Chapter 14 #2
People changed. She didn’t seem snobby to me now. I guessed losing your parents young would do that.
“You found her?” I asked, imagining what I might do had I grown up in a loving home with parents who wanted me and then found out they were dead. I’d run away too.
“We searched the woods for three hours until we heard crying by the creek. Daphne was lying in a bed of leaves. I’ve never seen someone so broken in all my life.” He glanced over at her laughing and playing with Asher, a haunted look on his face as if remembering that moment.
I hadn’t expected this raw of a story. I felt emotion rise up inside me but pushed it down.
“Asher picked her up, carried her all the way back. We all slept in the living room of my nana’s house on the floor because we didn’t know what else to do. Our homes were empty of parents. We were alone in a way no eleven-year-old should be.”
Our homes were empty of parents. It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever heard.
“It sounds like a nightmare, Jax. I’m so sorry,” I told him, emotion clogging my throat.
He nodded. “It was. But Asher was our rock. He just kept going. He never broke down. He forced us up and out of bed the next day and to eat breakfast and go to school. Every time Daphne or I would fall into the darkness, he would pull us out. Usually with video games.”
“Video games?” I was surprised by that, still processing his story about Asher, who I most definitely was not falling for.
Asher was their rock.
They’d all trauma bonded.
“A vampire hunter game designed by a hunter. I have the highest score,” Jax bragged.
I laughed. “Oh, do you?” I was trying not to let his story affect me, but I kept imagining Daphne fleeing the school and sobbing in the woods and then Asher carrying her home. Their little trio made sense now. A bond that would never break.
“Hey, thanks for sharing that with me.” I leaned into him, nudging his shoulder.
He nodded. “I just want you to know why things are the way they are…with him and her…” He trailed off.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
“Duel time!” James, one of the other guys, said. He had hunter marks, but the girl next to him didn’t. I recognized her from our trainings. Manda was her name.
I leapt up as Jax stood beside me. “I gotta get as much training as I can,” I told him.
“Tyson wants to go first!” Jax called out loudly.
I reached out and smacked him in the arm, and he laughed.
“I ain’t losing no ear,” James said, shaking his head.
I rolled my eyes, but Asher walked over and picked up a wooden practice sword. “I’ll go against you, Tyson.” He winked, and I knew I’d never live that nickname down.
I stepped over to where the practice swords were and picked one up.
“Have you learned about beheading a vampire yet?” Daphne asked me.
I shook my head. “Just the heart staking.”
She nodded. “That’s easier. But this”—she pointed to the sword Asher held—“can be faster and more efficient. The trick is to do it with enough force and power so you sever it cleanly.”
Right.
“But not him. I like his face.” She squeezed Asher’s cheeks, and again he bristled at her touch. She seemed to notice this time, frowning slightly.
“Okay, for practice, just a tap to the neck will do,” James announced.
Daphne got out of the way then, and Asher stepped forward and lightly lunged for me.
I was awkward, trying to hold up the heavy sword as he verbally coached me.
Our swords clacked against each other for the next twenty minutes as he spun and evaded me like an expert until my arms were sore and Asher tapped my neck with his sword, probably just to take a break.
I sat around for the next hour, watching everyone practice and trying to take as many mental notes as possible.
Then I had a few more rounds with Manda and one of the guys before we were done with drills.
When Asher was crowned victor, he handed out his winnings to everyone.
“For you, my lady.” He held out the open packet of Double Stuf Oreos.
I smiled, taking one and biting into it.
He then moved over to sit by Daphne, and I found myself watching them.
He was so attentive and respectful with her.
Smiling, seemingly happy, but there was something under the surface of his skin.
Small, subtle clues that he was avoiding her touch.
A micro lean away, a snaking back of his hand.
There was a story there, but it wasn’t my business.
As the night darkened, I waited for Harper and Luna to show up. When they did, the festivities really began. The music was cranked up, the bonfire raged, and we all ate way too much sugar.
I watched as Daphne and Luna held hands and swung each other around rapidly before letting go and collapsing onto the sand, laughing.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Asher’s voice startled me. I hadn’t noticed him come up behind me.
Harper had left my side a few minutes ago to catch up with one of her other friends, and I was sitting alone on a beach blanket off to the side.
“Oh, hey.” I made room on the blanket as he sat next to me. “I’m thinking about a hundred things right now,” I told him honestly.
He nodded. “Give me three.”
I chuckled. “Okay, number one, I’m nervous I won’t get hunter marks, and I’ll be relegated to a desk job forever,” I confessed.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Two, I’m feeling grateful for new friendships, and I love living here,” I added.
“Good.” He nodded.
“Three, I’m…” I hesitated, wanting to know more about what he was going to tell me that day of our attack. “I’m wondering what you were going to say about Daphne before we were attacked,” I said, lowering my voice.
He blew air through his teeth and nodded as if coming to terms with something. “I love her.”
Oh. That was all? “That’s…good,” I offered.
“Like a sister,” he added in a soft voice, and I flinched.
Oh. Oh. The pulling away from her touch. It all made sense now.
“Why not just tell her?”
He looked so sad in that moment that it broke my heart.
“She and I...we’ve been through so much together. I can’t be the cause of her losing someone else she loves. I can’t break her. I like seeing her happy.”
I saw Asher’s true heart then. He was staying with someone he wasn’t romantically attracted to so that she wouldn’t be sad. It was a self-sacrificing type of love that I hadn’t expected from him.
“Are you happy?” I asked, because I was sure Daphne wanted that for him as well.
He tensed. “Doesn’t matter.”
We were silent then, letting the sounds of the music, the crackling fire, and Luna’s and Daphne’s laughter fill in the hole that what Asher just said made in my heart.
Doesn’t matter.
His words stayed with me a long time after that, and my respect for him grew immensely.