Reese inhaled sharply, taking advantage of her newly acquired ability to breathe. Her thoughts raced as she tried to pick the three questions she wanted him to answer, especially knowing that this might be the only chance she had to get some answers.
“Am I crazy?” she asked. “Do I know you from somewhere before we met at school?”
For whatever reason, this seemed to amuse him so much he flashed his teeth in a cocky smile. “No,” he said smoothly. “You are not crazy. We have met in a different context before your first day of school. You have one question left.”
Reese’s eyes widened when she realized her mistake. How could she have been so stupid, asking two questions when she had meant to ask only one? She couldn’t even argue with him since she knew she screwed up, and Henry didn’t seem to be the type of person to forgive her stumble. She had one question left and she’d be damned if she was going to waste it. Since she now knew she wasn’t crazy, there was only one thing left she needed to know.
“Where do we know each other from, before our official meeting at school?” she asked. This time, Reese made sure she was careful about her wording so he wouldn’t have the opportunity to deflect or be cute. She had him and in a manner of seconds, she’d know where she recognized those eyes from.
“Pass.” His voice was nonchalant, the look on his face lazy.
“What?” she all but yelped.
He smiled. “Did you know, Reese, that you have a very expressive face?” he asked her. “It’s quite refreshing, actually, to see what you’re thinking in those grey eyes of yours. Now do you want me to answer your question about what your pass means or do you want to ask me a different question?”
He was giving her a chance, she realized. He wasn’t the type to give chances either, so she didn’t spend too much time questioning it. Instead, she tucked the thought away just in case she found herself in this position with him again. What else could she ask him though? It had to be something important, something telling, something that revealed something about him, something nobody else knew. Which, for him, was a lot.
It came to her as fast and as obvious as a bee sting.
“Why are people afraid of you?” she asked him, keeping a steady hold of his eyes.
“You should probably ask them.”
“I have. I want to hear your side.” A pause. “Is that your answer?”
“Before I give it, I want you to answer my question,” he said.
“That wasn’t part of the deal.” She clenched her jaw, taking a step toward him. Maybe he wasn’t as honest as she thought he was.
“It is my price,” he hissed, that wrinkle crinkling his nose again. He tilted his head down so his long crooked nose nearly brushed her own smooth, small one. There was only a ghost keeping their lips from touching. She could feel the soft strands of his hair whisper against her face. She could not breathe but would not relent on maintaining eye contact. She said nothing, but hoped he could read her eyes.
“Tell me, Reese, are you afraid of me?” he asked, his warm breath caressing her skin.
“No.”
There it was again, that frustrated look at her honesty. It was like he was surprised someone wasn’t actually afraid of him.
“You’re probably the only one,” he said. She could detect the bitterness in his voice though he masked it quite well.
“Then I’m in good company.”
He smiled again. It was still strained but his eyes shimmered. “I like you, Reese,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “You are a fool but at least you are a brave one. To answer your question, people are afraid of me because they don’t know me, because I make deals and see to it that people keep their end of the bargain, because I know things nobody else knows. So, dear.” He tilted his head so he could whisper in her ear, making sure he wasn’t touching her. “Have you changed your mind about me?”
“No,” she replied after taking the time to swallow.
“A brave fool.” He said it the way he said her name, like a spell, like an unfulfilled promise. Henry took a step back and then another. The look on his face was dazed, as though he hadn’t realized how close he had been standing to her. When he was a safe distance away, he looked back at her.
“I have answered your questions,” he said. “My part of the deal is complete.” He stopped speaking but she heard his silent words.
Throwing her hands up in surrender, she took a step away from the wall. “I’m going, I’m going,” she said. “This was … nice.”
He smiled at her—this one real—with his dimples and his eyes, said nothing, and turned, heading into the museum. She watched him leave but didn’t follow. She intended to keep her end of the bargain as well.
16
Andie
Andie was so furious she couldn’t speak. As she gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles felt like icebergs and she could taste the blood in her mouth as she bit the inside of her bottom lip. She could not believe her mother hadn’t told her about Keirah. Judging from her talk with Commissioner Jarrett, Keirah was stabbed in the morning, probably just after Andie left for school, which meant she had been sitting in school the entire day, stressed about Keirah and staring at her phone for no reason. She had made a fool of herself in front of Jack Phillip by blubbering all over his suit, her eyes rimmed red and snot dripping from her nose. None of that would have happened if her mother had called her immediately after finding out what happened.
When Andie pulled into the parking lot to the hospital, she clenched her jaw and forced herself to breathe through her nose. She sounded like a bull ready to charge.
Calm down, Shepherd. Calm down. You’ll talk to Mom later. Right now, you need to focus on Keirah.
When she got to a point where she could walk without stomping, she got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and crossed the lot to the five-story monolith of Onyx General. She flexed her fingers continuously as she walked past the valet parking, past the three hour parking, past the pick-up/drop-off driveway, and into the lobby. She asked one of the elderly volunteers where Keirah’s room was and found herself in the elevator on her way to the third floor. She checked her phone, but her mother still hadn’t called. Hot, angry tears burned her pale green eyes and managed to escape. Not only had her mother not told her about Keirah, but she’d had to find out from the police commissioner. She wasn’t sure which was worse.
Andie stepped out of the elevator, hastily brushing her tears away. She headed past the nurse’s station, down the long, carpeted hallway then hailed a right before stopping in front of room 351. Two police officers stood in front of the door and Andie had to show photo identification before they let her go in. She didn’t stop to knock; she opened the polished wood door, pushed past the drawn blue curtain, and found Keirah lying in a bed by herself. When Keirah looked up at her sister, all of Andie’s anger at her mother vanished temporarily. It probably had to do with the fact that her mom was nowhere to be found at the moment, but Andie refused to dwell on that. She came here to see Keirah.
“Oh my God, Keirah.”
In all honesty, Andie had meant to stay composed. Keirah was injured, so Andie had wanted to stay strong as not to worry her. Remarkably, Keirah looked beautiful in the ugly, baggy hospital gown, and though she noticed her dark brown hair was messy and tangled as it fell around her sickly face, her darker eyes shone. If anything, Keirah was the strong one, because the moment Andie’s eyes fell on her sister, she crumbled. The tears, the snot, the blotchiness all returned to Andie’s face, and she all but collapsed in the chair next to the bed.
“Andie?” Keirah asked. Her voice was raw and she took a sip of lukewarm water in a plastic white cup that rested on the plastic table next to her. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter?” Andie asked in disbelief. She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “You’re in the hospital, Key, because some crazy lunatic stabbed you! I shouldn’t have let you leave last night.”
“What happened?” Andie asked, staring at her sister. “Where’s Mom? Why did Noir stab you? I mean, shouldn’t you be dead? No offense, but he never leaves his victims alive. How injured are you? I mean, you’re going to live, right?”
Keirah surprised her by laughing. At least, she tried to laugh. After the first couple of chuckles, she cut herself off with a hiss, her face contorting in pain as her hand moved to her left side.
“Andie,” she said, “you’re doing that thing where you overanalyze everything. Calm down. Mom’s in the cafeteria grabbing food for herself. I think she feels guilty about her little quips about my weight right before this happened. She’s been here since eight o’clock this morning.”
“She has?” Andie ground out through clenched teeth. She sighed through her nose, needing to grab control of her temper. “Look, Key, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what happened to you. I only found out like a half hour ago from Commissioner Jarrett or else I would have been here sooner.”
“It’s all right,” Keirah said. “I promise. It’s just a flesh wound. Mom’s driving me a little crazy and I’ve seen more I’m-not-the-father celebration dances on Maury than I ever thought I would. But otherwise, I’m fine.”
“So what happened?” Andie lowered her voice and leaned forward as though the two were sharing a secret. “Can we talk about it or do you need more time?”
Keirah leaned back against the pillow, closing her eyes. Andie winced. She shouldn’t have pushed Keirah for answers. She should have let her sister rest and heal and feel better before diving right into why this happened in the first place.
But then, Keirah started talking, her eyes closed. She talked about how Noir wanted sleep, how Keirah was a security blanket, how she actually slept in the same bed as him. She told Andie she was “afraid but really wasn’t all that scared”—whatever that meant—how the next morning he used her as a hostage and managed to escape with her in tow. The climactic end of Keirah’s adventure when Noir pulled her down an alley and stabbed her in the side before disappearing in the city. There was something Keirah wasn’t telling her, something important, but Andie kept her lips together to keep from asking about it. When Keirah was ready to talk, Andie would be there to listen.
“Why didn’t he kill you?” Andie muttered, her eyes searching Keirah’s face, hoping for the answer.
“I don’t know,” Keirah replied. Andie knew she wasn’t lying, but there was something there … It probably had to do with what she wasn’t telling her.
“Do the cops have any theories?” Andie tried again. “I’m sure they interviewed you about it, right?”
Keirah rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah,” she said. She took another sip of water. “They grilled me for a good half hour. The doctor made Mom wait in the lobby because of how stressed out she was. Can you imagine Mom trying to watch Jerry Springer with a bunch of cops questioning me? But they’re as clueless as we are and apparently there’s supposed to be cop cars circling the hospital and two officers guarding my door.”
The dryness in Keirah’s voice made Andie pause; Keirah wasn’t the type to be sarcastic unless she was aggravated about something, which was practically never since she had the patience of a saint. She pushed her brows together. This was the last occasion where Andie thought humor was appropriate, especially from Keirah. Andie knew if she had been in her sister’s position, she’d be freaking the fuck out. Some crazy-ass criminal stabbed her in the side before making a getaway. He left her behind for a reason, but why? Noir was unpredictable. His motives—if he had any—were unknown. All Andie knew was that he never left his business unfinished, and Keirah was definitely business. But why leave her alive in the first place? From what Keirah said, he had plenty of time to stab her heart or some other vital organ. Was she actually beneficial to him alive? If that was true, it opened a new bag of unanswerable questions.
“Andie,” Keirah drawled, raising one lone brow. “You have a weird, constipated look on your face.”
“I’m not constipated,” Andie said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m thinking.”
“I know.” A pause. “About what?”
Andie breathed in. “Were— Are—” She stopped, trying to sort through the correct diction in her head. “Are you afraid of him, Key? I mean, you don’t seem that freaked out by the fact that you were stabbed by Noir and that there’s a good chance he’ll be back—guards or not—to get you. I don’t mean to scare you, but at the same time, you don’t seem concerned. At all. Is everything okay? Did you hit your head after he stabbed you? Did you lose a lot of blood?”
Keirah chuckled, surprising Andie even more. “You need to calm down,” she said, like the fact that she got stabbed and was currently in the hospital was no big deal. “He’s not going to kill me.”
Andie’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious right now, Key?” she asked. “Seriously? Oh my God, please don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who purposefully looks for danger on the off-chance the Black Wing will rescue you.”
“God, no,” Keirah said, rolling her eyes. “Look Andie, to answer your question about whether or not I’m afraid of Noir: I’m afraid of the fact that I don’t know what he’s thinking and I don’t know what he’s going to do. But he’s still human, And, with skin and bone and flesh. He’s not evil.”
“Are you kidding me right now, Key?” she asked. Her voice rose with each word, but Andie couldn’t stop herself. “Are you kidding me? Please tell me you’re kidding, because it sounds like you actually see a sliver of good in this guy and you think because he is, as you say, human, he won’t kill you. You know how crazy that sounds, right?”
“I want to be a criminal psychologist,” she said through gritted teeth. Her brown eyes flashed gold as she looked at her sister. “I got to interact with not only a criminal, but the most sociopathic, deranged, remorseless one Onyx can offer. If I don’t believe that even Noir can be rehabilitated thenI wouldn't be a very good criminal psychologist. I am terrified at the fact that he could very well come here and kill me, making me another statistic, and I’d never get to help anyone.” Her eyes softened and Andie watched as she relaxed her body against the bed. “I know it sounds crazy, Andie. Trust me, if someone came up to me and started saying the same things to me that I’m saying to you, I’d think the same thing. But I know this man. I’ve talked to him. I’ve slept in the same bed. I’m not saying he’ll never kill me; he probably will. All I’m saying is that at this moment in time, he doesn’t want to kill me. If he did, I’d already be dead. He had plenty of opportunities to do so during his sessions and even more so last night. Hell, he could have killed me in the alley this morning if he wanted to. For whatever reason, I fascinate him.” The sentence was slow, deliberate.
“Like the Black Wing?” Andie asked, tilting her head to the side.
“No.” Keirah shook her hair. It was dry, so it curled more than normal. “No, I don’t think I’m as important to him as the Black Wing. They’re foils to each other, though both could do with psychiatric help. But foils, because they’re so different, are intrigued by their counterparts. For Noir, his fascination borders on obsession. I don’t know the Black Wing, but I’d be willing to bet it’s the same for him.”
“Yeah, right,” Andie said, shaking her head. “The Black Wing only cares about getting his pretty little muscles in the paper.” Maybe if the Black Wing had been around, Keirah would never have been stabbed in the first place. How could the commissioner allow this to happen?
“You of all people should know the Black Wing’s muscles are not little,” Keirah said, her lips curling up.
It was a joke. Keirah tried to make a joke. Too bad it didn’t make Andie feel any better.
“I hate him, you know,” Andie murmured. Her eyes got foggy as tears accumulated in her eyes. She blinked, looking away in hopes they wouldn’t fall.
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“Noir?”
“Well, yeah.” She swallowed and forced herself to look back at her Keirah. “But I hate the Black Wing too. I mean, why wasn’t he there to save you? He’s supposed to be Onyx’s savior, like a guardian angel or a superhero or something. He’s saved tons of people by being in the right place at the right time. Where was he?”
“Andie …”
There it was again, that knowing, sympathetic voice that was supposed to reassure her. Andie hated that voice, especially since it came from Keirah in the hospital after she was stabbed. Andie should be the one reassuring Keirah, not the other way around.
“You can’t expect someone to come save you,” Keirah continued, looking at Andie with her big brown doe eyes. Andie had to look away. “People are people are people. You can’t change them; you just have to accept them for who they are. The Black Wing is someone who catches the bad guys. He’s human too, you know. You can’t expect him to right every wrong, stop every crime. He’s not God.”
“God doesn’t do those things either,” Andie muttered.
“Exactly,” Keirah said. “This is life, Andie. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn’t. The great thing about God is that He has the power to control this world He built, but He doesn’t; He lets things play out. We make our own choices. When things go badly, we can’t blame God, or the Black Wing. We have to take some responsibility for our actions.”
“Keirah, you know better than to talk to Andie about a God she doesn’t believe in,” a voice said from behind Andie.
It was then that Andie remembered how upset she was at her mother for not telling her about Keirah. Her mouth dropped open, ready to go off, to correct the statement about her religious beliefs, to point out her mother’s horrible parenting since her father left years ago, but one look at Keirah stopped her. A hospital was neither the time nor the place for Andie to unleash all her criticisms. Today wasn’t about her, it was about Keirah, and making sure Keirah was all right. That didn’t mean, though, that Andie had to sit around and listen to her mother’s derisive comments. She stood up and exhaled, refusing to look in Judith’s direction.
Awaken: Book 1 in The Dark Paradise Chronicles Page 12