Banes

by Tara Brown

  "No Ronald you don’t know who she is, you know what she is. Who she is hasn’t even been decided yet by her. She needs time and space from the Roses until she decides it."

  Lydia's' words rolled around in her stunned head for a second, she had defended her. She sat on the stairs listening.

  "Ari just come down here and meet Mr. Halter before he leaves." She sat frozen but a smile crept along her face. Of course Lydia would have known she was there. She stood and walked down the stairs fighting the urge to attack the man before she even met him.

  Lydia sat in an oversized old burgundy chair. Across the room from her sat a man with steel grey hair and a weathered tanned face. He reminded her of a very old version of Cookie making her miss home for a second.

  "Ronald this is Ari, Ari this is Mr. Halter, he's involved in our lives from time to time."

  Ari frowned at the man who stood and looked at her hand. She smiled and offered it to him. He made no move. She laughed and sat on the chaise lounge next to Lydia's' chair.

  "You're very young." He commented at her distastefully.

  She knew what she looked like, she looked like a mess. Her arms had tattoos and her face had piercings. She had scars on her arms and one on her cheek. Her dark hair was still incredibly short even though just as Lydia had promised her hair had grown at least an inch over night making her look more like a hedgehog than a girl. She had a tattoo running up her neck, it really was the one she hated the most. A bull ring through her nose and bars through her lip and eyebrow seemed like the frosting on the freak cake. She wore the jeans Annabelle had put out for her and a t-shirt. She was slight from not having eaten often enough and wiry from fighting for everything she had, which was nearly nothing. She could have been the definition of angst if one was able to capture the word in a photo.

  "I'm eighteen." She hated him, he was the same as all the rest of them. He was a suit, she hated suits. Suits made decisions for people based on numbers and budgets not what was best for people. They made their decisions and then went home to their comfy beds at night not worrying about where they sent other people to live.

  Aimee came into the room in skinny jeans and over the knee brown leather boots with large buckles. She wore a sweater and her blond hair in a ponytail. She was so pretty. Everything about her screamed feminine and delicate except her eyes, which warned you not to trust everything else you saw about her.

  She sat next to Ari, "Ron." She spoke softly.

  He smiled at her, it was a genuine smile not the wolf staring at the bunny smile she was used to from a suit, "Aimee."

  Lydia clasped her hands together, "Well Ronald now that we are all here why don’t you explain to Ari exactly what sort of a situation she is looking at."

  His grey eyes hardened as he looked at her, "Ari, I know this has probably all been very confusing for you but I do actually know what you are. I knew someone like you once."

  He looked lost in his thought for a moment.

  Ari felt her body tense but Lydia smiled at her softly telling her she was safe, or at the very least trying.

  His words stung as he spoke, the story hurt him to tell, "My sister had a best friend when she was a girl, they went to college together. They roomed together. One night her friend got sick, very high fever and complained her hands were burning. All I can do is really guess as when asked later her friend couldn’t really recall the details. I assumed though that she must have touched my sister in her fevered state. My sister was suddenly gone from the room and every person in my family's memories changed. No one in my family recalls my sister the way she was except me."

  Ari felt her brow lower, "My uncle."

  He nodded, "You sent him back, back to the fork in the road that changed his life and forced him to choose the other road."

  She frowned, "What?"

  Lydia put a hand out and rested it on Ari's leg, "Sweetie instead of adopting you he was forced to abandon you to the orphanage."

  The words cut her soul, she wanted to block it out. She rolled her shoulders searching for her zone, "What happened to your sister?"

  He stared her down, "She died. Instead of befriending the girl who was like you she chose to be a loner. She had a horrid existence and killed herself. Our lives all changed and had I not been born, well special I would remember it the way they did. My sister never met her friend, she never went to college, she died at eighteen. My parents' lives shifted but they couldn’t recall the shift they just knew the new way their life was as if it was normal. You are the daughter of a fallen angel or demon. Did you know your real father?"

  Ari let his words roll off her back, it wasn’t her story, it wasn’t her fault. Her uncle chose what he chose, she didn’t force him into anything. Daughter of a demon, the whole thing was nuts. She knew what was going on, they were trying to make her feel crazy so they could lock her up once and for all.

  She stood and ran from the room. She ran out the front door and ran. Her legs pushed in her combat boots, she couldn’t run far, her lungs were weak in her body. She saw the street where she'd come from but when she tried to cross it she bounced back as if she ran into a window. She lay on the cold hard concrete for a moment, "Not a prison my ass."

  She seethed. She stood limping, ignoring the pain everywhere and walked to the street. She put a hand out, there in the middle of the air hung a wall. It was see through, it was invisible rather but it still stopped her hand like a cold barrier she couldn’t comprehend.

  She paced in front of it savagely like a tiger in a cage.

  She didn’t know how to get out, she felt the world spinning inside her as the tension built. The more anxious she grew the more she felt her hands start with the burning again. She thought about it all. She turned and ran into the woods. The brush whipped past her as she stormed along trying to find a break in the invisible wall. She walked until she couldn’t see the house anymore and decided to go back. Her anger increased as she thought about the fact Lydia had her trapped.

  She turned and ran back to the house. She burst through the door and ran back into the room to find the man gone. She stormed about looking for Lydia. Her combat boots made an angry sound on the wooden floors.

  "LYDIA." She called.

  "Out here sweetie."

  She cringed at the sweetness in the old woman's voice. She burst through the kitchen and out the back door.

  She was ready for the fight of a lifetime but the back yard stopped her. New Ari was shoved to the back as desert Ari looked at the nature and let it take her in.

  The yard was acres of orchard and land. The trees were apple and cherry trees and maples. The leaves were changing making the entire yard like clouds of bright fall colors. The lake around the back of the property was huge with a large dock and some small boats tied at the dock. She could see the path that made its way through the trees and bushes along the grass to the lakefront. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. The desert had always made her happy but the stunning beauty of the trees took away all of her breath and thoughts. She forgot for a few seconds what she had been so angry about.

  She looked at the calm grey water, her palms burned, she wanted to cool them off.

  She kicked off her boots and ran, her socked feet squished against the damp grass as she sprinted landing toe first. She leapt onto the dock pushing with her burning thighs along the planks and diving as hard as she could into the water. It was exhilarating feeling the cool wind but the cold water was shocking. Her skin burned with the heat of her palms until she hit the water. The brutally frigid water sucked her down into it, she screamed into the cold water until she had no air left. She pulled herself up to the surface inhaling sharply. She shouted and hollered at nothing trying desperately to work off the build up of energy in her skin making her feeling like she could go in every direction at once. She was beyond antsy. She swam laps across the lake in her jeans and t-shirt. She felt a sock float off of her right foot.

  She lie on her back feeling the hypoth
ermia starting to set in. She looked up at the sky filled with grey and white clouds and wished for a split second she had the ability to just let the air out and allow herself to sink into the dark waters. She could be like the lady in the lake. Her lips trembled from the cold and she knew any second she would turn and swim to shore, she couldn’t kill herself. The old Ari had never had a thought like that in her life but the new Ari dreamt about it like it were the ribbon one broke at the end of a long journey. She had visions of the many times she'd tried. Pills, cutting herself, fights she couldn’t win and each time she stopped before the real injuries would be inflicted. She always managed to heal from the many things she put her body through.

  She thought about the many friends she'd had who had been able to do it. She'd envied them, their deaths had been so amazingly dramatic.

  Suddenly something grabbed her arm pulling her. Water splashed at her face and mouth preventing her from breathing. The waves of the force were so high she couldn’t see past the white froth of the water stirring.

  She felt the grasp of something on her wrist, against everything that told her to let it take her down and drown her she fought. She pulled as hard as she could but the hands kept coming back. She pulled her arm from the grasp but as she moved it grabbed her ankles. She cried out kicking and screaming for her life.

  "Stop fighting me." She heard a deep voice, one she didn’t recognize. She nearly froze feeling the hands on her, it was a mans' voice. She pulled her arms from his and kicked for her life. The warmth of the hands pulled her in, she fought with everything she had but the strength of the arm was too much. Hands swept her up pulling her into a warm crushing chest. She stopped fighting knowing it was futile but also that if she sat quiet she would get a better idea of when would be the right moment to strike out against him and exactly whom she was fighting against.

  "Jesus Lydia wasn’t kidding, you're crazy."

  The water calmed as she stopped fighting to see the blurry images clear. She was being carried by a huge man, well boy, well maybe man. She couldn’t guess his age, maybe her age or a little order but ageless at the same time.

  His voice was strong like his body. His arms had to be the size of her thighs. His face was rugged, handsome in a way she couldn't describe. Not beautiful but attractive in the way cookie had been. He looked like an outdoorsy backpacking sort of guy who looked capable. His huge hands gripped her tightly. She didn’t know what she could do against him, she knew it was better to wait for the right opportunity. It would present itself, it always did. She scared herself thinking like such a survivalist. She felt sorry for herself imagining the horrors she didn’t let herself see.

  His eyes were like green moss, pale almost. His skin was tanned but reddish from the cold water. He dripped water from his shaggy brown hair. He placed her down on the bench before she realized they were out of the water. The air was as cold as the lake had been.

  He scrunched up his face at her examining her disgustedly, "You wanna die do it somewhere else, Lydia has enough ghosts around here as it is." He turned and stormed from the dock up the grass. She sat shivering on the bench confused. He had saved her, a guy had saved her. He didn’t want anything, in fact he seemed angry with her.

  She looked up at the huge mansion trembling, teeth chattering and watched as Annabelle waved at her from one of the windows.

  She didn’t know what to make of it all, she didn’t know where to go. She wanted to go inside and warm up but she didn’t know who the guy was.

  "Lucas."

  She turned frozen and shivering out of control to see Lydia walking toward her in her gardening gloves holding an empty flowerpot.

  "His name is Lucas, he's different like you." She explained reading her thoughts again.

  "How do you do that? How do you know what I'm thinking?" She stood walking clutching herself.

  Lydia smiled, "I'm psychic, sort of thought that was obvious. Anyway dear you need to go up to the house, I'm sure Annabelle has a hot bath poured for you."

  "M-m-y hands are burning again."

  "Yes well there isn’t anyone you can send back here dear, I would imagine most of us are safe from your abilities. I'll see what I can do for you."

  Ari nodded, she was frozen. She walked up the grass to the back door to the house.

  Annabelle opened the door smiling with her ghostly white teeth compared to her mocha skin, "Why Miss Ari you looks about as froze as a girl could gets. Why you gotta swim on a cold day like this one. I knows by the look of the lake its cold. I gots your bath poured upstairs. Lucky Mr. Lucas saved you."

  Ari walked into the open door and the floating towel Annabelle was holding up with her ghostly hands nattering on about the bath and Lucas.

  Chapter Four- Feeding Time at the Freak Zoo

  Her reflection frightened her. She looked at the two inches of hair sticking up like a hedgehog and frowned. She bent over looking at the silver bullring in her nose.

  "That be the nastiest thing I ever did see Miss Ari. Just nasty."

  She looked in the direction of the voice suddenly aware Annabelle didn’t have a reflection. She scowled and turned to face her, "Yeah I know. I didn’t want it. The other me wanted it."

  "Well I be downstairs fixing you some cocoa now that’s ya clean." She was gone before Ari could tell her where else she could go.

  She turned back to her reflection and scowled. She opened her towel and looked at her right nipple and pulled on the ring through it. Pleasure shot through her body. She gasped and looked at her flushing face. Memories of a man sucking the ring made her close the towel quickly.

  She leaned in looking at the ring and barbells in her face. The bullring in her nose bothered her the most. She tried to pry the ring apart not realizing how hard she was pulling until the thin red line of blood started to trickle down her face. It caught the steady stream of tears that leaked from her face.

  She gave up defeated and walked down the stairs holding the Kleenex to her nose cussing under her breath.

  "I can hear that missy."

  She sighed at Lydia's comment and walked in the other direction of the voice. She went to the large room with the chairs and sat holding the tissues to her face.

  "What happened there?"

  She felt her skin crawl as Lucas came and knelt in front of her. He seemed to not realize he was in her personal space or that it was bothering her.

  He put a hand up making her wince. He stopped and frowned, "I wont hurt you."

  She pulled the tissue away, "I can't get it out. I tried everything."

  He laughed, "You have to pull the whole thing apart, it’s a pressure system."

  He stood up and left her there. She sat still not sure why he had said it and left her there to ponder his odd words. Pressure system?

  He walked back into the sitting room with pliers in his hand. She backed up the oversized sofa as he sat in front of her. He smiled at her but she was terrified of him, he was massive and unassuming they were the worst in her experience. He was double her size and armed which made her go into a full panic attack. She was frozen as he sat across from her. She felt the burning in her hands before she could control herself she reached for him. The heat filled her body making her scream as it shot out of her hands and into his arms.

  She could see a large tattoo of a black wolf on his arm, it was the last thing she saw before everything went fuzzy and the light dimmed.

  She felt warmth around her, like she was back in the desert again and lying out in the sun. The heat covered her softly. She moaned moving into the heat but unlike the sun the heat moved back covering her better.

  She froze, she had memories that went along with the feeling of waking up next to someone she didn’t want near her.

  "Ari, don’t panic, it's okay sweetie."

  She opened her eyes to see Lydia's face.

  She felt her lip tremble, "I did it again, I sent Lucas back." She started to cry sobbing, ignoring the warm body surrounding her.


  Lydia took her hand, "No love you can't. Lucas can't go anywhere. Honey it's okay." She rubbed Ari's arms with her warm hands.

  Ari turned around to see the source of the warmth was Lucas, he sat behind her holding her. She tensed again feeling everyone too close. She sat up feeling the antsy feeling again, she wanted to burst out of her skin running in every direction at once.

  "I didn’t hurt you?"

  He laughed, "It hurts but it doesn’t work on me. You made me pass out. We sort of fell on the ground together."

  Lydia smiled proudly at Lucas, "Well actually he wrapped himself around you before you fell on the ground so you wouldn’t get hurt."

  Ari felt her skin blushing and crawling at the same time. She looked at the faces in the room feeling too much attention on her. She wiped her eyes ashamed of the stranger watching her cry.

  She looked down using every amount of self-control she had to stop herself from losing her mind and attacking everyone.

  "Ari, this is Lucas Rainer, he is, well he lives here too. And behind me is Andy Cromwell, she stays sometimes. Well we all live here when we are in town. This is Brandon Green and this is Aleksander, they don’t exactly live here but they come by from time to time."

  She looked up at the faces surrounding her. The rebellious teenager wanted to shout insults at them all but she nodded saying nothing. She looked at Aimee who walked into the large sitting room seeing everyone. Her eyes stopped on the huge Viking looking guy Ari assumed was Aleksander. She watched as Aimee made an odd face, blushed and walked away from the room.

  Ari looked back at Aleksander whose eyes slanted as he looked off into space.

  "Why don’t we all give Ari a few moments to catch her breath?" The dark haired middle-aged woman behind Lydia spoke softly standing from the chair, "It was nice meeting you sweetie." She walked from the room. Lucas slipped out from behind her moving her gently. He looked back at Ari and winked as he stood and followed the woman out of the room. Ari frowned at him making him smile.