by May Dawson
Maybe I was really losing it. I smiled to myself in the darkness, embarrassed, and slid under the blankets. As utilitarian as the bed was, it felt soft and welcoming. In the darkness, I unbuckled the jeans and popped my hips up to slide them off. I sat up, laying them on the foot of the bed where I’d be able to find them again.
“Tomorrow, Dr. Parrish had better bring me some clothes,” I said. My mom could’ve packed me a bag. She could’ve done that much, at least.
But instead, she had gone to the front door and quietly turned the locks, making sure I couldn’t come into the house. She’d been just a few feet away, on the other side of the door, while I was swinging on the porch. My mother hadn’t packed me a bag because she didn’t want to be my mother anymore. She hadn’t done the smallest thing to show me that she wanted me to come back to her when I left.
Ryker said something back to me about the clothes, and then Ryker and Levi began to talk, but the words washed over me. I could barely breathe with the weight of what I’d just understood. My chest felt tight. I lay down, turning my back to the boys, nestling the pillow under my head. I squeezed my hot, tired eyes shut.
I felt nostalgia like an ache deep in my bones, like something that I would carry for the rest of my life. It was like going on vacation to a sunny place you know you’ll never come back to, or waving to the moving truck knowing that you won’t really keep in touch. I had left a home behind that I would never come back to.
My mother used to read to us at bedtime; she used to get so carried away that she would keep reading long after our bedtime. She made fancy tea for Ash and me on Friday afternoons after school, the one day she was home when the bus arrived. She would cut the crusts off cucumber sandwiches and set soft, airy cupcakes out on a fancy three-tier tray, and we loved to help her squeeze real lemons for lemonade instead of tea. When we were sick, but not too sick, she brought us into the office with her instead of sending us to school. I loved to sit at her extra desk in the corner and write with the vintage typewriter she’d restored for décor. Homework was always more fun there.
“Ellis?” Levi broke away from his conversation with Ryker. Then, more softly, to Ryker, I heard him say, “You go.”
I rested my arm across my face. Had I sobbed out loud? Part of me wanted someone to come comfort me, to lie and promise everything would be all right, to pay attention to me. I bit down hard on my lower lip. How humiliating.
“You mind if I sit?” Ryker asked, his voice low and husky and right next to the bed; in the dim light, I could see his faint outline, tall and muscular.
“I don’t want to talk,” I said softly. There were so many questions I wanted to have answered. But for now, I couldn’t take in one more thing. “I just want to sleep.”
“Me too.” He sat on the edge of the bed, and I felt the mattress tilt towards him, making me slide slightly. My hip met his, through the blanket. “I’ll go or stay. Whatever you want, Ellis.”
I almost hold him to go. It was on my lips. But he was also so close I was breathing in that scent of his, that smoke-and-sweetness-and-fresh-sweat scent, and I couldn’t help thinking I’d feel better if he lay down with me and wrapped me in his arms.
Not a lot better. My life would still be terrible. But maybe not so achingly lonely, maybe better enough to sleep.
And I knew he wouldn’t say no. Not my angel.
Funny that I guessed I was coming to believe that story already.
I rested my hand on his shoulder, feeling the warmth and solidity of him, and tugged him down towards the bed. He lay carefully down beside me, and then pulled me into his arms, drawing me against his body. I was enveloped by his warmth. His chin rested against the top of my head like we were made to fit together, and I felt his hard chest and abs and thighs, even through the blanket, as he held me close. Held me safe.
I should have been embarrassed. I should have said thank you.
Instead, I felt myself relax into the bed, into Ryker, as sleep curled itself around me.
Chapter 7
In my dream, Ash wound through the trees ahead of me. The sun was shining brightly overhead, so bright it was almost blinding even through the latticed branches of trees overhead, and I stumbled as I ran, continuously losing her in the glare and then finding her again. I tried to call to her, but I couldn’t even hear my own voice; all I could hear was the swish of her satin skirts, the low rustle of the branches in the breeze, the leaves shaking overhead. The trail of her gown seemed far longer than it had been on prom night. She’d worn a full-length dress that just barely hung over her pink sparkly toes and her silver heels. Now her train wound behind the trees after her, gliding with a faint silky whisper over pine needles.
I lost her in the glare of the sun through the branches. I turned around a tree, seeking where I thought she would be, and turned into a world on fire.
The trees in front of me were charred black. The flames were still feeding on them, a red-orange blaze gobbling up the crackling branches. The scent of smoke was thick and acrid, burning the back of my throat. I froze in horror, feeling the heat on my face, wanting desperately to run. Instead, I tried to call again for my sister. I couldn’t see her anywhere in the flames.
“Ellis,” the voice was low and gravely, in my ear, and I turned, but I didn’t see anyone. I was still alone.
“Ellis. Walk forward into the flames.” The voice commanded. “Will them to die out.”
I still couldn’t speak in my dream. I shook my head. I could feel the heat beginning to burn my skin, even from here. It felt like the first flush of sunburn across my cheeks, the slow itch, the sense of something just on the verge of being unbearable. To take a step forward into that heat was impossible.
“You control the flames. You can call them and you can douse them.”
I knew this voice. It was Ryker’s.
I took a step forward. The flames leaped upwards, blazing higher, the way a fire reacts when you throw another log on top. My cheeks blazed, heated by the reflected flames. The fire was spreading along the underbrush in my direction. It wasn’t natural. There should be nothing on this desolate ground for the fire to catch, but the sparks were racing across the ground like there was a line of gasoline drawn towards me.
“Ellis,” Ryker said. “Now. Be brave.”
I wanted to tell Ryker he was freaking nuts. I turned to look over my shoulder, wondering if he would be there, but the forest I’d walked through was gone. All I saw was a desolate world on fire.
Smoke drifted away, and at the very end, far away, I saw the room I’d fall asleep in. Flames curled along the ceiling just above the door, blocking the escape route.
Levi paced across the floor, his arms folded across his chest. Ryker sat on the side of the bed, where I could see a lump in the blankets, strands of dark hair spread across the pillow. Ryker was speaking urgently to the blankets.
“You can do this,” Ryker promised me. “I believe in you.”
He was the last person in this world who did, apparently.
I took another step forward into the blaze. The life I’d had was gone, drifting away in smoke and ash. The girl I’d been was a ghost left behind me. I felt like I was walking forward to climb an impossible cliff without grappling equipment; I felt energized, filled with a rush of adrenaline. There was nothing left to lose. So I would walk forward with my chin held high to meet the struggle, to meet the long fall if I slipped. What the hell did it matter anymore?
“I want my dreams back,” I said out loud.
The words seemed flat and strange, hanging in the air, and I walked forward, raising my hands up to my sides. I brought them down again like I was patting down the flames.
And they flickered out of existence.
Suddenly all that was around me was the charred and ruined trees. Everything was eerily still; there was no longer the rustle of leaves. There were no birds or animals left alive in this place.
I turned and picked my way back through the ashes. Ryker and Levi
didn’t see me coming, but in the room ahead, I could see Levi and Ryker exchange a grin. The flames were gone, but the ceiling was charred and one corner hung loose in our room, curling down into the side of the room.
There was no wall, and I walked into the room, but the minute my bare foot touched the cool tile underfoot, I gasped.
And sat up in the bed.
Ryker was sitting with me, and I caught a glimpse of his face—happy, alight—right before he hugged me close. I grinned into his shoulder, echoing back his joy.
“You did it, Firestarter,” he told me. “I knew you would. I knew it.”
“I could hear you,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah. We’re connected. We can always talk to each other—no matter where you go.”
I could feel the five o’clock shadow on his jaw rough against my cheek. I hoped he couldn’t hear what I was thinking, even if we could talk to each other. I felt myself blush, wondering if any other Lilith had felt the way I did about my ‘angels’. I hadn’t known Ryker long, and yet my crush on him felt like a powerful thing.
I sure thought Ryker and Levi were both gorgeous to look at. But I couldn’t ask either of them if it were normal for a Lilith to want her angels.
I cleared my throat. “Wherever I go? Where did I go?”
Ryker’s arms loosened around me, and he sat back. I felt cool without his arms wrapped around me, and I pulled the blanket up instead. Ryker leaned forward, his green eyes intent on mine, and for a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. My mind instantly flip-flopped from big worries to trivial ones; how would I turn my head if he kissed me, and what would Levi think, and when had I last brushed my teeth. But he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind my ear instead.
“You’re going into someone’s afterlife,” he said hesitantly.
“Whose?” I asked. But I already knew. The satin. The flames.
“I’m guessing Ashley’s,” he said.
He hadn’t known my sister. That was a strange thought, when I already felt, bizarrely, like I knew him so well.
“Ash,” I said. “We all just called her Ash.”
Levi joined us, standing at the edge of the bed, and I reached out to take his hand. He glanced down in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected that act of affection—which had been almost unthinking—but his fingers knit around mine. I felt that same rush of safety and comfort. Of strength.
“We have to rescue her,” I said.
I was afraid of what the boys would say to that. It sounded crazy. How did you rescue anyone from their afterlife? I didn’t even know what came after that. Just Heaven? Because Ash was certainly not in Heaven, and I knew my sister should be. Or… could Ash come back to life? I didn’t know what possible in this brand-new world I’d just been ushered into.
“Yeah,” Levi said. “You’re right. We do.”
“But first,” Ryker said, “We’re going to need all four of us.”
Levi nodded. “Four angels. Because it takes all four of us for you to come fully into your powers. To walk through the Light and Dark. To command life and death.”
Right now, I couldn’t imagine any of that. The acrid taste of smoke was still in the back of my mouth. I would do anything to help Ash, though. I would learn. “So we find the fourth brother. Master the… Light and Dark.” That was weird to say. “Easy peasy, right? We will?”
Levi squeezed my hand in his. “We will.”
Chapter 8
The next morning, I woke up still curled in Ryker’s arms. Early morning light flooded our room through the curtainless windows.
As sleep slowly fell away, I felt embarrassed. My head rested on his solid shoulder, and his arm was draped over my waist. But I felt more comfortable there than embarrassed. With my head against his chest, I could feel the steady, slow rise and fall of his chest. He still smelled delicious, and I took a deep breath in. I was crushing hard on him. What was wrong with me?
I took his hand in mine, anyway, his fingers resting on my palm. I looked down at his hand, turning it over in mind. His hand was scarred white across the knuckles, and I ran my thumb across his callouses. He was a fighter. I couldn’t imagine hitting anyone, the way the force would jar my arm up through my shoulder, the small bones in my hand possibly fracturing, because hurting someone else never comes free of cost.
The door banged open, and I sat up, my heart hammering in my chest.
Nurse Tom leaned in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’d heard y’all were a bunch of sluts, but this is something else.”
I hadn’t known Levi was awake, but he was on his feet and crossing the floor to Tom before I could make sense of how fast he moved. He was shirtless, and Levi’s powerful shoulders, the lean V of his back, the way his jeans slid low on his narrow hips, made me think of a dangerous, beautiful tiger, of an animal that should never have been caged.
Levi stopped too close to Tom, threateningly close. But he was also close enough to be in danger. Levi warned him, “Don’t.”
Tom smirked back at him. “Do I have to get the guys back in here again? Do another attitude adjustment?”
“I don’t think Dr. Parrish would appreciate that, huh?” Levi crossed his arms over his chest. Ryker was tall, but Levi towered over both Ryker and Tom.
“Maybe I wouldn’t tell her,” Tom said. “We won’t leave so many bruises this time. Not where it shows.”
Tom glanced over his shoulder, and his mocking eyes met mine. His lips curled with whatever he was going to say next. Then he glanced at Levi.
“Be ready for Parrish in half an hour,” he snapped. He threw a plastic bag into the center of the room. The door slammed shut.
Levi pressed his hand against the door, as if he were holding it shut. Even from behind, I could see the deep breath he drew, as if he were trying to calm his rage.
I hesitated, but the question on my mind was too pressing. “Levi. Did they hurt you?”
Levi looked at me over his shoulder, his hand still braced on the door, and his eyes went soft when they met mine. “You mean before?”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry about us, sweet girl. We’re not easily broken.” He turned, resting his back against the door, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. “Just remember. No matter what Dr. Parrish says. These people are not our friends.”
“I shouldn’t trust them,” I said. “But I should trust you guys. Is that what you’re saying? I haven’t known you any longer than I have Parrish.”
Levi glanced away, as if I’d hurt his feelings, and I felt a pang of regret. I was just saying things that I thought should be true. I shouldn’t trust Ryker and Levi. But I did. And that meant I couldn’t trust Parrish and her men.
But there was a naivety to my instant loyalty to Ryker and Levi that even I could recognize, even if I couldn’t fight it. That loyalty made me shake my head at myself. I resolved not to reveal my wild heart to the boys or to Dr. Parrish.
I rummaged through the bag. A package of clean socks, a package of underwear, two utilitarian bras, one white and one black, a pair of jeans and a pair of black leggings, and a couple of t-shirts. I looked at the tag in the new jeans and wondered how Parrish had known my size.
“No shoes,” I mused out loud.
“That’s just stupid,” Ryker said. I looked up at him sitting in bed, rubbing his hand across his face.
“Rough night?” I asked him.
He grunted. “I had a fever-hot little Firestarter heating the bed all night long. This place is cold, but it’s not cold enough for that.”
“Sorry,” I said. I tucked the bag under my arm, about to return to my room and change. “I would’ve moved. I don’t want to keep you awake.”
“We’re supposed to walk through hell and heaven together. I think I’m prepared to make bigger sacrifices than a lousy night’s sleep.” He yawned. “I’ll get used to you. Just got to get a fan or something.”
“That’s awfully presumptuous,” I said, even though Ryk
er assuming we would cuddle every night made my heart skip with excitement.
He didn’t bother to answer. He just winked, and his wink was, of course, adorable.
Ryker knew damn well I wanted to spend every night snuggled up in his arms.
Even if I pretended that it was just for safety reasons.
“See you in class?” I asked, my tone light, since Parrish had said she would be teaching me in classes.
“Sure,” Levi said. But he still seemed tense after his encounter with Tom, and he raked his hand through his hair.
“We’re teaching them,” Ryker said. “They’re not teaching us.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t trust her, but I was curious what Parrish would say. “I don’t know much of anything.”
“Not true, Ellis. There are an awful lot of secrets in your head. You just don’t know them yet. An awful lot of people want them.” Levi’s voice was soft but urgent.
Well. Now that I felt like I was bound to do something wrong this morning, to misstep with those secrets that I didn’t even know, I guessed I was ready to face yet another day. I nodded and left the boys behind, going to my room to dress.
It was nice to slip on clothes that didn’t hang off my body, but when I balled up the flannel shirt I’d worn the night before for the laundry, I pressed it to my face for just a second. It still smelled like Ryker’s aftershave.
There was a knock on the door, and I hurled the shirt towards the laundry basket like it was on fire. Then the knob turned and Dr. Parrish stuck her head in, her dark curls swinging loose today. “Are the clothes all right, Ellis?”
“They’re great,” I said, looking down at the white t-shirt and black leggings I was wearing. “Not exactly Teen Vogue, but I appreciate having something clean.”
“We’ll get you things more to your taste,” she promised.
“What about my own things? My mom didn’t pack me anything?” I trailed off as I saw the discomfort on Parrish’s face. Borderline panic.