by Scott Tracey
If I tried to fight, that’s what I would become. That made the decision for me more than anything. I had to go.
I made it home without any other disturbances, but I’m sure there were half a dozen panicked citizens making phone calls and sending text messages about Jason’s tempestuous ward running the streets like a crazy person. My nerves had calmed a little by the time I made it back to my room and grabbed a change of clothes and a towel.
The shower helped, but only after I cranked up the music player on my computer and had the speakers blasting through the walls. I needed to not think. As long as I was distracted, there was a fragile truce in place where I couldn’t dwell on what had been said.
There was a text from Trey on my phone once I was done. Can I come over?
Why was this my life? Why wouldn’t he get the hint? It’s not a good time, I texted back, though there might not ever be a good time again, if I really took off. I hesitated, staring down at the screen and waiting for his reply.
Please. It’s important.
As much as I needed to keep pushing him away, now more than ever, part of me still needed to see him. Especially since it could be the last time. Ok. See you soon.
Once it was done, I was filled with a different kind of nerves. I changed outfits five or six times, each time for reasons that got more and more ridiculous. I knew I was being stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself. The idea of seeing Trey for the last time—and I couldn’t tell him I was going anywhere, because that’s all Lucien would need—made me want to throw up. In fact, I tried to do that, only nothing came out.
It wasn’t much more than a half hour later before the front doorbell was ringing, and I was contemplating another trip to purge the rest of my breakfast. I actually made it as far as the hallway next to the kitchen before Trey appeared and cut me off from the bathroom. He was wearing a thick gray sweater, which looked like the softest thing ever, and a pair of jeans. I pushed down the urge to go to him immediately, instead leaning against the wall. Pretending to be cool and collected. Like anyone would believe it.
“I would have tried to talk to you earlier,” Trey said awkwardly as soon as he appeared, “but I didn’t want you to think I was pushing you. That’s why I waited.”
“You were talking to Jason about me,” I said, “so you should have talked to me first anyway.”
“Actually, that wasn’t about you,” Trey said, shoving his hands into his pockets. He looked more nervous than I had ever seen him before. “It was about me. But Jason wouldn’t go for it.”
“Go for what?”
He looked around slowly, the uncertainty on his face growing. “Can we go out back or something? Just … I don’t want him to come out and see us talking and turn me into a ceiling fan or something.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He might have you neutered, though. I’m pretty sure he’d be one of those overzealous pet owners.”
“You joke,” Trey said under his breath, clearly not laughing, “but he probably would.”
“And you thought he was warming up to you,” I said, only a little smug. I led him out onto the back porch and sat down on one of the lounges. “What’s up?”
It took Trey awhile to get himself comfortable. He looked around at the furniture, decided on one of the other lounge chairs, and then once he sat and realized how much distance was between us, he got up and moved it closer. Then he sat down again and was quiet for so long I started to get frustrated.
“Trey? You wanted something.”
Trey gave me a thin smile and nodded. “You remember in the chapel basement, when Lucien had us trapped?”
How could I forget? Lucien had known I would follow him, and he’d carved a binding circle into the floor before our arrival. Only, he’d only been expecting me. Trey had been a surprise, but what had been more surprising was that Trey had been bound inside the circle, too. A circle that should have only trapped someone with magical power. As far as either of us had known, Trey wasn’t a witch.
Then again, Belle Dam was a town full of secrets. What was one more?
“Is that what you’re here about?” I asked. “Because I can’t help you.”
“Yeah, you can,” he said earnestly. “I want you to teach me. Show me how to use it.”
It felt like my entire body froze like a computer. It took a minute for me to reboot, at which point I swallowed. “I’m sorry, you want me to what?”
“I want you to show me how to use magic,” Trey said. He made it sound so simple. Show me how to ride a bike. Teach me how to play the piano. Train me in the mystical arts.
I stared at him in dumbfounded shock. This was some kind of joke. But he wasn’t smiling. “You’re not serious.”
“I am.”
I pulled off my glasses, wincing at the light. Even though it wasn’t as bright outside as it had been a few minutes ago, it was still more than I was used to. “You’re not serious,” I repeated, my voice growing harder. “You can be a dick sometimes, but you’re not usually an asshole. You know I can’t do that anymore.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said, looking me dead in the eyes. “I just want you to walk me through it.”
“Walk you through it?” I shook my head, already thinking through the thousands of hours John and I had spent trying to get my own gift under control. I didn’t have a choice—the witch eyes had made my power wild and unpredictable. It seemed like the more control I’d gotten, the faster it was killing me. “Do you really think it’s that easy? You can’t get tutored in magic, Trey! I’ve been learning it since I was a kid and I barely know anything at all.”
“You’ve done well enough against everything so far,” he pointed out.
“That’s because I’m a freak. It came easily to me because of what I was. John barely knew what to do with me half the time. I was the worst student ever. So why would you even think I’d be the person for the job. I mean, hello,” I snapped, waving a hand in front of my face like see the gaping hole where all my crazy eye magic used to be?
“I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t trust you,” Trey said stiffly.
Why was Trey uncomfortable? “Oh,” I said, now understanding the conversation he’d had with Jason last week. “You tried Jason first, and he turned you down. And you’re still not talking to your mom, so that’s out.” I paused, letting all that sink in. “So I was your last choice. Great. Awesome.”
“Five seconds ago, you were pissed because I asked you after what you’ve gone through. Now you’re pissed I didn’t come to you first? Maybe I was trying to respect that this would be hard for you.” He swallowed. “Especially since you can’t seem to look at me anymore.”
I pressed my lips together rather than say something neither one of us wanted to hear. “I can’t help you, Trey.”
“But that’s just it. Maybe I can help you. If you show me how to control it, how to make it work, maybe we can figure out a way to take back what you lost.”
God, why was he doing this to me? There wasn’t enough on my plate so Trey had to come in and add more? And he was being so sincere about it. Like he really did just want to help me. Just like always. Only now he’d be the one with the power. The one who could do the fighting. “Why would I want it back? I’m healthy, maybe for the first time ever. I’m pretty sure I can run a six-minute mile, and I’ve never been able to do that before. I haven’t had so much as a real headache in days. I sleep through the night, and I won’t look like a raccoon if I spend all summer on the beach!”
“First we have to get you to next summer,” Trey said, trying to sound gentle but just coming across as pompous.
“Go to hell,” I said. Because I was the only one allowed to worry about that. I turned my back to him, already regretting this conversation. Why did I think he needed a proper goodbye? Trey was a dick.
He moved so quickly. One second, my back was to him and the next he was standing in front of me, standing so close we were nearly nose to nose. I couldn’t help but look at him
then. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “Jade told me about … the two of you. Are you?” he asked quietly, eyes darting over my shoulder as if confirming that no one was eavesdropping on us. He didn’t even use the word. Leaving. Running away. Abandoning ship.
“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly irritated. I took a step back, and he took a step forward. I looked away, and he reached out and grabbed my chin.
“Hey,” he said. “Come on. Please.”
“Why are you such an ass all the time?” I demanded. “I tell you to leave me alone and you’re worse than ever.”
Trey let his fingers slip from my face, and he pressed his forehead against mine. I sucked in a breath at the contact, feeling any resolve I had start to pool down into my legs and out of me entirely. “I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want.”
But I couldn’t answer that. Even the idea of putting my feelings about Trey into words caused my throat to constrict so tight I couldn’t get air in. I had to talk about anything else. “Do you know that Lucien spent over a hundred years trying to put everything into place so that I’d be born?” I scuffed my foot against the ground. “I get why he seems to think I’m his … possession or something. If I spent half as long as that trying to make something happen, I’d feel like it belonged to me.”
“Okay,” Trey said warily. “Where are you going with this?”
I shrugged. “I used to think Jason didn’t want anything to do with me because I was broken. But that’s how Lucien feels. I get it now. I may be broken, but I’m still his.” And he wouldn’t let me go until he was done with me.
“Your life isn’t over just because you can’t see through walls,” Trey said. “And the Braden I’ve come to know in the last few months wouldn’t just roll over, no matter what happened to him.”
“I’m not that kid anymore,” I snapped. “Do you know what I’d do if I had my power back? Without even stopping to second-guess myself?”
Trey swallowed, but after a moment he gestured for me to continue. I could see it in the way he wouldn’t quite meet my eyes, the little hunch in his posture. He already knew.
I’d spent enough time thinking about it in the middle of the night. What I would do? How I would begin? Lucien would take a while. He had to suffer properly. But he wouldn’t be first.
“I’d kill her. I don’t know how, but I’d make it sudden. Make it hurt.” No, that wasn’t enough. A moment of relief wouldn’t make me feel better. “No,” I said slowly, “it wouldn’t be enough to kill her. She’d have to lose everything first.”
“Do you think that will solve anything?” Trey asked.
“I don’t care.” I eyed him, waiting for the moment it became too much. When he saw the wrath inside of me, bubbling through my veins, lurking just beneath the surface. “Taking you from her would hurt,” I mused, “but it wouldn’t be enough. I’d have to take you both.”
“Kill us?” Trey sounded nonchalant, like discussing his murder was a normal occurrence around here.
I shook my head, my thoughts stuttering over a hurdle I hadn’t anticipated. Trey wasn’t supposed to play along. And I wasn’t supposed to think about hurting him or his sister. They weren’t involved, not really. As much as I know it would destroy Catherine to lose her children, I couldn’t do that to either of them.
Trey took a step forward. Then another. Then he was crowding into me. He took my hand in his and brought it up to his neck, laid it against the even pulse of his heart. “How would you do it?” his words the kind of whisper that was more appropriate for a clandestine tryst, not a daylight conversation about murder.
“Stop,” I pleaded. This was all wrong. Trey was supposed to look at me in horror, to turn away and never look at me with all that stupid idealism, like we really could find a way to be together. It was stupid, and juvenile, and it had to stop.
“I deserve to know how I’m going to die,” he said good-naturedly.
“You wouldn’t see it coming,” I said, my words choking off into a gasp as Trey’s mouth hummed against my ear.
“Keep talking,” he said, his lips a tease against my skin. Fractions of a touch, ghost impressions down my jaw. “Details. The details are important.”
“I … uh … ” The feeling stopped, as fleeting as it had begun.
“Keep talking,” he reprimanded, nipping at the bottom of my earlobe and knocking every coherent thought completely out of my head. Trey seemed to realize this, because he kept talking. “Would you do it from far away? You could, couldn’t you?” His nose traced a line up along my temple. “No, that wouldn’t be like you. You’d have to be there, right?” For just a moment, he let his cheek rest against the side of my head, but only for a moment. Then the game was back in motion, and it was all touches so brief they were just fragments of connections.
“I wouldn’t do it,” I finally managed to say, trying to swallow and focus on the conversation at the same time.
“You have to,” he insisted. “You don’t have a choice.”
“You told me there’s always a choice,” I said, gasping as his mouth traveled down to my neck and he nipped again at the skin there.
His movements were more forceful now. Proprietary. Trey struck me as someone who was too classy to leave a hickey on someone else’s skin, but his lips kept moving, claiming one inch of skin at a time.
I never should have let him this close to me. That was the problem with Trey. If I wasn’t forceful up front—if I let myself think about it for even a few seconds—my mind wavered. Convictions that had been so firm only a few minutes before were now tenuous guidelines I could ignore easily, because it was Trey.
My fingers wrapped around his wrist, holding him, claiming him. His eyes sunken and dull, clothes that had once fit so perfectly now hung loose and low on his stooped frame. He wasn’t anything that he’d been, but it mattered not, because he was mine.
I pulled away from Trey so fast I nearly threw myself onto the ground. The vision that Grace had put into my head was never far from my thoughts. The thing that I’d become. The reason she’d started the feud in the first place—to make sure that Lansing and Thorpe would never align. But it had happened anyway, maybe even because of the feud that she’d created.
My breath came hard and fast, and I knew my eyes were wild but I had to get away. He reached for me and I skittered backwards, brushing up against one of the lounge chairs. I almost fell backwards, tripping over the frame, but Trey caught me. I scrambled out from his reach and around the chair, keeping it between us.
“What’s wrong?” I expected Trey to sound astonished, or worried. But it wasn’t that at all. He sounded like he’d been expecting that.
“Nothing,” I lied automatically, not even stopping to feel bad about it anymore. I was a liar. Liars lied. It was what we did.
“Braden … ” He didn’t push me. The intense expression on his face melted away, like I’d imagined the last few minutes. “You can teach me. Then we can figure out how to help you.”
“Trey … I can’t.”
Trey, who loved to push at me, who always seemed to know when my mind was never fully committed, chose to believe me. He slumped down a little, a man who’d had his last, and best, hope taken from him. “Okay,” he said, exhaling. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry, I just—”
“It’s okay, Braden,” he said. “It’s my problem, not yours.” But there was a look of determination in his eyes that I didn’t like. Something that made me a little bit nervous.
I walked out into the yard. There was a breeze coming down through the forest. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to take it all in. Trey. Jason. This city. These people. What if I never had anything like this again? What if this was the closest, and the furthest, I’d ever get to being happy?
“I wouldn’t mind throwing Drew around the next time he put his hands on you,” Trey muttered. I looked up in surprise, saw the way Trey’s head was dropped down, a hint of red creeping up his neck.
I laughed
, and the sound caught me so off guard that I had to stop immediately afterwards. It was like ripping off a bandage, only it was one I didn’t know I had. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed. Really laughed. The last few months had been one issue after another, and especially in the last couple of weeks, things had gotten so grim I’d forgotten how it felt.
Once I started, I had trouble stopping. “You … ” I gasped. “Jealous … of Drew!” And then I was howling. Tears sprang up at the corners of my eyes, and I fell backwards onto the grass and stared up at the sky. Of all the people to be jealous of, Trey was jealous of Drew! Anyone in their right mind would have known that Drew was the last person I’d ever be interested in. Plus there was the fact that he was still hung up on Trey’s sister. But the same way that the heart wanted what it wanted, the green-eyed monster hated what it hated.
Trey loomed over me, his expression dark, but I couldn’t stop. I grabbed at his arm, pulled him down with me. He dropped to his knees, then carefully laid himself down next to me, brushing up against my side.
I laughed until I thought I might start crying. Once the floodgates were opened, there was no telling what would sneak out. But laughter finally started to fade, and I stared up into a relatively blue sky. It was almost December in Belle Dam, and I was alive. Maybe not the person I’d been two months ago, but I was still someone who could laugh.
We lay there, barely touching, until I took the initiative to reach over, and lay my head down on his chest. I could hear his heartbeat, steady and solid. His chest rose and fell, and for just a few minutes, we were normal.
Of course it couldn’t last.
twelve
Trey only stayed another hour, and we didn’t move from our spot on the lawn. But just as I started to drowse, to slip under completely, he roused the me and led me back into the house. I was so tired and out of it that I didn’t even say goodbye, just wandered up the stairs and into my room while he let himself out the front.