Chapter 11 Kaye #2
I can’t stop them anymore. The teardrops spill over, mixing with the grime and dripping more mess into my sundress. Mama didn’t even want me to wear it that day. It was for a special occasion. But I had loved it, and I couldn’t wait.
Ruined.
“What’s going on?” Cooper pushes his way into the circle, an easy smile on his face, still full of baby roundness that somehow made him all the cuter. Then his eyes fall on the mud-covered lump crumpled on the ground in front of him. “Kitty?”
“Kitty!” Stasia snickers, relishing my misery. The sound carries around the circle, making them sound like a pack of jackals.
Cooper rounds on them, his switch flipped. His eyes darken, flattening in his anger like a blade.
“You’re not funny, Stasia.” His voice is calm and firm, and though he speaks in a lowered tone, his voice carries over the group. “You’re nothing. A bully, but nothing. Someday you’ll scare everyone away, and you’ll only have your nothingness to keep you company.”
One by one the circle loosens, each kid backing away from her as if Cooper’s words had broken whatever spell they had allowed themselves to fall under.
Stasia glances to one side and then the other, watching her grip on the playground release.
She stamps her foot twice into the ground, white patent leather Mary Janes sinking into the earth and coming back covered in filth.
No matter how much she huffs, Cooper never backs down, and before long she too turns and walks away.
Cooper slips his hand into mine, warm and strong.
My body whips forward into walking pace.
Dazed, I try to focus on my surroundings, but my brain feels scrambled.
Fat raindrops pelt the top of my royal blue parka.
Slow, heavy awareness draws my attention to a device in my hand.
I squint at its rain-dappled screen as moving pedestrians make snide remarks around me.
I’m blocking the flow of traffic, but that doesn’t matter.
Not when I’ve just received the greatest email of my life.
Dear Ms. Grace,
We would like to thank you for your interest in the intern program with The Greater Library System of New Malcolm. In regards to the position at our main branch, I am pleased to inform you that your application has been approved and passed to our committee for further consideration.
We will contact you again if we wish to pursue an interview.
Yours Sincerely,
Magdala Lanston
Human Resources Manager
Buzzing lightness fills me up, makes me float, untethered within myself like a balloon on a string. The culmination of four hard years of work in undergrad were wrapped up in the validity of this moment. I had Checkmate and protecting New Malcolm, but this was different. This was just for me.
“Can you spare some change?”
Time seems to cease around me at the sound of that voice, air frozen in my lungs as an icicle of recognition drips down my spine.
Ten feet in front of me, a man sits quietly out of the way for traffic, eyes glistening from body to body as if any one of them could have been a dying man’s buoy out at sea.
The years had not been kind to his haggard face, but his voice was just the same as I remembered it.
Always the same, even in my nightmares.
Let me out! My scream stays trapped between my lips. Please!
“Miss, can you spare some change?”
Our eyes meet. His are watery and bloodshot, lined with bruise-like crescents under each bottom lash.
A beard of matted hair decorates his chin.
Smells of sweat and street cloud around him, and beneath it the sweet, acidic scent of alcohol.
One look and a hundred memories pass in my mind—days spent fishing, nights hearing his voice raised against my mother’s in a stuporous rage.
Watching him comb his thick, dark hair into a perfect coif before a night out.
“Dad?” It falls in a tremble from my lips.
NO.
My visions goes blank under a sudden assault. Unseen hands tear at my insides with supernatural strength. A shriek tears through my throat.
It isn’t gentle, this wakening.
I come back into myself all at once, the adrenaline I missed before taking vengeance for the lost time on my system now. My temples pound as blood and oxygen course through my system at triple their usual speed.
Strong hands wrap around my arms, palms brushing up and down in warm, soothing lines. “It’s okay. You’re having a panic attack, but you’re safe. You’re here with me, Kaye. Focus on me. Listen to the sound of my voice.”
Even without the hypnotic lure of his powers, Charade’s voice cuts through the haze, grounding me. My enemy. My savior.
Gentle fingers tip my chin, but I can’t bring myself to open my eyes. Not with the memory of those fingers grasping my throat, cold rage spilling from his electrifying eyes. I can’t bear to see it again.
“Look at me, Kaye.”
A shudder runs through my body. It doesn’t feel like this chill will ever stop. My eyelids press tighter together, doing nothing to stop the tears from spilling out. The wet trails they track aren’t new. I don’t even know when they began.
Strong arms fold me in, band me to his chest with his constant, beating warmth.
Our breathing syncs, the rhythm of Charade’s heart steadying my own.
I need to pull away, but no one has ever held me like this before.
The inky black of his suit presses against my cheek.
There are threads of silver woven throughout, glittering like secret starlight.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You surprised me.” His breath puffs against my hair, tickling the loose strands. “It’s a little unnerving to wake up with your mortal enemy looming over you, especially after the dream I had.”
“It wasn’t a dream.” My vocal cords are raw, voice haggard as it catches in my throat.
My fingers still clutch the journal, the edge of the leather cover biting into my palm. I wedge it to his chest between us, using it to leverage space that I’m not sure I want, but desperately need.
“I see.” One of his hands covers my own, holding us both in place as the fingers of his free hand tip my chin again. This time my eyes meet his.
Purple irises do happen naturally, whether from disease or damage or just as part of normal genes, but Charade’s—Zane’s—are nothing like that.
They are brilliant, only a shade or two lighter than the suit I wore as Checkmate.
The whirls and swirls that texture them add a darker, edging on indigo-like, depth to them. A sliver of a brown rings the edge.
“The things I saw just now—the girl and her brother—that was you?”
I nod. “And that was you at the lab along the riverbank. You’re Zane Maxwell.”
“What’s left of him.” His lips quirk into a half smile that quickly dims again. “Who was the man, at the end?”
No.
Hot pain spears through the pounding in my brain.
“What is it?” His fingers reach for mine.
“Don’t touch me.” The throbbing in my head pushes my emotions into sharper focus, magnifying every feeling until they simmer in a bubbling boil about to spill over my edges. “This was a mistake.”
He shakes his head. “This is an opportunity. We have achieved something that I only dreamed about up until now. We’ll practice, gain control. Next time—”
“There’s not going to be a next time.” Energy crackles in the air around us like the lick of an electrical current, and if I’m being honest with myself I can’t tell if I’m feeding it or it’s feeding me. “I’m leaving.”
“Why?”
I didn’t have to finish the memory to remember its lesson.
He shakes his head. “I know you’re scared, but I never pegged you for a coward.”
I flinch. “It’s a good thing your opinion never mattered to me then, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t stand in my way, but I feel the heat of him like a shadow nipping at my heels.
Angela waits in the foyer, the older woman’s eyes wide as she takes in our little procession.
I don’t meet her gaze when she tries to catch it.
I don’t want her to see how much I’ve lost control, to know that there are two monsters living under her roof, not one.
“What about Apollo?”
I jolt to a stop. Nausea suds up my throat as visions of him out on the streets with me dance through my head. At the thought of losing him again.
“I’ll come back.” The words are a hoarse whisper. “I need some time, Charade. Some space to breathe.”
He was right. I have nowhere else to run.
I reach the bottom of the stairs and gesture to where the panel is hidden. “Let me out.”
“Try it yourself,” he huffs.
I quirk my eyebrow at him, but square my shoulders and perform the same movement I saw hours earlier. The panel flips and the keypad appears. There’s something else too—a neat row of black key fobs hanging in a row. One in particular catches my eye. Keyless, silver buttons, and a red GTR logo.
The doors unlock with an audible click. No keypad, no numbers. I stare at the glowing surface, waiting for some kind of prompt or test to pass that never comes.
“This house was never meant to be your prison, Kaye. It was always your choice to stay.”
“Thank you. Zane.” I almost feel guilty for what I’m about to do, the plasticky oval wrapped in my fingers, but not enough.
It’s strange to realize that I mean it.
“Wait.” He disappears up the steps, sprinting down them a few minutes later with a white, unlabeled box.
“Burner phone,” he explains, offering the package to me. “It should have a decent charge. My number is in the contacts. Just in case.”
I nod my thanks, and only fully breathe again once the wooden closure is whole and firm at my back.
In the distance, the light pollution illuminates the horizon.
I keep my eyes on that glow as I turn away from the house and follow the gray outline of driveway to a combination carriage house garage that is larger than any home I’ve ever lived in.
My quarry is in the first bay. I press my palm to the shiny, sable hood, and traces of leftover heat seep into my skin. Something bubbles inside of me as I take my place behind the wheel and run my hands over its sleek surface.