by Rae, Nikki
There are only two people walking around, testing out lights and sweeping up some kind of confetti and glitter mix that must have been thrown during last night’s performance. One of the guys keeps disappearing from onstage to backstage, but the other, the sweeping guy, has this light blue cloud around him. At first, I just think it’s my eyes adjusting from being outside and then inside a dimmer room but when I take off my shades, the color around his head only brightens. I blink a few times and it’s gone.
“You okay?” Jade asks before the door has even shut behind us.
“Just getting used to my new eyes,” I try to joke.
He nods, his arm still around me. “Where do you have to fill out this paperwork?”
I shrug. “I’m guessing Jamie has it.”
“Where would we find him?”
“His office is a good place to start.”
I steer my brother behind the backstage area where the offices are located. I don’t look at the end of the hall, where Evan’s office door is closed. I knock twice on Jamie’s door and it opens quickly, like he was waiting for someone anyway.
“Oh,” he says, pushing up his fake, thick-rimmed glasses. “It’s you.”
I ignore his attitude. “I need to fill out paperwork for the Honus tour,” I say.
He motions for us to come inside the cramped room, where there are cardboard boxes piled on top of each other everywhere except his small desk and two chairs. He opens a drawer without glancing up at us.
“So all you have to do is fill this stuff out,” he says, handing me a packet of paperwork. “Stuff like emergency contact info, insurance things, blah, blah, blah.” He’s not even looking at me, just pointing to various lines where I need to sign my name.
“Jade’s coming too,” I inform him. “So does he have to fill out the same stuff?”
Jamie stops what he’s doing and looks up. “Did you clear that with Evan?”
At the mention of his name, my stomach lurches. I could spend a long time going through all of the thoughts associated with that name, but instead I get angry. “He owes me.”
Jamie snorts. “Right. I don’t want to know.”
He reached back into the drawer and hands Jade another packet of papers. “When you’re done, just leave them on the desk. I’ve got a few other things to get in order before tonight’s show.”
Jamie zooms out, shutting the door behind him without another word.
Jade and I sit down at the desk next to each other, groping around the mess of papers on it until we find pens. For a few minutes, there’s just the sound of our pens against paper, then a break in the sound when one of us flips to the next page.
“So things look different to you now?” Jade asks. I already know what he’s doing. Trying to be casual when he’s probably terrified of who I am–or what I could potentially be.
“Sometimes,” I say without looking up. “But it usually doesn’t last that long.”
“Maybe we could have a montage of you testing out your new superpowers later.” His tone is flat but it’s still funny enough that my body allows a small laugh.
“Yeah. Someone’s going to have to get a box of kittens to park a car on top of so I can lift it off of them.”
He laughs back.
I flip a page.
“Or maybe we can buy a bunch of spoons you can bend with your mind,” he says.
A more comfortable silence follows and Jade nudges me with his elbow. “Things are going to be okay,” he says. “Just...different, I guess.”
I finish signing all of my stuff before him and I place the stack of papers and pen on the desk in front of us. “How can you be so accepting of all this?” I ask.
His eyes glide over the next page before signing. “You accepted Myles after he told you, right?”
My stomach lurches again but for a completely different reason. “Yeah, but–”
“But nothing,” Jade interrupts. “You love him, so you accept him. I love you–more than anyone ever will. So I don’t really have a choice here.” He finally looks up to smile at me.
The moment is broken when the door is opened again, but it’s not Jamie walking through it when I turn around. It’s Evan. I’m on my feet faster than I can think about it. Jade takes a few seconds longer to react, but he stands too.
“What do you want?” Jade asks.
Evan casually shuts the door behind him, like he can’t feel what’s coming off of my brother. Wait, can I? More new things. More things I can’t avoid.
Anger comes first, red, hot, and scary. Then fear, which is a lot like anger, only burned around the edges.
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” Evan says, drawing my attention to him. He looks almost the same as the last time I saw him. Dark blond hair in a low ponytail, business-casual shirt and pants. Brown eyes that hide everything. “I just wanted to talk,” he says.
“We don’t have anything to talk about,” Jade says, grabbing my hand. As soon as he does that, it’s like my arm has become red and burned as well. It’s all I see and it hits me so strongly that I have to steady myself on the desk.
Jade notices it and instead of red filling my vision, a warm brown begins to flood in.
“You okay?” he asks for the millionth time. But he doesn’t let go of me.
I nod, moving away a step; he finally lets his hand fall.
“Please,” Evan says, staring at me as he comes around the desk. “You need to sit down.”
I want to leave more than anything right now but my knees buckle and I’m in my chair once more. I have to put my head between my knees for a little while so my vision will stop spinning. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jade sit down as well. He reaches out towards me like he wants to place his hand on my back, but I move away, afraid of what that will bring.
“I’m fine,” I choke out somehow. “Just give me a minute.”
It’s quiet for a long time then. Jade doesn’t say anything, and neither does Evan. After I blink a few more times, everything stops swaying and turning strange colors. I finally sit back up, looking to Jade’s concerned expression first and then I stare straight ahead at Evan.
“What do you want?” I ask. I hope it comes out strong, but I doubt it can after what just happened.
Evan crosses his arms over his chest. “You should not be around people right now,” he says. “Does Myles know where you are?”
If I could stand up right now, I’d throw my chair at him. “I don’t think you should be telling me anything.”
He glances down at the littered desk before looking back at me. “I came to apologize,” he says.
Jade snorts. “No big deal.”
“Apologize?” I ask. “For almost killing me?”
“Not quite.” The words run together and his accent doesn’t help, but I still hear them.
I cross my arms so I don’t have to worry about how much they’re shaking.
“I want to apologize for scaring you,” Evan says, finally deciding to sit in Jamie’s chair. “I am not sorry about almost killing you.”
Jade is on his feet now and I hear his chair fall onto the linoleum with a hollow clang. “Vampire or not, I’m going to kill this fucker.”
I block him off with my arm. “It’s okay, Jade.”
Even though I know it’s not, I just don’t want him to get hurt. I turn my attention back to Evan. “Well, why did you do it?” I ask. “Can you at least tell me that?”
Jade doesn’t move and Evan shifts in the chair. I can almost sense that he’s uncomfortable but it’s a slippery emotion that I can’t grasp coming from him. “You were going to die either way,” he says.
“So you thought you’d, what...step in and help?”
He leans his hands on the desk and moves in a little bit closer. “Do you feel that?” he asks me.
I can only guess he’s talking about how hot my hands are, how I can still feel the burned red coming from Jade, as if it were coming from within me. When I don’t answer, he shi
fts his gaze to my brother, who is still standing.
“You hate me,” Evan states. “I do not blame you.” He shifts his eyes back to mine and leans back in his chair. “Either of you. But you do not understand. I was trying to help.”
“Right,” I say. “But that doesn’t matter.”
He says nothing.
“Myles told me you aren’t strong enough to turn anyone,” I blurt out. “So how exactly would you be helping me?”
He swallows. “It was my goal to only drain you. I did not want Myles or you to have a choice anymore. You were prolonging the inevitable. If I drained you, Myles would have either had to let you bleed out and die or give you his blood to turn you.”
“That’s not how it went,” I say under my breath.
“You and Myles pulled me off of her.” Evan inclines his head toward Jade slightly. “It would have worked.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I say.
Evan looks down at his hands briefly before returning his gaze to me. “No.”
I can feel something deep in my chest tightening. If I don’t let it loose soon, it will burn me from the inside out. I don’t realize that I’ve stood until my legs bump into the desk between us. “Don’t you care that you almost killed me?” I demand. “Do you feel anything?”
“Yes,” he says calmly, rising from his seat. “I feel everything.”
He squints, like he’s trying to look past my eyes and into me. “Do you feel anything, Sophie? Do you feel your maker in your bones and your blood? Do you feel his pain over your own?” He places a hand to his chest. “I do.”
I try to think about Myles, how all of this has affected him as well, but when I try, I just get angry. Why should I care about his pain? I’m the one whose life has changed forever. I’m the one who had to go through all of this shit.
“He loves you,” Evan is saying. “If you had died–really died, it would have destroyed him.”
Deep down, I know that. I know that if anything happened to Myles, I would feel the same way. But it doesn’t make him right. It doesn’t make any of this right.
“I did it for him,” he says. “I risked everything so he would not have to feel the pain of watching someone he loves die.”
I lean my hands on the desk, having to steady myself yet again. Now the back of my throat tastes like burned toast. My hands feel hot against the wood. “Just because Michael did it to you doesn’t mean you could do it to me.” It leaves my mouth without my permission.
Evan’s expression changes. It’s something between hate and fear, but I can feel it all the same. Hot, burned red on the tip of my tongue.
“I know,” I say, unable to stop. “I know what Michael did to you and your sister.” I take a breath “Why would you want to inflict something like that on someone else?”
“You should sit back down,” he says, his eyes traveling around my body. Despite the expression, he’s completely calm. “Before you hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself.” I snort. “Right. Because who I should really be afraid of is not you, it’s me.”
“Sophie...” Jade says from somewhere behind me.
The words are muffled under a sudden, steady, bump. His heart again. I want to rip it out like a plug from an electrical socket. I shake my head to get rid of the thought and as soon as it’s gone, I can’t believe it entered my mind in the first place.
“I’m not going to do that,” I say out loud, like either of them can even guess what I’m talking about. I turn my attention back to Evan. “I think it’s you that should be afraid of me.”
“How do you know about my sister and me?” he asks, quietly redirecting the conversation. “Did you see it or did Myles tell you?”
“See it?” I ask, “What the hell do you mean?”
He sighs, frustrated. “The blood. Myles’ memories,” he says like I should know. I guess I should, shouldn’t I? “Tell me,” he says, taking hold of my wrists now. It doesn’t hurt, but he’s scaring me.
“What the fuck?” Jade says, taking a step closer.
My head starts to swim in a pool of deep red, flashing into bright ripples of yellow every now and then. I have to close my eyes so I don’t fall over.
“Don’t touch me,” I manage to whisper before I open my eyes just in time to see Evan being pushed back, releasing his grip on my arms, and looking more startled than anyone I’ve ever seen.
I stare down at my hands, surprised they’re not on fire by how hot they are. The longer they aren’t touching anything–anyone–the more they cool down.
“How did you do that?” Evan asks after too much silence has passed through the small room.
The rest of my body feels cold and I have to fight the urge to sit down because my knees are starting to buckle. “I don’t know.”
I notice that Evan’s hand is against his chest, like I hit him there. “No one taught you how?” He’s out of breath too.
I shake my head. Jade is silent but I hear him sink into his own chair again.
“Only the oldest vampires can move things with their minds like that,” Evan says, but I don’t know if I’m meant to hear it.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask finally.
He slowly stands up once more, bracing himself against a bookshelf, then the wall as he makes his way toward the door. “Yes. But I will be fine.”
I can’t shake the thought that follows his answer: Good.
“Sorry,” I say because I mostly am. I don’t want to hurt anyone and I don’t think he does either. He scared me but he only wanted to help his maker–our maker. Myles.
I realize that Evan’s leaving, and though I don’t think anything’s been accomplished here, there isn’t really anything to say either. He turns, his hand on the knob. “If you died, he would have died,” he says. “I am sorry. I could not let that happen.”
He probably expects me to say something else, to argue more, but I have nothing left in me. So he quietly shuts the door, shutting me in with myself and what I just did.
Chapter 6
The Past in The Present
“You’ve got a mouthful of diamonds and a pocketful of secrets.”–Phantogram
“You should go home,” I say to Jade once we’re back at my apartment. He talked the whole ride over, describing again and again what happened. How he saw a burst of light shock Evan where my hands touched him. After that, I had to tune him out, too afraid of having more thoughts about his heart or burned colors.
“What?” he asks, throwing his keys on the coffee table and sitting on the couch. “I’m not leaving,” he says. “No way.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. My head’s starting to hurt. “You haven’t been home in a long time,” I say, somehow keeping my voice calm. “You don’t have to stay with me anymore.”
He crosses his arms. “And I’m guessing you wanting me to leave has nothing to do with what just happened?”
I say nothing.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Jade—” A knocking at the door interrupts my sentence.
“Maybe we should have called,” Trei says. I can hear her as if she’s in the room with me.
“Screw that,” Boo says. “She wants to hide out, fine. We’re hiding out with her.”
Then more knocking.
“Boo and Trei are here,” I say. “What should I tell them?”
Jade doesn’t answer me; he gets up and opens the door.
“About time,” Boo says before he notices my brother. “Jade! When did you get here?”
Jade takes too long to respond so I say, “He just got here.” More lies. More covering up
“Yeah,” he agrees. “We were just about to invite you guys over.”
We spend the rest of the day catching up, like I wasn’t away for so long. Like I didn’t die and come back, like I’m not completely different than I was before. We spend so much time talking, eating, and watching movies that no one realizes what time it actually is. My brother and friends
fall asleep on the floor as the TV plays the title screen of a DVD over and over. I don’t know for how long I was or when I started staring off into space, but I know I can’t sleep. I turn my head, glancing at Jade asleep on the couch. Did I really think that today? About his heart? About him? I can hear all three of them breathing evenly, how each intake of air creaks into their lungs, expanding them before being released. Their heartbeats are there too, but they aren’t loud like they were earlier. Just steady, thumping around each other. Boo murmurs something in his sleep and if I was paying closer attention, I’d be able to hear it.
The clock says It’s 2 AM, and ticks in the kitchen, louder than the beating or the breathing. I want to make the sounds stop, and I don’t know how far I’ll go to achieve that.
I can’t stay in the same room as them. I’m too afraid of what other thoughts I’ll have, what other sounds I’ll hear. There’s only one other place I can go: downstairs to the practice rooms where the piano is sitting, calling out to me, promising that it’ll help me clear my head and think straight once again.
Climbing down the stairs is quiet. Quieter than it’s been since I woke up–came back. But that changes once I reach the bottom and I can hear the muffled sounds of instruments and people talking. The first door is locked, but I’m not surprised since that’s where most of the sound is coming from. Most of the other rooms I try are the same: people practicing inside. The room we usually use is also locked, though I can’t hear anything going on behind it yet. When I press my ear to the door, there’s heavy breathing and a woman saying, “Come on, we’re supposed to be rehearsing.”
I pull my head away. I don’t know what I was expecting. I haven’t been down here in weeks, haven’t signed up for a space, and it’s summer time. Of course the rooms would be taken. I don’t know what to do with myself now, unable to go back upstairs, but unable to stay here either. I find myself wondering if I should leave but my feet start moving toward the exit door. Maybe I should go outside and get some coffee or something. Take some time by myself to calm down so I can return to my apartment with my sleeping friends and brother inside. Maybe I’ll even be able to sleep too.