Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K

by Jennifer Sommersby

  :36:

  The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.

  —Rene Descartes

  I must’ve dozed off again because my eyes were forced open when I began to throw up. Whiskey wil do that to you, especialy if you’re not a drinker to begin with and your body is ravaged with a lack of food and too much adrenaline. The morning had given me a surplus of the latter, and combining it with the alcohol zipping through my veins didn’t make me feel any better. It didn’t exorcise the demons or bring Marlene back from the brink. It just made everything worse.

  Leaning over the side of the table, I retched until my gut was cleaned out. My teeth were fuzzy, my mouth dry as sand, head pounding, eyes on fire from a late afternoon sun turned onto its highest setting. A couple of cars were now in the park’s lot, though no one had approached me. Even if they had, I’d been too out of it to know any better.

  I struggled to sit up, the spinning world bringing around a new bout of nausea. I realy needed to move, though, before someone did take notice of the teenager sprawled on a city park picnic table, an emptied bottle of Jack Daniels dropped onto the bench.

  Moving was way harder than sitting, and I didn’t have a clear direction as to where I should go. I contemplated turning on my phone again, caling Uncle Ted for a rescue, but I wasn’t ready to face them. Not yet. I didn’t want to talk about Auntie, didn’t want to hear that she was dead, didn’t want them fawning over me,

  “poor little Gemma.” Didn’t want Henry’s warm arm around me, teling me everything was going to be al right when nothing was ever going to be al right again. I shuffled toward the sidewalk and headed out of town, beyond where the sidewalk ended, away from Eaglefern’s excuse for a downtown core.

  As I moved along the road, it narrowed into two lanes, nothing but a tight gravel shoulder and swampy ditch to show me the way. I stripped off my jacket and tied it around my waist, partly because I was hot, partly because it smeled like puke. The false sensation of timelessness granted space to think, even in the hazy space that was my brain, to inspect the newness of my circumstances and consider where I fit in the bigger picture.

  I’d never been one to fantasize about the milestones most people count on in their lives, of love, marriage, children, the happily-ever-after. How could I, with my mother for a role model? My priority had always been on self-sufficiency, making it through one day at a time, accomplishing the smalest of tasks without ruffling feathers or bringing undesired attention upon myself. I’d learned independence at an age when most children were learning to tie their shoes or recite their phone numbers. I had long been afraid to dream of a

  “normal” future because the odds were so stacked against me.

  Until I’d met Henry Dmitri.

  I had permitted myself the luxury of fashioning a mental image of a life with him, one where we’d spend time together doing the stupid teenager things. Movies, dinner, making out in the back seat of the car. Maybe there’d be more. Maybe we’d folow each other to university, stay together, graduate at the same time, move into a fabulous tiny apartment in the city, buy our furniture and silverware at IKEA, and adopt a cat. Then someday, maybe, we’d go to dinner in our favorite little Italian restaurant and he’d get down on one knee with the black velvet box, inside of which would be a symbol of what I meant to him. Just like in the movies.

  And in the unforgiving blaze of life as it stood at that moment, I felt both anger at my momentary weakness and grief for the loss of a future I had yet to experience. I felt abandoned by the people in my life who had alowed a psycho to dictate to them how they were to manage their day-to-day affairs. If Marlene died, it would be Lucian’s fault. My father’s fault.

  Because I’d run away from Ted and Irwin when they needed me most, I was a selfish coward. No amount of magical pedigree could undo that. It didn’t matter that Lucian was my father, and that Marku practicaly begged me to step in and stop his son’s deranged plans. I couldn’t be heir to anything. The pile that Ted had stepped in when he took the book from Marku and fled to America with Alicia was his problem. He was going to have to clean it up.

  My left foot caught on a crack in the pavement and I fel, hard onto my knees and outstretched arms. In another example of my stunning grace, I landed squarely on a sharp rock that tore my pant leg open. The fibers of the denim quickly soaked with blood from the new wound. It stung like hel, but the tears that came had little to do with pain and everything to do with how pissed off I was at the universe.

  I sat clutching my bent leg for a few moments, rocking back and forth in the gravel, smacking at the mosquitoes that added insult to my latest injury. A few cars passed but, of course, no one bothered to stop. And why would they? It made me even angrier that the world had come to a place where people had lost al common decency, that not a single person stopped to help a crying, bleeding girl on the side of the road.

  Another car flew past and I didn’t bother to look up, not until I heard the brakes squeak and the car’s tires peel against the pavement as the car turned around. It puled up behind me, and the driver was out in a quick bound, a young man’s voice folowed by the pound of his footprints on the road.

  “Gemma? Jesus, are you okay?”

  Bradley Higgins kneeled down next to me, looking at the rip in my pants and the puffy state of my face.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “What the hel are you doing out here?”

  “I went for a walk.”

  “Some walk. Shit, you’re bleeding.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, looks that way.”

  He leaned in and sniffed. “And you stink.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “Been drinking?” I didn’t answer him. “Whatever. Come on, let me help you up. I’l give you a ride home.”

  I wanted to ask him why he wasn’t in class, but judging by the sun’s position in the sky, I guessed that school was over. I’d spent the day passed out on a picnic bench instead of zoning out in the classroom.

  My knee was sore and the slice in the skin puled when I stood to walk. Bradley helped me around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. I managed to slide in, unassisted, immediately assailed by the odor of his gym bag and cheap, drug store-brand body spray. And he said that I stunk…

  He turned the car around back toward town, past the high school, and headed in the direction of the fairgrounds.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you have a lover’s quarrel or something? Decided to drown your sorrows in a little sauce?”

  I ignored him and stared out the window as we moved down the main strip.

  “You know, a lot of guys think you’re smokin’ hot. Why do you hang out with that creeper Dmitri? Isn’t he a little…weird for your taste?”

  I was so not in the mood to talk about my relationship with Henry, especialy not with someone like Bradley Higgins.

  “Hey, I’m having a party this weekend. You should come. I know Junie is planning on coming out with her friends. I even invited Ash. In a place as smal as Eaglefern, we’re al friends, right?” Friends. Riiiiight.

  “Thanks. I’m busy this weekend.”

  Bradley chuckled under his breath. “You’re just making it harder on yourself, Gemma. People want to get to know you, but you hang out with that freak. Makes it tough, ya know?”

  “Yeah, wel, I appreciate you picking me up, but I don’t see how my personal life is any of your damned business.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke, not wanting to see his reaction to my hostility. I figured he’d pul over and dump me out of his car, but at that point, I didn’t give a shit. I could walk back to the fairgrounds from here. I could’ve walked from where I was on the road, too. Why had I gotten into his car?

  “Listen to you! You’re a feisty one,” he said, putting his hand on my thigh. I slapped it away. He laughed at me. “Did you know that Jerrica thinks I have a crush on you? Ma
kes her cry and act al stupid. But she’s so paranoid I’m going to leave her for you, she’l do whatever I say.” He moved his hand to the back of my neck, his grip harder than necessary.

  As we neared the fairgrounds, al I could think of was getting out of his car and slamming the door in his face. I didn’t move in my seat, his sweaty hand stil clamped over my hair, his middle finger rubbing gently under my ear. His touch made my skin crawl.

  He began to slow the car as we approached the driveway to turn in, but suddenly accelerated, whizzing past the fairgrounds and out of town, away from the safety of my trailer, away from Henry whose car was parked in the lot, away from Ted and Irwin who were, no doubt, racked with worry about Marlene, and now about where I’d run off to.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed.

  “You need to be nicer to people who offer you help.” He tightened his grip. “I thought we could go for a little drive, get to know each other away from school, away from Jerrica and Henry and al those other morons we’re surrounded with.”

  “Turn the car around.”

  “I wil, in a little bit. Don’t you think this is nice? The sun is out, the rain stopped. We’re just hanging out. Come on, gorgeous.” He released my neck and moved his hand back to my thigh, reasserting his grip in the flesh of my leg. “Don’t be so stuck up. I know there’s a nice girl hiding under al that pretty red hair.”

  “Please, Bradley, my aunt has been injured. I need to get home.”

  “Didn’t seem that urgent when you were sitting on the side of the road plastered out of your skul…”

  My head was splitting and I realized that in my addled state, I wouldn’t be able to jump for it. I’d be kiled at the speed we were traveling if I were to try and launch myself from his moving vehicle.

  Road splatter.

  Bradley steadied the wheel under his knee and reached with his left hand to the stereo, turning it on so loud that even if I had wanted to engage in conversation, the volume rendered it impossible. His right hand remained clamped on my leg, inching higher every half-minute until he was at the top of my thigh. My heart hammered in my chest, as I realized this situation had just gone from bad to worse, very quickly.

  After about ten minutes of excruciating tension, the beat from the speakers causing permanent damage to my eardrums, Bradley slowed the car as we rounded a wide corner. Ahead was a sawmil, huge stacks of logged timber in the yard.

  He puled in and stopped the car. We were concealed between two such stacks, only a slice of the road visible from where we were.

  This was not good.

  He turned the car off and kiled the stereo, though the now-absent bass of the music maintained its rhythm in the pulsating behind my eyes. I fixated on the latch for the glove box, not daring to look at him as he moved his hand from my thigh and pushed my hair away from my face.

  “So, let’s try this again.” His hand under my chin yanked my head so that I couldn’t look anywhere but at his face. His pupils were dilated and his seatbelt was off, his body turned toward me.

  “How’re you liking Eaglefern so far, Gemma?” I hated the way he said my name. “You should realy get to know more people.

  They’re nice, like me,” he said. The irony was stifling. “My stepfather is in international business, so we’ve done al right. We’d be doing a lot better if Lucian Dmitri weren’t around to control every time someone in this town farts, though.” I’d started crying. “Please, can you just take me to the hospital?

  My aunt is there…”

  “Sure, if you want. I’l take you there in a little bit.” Bradley scooted himself to the edge of his seat and moved to within mere inches of my face, touching and smeling my hair, puling a few strands back and dropping them over my shoulder. I stiffened. We were very alone out here, the car tucked between these impossibly tal stacks.

  His breath was hot on my face—I realized I hadn’t been the only one drinking today—as his lips brushed my cheekbone. “Dmitri is a loser. You are so beautiful…you could do so much better. You could have anyone you wanted,” he whispered. “And the guys are thinking of you while they’re giving it to their girlfriends.” Bradley flew out of his seat and pinned me in mine. My head slammed against the door before he puled me underneath him. I fought like hel to push him back with my left arm, my right arm franticaly searching for either the door handle or something to hit him with. He pushed his left hand under my shirt and up to my bra, squeezing and groping as he went. I felt the amulet drop to the side; the weight of the triangle thudded on the seat next to my face, the leather rope cinched against the skin of my neck as Bradley used his right hand to gather my hair in his fist.

  He moved his left arm out from under my shirt and wrapped his thick forearm around my thighs, forcing my legs from under the passenger-side console, across the emergency brake handle, and over his seat. He was strong, so strong that there was no way I could fight him off, the burden of his weight heavy on my heaving torso. He had hold of my hair with the one hand, and was doing his best to wrangle my pants off with the other.

  Suddenly, my hand made contact with something cold and hard.

  It was glass. A bottle. I stretched my fingers as far as I could, trying to get a grip on the smooth surface. My hand shook and lost contact, my fingers strained. Please, please help me…

  Bradley scooted my whole body upward, my head again slamming against the side door. I winced as the pain shot down through the top of my head and down through my neck, but he’d moved me just enough that I was able to grab onto the neck of the bottle. As he lifted his head to put his mouth down on mine, I slammed the glass into the side of his head with every ounce of energy and desperation I could scrape together.

  It was a good, solid hit. Bradley’s scalp on the left side of his exploded in blood, glass shards embedding into his flesh and salting his hair, bits faling onto my face as he puled himself backward off of me.

  “You fucking bitch! Oh my God! What did you do to me?” He puled his hand away from the side of his head and it was coated in his blood. Violence contorted his face, but I moved fast and puled my legs onto my seat before he could pin me again.

  I scrambled for the door handle as his fist landed a hard blow to my left cheek, slamming my head into the window. Just as he cocked his fist for another punch, the windows in the car—al of them, the windshield, side windows, and rear window—exploded into a milion pieces and showered us with glass. The driver’s door flew open and Bradley was sucked out of the car, landing hard on his back at the feet of the person standing outside.

  Lucian.

  “You are not behaving like a proper gentleman should, Mr.

  Higgins,” Lucian spat, thrusting his heel into Bradley’s solar plexus.

  Bradley coughed, choked on pieces of glass stuck to the blood coating his cheeks and lips, gasping for air under the weight of Lucian’s foot.

  The faint smel of burning fabric grazed my nostrils.

  “And you, Gemma Flannery, you’ve had a rough day, haven’t you?”

  My eyes met his, but they weren’t the kind eyes of a rescuer coming to save me from meeting a terrible fate at the hands of a perverse abuser. The pupils al but consumed his irises, the black venomous and evil. I pushed myself into a sitting position on the seat, and as I did, a searing heat slid down the front of my shirt. I could feel it stabbing the nerve endings of the skin above my bra, but I didn’t dare move my eyes from Lucian.

  “I came back as soon as I heard the news,” he said. “Your uncle Ted caled me right away after Marlene’s little accident.” He pushed his heel deeper into Bradley who coughed even harder in response, his breaths shalow and the skin around his mouth a frightening blue.

  “How…how is she? Do you know? Have you talked to Ted?” I said, terrified to move, afraid Lucian would turn on me next.

  “You haven’t spoken to him yet?”

  I shook my head no.

  “It’s sad, realy it is. Marlene was such a wonderful lady. She was a real
mom to you, huh? Now that’s a story,” he said, laughing under his breath.

  He said that Marlene was a wonderful lady. “Lucian, is Marlene…gone?”

  He twisted his mouth into a sick smile and nodded his head. “I’m sorry to be the one to have to tel you.”

  I buried my hands in my face and tried to keep from screaming.

  Oh my God, Marlene…

  “Yours realy is a sad story. You know, I knew your mother quite wel.” My head flew up. He was taunting me, after teling me that my beloved aunt was dead? “When I met her years ago, she was so eager to please, so raw in her sadness for poor Jonah. But as your father, I can now tel you that your mother, poor Delia, hadn’t been herself for a long time,” he said, his eyes boring through me. Bradley had stopped moving. He was unconscious. “This time, Gemma, she begged for death.”

  The force of his words slammed into me, a freight train at ful throttle coliding with my body.

  “You…you kiled her?”

  Lucian threw his head back and laughed. He landed a hard kick into Bradley’s ribs and with the heel of his expensive shoe, roled Bradley onto his side, face down in the mud. Lucian turned his attention back to me where I cowered in the car’s interior. I cringed against the closed door, desperately searching for the handle. His clenched fist pressed into the driver’s seat supported his weight, chunks of glass in the fabric cutting into his bent fingers and knuckles. I watched as smal lines of blood appeared on the surface of his skin where the glass cut through, around the bony protuberances of the knuckles. And I watched as the lines sealed themselves as quickly as they’d appeared.

  He stretched out the other hand, motioning that he wanted to give me something. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you for a long time,” he said, reaching toward me. “She wanted you to have it.” He dropped an object on the seat next to my curled legs.

  My mother’s ring. The one Jonah had given her. A gold band, thinned and smooth from years of wear. I clutched it in my fist before sliding on. It was loose around my middle finger.