Heart of darkness, p.7
Heart of Darkness, page 7
part #8 of Dark Secrets Series
“So, where will you get blood then?” I asked.
“I don't know. Maybe we should tell Tom what I am—what you are. Then we can use him as our blood bag.”
“You can,” I scoffed. “He’s human. He can never feed me. And I would never drink from him, even if he was a vampire.”
“Why not? He’s kinda cute.”
“In a dorky-John-Mayer kind of way. No thanks. Give me Sawyer any day!”
“Why not ask him out then—to the dance next week?”
“Why?”
“Because you like him,” she scoffed, widening her eyes. “Duh.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not telling him that. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.”
“Of what?”
“Of knowing I like him. He’s cute, but he’s scum.”
“Scum? How so?”
“He’s an asshat. He thinks he’s all that—”
“Remind you of anyone?” she said smugly, raising a brow at me.
“Knowing I think he’s hot will only fuel it,” I said, as if she hadn’t just insulted me.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been mean to him since kindergarten. He’ll think it was because I’ve always liked him—deep down inside, or some bull shit like that.”
“He might not.” Evie shrugged. “You're mean to everyone.”
“Yeah, well, I don't want him thinking he’s anything special.”
“But he is to you, since you like him.”
“Not enough to want him in my life. And when you start having friendships or relationships with people, they get in your life, Evie,” I professed, casting my eyes down to my phone so she wouldn't see the emotions behind them. “You know that.”
“Are you scared he’ll die? Because of the family we come from?”
“No,” I lied. But it all went back to Gregory Tailor, my eighth-grade love. He’d come to my house to hang out one afternoon, and Mom didn't know we had a guest. She drank from my dad in the kitchen and Greg saw it. They had to erase his mind, and they told me I couldn’t be friends with him after that. Humans brought complications to our lives, and I was better off sticking with family.
I sighed, skulking out of the bathroom, with Evie on my trail. “So, I’ll see you at dance class this afternoon?” she called.
“No,” I called back, pocketing my phone. “I’m too tired.”
“But…” she said, calling louder when she realized I was still walking away. “You’re never too tired for dance.”
* * *
Even though I was pale, shaky, and so exhausted I could sleep for a year, Mom made me go to dance. Practically kicked me out the door, affirming that I should put my iPad down earlier at night if I was tired. She was right. I had been staying up later than usual. But this exhaustion didn't feel like tiredness; it couldn’t be slept away.
“Aubrey,” the teacher called across the room. “Hold your shoulders back.”
I rearranged my position and took a graceful leap across the floor, coming down into a hard slam.
“Light-footed please, girls,” she said, aiming that at me. “We don't want to watch a clan of elephants racing around stage next month.”
Groaning to myself, I joined the cue and went around for another leap, smiling at Evie as she landed like a butterfly and glided past me, her skinny arms fluttering. Why did some people have to be so effortlessly perfect?
As I stepped in to the middle of the floor and flexed my ankles to take a leap, the malevolent ghost appeared again, jerking toward me. I immediately faltered and hit the ground with one leg sliding out and taking me into a painful, unintentional split. A tight band of pressure circled my back shin and a mighty crack made all hands fly to mouths, some of the girls turning away. The sharp rod of deep pain became apparent in my knee then, so I rolled onto my back and brought my leg up to my chest, clutching it tightly.
“Shit!” I winced, feeling down to see if the bone had come through the flesh. It hadn’t, but something was definitely broken because there was a searing jab radiating out from that one spot and pulsing agony throughout every other limb like an alien death ray.
“Aubrey, are you alright?” Miss Maree landed beside me, as graceful as a damn fairy, while I lay rolling from side to side, trying to breathe but too afraid to in case I ended up crying in front of the evil ghost.
He stood above me, black hair falling over his eerie aqua eyes.
“You didn’t land wrong, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said in a voice that carried with a sleazy lilt. “You landed perfectly. I just…” He lifted his foot and stomped down hard on the ground. “Helped it along.”
I squeezed my shin, caging my teeth to keep in the sobs.
“Ready to bring me back now?” he asked, reaching down for my hand.
“Go to hell,” I muttered.
“Aubrey,” Miss Maree gasped.
“Not you.” I held my breath for a moment. “I meant him.”
“Who is she talking to?” Miss Maree asked.
“She’s delusional,” Evie offered, helping me to sit up. The teacher grabbed her phone when one of the girls handed it to her, and I just wanted to die—to shrink away and hide from the shame, the drama. Everyone in the room had huddled around me, probably reveling in my suffering.
When my dad came through the door less than five minutes later, it was like all my pain just went away. He scooped me up in his arms and kissed my head.
“You okay, sweetheart?”
“No.” I closed my arms around his neck and held on tight, knowing I was safe with him.
Six hours and a special boot thing on my leg later, I was finally laid in my cozy bed. Dad pulled the covers up to my chin and kissed my brow, and Mom swept my hair back, smiling into me like nothing bad had ever happened. And I almost felt guilty for not telling them about the ghost. Almost.
“Love you guys,” I said.
“Love you too, baby girl,” Mom said, closing my door. “Sleep tight.”
I shut my eyes, opening them again in the darkness, just to make sure the ghost wasn’t lingering in the corner, watching me.
* * *
When the school bell tolled, I picked up my crutches and threw my bag over my shoulders—both of them—and got to my feet. If I were immortal already, a dose of blood could have fixed this. But my stupid parents wanted me to look older before they’d allow me to trigger the change. Which meant four weeks walking around on stupid crutches.
“What’s the matter, Red?” Sawyer asked, breaking from his group of testosterone-in-jackets. “Kick someone too hard?”
“Shut up, or I’ll break my other foot on your jaw.”
He laughed, hanging back while his friends walked on. “Seriously though, what’d you do?”
“Snapped it in dance class.”
“Dance class?”
“Yeah. I take dance. What’s it to you?”
“What kind?” He walked at my pace for a moment, hands in his pockets, way too cute.
“Ballet and modern alternative,” I grunted, trying to ignore the blistering ache of the impressions on my underarms from these stupid walking aids.
“Nice.”
“It’s fun. That’s what counts.”
“Do you perform? Like, could I come see you in a show sometime?”
I glared at him, but he seemed genuinely impressed, so I simmered down and kind of mellowed out a bit, melting slightly under those dimples. “If you’re that bored, I guess.”
He smiled, and the rest of the school yard blurred out of focus behind those igniting eyes. “Hey… are you going to the school dance next week?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Why? Haven't got a date?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Just curious.” He looked at his phone, but I think he only did that as a distraction because he was scared of me. “I was just gonna say that if you didn't have one, I might be free. I could probably take you.”
I stopped hobbling and gawked up at him, a hateful look burning a hole in his soul. “Did you just ask me to the dance?”
“At risk of dying young, yeah.” He laughed, hands going into his pockets. “What d’ya think? Wanna come?”
Yes. Of course. Absolutely. “No. I have something on that night.”
“Sweet. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“I said no, dickhead,” I called, but he just waved over his shoulder, and I figured then that I’d be going to this stupid dance after all.
I smiled to myself as I hobbled to class.
* * *
Mia cleared away the empty milkshake glasses, and I readjusted my leg on the seat across from me, the gray sky looming over the ocean at Evie’s back. She busied herself painting my lone toenail sticking out from the giant boot I now had to wear, and I watched people riding and jogging past on the sidewalk across the street, wishing I was over there.
On my shoulders right now, I had too much weight, and because of who my parents were, I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I’d usually sit by the ocean, wait until no one was around, and then tell the waves. It was stupid, I knew that, but I somehow always felt better after I’d sent my problems out to sea.
Evie was family, so was Mia, and if we were normal human beings then I should have been able to talk to them about Mom and Dad, but there had always been this line—clear and defined by their royal titles—and no one crossed it. They were the bicentennial rulers of the entire immortal world, and our family business had to remain within the small circle of our immediate family. Non-negotiable. Out of respect. So, with my leg in a boot, and no hope of getting to the ocean alone for a chat, I had to bottle it all up and try to drink it down with an afternoon of strawberry milkshakes.
“So, how’s the healing going?” Evie asked.
I looked down at my broken leg. Still broken. “Mom says I need another few sessions. She wants to heal it gradually because I’m human and still growing.”
“But still faster than if she didn’t use her freaky Cerulean Magic.”
“Yeah. I’ll have to wear the boot out in public for at least four weeks, she says. But I’ll be healed in two. And it doesn’t hurt as much now.”
Evie smiled, screwing the lid back on the nail-polish and then standing up. “I better go. I’m going shopping with Dad to get a dress for the dance.”
I smiled as Eric came over. “It’s so adorable that your dad takes you shopping.”
“Yours would too—if you asked him.”
“Oh, you mean while he’s working twenty hours a day, or do you mean if I could actually pry him out of my mother’s shadow for two seconds?”
She smiled sympathetically at me. “Why not ask Jason?”
“Maybe.”
“Is that how you really feel, Aubs?” Eric asked, messing up his wild blonde hair as he sat down in Evie’s seat, uninvited.
“About what?”
“David. Your dad.”
I refolded my arms again for good measure, determined to hold this secret inside. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Ric. But I appreciate the concern.”
Elora came over then, taking off her apron and, catching on to the tone, sat down, reaching across for my hand. “What’s up, Aubs?”
“Nothing.” My eyes shifted sideways onto Evie’s face as I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. No one ever saw me cry. No one ever saw me even get emotional. I wasn’t about to let it all out now. So I caged it down and unleashed my inner-smart-ass. “Guess I’m just wondering how I’ll coordinate pretty with inconvenience.” I nodded to the boot. “I got a date for this stupid dance, much to my disgust.”
Elora smiled, turning her head then to give Eric a “look”. He took that to mean exactly what it was, and Evie waved as they left us to a sisterly chat.
With a face full of sympathy, Elora cast a look of solidarity onto me. “Okay, now let’s have the truth.”
“What?” I shrugged. “That was the truth. I need a dress, and I don’t think anything will match this stupid boot.”
“And you want Dad to take you shopping?” She raised a brow at me. “When you and I both know it’s never been that way with you two.”
I lowered my foot from the chair and sat up, glancing around to see how close other people were and, when I’d successfully cleared the sheen of tears from my eyes, set them on hers. “I think he hit Mom.”
“What?” She shot forward, face open as if to absorb the words through it.
“I was high on drugs the first night I did this.” I tapped my knee. “But I woke up to a really strange sound and they had another argument.”
“What about?”
“Mom had just got Danny back down to sleep and then Dad’s phone rang. Loudly. And it woke him. And she got mad.”
“And?”
“I heard Dad say It’s not my damn fault.” I said it in his cold, commanding voice. “And then I heard Mom… like, it was the same sound that woke me in the first place.”
“What sound?”
“She made this…” I coughed the sound out to show her. “Like, it sounded like when you get hit and you let the air out real quick.”
Elora smiled. “Dad wouldn’t hit her, Aubrey.”
“Wouldn’t he?” I shot her a smug look. “Because I’ve seen him, Lors. I’ve seen him manhandle her. I’ve seen him tower over her, grab her.”
“Yes, he’s always been like that, but he wouldn’t hit her.”
Clearly, Elora had no idea who our father really was. I looked off to nothing, blinking back tears. It humiliated me when I had to sit there and watch him belittle her, or tell her she was wrong about something in that brusque, assholey way, like when he’d lecture me and didn’t let me defend myself. And yet he’d do that to Mom in a room full of people we know, people we love, and no one, not even Uncle Mike, ever batted an eyelid. I was starting to think I was the one who was wrong, that maybe this was normal, and yet I’d feel crushed if any of my friends treated me that way, let alone my husband.
“I hate her, Lors.” I crossed my arms tightly over my body and spoke to the view on the other side of the road. “I hate the way she just accepts that. If any guy grabbed my arm… I mean… has Ric ever grabbed you like that?”
“No, but—”
“Because if I saw him do that, I’d kick him,” I demanded, meeting her wide eyes with a fierce, assertive glare. “And I think you would too. It’s not right, Elora.”
“What did you see, Aubrey?” She shuffled a little closer. “This clearly isn’t just about some noise you heard.”
“Why does she allow it?” I wiped the corner of my eye. “Why doesn’t she leave him?”
“I don’t think…” Elora exhaled, stuck for words. “Aubrey, I think maybe you’ve got it wrong. Dad loves Mom. He’d literally die for her, and if he does anything she doesn’t like, she pulls him up on it. She is not a victim. She never has been.”
“You don’t see what I see.”
“Look, she has great empathy, which means that, sometimes, she lets him get away with things I might not let Ric get away with, but that’s just because she understands why he feels that way, why he’s doing it.”
I felt suddenly very sick. “So you’re justifying the abuse?”
“It’s not abuse.” She laughed.
“It is! If it were anyone else, we’d call it abuse.”
Elora’s gaze drifted down to her hands, sweeping the area and landing on Mia, where she cleared tables by the edge of the road. “Okay, look… I only say this because you’re my sister and I have a duty to teach you right from wrong, and to make sure you never end up in that kind of relationship but… yes… by my standards, Dad can sometimes be a bit abusive. But—”
“See, and that’s just it,” I said, breathless from the emotion. “She disgusts me, Elora. I can’t respect her. I can’t even look at her sometimes—”
“So you're victim-blaming?”
“Yes!” I slapped the table top. “You said it yourself, she’s not a victim. She can stand up for herself, but she doesn’t—”
“Aubrey. Just stop.” Elora shut her eyes for a moment, her throat making a sound as she swallowed. “Look, I know our parents, okay. And I’ve seen some things in the past. I’ve seen Dad at his worst, and I’ve seen Mom stand up to him when he’s like that. But… she’s not the kind of woman to ever just sit by and let someone abuse her. I need you to tell me what you saw, what’s made you so upset, because I think you need me to translate for you.”
“Translate?” I raised a brow at her, sipping some water to shove down the lump. “Like you can explain it all away, make sense of it so I no longer see what my mother suffers as abuse?”
“You just have to understand their past to understand the way they interact with each other. But… growing up, I never saw Dad mistreat her. Ever.”
“Aside from the arm-grabbing, the manipulation, shutting her down—”
“That’s just who he is.”
“But it’s gotten worse,” I said. “Ever since…” Shut up, Aubrey.
“Ever since what?”
She already knew about Daniel being Uncle Jase’s baby. I’d kept that secret from Harry, but I knew I could speak to Elora about it. I had to, because I was worried it had set Dad off, made him hate her, and that’s why he was being so mean. I couldn’t think of a time—before she came home and said they were expecting another baby—where Dad was like this. I’d seen small things, but this was constant now, like he hated her. And it all started after she got pregnant.
“Does he hate her for sleeping with Uncle Jason?” I asked.
Elora was taken aback.
“I know Danny isn’t Dad’s,” I added.
“How do you know?”
“I… overheard you and Mom talking,” I lied.
“Aw, Aubs.” She stood up for a moment to hug me, bending awkwardly over the table between us. When she sat back down, there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry you found out that way. I think Mom planned to take it to her grave, you know—”
