Chapter 9
Dylan
You can’t be here. You were never supposed to see this. That was all I could think as I stood before Amara in the dwindling evening light. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t put a pin in the million emotions that writhed in my chest at the sight of her standing there. This grave was my most closely guarded secret, a piece of my past that was mine and mine alone.
“Amara.” I forced the words out, my voice barely more than a whisper. “What are you doing here?”
My hands shook at my sides, curling into fists and unfurling again as one raging emotion was replaced by the next. Anger. Horror. Fury. Shame. Unrelenting, soul-crushing grief. Seeing Amara here, seeing her eyes widen with shock and guilt, felt like a violation of the one place where I still felt close to Damian.
My brother and I had been inseparable, two halves of a whole. The dual product of a human mother and Leyore father, we carved out a life together in the shadows of our broken home. Damian had shielded me from our father before our small family splintered and fell apart. He had shielded me from the harsh realities of life outside a coven when our father cast us out – cast me out. Damian had followed of his own volition. I should have known then the lengths my brother would go to protect me, even if it cost him his life. Which it did.
I clenched my teeth, an ache spiking along my jaw at the force.
Amara’s face was pale, her hands trembling as she reached for her cell phone. I could hear her heartbeat, fast and erratic, her fear palpable. She was terrified, and that made me pause. I took a deep breath, pushing down the swirling emotions threatening to overwhelm me. I couldn’t afford to let her see how much this affected me. I needed to maintain control, to keep my mask firmly in place.
Amara typed frantically on her cell, the automated, monotone voice a stark contrast to her petrified expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
I forced a casual tone, speaking slowly and deliberately, though my insides were churning. “Upgraded from snooping to spying now, have we?”
Amara’s lips trembled, oscillating between a wary smile and a grimace. I considered simply going home, what I had planned to do until I spotted Amara in the graveyard. But I also had a mission, and the quiet voice of reason in the back of my mind whispered that it was time to act. If ever there was a time to test Amara’s loyalty, it was now. Gain her trust, by giving her some of my own. Let her off the hook and see where her allegiance lay.
It made me sick to use my own trauma as a tool to break down her defenses, but it couldn’t be helped. And in that moment I was willing to do anything – anything – to make her stop looking at me with those wide, empathetic eyes.
“Well, you’re here now.” I plastered a smile across my face and saw Amara wince at the insincerity of the expression. “We may as well make the most of it.”
The arcade, to my surprise, was still standing. Leading Amara through the streets of my childhood, I half expected to turn the corner and find it torn down – maybe replaced by a concrete parking lot or a swanky office block – but there it was. Damian had called it our second home. Squeezed between a Korean grocery store and a laundromat, it had been our sanctuary during our desperate struggle for survival.
Stepping inside felt like cracking open a time capsule.
The rows of colorful arcade cabinets were exactly as we’d left them, if a little dulled by time and sticky fingers. The screens flickered with pixelated characters, and the constant beeping and jerky electronic music created a chaotic cacophony that was as disorientating as it was comforting. The carpet, a psychedelic swirl of colors, was worn thin in places, showing the concrete floor beneath.
Taking it all in, it occurred to me that I may have made a grave mistake bringing Amara here. The rundown arcade was more than just old games and flickering lights; it held memories, deeply buried, now suddenly brought to the surface.
Damian and I used to come here whenever we could scrape together enough money. I could almost see him in front of me, his usually drawn face lighting up with excitement when he beat his own high score.
I stiffened, caught in a stupor as the memories flooded back. Grappling for the best seat in the bumper car, trying and failing to grip a bowling ball with child-sized fingers. The bowling alley section had been alive back then, filled with the sound of rolling balls and crashing pins. Now it was a graveyard of stacked chairs and broken games…
Amara’s light touch on my arm snapped me out of my reverie. I cringed away from her, before remembering why I’d brought her there in the first place. The pity party would have to wait. Slapping on a smile, I tilted my head in the direction of the prize counter. “First order of business: slushies and tokens.”
The prize counter encompassed a rickety slushie machine, a glass case filled with cheap toys and trinkets that could have been there for decades, and a bored-looking teenager with braces who seemed less than happy to see new customers.
As we approached the girl leaned against the counter, fanning freshly painted fingernails to dry. "We’re closing soon.”
I forced a pleasant smile. "We won’t be long. Can I get two slushies?"
The girl sighed in the overdramatic fashion that only teenagers can pull off and blew on her nails before grabbing two large cups. Amara and I stood awkwardly side-by-side as the kid moved at a glacial pace, filling the cups with exaggerated slowness.
The shelves behind her were lined with plush toys, action figures, and other prizes. A stuffed bat caught my eye, felt fangs sticking out from its smiling mouth.
I could feel Amara’s eyes on me, stealing quick glances when she thought I wasn’t looking. She still looked afraid, and a little green, but her eyes lit up when the teen handed her a massive slushie and a candy cane straw. It was only when I was given my own cherry slushie that I realized I would have to face the dilemma of actually drinking it.
Vampires thrive on blood – human blood, animal blood, even flavored blood if your taste aligns with one swanky redhead. While we can dabble in coffee and a few soft drinks now and then, most highborn vampires do so at their own peril and in the face of a very bad stomach ache. Damian and I would gorge ourselves on blueberry slushies every chance we could get, and then spray the sidewalk blue when it inevitably came back up a few hours later. I wasn’t sure Amara would be as thrilled by the event as we had been.
And so, I sloshed the red liquid around in the cup and forked out some cash for a few tokens, leading Amara over to the game cabinet I was most fond of.
“I’m surprised this thing is still running.” I set down my slushie beside the zombie shooter game, cartoonish pictures of the undead peeling off the sides. “You know, I’m pretty sure I could beat my brother’s highest score. Damian would be quite jealous of my marksmanship these days.”
The plastic gun was slightly sticky to the touch, and I pointed the tip at Amara who stiffened with her straw caught between her teeth. “All right, spymaster. Now you know one of my secrets, it’s only fair that you tell me one of yours.”
Amara’s face flushed a bright red that matched her slushie, and her gaze dropped to the floor. While she fumbled with her phone, typing out a response, I dropped two tokens into the machine. The screen came to life, exaggerated blood and guts in pixelated bursts, and a title card that transported me back to my childhood. I aimed the gun.
The automated voice spoke from Amara’s cell. “Dylan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to impose.”
“That’s not a secret, come on. I’ll even share another one.” I curled my finger around the plastic trigger, blasting the head off the first zombie that popped up on the screen. I felt a brief flicker of smug satisfaction when it exploded in a shower of red pixels. “My brother and I used to live around here, just the two of us. Our mother died in childbirth and our father kicked us out when we were fourteen.”
Our father would only enter the picture again after Damian died, and word got back to the Leyore coven about a strange girl allegedly bleeding people dry in the dead of night. But I couldn’t exactly mention that part to Amara.
“Anyway.” Another spot-on shot, another zombie dead. “We were twins, technically the same age, but Damian took on the role of big brother. He made sure we didn’t starve out there. It was hard, but we were happy. We used to come here a lot.”
Bang . The big zombie went down and I was reminded to reload, racking the plastic contraption and taking aim again. “And then, there was a gas leak in this apartment we were crashing in and after that, there was an explosion –”
I took down the final boss with a volley of shots in quick succession. “And then Damian died.”
My score popped up on the screen, a new record, one slot above Damian’s old high score from all those years ago. I offered the gun to Amara, shrugging off the sudden burden of finally surpassing my brother.
“Your turn.”
Amara looked part horrified, part gob smacked, clutching her slushie like her life depended on it. But when I waved the gun in her face, her expression quickly shifted to indignation and she swatted my hand away. I rested the gun on my shoulder instead, watching while she typed into her cellphone and the app relayed her words.
“I already know I’ll suck at this game, I want to play that one.” She pointed to a rip-off version of whack-a-mole, this one involving little dragon heads that popped up one by one and roared something about eating the princess!
“Alllllrighty then.” I reserved my judgments for the time being.
After I had slotted in the tokens, Amara handed me her slushie and lifted the little rubber mallet with a ridiculously fierce expression.
“All right, let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, taking a tiny sip of her slushie and watching with mild amusement.
Amara positioned herself in front of the game, her eyes narrowed in concentration. The first dragon popped up, and she swung the mallet down, missing it by a mile. She huffed, her face turning slightly red.
“Um, you missed.” I leaned against the machine, sloshing her drink around like fine wine.
She caught my teasing and shot me a withering glare, then promptly turned her focus back to the game. Another dragon popped up, and she swung again, this time barely grazing it before it disappeared. I smothered a smirk.
“Getting warmer,” I leaned my head down on the edge of the cabinet to catch her eye. “Keep this up and we’ll be taking home the big prizes.”
Amara typed furiously on her phone and held it up to my face. “Shut. Up.”
In doing so, she missed the next two dragons and nearly dropped her phone, pointing the mallet at me in fierce accusation.
I laughed, holding up my hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll let you concentrate.”
She swung again, and this time she managed to hit one of the dragon heads squarely. Her face lit up with triumph for a split second before another dragon popped up, and she missed it completely. Her face turned even redder as she quietly seethed at the machine.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I didn’t know you were so competitive. Do you want to try again?”
She nodded vigorously and held up the mallet like a professional batter in a particularly intense game of baseball.
“All my wasted tokens…” I lamented, slotting a few more into the machine.
Amara didn’t respond, instead yanking me closer by the arm to take a sip of her slushie before getting back into position. She swung the mallet with renewed determination, managing to hit a few more dragons this time, but still missing more than she hit.
“Wow, you’re really into this, huh?” I smiled despite myself, absently taking another sip of her slushie and wincing.
Amara typed on her phone and, for once, the monotone voice was a perfect fit. “I hate losing.”
I laughed. “Well, you’ve got the gamer spirit, I’ll give you that.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, bright red courtesy of the cherry slushie, and then returned her focus to the game. This time, she seemed to find her rhythm, hitting more dragons with fewer misses. Her face was a mix of concentration and frustration, her cheeks flushed red.
“You know, you’re kind of cute when you’re all serious like that.” I teased her and was surprised to find that I meant it.
She blushed even more, her fingers flying over her phone’s keyboard. The app read out. “Stop distracting me, Dylan!”
I laughed again, the real kind of laugh that spread warmth through my chest that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Finally, the game ended, and Amara let out a sigh of relief. She handed the mallet to me, her face still flushed but now blossoming with a broad, satisfied smile.
“Well, in the end, you didn’t suck that badly after all,” I said, handing her the slushie. “But you still owe me a secret.”
Amara’s smile faded slightly as she leaned against the game cabinet, sipping her slushie thoughtfully. I could see she was weighing her words carefully, her own buried secrets casting a shadow over her features.
Finally, she lifted her phone and typed slowly, the app’s mechanical voice speaking for her. “It’s not a pretty story.”
I shrugged, toying with the rubber mallet. “That’s fine. Tell me anyway.”
She stared at me for a while, like she was sizing me up, before sighing and typing into her cell. “I know how it feels to lose a sibling – my sister, Aliyah, was everything to me. Our mother left when we were very young, so it was just the two of us and our father. Don wasn’t discreet about what kind of business he dealt in, at least not around us. He wasn’t kind about it either.”
I grimaced at the mention of Don. I needed no convincing of her father’s cruelty, his malevolence was evident in the way Amara curled into herself in his presence. Even when they were apart, I could see Don’s influence in the way Amara flinched at every stern glare, and whenever she quickly covered her mouth after uttering the slightest sound.
“Aliyah did her best to protect me,” Amara continued typing, tracing the swirling patterns on the floor with one foot. “But it wasn’t easy. Don’s partners were always around, and some of them were dangerous. Aliyah kept their attention off me, but she couldn’t be around all the time.”
I stilled at the implications of her words, slowly setting down the mallet.
Amara kept her eyes on her cell phone screen. “When I lost my hearing, Don decided that homeschooling was the best option – I think it had more to do with keeping his enemies on the backfoot than because of any real concern he had for my well-being. After that, I lost the few friendships I’d managed to make. The world went silent and I was completely alone in it. But Aliyah learned sign language so we could still talk.”
She paused for a second and her bottom lip trembled slightly, curving into a wobbly smile before she continued. “She was my protector, my best friend. But raising a child when you’re still a kid yourself isn’t easy. After everything that happened – our mother leaving, dealing with Don, dealing with, well, me, it was all too much for her. She started with pills and spiraled from there, stealing drugs from our father’s supply.”
I passed a hand over my eyes, rubbing my temple and staring at the floor. Finally, I understood her vehement demand to keep narcotics out of the apartment.
Amara sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. Eventually, she sighed like she was overcoming some great hurdle and typed out the end of her story. “I tried to help her, but in the end I was useless. I didn’t even know it at first, when she overdosed – and when I realized, I thought if I could just get her to the hospital in time, everything would be fine. But I was wrong.”
It was my turn to look horrified, and I must have done it well because Amara smiled up at me, sipping her slushie while typing. “You’re not the only one with a sob story. I told you it wasn’t pretty.”
Despite her smile, her eyes were glassy, and she sniffed quietly before typing again. “In a way, I think I understand exactly how you feel. You think Damian should have been the one who made it out. I wake up every morning wishing the same for Aliyah. But we’re the ones who are here now, so we may as well make the most of it.”
It was then that I looked at her, really looked at her, and in her hazel eyes I saw my reflection staring back. She had lost someone she loved deeply, just like I had. And just like me, she carried the burden of that loss every single day.
The air between us felt thick with shared sorrow, and I suddenly – desperately – wanted to ease the tension. “You make a good point,” I said, nudging her gently. “Now that we’re done being depressing – wanna ride the bumper cars?”
Amara’s burst of laughter was like music to me. She wiped the back of her hand over her eyes, lashes slightly damp with unshed tears. But she was smiling when she typed into her cell, simultaneously downing the rest of her slushie with renewed vigor. “I was born to ride the bumper cars.”