Awaken: Book 1 in The Dark Paradise Chronicles

by Isadora Brown

  She pulled herself up and headed over to the fridge, hoping to make breakfast for the two of them and still shower before Henry picked her up for school. She completely forgot that it was empty, and, knowing Ollo, she highly doubted he was motivated enough to leave the apartment to buy food, especially since he could just go downstairs during the bar’s business hours and get a free meal there. Like that was healthy by any means. Reese scrunched her nose. She couldn’t imagine living off of bar food and wondered how he didn’t have a potbelly because of his unhealthy eating habits and excessive drinking. If she was being completely honest, he had an admirable amount of definition to his torso, from what she could see. Not that she’d ever admit it out loud, of course. It would go straight to his already astronomical ego.

  Since Reese knew she was forced to skip breakfast, she decided to think of what to do about her outfit. In her entire life, she had never worn the same outfit to school, and she wasn’t about to start now. There was no way she could go home and change because then she’d be caught in a lie; her mother would ask why Piper, a girl with the same body type as her—though Piper was taller by several inches—couldn’t lend Reese clothes. And even though Reese had inherited her mother’s inscrutable poker face, she still couldn’t lie to her.

  Maybe Ollo had a girl he slept with who kept a drawer of her things at his place. She frowned at the thought. Even if such a thing was possible, there was no way Reese would consider wearing them. Who knew where the girl had been?

  When she walked past a crumpled purple dress shirt, she paused. It looked store-bought rather than handmade and she wondered why he had this in the first place. Not that it mattered really. She bent down and picked it up, pressing it against her face in order to smell it. Besides the hint of alcohol still trapped in the wrinkles of the shirt, it smelled fine, like something clean and fresh and … She furrowed her brow. Was that peppermint?

  After a few minutes in the bathroom, Reese stepped out wearing nothing but the shirt. It came to the middle of her thighs. She cinched the brown belt she had worn yesterday around her waist, and instead of wearing knee-highs, she opted to leave her legs bare, with yesterday’s flats on her feet. Ollo didn’t seem to have a brush, and if he did, Reese doubted she would even use it. All she could do was run her fingers through her hair, deciding to leave it down, and in order to mask her morning breath since she didn’t have a toothbrush, popped in a stick of gum.

  She was almost ready to leave, but there was one thing she had to do before she did. She walked into Ollo’s room to check on him one last time. She still felt uncomfortable leaving him here by himself after the night he’d had. Maybe she could get Henry to skip school and watch over him.

  He was still sleeping, and besides some snoring, wasn’t making any noise. The closer she got to him, the more she saw the majority of his skin color had returned. The sweat that had previously matted his hair together had dried, the brown locks falling onto his face so his features were obscured from view. His breathing was steady rather than shaky, and the bowl she had placed by his bed was empty. She wasn’t too familiar with how to treat withdrawal symptoms, but she knew enough to know he wasn’t out of the woods yet. At least he had taken the first step in the right direction. When she reached his bed, she slid onto the side as slowly and gently as possible so she wouldn’t wake him. All she wanted to do was make sure he didn’t have a fever and then leave him a glass of water. Once she finished, she would leave.

  Reese looked down at Ollo’s face. It was weird seeing how vulnerable he looked when he slept. If he wasn’t snoring, he’d be peaceful. She rolled her eyes, smiling to herself. Ollo could never be completely quiet, not even when he slept. She reached out, turning her hand with the intent of touching the back of it to his forehead. Somehow, her mother had the power of simply touching her and her brother’s skin and knowing whether they had a fever or not. Without a thermometer, Reese hoped that maybe she had inherited the power. The minute her skin touched his, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, his muddy blue eyes snapping open to instantly lock with hers.

  She couldn’t breathe. The intensity of his gaze wouldn’t let her.

  He blinked, and the irises softened, as though he recognized who she was. Another blink and it all vanished; the careful walls that had temporarily opened his eyes to rarely displayed emotions were reconstructed to keep them safely hidden. Reese felt her stomach pinch with disappointment.

  “You stayed.” His voice was neutral, if sleep-ridden, but Reese knew he was surprised. She wouldn’t go so far as to say he was touched by her action, but she knew he was thankful, even if he would never say it.

  “I did.” She paused. “Let me touch your forehead, Ollo. I want to make sure you don’t have a fever.”

  He released her hand and closed his eyes, a small smirk touching his lips. There was the Ollo she knew, and she had to fight a smile of relief from her face as she gently touched her hand to his head. It was nice and warm and normal. He was okay. For now. No fever. Maybe she had inherited her mom’s talent.

  “Be careful, darl,” he murmured, his voice still slightly slurred but the smirk still present. “You actually sound like you care.”

  “Someone has to,” she said. Before she could stop herself, her fingers brushed away Ollo’s heavy bangs so she could see him better. It might have been her imagination, but when her fingertips accidentally brushed the furrow in his brow, the wrinkles disappeared. When she realized what she was doing, she dropped her hand into her lap. She should get him a glass of water and leave, but for some reason, she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to. Not yet, anyway.

  “If Noir and the Black Wing can’t die, if angels and demons can’t die, then why are you training me to fight? My arrows won’t be able to kill them, and they won’t be able to kill each other. So … what’s the point?”

  “They can’t die,” he agreed, his eyes tracing the column of her throat, “but they can get sent to Purgatory.” He paused and then his smirk deepened. “Are you wearing my shirt?”

  Reese ignored his comment as her blush warmed up her face. She refused to notice the sparkle currently occupying his eyes. “I don’t get it,” she forced herself to say. “If Purgatory is a place where angels and demons go once they get fatally injured, why not send the Excoms there? Why send them to the desert?”

  “Purgatory is a place for spiritual confinement, possibly punishment, set for a specific time until the soul is redeemed,” he explained. “It’s not up to God or Satan when that is; it’s a natural progression that works itself out. Excoms aren’t being punished. They choose to be in neither Heaven nor Hell, so they’re placed in the desert where redemption can be attained through the physical world rather than the spiritual one. Does this make sense?”

  Reese scrunched her nose. “Kind of.” She sucked in her bottom lip and glanced away. There were still so many questions she wanted to ask, but she had to get going. One question refused to let her go until it was answered, however, so she turned her head to look at Ollo, only to find his eyes narrowed on her lip. Her breath hitched and she knew she was blushing again. “What? What are you looking at?”

  “I need something to focus on,” he said, lifting his eyes until they reached hers. “Distracts from the migraine.”

  “I can get you aspirin—” she offered but was cut off.

  “Don’t have any,” he said. “Now what do you want to know? You bite your lip and your eyes get blue when you want to know something.”

  Reese paused, taking a long look at him. He noticed that about her? “Do you think we can change the future?” she asked.

  It took him a while before he replied. His lips were gently pressed together, his eyes darting between her own. She knew he knew the answer but was trying to figure out the right way to tell her. If the answer turned out to be what she thought, there wasn’t a right way to tell her.

  “You’re asking the wrong question, darl,” he drawled. “Right at this moment, you have an infinit
e amount of choices you could make. You could leave. You could stay. You could kiss me. You could slap me. God has foreseen every choice you have and planned for each one. Let’s say you leave. Then you have an infinite amount of choices of where to go: school? Home? The mall? God has planned for those. Ultimately, you make your own choices in life, but God has a plan for each one of those choices.”

  “So it’s like a mixture of free will and destiny,” she said.

  “That might be oversimplifying it just a tad, but sure,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Let’s go with that.”

  Reese stopped waiting for her thoughts to catch up with her mouth. “My power that I inherited,” she began slowly. “The visions that I get. Are they set in stone?”

  The lazy look that had been occupying Ollo’s face vanished. Replacing it was a taut facial inflection and a furrowed brow. “Why?” he asked. “What have you seen?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me, darl.” His gaze paralyzed her and she flinched at its intensity. “I don’t think you fully realize the power that you have. This isn’t a game. If you’ve seen something, you need to tell me so we can plan accordingly.”

  Despite his cutting tone, Ollo’s words caused Reese’s heart to thump with anticipated hope. “So we can prevent my visions from coming true?” she asked, raising her brows hopefully.

  “That’s not what I said,” he corrected. “Now tell me what you saw.”

  Reese scrunched her brows together. She was starting to get mad at his nagging. As far as she was concerned, her visions were none of his business. They had more to do with her, not the war, and because they were hers, she didn’t feel as though she had to share them. “I’m not telling you,” she said.

  Without warning, Ollo grabbed her shoulders and brought her torso down on top of his so she was straddling his stationary form and her face was mere inches away from his. “This isn’t a game,” he repeated through clenched teeth.

  “I never said it was,” she hissed.

  “Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Darl—”

  “Don’t call me that. I still don’t know what it means.”

  “If you don’t tell me—”

  “Can we change it?” She hadn’t meant to sound so desperate, but the conversation was going nowhere and Reese needed to know one way or the other if it was possible she could save her family. “Can I change my vision? Just tell me. Please just tell me.”

  Ollo’s face softened for the second time. She wasn’t sure what was on her face, what caused him to stop pushing her for the moment, but it didn’t matter. His hands loosened, but she didn’t pull away from him. They made her feel warm, welcomed, protected from whatever it was he was going to say.

  “God gave you this gift so you could see bits and pieces of the future,” Ollo said slowly, his voice low and raw. “It lets you know first-hand the path that will be taken, despite the number of options people can take. When I said we can plan according to your vision, I didn’t mean as a way to prevent the vision from happening, I meant that we can plan for all possible outcomes when your visions happen.”

  Reese swallowed. “So there’s no possible way for me to change my vision?” she asked. She didn’t need Ollo to reply, and he didn’t. Instead, he kept pleading with her, using his greatest asset—those eyes—silently asking her for her vision.

  She avoided the gaze.

  She needed to get out of here.

  Though she wanted nothing more than to stay, she pulled herself from his grasp and forced herself off the bed. Her flats muffled her footsteps, but she could feel his eyes burning a hole through her skin the entire way. When she reached the couch, his voice stopped her.

  “Darl.” It was a soft murmur, the usual dryness absent.

  “My family.” Her voice cracked, and she had to rush or else she’d break down in front of him. Reese didn’t trust him enough to do that just yet, and Ollo already had enough on his plate, including a migraine. A crying girl was the last thing he needed to deal with. “They die at some point, in a fire during the war. And according to you, there’s no way I can stop that from happening.”

  31

  Andie

  The next morning came too soon, and Andie couldn’t remember what was real and what was a dream. Did the Black Wing really save her? Had Bill Bernal really tried to—

  Before she could finish the thought, she started gagging. She had nearly been— but she wasn’t. She hadn’t been. She was okay. Swallowing, she wiped her brow so she wouldn’t feel the tiny droplets of sweat that reminded her of what happened last night. She needed to shower. Could she? He hadn’t actually—and besides the bite on her neck, he hadn’t left any—

  She stood on shaky legs and rushed to the bathroom. She had to get him off of her. She tore off her clothes and stood in the shower, turning the water as hot as it would go. Her legs were too shaky to stand, so she sat on the cool tile. She couldn’t tell anymore what were tears and what was water. She couldn’t hear the shower over her racking sobs, didn’t feel the water slowly start to cool. She tried to wash herself, to scrub him off of her, but tremors took over her hands so the soap kept slipping out of them. Her knees were pulled to her chest and her face was pressed against them; her arms wrapped tight around her legs to hold herself together.

  She wasn’t sure how long she had been there. She was still numb. She couldn’t be sure when she had stopped crying. Suddenly, when she came back to herself, she realized the water was off and a towel was wrapped around her body. She looked up and found Jack in casual beige slacks and a plain white collared shirt. He was holding up a second white towel.

  She blinked once. “Did I wake you?” she asked. Her voice sounded raw, broken, completely unlike her.

  His eyes flashed darkly and his face was tight, pained. He looked upset. She probably had woken him up. And used all the hot water. He didn’t say anything. Why wouldn’t he say something?

  She should leave. He was probably here to get her to leave. Or to say, “I told you so.” Or maybe some weird mixture of both.

  Clutching the towel to her, she tried to stand while maintaining her modesty. She managed to get on her feet, but before she could extend her legs, she lost her balance and would have fallen back on the tile if Jack hadn’t caught her by her arms and pulled her up to him. She wasn’t sure what set her off, but the minute her head hit his chest, she started crying. She nearly laughed; she didn’t think it was possible she’d still able to cry.

  “Shhh,” she heard him murmur in her hair, gently cupping the back of her head. “I’ve got you.”

  She couldn’t even walk. Why couldn’t she fucking walk? Nothing had happened last night.

  Without warning, he scooped her up and she wrapped her arm around his neck, clinging to him for dear life. He continued to whisper things to her, but she couldn’t hear what he said. He didn’t sound angry. That was a relief.

  He gently placed her in bed, but she refused to let him go. Not yet.

  “I’m sorry,” she said through sobs. “I’m not like this.”

  “God, Andie,” Jack said. He sounded agitated, and she tilted her head back in order to get a good look at him. “You don’t have to apologize. You don’t have to worry about waking me up.”

  “I just—”

  “Stop.” He pressed his index finger against her lips so she had no other choice but to listen to him. She blinked once, twice. There were no tears. Her eyes burned. Every now and then, she hiccupped. She knew she probably looked horrible, her hair matted to her face, snot dripping from her nose, eyes rimmed by red. “You’re okay now. Do you understand? You’re okay. You’re safe. I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Do you understand? You’re safe with me.”

  Andie swallowed, her throat burning. She nodded her head because she couldn’t speak. Under normal circumstances, she would have thanked him, insisted she was fine, and asked that she be left alone so she could get on with her day. Inste
ad, she let her head fall against his chest once more and closed her eyes as he pulled her tighter against him. His hand began to run up and down her back, the thick towel the only thing between them.

  “This is all my fault,” she heard him murmur more to himself than to her.

  Andie snapped her head back, her eyes looking into his. “Why would you say that?” she asked. “There’s no way you could have known what he was going to do.”

  “Yes, I did.” He pressed his lips together and looked away, but his firm grasp on her never wavered. “Bernal and I went to Harvard together, remember? He never liked me because I was smarter than he but also three years younger. He had this reputation of ignoring the word no. He was eventually thrown out because he sexually assaulted one too many women and his father was tired of making exorbitant donations when his son obviously wasn’t getting the point. He ended up getting his degree at some state school, but his father was pretty pissed about it.”

  “Oh.” The word was inaudible and Andie couldn’t be sure if she actually said anything. “Jack, that doesn’t make this your fault. Nothing happened. I got away. I think the Black Wing brought me here. I have no idea how he knew I was staying with you.”

  “Nothing happened?” His brow furrowed and his eyes darkened. “How could you say nothing happened?” He dropped his hands from her and got off the bed. He started pacing, his hand raking through his hair. Andie suddenly felt cold and she wished he hadn’t left. “You were almost—” He cut himself off and then gestured at her neck. “He bit you, Andie. Something happened. This is not okay.”