“Olivia,” Jackson said, and I looked up. We were in front of the ticket booth, where a tired-looking lady was staring at me expectantly.
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed that I hadn’t been paying attention. “How much?”
Jackson laughed. “I already got it. Just put your arm up there,” he pointed to the little counter, which sat under the window. I did as directed, and the woman snapped a fluorescent orange bracelet around my wrist while Jenny and Erika tried to decide which way to go first.
“How much was it?” I said, digging into my pocket after the lady let my arm go. I pulled out the wad of cash that I’d stuffed in there earlier and then looked at him, waiting.
He shook his head, laughing. I didn’t miss the way his eyes laughed too, dancing.
“I said I got it. Come on,” he said, walking away from the booth. I followed Jackson and the girls, delightedly overwhelmed with all the things there were to look at. Jenny insisted on the Ferris wheel first, and as the three of them moved through the small gate to get on the ride, I marveled at how large it was. I was sheltered, but even I had access to television in Eagleton. I’d seen Ferris Wheels before, but being directly next to one was an entirely different experience.
“What’s the matter, Slayer? Are you scared?” My eyes moved to Jackson, who was already sitting in one of the seats, patting the spot next to him. Jenny and Erika were in the seat behind him, giving me both questioning glances and mischievous smiles at the same time. I apparently didn’t have the necessary social skills to interpret their expressions, so I smiled and climbed into the seat next to Jackson, letting him pull the bar up to secure us. A few moments later, the machine lurched to life and moved slowly as a line of other humans boarded.
While I was waiting to reach the top, I thought again about Jackson saving me in the parking lot, and then about the bottle of whiskey. Erika and Jenny were babbling animatedly about something behind us, and I took the opportunity to speak quietly to Jackson.
“I got your gift,” I said. “It was really funny. Thank you.” When he only grinned at me, I took a deep breath and added. “Also, thanks for rescuing me back there.” I motioned to the parking lot. “I appreciate it.”
Jackson let his eyes take me in for a few seconds. It seemed like a really long time. “So, why were you in an orphanage?”
I looked out over the fairgrounds, wondering what was safe to divulge. Finally, I looked back at him and replied, “I’m sorry I lied to you. The truth is, I went to an orphanage when I was six years old. When I was eight, a woman adopted me and took me to a different kind of home. She’s not really my aunt, but I do consider her family.”
The words sounded foreign coming out of my mouth, as if my voice were on a loudspeaker and the entire world could hear me. Jackson’s brows drew together over his warm eyes, and he nodded.
“Don’t be sorry. We all have secrets. I’m rudely curious, though…why wasn’t your mother able to take care of you and your brother?”
I couldn’t turn my face away from his this time. I didn’t even speak about these things to my coven brothers and sisters. Sure, they all knew my story, but it was avoided…as were all of our pasts. Everett and I discussed it, but rarely.
“I actually didn’t meet my brother until I was taken to the second home,” I said, aware of how strange this must sound to him. “My mother couldn’t take care of me.”
“Why?” His face didn’t betray any emotion, but his eyes were full of compassion. I took a deep breath. We were nearly at the top of the ride. The people below looked like rodents, and I found myself wanting to stretch out my senses, just a little bit, to make the experience better. Instead, I licked my lips and turned my head again toward Jackson. This time, I knew that my face was cooler, more guarded, and more distant.
“Because she didn’t want to,” I replied, shrugging.
He didn’t ask any more questions, and while I tried to enjoy the experience of the Ferris Wheel, I couldn’t. I kept wondering what he was thinking about me, wishing I had some other talent that would allow me to peek inside of his mind. I shouldn’t have cared what he thought. After all, who was Jackson Vance? He was a musician in a bar that I would never see again after a few months of living through my punishment. He was nothing to me. His opinion shouldn’t matter.
But I could lie to myself all I wanted. It did matter. He represented much more than himself. He was a human, and I’d spent my life being shunned by them. Maybe I just wanted to be accepted. Still, I knew that if I opened completely up and told him my entire sordid story right now, he would shun me too. He would call me a witch, make fun of me, and pretend as if I were a leper. Suddenly the sun was too bright, and as the ride came screeching to a halt and the bar in front of us was released, I avoided Jackson’s eye.
“That was so much fun!” Jenny said, hopping a little, as if she could barely contain her excitement.
“Olivia and I are going to ride The Drop. Want to watch?” Jackson asked, his questions pointed at the girls. I glanced at him, still wondering what he was thinking. I saw Erika nudge Jenny in the ribs with her elbow, trying to be inconspicuous about it.
“No,” Jenny said suddenly. “I’m going to get a funnel cake.”
“I think you should come,” I said quickly, not sure about being alone with Jackson.
“Sorry, I’m starving,” Jenny said, and then pulled Erika along with her toward a row of concession stands. I watched them go, pale blond head and dark brown one, wishing they wouldn’t have abandoned me.
“Come on,” Jackson said. “You wanted to ride it, didn’t you?”
I turned fully toward him, and was stuck between going ahead with the ride, and making some lame excuse about feeling sick. That’s when he took my hand. He’d looked as if he were about to say something, but whatever it was never made it out of his mouth. The second his skin touched mine, a jolt shot into my arm, sending shocks streaming down my fingers and up into my chest.
Chapter 6
His hand jerked immediately away from mine and I froze. I had no idea what had just occurred, but we stood there for a moment, staring at each other. That’s when I realized Jackson looked guilty.
“I’m sorry,” I started to say, but Jackson said the exact same thing so that it came out of our mouths in unison. A moment later, he chuckled uneasily.
“You shocked me,” he said. “We must have picked up some static from the ride.”
“Yeah,” I breathed, chuckling, but I noticed he kept his hand close to his side.
We walked quietly, and by the time we’d reached The Drop, Jackson was smiling again. There was a small line in front of us, and I wanted to fill the awkward spaces with conversation, but I wasn’t sure what to say. Soon enough, we were getting onto the machine, strapped into a seat. I stayed as far on my own side as I could, as the bar was over our laps to secure us. When the seat began to rise, I was excited, but when it reached the full height, I let out a little yelp of excitement that I couldn’t hold in.
Jackson laughed, and the next moment he reached over and grabbed my hand. The shock was there again, but Jackson either didn’t notice or pretended not to. After a few tense seconds, it subsided to what felt like a steady, slow vibration. I knew my eyes were betraying my surprise, but Jackson held on.
“Here we go,” he said. There was a split second when I wasn’t sure what he meant, and then we were dropping out of the sky.
It was incredible. It was like that nervous flip-flop feeling in the pit of your stomach magnified by a hundred. Ribbons of my hair flew straight up with the force, and the ground rushed at up at us swiftly. We did seem to be going too fast for the machine to stop in time. I found myself squeezing Jackson’s hand slightly, and then with a grinding of metallic gears, the seat stopped flying toward the ground. We were still, and I could see Jenny and Erika standing off to one side of the ride, watching. I didn’t see any funnel cake in either of their hands.
Then I was laughing. “Wow! Let’s do it agai
n,” I looked over at him, my eyes wide.
Jackson and I rode twice more, each as incredible as the first, and then we had to get off because a line was forming. Forgotten in the rush of adrenaline and speed was the awkward conversation Jackson and I had had, and we got off laughing, my face flushed with excitement.
“You guys are crazy,” Jenny said.
“It was all Olivia,” Jackson teased. “I thought she’d never get off.” Erika and Jenny giggled, glancing at each other, before Erika suggested we get lunch.
“I thought you just had a funnel cake,” Jackson laughed.
“We’re hungry people, alright?” Jenny said, defensively. I sensed something from the girls, and wished we were alone so I could ask them what was going on. They didn’t quite seem to be mocking me, but I’d noticed more than one shared glance between them that I was sure had something to do with me today. I didn’t have a chance, though, and we polished off hot dogs, French-fries and cokes.
We spent the next hour or so walking around the fairgrounds, and trying a few different rides. After The Drop, none of the smaller rides appealed to me. I did laugh as I watched Erika and Jenny run through a house of mirrors, their hands out in front of them to prevent slamming into a wall of glass. Finally, with the promise that Stallott’s would be a madhouse later, we left the fair.
I had quite a bit to occupy my mind as we drove, Erika and Jenny in the background flitting from one topic to the next like butterflies seeking nectar in a hundred different flowers. This had been a prison sentence…the humans near me my unknowing cell mates. Suddenly, something had shifted. Instead of being players in the background, these humans had turned into something real for me. It felt like I’d been here for more than just a week. My mind kept going back to the weird shocking sensation Jackson’s touch had brought.
When we reached the house, I pulled myself out of my own thoughts and smiled as brilliantly as I could.
“That was a lot of fun. I guess I’m free to die now,” I joked, opening the door.
“Sure,” Jackson said. “Just…don’t.” He winked at me and Jenny and Erika said they’d see me at work. Closing the door with another smile pointed at them, I turned just as they drove off. My steps up the walk felt strange. I felt strange. Shaking my head, I entered the house, relieved that it was quiet and I could think.
I was thinking of how comfortable Erika and Jenny seemed to be; how they spoke and laughed easily. I wondered if they ever felt like they didn’t belong anywhere. I found myself in front of the bathroom mirror again, but this time, I studied my face. I made an attempt to smile like Jenny; to let go of the guarded look I seemed to project.
“I’m normal,” I said into the mirror, beaming at myself. “I feel very comfortable. I belong.” I smiled for a few more seconds before realizing how stupid I looked. There was no one in the house to see my cheeks turning red, but I was still embarrassed. My phone rang a second later, as if to save me from myself.
To my surprise, it was Sylvia.
“Hey, Sylvia,” I said. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to…talk.”
“Okay,” I said, wandering slowly and aimlessly around the first floor of the house. “What do you want to talk about?” There was a hesitation on her end, making me wonder if everything really was alright.
“Well, everyone here is still acting like the end of the world is coming. No one will answer any of my questions and I feel completely ignored,” she said with her signature pouty voice.
“What kind of questions?” I came to a stop in the kitchen, and reached my hand out to touch the cool whiskey bottle absent-mindedly.
“It’s about…them.” She said.
“The Venator? Okay. What is it?”
She sighed. “Okay, I understand that they hate us, but what I don’t get is why. I mean, none of them even know any of us. What are the chances that we all just apologize and become friends?” She said the last part sarcastically. She knew that would never happen, of course, but I understood her question. Even in my rebellious state, I decided to try to make a lesson for Sylvia.
“There is balance in everything, Sylvia. Without balance…well, there wouldn’t be much point, would there?”
“I don’t understand what balance has to do with them, Olivia,” she said.
“Well, without balance, we could never gain the experiences we need. If there were only the good without the evil, we wouldn’t have a choice, would we? If we could live our entire lives with only great, wonderful and amazing things surrounding us, we’d never have the chance to choose the bad things.” I wondered if I was making any sense at all to her, and also why I suddenly sounded so much like Ivanna.
“Well that would be just fine with me. We don’t want to choose the bad things,” she said as if I should already know this.
“No. You and I don’t want to choose the bad things. But every soul needs to have that choice. That is what gives us our free will. There has to be balance. If we are good, then the Venator are evil. Of course, it’s not really that cut and dry, but for us, it’s pretty much what it means,” I tried to explain.
“So how did they begin?” She asked, and I wondered if she had even registered the more important lesson.
“The legend says that the first Venator was actually a wise one,” I said, remembering the same lesson being told to me so many years ago.
“This wise one made the choice to use his talent and powers for greed rather than good. His brothers and sisters realized what was happening and tried to stop him. They tried to remove his power from him. However, he fought them with everything he had, and many of them died. As he sought other souls that were conflicted and angry, he built his army against the brother and sister wise ones that were forever trying to stop him from proceeding.”
“So it is basically an ancient feud that is still happening?” she asked.
“In a way. It’s not just a feud, though. The brothers and sisters who were alive then understood that when they encountered their brother, they must fight until the death, or until he made a different choice. Of course, he wasn’t going to make a different choice, so on both sides, it was a fight for what they desired and wanted. Now, the hate and evil is so deeply ingrained in the Venator that it seems impossible for them to make a choice to be good,” I sighed.
Sylvia took a breath and said, “So there’s no hope for any of them?”
“Oh no, there’s hope. It just has to come from a strong will or desire to be good rather than evil. Our main concern, though, are the naïve talented ones. The children…the younger ones who are angry because of the powers they have been given. You and I have felt that way, Sylvia. It’s a good thing Ivanna found us before someone else did. To be that angry and then to have more anger fed to you, all wrapped in a false promise of family and belonging…it is a powerful thing,” I said.
“So that’s why Ivanna gets the younger ones when she can?” Sylvia asked.
“Yes. If there’s a chance she can save them from the Venator, she will,” I said.
There was a long pause and Sylvia said, “But good is always more powerful than evil, right?”
I understood that she wanted assurance. She wanted to hear me say that in the end, Wise Ones would win. The good guys always win in the books Sylvia loved, and she was counting on me to tell her the ending now…to tell her that we would win, too. How could I give her false hope, though? When I spoke, my voice sounded grave.
“Good does always trump evil. But there is a power in greed that even good flinches at sometimes,” I said quietly.
When I got off the phone with Sylvia, I wondered if I’d crushed her hopes, but a larger part of me pondered her question. If the Venator were given a choice – some of them anyway – if they could look at the bigger picture, would they choose the right path?
I didn’t have the answer to that question, but it ate at me until I arrived at Stallott’s, which was just as busy as the previous
night. A pattern was starting to emerge for me, and as I took off my jacket and put it behind the bar, I wondered what surprises the night would bring. Jackson was already singing, and I fought the urge to look over toward the stage. I hadn’t had time to properly process my feelings from the carnival yet, and I still felt strange about the creepy shocking thing that had happened.
Almost immediately, I was sucked into the busy work of clearing away empty glasses and bottles and replacing them with fresh ones. I practiced smiling comfortably with the customers, and it seemed to work. They talked to me as if I were a normal human; a few of the men were even flirting with me, I think. When one burly, bearded man asked me what a pretty girl like me was doing in a place like Stallott’s, I laughed it off, embarrassed, and looked away.
That’s when my eyes locked with Jenny’s. The look on her face was dread, or maybe fear, and when her eyes flicked toward the door, mine followed. A tall, thin man with an oily grin was approaching her. He slid into a booth beside her and waited expectantly. I watched as closely as I could while I threw away a tray full of beer bottles. My attention was stolen, though, as Rick handed me the tray with two shot glasses full of whiskey.
“Jackson?” I asked, and received a nod and an amused smile in response. I raised an eyebrow and marched toward the stage. When I got there, I already had one of the shot glasses in my hand. I wanted Jackson to know I wouldn’t be putting up a fight tonight, and that there was no need to involve microphones.
When he flipped a button on one of his machines and looked at me, my smile froze on my face. The grin he gave me sent my heart racing nervously, and my hand shook a little. It was almost as odd as the shock, but this time I wasn’t touching his skin at all. He scooped up the shot glass and I mentally shook myself. I clinked his glass with mine, but at the very same moment, my eyes scanned the bar and I saw it.
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