by Tyler, A. L.
It took a lot for me to admit defeat. When I finally found my way back to the greenhouse, I approached Kendra with all the meekness of a mouse asking a cat for scraps.
“Tell me what to do,” I said.
She wasn’t happy with me. I wasn’t happy with her. But we had to make it work, so that’s what we did.
She sent Lyssa home to be with Josh and Rosie, and I agreed to take a semester off of school. Maybe more.
Gates didn’t talk to me much after the attack. We existed using what words we had to in order to complete Kendra’s lessons, but there were never any real conversations. I tried to apologize once, but she walked away.
On the last day of finals, I went to my guidance counselor’s office with my paperwork in hand. I had emailed her that morning, and she said all I needed to do for the semester off was to leave it with her secretary. She would see that it was signed and filed properly, and let me know if I needed to do anything else.
That day, Charlie had been out setting up charms to help protect Lyssa and her family, so Kendra was clear that I needed to be fast. If I wasn’t back in an hour, she was coming after me.
And because I was a walking bad luck charm, I ran into Tristan on the way to dropping off the papers.
“Hawthorn,” he said with a sly grin. I had just made my way inside the building, and we stood alone in the emptying hallway as students left for winter break. “I’m going to miss seeing you in class. Are we still on for that party?”
I took a deep breath. I hadn’t actually told Kendra about the date, but I was going to. If it meant saving Gates, then my life was in her hands.
“I was trying to find the time to call you,” I started, hating the look of disappointment on his face. “But I’ve had something come up with my aunt. You know, the crazy one. I still want to go, but it really depends on her.”
He didn’t smile all the way, but he gave me an encouraging nod. “That’s the right decision. Family should always come first. Annie, in case I wasn’t clear before, I want to keep seeing you. Can I call you, even if that party doesn’t work out?”
“Yeah,” I said, knowing full well that my life was likely to crush his in the future. It crushed everyone who got too close, but it was lonely in the eye of the storm. “Yeah, I would really like that. And I hope I get to go to the party.”
He smiled more genuinely, and nodded at the papers I was holding. “Picking your classes for next semester?”
I felt my mood sink even lower. “I won’t be here next semester. My aunt.”
“Is it that serious?” he asked with a frown. “This thing with your aunt? That you need to take that much time? It will set back your whole program.”
I wanted to cry. I tried to think up a good enough lie. I thought about telling him that she was schizophrenic and needing a chaperone until we were sure a switch in medications was working. In light of what had happened to Gates, all I could do was stand there and shake.
“Annie?” he asked, looking more serious. When his eyes went sullen, he looked older than I had thought he was, and I had to question if it was even a good idea to get involved with a guy so much older than I was.
“It’s serious,” I finally managed. And then I added, “I’m afraid.”
I felt the tears start to slide down my cheeks as the panic attack set in, and he pulled me into an empty office. He put his arms around me as I started feeling dizzy, struggling to breathe.
“I just wanted a normal life,” I said into his shoulder. “I didn’t want all of this… I just wanted to be normal.”
He hushed me, and held me, and I knew I was being pathetic, but I had been too guarded around too many people for too long. In the dark of that office, it felt good to let it out. All of my disappointment and depression and fear had finally reached a breaking point, and I let them wash over me.
“Normal is overrated,” he said to me when I had calmed enough. “You are going to survive this, and you will be extraordinary.”
He stayed with me until I pulled myself together, and then he walked me up to drop off my papers. We said goodbye outside of the building, and he gave me another hug and made me promise to call if I needed anything. I promised I would.
I watched him walk away, feeling marginally better and hoping that Kendra would let me go to the party. It felt odd when he hugged me, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to jump back into dating, but he was the best friend I had right then. Even if he was only ever a friend, I would be happy.
Then I turned around, and I saw Vince watching me from the shade of a tree down the path. I sighed deeply. The confrontation was inevitable, and I was already late, so I didn’t change my route getting home.
“You like him?” he asked.
The question surprised me, and I stopped walking just to face him.
“He’s all right,” I said. “He’s there for me.”
Vince looked stung. “I wanted to apologize. I know you’ve been going through a lot this semester, and I haven’t been there. I should have been there.”
It wasn’t fair for me to feel that way. Vince had his own things going on, and that was why he had been absent. There was no apology necessary. Even so, I had needed someone, and he couldn’t have been expected to be there. That alone raised a red flag for me.
I shook my head. It didn’t feel right accepting his apology when he had nothing to apologize for.
“Are things better with the pack?” I asked.
Vince hesitated. Then he shook his head.
“Annie, I want a second chance,” he said. “If you’ll have me back, I mean. We could sit down together, and figure out our classes for next semester.”
“I won’t be here next semester,” I said quietly.
“You’re quitting?”
“Taking time off. I have to deal with this thing with Kendra.”
He looked like I had slapped him. Shaking his head in dismay, he stepped toward me. “You wouldn’t do that. You’ve worked too hard.”
I took a deep breath, trying to shrug off the weight of it. “This is life or death.”
“School is your life!” he said. “It’s who you are. If you’re giving it up… What did they do to you? Are they threatening you?”
“No.”
“Annie,” he said in disappointment. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
I stepped back from him, and I couldn’t look him in the face. I knew he was right. I had changed, and I didn’t know who I was now, either. But I had to get home, or else a witch would come looking for me.
Still looking at the ground, I gave one curt nod, then hurried away.
I made it back to the greenhouse just in time to stop Kendra from leaving to find me. She knew that I had been crying, but she didn’t know what to say, so she left me alone.
That was the way Hawthorns tended to deal with their problems. Alone.
Gates came and found me. Even with the look of guarded disdain on her face, I knew she was touched.
“You really left school?”
I took a deep breath, wondering when I was going to be done saying it. “It’s just a semester. Don’t flatter yourself.”
She didn’t say anything, but a little sad smile graced her lips, and she came to sit by me. As horrible as it was, I wished that she was a cat again. Her emotions had been easier to read when she purred.
“You got all As?” she asked.
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes.”
“Even with all this crazy shit going on?”
I sighed. “Yes. Well, there was this one class, and I probably would have made a B because Vince was always better at teaching me the complicated math stuff, but I aced this other assignment they had us do at the start of the semester…” I frowned, thinking back to Tristan as he comically nudged his head while I tried to place my stake. “So yeah, I got all As.”
There was a twinkling in her eyes, and her smile broadened. “I knew you would. Did you ever think about taking classes online?”
“She seemed to like the idea when I brought it up this morning,” Gates grinned.
I lowered my head to the work table, holding my hands behind my neck. I thought that I had finally turned the bend. Things were going to get better, and maybe things would go back to normal.
And then the greenhouse panels above us exploded.
Chapter 13
They dropped down around us like stones falling from the sky. I don’t know what came over me, because Gates was by far better able to defend herself, but I pushed her behind me.
“You can’t have her!” I said quickly. And then, over my shoulder, “If you have anything, Gates, now is the time!”
But to my utter astonishment, Gates was gone. I was speaking to the air, and I brought my attention back to the three figures in front of me.
When they stood, I recognized Samuel immediately. He stood at the left, though, and the man in the lead terrified me more than any of the nightmares I had grown accustomed to in the last weeks.
His face was thin like a skeleton, and his hair was so blond it might as well have been white. His entire face was devoid of color or shadow except for the darks of his eyes, surrounded by only the faintest trace of a ring of blue, and his mouth.
His mouth was red, and not like the color that lips were supposed to be. They were blood red.
“Anise Hawthorn,” he said, turning a quick glance on Samuel to confirm my identity. “You will speak for your family?”
“No,” I said hoarsely. “You’ll need to speak to Kendra.”
“Shame,” he whispered. I jumped in surprise but his bony knuckles were already gripping my arms, and I could smell the foul decay on his breath. “Then I’m going to need leverage.”
I heard someone shout something in Latin, and then something wet hit my face. The creature before me screamed in rage and I smelled the burning of his flesh. I started to panic, sure that Kendra had just tossed acid on both of us, but the pain never came.
The creature shoved me so hard that I thought I would hit the ground, but I ended in Samuel’s grip. He held me with one arm, and I saw the glint of a blade by my throat.
“How dare you!”
“Draven,” Kendra said in warning. “You’re looking unwell. Poisoned recently, by one of your many fans?”
He glared. I stared. This thing was my uncle.
“I am here to take what is mine!” he snapped. “You promised me the book!”
“I promised House Luthor the book,” Kendra said evenly. “Though you apparently already know I’ve fallen short on that, as well.”
Draven was breathing hard. Even as he skin bled and continued to sear, I was surprised by how fast he regained his cool.
“I’m not an unreasonable man, Kendra,” he said. “We will negotiate the terms after you’ve had time to consider what the book is worth to you. Until then, I will be taking those things that do not have contested ownership. This girl is the daughter of Alice Luthor, and I am reclaiming her.”
In the blink of an eye, I wasn’t in the greenhouse anymore.
Chapter 14
I thought I was in the Other Side for a moment. It was dark, and humid, and I could hear the wind. But as my eyes settled, I saw old furniture, and the sight of my own reflection in a mirror nearly gave me a heart attack. I ran to the first door I found and cast it open, only to be nearly blinded by the brightness outside.
A hand gripped my arm again, and I blinked in surprise.
It was Samuel. “You are to stay in your rooms until summoned.”
He pushed me back inside and shut the door. I heard a lock click.
I searched the wall until I found the switch, and turned on the lights.
The room was grand, and luxuriously decorated, though most of the furniture was covered with a thick powdering of dust over the protective storage cloths. There was a closet filled with over-the-top dresses in styles from centuries past, and a bathroom. Outside the heavily draped windows, there was what I guessed was a four-story drop to the street below.
I was in the city. Which city, and how I had arrived there, I had no way of knowing. But it was dark outside, and in Colorado it had been noon. I had crossed time zones.
My cell phone was gone and no amount of shouting seemed to draw attention from the passersby below.
Going to the one spell I knew I could manage, I tried to call Charlie.
I tried for hours. He never came.
They brought me food that I didn’t eat. A woman came in and took my measurements, and then she brought me clothes—modern ones—that would fit. Another young woman brought me towels and toiletries. None of them spoke a word.
I was afraid to even touch the things they offered me. Kendra had told me that vampires were witches dabbling in something extra, and I didn’t need a curse or a charm laid on me. I worried they would try to make me more compliant, or wipe my memory, or make me tell them about Lyssa and Gates and Charlie.
I sat in a corner, terrified, until Samuel came in.
“What you’re wearing is unfit for a Daughter of the House,” he said. “You should put on the clothes your benefactor has offered.”
“I won’t,” I said.
He nodded. “Master Draven will see you now.”
We walked down long hallways, and took an elevator to a higher floor. Turning two corners, we came to a large set of gold and green French doors, and Samuel opened them without knocking. He gestured me in without entering himself, and then closed them behind me.
I stood still as a statue as I looked around the room. When my eyes finally found Draven, sitting still behind a desk across the vast space, he was giving me a similar assessment.
Some color had returned to his thin cheeks, and I noticed a few more yellows in his bleached hair. He looked more human than he had before, and I wondered if it was makeup applied on my behalf.
“Annie,” he said genially. “Please, sit. We haven’t been introduced properly.”
I didn’t move. He stood to walk over to me, and I saw that he was wearing a night robe over comfortable clothes, and he had slippers on his feet. It was the last thing I expected from someone who had been so intimidating.
“I apologize for earlier,” he said, holding out his hands and shaking his head. “I’m afraid I have a conflicted history with your aunt. I’ve waited a long time to meet you, though. Have you been treated well since your arrival?”
I cocked an eyebrow. Hours earlier, this man had practically thrown me to the ground and then declared me leverage in his negotiations.
“You could have done better for a hostage,” I said. “I don’t have the book, and she likes Lyssa more. She won’t want me back.”
His eyes squinted a little. “Because you’re touched by the darkness?”
I felt my stomach give a jolt. Kendra had warned me that being an ex-demon might get me killed, and I supposed I was about to find out.
“You didn’t think I would know?” he asked gently. “Vampires are much more sensitive to the energies around them, and what happened to you has left more than a physical scar. If your aunt doesn’t want you, then it’s just as well. You’re wanted here. The damage done to you can be fixed, though apparently Kendra has you under a different impression.”
Neither Charlie nor Kendra had even mentioned the possibility. I had been going along assuming it was something binary, and you either were or you weren’t an ex-demon. The idea that there were degrees of ailment, and that the lesser ones could be remedied, had piqued my interest.
But I wasn’t going to be bought so easily.
“It’s not like that,” I said cautiously. “She wouldn’t trade me for the book, I meant.”
“Let’s not talk about the book,” he said quietly, going back to his desk. He gestured for me to follow, and not wanting to yell at him from across the room, I was forced to get closer. “The book is an old ugliness between me and Kendra.
It has nothing to do with us.”
“Then what do you want to talk about?” I asked.
He hesitated, clasping his hands in front of himself on the desk. “Your mother.”
“My mother?” I felt my throat tighten. I didn’t like talking about her out loud at all, let alone with a complete stranger. Those memories were private.
“Was she happy?”
I stared at him, trying to decide if he was turning the screws to dig at my emotional state, but he just sat there, impassive.
“She was my sister, Annie, and she was stolen from me. I don’t know if Kendra told you what she did, but we were close until the day she forgot all about me. I just want to know if she was happy in her new life.”
That wasn’t the way Kendra had told the story, but then, I was well aware that Draven might be trying to win my loyalty. I kept my responses measured.
“She was happy,” I said.
“You and your sister had a good upbringing?”
“Define ‘good’.”
He raised an eyebrow at me in amusement. “You were happy.”
“Yes.”
“And your father? How has he been all these years?”
I pursed my lips, shaking my head. I didn’t know what relationship Draven had had with my father before, but I wasn’t going to give him anything he could use now.
“My father is out of the picture,” I said. “And he has been for a while.”
He had invited me and Lyssa to come out to his new place in California for the holidays. There was a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening now.
“You would do anything to protect your family,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “We have that in common. We are family, you and I.”
I only raised my eyebrows.
“You have cousins,” he went on. “Great aunts and uncles, and until relatively recently, grandparents. I would like for you to know them.”
“I would like to settle your dispute with Kendra first,” I said.
A smile flickered across his face. He stood and offered his hand. “You’re wiser than I am, perhaps. I’m glad to have met you, Annie.”