by Myers, AJ
“Em, that’s not true.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Nathan,” I said, turning to walk away. “Like I said, I’m done. I won’t keep lying to myself…and you shouldn’t either.”
“I won’t let you walk away from me,” he said quietly.
Looking at him over my shoulder, I whispered, “I just did.”
∞§∞§∞§∞
I’d had some pretty bad nights in my life. There was the night I melted Kim’s Bratz collection in the fourth grade. There was the night some creeper tried to break into my house while my parents were at one of the many charity events they used as an excuse to be anywhere but where I was. There was the first time I went to dinner with Bastian disguised as my friend Jack only to find myself hacking up char when it was over. There was the night I died.
The night I realized Nathan was never going to accept me as I was beat them all hands down.
I didn’t go to my room that night and sob. I didn’t call Kim or text her and tell her to come over and fry him—though, around dawn, I did consider it. I just sat on my bed, my arms wrapped around my knees, and stared out at the snow that had started to fall softly past the window until I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
I gathered up all my things for a shower once I realized that the gray sky wasn’t going to get any lighter and headed for the bathroom like it was any other morning. Nathan might have been wrong about a lot of things, but he was right when he told me I couldn’t learn to live the life I had if I was hiding from it.
I stayed in the shower until the water started to run cold and then got out and got dressed, avoiding looking in the mirror. Honestly, I was afraid seeing the emptiness in my eyes that I could feel all the way to the depths of my soul would be the last straw that drove me straight into the arms of orderlies at the local loony bin.
But when I walked out, Nathan was standing there waiting for me.
“It’s time for your lesson,” he said in a soft, tender voice.
“No,” I told him, trying to push past him.
“Yes,” he murmured, pressing me against the wall and putting his hands on either side of my head to keep me trapped there. “Every day, Em. Until you don’t even have the slightest urge to feed when I kiss you. Now, don’t be difficult. Let’s just get this over with and then you can—”
He stopped talking so abruptly he sounded like he was choking when I looked up and met his eyes. It wouldn’t have made any difference to me if he had recited the Gettysburg Address, because I wouldn’t have heard a word of it. All I could hear were the words let’s just get this over with resounding through my head like echoes in a canyon. If I had still had any delusions about us, they died right there.
“You’re right,” I told him, my voice as lifeless as I felt. “Let’s get this over with, and then you won’t even have to look at me again until tomorrow.”
“Em, that’s not what I meant,” he said softly, frowning down at me.
“It doesn’t matter, Nathan. Not anymore.”
Since there was only one way I was going to get out of that hallway with him, I did what I had to do. Standing on my tiptoes, I wrapped my hand around his neck and gave him the softest, gentlest kiss.
There was no raging desire to feed as our lips met. There wasn’t even the warm, tingly sensation I had always felt when he kissed me. There was only the soul-searing agony of knowing it was for the last time.
I was kissing him goodbye.
By the time his arms started to slide around me, it was already over. Pushing him away, I brushed past him and walked to my door. Before I opened it, I turned and looked at him one last time.
“You can cancel tomorrow’s lesson,” I told him, forcing a weak smile to my lips. “You said every day until I could kiss you without wanting to feed, right?”
“Yes, every day, Em,” he said, looking at me with what I could only describe as fear in his beautiful eyes.
“Then I just graduated,” I said as I opened the door and walked inside. “I just kissed you…and I didn’t feel a thing.”
I caught a glimpse of the tormented expression on his face as I closed the door behind me. That look stayed with me for the rest of the day. It was branded behind my eyelids when I tried to meditate—a practice Kim and I had figured out was as close to sleeping as I was ever going to get again. Sure, there were no dreams, but at least it gave my mind a chance to rest. I was still seeing it when I gave up and got up to start cleaning my cage—oops, my room.
And I was still seeing it when I found the key to the lock keeping me trapped there.
If I hadn’t decided to clean out the closet to burn off some of my nervous energy, I might never have found it. To be honest, I really wasn’t even sure what I’d found. It was a pretty little wooden disk, carved with all kinds of little mystical symbols. When I held it up to examine it closer, I felt a little tingle race up my arm from the leather thong it hung from.
I immediately snapped a picture of it with my phone and sent it to Kim to find out what it was. I only had to wait a few seconds for a response.
It’s a cloaking charm, one of Mom’s. Where did you get it?
I rolled my eyes. What did it matter where I’d gotten it? I wanted to know what it did. So, I asked.
It cloaks you, dummy, Kim answered, hence the term CLOAKING charm.
But what does it cloak you FROM? I asked, wondering why I was starting to feel like I was pulling the information out of her like pulling teeth.
It was her one word response that finally set me free. One word. That’s all. But that word meant the world to me.
Everything.
I sat there and stared between my phone and the charm in my other hand for what seemed like forever as a plan began to form in my mind. If the charm cloaked you from everything, it might just be my ticket past the wards Grams had put in place before she’d abandoned ship. If I could get past those wards, I was home free.
And I was just desperate enough to try it.
I didn’t even stop to really think it through. Without so much as a blink of hesitation, I dropped the charm over my head and tucked it beneath my shirt so that it rested against my chest. Then, figuring I had nothing left to lose, I hopped up and headed for the window.
I finally hesitated when I was less than a foot away from my portal to freedom. Though I knew I was going to try it, that I had to, I still wasn’t looking forward to another round of magically induced trauma if it didn’t work.
Teeth clenched to hold back the shriek that was sure to follow if the charm didn’t work, I scrunched my eyes closed tight and reached out. When my fingertips brushed the icy window pane, it startled me so much that I shrieked anyway. Cracking one eye open, I laid my hand flat against the glass. When I finally unclenched my teeth, my smile was brilliant.
Just to be sure, I unlocked the window and slid it up just a fraction of an inch. It went up smoothly and silently, but I still waited for Nathan to come barreling into the room like a raging rhino to put a stop to my plan, having been alerted by some kind of silent alarm. I had to really fight the urge not to dance around like a total nutcase with joy when it didn’t happen. I was so happy, in fact, that the cold January wind leaking through the small opening I’d made barely even registered with me. All I could feel was the thrill of success.
Shutting the window again, I began to plot my bid for freedom.
Chapter 11: The Bad Karma Fairy Strikes Again
“Em!”
I turned around just in time to keep from being knocked over as Kim threw her arms around me in a hug so tight I could barely suck in a breath. It was like being hugged by a boa constrictor on steroids. If I had still needed to breathe, I would’ve been totally screwed.
I shook my head in amused exasperation as Kim tried to talk and laugh and cry at the same time. I breathed a sigh of relief when her faint rose-pink aura didn’t make me want to suck in a little bit for a taste. Apparently that extra dose of Nexus had done the trick. I felt a little sick
, a little dizzy, but at least nobody was looking particularly yummy.
“Sorry about this, Em,” Blake said when he arrived and started helping me extricate myself from his girlfriend’s death grip. “She’s been going crazy without you. Welcome back.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “I’ve really missed you guys, too.”
Blake rolled his eyes at Kim’s theatrics when she threw her arms around him instead. When he saw the way I was shaking my head at her, he winked and gave me one of those thousand watt smiles that made him one of the most gorgeous guys at Oakhurst Academy. I had never been able to resist that smile and returned it with the first genuine smile I had felt on my own face in three months.
It wasn’t just his body that made Blake such a hottie, though that’s definitely what you noticed first. It was much more than the dark hair, dark eyes, killer body, and trademark stop-your-heart smile. It was the fact that he was one of the sweetest guys to ever walk the planet that made him damn close to perfect.
Like Kim, Blake’s sky blue aura didn’t incite the demon in me to growl hungrily. Beginning to think my plan to get back to having a life just might work, I took my first real breath of relief since waking up a card-carrying member of the undead.
I grinned as I watched him take over consoling his overemotional girlfriend. Kim was beautiful even when she was crying. Kim would be beautiful no matter what she was doing. She’s just one of those people, beautiful outside and in. Even with my new undead makeover, I still didn’t touch the wholesome natural beauty Kim had.
Then, I wasn’t all that whole, was I?
I had spent most of my formative years comparing myself to Kim and this is what I’d come up with. Kim was tall, I was short. Kim was thin and willowy while I was curvaceous—kind of like a stunted hourglass. Kim’s raven-black hair was always perfect and shiny and silky, mine was a riotous mass of fire-red curls that only an infusion of demon DNA had been able to tame. Kim’s olive complexion made her look exotic, my pale skin made me look like a member of the undead even before I was one.
If that doesn’t sum it all up, try this: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Kim was Snow White, and I was a Dwarf. I prefer Bashful, if you don’t mind. He was always my favorite.
“How did you get Nate to let you out?” Blake asked once Kim was finished soaking the front of his jacket and started wiping her eyes. “Did you get parole for good behavior?”
“Not exactly,” I muttered, turning back to my locker and reaching for a notebook.
Nathan probably didn’t even know I was gone yet. He was going to go nuclear when he realized where I was, but he was just going to have to deal with it. I had made it to the point that it was either try to have a life again or give up entirely. I couldn’t bear being alone anymore.
Despite my well thought out plans, it had still taken every bit of nerve I had to make myself climb out that window. I knew all too well how bad things could potentially go. I was surprised to find, though, that it hadn’t been quite so hard, dealing with the cold, with the weak winter sunlight shining down on me. Yeah, I’d still been chilled to the bone, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the night of the Clay Catastrophe.
Then again, I’d been more prepared for my escape back to the real world and the only two people in it who still loved me unconditionally. It was true, I’d been scared to death, imagining all sorts of ways I could screw up and hurt someone. But even with the cold chill of January washing over me, penetrating through the thick wool pea-coat I wore over my short black sweater-dress and tights, I felt like someone had taken off a pair of shackles. I’d walked most of the way to school, just enjoying that sense of freedom, before I started to feel all sluggish and frozen. I took a chance then and flagged down Mac’s ancient taxi as he was dropping off another passenger and had him drive me the rest of the way.
The cabbie had greeted me like an old friend, not even seeming to notice how much I’d changed. The fact that he didn’t stare at me like I was something out of a dream—or a nightmare, depending on your point of view—helped me relax. Well, that and the massive dose of Nexus in my system. I was so happy and relaxed, in fact, that I barely even noticed the old man’s faded green aura. It was just nice to have someone talk to me for a change.
“Ah, so you made a break for it,” Blake sighed, nodding. Leave it to Blake to get right to the point. “You know, Em, I think you’re my hero. Only you could sneak past a four hundred year old vampire without getting caught. That takes some real skill, my friend. How did you get past those wards Shea placed?”
I figured it couldn’t hurt to tell the truth, so I pulled the charm from beneath my shirt. I saw his eyes widen for a second before he threw back his head and laughed.
“I can’t wait to see Nate’s face when he finds out he helped you escape,” he said between guffaws. “You’re in seriously deep shit, my friend!”
“Blake! Shut. Up!”
I would have had to be deaf not to hear the warning in Kim’s voice, the one that said silence was golden. Blake must have heard it, too, because he shut up quick. Shaking her head at him, Kim turned back to me, looped her arm through mine, and started dragging me down the hall.
“Em, I’m so glad you’re back. It’s been really boring around here without you.”
“Thanks a lot, baby!” Blake chuckled behind us. I caught his eye over my shoulder and he smiled at me to let me know he wasn’t in the least offended by his girlfriend’s thoughtless remark.
“You know what I mean,” Kim huffed. “Are you really back, Em? Or is this some kind of test?”
I bit my lip as I tried to figure out the best way to answer that question. Was I testing myself? I suppose, in a way, I was…and I wasn’t going to fail. It was kind of pathetic to know the course of my life hung on whether or not I could spend eight hours listening to my teachers drone on about things I would never be able to use in real life without sucking the life out of someone. But, hey, it is what it is, right?
“I think I’m back,” I finally decided. Kim clapped her hands and jumped up and down like she was six years old and, since her arm was still looped through mine, I was kind of forced to bounce with her. “Let’s just take this one step at a time. All right, Kim?”
She nodded, her head bobbing up and down like some crazy bobblehead doll out of control, and I laughed, surprising myself with the ringing sound of happiness I heard in it. I was back with my friends, back at normal, boring Oakhurst Academy.
Now it was time to find out if I was strong enough to stay.
I looked around me, remembering all the wonderful—and trying to forget the not so wonderful—things I had experienced at Oakhurst. The walls were still the same blank, insanity-inducing white. The pictures of graduating classes gone by still smiled down on us from dust-covered frames. The sounds were the same, the smells were the same. The same cliques still hung out at opposite ends of the hallway. The same teachers were still trying to control the masses. Yep, everything was exactly like I remembered it.
For the first time since I’d come back from Oblivion, I knew I was where I was supposed to be.
“So what’s been going on?” I asked, eager to catch up on the gossip.
It was the perfect way to keep the questions I knew were inevitable at bay. I knew I wouldn’t have to talk for a few minutes if Kim was chattering about who had hooked up, who broke up, what teacher was caught drinking in the teacher’s lounge, etc. etc. As long as I nodded in the right places and rolled my eyes occasionally, Kim was happy.
The effect my new darkling appearance had on my classmates didn’t go unnoticed by me or my two companions. People turned and gawked openly as we passed. I found myself smiling at some of the theories I heard about my new pale perfect features. I heard everything from new makeup to plastic surgery whispered as I passed.
My favorite, hands down, was Stacy Martin’s grumbled sneer that I had sold my soul. Stacy was the reigning Queen Bitch of OA—and my main source of annoyance since
we were twelve—and she wasn’t thrilled that everyone was staring at me instead of her. It was my favorite because it was actually the closest to the truth, not because it was something I was particularly proud of.
I felt myself tense when Stacy separated herself from her not-too-bright followers and started sauntering in our direction. For the first time since I’d become a darkling, I actually wrinkled my nose at an aura. Stacy’s aura was a dirty brown color, like pond water. Kind of smelled like it too, for that matter.
I mean, I always knew she was rotten, but damn.
“Hi, Ember,” she said, her tone so sugary sweet that I felt my teeth ache. She looked pointedly behind me and I knew before she opened her cosmetically-enhanced lips that she was about to piss me off. “Where’s Nathan? We’ve missed him.”
“Not here, obviously. I guess you’ll just have to learn to deal with disappointment, huh?” When she just stood there, continuing to block my path, I rolled my eyes and let out an impatient huff. “Don’t you have some lip gloss to apply or something, Stacy? If you wouldn’t mind moving out of my way, I’d like to go to class now.”
“Have it your way, Ember,” she said, shrugging, giving me an unimpressed once over. “I don’t mind waiting for Nathan to get tired of you. Something that yummy is worth a little patience.”
She didn’t have much of a wait on that one. My only consolation was that she didn’t know that. Like she could sense what I was thinking, Stacy gave me a catty smile that made me want to slam her face into the locker next to her.
She turned and stalked off again before I did something violent. I glared after her, wondering how smug her skanky little ass would be if I drained most of her essence and left her a quivering mass on the floor.
“Em, calm down,” Blake whispered in my ear, sounding a little panicked. “Your eyes are starting to glow! Do you want to cause a riot?”
That snapped me out of it pretty damn quick and I felt a now-familiar sense of shame wash over me. Had I really just been considering using the demon inside me to put Stacy Martin in her place because she was lusting after my boyfriend?