Scintillate

by Tracy Clark

  I managed to break the kiss and speak. “G—Giovanni, are you okay?”

  His unfocused eyes rested on my mouth like he was trying to translate the sounds I’d made. The blood on his lip was bright and new again. I could taste it. Ever so slowly, his eyes ventured up to meet mine. There was recognition there, but confusion as well.

  “Sleep now,” I commanded. I sounded much more in control than I felt. I was stirred but invigorated, which seemed strange considering how much energy I had given him. His grip on my hands released as he rolled off me, burying his face into my pillow. His eyes closed, his breathing slowed, his silver aura fired to life like a match around his entire body.

  I lay on the bed, staring at the canopy overhead. My chugging heart lost momentum one pounding beat at a time. I closed my eyes, lulled to sleep by the sound of Giovanni’s breathing next to me. So glad he was alive. I didn’t have any power in my situation, but I’d had the power to save him.

  A strong arm wound over my waist, and my eyes flew open. The room had morphed into the inky blue of twilight. The only light was from the wood-burning stove glowing in the corner.

  Giovanni’s hand was tucked beneath my hip. With a commanding tug, he pulled my body against his. He curled around me like warm air, nestling his face into the back of my neck. I should move, I thought, lift his heavy arm from over my body and wiggle away from him. Sleep on the floor, or with Gráinne. But I didn’t want to. I pressed myself for an explanation, and my internal answer, my truth, was I liked the security of his arm over me. I liked being less alone.

  Forty-Seven

  “C

  ora.”

  A voice reached to me in my dreams, calling me out of them. It made my chest ache. I wanted to cover my ears.

  “Cora,” it said again, more insistent this time.

  My eyes fluttered open. It was still night. An eye of inky light stared down on me through the skylight. I glanced around. Giovanni still slept against my back. Our hands were laced together, resting against my chest.

  I noticed movement in the little sliding opening on the free side of the arched wooden door. I flicked on the lamp next to the bed. Finn’s coppery eyes gaped at me, beautiful. Tortured.

  I sat up, letting Giovanni’s arm fall away. Finn and I stared at each other as I rose to my feet.

  “You’re sleeping together.” It wasn’t a question. There was hurt and accusation in his eyes.

  “Sleeping. Yes,” I answered in a hollow voice. “That’s the first thing you have to say to me?” It killed me to see him again. My heartache and my fury coalesced into a thunderous storm. “Like you have claim? What do you care? I’m locked in here forever because of you! What’d you expect when you people brought him here half-dead and put him in my bed?” I hadn’t realized I was moving toward him until we were face-to-face. I slapped my palms against the door. “How could you do this? How could you be this?”

  His fingers clutched the wood around the opening, then flexed as if he were going to try to reach inside and touch my face. But, of course, Finn could reach me, into me, and steal my very breath. I backed quickly away, and he gave me an injured look.

  “I can’t help what I am. I hate what I am.”

  I fought the pity rising in me at the anguish hollowing his cheeks. He looked awful.

  “And I didn’t bring him here,” he added softly with a nod toward Giovanni.

  “Right. Like you didn’t bring me here. Clancy told me all about it. What do you want, Finn?” I wanted to rip the door off its freaking hinges, pin him to the wall by his neck, and show him what it felt like to have the life squeezed out of him. I liked this anger in me. I stalked toward him again and wrapped my fingers over his on the wood, ignoring the stab of pain it caused me to touch him. “You want more of me? Hmmm?” I asked in a coquettish voice laced with spite. “Like you didn’t take enough when you almost killed me?”

  “Cora, you have to listen to me. I didn’t know what I was doing.” His head dropped. I could only see the top of his dark spiked hair as he looked down at his feet.

  “Coward. Look me in the eyes!” I demanded through teary sobs. But when he looked up at me with such anguish, I regretted it. It would be so much easier to hate him if he showed the unapologetic malice that Clancy did. Finn was suffering. Maybe guilt had worn him down. I hoped so. If something ate away at his soul, maybe then he’d know how I felt.

  “My parents told me they were Arrazi. They told me I’d likely come into it at any time. It was all so absurd. I was stupid to think it’d pass over me. Cora, I didn’t know what you were. You were just a girl. An amazing girl. I fell in love. But I left California because I became afraid. I worried something was changing inside of me.” His voice had lost its edge. It was soft. Pained. I saw dark rims around his grief-stricken eyes. Even his full lips had lost their ripeness. “I was terrified I’d hurt you.”

  “Convince my head, Finn. Because my heart will never believe in you again.”

  He took a deep, labored breath. His fingers clutched the little window as if it were a life preserver. “I didn’t know what was happening that night we kissed at your house. I felt so much. Felt so good. It was the most intense sensation I’ve ever had in my goddamn life.”

  I recalled that night. I remembered sending him love, intentionally giving him my energy because he was everything in the universe at that moment. He had looked so dazed and love-stoned afterward, I’d thought he’d been drinking.

  His voice was soft. “I was overwhelmed by it. I was being flooded with love…with you. You were everything in the universe at that moment.”

  I gasped at his choice of words.

  “You were everything he needed to stay alive,” Giovanni slurred from behind me. I turned to see him sitting on the bed. His eyes were half-open. His arms shook to hold himself up. “He needs you like he needs air to breathe. Food to eat. Don’t confuse that with love, Cora.”

  Giovanni’s words stung, and I hated him for saying them, even if they were the truth.

  “I knew you were dangerous,” Giovanni said to Finn in his thick Italian accent. “Your aura was normal, but I tuned in to energy from you that I’ve only felt once before.” He gestured to me. “From the killer in the pub. The man with the white aura. I tried to warn you. I told you that you were not safe with him.”

  “You did,” I whispered, looking at the floor. “I didn’t want to hear.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Cora. He can’t say I’m incapable of love. You’re still everything, and I will never hurt you again. I swear it.” A tear dropped onto his cheek.

  My own tears fell as well. “Giovanni’s right. If you didn’t want to hurt me, you’d have watched me walk away from the stage the other day. You couldn’t help but want to be near me.” I searched for the precise way to say it and found the only words that rang true. “It wasn’t love.”

  “Of course I want to be near you, but because I love you, not because you’re Scintilla. Fate put you back in my path, and I was foolish enough to believe that there was a reason for that, that it meant we were supposed to be together.”

  We stared at each other, broken. I’d believed that, too.

  Ina’s voice slipped into the room from the dark hallway. “I never should have let Finn go to America. He was too close to converting, but my brother convinced me he would be okay. Now I know he used Finn to get to you. They’d been watching you to see if you could possibly be Scintilla.”

  This was more smoke and mirrors. I wouldn’t be played. “Your uncle said he was proud of you for luring me, Finn. Are you proud, Mrs. Doyle?”

  “There’s no choice for us. We were born like this. It’s take from another or die,” Ina answered in a weary voice. “But we’re not all like my brother. I hate what we are forced to do. I didn’t want Finn to change. I forbade him to date so he’d not form a strong emotional connection to someone, which often incites the change. I made him wear the crystal bracelet to block people’s energy, hoping against hope to
stall the inevitable. I was trying to protect him. But he met you. He fell in love with a damned Scintilla of all things! His love for you changed him.”

  Giovanni sighed in disgust. “Now you blame Cora for making him into the monster he was born to be? It’s like blaming the sun for shining. Why have children at all if you are so concerned about what you are? Arrazi do not love Scintilla. You use them up. Destroy them.”

  “We didn’t believe any more of you existed.”

  “Shut up,” I said to her. “We’re locked up in this prison like pets so you people can live off us. You get to keep me here forever, and I’m supposed to care that Finn’s life was changed? My life is over!” I cried. Just seeing Finn had released a flood of emotions. I couldn’t take being on the opposite side of this locked door, knowing he was free and I wasn’t. I sat down on the bed next to Giovanni and sobbed. His arm curled around my shoulder.

  The other door opened, and Gráinne peeked out cautiously like a little girl. Ina and Gráinne stared at each other a moment. Something flickered in Ina’s sharp eyes. “Your biggest secret is your child,” Ina whispered. I understood. Gráinne hadn’t wanted them to find me. Ever. But how on earth could Ina know that?

  “I have no child,” Gráinne said, robotically.

  Then Ina turned to Giovanni. They stared boldly at each other. She smiled with an edge to it. “And you have the nerve to accuse me of using the Scintilla,” she said to him after a moment. “When are you going to tell Cora the truth?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I looked from Ina to Giovanni, but they were locked in a silent, epic battle.

  Ina’s mouth opened to speak, but Finn interrupted. “I’m getting you out of here,” he said with determined eyes.

  It took all my courage to believe he told the truth. “What? If you can get me out of here, why the hell have we been standing here talking?”

  “I needed you to hear the truth from me.” A sheen of sweat covered his brow. He touched his chest over his heart. “If you leave here with that, then maybe I can forgive myself.”

  “How do you know the code?” I asked. “If you didn’t know I was being held prisoner, how’d you get in here?”

  Finn swallowed hard before he spoke. “My ability to help you came from you. The Arrazi get their sortilege, their abilities, from Scintilla. It started with you.”

  “I know that,” I snapped, remembering what Clancy had told me. “So what, now you’re going to tell me you have some super-special ESP power?”

  “My sortilege is…truth,” Finn said. “People can’t help but reveal the truth to me.”

  “Truth?” I asked, my voice spiked with incredulity. “That’s a power?”

  It wasn’t leaping tall buildings, stopping bullets with bare hands, or even reading minds like I once thought he could do. I had once thought a force outside of myself was compelling me to act boldly in Finn’s presence, to grab his shirt or pin him against a tree when we kissed. But it was my own force. My truth. And now I knew why. Every hit of energy I willingly gave him, or that he took, provided him the ability to coax the truth from me.

  “You were able to keep one secret, though,” Finn said, his tone laced with irony. “I didn’t tell you the truth about me, but you didn’t tell the truth about yourself, either. My da told me that you knew you were a Scintilla and kept it from me.”

  “I didn’t know what I was until I came here, until I met Giovanni.”

  But Finn was right, I didn’t tell him about seeing auras or about Griffin killing by taking auras. I’d fought hard to keep my biggest secret. “I guess neither of us trusted the other with the truth.”

  I said it to hurt him. I said it because it hurt that he didn’t trust me. I kept my secrets to protect Finn. But I was also scared of what he’d think. Maybe I kept my secrets to protect myself, too.

  Finn continued. “Clancy carried you out of the room, and when I came to my senses I wanted to talk to you, to try to explain, but you never answered your cell. I redialed Mari and Dun, and they hadn’t heard from you, either. That’s when we realized he never took you to the airport. We couldn’t find Clancy at all, and when my uncle finally came to the house earlier tonight, I confronted him, asked him where he took you. He confessed.” Finn gulped a breath, like the effort to explain had been too much for him. “My father drugged him. He’s out cold right now in our wine cellar.”

  “What about Griffin?” I asked. “Does anyone know where he is? He could show up here any second.”

  Finn looked astonished. “Griffin’s in on this, too?”

  “Hell yes, he is. And you?” I pointed to Ina. “You took from me in my sleep. Exactly what power did you get out of it?”

  Finn’s head whipped around to face his mother. “You didn’t!” he snarled.

  Ina nodded, looking duly shamed. “I didn’t know what Cora was, only that I was intoxicated by her energy. Now, I can see the darkest secret inside of you, inside everyone. Every time I look into someone’s eyes, I fall into a hole, seeing the one thing they want most to hide at that moment. It’s how I knew you had run away. It’s how I knew tonight what Clancy was hiding out here in the forest. I knew it the moment I looked into my brother’s eyes.”

  Finn’s hands slipped from the door. He seemed to stumble to the ground because he disappeared from our sight. Ina shrieked and dropped down, too.

  I started to jump to my feet, but Giovanni squeezed me tighter, holding me against his side. “Don’t let them separate us,” he whispered in my ear. “We are stronger if we are together.” His blue eyes were scared and a bit wild. Trapped-animal wild. My mind flashed back to our kiss. I flushed and wondered if he remembered.

  I looked from him to Gráinne, who was wringing the hem of her skirt and pacing. We were caged together. We should be free together. I squeezed his hand. “I promise I won’t leave either of you here.”

  I ran to the door and peered through the opening. Finn lay crumpled on the floor, his arms clutched around himself, his knees up to his chin. His teeth rattled like he was freezing cold. His aura reminded me of little Max. Close to his body. Smudgy. Gray. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Ina crouched over Finn and smoothed his face tenderly, motherly. She looked over her shoulder at me, her face awash with tears and grief. “He refuses to nourish. Our need is much greater at first, until we learn to conserve energy—and he didn’t take you to the death. The fact that you’re a Scintilla is the only reason he’s lasted these past couple of days. He’ll die if he doesn’t nourish soon.”

  “Christo!” Giovanni cursed. “You say nourishment like he’s a baby at the breast! Who cares if he dies? It’ll save hundreds of lives if he does!”

  I swallowed hard. I care. I care if he dies. I turned to Giovanni. “If we didn’t care, we’d be just like them.” I pressed against the door. “Can he take from someone without killing them? Just to get his strength back? Can he take from you?” I asked Ina. “You’re his mother.”

  “No. An Arrazi cannot take from another Arrazi. But you can save him.” Her eyes pleaded.

  “I’d rather die,” Finn groaned. He pushed himself to a sitting position. “Open the door, Mother. Get them out of here. Now!”

  Ina jumped when he rattled off a string of numbers. She went hurriedly to the wall and typed the numbers on the security keypad. My hands curled tighter with every beep, but a commotion at the end of the hallway caught her attention before she finished. Her fingers poised over the pad.

  “Open it! Hurry!” Finn growled and fell back again, writhing in apparent pain.

  Footsteps echoed down the hall as Ina punched in the rest of the code. I couldn’t yet see who approached. Finn’s eyes were glued to the hallway. I watched his face for reaction. He met my gaze. I bounced on my feet, panicked.

  The door sprang open. Two men rushed through. Finn’s father…and…

  And mine.

  I jumped into my father’s arms. He held me tightly and planted kisses in my hair. Our bodies s
hook together with sobs. My daddy was here. He’d get me out safely. Take me home. I clung tightly to him, but someone dragged at my back, tugging me away from my rock.

  “Don’t touch her!” Gráinne shrieked, nearly choking me by yanking on my shirt. “Let her go!” She pulled with more strength than I thought her capable of, and out of control, like someone drowning.

  Reluctantly, I let go of my father. Poor thing. I turned to explain who he was but stopped short. Gráinne’s face was drained of all color, and she hadn’t had much color to begin with. She wasn’t looking at me but over my shoulder, at my father. Her birdlike hand covered her heart. A dried-leaf of a whisper escaped her lips. “B-Benito?”

  Forty-Eight

  M

  y father clutched my hand as he moved toward Gráinne. But when he reached her, his grasp slipped softly from mine. Her delicate face nestled in his hands like a heart made of snow. “Grace?”

  I blinked tears. Everything fell away, leaving nothing but my parents standing in front of me, staring in awe. I was blinded by the intense light of them, the heartbreaking beauty of two lost souls finding each other again. It was like watching a supernova reassemble itself.

  I wept where I stood.

  Then my father reached for my hand again, reminding me that the last piece was me.

  I fell into their embrace. We huddled and gripped each other tightly. Gráinne looked at me as if for the first time. Now she knew.

  “We need to go,” someone whispered urgently. “Quickly.” We broke apart, but more whole than ever, and started for the door.

  Fergus helped Giovanni up from the bed and threw his arm under his shoulders to support him. I hadn’t realized Giovanni was too weak still to walk on his own. Clearly he didn’t like being aided by someone he considered an enemy because he was trying in vain to pull away.

  “You want to be stubborn or you want to be free?” I snapped.

  The five of us spilled into the hallway where Finn still crouched on the floor against the wall. His mother had propped him up against the dark slate. His head rested on his arms over his knees. I stopped and stared, unsure what to do.