Suddenly the walls closed in and my heart sank. Why had Nick brought me here? What could his family possibly have against me?
‘I didn’t know anyone would be here,’ I heard Nick say. His voice sounded stony.
‘Well, that doesn’t make it okay,’ Brendan replied.
Nick mumbled something inaudible, but Brendan’s voice, which oozed resentment carried.
‘I had to stay, Nicholas. For Daniel. He’s your brother, too, and he’s not well.’
Daniel was home and something was wrong. Very wrong. I’d disregarded my instinct, but I’d known all along. We had not been alone. And even more disappointing was that Nick might have even suspected and had lied to me. I felt sick.
‘You’re doing the wrong thing by her, Nicholas.’ Brendan’s voice had an edge to it that sounded dangerous. ‘Life is not all about you. You need to consider others, the family, the consequences … Before it’s too late.’
A door slammed loudly and footsteps resounded as Nick stormed back into the kitchen.
‘Deb? Deb!’ he called, but I was already up in his room, tugging on my shorts. He entered like a tornado, grabbing my arm to stop my frantic movements.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I wrenched my arm from him and pulled on my top. ‘That was never meant to happen.’
‘You lied to me, Nick.’
‘No, no …’ He rubbed his hand fiercely across his jaw.
‘You suspected Daniel was here, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t at first, I promise you that.’
‘But you realised. You made me think that I was crazy. Why wouldn’t you just have admitted it?’
He shook his head. ‘Because …’
‘Why?’
‘Because Daniel’s not well. He needs privacy.’
‘You shouldn’t have brought me here.’ I couldn’t help the intensity which filled my voice.
‘Our time together wasn’t a mistake, Deb.’
Slumping onto his bed, I dropped my face into my hands. I felt disappointed and confused.
‘I care about you, Deb … so much.’ He sat down next to me. ‘I’m so sorry that this turned out the way it did. If Brendan hadn’t come in then we would have left without Daniel even being an issue.’
‘We would still have had your lie between us.’
‘Sometimes a lie is not so bad,’ he said, but I shook my head. Maybe we had grown up in different worlds, but it was not okay in mine.
‘A lie is never okay,’ I stated emphatically. ‘Without trust we have nothing.’
‘I’m an idiot, Deb. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve never brought anyone here, into my room, my … world. You’re the first … but maybe it was a mistake,’ he admitted.
Everything settled. I was the first? That was a surprise. I turned to him. His eyes were changed. Unfathomable. Deep and dark. ‘I’ve never brought anyone here,’ he whispered.
I exhaled and my perspective seemed a little clearer. Why was what his brother thought such a big deal anyway? ‘I just wish I knew why he hated me so much.’ He leant forward and kissed my forehead gently.
‘It’s not you personally, Deb,’ he said, pulling on his clothes.
When he was dressed we headed out onto the landing. ‘There’s just one thing I want to do,’ I said, heading off down the passage. He stared at me in surprise.
‘What is that?’ he called jogging after me. I ducked out of his reach.
‘I want to meet your other brother.’
‘Stop Deb,’ he ordered, his hand locking tightly around my wrist just as I reached for the door handle. ‘You can’t just go in there.’
I tried to wrench my hand free, but he wouldn’t release it. ‘Why not?’
‘Because he wouldn’t want you to.’
I considered my options. ‘It’s disrespectful,’ he added.
We regarded each other, both aware of the heaviness in the air here. There were shadows in too many places and I felt slightly disoriented. A sluggish current of cold air slithered around my ankles as it entered the room.
He released my arm, but his posture remained tense. ‘Not now. If you want to meet him, we can do it another time.’ His words made me pause in my single-minded pursuit of understanding.
‘But what’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s depressed.’ He spoke reluctantly out of loyalty to his brother. ‘He has these issues from time to time.’
‘I’m sorry, Nick.’
‘Obviously he doesn’t want anyone to see him that way.’ Shame washed over me. What had caused me to behave in this way? It was out of character. Something about this place unnerved me in a way I had never experienced before.
‘You’re right. Maybe some other time.’
We exited hastily through the back entrance, avoiding further confrontation with Brendan whose navy sedan was still parked in the driveway. Nick revved the motorbike aggressively and headed off, driving somewhat erratically. I clung to him and said my prayers, but wasn’t unhappy as the house disappeared behind us. As we left it, the uneasiness I had felt slowly receded.
We rode on and on, up into the mountains, winding around bends at ludicrous speeds and crazy angles, the asphalt almost grazing our knees. Ridiculously I felt safe with him.
Eventually he stopped at a dingy road-side café and bought colas and we drank them at the side of the road, the trees crowding in around us.
His eyes were remote, hovering somewhere in the vegetation but without seeing.
‘You’re so far away.’
‘I’m here Deb,’ he said. The insects shrilled and cars whizzed by so close they ruffled my hair.
‘Family,’ he spat suddenly.
‘Mmm, hmmm,’ I agreed, downing the last of my drink.
He cracked his can and stood. ‘Fuck them all!’
I glanced up at him. I couldn’t remember hearing him swear before.
‘I’m going to ask my mother about what you were saying the other day. Find out what it means, whether there is actually anything to this feud. I mean even if there is …’ I shook my head. It was kind of ridiculous. ‘It will probably be hard to understand.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t. I can’t imagine anything good coming out of it.’
‘What do we have to lose? It’s that or we may as well give up now, accept our fate. I mean, I know I’m going to die one day, but I’m not going to lie down in the middle of the road right now.’
Unexpectedly he laughed, a little of his baggage expelled into the wind. ‘You’re crazy,’ he said.
I looked down at my watch. Anguish had stolen hours. Long arms of afternoon embraced the twilight.
‘I’d better get back,’ I said, standing. ‘My mother is going to call the police any second!’
He took both of my hands in his. ‘We could just keep going.’
His face was slightly obscured by the growing gloom, but his eyes shone like beacons, burying themselves in mine. He gestured towards the open road. ‘We could ride on into the dusk, let the night consume us, leave only the mist behind.’
I gazed in the direction he pointed, to where the road disappeared between the trees, entranced for a moment by his fantasy.
For an instant I wanted to run, to run with him, away to where the wind was always fresh. But running would bring its own burdens, and it would curse our freedom. He dropped my hands and laughed grimly, breaking the spell.
‘It’s okay Deb, I’m not really going to abduct you. You’re quite right. We need to get back, face our responsibilities, and fulfil our obligations …’ His voice bled with bitterness.
‘You’re not a mind-reader, Nick!’ I cried. I dusted off my shorts.
‘No?’
‘That’s not what I was thinking at all.’ I tried to put my arms around him, but he was rigid with tension and scuffed the dirt with a shoe. ‘If we run we will never be free, we’ll be looking back instead of forward.’
His eyes filled with resignation. I felt a pang of sadness.
&
nbsp; ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking down at the ground he had been kicking. ‘You’re so much more optimistic than me. So much less cynical.’
I shrugged. ‘We haven’t had the same experiences.’
Placing his hands on my shoulders he looked deep into my eyes for a moment before wrapping me up in his world. I wound my arms around his waist and he moulded to me. ‘You’ve experienced hardship, and yet you still believe in redemption … hope.’
‘Hope, yes,’ I answered, nodding against his chest. ‘What do we have without hope?’
‘We’d be hoping for a miracle,’ he whispered.
‘The light is yours Deb,’ he said, as we parted at the garden gate. ‘Not everyone can hold onto it the way you can.’
He retreated to his bike. It roared to life and then he was gone, the thunder fading until the road was still again. I remained where I was for a while, watching the empty road and wondering whether he had ever been there at all. But my lips tingled, and the pendant around my neck was heavy, and so I knew that the passion and insanity, the foreboding had all been true.
27
KATE
Nick stood behind me as we gazed at the lonely glow along the west which marked the sun’s farewell. ‘Our kind cursed themselves a long time ago,’ he said, ‘but since Erik nothing has been the same for our family.’ I didn’t speak, just watched the sky bleed as the sun died. ‘I don’t know how any of it explains you …’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know either, Nick, but have you ever considered basic biology?’
There was a moment of silence, in which the chill extended its fingers into our bones a little more.
Suddenly, as though clutching onto a moment of courage, he grabbed my arm and whipped me around so that I was facing him, forcing me to acknowledge him, to react. ‘Daniel didn’t commit suicide Kate. He was … destroyed.’
If a reaction was what he was looking for then he got one. I tore my arm away from him.
‘How is this helpful?’ I cried. ‘Enough. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know that the family I come from are a bunch of murderous psychotics.’ I clasped my hands to my ears like a small child, but I figured it was a pretty valid reaction. Even Sam had vacated his usual spot and was nowhere to be seen, frightened away by the insanity which attached itself to the individual who stood before me.
‘You have to,’ he insisted, leaning in too close, his eyes unsettling me further with their intensity and the way the colours merged and marbled. Mine didn’t do that, did they? Suddenly his voice softened and he straightened. ‘You have to,’ he repeated. ‘You have to know what my … your family is like, how intense they are.’
‘But you are the only one left,’ I cried, my voice steely and deliberate. ‘And the only things I’ve inherited from you are my eyes, crazy hair and a tendency to experience night terrors. Can’t we leave it at that?’
‘I would,’ he said, ‘but there are others … extended family, if you like. And the balance of our existence is very fragile right now.’
I felt his scrutiny on me like a microscope over a petri dish. Finally he sighed heavily. ‘There is something about you. The others will realise that.’
I sighed.
‘Not like Daniel. He was increasingly out of control. We had to lock his bedroom door, restrain him, but nothing worked. He was dangerous … becoming more so … and he had powers which were exceptional.’
A frosty surge of disgust washed over me as we stood in tense silence.
‘It wasn’t easy, Kate. But the world would have been a very different place right now, if it hadn’t been done, I can promise you that.’
I glared at him. ‘What, no greed or terrorism, no poverty or disease, no wars or major climate-related disasters?’
‘You’re cynical,’ he said. ‘There is a lot further we could all fall, believe me.’
I wondered why I should. ‘I don’t know why it went so wrong with him. It shouldn’t have, although there are always negative influences. This fallen state we live in makes us more susceptible …’ His frown deepened, like he was still trying to make sense of it all these years later. ‘With Erik we knew the door to evil was wide open. We expected problems and we got them. Bad things happened, but they shouldn’t have with Daniel. All he wanted was to live a simple life without bothering anyone. He was musical, like you … artistic, sensitive …’
He sucked air in deeply as though trying to fortify himself before continuing. ‘There was always a veil of secrecy in our family. No-one knew my parents’ suspicions … not even me, at first. All I knew was that he wasn’t well … and over time I realised that the situation was out of control, but I didn’t fully understand. Not until he was gone.’
The wind bit into me and I rubbed my hands together. Nick’s eyes were full of wishes, alternative endings, variations which were lighter, happier. Underneath all of that I sensed fear.
‘You were conceived around that time,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper, ‘a time of such turmoil.’ He reached out to touch my arm, but I pulled it away. A part of me wanted to run, but I remained rooted to the spot by that other part, the curious one, the one which asks what happens when match and igniter fluid come together.
‘They explained everything then. I thought they were completely mad at first.’
At some point he must have felt the nausea I felt right now. His heart had raced and his world had disappeared from under him as his parents had told him what he was telling me. His experience had been even worse. His sibling had been murdered.
‘There was no-one after you, Kate. No births … not from our family or any family like ours. None. We’re paying for mistakes. Newer ones and some very old ones, but we will never pay our debt, not until there are none of us left.’
I thought about everything he had said. ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’
‘If only that were the case. I’d be the first to celebrate.’ He scratched at an invisible speck of dirt on his trouser leg. ‘We are all barren. It’s nothing any doctor can pick up on … modern technology cannot explain it.’
I hadn’t thought a lot about children, except to think that they would be a real nuisance in my life at this point, and so I didn’t feel sudden grief at the potential loss.
‘You’re an anomaly, Kate.’
The darkness had deepened and I suddenly became aware of the rumble of traffic, like everyone was leaving us behind. Bright yellow cubes of light from faraway buildings shone in the gloom, enhancing the feeling of desolation. In the midst of it all, we were so alone.
Tendrils of icy air slipped under my collar. ‘But there’s nothing unknown, Nick. You’re not an angel and Deb is a human, so … Don’t tell the others about me.’
‘You don’t need to tell them as such.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
‘We are not like other families. There are those amongst us with finely tuned senses ... and others who stay near to me. I’m afraid I may have already led them to you.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ I felt like saying as dread seized me. Who were these people I hadn’t chosen to have in my life and why couldn’t they just leave me alone? Yeah, I was the last in the Edwards line, but big deal, someone had to be.
‘You may not be an angel, Kate,’ he said, ‘but you carry our genes and you are the last of our kind. You are extremely precious.’
Not that long ago I was a bastard and life was simple. Bitterness surged like an acid tide in my gut.
‘You must think I’m delusional! I wouldn’t blame you. I’ve been there, remember.’ He moved towards me, but I wasn’t ready to face him yet, and so I wandered further away, back along the route by which we had arrived, when life had seemed simpler.
After a while I relented and let him fall in beside me. ‘Truth is, I don’t know what to think.’ My hands were all over the place, too busy. ‘I can see how, if this is all true, that it must have been horrendous for you.�
� He waited.
I kept my head down. ‘But … I feel angry at you for bringing this to me and if others have found me through you …’ I swallowed, trying not to let the emotion which escaped into my voice betray me. I breathed until the thin quiver in my throat had died. ‘I know I came to you, I wanted answers … and once I came, well I guess it was too late.’ So many sighs. A quick glance at him. I had unintentionally started a ball rolling and the momentum was building. Where were these others now? Did they perch on the tops of buildings or blend in with the night? ‘I guess at least I now know that I didn’t suddenly pop out of the ether in a pink Bonds romper … or did I?’
He chuckled regretfully. ‘I wasn’t there at the exact moment, but I’d say it’s pretty unlikely.’
‘Like the rest of this you mean?’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed.
‘I feel so vulnerable.’
‘How could you not?’
‘We don’t even know each other that well. It’s little more than half a year since we first met up and you’re telling me that Sofia was an angel and that she killed herself and her tiny son who was some sort of aberration. That Daniel was changing into an angel, but it wasn’t working out the way it should have and so he was murdered. You say that I’m the last in a line of cursed beings, but that I won’t transition into a monster. The truth is you don’t really know that, do you? Not with the way things have been since Erik.’
A long way off someone shouted and tyres screeched. There was a lull in the traffic before the rumble started up again. ‘Regardless, I’m of interest to others like you who regard me as some kind of unknown, but rather interesting quantity simply because of my position on the totem pole.’ I glanced sideways at him. ‘I’ve always wanted to be special, maybe even a little different, but I’d probably rather not be the type of precious you’re talking about.’
We reached the car.
‘Kate?’ I turned back to him and he took both of my hands in his, squeezing them tight. ‘Whatever happens and whatever you think of me, your existence is a blessing to me. I can’t emphasize that enough. It wasn’t planned, I know, but you’re here and you’re beautiful and talented, and you have green eyes and my curls because you are meant to. I wish that came without all of the accompanying crap.’
Awakening: Book 1 The Last Anakim Trilogy Page 20