Kimber

by Sarah Denier

  He looks me over. “You want me to pretend like you’re not keeping something from me? Good. Bad. It just shouldn’t matter?”

  “Could you really see me as a bad person? Besides what matters is that I am who I am when I’m around you.”

  “Do you have any idea how absurd that sounds?”

  “No…yes. I don’t know.” I rub my forehead. “Look, Wyler, I’m not perfect and the skeletons in my closet are still alive. I’ve been honest with you and introduced you to the people in my life I care most about and the rest, the rest is my own personal battle. But if ever I find myself in over my head I promise, you’ll be the first person I ask for help.”

  He keeps his eyes locked onto mine, considering what I’ve said. “Another fifteen on cardio then we hit the bags.”

  He holds the bathroom door open, waiting for me. I smile with relief as I duck under his arm.

  Whatever frustration Wyler was hiding visually came out physically in our training. We worked on upper body strength and strikes. Every knuckle on my hands is swollen, bruised or split open. I didn’t complain though, at least not in front of Wyler.

  Now something as simple as opening my car door becomes a tortures task. Every ligament from my chest cries with pain. But before I can enjoy a warm bath Wyler swore would help, there is somewhere I need to go. The only place, as of late, I feel capable of finding answers.

  Just like the last time I was here, I park my car in front of the garden leading to the mausoleum my mother rests in. It’s here, inside my car, that I find the pain of the past can be tolerated while retaining the homely comfort of my mother’s presence. I breathe deep, stretching the tender tightness in my chest and relax my shoulders.

  I imagine the sassy way my mother would shift her weight and shake her head whenever the topic of Leo would slip from my mouth. I would talk about him relentlessly. If it drove her crazy, she never showed it. I can imagine the piercing level her voice would reach if she knew that I do not plan on running from Alexandria. Which makes me wonder if Lena ever receives messages from the dead? I make a mental note to ask her.

  My spit catches in my throat as I swallow. It’s dark so I blink a few times but it doesn’t change what I see. Leo exits my mother’s mausoleum and walks through the garden towards me. How had I not seen his truck on my way in?

  I could duck down in my seat and maybe he would go looking for me long enough so that I could get away. God, am I that lame? I knew this moment would present itself. I just didn’t expect to be sweaty, bruised and in gym clothes when it did.

  He strains his eyes to peer through the windshield as he approaches my car. I get out and stand by the hood. He looks down, back at me and down again. Even in the moon swept light, I can see blue hue of his dampened eyes.

  “I never made it, to say goodbye. Everything I have to be thankful for is because of her.” His hand runs through his short hair as he looks back up at me.

  “Yeah, well, she cared a lot about you.” I feel uneasy. These emotions, his emotions are ones I only share with myself.

  “And what about you? Do you still care about me?”

  I lean my right hip against the hood, affected by his question. “Of course. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?” I take slow breaths, embarrassed by the sporadic rhythm beating inside my chest, knowing his heart will echo mine.

  “I mean, really care.” He steps closer infusing the air between us with an intimate vibe.

  My knees tremble. God I’m weak. His sad sexy blue eyes are the only part of him that betrays his alpha male confidence. I linger in the fact that he would never be this exposed to anyone other than me.

  “I’ve known you for like, how long? Course I care.” I hear the words escape my mouth before I can stop them.

  He closes the space between us, twists my hips toward him and pins me against my car. His eyes search mine as a smile lifts the corner of his mouth. With my hand resting gently within his, he presses my hand against his lips. One by one, he kisses away the pain that punishes each knuckle.

  “Better?” His eyes loom under his brow as his lips hover over my hand.

  “Uh huh.” Is the only competent sound I am able to make.

  He tugs my hand toward him. Instinctively my body follows. I rest my head against his chest inhaling his hypnotic aroma, sandalwood and rain. He holds me as though I will slip from his grip.

  “When I hold you like this, my chest feels as though it could explode. Everything I could ever desire, wrapped within my arms. I need you. Kimber, I want you. There’s nothing else for me, if I can’t have you.” The ruff exterior of his voice penetrates his words into my soul.

  He tilts my chin up to him and as his hand slips behind my ear, he feeds my lips with the soft touch of his. He kisses me slowly but deep with purpose, as if he is savoring the taste of me. His hips press against me. He makes me feel invincible. My head swims in a daze as my body melts into his. His hands tighten around the curve of my hips. My right hand rests against his chest as my left finds the back of his neck. He nibbles on my neck as I tilt my head giving him full access.

  “I’ll keep you, safe.” His whisper smothers my pleasure in disappointment.

  “Why?” I ask pushing us apart. He tries to play like he’s bewildered but quickly gives it up. “Every time! Are you just playing with my head now, or what? I’m sick of it. It’s cruel and it kills me ‘cause I actually want to be with you. I’m that stupid!” I rub my forehead, feeling hurt and embarrassed and pissed off that I fell for it again.

  “I want you alive and not stuck in that wall next to Marie!” He nods his head gesturing back to the mausoleum.

  Instantly I want to hate him for saying it and for the way his words tighten like a fist around my heart. But I realize that displaced look on his face. He’s scared. He knows he cannot control what I will do or if I will do anything at all.

  “Leo, I’m not the girl you control. You never would have loved me if I were.”

  “Be with me.” He pleads taking my face in his hands, resting his forehead against mine.

  I kiss him once, twice and though my body rejects leaving him, I back away.

  “Not until you can find the right reason to ask me that.”

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  FOURTY FIVE MINUTES in a hot bath and eight hours of sleep later and I am still sore as anything. I point this out with several exclamation points and sad faces in a text message to Wyler. When he doesn’t respond I figure it’s because he’s in class.

  Stuck to the fridge is a post it from Lena. Apparently Leo had picked her up earlier in the morning.

  I smile. For the first time in a long time, I feel good about how things went with Leo. Our relationship might not be fixed but at least we know what the other wants. I guess as ex’s Leo and I will have to find a way to coexist peacefully.

  Fully aware of how lazy it makes me, I declare the day as my own. I plop down on the couch, cover up with my favorite fleece blanket and indulge in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.

  I find myself in a dream before I know I’ve fallen asleep. Images form vividly in my mind. The nightmare is encased with darkness brewed with the scent of old rusted metal. I walk in no one direction.

  In the distance, I hear the laughter of children. I continue on, passing strangers seeped in sadness.

  The clouds overhead entomb the world in gray. The scent of old rusted metal returns, filtering through the air. Rain falls sporadically from the sky. It dampens and portrays tears on the faces of those who pass by me. Something in the distance calls quietly for my attention.

  Huddled under an umbrella, I find a small group of people. One sobs louder than the others. As I move to get closer screams erupt from behind me. I turn sharply and find no one there. I turn back to the strangers only to realize, they are not strangers. Huddled over something my friends form a group. I mix in between them and when I finally see what they are gawking at, I fall and shuffle back. Vomit rises in my throat. Between t
heir legs, I glimpse their ravenous temperament as they pick a parallel version of me apart. My beaten, broken and bloodied body emanates the smell of old rusted metal.

  Their faces are deformed versions of themselves. They all take their turn ripping belongings from me. Tiffany and Robin fight over my purse. My clothes are shredded, my wallet lay empty beside me and the necklace I once gave to my mother now dangles around Amber’s neck. I scream and yell for them to stop. My voice goes unheard.

  I stumble before I find my feet and flee. I don’t get very far before the road ends and I plummet down into a blinding white light.

  My body jerks as though I’ve fallen onto the couch and my eyes open. The dream may be over but its intensity lingers on my skin. Images of the people I love picking me apart turns my insides.

  In the back of my head, a dull pain begins to hammer. I go to the kitchen and take three Ibuprofen. As I reach in the cabinet for peanut butter crackers, there’s a knock at the front door. I use the peephole and see Wes standing on the other side.

  Skeptically I crack the door open. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” Wes replies. He stands in the hallway studying me because I haven’t let him in. I’ve learned that lesson.

  “Do you need something?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “Because Leo asked me to.” He’s annoyed.

  There was a time not long ago that the mention of Leo would’ve had me doing stupid things. Too bad for Wes I am no longer the dumb gullible girl.

  I look over his shoulder. “Leo sent you here?”

  “It wasn’t the Tooth Fairy.”

  I want to slam my door right into the sarcastic glare in his green eyes. What is it with this kid? Is the chip on his shoulder inscribed with my name?

  “Go to Hell.” I say with a perky smile.

  Before I can push the door closed, he has his black Nike wedged between the door and the frame. I roll my eyes and sigh with frustration.

  “Hey! I’m here ‘cause he asked me to be. Call him yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  My current standing with Leo would fall on the outer edge of ‘complicated’ though we managed to kiss our way past ‘awkward’ and left things in the middle of ‘frustrated’. The way I figured it, our next encounter would be best if done in person and not me calling on the phone to complain about his new lackey. If Leo and I ever hoped to be together again, we would have to keep Neph business separate from our business.

  Though the cuts on my hands have not yet formed into scabs, if he tries anything funny I will attack like a wild banshee. I take a step back and open the door, watching every movement he does and does not make with his hands.

  He strolls slowly through my living room, eyeing my things before sitting down on the couch.

  He is not as frail as the trench coat made him seem. He is thin but wrapped in lean muscle. His jeans and the triad symbol on his black shirt make him seem more personable than lone ranger. But there’s something different about him. Last time I saw him his hair went down to his shoulders. Now it’s much shorter and parted on the side. Draco Malfoy comes to mind. I smile, inadvertently, knowing Wyler would appreciate the Harry Potter reference.

  I find myself twisting split ends around my finger and vow to revamp my hair as soon as Alexandria isn’t waiting to pull it from my head.

  “So if you’re here, where are they?” I ask sitting on the love seat.

  He leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “What makes you think they’re anywhere?”

  “Uh, how about the fact that you’re here and they’re not.”

  “Look, I want to be here about as much as you want me here. Don’t go causing another Egypt situation.”

  A laugh slips through my lips. “That’s why you hate me so much, because of what happened in Egypt.”

  His jaw tightens as his fingers lace together with tension.

  “Despite what you think you know, you don’t know. It sucks for all of us that Alexandria is still out there and yeah, I get that I’m the reason for it. But if you’re thinking I should apologize for what I see as risking it all for the people I love, than you’ll find yourself severely disappointed.”

  The coldness in his narrowed green eyes could cut glass. “I could have killed her.”

  “I never said you couldn’t’ve.”

  “It was my chance to prove I belong. That I’m capable and deserving to serve. I’m only half blooded but I refuse to let that dictate what I am, what I can be.”

  And suddenly my eyes open to the real reason he is so pissed off. Leo told me about Half bloods as dedicated and eager as Wes. I don’t know how Wes got down in that tomb with the rest of us but if Leo did not deem him worthy, he would not be sitting here now.

  “Wes, I’d give you every ounce of Nephilim I am if I could and then I’d run as far as I can as fast as I could from this madness. But the people I love are imprinted into this. So…so am I.”

  It’s easier to say it than it is to hear my voice speak it. I’ve known it to be the truth but the renegade in me cannot commit.

  The hardness in his face relaxes. He swallows hard as his eyes scan the room before coming back to me. His tongue snakes out to moisten his lips. “Lena envisioned Alexandria arriving in Florida. I’m supposed to guard you.”

  I feel like I am being twisted from the inside out. My living room becomes a morphed frame of its existence. I take small jagged breaths in and blink back the white spots forming in my eyes. Last night, it was nothing. It meant nothing. Just a manufactured lie to lure me in. How long had he waited inside the mausoleum, conveniently mourning my mother. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the room to stop spinning.

  “He said you’d get pissed and try something stupid, not pass out.”

  I keep my eyes closed and shake my head.

  “Look,” he sighs heavily, “if it means anything to you, he said I had to watch you ‘cause you’re important, to him. So stop being girly and freaking out.” The awkwardness in his voice and the way discomfort crawls across his skin almost makes me laugh. Like it physically distresses him to calm my nerves.

  The way Leo so easily anticipates my reaction, to his motives and not Alexandria’s, invokes my trust as much as my suspicion.

  I run my hands against my thighs and smile meagerly at Wes. He could have reveled in my freak out but instead he offered the cure.

  “So when is it? When are they anticipating Alexandria?”

  “Didn’t say. She had the vision this morning.”

  This morning, as in before she left the condo?

  “Okay, so if they found out today that sometime in the next couple days, if not hours, she’ll be here, why are you here?”

  “Didn’t we just go over that?”

  “Yeah but, what about Lena? And why separate the group? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Wes seems confused. He doesn’t know Leo like I do. Leo doesn’t talk because he likes to hear himself speak. He told Wes to come here because Alexandria has emerged. He took Lena and sent Wes. So he’s either going at it alone or…

  “Ugh! I’m going to kill him!” I jump to my feet.

  “What?” Wes says standing a little less dramatically than I had.

  “You’re not guarding me, you’re babysitting me!”

  “And how are the two different?”

  I rub my forehead, aggravated that I actually have to spell this out for him.

  “You’re here because Leo is speculating that Alexandria will come here, for me.” He nods. “But the last time Alexandria was in Florida the only place we met at was Leo’s beach house. I doubt she had us followed from the airport so soon after her father’s death but realistically, she can’t find me here because she doesn’t know where here is.”

  I watch as the imaginary light bulb flickers and illuminates over Wes’s blond head.

  “Ok, say you’re right. What’s the point behind it?”

  “I guess he’s thinking like you. He
doesn’t want another Egypt situation.”

  He shakes his head. “No. It wouldn’t be that plain. He’d be sacrificing your aunt.”

  He’s wrong. Leo would never harm a hair on Lena but he can’t protect her either by himself.

  “We have to go!”

  I grab my cell from the coffee table and hurry to the kitchen counter where I fish my keys out of my purse. Wes is barricading the door with his body by the time I turn around.

  “I can’t let you. Leo said—”

  “Screw what Leo said!” I yell over him. “She’s my family, not his. Now move or I swear to God.”

  Wary, Wes studies me. “Give me the keys.” As his open hand reaches out to me, I clutch the keys, holding them behind my back. His hand still open, he takes a step closer to me. “You’re too erratic, I should drive.”

  Surprised, I try to find the lie on his face but he is completely composed. He looks from his waiting hand to me and nods.

  “Swear.”

  “This is not a trick. I swear.”

  I can’t believe he called me erratic. Speeding, illegal lane changes and no seat belt are the mild infractions he is breaking. Secretly, I’m thanking him. It’s common knowledge to locals that beach cops are different from regular cops. Wrist slapping infractions inland are ticket worthy on the beach. Once you are pulled over, the K-9 unit showing up is inevitable.

  Even in the dark of night, I can see the smoke rising. I start praying prayers out of order and beg that someone listens.

  The fire set to Leo’s beach house is fresh. Only the back of the house is a glow. Wes can’t seem to stop fast enough. I break from the car and sprint towards the front door.

  “Lena! Lena!”

  I hesitate, taping the handle with my fingers to test for heat. It’s not hot. I fling the door open and step inside. To my right the fire eats the kitchen. Black smoke crawls along the walls swallowing the living room. I pull up the collar on my shirt to cover my mouth and nose. It does no good. I cough with every breath I take.