Fading Amber

by Jaime Reed

  Hot tears flooded my vision and burned my skin as they ran down my cheeks. Gut-churning nausea was kicking in and I just wanted to die. No, scratch that, I wanted this psychotic demon bitch living inside me to die. I couldn’t remember being so mad in my life. All the weeks of grieving over Caleb; the nights I prayed for his recovery came back to scorn me. Worst of all, I’d known what Lilith was capable of.

  You tried to kill my boyfriend. Are you crazy? I took care of you and you do this to me?

  Lilith jittered and crawled under my skin like a worm, but I closed it out. She’d lost all her special privileges, explicitly my compassion. This betrayal in all its potency spiked my system with poison, killing any ounce of kindness or respect for her life. To be fair, what’s to stop her from trying again? She’d always be there, biding her time until I lowered my guard, and I couldn’t lock myself in a sealed bunker of depression for the rest of my life like Nadine had. This would never end, and Lilith would only play me again if I let her. A rush of relief washed over me and I felt light with the soothing knowledge that in one gulp it would be all over.

  “Sam! Are you all right?” Caleb said through the door.

  I froze. I completely forgot that he was still there, but then this was his hotel room. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t speak and if I kept quiet, he’d think there was something wrong. Knowing him, he would try to stop me, save me from myself or some other nonsense. I didn’t want to be saved right now. I wanted blood; I wanted the head of my enemy on my dashboard. Since I couldn’t have that, this was as close as I would get.

  Murder was on the agenda this evening, but my throat, that stubborn accomplice, refused to cooperate. My cheeks puffed out, spit pooled in my mouth, making me drool, but my throat wouldn’t open or flex. As a devout eater and drinker, I never had to consciously will food to go down, not even that nasty medicine I had to take as a kid that tasted like bubble gum. The pounding on the door startled me, but not even the element of surprise loosened my throat.

  “What are you doing in there?” he demanded, his energy leaking under the door, through the fibers of the wood to touch me. Though jumbled, those violent pulses conveyed anger, fear, and named me as the source.

  Suddenly, in a type of electric jolt, realization struck and presented a sobering account of what I was doing, what I was about to do and what was still in my mouth. I couldn’t do this, not to him and certainly not to myself, whoever she was anymore.

  I bent over the sink and spat out all the oil, then dipped my mouth under the nozzle and rinsed repeatedly. I used one of the tiny sample packets of tooth paste to help wash away any evidence of oil.

  The knocking grew more persistent—police drug raid style—making the wood of the door wobble from the impact. “Sam, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be out in a second.” I washed my hands and face before going out to meet him.

  I opened the door and found Caleb outside watching me carefully, looking for blood, some self-inflicted wound, or an alien probe. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Lilith poisoned you on Halloween and Capone tried to kill me with an arrow,” I answered in one breath.

  It took a few times of repeating it for him to finally get it. “I would remember something like that, Sam.”

  “Not if Capone doesn’t want you to remember.” I told him the vision from beginning to end. I watched his expression morph into confusion, then surprise and rage; it was like watching a rare flower come into bloom then quickly shrivel. It was as remarkable as much as it was tragic.

  When I finished, he leaned against the wall and stared straight ahead, his face wiped clean of emotion. Caleb may bug me at times—okay, ninety percent of the time—but the one thing I couldn’t stand, what I absolutely loathed was his silence. It was a slow, agonizing death that I couldn’t bear.

  “Say something,” I begged.

  “What were you doing in the bathroom just now?” The question made me wish he’d kept silent. When I didn’t answer, he said, “Capone was going crazy. I was a second away from busting the door down.”

  “I had a bottle of olive oil in my bra.”

  He didn’t need a calculator to add things up, and the result made his eyes blaze with fury. With frightening speed, he crowded my personal space, forcing me to retreat to the bathroom. He kept coming then caught my cheeks in his hand and studied me carefully. “Did you swallow any of it?”

  It was hard to talk with him holding my face like that, so I shook my head.

  “Are you lying?” he asked, his voice thick with fear.

  I shook my head again then he dragged his trembling hands around my neck. He looked like he wanted to choke me, but he just traced my jawline with his thumbs. “Get undressed and take a shower.”

  The randomness of the command threw me off. “What—”

  “Shower, wash your hair, brush your teeth, scrub every trace of oil off you. I’ll wait outside.” Caleb left the bathroom with a slam that almost broke the door.

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I removed my clothes then climbed into the shower. I followed his instructions to the letter, lathering, rinsing, and scrubbing until my skin was red and raw. To say Caleb was livid did him a disfavor and I deserved every ounce of his wrath. Under the hot, needling spray, I felt too weak to do anything but absorb the current of rage aimed at me.

  Once I dried off, I wrapped up in a fluffy white towel, then opened the door. Caleb stood against the wall by the bedroom door, staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his back.

  Before I could speak or even step into the room, he said, “Memories are weird. It’s hard to tell which ones are yours; what’s food and what’s real experience. Michael has trouble sorting out the two, so he blocks it out with alcohol and whatever he can get his hands on. I’ve seen what it does to him—that’s why I don’t drink, but I can really use one right now.”

  “You remember what happened?” I clicked off the bathroom light and stepped into the bedroom.

  He nodded. “I guess Capone figured there was no point in holding back now. Let me see if I’ve got this right. Lilith takes over your body and Tobias snatches you out of school in that Malik guy’s truck. Capone rams the truck off the road, shoots Tobias with a poisoned arrow, and then my brothers hide his body. You and I go back to normal, having no clue of what happened. Now Tobias’s soul is possessing innocent men, shooting people, and kidnapping young girls because he wants his body back. Just a typical holiday in Williamsburg, huh?” He rubbed his eyes in a circular motion. “I really could’ve done without knowing this, Sam, I really could’ve.” After a deep breath, he asked, “You feeling better?”

  “No. Having a hard time getting this knife out of my back,” I replied. “Lilith should have her own slogan. Sentient beings: we put the ‘suck’ in succubus.”

  Caleb looked up at me, and in that moment he looked old and tired. “You’re really that shocked? Demons and Cambions prey on vulnerable victims. You’ve seen what the draw can do; perfectly sane people turn into mindless slaves, risking death for just one taste of what we offer. Everyone has their weaknesses. Tobias happens to be hers.”

  “That weakness almost got us killed and she took my memories away to cover her tracks!”

  “Lilith knows you pretty well. She knew what you would try to do if you found out. You have a bad temper and you shoot first and ask questions later,” he replied.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was he actually defending her? “You don’t know that.”

  “You just proved her right! Just now in the bathroom!” His face was turning red; his eyes brimmed with tears too stubborn to fall. “How could you do something like that? How could you hurt yourself and not give a shit about how it would affect the people around you, including me? Especially me.”

  He sure knew how to put a negative slant on things. “I had to get rid of Lilith. I figured you would understand, seeing as you’re the one that she almost killed! She took over and was rea
dy to skip town, and who knows what would’ve happened if you didn’t stop her.”

  There was something very unsettling about his laugh. It was a low, deep rumble in his chest, ripe with derision. “Every decision you make affects me, more than anyone else. I’d figured you would’ve gotten that by now, but obviously you haven’t.” He pushed off the wall and stalked forward. “You really think you’re helping anyone by taking your own life? What do you think my reaction would be? ’Cause you know I’ve never had to mourn over a woman I cared about, so that would be a new and exciting experience for me.”

  “I didn’t go through with it, okay? So calm down. It wasn’t about you.”

  “That’s the point!” he snapped. “You weren’t thinking about me, or your parents, or anyone else that might care about you.”

  “Why should I?” I yelled. “I’m the victim here—no one else is going through this shit but me! No one else is being hijacked and used as a hand puppet. Everyone has their petty lives and their petty dramas while I’m fighting for my soul. You say you don’t like being manipulated, well guess what, neither do I. I’ve been dropped into a freaky ass world full of death and half explanations. I’ve lied to every single person I know, including myself. I don’t know who I am anymore!” I squatted on the floor and screamed into my palms.

  The need for retribution was still raging. I wanted my pound of flesh and I felt cheated. I screamed and screamed until my throat burned, until I was empty of the poison in my veins, empty of sound, empty of thought. I wanted to claim and make a new home in that white noise that came with nothing. But Caleb, my sweet, worrisome Caleb, wouldn’t let me.

  I felt his hands scoop under my arms to pull me up, and then he wrapped his arms around me. My head rested against his chest and I listened to the quick flutter of his heartbeat. We twisted from side to side in a gentle rocking motion that made me drowsy.

  Resting his chin on the top of my head, he said, “You’re Samara Nicole Marshall, esquire, barista, bookworm, and Shakespearean Tae Bo master. Fellow sugar junkie and perpetual smartass. My main squeeze. My best friend.”

  This was the second time in a week I’d cried in front of him, and it wasn’t pretty.

  He must’ve noticed that too, because he asked, “Aw hell, are you crying, again? Please don’t cry. The ‘fighting and cussing’ Sam I can handle, but the ‘sad and weepy’ Sam is beyond my capability.”

  “I can’t help it.” I sniffled and wiped my tears on his shirt.

  “No seriously, try. We’re linked. If you start crying, then I’m gonna cry, and then it’s just gonna get weird.”

  I gripped the lapel of his shirt and laughed. He held my face and wiped my tears with his thumbs. His expression changed to a more serious one. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Sam. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I answered. “I know it was stupid, I just had a weak moment. I was overdue for a meltdown, don’t you think? You had yours; why can’t I have mine?”

  “Yeah. It’s been a really screwed up year and you’ve taken all of it like a champ. But you don’t have to go through it alone. I know everything you’re going through—I can feel it. We need to trust each other completely now, no matter what. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll cut back on the feeding if you let this go. Just let this one thing slide.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that easy.”

  “It’s not that easy for me to cut my diet, but I’ll do it for you. Capone needs his mate as much as I need mine.” He pulled away and held my shoulders at arm’s length. Stooping down with watery eyes leveled to mine, he said, “Listen to me. I’m not trying to be sweet or romantic or feed you some line to get into your pants. I’m not some kid with a crush and I’m not whipped. This is a physical and literal fact. I. Can’t. Live. Without. You.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take those words, unclear if they were a form of endearment or condemnation. Both meanings made my pulse skip and the look he offered me, stripped bare of pretense and sarcasm, managed to steal my air supply.

  We stared at each other, silently debating what would happen next. Warmth spread over my shoulders and wrapped me in a cozy blanket of his power. I gave in to the intoxicating feeling and allowed my knees to go weak with the complete understanding of what it meant. I didn’t want to fight anymore, not with him and not over something so easy to fix. I just wanted him to hold me. I wanted to kiss him and fall asleep next to him.

  We had reached that agreement at the same time and sealed our contract with a kiss that could’ve gone on for hours, days, eons, if our bodies hadn’t plotted mutiny. My lips parted and slanted over his, finding that perfect, familiar fit. His tongue plunged inside and on contact, my stomach dropped.

  His fingers sank into my hair and combed loose the wet curls. Not wanting to be idle, I let my fingers do some loosening too, starting with the buttons of his shirt. Each free button exposed more of his creamy white skin and strengthened my resolve to continue. His body tensed, his breathing sped up, straining to keep still as he studied my reaction.

  I admired our color contrast of porcelain and copper, and enjoyed the texture and the pulsating energy under my hand. I kissed everywhere my mouth could reach and my lips burned from the salty heat of his skin. He smelled sweet, a heady musk of vanilla and sugar and other confections that seemed to seep out of his pores. He must have had enough because he gripped my hair and kissed me again. The kiss was a devouring of the sweetest and highest order where breathing was no longer a top priority.

  I didn’t notice we were moving until I felt the soft padding of the mattress. He crawled over me, leaving nips on my neck and shoulder and lower still. His hair spilled over his face and slid over my skin in satin ribbons.

  “Tell me to stop,” he demanded softly, his breath hot and sweet against my neck. “Hit me. Push me away, scream out; anything to make me stop.” He began to move against me, the rough texture of his jeans creating a delicious friction.

  My hands threaded through his hair, then held a chunk of it in a fist as his hands slipped under my towel. His tongue invaded my mouth and stroked in the same maddening rhythm as his fingers. Just before I went cross-eyed, he broke the kiss long enough for me to catch my breath.

  “It’s not too late to stop,” he pleaded then licked the seam of my mouth in a slow, languorous glide.

  “Yes it is,” I said just below a whisper, which was as loud as my lung capacity would allow. It was true; it was too late—months too late—and I needed to feel something other than anguish right now. There was that conscious part of me that screamed for me to hit the brakes and consider the consequences of going farther, but all I could focus on was his hands and the fire quickly spreading in my belly.

  He stopped touching me and I whimpered at the loss and reached blindly for his warmth.

  I opened my eyes and found him kneeling over me, peeling off his shirt one shoulder at a time. He made a show of it, and if I had cash on hand I would’ve slipped it into his jeans. In that moment I would’ve emptied my bank account, broken into my college fund to see more. The look he gave me implied that this was a private performance, free of charge.

  He tossed the shirt behind his head to the floor and I did the same with my towel without a second thought. Caleb unbuttoned his jeans then stopped to watch me. The cool air latched to my skin, but it was the feral glow in his eyes that caused the goose bumps.

  I relaxed and laid back on the pillow while his hands squeezed the inside of my leg, my hip, and the doughy curve of my belly. “You have the softest skin, Samara. I’ll never get over it. Never.”

  He began a slow crawl up the length of my body then wrapped my legs around his waist. Not wanting to separate again, he rocked from side to side and wiggled his jeans down his hips while I helped push them off his legs with my feet.

  Soft lips outlined my jaw and neck as he whispered, “I don’t wanna hurt you, but you’re kinda, um, new to this.” He propped his weight on his elbows and searched my face for any hes
itation, any change of heart. I gave him my answer by pulling him closer.

  He pinned my hands over my head, laced his fingers between mine then began to move, and only he heard the sharp gasp that followed. Caleb had covered my mouth with his own, capturing the sound, keeping my momentary pain all to himself. Trembling, he waited for me to relax, kissed the tears from my face and whispered sweet talk that made it impossible for me to keep still.

  My hands traced the smooth muscles in his back and he took that as a signal to continue. The groove of his spine tightened and relaxed under each motion. The weight of his body was a foreign but welcomed discovery, the contact of bare skin against skin; the kiss of our belly buttons. I clutched on to his shoulder blade for leverage and rode out the wave that threatened to drown us both.

  Our spirits met in a clash of color, the impact rattling every knot in my spine, making me arch off the bed. Emerald and amethyst melded and swirled behind my eyelids in a trippy screensaver. The past, fragmented and disjointed, filled my memory bank, inviting me to partake in his life as I assumed he was doing with mine. It took all my strength to breathe and the humidity made the air too thick to take in.

  His heartbeat thrummed within my own chest, uneven at first but slowly ebbing into a strange harmony. Our energies mingled in a captivating dance before returning to its owner. Back and forth it went, heightening its pitch, building intensity until an outpour of energy left me paralyzed, speechless, and without sight.

  “I love you, Samara. I . . . love . . .” The broken utterance tore from his lips and it was the last sound I heard before the world faded to black. My final thought was one of pure joy for being able to give him the perfect gift, the one thing he always wanted: for me to be his and his alone.

  The sun was rising outside when I forced myself awake. Caleb was somewhere behind me—I could feel his warmth on my back—and I tried my best not to wake him as I got up. Even in lethargy, I couldn’t block out what had happened between us. It was too surreal and it would be branded in my brain forever.