High Stakes (Codex Blair Book 6)

by Izzy Shows

  “We’ll do it together, of course.”

  I was silent at that. Part of me desperately wanted to protect Emily. I didn’t like the idea of her charging into a dangerous battle with me, even though that was the very basis of our association. She’d plunged into battle with me before—we’d fought back-to-back in the middle of a horde of undead.

  She’d been magnificent.

  “Don’t you dare, Blair,” she said, sitting up and looking at me.

  “What?” I averted my eyes, not wanting her to see the guilt I was feeling.

  “Don’t you change the way you treat me just because of this.” She gestured between us. “We fight together. We always have.”

  I let out a slow breath. “No, you’re right. I’ll work on that. We’ve always fought together, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t keep on doing that.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’m glad that’s settled.” She leaned against my shoulder again, nuzzling me. “Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

  I frowned. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Your childhood. That’s something you never talk about.”

  I let a silence fall between us for a while, letting one hand wander off the blanket to pull at some tufts of grass. I didn’t know where to begin, didn’t know what to tell her.

  “It’s not a pleasant topic,” I said, keeping my voice low and quiet. “You don’t want to hear about that. It’ll spoil the day.”

  “I want to know more about you. All of you, rough sides included.”

  I swallowed. This was uncharted territory for me--sharing this information with someone. I’d always kept it rather close to the chest. Not because I was afraid someone would use it against me--what could they do with it? Rather because I was afraid of the judgment I’d receive.

  “I didn’t have a normal childhood,” I said after letting out a long breath. “Things weren’t easy for me. I bounced between foster homes. No one wanted to keep me, not for very long. Some of them started out pleasant enough, but they all turned sour in the end. Some of them beat me. Most of them didn’t feed me properly. Which wasn’t such a bad thing, looking back on it. I went hungry a lot of the time when I got out on my own, because I couldn’t hold down a job. So, it was good that I knew what it was like to be hungry and how to deal with it.”

  Emily made a small sound of distress. “No one should have to know what it’s like to be hungry.”

  “Shh.” I brushed another kiss against her hair. “The hunger was objectively the easiest part of it.”

  “Why did they...hurt you?”

  “I wasn’t a good kid. I talked back. I wanted food when they didn’t feed me. I asked questions when they were watching the telly. I broke things, on accident. Some of it was being clumsy. Some of it was the latent magic in my system frying the electronics. Things just went wrong around me. I was a bad kid, and they had to teach me to behave.” To my credit, my voice didn’t waver even once as I gave the account of my childhood. I recounted all of it as if it had happened to someone else. My voice sounded empty even to my own ears.

  “Oh, Blair.” Emily sat up and pulled me into her arms, tucking my head against her breasts. “No, you can’t really believe that any of it was necessary. You can’t honestly think that it was your fault.”

  “Eh.” I shrugged. “If I was good--if I was quiet, I mean--they didn’t notice me, and they didn’t hurt me. I learned how to stay quiet. I learned the areas of the house to hide in so my presence wouldn’t upset them. I learned. They taught me, and I learned.”

  A choked sound came from her throat, and I looked up to see that she was crying. I straightened up and reached out to brush the tears from her cheeks.

  “It’s OK. I’m OK now,” I said.

  “But you aren’t,” she argued, shaking her head. “You think it’s your fault, but you were just a kid. All the things you described--talking back and asking questions and wanting food--those are all so normal. No sane parent would hurt you for those things. How did this even happen?”

  I smiled wryly. “It happens every day, Emily. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. Abusive people are really good at making themselves look nice and presentable whenever other people come around to inspect things. And kids who’ve been hurt by adults don’t exactly trust strange adults who come into the house and say they can tell them if things are wrong. I went to school with a broken wrist once, and my teacher asked me how it happened. Do you know what I said?”

  She shook her head.

  “I ran into a door.” I barked out a sound that might have been a laugh, but I honestly wasn’t sure. “So typical. Everyone says that, but I was seven years old. How was I supposed to know that was a giveaway? Anyway, she called protective services, and they came to see us. The lady told me I could tell her anything, but I’d told the teacher a lie and she had called this woman to come to the house, so what would happen if I told her the truth? Would she call some more people? How long would it go on? So, no, I didn’t tell her what happened. And even though I was a good girl and kept my mouth shut for her, I still got a beating for slipping up with the teacher in the first place. That one--the mom in that family--she was careful after that. She never marked me where someone else would be able to see.”

  Emily was staring at me with compassion in her eyes. For once, it wasn’t pity that I saw there, but compassion was just as hard to look at. I had to look away from her, feeling heat rush into my cheeks. I’d been too honest. I shouldn’t have mentioned any of it. I should have made up some light and happy story of the childhood that everyone else got to have so she wouldn’t have to think of me as broken.

  I might be broken, but my pieces still fit together for the most part, and I’d learned how to bandage myself. And when you grow up with people beating you, there’s only so much damage the world can do on top of that. You learn to take care of yourself.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said softly.

  I shrugged. “It is what it is. It happened, and it’s over now.” I leaned back on my hands and looked at the sky. It was a beautiful day, a few clouds drifting overhead, and the sun was shining down on us. Maybe I could still salvage what was left of the day with Emily.

  “You amaze me.”

  I looked at her, frowning, and saw she was still staring at me.

  “What?”

  “You’re so strong. So much has happened to you, but you don’t use it as an excuse, and you don’t let it bow you. Not everyone can take that kind of pain and soldier on.”

  “You’re right, but that doesn’t make them any less worthy,” I said, glaring at her. “There were plenty of kids in the system who couldn’t handle it. And--”

  “And you took their beatings for them, didn’t you?” She tilted her head to the side as she looked at me.

  My cheeks flushed, and I looked away. How had she known that? There had sometimes been one or two other foster kids in the houses with me, and they’d been so small and so fragile. I couldn’t let them shoulder the pain that was meant for them. I wanted to keep them safe, the same way I wanted to keep London safe now.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” I said.

  “I think it means everything.”

  I was never going to be worthy of the way Emily looked at me, but I hoped that maybe someday, I could get close. She was so set on making me out to be a hero, when I was just a broken kid from the foster system who had done what she could to make her shithole of a life into something worth living.

  “Let’s eat lunch,” I said, abruptly changing the topic. I looked at her, and she smiled at me.

  “All right. Let’s enjoy the rest of our lunch.”

  Seventeen

  “I’ll call you later, OK?” Emily said as she headed towards her car.

  “Please do,” I said, smiling. We’d already exchanged hugs, and I had a nice warm feeling in the pit of my stomach. Being around Emily had that kind of effect on me. I could never go a moment seeing her without feeling
like the entire world was a little bit better.

  Lunch hadn’t been as awkward as I’d thought it would be, save for the little bit we’d talked about my childhood. I didn’t know why she’d wanted to hear about that, but I’d done what I could to oblige her. I’d always do anything I could to make her happy.

  Nothing on Earth could change that fact.

  I got into my car, but just as I was about to turn the key in the ignition, my cell phone rang. I grabbed it out of my jeans pocket and punched the button, then lifted it to my ear.

  “This is Blair,” I said.

  “Hello, Blair.”

  I recognized Carmen’s voice immediately. It was too sultry to be anyone else I knew--save for maybe a female version of Malphas, but then again, I didn’t know a female version of Malphas.

  “What can I do for you, Carmen?” I shook my head, leaning back in the seat.

  “Lord Dudley requires your presence tonight, so I wanted to give you a heads-up that you should get some rest. It’s going to be a long night.”

  I bristled, sitting upright immediately. “I am not your dog to be called whenever it’s convenient for you,” I said sharply. I didn’t appreciate the way I was being treated, and they were going to learn that it wasn’t acceptable.

  One way or another, I was going to teach them that lesson.

  “Come, now, Blair, darling. You know how important all of this is. We’re just one wrong step away from a full-blown rebellion here. I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like a threat, Carmen.”

  I heard her let out a sigh that sounded awfully frustrated. “I don’t have time for this, Blair. Come tonight.”

  She clicked off the line, and I was left there holding my phone to my ear like a Gods-damned idiot. I threw the phone into the passenger seat, leaned forward to rest my head against the steering wheel, and let out a moan.

  What the fuck am I even doing with myself?

  I didn’t know at this point, but it didn’t feel like anything good. Just a moment ago, I’d been enjoying time with Emily--who might or might not have just become my girlfriend. I’d need to explore that more later on. Much later. It was probably premature for me to ask her about that right now. Take things slow and all.

  But that aside, I’d just been spending time with her, and now here I was, on call for the vampires again. How had life gotten so twisted?

  And what would Emily think if I told her I was working hand in hand with the vampires? The last thing she’d heard about them, I’d been trying to kill a bunch of them and had asked for her help in doing it. She hadn’t given me that help, but all the same, that was the last bit of information she’d gotten about them.

  No, I couldn’t tell her about this just yet. I didn’t want to keep secrets from her, but I knew in my heart that she wasn’t ready for this information.

  She’ll turn on you.

  There was that voice in the back of my head, the one that told me I was no good and that no one could love me and that all my friends would abandon me. I knew it was a false voice, yet it was almost impossible to totally ignore it. I wanted to push it away completely, but it kept coming back to me. It kept reminding me that I’d never amount to anything.

  Weylyn doesn’t think I’m nothing. Diego thinks I could be something amazing. Emily must have seen something in me, or she wouldn’t waste her time on me.

  I closed my eyes as I recited these hard truths back at the voice in my mind. This was one of the only ways to get it to go away--to throw facts at it. Otherwise, it would just keep haunting me until it beat me.

  Straightening in my seat, I turned the key in the ignition. My car stuttered and rumbled as it came to life. One of these days, I was going to have to replace it, but hopefully that day was far away.

  I drove out of the small parking lot and took my place on the roads of London, my mind far away from the task at hand. I was driving on autopilot. My brain knew how to get me home without much instruction. Dangerous, but possible.

  Truth be told, I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into with this vampire nonsense. I didn’t want to stand with them as one of them. That could never be, as I could never fully approve of their lifestyle--and yet it seemed that that was what Dudley was asking of me, for me to partake in the world he ruled as a weapon for him to manoeuvre as he chose.

  I didn’t want to be his weapon. I didn’t want to belong to anyone other than myself.

  And that was the crux of all of my problems--I never wanted to share myself with anyone. Sharing myself meant that pain was possible. I could only hope that Emily would understand that and help me get past it. If she couldn’t, if it frustrated her, then I was in for a world of pain.

  Even though I hated the idea of belonging to someone, I desperately wanted to belong to her. I wanted to exist side by side with her and know that that was a safe place to be.

  Gods above and below, all I wanted was a safe place in the world, but the world wasn’t capable of giving me that.

  Vampires and demons were roaming the streets of London. Necromancers were around every corner. There was no such thing as safety so long as I lived in London, and I suspected that the rest of the world was no different. Maybe it was worse because I lived in a highly populated area, but the monsters would always be there.

  They’d always be waiting for me.

  After simmering in my thoughts for what felt like an eternity, I pulled up to my house and got out of the car. I checked the wards on the door, satisfying my need to be sure that nothing had been tampered with, and lowered the wards to allow myself passage into the house. I put them back up almost as an afterthought.

  Part of me was rebellious and didn’t want to take the nap that I knew I’d need to get through the night at full strength. Part of me wanted to say fuck it to all of this and get back in my car. Just drive until the world was no longer familiar.

  I could go to Scotland. I’d always wanted to go to Scotland, to find out about the heritage that I claimed there and see if I fit into the world I’d come from.

  But I couldn’t do that. I had responsibilities. Maybe I would never go to Scotland--oddly, that was a sad thought. I’d always dreamed that I’d one day get up the nerve or the money to go up there. It had been a possibility I’d thought I would one day realize.

  Now, I knew I couldn’t just take off and leave London. There was too much here that I had to take care of, too much that I couldn’t turn my back on.

  I let out a frustrated sigh as I leaned against a wall to tug my boots off. My jackets followed a moment later, and then I threw myself down on the couch, rolled so that I faced the back of it, and closed my eyes.

  Sleep came to me not long after. And with it came the nightmares.

  Eighteen

  “I hate what you’ve turned me into,” I said as I faced Dudley. I’d come fully suited up--thigh harness stocked with stakes, wands in my boots, knives at my belt, staff in hand. Weylyn stood beside me in his dog form so he didn’t crush anything in Dudley’s office.

  The plan hadn’t been to come right out and say it, but I’d always been a blunt person, and it had been simmering at the forefront of my mind the entire ride over here.

  Dudley looked at me from his seat behind his desk--he was always there, in his position of power. I stood over him, refusing to take the seat in front of his desk. It didn’t seem to bother him, though, as if he knew I wouldn’t attack him.

  I had, that one time, when I’d come with Aidan. We had antagonized Dudley together, and he had attacked us, and I’d attacked in turn. Not really, though, as I’d only just learned about everything that was going on in the magical world. Aidan had shot him with wooden bullets, and we had beat a hasty retreat.

  Still, Dudley had to know that it wasn’t entirely impossible for me to repeat the experience. Yet he seemed wholly comfortable in his chair.

  The man was too accustomed to everyone kissing his arse. It was the reason the vampires had been able
to get so out of control; he hadn’t been willing to acknowledge that it was possible for him to have a problem with his vampires. I hadn’t been willing to let him ignore it.

  And here we were, glaring at one another and waiting for the other person to budge first. It wouldn’t be me. I’d said my piece, and I wasn’t taking it back.

  With a sigh, he broke the silence. “And what is so horrible about what you’ve done?”

  “You’re making me an accomplice to everything you do here. You keep thralls, and I can’t do anything to stop you from doing that, I know, but it’s not something that sits well with me. You feed off people, but as long as you keep to your rules, that’s one more thing I can’t do anything about. And it was difficult enough to live with, without having to be a part of it. Now, I am. I’m enforcing your rules, and I don’t like it.”

  He set his lips into a thin line, watching me. I didn’t know what was going on in that head of his, though I would have given anything at the moment to read his mind.

  I could. I could reach into his mind and figure out what’s going on in there.

  The thought came to me unbidden, a temptation I had to ignore. Mind magic was forbidden by the Order--and I assumed that included those who existed outside the Wizard race. Would they be so upset if I bent the rules to listen in to a monster’s mind?

  I didn’t want to find out. The penalty for breaking the laws was death. Even the stupid ones.

  And there were stupid ones. I still couldn’t believe they had a law that forbade consorting outside of our race. It seemed like the dumbest thing in the world, trying to control the romantic intentions of everyone who fell under their control. How would they even find out?

  Not that I had to worry about that. There’d only been one person outside my race who’d tempted me, and he was long gone.

  A pang of sadness sliced through me like a knife.

  I missed Mal with every fibre of my stupid being. It was a betrayal of my mind, but there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it from happening. Mal had been a part of my life, good and bad, and I’d grown accustomed to having him around. Even if I ignored the way he’d had made my body react to his, even if I shut out the feeling of his lips on mine... Even if I just regarded him as a friend, I missed him terribly.