Chapter 18
“Guys!”
The vampires had their own problems, diving into Jeremy, slicing and retreating, taking cuts out of him, piece by piece.
But while they focused on Jeremy, the mirror me was almost all the way out of the water now. It wore my clothes, but was soaked and dripping with black water. The pool it climbed from was black too, as though it had birthed this version of me.
What in the heck was I supposed to do?
“I could really do with some help over here,” I called.
Nobody was listening. As usual.
Mirror me’s smile was all wrong, too big for his face, and the eyes? Those were inky, glistening holes. But weirdly, I wasn’t afraid . . . He was a part of me. The part Bentley said I should embrace. The wrongness, the darkness, the part of me I craved in the loneliest hours. The chaos, the hunger.
“Oh-kay.” I brandished my piano leg. “You don’t belong here.”
“Oh, but you invited me.” The voice was mine too, but . . . wetter.
Had I lost my mind? Was I talking to myself?
Mirror me was fully on his feet now. Face to face. Eye to eye. He ran a hand through his hair. Sexy bastard.
I swung the bat. It sliced right through him, as though he was smoke.
Great.
My sanity had officially left the chat.
It was going to happen eventually, I supposed. Happened to my mom, got me booted out of my home, and now here it was, having caught up with me.
Mirror me laughed. “You think you can get rid of me that easily? I’m the stronger, better you.”
Bentley fell into the pool backwards. I hadn’t been watching them, bit it looked as though they were losing their fight. Jeremy had Theo wrapped in his roots, holding him aloft. Theo writhed and kicked.
No.
There was that cold rage again.
Cold. Hard. And done with everyone’s shit.
Mirror me snarled at Jeremy too. “Kill it. Kill it and save him. Save the heir.”
I might have been insane, but mirror me was right. “That’s it, I am done!”
I marched to the end of the pool, tore the lids off every single chemical I’d dragged out earlier, checked Bentley was crawling out on the other side of the pool, and kicked every single bucket and bottle into the pool.
The Briars’ pool was the problem. Everything that had happened had been because of it.
Well, I was going to make it so the wretched thing couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.
The black water boiled so violently it splashed over the sides, hitting me, Jeremy, mirror me, and everything else within its radius.
Mirror me poofed like smoke. Gone, like the imaginary thing he’d probably been.
Theo roared, and sank his fangs into the roots tangled around his neck.
Jeremy screamed. The roots unraveled. Theo dropped.
This was my chance, my moment.
No more hurting Theo, no more dead pool boys, no more weird pool creatures. It ended now.
I swung the piano leg at Jeremy’s middle, oofing the air right out of him. Theo dashed behind him and kicked him in the back.
Jeremy teetered on the edge of the pool, limbs flailing, seeking something to grab onto.
I scooted behind him, next to Theo, and gave him a helpful prod with the piano leg.
Over the edge Jeremy went, into the pool’s black, boiling water.
The water exploded, bursting out of the pool in a huge three-hundred-and-sixty-degree wave. The weight of the blast washed me off my feet, and Theo too. I hit the ground hard, teeth jarring, and we ended up near the broken music room window again.
The water—what was left of it—splashed back down.
And then came silence.
No more boiling water. No more Jeremy. No more mirror me.
I panted, stumbled to my feet, and approached the edge of the pool. Inside, the water level was down to halfway, and it was just plain ol’ pool water, transparent and empty. A bit foamy, from the thrashing and the chemicals, but that was to be expected.
I sighed hard, ran my hand through my hair, sweeping out water, and looked around. “That was a thing that happened, huh.”
Theo made his way over, breathless, bedraggled, wild, and . . . kinda hungry looking?
“Theo?”
He came closer, breaths sawing through his bared fangs.
“Hey, man. Don’t make me hit you with a piano leg.” I tightened my hold on the piano leg.
Theo blinked and gave his head a shake. He gasped, as though breaking the surface of something that had pulled him under, and looked around.
“Owen? Shit . . .” Theo stopped stalking me and turned to his brother, who absolutely wanted to tear into my throat and bury my desiccated corpse in the bushes. But he looked like that all the time anyway.
“It’s over?” Bentley asked, peering into the pool but staying well back.
“I think so. Hey . . . did you guys see the inky figure that kinda . . . looked . . .” They both stared with blank faces. “Like . . . me? No? Never mind.”
Yup, definitely imagined mirror me.
Bentley eyed the piano leg in my grip. “You didn’t do half bad for a pool boy.”
Was that a compliment from Benny? “Right back at you, for an airhead vampire. Your suit’s ruined, though.”
Bentley looked down at the bloody, shredded, tangled mess that was the front of his suit. “Fuck my life.” He looked at me. “This is your fault. You owe me for the suit and all this shit. I am never babysitting you again.” And with that, he stomped off in the direction of Witherborne Mansion.
Theo and I watched his pale figure vanish among the now stationary gardens.
“You can lower the bat,” Theo said.
“I’m not lowering the bat.”
Theo chuckled. “Alright, but the more intimidating you look, the more I want you.”
I blinked, thoughts tripping over themselves again.
I’d just been drugged, dragged through a broken window backwards by some kind of evil tree creature, brought my potential boyfriend back from the dead, talked to my dark self, closed a gate to some kind of supernatural prison hell, seen things I was pretty sure humans were never supposed to see, and Theo was flirting?
“I really need to go home and sleep all of this off. Tomorrow, I’m going to wake up and none of it will have happened because it’s all a dream, and I’m just a pool boy who sometimes washes cars.”
“Sure. That’ll probably happen.” Theo sighed and tilted his head back to look at the stars. I watched his throat move, and tracked up the line of his jaw to those soft lips. “I suppose things will be different now?”
He stood there, shirt torn and askew, hair a wet mess, looking like something I would absolutely let ruin me in the next three seconds if I did not walk away. Right now. Walk, feet. Move.
I did move, finally, backwards, keeping the bat up. He was gorgeous, and dangerous, and everything I’d fallen for before, but with teeth, and a toxic family, and a whole murder vibe. I just really, really needed to leave.
Theo turned his head and watched me go for a few steps. His eyes softened. “Come by for the party?”
“Uh, sure, maybe? I’ll uh . . . I’ll see you.” I turned my back on him and hurried away from the pool, and the house, and all its nightmares.
One glance behind me showed Theo still by the pool, still lit up like something supernatural, and I was absolutely coming back for more of that, just not yet. I needed space to breathe, to think . . . needed to figure some things out about myself, and all of this, and what the heck I was doing.
“Friday night. Be there,” he called.
I waved like an idiot. Theo raised a hand and waved back.
And that was how the worst night of my life ended, with me carrying a broken piano leg away from murder mansion, evil tree man dead, while I’d agreed to come back, like the idiot I was.
Because I couldn’t resist the bad ones, and because inside, I was a bad guy too.
And I had a feeling we definitely hadn’t seen the last of mirror me. Or the Briars.
In fact, that night had been the beginning of a story that helped me discover who, and what, I really was.