Seth chuckled audibly, his voice echoing through the neighborhood. “Never trust Adara!”
“What are you doing here?” Tray sighed exasperatedly. “I’m studying. You know we have a test on Monday.”
“Yes, because third grade is soooo important!” Adara jeered, causing Seth to giggle. She opened her mouth to continue, but before she could, the sound of bikes filled the air, and she whipped around to see Kiki Belven and her gang riding down the street on their sparkly pink bicycles.
Kiki’s blonde hair flowed behind her in the wind, and her black leather jacket seemed to gleam even on this cloudy day. Her four girl friends were all similarly glamorous, but Kiki was the clear leader, riding in front and halting the rest when she stopped her bike at the Starks’ driveway.
“Oh, look! It’s Poor-dara!” young Kiki derided, evoking snickers from her posse. “Where’d you get that outfit, huh—the dumpster?”
Adara’s hands clenched into fists, but her mouth remained shut.
“Don’t make fun of Adara!” Seth shouted from his window.
Kiki’s blue eyes rolled, and she ignored his commands. “Are you begging the Starks for money? If they’re charitable enough to give you any, you should buy your brother some new clothes first. You’ll always be ugly, but he might actually be cute if he wasn’t wearing rags.” She smirked and winked at Avner before kicking off the ground and pedaling away, the other girls following closely behind her.
Having been called “cute” by a little girl brought a queasy look to Avner’s face, and he seemed unable to muster any words as all three boys glanced at Adara. Her teeth ground as she glowered at the Starks’ green grass.
“Don’t listen to her,” Seth called down sympathetically. “She’s just a bully. She doesn’t know what you’ve been through.”
“I’m fine,” Adara barked, refusing to look at him as she focused on his twin. “Ready for your surprise?”
“No,” Tray said blandly, but she pretended he hadn’t said anything as she stepped to the side, revealing the words she’d written, nearly illegibly, in chalk on his driveway: NERDWORM LIVES HERE.
“You’re the only person I know who studies on a Saturday, so I’ve come up with a new nickname for you.”
Tray grimaced as he struggled to read her handwriting. “Nerdworm?”
Her lips curled cleverly. “Nerdworm.”
Adara beat her fist on the Starks’ bright red front door incessantly, each hit more violent than the last. It wasn’t often that her anger triggered tears, but her eyes felt fuzzy, and she had to swallow the ache in her throat when Seth finally threw the door open.
He was nearly thirteen now, and his height had increased, along with the breadth of his shoulders. Although he wasn’t necessarily muscular yet, he wasn’t a gangly, awkward middle-schooler like his twin, who was studying in the living room beyond, oblivious to Adara’s arrival. Seth, she had noticed about a year ago, was becoming a good-looking guy and someone their peers respected, if not for his looks then for his touchdown record. Still, when she showed up at his doorstep, wretched and enraged, worry consumed his face.
“Adara? What’s—”
“He left,” she said, her voice shaking with fury rather than despair. A ratty old backpack was slung over her shoulders, and her hands formed tight balls as her fingernails dug into her palms. “He left me.”
“Wh-who left?”
“Avner. He’s gone. He’s missing—”
“What do you mean?” Seth questioned, taking a step closer to her as anxiety crept into his expression. “Did you—Have you called the police?”
“Yes, I called those good-for-nothing assholes,” she snapped, staring at the doorbell as she spoke. “They didn’t care, obviously. They said they knew where Avner went and that he was never coming back. He abandoned me.”
A cry had risen in her voice, and she quickly coughed to quell it. Seth appeared uneasy now, gazing down at her with a confused sort of compassion.
“Are you sure? Are you sure nothing happened to him?”
“Yes. We got into an argument last night. He said he was sick of me never doing my homework—said I had a bad attitude—and then he stormed out and didn’t come back. I confirmed it with my dumbass foster parents. They said he’s gone to live somewhere else and he’s never coming back. He left me with them, and they just let him go—”
“It’s—It’ll be okay—”
“No, it won’t!” she exclaimed, finally drawing Tray’s attention away from his books. He sat on the couch, silently bewildered, as she exploded. “Nothing will be okay, Seth! Avner was my only family and now he’s gone forever because he didn’t like my attitude. He’s a selfish pansy-prat and now—and now I’m stuck with these people and their God-awful babies that cry and cry and cry and I’m going to murder someone—”
“Adara,” Seth interrupted, putting his hands lightly on her arms in such a gentle way that her rant came to an immediate halt. She was panting quietly now, her eyes searching his as she willed herself not to burst into a pathetic fit of sobs. “It’s gonna be okay. You…you don’t have to stay with your foster family if you don’t want to. I’ll talk to Mom and Dad—they’ll let you stay here. It’ll be okay.”
And then, even though Adara wanted to punch a wall or kick someone in the groin, she allowed Seth to envelop her in a calming hug—one that alleviated the pent-up pain and aggression she had been inundated with for so many years. Of course, having heard there was a possibility that Adara Stromer would be moving in with them, Tray watched their embrace from the living room in wide-eyed horror. Upon seeing his expression over his brother’s shoulder, Adara felt nearly as delighted with Tray’s apprehension as she did with Seth’s affection.
“Where’s Seth?” Adara asked as she flung her backpack onto the Starks’ living room sectional. It hit Tray, who spluttered as he looked up from his textbook.
Like Adara, he was fourteen years old, his face devoid of any childish plumpness, and his body thin and more mature under the red sweater he wore. Behind him, snow flurried outside the window, bringing whiteness to their dreary neighborhood. Despite the frigid weather, Adara had entered the house wearing only a thin, black, long-sleeved shirt and her classic ripped jeans. Her hair was in a lazy bun at the top of her head that bounced as she plopped down onto the couch as far from Tray as possible.
“He’s out working on that project with his partner,” he informed her as he shoved her backpack on the floor and repositioned his books. She barely noticed, since she was too busy searching the creases of the couch for the television remote.
“What project?”
“The project we were assigned to be partners for.” Adara glanced at him with raised eyebrows, and he added rather tiredly, “Don’t worry, I’ve already finished it by myself.”
“I wasn’t worried,” she assured him as she finally fished the remote out of the cushions. “So, who’s Seth’s partner?”
“Kiki,” Tray said, and she dropped the remote along with her jaw.
“Kiki Belven? As in, the Kiki who’s bullied me since kindergarten? The Kiki who pulls my hair and makes fun of me every time I pass her in the hallway? The Kiki I wish I could stab?”
“Yes, the only Kiki we know,” he confirmed with a weary exhale. “You don’t have to worry about that, either—Seth didn’t seem pleased he had to go to her house to work on the project.”
“Of course not. He hates school almost as much as I do,” Adara scoffed as she bent down to pick up the remote, “and he hates Kiki as much as we do, so obviously—”
The front door of the Starks’ house swung open, admitting fourteen-year-old Seth, whose brown hair and blue sweatshirt were both dusted with thick flakes of snow. He shook out the wetness like a dog and then dropped his backpack and kicked the door with barely enough force to close it. When he turned to face them, his lips were parted and his blue eyes were dazed.
“Did Kiki give you drugs?” Adara snorted with mild amusement.
“No, she gave me something better,” Seth said as he stumbled into the living room. “She gave me a kiss.”
Choking, Adara hurled the remote across the room; the sound it made as it skidded across the wooden floor was overpowered by the slamming of Tray’s textbook.
“Excuse me?” he said, standing to confront his love-drunk twin. They were both the same height, but already Seth’s muscle mass exceeded Tray’s, making Seth seem older and more intimidating than his scrawny twin. Now, though, in his dream-like state, Seth posed no threat to his infuriated brother.
“You’re screwing with us,” Adara decided, her tone sharp and harsh as she jumped up from the couch. “You are screwing with us.”
“Not screwing with you,” Seth said, shaking his head as he stared at nothing. “I would screw Kiki, though, if I could. The good kinda screw, I mean…”
Adara emitted a shrieking groan that snapped Seth out of his stupor and caused Tray to take a cautious step backward. “You traitor!” she bellowed, raising her voice at him for the first time ever. “You know how cruel she is! You’ve seen it—”
“Oh, c’mon, Dar. She’s not that bad. She was really nice to me today—made me some cupcakes, gave me a massage, kissed me a little…”
“No, no, I do not want to hear it!” Adara exclaimed. Even at that age, she felt the unnatural hotness rise in her chest whenever anger blossomed. “If you’re going to casually hook up with Kiki Belven, I’m moving out. It’s bad enough living with Tray, but I could never stand to live with a being vile enough to get with that ho.”
Tray looked at his brother now with keen interest. “You know, I never thought I’d condone this, but I think you should casually hook up with Kiki Belven.”
Adara shot him a deathly glare that caused him to recoil onto the couch. When her attention fixed back on the other twin, he was postured as blithely as ever.
“I’m not going to casually hook up with Kiki Belven, Dar—don’t worry,” he reassured her with a dismissive wave. “Nah, I’m not that shallow. I already asked her to be my girlfriend, of course. It’s not a casual hook up if we’re officially dating.”
“We have a biology test on Monday and a Spanish vocab quiz on Tuesday—we can do flash cards together—”
“Nope,” Adara injected as she slammed her navy blue school locker shut. Tray leaned on one of the other lockers, a small pile of books in his arms and a disgruntled expression on his face.
They were in their high school’s hallway, a place full of chatting and laughter and teenagers who actually enjoyed this gruesome part of life. Adara thought it was gruesome, at least. Every time a cheerleader passed, she would conspicuously roll her eyes, and the existence of Seth’s group of friends—the football players—was the reason she’d punched a dent in her locker and broken her fingers earlier this school year.
The only thing worse than the “footdouches,” as Adara called them, was Kiki and her clique. Arguably less tolerable than the cheerleaders, she and her followers paraded around the school like they ruled the place, littering their coffee cups through the corridors and pushing anyone less popular aside with sneering disgust. Kiki, as a freshman, had somehow gained favor with the popular seniors and practically owned them all. In Adara’s eyes, she would always be that annoying little girl on her glittery bike, but to everyone in high school, she was a queen, and to Seth, she was a goddess.
“You have to pass this Spanish quiz, Adara,” Tray said, grunting only slightly when a random kid accidentally bumped him with a guitar case. Adara scowled after the perpetrator before addressing Tray again.
“I don’t have to do anything, Nerdworm—except maybe bury Kiki alive. That is still on my bucket list, if you were wondering.”
“Speaking of the she-devil,” Tray muttered, glancing over Adara’s shoulder down the swarming hallway. She didn’t bother to turn her head and kept her vision trained on Tray, hoping that maybe Kiki and her squad would saunter by them without comment.
“I thought I was the she-devil?” Adara asked, her lips twitching with nervous amusement.
“You’re the she-devil of lazy, annoying, bum hell. She’s the she-devil of glittery, evil, slut hell.”
“Wow, Nerdworm, that was probably the nastiest comment you’ve ever made—”
“It’s Poor-dara and the nerd!” Kiki derided from farther down the hall, having noticed them among the sea of students—somehow, she always did. “What kind of drab rags are you wearing today, Adara? Ugh. Every time I look at you, you get disgustinger.”
“She really does,” one of her friends agreed, a junior girl whose name Adara didn’t even know. When she finally turned to face the horde of them, her lips pressed together as she swallowed her ire. Her stomach knotted at the sight of Seth, who stood among them, laughing with some of his jock friends. It was rare that Kiki attacked Adara and Tray while Seth was present, but as always, the popular Stark twin was somehow oblivious to it.
“Stop clogging up the hallways with your fatness,” Kiki ordered, sticking her nose up haughtily, “and you, Seth’s ugly twin, stop infecting us all with your Nerd Pox.”
“That’s not a thing,” Tray murmured, but only Adara heard it, since the rest of Kiki’s gang snickered with such great volume.
Seth, at this point, had noticed Kiki mocking his brother and best friend, but as they began to walk away, the blonde yanking Adara’s hair as she went, the boy only gave them an apologetic wince, rather than defending them. When Adara was younger, the reason she’d never fought back was because she was secretly afraid. Now, though, Seth was one of the only reasons she didn’t openly retaliate against Kiki—and he didn’t even care that she was constantly ridiculed. It was only her infatuated blindness that prevented Tray from becoming her favorite Stark twin.
Every bit of Adara’s past flashed before her eyes as the knowledge transferred to Aethelred’s mind, a process that took only seconds but seemed like an eternity. She felt as if she were drifting into nothingness as her memories played in her consciousness like a movie, yet there was no mental, emotional, or physical pain involved until the very end, when she was brought back to the earliest years of her childhood that she didn’t remember.
She was small enough that her legs dangled off the edge of the chair she sat upon, but the memory was so hazy that she couldn’t see anything but a blur of darkness. Faint voices rose up around her—familiar voices she couldn’t quite pinpoint—and then there was a child’s scream—Avner’s scream. In response, she shrieked, crying the tears of a child. And then, as Avner’s shouts subsided, she was bombarded by a scorching sensation of pain so intense that sound no longer emanated from her mouth.
Visually, she couldn’t tell who might have been causing this pain or what exactly was happening to her that could generate this level of agony, but as she resurfaced into her present consciousness, she discerned that monsters had tortured her and her brother—and that those monsters had been her parents.
29
Forgive, Don’t Forget
“Adara? Adara?” a voice sang as something jabbed gently at her cheek. Groaning, she twisted where she lay in a heap of softness and then pried her eyes open to see Seth’s face directly above hers. He’d been poking her face with his finger in an attempt to awaken her, and his blue eyes exploded with relief when she squinted at him. “Hey,” he cooed as he pulled his hand away. “How do you feel?”
“Like I just fell off a cliff,” she replied, her voice hoarse as she propped herself up on her elbows.
She was in the nurse’s office again, situated in the same white bed she’d woken up in last time she’d been knocked out. Dr. Pain wasn’t present, nor were any of her friends or enemies, except for Seth, sitting in a chair beside her bed—and Aethelred, who lounged in the other bed with a complacent gleam in his eyes. When he realized Adara was awake, he smiled sadly.
“I apologize, Miss Stromer—”
“It’s fine,” she interrupted before he could finish. Rubbing her f
orehead, she recalled the events in the cafeteria and nearly winced. “You saved my ass. I was being…an imbecile, I know. I can’t fight Nero; I can barely take on Kiki Belven… You saw all my memories, then?”
Aethelred sighed as he pushed his red hair to the side; it was unusually disheveled, and his ruby red eyes looked drained and droopier than usual. He wore the same gray suit he’d been wearing in the cafeteria when he’d caught her, but the stubble on his normally smooth face indicated it had been some time since that incident.
“I saw most of your past, yes, though I had already seen many of the same scenes, since I once looked into Mr. Stark’s past.” He bowed his head toward Seth before averting his gaze back to Adara. “Again, I apologize for the intrusion. I would not have done it if it had not been absolutely necessary.”
“It’s fine,” she repeated in a mutter this time as she massaged the back of her aching head. “How long was I passed out?”
“Umm…” Seth hummed as he did the math in his head. “Two days? It’s Tuesday afternoon.”
Swearing, she sat up straighter and then swore again. Every muscle in her body ached with soreness, and her arms felt especially raw. “I missed the rest of the weekend—that blows. At least I missed classes. Hey, isn’t today Election Day?”
“Yes, but our Affinity-sympathizing candidates do not show much promise of winning,” Aethelred said gravely. “I should probably still vote, though…”
“Wait,” she commanded, halting him as he swung his legs over the side of his bed. “Did you—have you—have you been here for two days? Did you pass out, too?”
He exhaled, carefully evading her inquisitive eyes. “I…well, yes, I did. It was a rather odd occurrence. I’m not sure how much of it you saw, but…I believe I tried to access memories of yours that have been blocked. I did not do so intentionally, of course, but that may have been the reason we both lost consciousness.”
Blood: An Affinities Novel (The Affinities Book 1) Page 40