Wicked Lucidity

by Wicked Lucidity [lit]

  I nodded. “He did.”

  We broke down in laughing fit and stared at the ceiling as we calmed down. Taking hold of her hand, I gave her a warm smile. “I am so thankful that they heard me.”

  Amber made an alarm bell sound. “Alert, alert, Karri spooky moment fast approaching.”

  “Ha, ha. It’s true. I was scared. William kicked me out the night after all that. I was terrified of the dark and there I was. I’d just turned eighteen and graduated from high school. I had no where to go. No friends. Between the way I am and the way they were, people ran when they saw me coming. That was the first time it hit me how alone I was. I’d never asked the powers for anything. Not when mom and dad died. Not even when RJ handed me over to strangers and all I wanted to do was cling to his leg. Wait, I did cling to his leg. I also asked him to stay. He said no.” I laughed. “I wrote him a letter once when I was like eight or nine. All it said was ‘sorry for biting you.’ I was a dork. I thought he left me there with them because he was mad that I bit him.”

  “You bit him?” Amber asked.

  Something brushed over my arm and I stared around, trying to figure out what it was. When I found nothing, I relaxed. “Long story. Anyway, I didn’t ask the powers for help then either.” I took a deep ragged breath. “My mom told me that if you were really good you could ask the powers or the goddess of your choice for help. I broke down that night and asked for help. My clothes were in shreds. I was bleeding from just about everywhere, tired, cold and in so much pain.”

  I cleared my throat. “I was scared of myself and positive that they’d been right, that I was a demon. I could feel the evil pressing in on me. It was moving so fast that I was sure I wouldn’t make it through the night. But I asked and closed my eyes tight, trying so hard to go away to one of the many places I have in my head but I couldn’t.”

  I moved our laced hands around in Celtic patterns while I continued to talk. “That’s the night PJ came to me. She told me that someone special, someone who would need me as much as I needed them would come when she left. It was you.”

  “Oh, the lady who said she knew me but I’m positive she didn’t? I’d remember meeting a PJ. Not a common thing to go by. Though, you seem to have a lot of nicknames around you--PJ, RJ, it’s kind of cute. I love the way you always make her seem so magikal too. Did she get you some sort of medical attention?”

  I let Amber continue thinking in human terms. “Kind of. I hurt so bad. Especially my cheek. William split it wide open and I’d been too weak after what I’d done to heal a thing. Plus, I knew I was being hunted. I’d had my first brush with what evil feels like when it’s hungry and coming for you when my parents died. I felt that everywhere the night he threw me out. I know now that by finally recognizing my powers and having them overthrow me for a bit, I’d sent up a huge flare for the bad guys telling them to come and get it. I didn’t mean to but it happened. I was terrified, Amber. And I do mean terrified.”

  My hands shook just talking about it. “When my parents died I had my father there, doing his best to calm me down. RJ showed up then too, like some giant knight in black.” I let out a soft laugh. “But I was completely alone with night William finally snapped. When this huge flash of white surrounded me I was pretty sure I’d died. I was actually really happy about that.”

  “Karri.”

  “What? When would it have been okay to surrender? I had nothing left in me. You seem to think I’m some sort of super woman. I’m not. I hurt too. William spent years screwing with my head, so much so that I really believed what he said about me. I believed I was bad, some abomination that the devil made. Amber, I was scared to eat the food there. He’d....”

  She gave me a knowing look. “Began experimenting in how much poisons your system could handle without actually killing you,” she said, with a long sigh. “It was in one of the letters. But the crazy bitch kept saying that William really did manage to kill you several times that way and that you rose from the dead, your eyes black and the look of evil etched on your face. She was delusional and he was sick. She mentioned that he tried that with you the first time when you were ten. Feeding a ten year old rat poisoning is ... it’s ... it’s something they don’t even have words for, Karri.”

  No part of me could argue. It was horrific. Thinking about it, about him still left me shaking. “I know,” I whispered. “When I’d get used to the smell of what he was trying to put in my food or drinks, he’d switch to something new, convinced that it was one more sign that I was a demon. It all started after he shoved me down the staircase and broke my leg. I healed it without knowing how I did and he stood there and watched it happen.”

  Amber covered her mouth. “Ohmygod, he tried different ways to kill you. That’s what she meant by the demon child resists the blade, the poison, the snakes, the powder and the rod of justice. Whatever that was.”

  I cringed and took a deep breath. “Amber, she meant William--the rod of justice was a euphuism for his ... I’m going to throw up if we keep talking about this. Each time he tried to ... umm, I’d emit some sort of protective energy that I still to this day don’t know how I did it.” I choked up and Amber wrapped her arms around me.

  Her eyes widened. “You mean that he tried to rape you, Karri? Oh fuck, that’s what she meant by the rod of justice, William thought....”

  I nodded. “He could exorcise the evil in me by screwing it out of me. He thought that he was someone touched by the hand of one who is right--his own personal savior.”

  “What exactly did he manage to do to you, Karri? Did he rape you?”

  Something banged hard on my bedroom wall, leaving the perfect indent of a fist. It magikally eased away, smoothing over until it was perfect but I’d seen it. I just couldn’t figure out what has caused it. I knew that Amber hadn’t done it. Hell, she was clinging to me, not ever paying attention to it.

  My hands shook harder as I held tight to her. “He punished me for something I couldn’t help, for something I couldn’t change. And I was too young, too naïve when it came to who and what I am to stop him.”

  Huge unshed tears filled my eyes. “Amber. I didn’t understand that I had the power to stop him. I should have known. I should have figured it out. No child survives what he’d do to ‘test’ my demoness. No child can take an ax to the gut and live to tell about it. They don’t ingest enough poison to drop an elephant and survive. They don’t wake to find themselves covered in poisonous snakes, scream, try to get away only to find the snakes biting them everywhere and somehow manage to live to see another sunrise, another day for William to test his theories, prove the evil in me was real.”

  “Why don’t you hate RJ?”

  I laughed, it was choked but there. “To be honest, a little part of me does. It just didn’t feel right to admit that in front of Riston. A little part of me, which hides in the darkness I carry wants RJ to have to be the one that puts me down. It wants him to have to kill what he had such a hand in creating. I try to stop it. I, the me that’s normally in control, doesn’t want that. I just want RJ to be happy wherever he is.”

  “I can understand that,” she whispered. “At least you had PJ come to you when you needed her most.”

  “If you’d have seen her when she appeared out of thin air you’d have thought she was a goddess or an angel too. She was so tiny. Shorter than you, even. Her hair was as long as mine but instead of stick straight and blonde, it was dark, dark brown and hung in huge ringlets.” I laughed. “If it wasn’t for her big blue eyes, I think someone might have actually thought she was all hair. Gods, Amber, she was stunning.”

  “Hilary’s mom was like that.” Amber smiled at me. “She had so much hair that I’m not sure how she didn’t tip over. She was petite, almost child-like but held herself in a way that you knew she was all woman.”

  “Yeah, so did PJ. Sexy, compact and damn dangerous when provoked.”

  “Was?” Amber asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Just under a year ago, I was run
ning on the treadmill, doing my normal thing and instantly felt like someone had hit me with a bat in the chest. I couldn’t breathe. The second the nothing that hit me tossed my ass into the garage door I knew it was bad.”

  Her eyes widened. “Tell me you moved the treadmill because I’m sort of believing this story and that’s a hella far way to go.”

  “No. It was in the same spot. But that didn’t matter. All I felt was her pain. I laid there, wrapped her in a blanket of my power and took it all from her. I tried over and over again to bring her back, Amber. I tried to heal her from a distance. Her wounds were mortal but she was still alive. She fought me tooth and nail. She said that I wouldn’t walk away from that. I don’t know, something about being similar but not the same and that in the end we’d both end up dead. I kept trying and that little spitfire,” a tear fell down my cheek, “she started to bind my power so I stopped. It was then that she told me to come this way--that the people we loved would be threatened in the near future.”

  “The people you loved?” Amber asked, arching a brow. “Karri, this is weird but I believe you. So, no laughing on the inside for me asking this but why did she say we?”

  “I won’t laugh at you. But I can’t answer that question. PJ was adamant that she knew you. When she left and moved back home she had told me that she’d send my new roommate to me very soon. She also said that I didn’t need to know her name. When the time came I’d fall into her lap. And I literally did. In fact, she was adamant that she also knew RJ. When she showed up out of the blue, kissed my forehead and healed me instantly, she cried and cried. I had to hold her to get her to stop saying that he didn’t know.”

  “How’d she know him? And who didn’t know what?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. PJ was cryptic but funny. She was this little ball of energy. She talked a mile a minute. I did catch that she was related to him somehow. She refused to be specific. Though, once, when she was at the bank, showing me all that RJ had done for me, she told the bank manager that she was my sister-in-law and that my husband had left papers there regarding the matter. Then she pinched me hard when I opened my mouth to object. She had bony lil’ fingers.”

  “Husband?” Amber asked, her eyes wide and face pale.

  “Yeah, that was about my reaction.”

  Amber pinched my arm and laughed. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

  “Laugh now, but at the time, I hyperventilated in the ladies room. She couldn’t stop instigating the rest of the time. I almost lost my lunch on the bank manager twice. It’s kind of strange though that when William accused me of horrible things, I hated him. But when PJ used RJ to have fun at my expense, calling him my husband, mate and even asking when the baby was due while we were standing in front of the bank employees,” I covered my mouth again, “I didn’t hate her. I did get sick to my stomach though.”

  “What? Was RJ that bad looking?” she asked, nudging me.

  I shook my head. “I honestly don’t really remember a lot about what he looked like so much as his presence. I remember that I thought his eyes where windows to the sky. See, mom told me once that he was some mix of a good angel from the light and a lycan. I got it in my head that the gods used his eyes to check and see if I was behaving. Looking back on it, I’m sure they were just very blue. My imagination has always been rather big.”

  “So, all you got of this guy is eyes?”

  I groaned. “I was like five. I remember he was a giant at least compared to me. So was my dad. I put my foot next to his once and was convinced that if he stepped on me, I’d die.” Looking at Amber, I drew my lips in. “This goes nowhere but when I met your friend, Riston, he reminded me of RJ. I can’t explain why. Could be the blue eyes. I have never done that to a guy--thought of someone else when I’m staring at them.”

  “Holy shit, Karri. The sandwich. You fixed that because....”

  I nodded. “I got him confused with RJ again. It just felt right. I could almost hear all of them like they were still alive, still joking. My dad and RJ would argue about the stupidest things. They weren’t fighting so much as goading each other.”

  Amber snicker. “Kind of like us?”

  “Yep.”

  “They had a “deep discussion” about the perfect sandwich once.” I giggled and it must have been infectious because Amber did, too. “I got so sick of hearing it when I was trying to be a secret agent that I hopped up and told them they were both wrong. Peanut butter and butter was the best. When PJ came into my life and gave me a lecture about the perfect salad I couldn’t stop laughing at her. She got mad, tossed her hands up and stormed out of the room. I called out and told she forgot her ‘perfect’ salad and I ended up wearing lettuce.”

  “Don’t get mad, Karri, but whenever you bring her up, it seems like you viewed her in a slightly maternal manner.”

  I let a tiny bit of power up and coated our joined hands. Amber didn’t seem to notice. “Why would I get mad at that? PJ did fill in where I clearly had needed a woman’s guidance. Before you ask, she tried to teach me to cook and gave up. She had the patience of a saint and I did her in. But for the most part it seemed like we filled gaps in the others lives. Did I ever tell you that she was the one who had the sex talk with me?”

  Amber nodded, a huge smile broke over her face. “Yes, but I refuse to believe that you needed one. You ooze sex. Like you came out of the womb knowing it all,” Amber said, pinching me one more time. “You bat your lashes and guys run into walls. I still remember losing count of how many guys walked up to you, opened their mouths to say something and then walked away shaking their heads. And I’m not believing you were a virgin for as long as you say you were.”

  “Amber?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If you survived a place where a sick man mentally and physically abused you, before moving to trying to rape you--but not succeeding, would you want to be with a man? Would you trust them?”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “Karri, I’m sorry. I never thought about it.”

  “And I haven’t always oozed sex. It didn’t happen until after I was out of William’s home. It didn’t happen until after PJ came into my life.”

  “So, how did PJ handle the sex talk with you? She knew what you had gone through.”

  I raised my voice and did my best to impersonated PJ. “Karri, honey, think of your body as a temple. A whole lot of men will worship it. Only a select few will be allowed to enter. Now, ideally, only one man would get to bathe in the shrine within but he’s a bit slow on the uptake so by the time he figures things out your temple doors will have rusted shut. I’d stick a billboard out front for you but the boy has tunnel vision and would drive right past it. Please don’t share our little heart to hearts with him. He might not like me encouraging you to let others play in your healing pools.”

  Taking a deep breath, I continued on, “To make a long, rather bad explanation short--if your made to order mate doesn’t show up soon and the urge for sex strikes, screw the guy but don’t bother getting his phone number. And for the love of the goddesses, do not tell the guy who you marry I said that. Should he ever ask about your past, give him that big smile of yours right before you give him some of you. If he forgets what he asked you, you’re golden. If he doesn’t just say three. He can handle that. I think. Better make it two. Yeah. Go with two.”

  Amber laughed so hard that she snorted. “Ohmygod, if mystery man ever shows up and catches you in the fib, just tell him you misunderstood the question. Tell him you thought he wanted to know how many men you’ve had at one time.”

  I wanted to laugh at her joke but something in my gut told me not to. It felt like someone was in the room with us even though I knew no one was. Amber nudged me and laughed more.

  “Come on. That was funny and you know it.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” I said, grinning at her. The feel of being watched was great. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said that Riston was still in the room, invisible, but ther
e. That couldn’t be. Could it? “I’m feeling like this is one of those moments PJ would have urged me to smile pretty.”

  Amber rolled onto her side and stared at me. “I would have liked her. She sounds like you. Plus, if nothing else, she designs kick ass tattoos. The one she designed for you is gorgeous.”

  I sighed. “Amber, it was hard to let her go, to let her pass away, when the time came. I mean, the whole time I’m keeping her pain in me instead of her, she’s thinking about the people she loved. She tried to push images of them at me so I would know them when I saw them but I couldn’t stop thinking about the day she’d come to me, while you were home for the holidays. She flashed into the room and accidentally knocked me over. The second I got up, she tackled me to the floor anyway, laughing and talking a mile a minute again. When I caught the word pregnant, I couldn’t believe it. She was so excited. She couldn’t stay long, something about needing to sit the two-hundred year old pain in her ass down and tell him before he found out from someone else. She was worried he’d try to kill his best friend, the father of the baby.”

  “Oh, she was a mom?” Amber asked, pain her voice. “After seeing Eric and Hilary go through losing a wife and mother I would never wish it on my worst enemy.”

  I nodded. “Yep, PJ was mom. She told me, didn’t even bother to ask, she just told me that I was the baby’s godmother. Yeah, I asked if she’d fallen and hit her head. I’d break a kid. She looked me dead in the eyes and told me that I was perfect for the job.”

  Amber snickered. “She must have been crazy to let you anywhere near a child. Who’s the godfather?”

  “I think it’s the two-hundred-year-old pain in her ass but I’m not sure. I said yes, like she even gave me a choice and then fell into some deep shit with work. I’d never endanger anyone I care about so I cut off communication with her and with....”

  “Me.” Amber glanced away from me.