But it would have still left the threat of their existence behind. Still, Celestina’s sincerity rocked my heart.
“That was something,” Nolan said, finally opening his eyes and sitting up in his seat. “She really cares about you.”
“But you don’t believe it? Why not?”
“You heard what she said.” Once more checking that she hadn’t reawakened, I found her in a deep sleep. “The way she looked at me earlier?” Goosebumps appeared on my flesh as emotion clogged my throat, forcing me to wait until I could speak clearly. “I really thought she wanted to hurt me.” I tried to shake off the glare that reminded me that Celestina was Alexis’s daughter. “She is capable of so much love…and so much destruction.”
Nolan pressed his back against his seat. “You make her sound like a vicious—”
“She can be,” I admitted. “I’m not exaggerating. She is incredibly powerful, and if she doesn’t learn to restrain her emotions—”
“Because every teenager excels at that,” he said with a grin. “I’m just saying, I think she’s confused. She knows who her mother is, and she knows what you’re all about. Give her a chance. She might surprise you.”
I couldn’t argue that. In fact, while my heart told me to embrace Celestina without reservation, her actions, both said and implied, told me to be wary of trusting her. My gut twisted at the double standard, and I wished I could shake off my reservations, but intuition told me to remain vigilant.
That reminded me of Nolan’s impressive ability to compel over one-hundred people simultaneously. “That was quite a performance earlier at the Home Bar.”
He looked over at me, confused.
The way he refused to admit the truth unless called upon to answer for his actions told me that he either didn’t like confrontation, which I doubted given that he’d called me out when I refused to face the truth, or he’d rather keep the truth in spirit mode. “I was invisible, but I saw what you did.”
After a long moment of looking out the window in silence, he said, “I don’t know how it happened. I was pissed off at you, I mean, your sister.” He cracked a half-grin. “I still have a hard time telling you two apart.”
That admission hurt me a little. My sister and I behaved differently, relied on separate facial cues, and our body language was as varied as light and dark. Besides, the lingering scent of alcohol didn’t constantly linger around me, nor did I have a persistent cynical outlook. Taken in that context, we couldn’t have been more dissimilar. It all led up to one question: did Nolan really know me?
“What?” he asked, examining my eyes, searching my face for clues as to how I felt.
“Look,” I said, preparing to say what needed to come next, “We’ve known each other for what…five days? Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves.” Admitting it hurt my soul. Still, I didn’t want to put myself out there if Nolan couldn’t take the time to get to know me.
He turned to me, equally irritated and worried. “Where is this coming from?”
“I’m just saying, we barely know each other. I’ll understand if things are getting too real for you to—”
“Too real?” Nolan asked. He sat up straight in his seat. “So, we’ve only known each other for less than a week. So what? Are you going somewhere? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No,” I said, surprised by his intensity and his ability to get to the point. “I’m just saying—”
“This,” he said, gesturing to me and back to him, “is not normal. You’re a witch. I’m a…” He let out a long breath and pushed his hands through his hair. “I’m still trying to get over the fact that I’m a…”
“Half-demon?”
“See? I can’t even admit it. What does that say about me? That I’m in denial? I mean, where did I come from? Who were my parents?” He held out both hands as though looking for someone to answer these questions for him. “How can I be into someone else, if I don’t even know what I am?”
My heart sank. Nolan had summed things up for both of us. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be in a relationship, and I had too many ancestral issues to deal with before I could give thought to romance. Still, I slumped in my seat at the notion of playing in a band with someone I had a crush on, who actually reciprocated those feelings, but who wouldn’t act on them. I understood where Nolan came from, and I sympathized with his plight. After all, when it came to magic, I had nothing more to learn about my abilities, whereas Nolan had yet to test his abilities and level of power. Besides, based on the insecure expression with which he stared out the windshield, he still had yet to determine if his powers were meant for good or evil. Historical precedent considered the use of the word “demon” as negative in practically every connotation, but it didn’t take into account free will. Regardless, I’d never heard anyone use the term “demon” in a positive light, and it made me wonder if perhaps Nolan had a predilection, based on a etymological basis, to act in a manner most becoming of evildoers.
“What?” he asked. “You’re looking at me like—”
“You’re evil?” I admitted. “I’m not going to lie. Up until a moment ago, I thought of you as an incredible musician I had a crush on.” Seeing a smile spread across his face made my knees weak, but I kept things casual…or at least I tried to. “But I’ve gotta wonder if you’re something you’re not, or if you want to be something you’re not.”
“You think I want to throw in with Zephora?”
“I’ll admit, you’re making me think twice. You should know whether you want to use whatever abilities you have for good or evil.”
“I don’t want to hang with Zephora and Alexis, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Without intending to, Nolan had acknowledged my sister as the enemy, and as much as I wanted to consider her otherwise, I had to admit that she had gone over to the dark side. I feared that, if Celestina was awake, she might take exception to having her mother being referred to as evil, but when I glanced in the rearview mirror, she lay asleep across the backseat.
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “It looked like you had no idea how you manipulated an entire crowd to think our band played a full set.”
“I don’t. I just sensed it.” He looked at his empty hands as though expecting to find an explanation to give him the answers he sought. “But when I saw them nodding their heads, I just kept talking, and the next thing I knew, I was lying to them.”
“How did it make you feel?”
“Powerful. I was relieved. I mean, you flaked out on us.” He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.” He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Alexis screwed us big time, and what could we do? We didn’t know it wasn’t you.”
If Kendall and Brandon had also mistaken Alexis for me, I’d obviously been too hard on Nolan. “I get it.” They knew me better than he did, so it seemed I’d been too judgmental. I dialed back my irritation. “After all, you are a—” I didn’t finish the statement to see how he’d respond. His reluctance to refer to himself as a demon went a long way with me. It gave me hope that he wouldn’t turn on me.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. “Strong? Weak? In-between?”
“I’m fine.”
His soft tone didn’t convince me. “That’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?”
“It already is.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“If Zephora can’t create more creatures, and we keep killing the ones already in existence, where does that leave me?”
I’d kept that thought in the back of my mind because I hadn’t wanted to admit that it would be a problem. On the other hand, how could it not? Nolan needed to feed off those with supernatural energy. If we kept killing those with paranormal attributes, how long would he remain alive?
“Do you see why I’m on edge?”
“What do we do about it? Do you have any ideas?”
He chuckled without humor. “So far, outside of the band, Celestina, and your Grams, every supern
atural entity we’ve encountered so far has been evil.” He put a couple fingers to his right temple, as though trying to massage an oncoming headache. “So no, I have no clue how I’ll continue on without a constant influx of paranormal creatures to…feed off of.” The disgust in his expression made it clear that he hated having to rely on others to remain at full power.
I wanted to soothe his fears, but it would be difficult. After all, I needed to kill Zephora’s allies because they were automatically tuned in to follow her orders, and since she wanted me to die, it would be a conflict of interest to allow monsters to exist. “Have you learned anything new about your—”
“Condition?” he asked with a smirk, as though aware of my uncertainty. “Other than my strength and speed, I don’t know what else makes me a…well, you know what I mean.”
“Other than that, your ability as a guitarist, and that you were raised by your foster parents, I don’t know much about you.”
A good-natured grin came over him, the kind you’d want your mother (or in my case, grandmother, if she’d been alive) to meet. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Everything,” I said a little too quickly, as though I’d been waiting days for him to ask the question. While true, I didn’t want him to get that impression. It seemed that, regardless of whether he supported good or evil, I couldn’t deny that I had a thing for him. I found it disconcerting. Furthermore, it seemed I had no choice. My heart had already made its choice.
“Why wouldn’t you let me help you?” he asked. “At the bar.”
I took a long moment before answering because I didn’t know if I should tell him the truth. Then again, figuring that he deserved the truth, I decided not to censor my response. “I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
He studied me, not with a judgmental attitude or outright anger, but he sincerely wanted to know what prevented me from giving in to him…when my life was on the line. A lesser man would have broken the silence and asked why I couldn’t trust him after he’d already saved my life. A lesser man would’ve been hurt by that admission, thinking that I didn’t regard him as boyfriend-material. He could have reached many conclusions based on our conversation so far. Regardless, Nolan didn’t feel threatened in the least. He simply waited for me to explain myself.
“I don’t know much about you, Nolan.”
“We’ve already confirmed that,” he said with a hint of a grin.
“Yeah.” I chuckled. “But I don’t know what you’re capable of.”
“Neither do I.”
“So, can you see why I’m hesitant to trust you?”
Giving my words some thought, he nodded slowly.
“I want to trust you.” I made a point of looking at him in hopes that he’d meet my gaze. It didn’t happen, so I took one final glance at the road before returning my attention to him. “Look at me.”
He spent a few seconds considering my words before heeding my request.
“You…excite me.” I felt incredibly vulnerable upon saying those words, but since those were the feelings that hit me every time I saw him, I wanted to be honest. I needed to be honest. Not just with him but with myself. If I couldn’t do that, I couldn’t be the person I wanted to be. “I’ve known you less than a week, and I feel like we’ve known each other…” Because he wore an unreadable expression, I didn’t know if I sounded like a blabbering idiot, but I needed some sort of admission that he’d heard me.
“Forever,” he finished for me. His eyes twinkled with understanding, and he nodded again as he took my words in stride.
“Exactly,” I admitted, incredibly relieved that I hadn’t made a fool of myself, that I didn’t look and feel like a love-struck fool. “I don’t know how or why, but it’s there: this connection, this”—as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge the truth, if I didn’t air my feelings, I’d be lying to myself—“…this longing. It scares me. You scare me.”
“I know,” he said with sincerity. “I know how you feel.”
“Really?” I stared at him, waiting for him to extrapolate on his feelings.
He took a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “Every other woman I’ve met, I might like the way she looks, but there’s never…there’s never any substance. It’s all surface. There isn’t any mystery.”
So that’s what got him off: a woman who played hard to get in order to rope him into her arms, a woman who hid her feelings and true intentions, a woman who might even have ulterior motives, but refused to share them with Nolan. “Oh, so you like the uncertainty, the chase.”
“No,” he said, adjusting his position in the seat so he could look directly at me. “That’s not it. I mean, no matter how much time I’ve spent with anyone else, it’s not that she’s keeping something from me and it ticks me off. That’s not it at all! I hate it. I can’t stand it! What I mean is…every other woman I’ve met, I didn’t want to know anything more about her.” He inspected my expression to determine if I was paying attention to him, if I truly understood what he said. “When it came to anyone else, I didn’t care. But with you…”
My breath left me, and I couldn’t snap up another one. The fear of hearing him saying anything other than what I wanted to hear made it difficult for me to hold his gaze.
“With you,” he said, “I care.”
Every particle of my being felt fringed, as though it had been stripped from my soul. When it came to the opposite sex, I’d never had anyone say anything so meaningful to me, and I didn’t know how to respond.
“So yeah,” he said, turning his attention to the passenger side window, obviously feeling rebuffed and uncertain how to take it. “There’s that.”
So much emotion built up inside me that I felt tears surge into my eyes. Grams, Kendall, and Brandon felt the same way about me, but of course, not in the same context. So to hear Nolan reveal his innermost feelings touched me on a level I’d never before experienced. I felt special. Not in the magical sort of way for once, but the human kind, the one that made me feel like I added a sense of worth to another human being. Although just as that thought passed across my mind, I realized that I wasn’t dealing with a fellow human…but a demon!
A ringing interrupted my thoughts, but it didn’t come from either of our phones. Nolan and I both glanced to the back seat, where Celestina roused, fluttering her eyes to force herself awake, while reaching for the cell phone in the front pocket of her jeans. She placed it against her ear. “Hello?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
A muffled voice erupted from the speaker, but I couldn’t make out a sound.
“Okay,” Celestina said. She waited a moment, yawned and nodded, as whomever spoke on the other end of the line had pushed a seriousness manner into my niece’s expression. “I’m sorry, okay? I went to see Aunt Serena’s concert.”
“You what?” Alexis screamed from the phone.
Wincing, my niece pulled the phone away from her ear. She glanced my way, looking for backup, but knowing that I wouldn’t interfere, she held the phone an inch from her ear to allow me to listen in. Far from scared or disappointed to have let her mother down, Celestina rolled her eyes.
“I prohibited you from going,” Alexis continued, using a harsh tone. “And you disobeyed me?”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Celestina said, her voice full of fright. But her face revealed frustration, animosity, and the stirrings of teenage rebellion. “I made a mistake.” Only she hadn’t made a mistake. In leaving for the concert, my niece knew precisely what trouble she might face if her mother discovered she’d snuck out.
While I didn’t approve of Alexis’s parenting skills, I couldn’t side with my niece on this one. Once again, she had no business leaving the house that late by herself. If accosted, she could probably handle herself by using the seemingly unending list of abilities she now had at her disposal, but she was still a thirteen-year-old girl, and an immature, naive girl at that, who had recently begun acting out. All told, she would soon find trouble, regardless of whether sh
e attempted to avoid it or not.
“I’ll hitch a ride with Aunt Serena.”
“No, you will not! I want you here now!”
Annoyed, Celestina clucked her tongue on the bridge of her mouth. “Where’s here?”
“Jefferson Park on Lawrence. Get in one of the cabs you seem so fucking fond of and get your ass over here!” A click ended the call, eliciting a steady dial tone from the phone.
Celestina turned off her phone, far from looking unaffected by her mother’s words, a nervous tic had developed under her right eye. “This isn’t good.” Her tone was laced with doom. “Mom doesn’t trust strangers. She wouldn’t have wanted me to get into another cab.” She pinched the skin under her eye to keep it from jittering. “She may not like you, Aunt Serena, but normally she’d have wanted you to take me home.” Celestina released the flesh, leaving it white. “Something’s wrong.” Her skin jumped again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I killed the headlights when I pulled to a stop at the curb beside Jefferson Park. I scanned the green grass for either Zephora or Alexis but didn’t see either of them. Wary, I shut off the engine, suspecting that Alexis knew I’d driven her daughter despite no mention of my name during her conversation with Celestina, at least from what I could tell.
Nolan turned to address Celestina. “Any idea what we’re facing?”
She didn’t offer a dismissive shrug of the shoulders. My niece looked uncertain, too frightened to answer. When the flesh above her eye quivered, she swiftly snagged it between two fingers and squeezed.
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