Dani squeezed my hand as she stepped around me to follow her mother. “Mom, look at what Seth gave me for my birthday!”
I spun around and faced the mirror. The skin under my eyes was shadowed from lack of sleep, and my eyes, usually light brown, glared back at me, piercing, dark, and glassy. Not mine. The edges wavered and a wave of darkness passed through my eyes, like a silhouette passing by a window. Instinctively, I backed up, as if distancing myself from my reflection would somehow separate me from Maksim. Shaking off the image, I headed toward the kitchen.
“They’re gorgeous earrings, Seth,” Janice said.
I tucked Dani’s hair behind her ears, grazing her lobes with my fingers, pushing away a feeling of dread. I felt a strange mix of strength and anger when I touched her. “It’s all Dani, Mrs. Parsons,” I said. “She makes them beautiful.” And I meant that. Dani was more than pretty. She was beautiful on the inside, too. Curling my fingers into my palm, I backed off. “I need to do something before school. I’ll see you there, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” Dani nodded. She took a step to follow me but I shook my head.
“You get ready and I’ll meet you in first period.” I left, not wanting to give her a chance to say anything.
# # #
“So, how’d you do it?”
“Do what?” I returned Dirk’s stony gaze and rubbed my shoulder. He’d purposely bumped into me in the hall. I wanted to back away, to get some space between us, but our energies locked and I stopped. I cleared my head of any thoughts, hoping that might stop the connection, and it did, to an extent. But not enough, because Dirk wasn’t going away.
He stared, his lip curling. “At the dance. I felt it. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him. I started to walk around him, but he grabbed my arm.
“Like hell you don’t,” he hissed.
I shook him off and pushed past him, hoping he wouldn’t follow.
He isn’t so bad.
He is bad, I thought back to Maksim.
Just because he wants your woman?
“Isn’t that bad enough?” I muttered.
You forget an important tactic in battle, my friend: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
# # #
Not far from where Justin, Dani, and I stood in front of the school, a few feet from where the students were loading up on the buses, were two starkly contrasting people. A tall, lanky guy, dressed head-to-toe in black, his wool coat buttoned up tight against the afternoon air, kept his gaze fixed on Travis, a stocky tackle on the football team. Travis shifted from one foot to the other, looking around with his hands tucked under his armpits. It seemed as if Travis wanted to be anywhere but standing in front of this guy.
Tall dude’s lips moved silently. I couldn’t hear him, but his face was devoid of any expression. Travis’ eyes narrowed for a moment, then he burst out laughing.
“You’re kidding, right?” I heard Travis say.
Tall dude didn’t react.
“Yeah, sure. Why the hell not?” Travis shrugged and put his hand out. The other guy handed over some money, which Travis grabbed and shoved into his pocket. Then he walked away, laughing.
“What was that all about?” Justin asked me.
I shrugged. “Who knows?” I didn’t really care. I was more interested in the group of Goths who huddled together talking.
Though I couldn’t put my finger on why, uneasiness crept up my spine when I singled out Goth Girl from the group. She was leaning back just far enough to be able to look around the shoulder of the tall guy. Her gaze sank deep into me.
“Isn’t that the girl from your math class?” I asked Dani.
“Huh?” She stopped her texting and looked up. “Who?”
“Over there.” I tilted my chin in the girl’s direction, but by the time Dani figured out where I was looking, Goth had stepped out of sight.
“Chicken,” I said, under my breath.
“What?” Justin and Dani asked me in unison.
“Nothing.” I muttered.
Dani shoved her phone inside her pack and pulled out some pictures. “Look. My mom had these printed up.” She flipped through a few pictures before she found the one she wanted. “Not bad, but your eyes are a little dark.” She stared at my eyes. “They’re not really that dark, are they?” She looked back at the picture. “Or maybe the whole picture is off. I told you Mom needs a new camera.”
Justin and I leaned in to look. There was no mistaking the blackness of my eyes. The feeling of complete dread rolled my stomach again. I felt like the star of some freaky reality show.
“Yeah, she definitely needs a new one,” I said, straightening up. I shot a glance back at the Goth group, but they had left. Why did that girl irritate me so damn much?
Dani nudged her shoulder into my arm. “Want to go with me to the library? I need to get some books on ancient civilizations.”
“How about if I drive you?” I said, hooking my fingers in her belt loop and guiding her toward the parking lot.
She shrugged. “Sure.” She turned to Justin. “Do you have your notes already?”
“No. I guess I should go, too.”
I tried to kick the image of the Goth girl’s face out of my mind, but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust her. There was just something about the way she looked at me, as if she knew something I didn’t know. I felt like I knew her from somewhere. Somewhere other than Sandpoint. That had to have been it. Someone like her, here in my little town, would be hard to forget.
# # #
As soon as we walked into the library, Justin headed to the history section and Dani and I went the other direction, to the library’s catalog computers.
“This won’t take long,” Dani said.
“Take your time.” Leaning up against the counter, I waited until she scribbled numbers on a piece of paper.
When she was done, I followed her close enough to nibble on her neck. She laughed and walked faster, then ducked into one of the aisles.
“Not now, Seth! I’m trying to be serious,” she scolded me, running her fingers along the book spines. “Here it is,” she said, stopping at a thin book.
“I’m trying to be serious, too.” I slipped my arms around her waist, using her shoulder to rest my chin on. As she flipped through the pages, something caught my eye.
“Hey, let me see that,” I said, grabbing the book from her. “That was cool.”
“Seth, I was looking at that!”
“Hang on a second.” I leafed back through the pages. “There it is,” I muttered. A snake, or maybe a snake and a sun, but definitely inside a labyrinth. Huh. I’d remembered reading somewhere that the sun is a symbol of energy; the snake is an ancient dual expression of good and evil, rebirth and immortality. My finger traced the snake’s body. It was contorted into the shape of a labyrinth, with the pattern on its back forming the sun. The red jewel set at the center of the snake’s head screamed power and control.
You know what you need to do.
Yeah, I did.
“Where are you going, Seth?” Dani whispered.
“I’ll be right back,” I said over my shoulder, taking the book with me. I went straight to the copy machine and dug some change out of my pocket. It was important that I have this picture. Permanently. We—Maksim and I—agreed that the symbol would make a very cool tattoo.
~ ~ ~
The spark spun itself in a small inferno that licked the skin of Maksim’s palm. It was marvelous! Had he not conjured this himself, he would have sworn the spark was sent from the sun god himself. But, no, it was Maksim who had plucked the energy from the cool evening air, weaving it tightly until it burst into flame. The power that emanated from the flame was intoxicating. As easy as it had been to create the fire sphere, he could just as easily destroy it, but there was something he would try before the flame’s demise.
His latest skill promised to be quite useful. It was a skil
l he had been perfecting for the past two days. He closed his eyes and withdrew, pulling with him the moments that followed. Time filled every space within his mind and the seconds stopped, for they no longer had anywhere to flow. The sudden hush around him was palpable.
Raising his eyes to the flame, his smile grew. It had worked. The tips of the flame danced no more. Instead, the edges of the fiery fingers curved in graceful arcs, then into pinnacles that reached high, frozen in motion, before sliding back into the pool of heat in his palm.
Time. It was now his to command.
~ ~ ~
He hesitates between our two worlds now. No longer the eager student, he reluctantly opens the door, allowing me to slip into his mind. He feels my darkness, acknowledging it as his own.
~ Maksim
Chapter 13
I reached out again to everyone around me. I couldn’t stop myself. Or maybe I didn’t want to stop. As I walked down the school halls, every girl I touched with my energy was compelled to look at me. I was a magnet, and I pulled in their thoughts and feelings—interest, curiosity, desire, and lust. Until Dani slapped me on the arm.
“Hey!” I frowned at her and shielded my shoulder with my hand. The skin felt raw underneath my sleeve where my newly-inked tattoo was healing. Almost twelve hours old, the mark was settling into the cells of my skin, sinking deep.
“I was talking to you,” Dani said. She grabbed my hand. “What’s the matter with your shoulder?”
“It’s nothing.”
She pried my hand away—not that it took much effort—and pushed my sleeve up. Her eyes widened with a little bit of shock and a lot of surprise when she saw my tattoo. “You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.”
I shrugged. “It was a spontaneous thing.”
She cocked her head to the side. “What is it?” she asked.
Lowering my voice and leaning close to her ear, I told her. “It’s an Egyptian symbol of power.”
“Oookaaay.” She raised an eyebrow, looked at the tattoo a few seconds longer, and pulled my sleeve back down. “I just didn’t expect it, that’s all,” she smiled up at me and glanced away, then snapped her head back to my face, her jaw dropping. “Seth?”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“What… your eyes! It was like there was smoke… behind them…” she sounded confused.
That wasn’t good. I didn’t want her looking that closely.
The door to our next class was right beside us. Perfect timing. “Oops! Don’t want to be late.” I pulled her inside, looking anywhere but her face, and we sat down. The teacher started right away and there was no more time to talk.
# # #
The yapping of the dogs, all fifteen of them, rose to a level I wouldn’t have thought possible.
“Starved for attention, I guess,” Dani muttered before setting off on her routine check.
I flinched from the intensity of energy the animals were shooting off; confused, nervous, and defensive. I hung back by the door, behind a rack of aprons and towels, and started blocking off the assault of energy in my mind, dog by dog. This was getting a little out of control. Out of my control.
Max’s cage, in the middle of the kennel, was the only quiet one. The Labrador stood firm, his haunches splayed in a defensive stance, his nose frantically sniffing the air.
At the end of the row, Dani knelt in front of the new dog’s cage and stuck her fingers through the wire. The Schnauzer crept towards her, slowly putting one paw in front of the other, and let his nose graze her fingers. His eyes darted in my direction and after a quick flick of his tongue on Dani’s fingers, he backed away. She let out a huge breath, leaning her forehead against the criss-cross of the cage.
I walked to the Schnauzer’s cage, making sure my steps were slow. Standing behind Dani, I leaned over and smiled.
The dog bared his teeth and took a few steps back.
“What do you think is wrong?” she asked me. It killed me to hear her so confused and desperate for answers.
But I knew. I knew exactly why they were reacting this way. My smile faded. I couldn’t tell her why, so I gave her the next best answer. “He’s just never liked me.”
Then Dani’s eyes widened as she took in the chest-deep growls, the threatening barks, the high-pitched whines of every dog in the kennel. “What’s going on with all the dogs?”
I straightened up. Hot, dry prickles spread over the back of my neck. Fear. Mine? The dogs? Dani’s? This guest I had riding on my back was quickly wearing out his welcome. I could shield myself from energy coming in, but I obviously had no control over what was going out. I turned to Max, sure that he would recognize me. I crouched down in front of his cage, trying to seem less intimidating. “Hey, buddy.”
One sniff was all it took. A sharp ridge of fur rose high on his spine and a slow whine vibrated in his throat.
“It’s me, boy. Don’t be afraid,” I pleaded.
Max’s ears perked up and he took a cautious step toward me. He stretched his neck, standing as far away as possible and sniffed my fingers that I had shoved through the cage. Then he stood still, staring at my fingers as if undecided.
I whispered in a quiet, crooning tone until Max crept closer, trembling on unsteady legs. He wouldn’t look directly at me, only stealing glances out of the corners of his eyes.
I shifted my weight a little, and when I did, Max bolted out of reach, flattening himself into the corner.
“Maybe it’s your coat?” Gracie stood at the door, watching me.
I took a quick glance at the black long rider coat I wore. I put on a polished smile, replacing the scowl that pulled at my face. “Hey, I bought this next door, at the shelter’s thrift store. You know, trying to help the cause.” I faced her, my hands away from my body. “Don’t you like it?”
A tremor shifted close to the surface of my skin, making the muscles in my neck and back twitch, but I made sure my smile never wavered. I was going to beat Maksim down. I wanted my control back.
Gracie shrugged. “Seth, I have an idea. Why don’t you come up front and help me with some paperwork? Or you can help Ron out in the back with the dog food donations.”
I know Gracie was trying to be nice, but I had a feeling I was just demoted from my volunteer job. I looked at Dani. My excuse of a smile didn’t wipe away how sad she looked. How much worse could this get?
# # #
“Hey, why are you still up?” Dad stood in the doorway, tucking his robe tighter across his chest.
He’d pulled in a few hours earlier. He told me he was too tired to even eat so he’d gone straight to bed. I’d thought he’d been asleep, but still I’d tried to keep the weights quiet. I just didn’t want to worry him. I didn’t want him to start asking questions, but I guess it didn’t really matter what I wanted anymore.
I eased down the bar that I had been curling and put it on the floor. Even though I had been upping the weights almost every day, lifting was only getting easier. Working out hard used to exhaust me, but now it seemed to just feed the intense energy simmering under my skin, in my chest and in my head. Kind of like revving up the engine of a Mustang, I felt ready to peel out at any second. I knew sleep would help, if only I could get to that point. Every time I lay down to rest, my eyes would follow the shadows that raced behind my lids and around my mind like a silver ball in a pinball machine. I dreaded closing my eyes.
Shoving my hands through my hair, I looked up at Dad. “I couldn’t sleep.” I gestured to the weights. “Thought this might help tire me out.”
Dad nodded, but raised his brows when he noticed the plates on the bar. “You’re lifting a lot heavier.”
My cell phone beeped. I snatched it up from the bench behind me, grateful for the distraction. I answered the text, my thumbs quickly moving over the keypad. “Dani,” I explained, looking up at him.
Dad leaned against the door jam and folded his arms across his chest. Normally so easy-going and seemingly oblivious to the details around hi
m, he now scrutinized me a little too closely.
My shirts had become tighter around my biceps and shoulders, and across my back, and I’d let my hair get shaggier, and Dad noticed it all. Pushing himself away from the door, he slowly closed the gap between us and stopped right in front of me.
I looked down at his bare feet, the safest place I could think of, but he wouldn’t have it.
“Look at me, Seth.”
I didn’t want to.
The seconds ticked by.
“Are you doing drugs?” he finally asked.
A laugh busted out before I could stop it. If only it were that simple! Drugs I could kick. Drugs I could get help for. Drugs could end. For what I had gotten involved in, there was no remedy that I knew of. It was like a disease that had no cure. I didn’t even know what the hell it was, only that it seemed to be charring me from the inside out, transforming me in ways I didn’t understand.
“You think this is funny?” He frowned.
“No, I don’t, Dad. It is just such a crazy thought, is all.” I shook my head. “No drugs. Just stuff with Dani and school.”
Relief softened the lines on his face. “Well, good. I’m really glad to hear that. I have to admit, I was kind of worried.” He sighed. “I know I’m not here a lot, but I’ll do whatever I can, and someday, when I can get off the road…”
“Hey, it’s okay, Dad. Don’t worry.” I smiled at him, but cringed at the irony of all of this. Getting him off the road was one of the reasons I bought the damn soul, and it was all I could do to try to keep it caged in.
Dad reached out and ruffled my hair, just like he did when I was younger.
“I love you, Seth.”
Love! Maksim’s anger billowed. He does not understand love.
Shadows swirled behind my eyes, making it hard to see, but the love of my dad that covered me was too strong for the… demon. I knew that he was no angel, and I didn’t know how else to think of him.
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