Wraith #2
Water, my body reminds me with a violent cramp. You need water.
But I can't move. Not yet.
For just this moment, I pretend I'm still me. That the presents under the tree with my name on them aren't just for who I used to be, and Mom doesn't scream and cry at night because she thinks I died and came back as something else.
Footsteps.
In the hall.
My whole body goes rigid, every muscle locking up. The cat protests with a small mrrp as my hands stop petting her.
Those aren't James's heavy boots. That's Mom's shuffling walk, the way she walks when she's had too much wine while watching Dad's old videos on the TV.
She comes around the corner and freezes.
The wine glass in her hand tilts, dark red splashing onto the cream carpet like blood. No sound comes out of her gasping mouth. Just a terrified wheeze, her eyes locked on my face.
Then the screaming starts.
I try to stand but my legs are still weak. Try to sign something, anything, landing on the one I remember most from school.
Thumb extended, index and little finger straight up, middle and ring finger pressed against my palm.
I love you.
But Mom's eyes are wild, darting around the room like she's looking for a weapon. They land on the wooden block full of knives in the kitchen.
She runs for it and I run too, trying to stop her. But she gets there first, yanking out the biggest knife, the one she uses for carving turkey at Thanksgiving.
"Stay back!" She waves the knife at me. "I know what you are! You're not him! You're not my baby!"
I hold my hands up, trying to look less scary.
It isn't possible. I have a nightmare face.
But I try.
She's crying now, huge, gulping sobs that shake her whole body. "He had the most beautiful smile. Just like his father. And you—you demon—you took that away from me!"
She lunges.
I dodge back, going for the window by the Christmas tree before I can even process what's happening. I smash through it with my bare fist, clearing the glass, ignoring the stinging cuts opening up on my arms.
She grabs my hair.
"Give him back!" she screams, her voice echoing outside. The knife slashes my back, my arms, my shoulders. "Give me back my son!"
I twist, snarling in pain, grabbing her wrist to stop her.
Her bones creak and twist.
She screams.
I let her go.
SORRY—I'M SORRY—
The knife comes down fast, slashing across my right eye. There's blood everywhere now, all over my face, running into my mouth. I shield myself with my arms, afraid to grab her again, afraid to hurt her.
"WRAITH!" she screams, slashing again, again, again. "THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE! A WRAITH PRETENDING TO BE MY SON!"
A mournful siren drowns out her shrieks.
Sirens just outside.
Oh no.
Someone must have heard her screaming through the broken window.
Someone must have called 911.
James and Mom always close the windows when they fight. Because the cops might come and take them away from me.
But I don't want her to get in trouble.
She's sick.
She needs help—
"Wraith!"
A different voice calling out to me.
"Wraith! Wait! Please!"
The ringing in my ears drowns the sirens out.
I'm not in the living room anymore.
I'm not a kid anymore.
It's not snowing.
There are bright pink cherry trees all around me.
What the fuck…?
Where am I?
Something moves in my peripheral vision.
A blur through the blood and the panic.
My body reacts before my brain can process.
Pure feral instinct.
I whirl around with a vicious snarl, ready to tear into whatever's coming at me. The sound that rips from my throat isn't human. It's the noise a wounded predator makes when it's cornered.
Dangerous.
Violent.
Everything people think I am.
Through the haze of blood dripping into my eyes, I catch that honeysuckle and summer rain scent, a glimpse of ocean eyes wide but not backing down.
The nightmare memory crumbles.
Ivy.
It's Ivy.
Fuck.
No no no…
I just fucking snarled at Ivy.
At the girl I love.
The one person who sees me as something other than a monster.
And now she sees exactly what I am.
My legs give out. I sink against the tree, sliding down the rough bark until I hit the ground. Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it down, but it burns all the way back to my stomach as I bury my bleeding face in my hands.
"Wraith?"
Her voice is soft.
Too soft.
Like she's trying not to scare me.
"Hey," she murmurs, and I feel her settle beside me, not touching but close enough that I smell her honeysuckle over the copper of my blood. "You're bleeding…"
I flinch away automatically when she reaches for me.
"Wraith, let me see."
I shake my head violently. Bad enough she saw during the struggle. Bad enough she saw me snarling at her like the fucking beast I am.
Don't need to make it worse.
Movement beside me.
Ivy shifting closer.
Climbing into my lap.
What the fuck is she doing?
And why?
How could she want to be anywhere near me right now?
Her weight settles across my thighs, warm and solid and real, and my body doesn't know how to process this. Every instinct screams at me to push her away, to protect her from seeing something up close that will haunt her nightmares forever.
To protect her from me.
But I'm frozen.
Paralyzed.
Her arms come around me, holding me as much as she can, and she nuzzles into my scarred throat.
"Let me help," she whispers against my ear.
I shake my head, fast.
But she doesn't pull away. Her weight stays settled in my lap, warm and grounding, her arms still wrapped around my shoulders, anchoring me to this world.
"I don't care what you look like," she says softly, pulling back. Feels like she's looking at where my eyes would be if I wasn't hiding behind my hands and hood. I fucking feel her watching me. "I promise."
Bullshit.
It matters to everyone.
I scared the shit out of her.
I—
She leans in and presses her lips to the bleeding scar over my eye.
The kiss is so gentle and soft, I might have imagined it.
"This doesn't change anything," she murmurs. "You're still mine. I'm still yours."
I risk a glance up at her, my hands still clamped over my face, looking through my fingers, and search her gaze for fear. For disgust. For the lie.
I find… nothing.
The wind carries a flurry of cherry blossoms past us like nature's trying to make this moment beautiful when everything about me is ugly and broken. A petal lands on Ivy's shoulder, pale pink against her moss green sweater.
She's this perfect angel in a monster's lap like we're in some fucked up fairy tale, and none of this makes sense.
Her hands come up slowly, carefully, like she's approaching a wounded beast.
Which is exactly what I am.
Can't help but flinch again when her hands find my hair, carding through it, her nails gently scraping against my scalp, eliciting the beginnings of an automatic broken purr from me despite the fact I can barely cope with even being alive right now.
"Let me see you, Wraith. All of you."
I keep my hands pressed to my face. Blood drips down my forearms, staining her clothes, but she doesn't seem to care. Just stays there, patient and steady, waiting for me to make a choice.
Can't do this.
Can't risk it.
Can't—
"Please?" she asks softly.
I can't say no when she says please.
She knows it, too.
And she deserves to know what she said yes to, beneath the cherry trees. Deserves the chance to take it all back.
My hands drop.
Slowly.
Fighting every instinct that screams at me to keep them up, to hide, to protect her from the brain-melting horror she's about to see again. This time without the haze of adrenaline and panic keeping me from processing exactly what's happening.
But they drop.
Sunlight hits my exposed face.
Cherry blossoms drift between us.
One lands on what's left of my cheek.
And I wait for it.
The recoil. The horror. The scream.
The same fucking reaction everyone has.
Ivy's ocean eyes move across my face, taking in every horrible detail.
I see the exact moment it registers, when her pupils blow wide and she goes white as a ghost.
Her breath catches.
There it is.
The beginning of the end.
She shifts in my lap and I know—I fucking know—this is when she screams. When she runs from the thing pretending to be human.
Then her hand rises slowly toward my ruined face.
I flinch, like she might strike me, or hit me with something, ducking my head down and screwing my eyes shut, bracing for whatever comes next, which is never fucking good.
But her trembling fingers brush my hair back from my forehead, tucking the strands behind my ear with such impossible gentleness that I feel like I'm going to fucking die.
And she doesn't scream.