by Kim Faulks
In an instant, Titus’s grip eased. “I’m sorry,” he murmured and rubbed the ache before stepping close. “You spooked me. You fucking spooked me.”
I wanted to soften under his touch. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and answer…it’s okay. I’m okay. But I couldn’t move. I was nailed to the spot with the faint tether of energy surging through my veins.
I glanced down at the journal. Her journal. And the words called me, desperate to be heard. “I have to know…I have to understand.”
The warmth of his body left me as Titus took a step back. He glanced at the red leather in my hand and answered. “Then understand. We’ll be here waiting.”
I glanced to the others and found compassion and love. I had no idea where that surge of fear came from, no idea why I felt so damn threatened. I shuffled back to the sofa and sat.
The warm leather buckled under my fingers as I curled open the cover and glanced at the page…
Soooo…the date went well. He makes me laugh and feel excited. He kissed me. My first kiss, at nineteen, can you believe that? It’s kinda weird even writing it. Anyway, we’re going out again today.
I like Jay…like really like him, and I think he really likes me, too. Probably not going to write too much. We’ve made plans and I’m going to be pretty busy with work at the grocery store and stuff with him. So, catcha!
July has just disappeared. Sorry I’ve not kept in contact much (although I really don’t know who I’m contacting here).
Jay is awesome. Actually, he’s better than awesome, and it really feels like I only sit down and write in this damn thing when I’ve got something exciting to say.
Well, today we did it…yeah. I’m kinda underwhelmed, and at the same time I’m like one of those cheerleaders in the damn halls at school, giddy with excitement.
I mean…finally, right? Had to come home and rinse my clothes. Mom is getting super clingy, wanting to spend more time together. I caught her crying a few times, and she tells me she loves me like every freaking day.
I think she misses Dad. It’ll be ten years tomorrow. Ten fucking years. Man, it feels like forever. I miss him. Like there’s a hole in my chest I can’t quite fill. But I think for the first time in forever I actually feel okay, I feel happy and that’s thanks to Jay.
Well, this went kinda sad. Okay, Jay and I are meeting up later, so here’s to more giddy cheerleader moments.
I dragged my gaze from the page and lifted my head. “Alma cries, and tells my Mom she loves her.”
Titus’ brow arched. “Doesn’t sound like the cold-hearted dragon you warned us about.”
“No…it doesn’t” I muttered and glanced back to the page. “It doesn’t sound like her at all.”
“People change,” Gabriel broke in. “We all do things we regret, all do things we feel we should’ve changed. Sometimes in a good way, and sometimes not. We can’t really know what Alma was going through, even through your mother’s words it’s a very limited view.”
God, it was so like him to play the devil’s advocate…well, God’s advocate, really. “You know I really hate it when you start to make sense.”
His lips curled, the smile ear to goddamn ear. Blue eyes sparkled and I swore there was a puff to his chest. “God always said I was indigenous.”
“Don’t you mean ingenious?” Rival muttered.
There was a flinch in Gabriel’s face, those blue eyes skimmed the living room as he thought long and hard. His lips moved i-n-g-e-n-i-o-u-s…i-n-d-i-g-e-n-o-u-s… “One of them, anyway,” he settled on. “I am one of them.”
“Do you even know what indigenous means?” Titus asked.
“What?” Gabriel answered.
“Never mind,” Titus mumbled, and then turned to me. “More?”
I swallowed hard and flicked over the page…
August
Mom is kinda hysterical. Told her I was moving in with Jay and she almost lost her mind. I get she’s worried, but jeeezzz, overbearing much? Gonna have to hide this notebook a little better, aren’t I? But I can’t let that ruin what I have.
I’m. In. Love.
There, I said it.
I’m in love, and he’s the one. He’s the one I’m gonna marry. We can’t get enough of each other, even now I’m watching the damn clock, waiting to get to work, just so I can be with him.
He’s romantic and funny and smothering (in a good way), he laughs all the time and he makes me laugh, and Mom…well, Mom has to be happy for me. Give her some time. Yeah, I just need to give her some time and she’ll come around.
I’m writing this as I pack my bag, not gonna take much. Hell, I don’t have much to take, my clothes, a few books. Jay says he’ll take care of everything else, says I got nothing to worry about.
Her words had power…coming alive inside my head. I saw her…just as I saw the reflection of myself. Her long red hair spilled across her shoulders as she lay on the bed, the color just like mine.
I stood behind her, like an intruder, watching, staring as she scribbled words into the small red leather book…
“Lorn,” Titus’ growl pierced the vision. “What is it?”
“I see her,” I murmured, unable to tear my gaze away. “I see her as though she’s right there in front of me.”
“The book was bespelled,” Rival snarled.
I shook my head. “Not a spell…a connection.”
I glanced around the vision to the room…my room. She had the same old wooden cupboard, the same chipped dresser…the same everything.
She stiffened, turned her head slightly and slowly scanned behind her.
My breath caught as our eyes locked, and a damn fist inside my chest clenched tight. She was thinner than me, prettier. She had a kind of fragility…a kind of innocence I didn’t possess.
“Mom,” the word slipped free, but the ghost of my past never answered…
The room seemed to blur.
Day slipped into night, and then into day again, still the rush of time never ended. Day and night…day and night.
The flicker of time was a kaleidoscope, until the time finally slowed, and I saw her again, only this time sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over the red leather book. And the words she scrawled on the pages filled me.
September
It’s fall…well, the beginning of fall, and I look at my last entry, I can’t quite remember how long it’s been two, three weeks? I was so strange then, as though it were another me. Anyway, I moved in with Jay that night after work, and we’ve been inseparable since.
This morning I was sick, like really sick. Jay was worried, nursing me like a tall geeky version of Florence Nightingale.
I tried to tell him I was fine, but he was insistent I take the day off work…
But I didn’t get any better…those words echoed as she stopped writing and lifted her head.
I didn’t know this room…didn’t know this place. It was small and crowded…and dull.
There wasn’t a thing in this room that reminded me of her. Not a picture beside the bed, or a bright-colored shirt. Everything was grays and browns…and male.
Her red hair wasn’t as bright as it’d been before. The long strands hung lifeless and greasy against her face, and there was a tired, haunted look about her…one that made my pulse race.
So I went to the drugstore in town…her hand slipped from the red leather notebook, and hit a plastic Pharmacy Max bag beside her on the bed.
Her fingers skirted the torn-open box. I shook my head as panic raged, burning through me like a bolt of lightning.
No…no…no…no…this can’t be happening.
And even as the terror filled me, her words came to life.
So, it looks like I’m pregnant.
Chapter Eight
Lorn
The faint buzz of my phone echoed from the bedroom. I tore myself from the vision and stumbled.
“Hey…” Titus called after me. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing,
” I muttered.
But inside I was reeling.
I’m pregnant…I’m pregnant…I’m pregnant.
I tried to shut her voice down as my phone buzzed once more and the ding of a message followed. “I just…I need to get this.”
The screen of my cell was alight as I rounded the side of the bed. The message flashed once and was gone. Shit.
“Lorn, what is it?”
I’m pregnant…I’m pregnant…I’m pregnant.
The words seemed to swell inside me, filling my mouth, my ears…my heart. My fingers trembled as I skimmed the screen and hit the button.
The caller ID showed a name.
Betty.
I scrolled for the message:
911 call me ASAP. I think I found something.
“Jesus, Lorn, you’re white as a ghost.”
I shook my head and clenched my grip around the phone, still the damn thing shuddered and shook. Movement, that’s what I needed. I dropped the phone and the red notebook onto the bed and reached for the hemline of my shirt.
Betty needed me. I glanced at the journal as the others filled the room.
“Ah, wanna let us in on where you’re going?” Rival snarled.
Running…running…running. Away from those fucking words. “Ah, Betty. She needs me for a moment.”
“It’s Sunday for Christ’s sake,” Titus snapped. “I have…I mean, I’m not going to work. I thought we’d spend it together.”
I nodded and strode toward the dresser. Yeah just one big happy family…a family built on lies. “Sure, just, like, give me a couple of hours.”
I couldn’t look him in the eye. Instead I rifled through my clothes, yanking a bra, and then a shirt with cut-off sleeves free before I shoved the drawer closed and headed for the closet.
“What is it?” Gabriel’s soft words were a damn sledgehammer to my chest. “Lorn, please talk to us. Something obviously has you shaken.”
I forced a smile and turned my head. “Nothing, not a thing…really. I just need to help Betty, she’s doing some really important things for me, and I have to be there with her.”
My voice was too high…too fucking high. I sounded unhinged. Still they looked at me, searching my lying fucking eyes for a fragment of the truth.
None of them were buying it. None. Of. Them.
“Please,” the husky word slipped free. “I just need to help her.”
Titus’s blue eyes darkened. He took a long hard breath and then finally nodded. “Okay, if that’s what you need, then go and help her.”
“But know we’re always here for you,” Gabriel chimed in.
Rival leaned against the wall. There was hunger in his eyes. “Good or bad. Nothing you can say to us will change that.”
An ache flared in the back of my throat, like a stone wedged tight. I tried to swallow the lump, tried to push it all the way down.
They filled in each other’s conversations.
When had that happened?
When we became a family…that’s when.
But they won’t want to be when they know the truth, will they?
I’m pregnant…I’m pregnant. “Sure.” I choked on the word and yanked a clean pair of jeans from the shelf. “I know that.”
I stepped into the pants and fumbled with the zipper. I was rushing, almost falling over my damn self to grab a pair of socks, before I stopped.
The phone and the journal lay side by side. I couldn’t leave it. Heat filled my cheeks. I couldn’t let them know. Not yet.
I sat on the edge while the three of them just stood there and watched. I didn’t like this feeling of lying, didn’t like keeping shit from them. But right now, I had no other option.
Cotton slid over my feet as I gave a tug and then snagged the two items from the bed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and then we can do whatever you want, watch movies, sleep…sex.”
I was using sex against them, dangling it like a fucking carrot on a stick. And they knew it. I took a step, and then another, meeting Rival first.
His hands slid around my waist, and then wrenched me close. His body was already reacting as he kissed me. I could feel the bulge of his cock digging into my thigh. He was on one hundred percent of the fucking time, always ready to please me, anyway I wanted it.
It fucking hurt breaking away. It hurt like a motherfucker.
I leaned in and gave him one last quick kiss before I moved to Titus, and those blue eyes hardened with that cold cop stare.
He wasn’t so easy to manipulate, not so easy to kiss and let go. He searched my eyes and let me move close. “I love you,” I whispered. “I love all of you. Just a few hours is all I’m asking.”
“And then we want the truth,” he answered, the condition now set. “All of it. We deserve that, at least.”
I swallowed hard and then nodded. “Deal.”
I could feel his heart thundering as I pressed close, so perfectly human—so mine. I leaned close, taking his mouth with mine and felt my world shift.
I’d fight for them…for every one of them—I broke the kiss, my hand lingering on his chest until the very last moment as I stepped toward Gabriel.
“I love you,” my archangel said, then gave me a wink.
But his body betrayed him, fingers trembling as he skimmed a strand of hair from the corner of my eye and tucked it behind my ear.
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to tell him the same vague truth I told the others. But staring into his perfect eyes, I just couldn’t. I gave a weak smile and then made for the hallway.
I wanted to blame it on him being an angel, on anything other than the truth. They’d leave me. They say they wouldn’t, but they would…eventually.
The daughter of the underworld who was nothing more than a fucking fake.
I wasn’t Lucifer’s daughter. I was human…I bent and grasped my boots and my keys from inside the front door. I had power…sure, but I’d seen the smallest hint of a witch’s energy be manipulated into something powerful before. I fumbled with the lock and yanked open the door.
My steps were muted by my socks as I gripped my boots and raced down the stairs. They didn’t like it…didn’t like it one bit. Tension swirled in the air like a storm. I gripped the bannister at the foot of the stairs and yanked on one boot as the door opened to the lower apartment.
The kid was a damn ghost normally. Ace stepped out. I’d known him for the last few years when he moved into the apartment below. He kept to himself, quiet, painfully shy—but I felt the power he conjured late at night when I couldn’t sleep, and I’d heard the things that moved in his apartment. Things only a powerful sorcerer could control.
Butterflies followed this time. Monstrous things with wings like sheets that flapped in the air.
He stiffened when he sensed me, and then locked the door before he turned. “Lorn,” he acknowledged without lifting his head.
Power hummed around him, the kind of power that make you feel vulnerable. “Ace.”
He slipped past me with barely more than a sound, and it took me a second before I understood what was different. There was no hoodie…and no hiding, and somewhere in the last few months the kid had aged.
“Wait.” I yanked on my second boot and stumbled forward. “I need to ask you something.”
He stilled with his hand on the front door and then turned.
I glanced over my shoulder to the closed front door of my apartment and stepped closer. “Have you ever seen a beast that looks like a woman with a deer’s skull for a mask and shadows for eyes?”
He cocked his head and waited for a second before he spoke. “Night or day?”
I flinched. “Does it make a difference?”
Soft blonde hair moved as he nodded. “Yeah, it does.”
“Then night.”
“Sounds like you’ve got yourself a night hag,” he muttered and then turned toward the door before he stopped. “Careful with that one, Lorn. You don’t want to be messing with her on your own.”
> A night hag? The name swirled around in my head as Ace pushed through the door and was gone.
I knew that name. Somehow…somewhere. I shoved through the door after him and blinked into the hard midmorning glare. I tried to search my memory as I made for my car and caught movement at the corner of my eye.
Fuck off Satan’s Bitch! Was sprayed across one side of the restaurant. I glanced to the other. We’re watching you!
Mrs. Chang bent down and squeezed a paint-stained rag from the bucket and slapped the cloth to the words.
“What the fuck?” I growled and took a step.
She just lifted her head and stared at me, there was no anger, or hate—no pity or remorse—just a resignation that hit me harder than the filthy words ever could.
“Mrs. Chang, I’m so sorry.”
The cloth hit the water with a splash, and then she was gone, slipping through the front doors of the restaurant to disappear inside. The lock was punched through the door, hit by something much stronger than a damn crowbar.
I’d always had a good relationship with her, always bought a sense of safety to the building. I was a hunter for The Circle for fuck’s sake…
And a lie.
I tore my gaze from the mess and made for my car. Betty needed me. Yeah, that was it. I turned to glance back at the words. I’d been hit, bitten, I’d been spat on and screamed at…but this…this was an all-time fucking low.
A glare of white closed in as a van pulled up to the curb in front of me and parked. I stared at the sign on the rear, Harbor City Locksmiths, and winced. I’d pay for the damages, however much they were…it was only right.
I started my car with a heavy heart and shoved the gear into reverse. I thought staying here would be safer…I thought…Hell, I didn’t even know what I thought anymore.
The gears let out a grind as I shoved the motor into drive and then swung out onto the street. Sunday drivers were out in full force, and it took me a second to realize why everything felt unusually quiet—no paparazzi.