House of Slide Hybrid

by Juliann Whicker

  “I’m out of shape,” I said to Ash, wheezing a little bit as I struggled up the slope. Ash glanced at me then shook his head slightly.

  “Don’t fight it so much. You’re part of the land; it will guide you if you listen to it. It helps if you can stop thinking.”

  I sighed and tried to be Cool, but Aiden was getting away from me with Lewis, faster than I was in spite of the burden he carried. I slipped and Ash’s hand, reassuringly solid, grasped mine, where it stayed for the rest of the hike to the house.

  Aiden had left the small, crooked door open for us, but it took some getting to because there was no porch, and the door was in the center of the house where it faced the gorge and cliff face. There was jumping involved which Ash did with no problem, leaping lightly to the door like he was made of leaves. I clung to the rock face before I managed to take a deep breath and jumped, glad when Ash’s fingers curled around my wrist as he pulled me inside.

  The house was one room, but the details were intricate with wood fused to astonishing stonework. Aiden had already dumped Lewis on a stone slab on one side of the room that was surrounded by stone that arched above and around, carved into what looked like lace panels, a canopy above the bed. There were no windows at the front of the house, but light came shining through the stained glass that pierced the wooden part of roof, filling the room with a strange glow.

  “So, you’ll stay here until he gets better. Right. Well, you have fun.” Aiden gave me a long look with that crazy grin as he moved to leave the house.

  “Wait! You can’t just leave him here. What about his medicine? You said you’d help.”

  His grin continued as he put an abnormally large hand on my shoulder, a touch that I froze under it was so unexpected.

  “Don’t worry; I have no intention of letting Axel’s death rest on whatever’s left of my conscience. We’ll bring him back.” For a second I almost felt better but then he smirked before he turned and threw himself out the front door. I ran to peer out and barely had time to make out his figure below on the rock before he scrambled out of sight.

  “That is one unstable Hybrid,” Ash said thoughtfully. When I looked at him he was frowning around the room, like he was trying to figure out where they kept the toilet. I followed his gaze and noticed other things besides the stone bed, like a big copper tub, wires and tubes that came out of the ceiling in odd places, a stairs on the side opposite the bed that seemed to stop at the stone ceiling. There were odd pieces of clockwork and metal shoved in a corner which contrasted with the elegance and beauty of another stone wall that had been carved and latticed around stone table and chairs across from me.

  “This place feels Hollow,” I said. It was the combination of stained glass and stone floors plus something else undefined.

  He nodded like that went without saying then moved to examine pipes that hung from the ceiling over the tub. I went to Lewis, drawn to him as his soul called me. I frowned as I looked at the careless way that Aiden had dropped him with his arm at an awkward angle. I touched his silky skin while I straightened out his limbs, smoothing his shirt into place, covering the flash of stomach, scars that I found fascinating and bewildering. It was cold on the stone. I curled up beside him, willing my heat to soak into him along with my strength.

  Ash’s exclamation and the sound of rushing water made me sit up. Ash’s top half was soaked and he looked funny with the metal tube in one hand and his hair plastered to the side of his head. “So, I found water,” he said flatly.

  I laughed, I couldn’t help it, not when he looked so funny, but I felt bad about it almost immediately. It was too cold to be wet now that we weren’t getting sweaty hiking, although the house-cave was warmer than outside.

  “What can we do for fire?” I looked around, but I couldn’t tell what was what, although a metal pyramid seemed to have a box that led to the outside, so maybe that was a fire thing.

  “We can have a fire after it’s dark, when the smoke won’t be visible,” Ash said as he put the hose thing away and took off his shirt. I blinked, turning my head quickly from the sudden sight of so much pale skin. It was weird how guys could just be half naked and no one was supposed to notice it. I looked down at Lewis, at the skin I couldn’t ignore, darker on the outside of his arm changing to almost pale beneath his elbow. The veins seemed more visible to me as I stared at the skin, sensing the struggle as his heart pumped.

  When Aiden burst back in, I didn’t have time to do much more than raise up on my knees and put my body between him and Lewis, like I could protect him. Aiden ignored me, pushing me back down with his large hand before he moved to Lewis, grabbing him by the back of his neck so his head was dangling while he poured something down Lewis’s throat. Lewis gurgled, choked a bit before he swallowed. For a moment I held my breath, like the choking would wake him up, but he was as limp as ever when Aiden dropped him back to the stone slab.

  “Here,” he said, pushing a pack at me before he turned back to the door. “Should last you a few days. Medicine every four hours. The closer you guys are the sooner he’ll come back,” he said with his eyebrows raised suggestively. He grinned as he turned. “Have fun.”

  This time I didn’t follow him to the door to watch as he leapt to what should have been his death. Instead I opened the pack, glad to find blankets, a nondescript gray shirt and pants that didn’t do much to inspire me, and packages of freeze dried food. Yum. I started making a bed for Lewis, softening the stone before I asked Ash to help me move him. Ash had put on the shirt and was munching on a dry biscuit.

  “I haven’t eaten for a while,” he said apologetically, like I cared if he ate all the crackers. “You haven’t either.” His reminder got me away from Lewis to sit with Ash on the other side of the house, past the wooden section at the stone table. We experimented with different dishes using the water Ash had so cleverly discovered. The blueberries were the least vile, but they were still a mockery to actual food.

  “How long do you think we’ll be waiting for him to wake up?” I asked, picking apart freeze dried muffin.

  Ash shrugged but kept eating, apparently less interested in palatability than the joy of eating anything. I wished I could eat like that, but my stomach was too nervous to be hungry.

  “Do you think we should trust Aiden, or should we keep moving?”

  “You see us carrying Lewis down the cliff?”

  I sighed and shook my head. It was so frustrating. Aiden had us here in this weird place that seemed safe, but it all depended on him. I kept stealing glances at Lewis, unable to focus for any amount of time on anything besides the space he covered, so close to me.

  “I wasn’t going to see him again, you know? Every time I get close something bad happens to him, and it’s always my fault. That gets really old.” I got up and left the table, drawn back to Lewis. “When he’s awake I forget that he’s human; he seems like some immortal so completely powerful and unconquerable, and then I suck out his soul, or get him captured by a bloodworker or manipulated into my mother’s House, or…” I sat down beside him, smoothing the hair back from his face, lost in the delicate feel of eyelashes beneath my fingers. “Like this,” I finished, laying down then putting my head on his chest. “He might never wake up. His brain could already be gone, burned from the inside out. That’s what happens to Hotbloods who lose control, who don’t do sensible things to make sure they stay safe.” I closed my eyes tight and fought down the sob the choked up my throat.

  “He is doing something to you,” Ash said, in a voice that was curious but not emotionally attached. I turned my head to look at him, wondering where that came from. “Aiden is doing something to you, every time he touches you. Twice now he’s touched you, pushing at your barriers.”

  I stared at him as I thought of Aiden’s large hands touching me so casually. Most people didn’t touch me, not with Devlin’s ever present ‘no touching’ imprint.

  “What would Aiden be doing to me?” There was an edge to my voice. What would Aide
n not do, but what could he do? I didn’t like that question either. There were too many possibilities that I didn’t even know about.

  Ash frowned, like he’d just remembered that he wasn’t supposed to say something. “The blood bond,” he mumbled. “I think Aiden’s trying to take down the blocks your dad put on you.”

  I blinked twice, slowly as the words sank in. “Why would he do that?”

  “Well, the blood bond that you almost have with Lewis is really strong. Your dad blocked the bond from affecting you, how you feel and think, but without that, you’d feel like he feels.”

  “Why would Aiden want me to finish the bond with Lewis?” But the first time I’d seen Aiden, he’d sent me into Lewis’s rushing arms, where Lewis had ended up cutting open his veins.

  “Don’t ask me. I’m just the Cool guy who barely started noticing things again. It’s probably for the best anyway. I’m sure your dad meant well, but what he did to you isn’t healthy. I wasn’t going to say anything, but leaning like that can really mess people up psychologically and emotionally. It can lead to self-leaning, which is incredibly addictive and dangerous, for yourself and others.”

  “So, Aiden is trying to help me from the dangers of having my emotions leaned away from me?”

  Ash shook his head. “He must want the two of you together. We’re here in this cozy little place, with a toilet instead of a tent in the middle of a smelly camp, because he has some play in your dynamic,” he said gesturing to me and Lewis. “He’d get rid of me if he could, well, he’ll probably still try so that you two can be alone. If you’re alone when the blocks go, you’ll be so overwhelmed you won’t even know what you’re doing. There’s a knife in that pack, right? You wouldn’t even have to use your teeth.”

  He smiled and he’d said everything lightly, like he was mostly kidding, but he wasn’t, not when I could feel the change, slight maybe, in the way Lewis pulled at me. There was only one positive I could think of in all of this.

  “So, Aiden thinks that Lewis will recover?” I said it carefully, slowly, like if I said the words right they would come true.

  Ash shrugged. “I guess so. I’m not sure how to keep him from messing with you, Dari. Maybe you can electrocute him or something.”

  “Electrocute him?”

  “Didn’t you do that in the movie theater? You’ve always messed up electricity, isn’t that your Wild gift?”

  I exhaled and wrapped my hands around my waist to keep me from wrapping them around Lewis.

  “I don’t really know. I’m still working on containing it. I really have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “You’ll learn quickly,” Ash said confident in my ability.

  I nodded, but the importance of figuring out my Wild gifts diminished the longer Lewis stayed unconscious. What if he never came back? What if this was the last chance I’d have to see him? I laid back down beside Lewis, feeling slightly better as I let his presence soak into me. I pressed against his side, wanting to be closer to him. At least Aiden thought that Lewis would survive. I’d thought that he looked better, a little less pale.

  “So, if you’re not into doing the bond thing right now, you might want to stop the physical contact stuff,” Ash said then exhaled, like it had been really hard to say.

  It was a horrible thing to hear, particularly when I was getting used to touching his face, hair, skin. There had to be a good reason that I didn’t have to move away from Lewis. “Aiden said that it would help him get better faster. Maybe we should complete the bond now. Maybe that’s what Lewis needs to help him recover,” I said feeling a surge of hope fill my chest.

  “Blood loss isn’t what he needs,” Ash said firmly. “Besides that, bonding takes energy. I really don’t think he has a lot extra right now. Besides, with the treatment…It’s none of my business,” he added sounding embarrassed.

  I sighed as I sat up, feeling lost and pathetic the second I lost physical contact with Lewis. Ash was right, because I felt like I was trying to pull my own skin off my bones as I moved away from Lewis—not how I should feel however desperately I wanted to stay with him. Whatever Aiden was doing was not what I wanted, not when he was the psycho Hybrid I could never trust, even when I did.

  I asked, “So, what do we do?”

  Chapter 16

  At first you couldn’t even see the camp below. In spite of the still bare branches I could barely make out anything between the gray of the trees, the gray of the mud, and the gray of the clothes and tents of the Hybrids tucked beneath. Ash and I were practicing blocking, learning how to use my Cool gifts so that I was more than a key piece in a game other people played.

  My first impulse had been to let Aiden remove the blocks and deal with the reality of whatever I’d done to Lewis without his consent—consequences that he had to deal with all the time. After that, common sense kicked in. I’d like to say that I’m as experienced with self-control as Lewis was, but I’d seen that all consuming beast his soul had become, and it didn’t seem very likely that I’d stay on top of it for more than a few seconds at best. I could still remember the Nether bloodlust, the way craving filled up your throat and made everything else secondary. I wouldn’t be capable of coherent thought, I would either fight the craving and run away, or I would give in. There would be no internal debate, no weighing of options.

  I didn’t need to do another rash, stupid thing that would put Lewis at risk, so instead of being tempted by his silky hair and astonishing golden tipped lashes, I crouched behind a rock with Ash, watching people go by. Not really people because we watched their energy imprint instead of themselves.

  “Can you see Aiden?” Ash asked, pointing to the edge of camp, at least the end of where we could see over our cliff. Heights didn’t seem to bother Ash, and I knew that there was probably some remnant of Stephen’s gifts with birds and gliding, but I didn’t have any wings handy. I shook my head no while I forced myself to focus on the soul, to see the sparks of soul that no color could camouflage. I blinked when I saw Aiden, so bright for a moment before fading, from crimson to silver then both at the same time. I exhaled while I anchored myself more firmly to my rock before I tried again. I already knew Aiden was unstable, but seeing it like that wasn’t what I expected. Lewis wasn’t like that, two things combined, instead he was dark red with a blacker than black core, always burning, without being entirely consumed.

  We sat and blocked so people couldn’t see us, commenting every once in awhile at the different types we saw. The Hybrid camp had a few hundred people, souls that flickered wildly but from this distance, it didn’t seem like very many to fight the kind of creature Lewis had burned out destroying. It seemed impossible that Lewis would have fallen to only one monster. They seemed so vulnerable down below, and I wondered what chance they really had standing up against anything, particularly if Wilds wouldn’t let them train. I had this feeling that I should be one of them, down there, learning to fight even though the odds were so high against us. The demon man had found me. Why? I had no way of knowing unless Lewis knew, but I couldn’t exactly ask him.

  “Let’s get back,” Ash said as he stood and stretched. “It’s been almost four hours.”

  I turned and followed him, watching where he put his feet so I could copy him. It wasn’t as hard as before, either because I was used to rocky terrain or I was getting in tune with my Cool side.

  “Ash,” I said as I followed him to the stone door beneath the overhang that led down the stairs to the house. “What chance do any of them have if Lewis was destroyed by only one demon man?”

  He stood in front of what looked like any other stone waiting for me. “That wasn’t some random demon guy Dari. I saw him, or a memory from Lewis, and that demon man was something ancient and dark, something that only Lewis could have killed that fast before the thing touched you. There aren’t very many demon men, more shadows and hosts than actual demons who coexist with men.” He frowned then shrugged.

  I shivered as I stepped beside the ro
ck, suddenly desperate to see Lewis, to make certain that something hadn’t happened while I’d been with Ash, cloaking and blocking.

  When I ducked through the door and descended the steps, I felt Lewis filling up the space of the small house, pulling me closer, promising warmth and safety, completeness.

  I frowned as I stood at the bottom of the stairs, unsure if I went any closer I’d be able to tear myself away.

  “It’s getting worse,” I told Ash, who looked at me before he went and ripped open a package of the herbs, stirring the contents into the cup of water then urging it down Lewis’s throat. I forced myself to look away, to study the carving in the stone, to see the crisscrossing pattern of leaves that looked more like a net the longer I stared at it. I sat at the table, shivering slightly as the cold of the stone seeped through my clothes. The light hoodie was not enough to keep me warm. I worried about Lewis, about his flesh becoming cold as stone.

  As it got darker and colder, Ash started a fire in the pyramid stove. I watched him, good, reliable Ash who a few days ago had been barely a shadow but now moved with purpose that I lacked as he slowly fed larger pieces of kindling to the flames. I turned my head, unable to not look at Lewis where he lay.

  As I watched he moaned then rolled over, flinging his hand over his head. I stood up, moving towards him without the slightest idea what I could do. I touched him, unable to stop the fingers that curled around his cold wrists, sliding up his arms to his shoulders where sudden heat flared up, centered in his heart and head. I pulled my fingers from the heat, knowing that they would burn if I touched that skin. I remembered something about cold cloths on foreheads and left him so that I could dip Ash’s still wet shirt in fresh water before I sat beside Lewis, careful not to touch him as I put the cloth over his head. Steam filled the air so I resoaked the shirt, bringing it back to cool his forehead, then when it stopped steaming I cooled his face and neck. It was seductively simple to brush his skin with the wet fabric, something that satisfied my need to do something for him.