoming text, shattering the silence between us and any answer Randal had been about to give. I grabbed my purse off the counter and dug my cell out. It was Sage.
Are you okay? One of my friends called and said something crazy happened at Mystic while she was there. What happened?
I didn’t respond right away. Instead, I shifted my attention to Randal. “It’s Sage.”
“You should see if she will stay with you tonight. I don’t think it would be wise if I did.”
His words stung, but I thought I did a damn good job of hiding it. “All right.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Don’t forget, I will do my best to figure out how to get rid of this thing.”
I didn’t have a chance to ask him why he wouldn’t stay, or if he would at least keep me company until Sage came over because in the next heartbeat he was gone. The second I heard the door click closed behind him, my insides caved in. The last thing I wanted was to be alone.
Tapping on my cell screen, I typed out a response to Sage.
No, I’m not. ~ Kenna
I pulled the blanket draped over my lap up higher and took another sip of tea. It seemed to warm the iciness lingering inside me I couldn’t shake. My cell chimed again.
What happened? Did Randal do something?
I didn’t want to explain through text messages. Hell, I wasn’t even sure she would believe me.
Can you come stay with me tonight? ~ Kenna
I’m at Red River with Dex and some others, but I’ll be there in a second.
She was out having fun. Pulling her away from that to have her stay with me seemed a bit overdramatic. The wraith was in me, but thankfully, it seemed to be dormant. I couldn’t feel anything besides a tiny chill centered in my chest.
Never mind, I’m fine. Really. Stay. Have a good time. I think I’m just going to call it a night. ~ Kenna
I set my phone on the coffee table and downed the remainder of my tea. The annoying chime my cell made when I received a new text echoed through my living room.
Dex said to tell you,“Hell no. We’re bringin’ the party to you.”
My lips twisted into a sideways smirk. Dex was growing on me. I glanced at my empty mug. Maybe alcohol would heat me enough to lessen the chill clinging to my bones, if not, then I hoped it would drown out the memories of tonight at least.
My door will be unlocked, as long as you have alcohol in your hands. ~ Kenna
Deal. See you soon.
I pulled my blanket up to my chin and leaned back on my couch. Encased in the silence of my apartment, I closed my eyes and willed myself to calm down. My breathing evened out while I struggled to pinpoint where the wraith was inside of me. It was there; I knew it was. I could sense its foreignness inside me. For a split-second I thought I felt it slither, as though it were trying to bury itself deeper inside my chest behind my heart and lungs, so that I couldn’t find it. But no matter how deep it went, I could feel it.
It was cold and sick, tarnishing my insides every second it was inside me. I chewed my bottom lip as I willed it to disappear. Slowly I rocked back and forth where I sat, the intensity of my thoughts urging me to move in some way.
Please disappear. Please don’t latch on to me. Please disappear. Please don’t latch on to me.
The words repeated through my mind in a soft plea, a prayer. I wasn’t a religious person; my father hadn’t raised me to be one. We hadn’t even resorted to praying and attending church after he learned of his cancer. I once asked him why because deep down I figured any little thing you could add that had the potential to help a situation was worth a shot. He said that God wouldn’t answer his prayers because having this cancer had obviously been the plan for him, that if God were anything like him, then no amount of prayer would make him change his mind about the outcome.
To this day I still only prayed when I felt it was my last resort. My father’s words never rubbed off on me. I couldn’t say whether it had done me any good to pray during those times, but I wouldn’t say it had hurt either. That was why I prayed now, because it couldn’t hurt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Knock, knock!” Sage let herself in. “We have liquor and wine, just like requested.”
I remained where I was, still sitting on my couch wrapped up in my blanket, wishing everything that happened tonight had been a nightmare I would soon wake from.
Sage stepped through the front door. “What the hell happened to you? You look like shit.”
Her straightforward words made the corners of my mouth twist into a smile. “More than you could ever guess.”
“Liquor or wine?” Dex stepped in behind her and paused. His eyes skimmed over me. “Uh, you look like death, sweetheart. You okay?”
Okay, there was that damn word again. “I don’t know.”
The events from the night were starting to sink in, and the knot on my head was pounding in sync with my heartbeat. I must have fallen hard when the wraith entered me.
Sage crossed the room and set the bottle she was holding on the coffee table in front of me. Her face was screwed into an intense frown, and her brows were drawn together in anger. “Did Randal hurt you? What happened? My friend didn’t give me any details, and frankly neither did you.”
I struggled to align the words I needed to say so that I could get them out right the first time. “I was attacked.” The words fell from my lips easier than I’d thought they would. While they weren’t the ones I had hoped would come out first, they gave Sage and Dex the gist of it.
“By who? How?” Dex’s jaw seemed to square off as his lips flattened into a thin line. “When?”
I pulled the edge of my blanket down, suddenly feeling choked by it. “Tonight at Mystic.”
“Who was it? Someone you know?” Sage gripped my hands in hers. I knew it was a gesture meant to comfort me, but I didn’t want to be touched.
I pulled away and ran my hands through my hair. “I don’t know who he was, but I know what he was now.” My answer was cryptic, but I couldn’t think of a way to explain any of this without stating those two things first.
“What was he?” Dex asked.
I shifted my eyes between him and Sage. “A wraith.” The words floated past my lips in the faintest of whispers, because I was scared of their reaction, afraid it would be similar to Randal’s.
“No.” Sage shook her head. “Are you sure? Was that what Randal thought it was? Did he tell you that’s what it was?” Her words were laced with disbelief and her eyes were wide and pooling with concern.
I nodded, not liking the way she was reacting to the news. It was similar to the way Randal had acted. Wraiths were no good. That much was clear now. My eyes drifted to Dex, unable to take in Sage’s heartfelt emotions right now. They were written clearly on her face.
“Wraiths aren’t common,” Dex informed me. “How did one even get into Mystic? Was it already inside someone?”
“It was in a man. I’m not sure what the guy was before because the wraith had already transformed his aura into a silver color.” Images of my aura as I walked out of the men’s room flashed through my mind. I wondered if the silver had overtaken anymore of my red yet. I hoped not.
Dex leaned against the arm of the couch. “Okay, so tell me exactly what happened. Did the guy talk to you? Did he touch you? Give me a play-by-play.”
After taking in a deep breath, I relayed everything I could remember to him. Sage didn’t speak, which was a rare for her in any situation. Dex took everything in as though he were a detective hot on a case. I could see each scrap of information flitter through his brain while it was b
eing processed. When I was finished my eyes landed on Sage. I took in her distraught demeanor and wondered if I would be able to get more answers out of her than I had Randal because she obviously seemed to know a lot.
“How do you know about wraiths?” I asked her. “I’ve never heard of them until now.”
Sage picked up the bottle of wine she had brought in and went to the kitchen. I followed after her. She paused at the cabinet beside the sink and pulled down two wineglasses. Her back remained facing me even when she spoke; it was as though she couldn’t look at me. “Randal. He’s the one who told me about them. He and his two sisters, I mean.”
“What did he tell you? Because I don’t know much.” Dex moved to the fridge and placed the bottle of liquor he’d been holding inside. “By the way, where is Randal?”
I dropped my gaze to the glass Sage was pouring. “He left.”
“He left?” Dex scooped up the glass once Sage was done, and set it on the counter beside me. “Like he just walked out?”
“He brought me home, and then he left,” I clarified.
“Don’t be hard on him,” Sage muttered. “He has a lot of bad memories that were probably dug up because of this.”
“Like what?” Dex scoffed. “If I remember correctly, and I think I do, it was Kenna who was attacked tonight not him.”
“His sister was attacked by a wraith years ago.” Sage pressed the glass she had poured for herself to her lips and took a sip. Her stare was distant, and I wondered if she was reliving the moment Randal had confided all this to her. “She didn’t make it.”
Her words pounded through me, steady and strong. They latched onto the fear that was already breeding inside of me with every passing second I allowed myself to think about the details of my situation.
“That was probably hundreds of years ago. There has to be some way to get rid of one now.” Dex took a swig of whiskey straight out of the bottle. His lips pursed together for the briefest of moments while the heat of the liquor slipped down his throat. “Surely someone knows somethin’ more about them now. I mean, Randal is ancient for cryin’ out loud. That most likely happened centuries ago.”
I laughed. For whatever reason, it bubbled from my gut in an uncontrollable way. In that moment, I couldn’t have been more thankful Dex had walked into my life when he had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sleep eluded me no matter what position I twisted into beneath the covers. Tiny fractures of light slipped through the mini blinds on my bedroom window, reminding me of the time. Sage, Dex, and I had stayed up until sunrise. We’d made a mad dash for the guest room and draped my thickest comforter across the window for Sage. She passed out on the bed in seconds, dead to the world. Dex had taken the couch. I could hear him snoring; it echoed through the silence of my apartment reminding me I wasn’t alone. I had friends who were there for me.
Rolling over onto my side, I thought about Randal and how quickly he had ditched me. A slight pang of hurt stabbed through me. Granted he had lost someone he loved dearly to a wraith years ago, but that still didn’t justify his actions. If anything, it should have given him a reason to stay with me. He knew what a wraith could do to someone.
My eyes landed on my cell. I had tossed it on my nightstand after googling wraiths for too long. The information I found hadn’t been very helpful. Apparently the human version of wraiths was nowhere near the truth. While some sites did mention wraiths inhabiting a person, they claimed a priest could exercise the entity and force it from the body. From the way both Randal and Sage had acted about the situation at hand, I wasn’t so sure getting rid of the wraith inside me would that easy.
I closed my eyes, knowing I needed to get some sleep, and felt the coldness of the wraith twist inside my chest. My stomach churned. I dug my fingers into the soft sheets bunched at my sides, hoping that if I remained perfectly still it would stop. When it didn’t the desire to pull my shirt up and see if I could watch it moving beneath my skin pulsed through me.
Releasing the sheets, I relaxed my fingers and counted down from ten, deciding that when I reached one, I would flip the blankets down and lift my shirt up to look. By the time I reached five, it had grown still again. My heartbeat steadied after a few moments. My breathing evened out, and eventually I was caught in that blissful place between being asleep and not.
Until a fluttering sound pulled me to consciousness again.
My eyes snapped open. I’d heard this noise before, and I knew exactly who it was.
As I sat up in bed, my eyes darted around the room, searching. She wasn’t here. Disappointment slashed through my insides, because I could use her now. I needed to talk to her, to see if she knew what had happened to me, if she knew of a way to get rid of it.
If she knew of a way to save me.
Something propped up in the chair beside my window caught my attention. I peeled the covers back and padded across the cold hardwood floor toward it. Memories from my trip to New Orleans last year flashed through my mind. She’d left me more than one letter like this back then. I plucked the envelope from the chair and stared at handwriting scratched across the envelope in blood red ink. My thumb tapped against the corner edge as I pondered what this letter might say.
Something red caught my attention as it slipped out the door and down the hall. The envelope fell from my grip as I chased after what I hoped was her. When I rounded the corner, there she was—my mother.
“Mom?” The word felt thick in my throat, hardly used and stale. “What are you doing here?”
Her shoulders dipped as she turned to face me. “You’re in trouble. So, I’m here.” She shrugged as though her random appearance were so obvious it shouldn’t need to be explained.
“How did you even know?” Mara Valmont was as far from maternal as any mother could be. She’d never been there for me growing up, not unless all the eccentric gifts she sent for birthdays and holidays from around the world counted. “Have you been watching me?”
“From time to time I like to check in on you. I’m not going to lie.” She lifted her hand and tapped on her ring finger. “But it was your ring that brought me this time.”
I didn’t drop my stare to the ring she was talking about because I feared that if I did, she would be gone when I looked up. This moment with her was fragile. There was no way my gaze was shifting from her. “It still works? I thought it was only so you could find me during my awakening?”
She shook her head. Her silken hair the same color as mine swept across her shoulders. “No. As long as you wear it, I can always find you. And in cases like this, it gives me a little jab in the gut when there’s something seriously wrong.”
I ran my thumb over the heart-shaped gem in the center. Deep inside of me, there had always been a tiny hope that it still connected me to her somehow; it was the reason I still wore it.
“I don’t know everything. No details of how the wraith infected you, but I do know there’s one inside you now.” Worry crossed her features, and for a split-second, I wished she would erase the distance between us and pull me into a hug.
She didn’t move though, and neither did I. The time for hugs shared between us had long ago passed.
“Do you know how to get rid of it?” My heart thundered in my chest.
“No.” Her glossy red lips twisted into a sad smile. “But in the letter there’s a place you can go where someone might know how to help.”
A little piece of me died. She didn’t know any more than anyone else. The fear that this wraith might possibly be the end of me chewed at my vocal cords, making it impossible for me to thank her for her information, what little she could give.
“It’s not much, but it’s all I can do for you, sweet girl.” A tear trickled from her eye. The sight of it spurred ones of my own. Before I knew it was coming, my mother had me wrapped in her arms, my head cradled against her shoulder. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d held me like this. “I should have warned you about wraiths when I told you abou
t auras. Silver is the one to stay away from undoubtedly.”
“From what I’ve heard they aren’t common, so it wasn’t your fault to not have thought to.” She’d apologized, and I’d given her an excuse. This never happened.
“I should go.” She sniffled and released her hold on me.
“Stay, please.” The words slipped from me sounding more like the words of a frightened child than an adult. “Even if it’s just for a little while.”
Her mouth opened and then closed, as if she’d been about to say something but then thought better of it at the last second. I watched as she shook her head, giving me an answer without uttering a sound. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” I hated the words as soon as they left my mouth. I should have said nothing. I should have let her do what she did best, leave.
“Because then we would talk. You would ask questions about me, about the past, about why I’ve made the decisions involving you and your father I have, and I don’t think I could handle that.” Her words were raw and honest. They made me feel sorry for her.
“I don’t see how that could be such a bad thing. It’s called bonding.”
“You don’t want to bond with me, Kenna.” Her lips twisted into the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “Because soon you’d realize how different I am from you, and then you’d hate me for all the right reasons. I prefer things to stay how they are.”
“And what if I told you I already hated you?” It was the wrong thing to say, but I did anyway. I was angry.
Her lips curved into a smile. “I would say that’s okay because it would be for reasons you’ve invented on your own, not the truth-based ones that would turn it into true loathing.” She kissed my forehead. “Stay pure, sweet girl. There aren’t enough pure-hearted succubi in the world anymore.”
Then she was gone. She disappeared down the hallway and out the door before I could think of something to say that would stop her. I wrapped my arms around my middle and stood there, staring after her. The sounds of Dex snoring from the couch echoed through my ears as warm tears slipped along my cheeks.
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