Inside the Fire

by Heather Glidewell

  Except this wasn’t my Wesley. This wasn’t the man my heart belonged to, Aaron was just a filler. A body to keep the void in my heart open, but I didn’t want it open I wanted it closed. I didn’t want to feel, and suddenly guilt washed over me as Aaron shuddered. Rolling onto his side I noticed that everything I had been seeing and feeling wasn’t what I was feeling for Aaron. I still longed for my Wesley.

  We laid there for an hour on his living room floor, my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat and thinking. This wasn’t going to work if every time he touched me I thought of Wesley. Just like that the spell was broken.

  "That was…" He paused running his hand up my spine. "Amazing." he breathed kissing the top of my head.

  "Yeah." This was all I could say.

  It didn't matter what side of me he got, he got me and I felt stupid. My heart hardened, my demeanor change, and the only thought in my head was escape.

  "I wasn't expecting that to be so…" He breathed. “Perfect."

  "This wasn't your first time was it?" I asked softly. If I had taken another boy's innocence I would scream.

  “Oh no, Dawn, no there have been several before you. You though, there is something about you. I could have sworn at one point your eyes turned black. I would sell my soul to be with you again,” He said quietly his heart pounding.

  Time slowed, and I felt something click in my brain but I wasn’t sure what it was. This was like what happened with Wesley all those months ago. Only this time there was no woman screaming in my head, there was just silence.

  Dad was right. I needed to be more careful otherwise I would hurt this boy. I may not feel anything for him but I didn't need him getting to emotionally involved. I sat up and grabbed my dress from the floor beside me struggling to get it on. Aaron looked at me confused yet understanding as he grabbed his clothes and put them on slowly watching me with his every move. I glanced at him.

  Did he know? Did he know that while we were together I was thinking of Wesley? Of course he knew. How could he not?

  “I need to get home.” I said quietly pulling my hair up in a messy ponytail.

  “Yeah, your dad gives me the creeps. I don’t want to be on his shit list.” He joked awkwardly.

  I gave him a hesitant kiss on the cheek and let him walk me to my car. He opened the door so that I could get in. I gave me one last lingering kiss. “I will see you tomorrow.” I said giving him a forced smile.

  “I will be waiting.” He smiled back and shut my door leaving me to the thoughts in my head and Disturbed on the radio.

  ****

  I had done the unspeakable. I had let a simple emotion get the best of me, what started out as hot and heavy left me feeling guilty. I had wanted to possess him. I had wanted to own him. Then after fighting I had simply laid back and used him to fulfill some inner daydream of Wesley.

  I willed the cold into my soul and vowed I would keep myself shut off from here on out. I was not going to let that happen again. Sleeping with other men wasn’t going to make Wesley go away. He was always going to be with me, always a part of me. Even through the cold and ice in my chest I still loved him. Today had just proven that no matter what I did his face would haunt me.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Claiming Explained

  When I pulled into my driveway I wasn't sure what I would be faced with. A familiar silver truck sat in my spot and a familiar little girl was sitting on the tail gate sobbing into her hands. I parked my car behind my mothers and flew out of the driver’s seat tossing my keys to the side, slamming the door, and taking off into a dead sprint to get to the little girl.

  "Melissa!" The words were shrill as they escaped my lips. She looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.

  Jumping off the back of the truck she ran to me throwing herself in my arms and sobbing into my shoulder. I could feel the cold wet patches forming on the fabric of my dress. I put my arms around her and held her close her tiny little frame shaking.

  "He's gone Dawn." She sobbed uncontrollably.

  "Who's gone?" I asked smoothing her hair in an attempt to soothe the hysterical child.

  "Wesley." I cannot describe my emotions.

  There was panic, fear, and anger all pouring through me at once. I gripped onto the child my eyes filling with tears.

  "What do you mean gone?" I asked praying it wasn't as bad as the images in my head said it was.

  "All his stuff is gone. His clothes, his toothbrush, everything!" She whimpered.

  "What happened Melissa, tell me everything." My hands were shaking I was so scared.

  He had run off with her I'm assumed instantly.

  What had she done to him, where was my Wesley?

  I felt a dark hardening in my chest and I bit my bottom lip to stop from crying out in pain. My heart hurt, like the stone that surrounded it was being chiseled through and broken into tiny bits of dust. I fell to my knees the pain was brutal. I bit my lip harder tasting the bitterness of blood flow into my mouth.

  Melissa was standing over me screaming but all I could hear was the cracking of my stone heart. My mother came running grabbing me by my arms, and when I screamed in pain she dropped me. I lay in the gravel crying, clutching my chest my mother racing back inside to grab my father. He was out in a flash touching my face then my chest where my heart had stopped beating, and he frowned.

  My heart had stopped beating!

  "Dawn?" I could hear him muffled through the cracking.

  I shook my head because the words would not come out of my mouth.

  "I need to get you inside. It’s going to hurt but I have to." I nodded again as my father's arms lifted me with not even a quiver of me being too heavy.

  He carried me inside and laid me down on the couch where he could look at me better. The crackling had stopped for the most part but my heart still felt as if it was not beating.

  "It's not honey." He said to me touching my face with his hands. "It will pass in a few minutes you have already made it through the excruciating part." He held my hand for another twenty minutes until the pain went away and I felt my heart slowly start to beat again.

  "What was that?" I said dryly my voice coming out stressed.

  My dad’s expression darkened, and he looked at my mother.

  "Angie, take Greg and Melissa to the kitchen for some tea and cake." He smiled at Melissa as my mother ushered them from the room.

  When they were gone he looked at me sternly.

  “What you just experienced is absolute heartbreak.” I looked at him like he had lost his mind.

  What did he mean heartbreak?

  From everything I had read it isn’t supposed to feel like that.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “We feel it different from humans because we are designed to deceive. So when someone deceives us it tends to hurt a Hell of a lot more. I want your God’s honest answer on this one Dawn." He glared at me. "Did you sleep with that boy?"

  I couldn't say yes, but I couldn't say no. I mean no would be a lie but this is not something that I want to discuss with my father. So I nodded at him slowly.

  "Jesus Christ, Dawn." He plunged his fingers into his hair. "And Aaron?"

  Now that was a touchy subject, so I looked away as he flung himself to his feet.

  "What part of they are human do you not understand?" He was pacing the room. "It is one thing to love a human it is another to actually claim them!"

  "I think Aaron claimed me more than I claimed him." I saw the horror cross my father's face and I couldn't believe the words came out of my mouth. It made my stomach turn.

  "Oh please, Dawn I don't need details!" My father sounded disgusted.

  "So what was that?" I asked again sitting up I could feel my strength increasing.

  "That was you being dumped for the most part." He said quietly.

  "I dumped him though." I said back at him. I had been
the one to end the relationship, so why was I the one that had to deal with all the pain?

  “Ok let me be frank on this one. Wesley was claimed by you, and he claimed you in return without even knowing what he was doing. It can be something as simple as I love you or I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you that can bind the two of you together. It's kind of like a binding contract between a human and a demon.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him.

  “It is his way of giving you permission to possess him." he looked lost in thought for a second and then his eyes rolled, "I am humanish now. I used to be demonish, a bit of a different form let me tell you. I had the ability to seem solid to a human. They could touch me and feel me, but I had the ability to possess their bodies as well. If I claimed them I was able to make the contract binding. This meant I could possess their body any time that I wanted until the contract was broken or somehow made void." He smiled a half smile, like this explanation was way better than the one he had first given.

  “Good Lord Dad are you serious?” I felt my heart pounding. I let out a sigh of relief feeling the sensation again.

  "Miranda is part demon, as well, so she has the same ability as you to claim. It is probably done in the same manner that you claimed him." He blinked and looked to his right obviously uncomfortable with the conversation.

  “That’s not good.” I groaned.

  "When you and Wesley split neither one of you let the contract go. Even though he didn't know he had one with you it was still there. Pretty much when Melissa told you that he was gone your body felt at that moment the breaking of the contract." He looked at me again sadly.

  “I don’t understand.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Honey, he let you go. This doesn't mean he doesn't love you still. It doesn't mean that he will be gone forever. However, I'm not going to lie he's with another woman so there is a good chance it is forever. I would assume that Miranda was able to get him to agree to her charges, he is now hers.” He looked miserable all of a sudden like he was remembering something.

  He put his hand to his chest. “He broke your contract, you no longer hold a claim over him, and he no longer holds a claim over you. However, because you’re a dumb teenager…" He glared at me again. "You already allowed another human to claim you. And I hate to say it, weather it was him you wanted or not you reciprocated the claim. You can deceive all that you want to but that boy will not feel anything. As a demon you can hold multiple contracts however if he breaks the contract with you we are back here again. Unless the breaking of the contract is mutual then you will both just go on with life as normal."

  “How do you know when a contract has been claimed?” I asked softly.

  “Well time seems to stop. If there is already a claim on the human you will probably hear and agonizing scream of the demon that he had the claim with. If there isn’t time just slows and then rapidly picks back up.” He answered me and I sighed. That explained that, I now understood how I was slowing time.

  I looked at him horrified. Why hadn't I been told all of this before? If I had known half of the things that he just told me I would have joined the convent to not have to deal with that excruciating pain.

  "So now what do I do?" I asked twiddling my thumbs.

  "Well honey, the only thing that you can do in a situation like this." He looked down at the floor. "You are just going to have to wait out the contract. Sooner or later the boy will break it. I wouldn't suggest rushing into a third one though after this one dissolves." He touched my knee. "Besides we have more to do now then we have ever had to do. Just because the contract is broken between you and Wesley doesn't mean that we still can't save him."

  "You think we can save him?" I asked eagerly looking at my father.

  "I think we have a good chance of it yeah." He smirked. "Lilliana may be one of the all-powerful on Earth but she is one of the weaker beings in Hell. I knew this one demon that turned a whole city to ash because someone stepped on his toe! The whole city, and all its people just POOF." He laughed. "Oh I could tell you stories about my side of the family but I prefer not to be more damned than I already am so they will have to wait till later."

  "Dad?" I asked standing up. "If I claimed Wesley and Aaron, what happened with John?"

  He looked at me spooked for a second.

  "John was human once, but he isn't anymore, his heart does not beat like it should. Whatever made him the way he is, and I'm assuming that it's Lilliana that did it, broke his human nature in two. What he did to you was in no way a contract. He claimed you yes, but it isn't binding in any way. You are safe on that one honey." He gave me a reassuring smile as he followed me into the kitchen where I gave Melissa a big hug and Greg a pat on the shoulder.

  ****

  Melissa and Greg spent several hours with us that night discussing what took place with Wesley. There had been a fight the week before that had caused Wesley to storm from the house threatening to leave and never come back. Greg had enough of Wesley never being home. He had told his son that he was not a boarding house for his stuff. That if he planned on leaving he needed to leave. His father being as stubborn as he is didn’t believe the boy when he said he would. When he came home from work early that day to spend some time with his son and discuss some concerns with him, Wesley was nowhere to be seen.

  He had packed up everything that had been his, including taking several pictures off the wall that had been of him and Melissa. The only item that Greg had found after his son was gone was a pile of photos on the mattress in Wesley’s room. They were of me and him, the photos we had taken of our time together. Those silly cell phone snap shots that we had playfully printed and tacked to his wall, that way we could always remember that we belonged together.

  “I am so sorry Dawn.” He said to me.

  “It’s ok sir, I shouldn’t expect him to take them with him.” It hurt to say it but it was true.

  My mother and I followed them home that night, to make sure they were ok. We were going to stay with them to protect them if something, or someone, was to come snooping around.

  When we got there the first place I went was Wesley’s room. Opening the door I nearly fell to my knees again, it was bare. Every last poster had been taken from the walls all that was left was a stripped bed, two nightstands, and the couch that used to sit facing the now missing TV. It was almost too much to bear the feeling of being somewhere that held so many memories but missing the one key ingredient to making it more than just a memory.

  The day he gave me the promise ring, or the day he told me that he loved me, the day we discussed children and our future. All of that was in this room and now with it being so empty it almost left me wondering if he ever existed.

  Could it be possible that he was just a figment of my imagination? Am I somewhere back in Texas dreaming this elaborate dream?

  The heartbreaking feeling that I had experienced that day didn’t seem to fade. Even though the pain was gone the memory was always constant. He had let me go. Had he done it because he wanted to or had he done it because he had to?

  Either way it was done, the contract my father so nervously told me about had been broken this meant he no longer had a claim on me.

  Why did it still hurt though?

  I felt a pair of soft arms circle my shoulders and my mother’s chin rested comfortably on my shoulder.

  “What are you thinking about?” She asked me as I wrapped my hands around her wrist and gave her a squeeze.

  “Everything.” I said letting a tear escape my eyes. “Why does it still hurt?”

  She sighed and turned me to face her. I could see sadness in her eyes a pain that nobody but my father would ever understand.

  “Your father and I were madly in love for centuries. I don’t know if it was the fact that we were not supposed to be together that made it so exciting or if it was really love.” She wipe
d the tear from my cheek.

  “Centuries huh?” I breathed.

  “I assume your father told you about the bond that you shared with Wesley.” I was instantly struck with horror, it was hard enough having this talk with my father but not my mother too and not in the same day. So I nodded and crossed my fingers that this would be a different discussion.

  “Your father couldn’t stop being a menace just as much as I couldn’t stop being a goody goody. He had his mistresses, these pretty girls that would do his bidding. I couldn’t understand that it was his nature. He had to have the attention in the beginning to be the one in the spotlight. So after two years of seeing how he really was the love was gone. But it still hurts, I look at him and I see the man I fell in love with. That dangerous demon that I would sneak off to be with.” She looked sad now.

  “How long did you hurt?” I asked.

  “It’s going to hurt you for a long time. Ten years from now you will look back at Wesley and all these emotions will seem new again. The guilt never leaves, neither does the connection. Your bond may be broken but you two are as much a part of each other’s future as your father is to mine. You move on yes, but you never forget.” She gave me a weak smile and hugged me to her chest running her fingers through my hair.

  “I love you mom.” I said weaving my arms around her waist.

  ****

  We slept in the living room on a lumpy futon. My mother’s hand kept slapping me in the face and I was unable to really fall asleep so I got up and decided to take a walk outside just to get some air. I had just stepped outside the door when I felt a familiar hand grab mine. My eyes shot to my left only to be met with the sad sick eyes of Wesley.

  “Why are you here?” He demanded pulling me around the side of the house. His hands were freezing and his eyes were darker.

  “I have my reasons.” I began, but he put his finger up telling me to be quiet.

  “You cannot be around my family. I know about you and your parents. I know what you are. So does Miranda.” I fidgeted for a second as he cleared his throat.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest and grunted at him.

  "Do you know what she is?" He looked at me and then quickly away his eyes scanning the background.