Sin of Fury (34 page)

Ever since that episode
with her mother trying to take her away, he had treated them both
with apparent disdain, had even gone so far as to hurt her mother
in front of her face, and then round on Jamie. It had happened
once, but it would forever be in her mind.

Suddenly, she recoiled.
Was her mother on board with this because if Jamie left, she
wouldn’t be harmed? Was Jamie’s departure a type of...cure, for her
mother? Her heart almost jumped out of her throat. If it meant
making her mother happy, then she would do it.

She didn’t deserve what
she had to go through because of Jamie’s presence in their
household. Now that she knew the reasons her mother was sending her
away, it didn’t seem so...bad.

But as put the suitcase by
her door and went to fill her backpack with anything her mother had
missed. She grabbed her journal and her headset, a couple of her
favorite books, and then slung it over her shoulder with mute pain.
Maybe she would come back, maybe her father would realize he missed
her.

Even as the desperate
thought crossed her mind, she knew it wasn’t probable. If anything,
he would send her farther than Colorado and across the seas. She
tried to make light of it by thinking that she would get a chance
to meet some hot Italian boys, but it didn’t work.

With a heavy heart, she
started her way downstairs and ignored the condemning eyes of her
father and the indifferent eyes of her mother.

The wheels of her suitcase
clicked along the tile as she pulled it, slowly and painfully. The
doorman, Frankie, was watching her with pitiful eyes and so were
the rest of the staff. The only ones who didn’t seem to care were
her parents. How much was that a downer? she thought numbly,
pausing at the door.

“
No goodbye?” Jamie asked,
hating how her voice cracked.

“
Why should I say good bye
to someone that I will not miss?” her father said with a cold
hatred. Jamie’s mouth parted on a gasp at the hurt that coursed
through her. He had made snide remarks, but none as hurtful as
that. Even Frankie made a sharp intake of breath.

There was a tense,
suspense-filled silence, in which the entire staff stared at
parents as if they just wanted to...

“
I quit,” Frankie said,
his old voice disgusted as he threw down the hat he had been forced
to wear since working at their house.

“
So do I!” someone else
called out. After that, a chorus of voices were ringing in the room
till her father, red in the face and seething, snarled and lunged
at Jamie.

“
You are nothing but a
nuisance! Get out of my house, you devil child!” And then she was
thrown out of the door. Her father would have slammed it shut had
Frankie not been there, holding it open for all of the maids and
cooks. Their house was large enough to need a team of maids, and
the cooks had such large responsibilities that they had needed
two.

Now, though, they came out
of the house in waves, with her father's screeches of rage echoing
in the large mansion. Her mother, she couldn’t help but notice, was
silent, standing there with her hands folding in front of her black
pantsuit, hair still perfectly done.

The door of a black Ford
Explorer was held open for her. She looked back at Frankie and the
other staff members and realized that, even if she did come back,
this would be the last time she saw them. She grabbed onto him and
hugged him, crying her heart and soul out into his white, starched
shirt.

The goodbyes were said in
a blur, everyone saying that they would miss her and remember her,
and she them. In truth, she believed that the staff was her real
family. Not her father. Not his family. Not her mother’s family.
But her mother...She stared back into the house with watery eyes,
and saw nothing but her mother’s grave face.

And then she stepped into
the car and it closed in her face.

It was a silent, painful
ride. The men in the front said not one word to her, and it took a
whole two days before they actually entered Colorado. She often
stared at the men, waiting for the guns to be pulled out and a
shower of bullets to rain around them. They were dressed in
straight black suits, both dark haired and wearing sunglasses. When
they stopped at a hotel, they got two bedrooms, theirs adjacent to
hers and the door open at all times.

The strong call for
security, though, was lost on her. It wasn’t as if they treated her
with respect, or even if she were alive. Instead, it was like she
was an object that couldn’t get scratched but had no meaning
besides deliverance. But, then again, she guessed that’s what she
was.

When she should have been
sleeping, she thought of the people that would be looking over her.
Who was it, she thought. Who was going to have to change their
lifestyles just to watch over a girl that was unwanted by even her
own father?

That question was answered
shortly after the long night at the hotel. Colorado, she found out,
was a very cold place. Very dry place. Very beautiful place, with
trees and land and kind people.

But that, of course,
changed when they started to travel farther into the forests and
mountains. The setting reminded her like something out of Beauty
and the Beast, simply because of how dark it got, and how quickly
the setting turned ominous.

“
Did you guys miss a
turn?” she asked thinly, turning her head to look out of the window
again. The only time she had asked them a question was when she had
to use the bathroom.

The one in the passenger
side turned his head, and gave a short, abrupt, “No”. And then he
turned around and went back to his stony silence.

Jamie wrapped her arms
around herself, hugging her backpack to her chest as if it would
keep her safe. The car didn’t have headlights on, and she didn’t
think they even planned to turn them on at all. Her skin
crawled.

Something white flashed
outside of her window, making her scream and drop her bag. “Oh my
god, did you see that?” Her high-pitched voice had the men turning
a cold shoulder on her, and it didn’t help her nerves at all. Her
stomach roiled, and she thought that at any moment, the car would
be flipped over and they would all be eaten alive.

Her fears, she later
learned, were useless. Nothing came after their car, and they
didn’t die. Instead, the men drove calmly on the paved path,
farther into the forest than she could have ever
imagined.

Hate, for her father and
everything he had done, shot through her. Why was he doing this to
her? Why wasn’t he giving her a chance? Jamie felt tears sting her
eyes -- why did this have to be happening to her? Right now, she
could be with Alexis at the mall, with Carry playing Tennis, or
emailing her pen pal.

In no time at all, the car
pulled drew up short and, half asleep, she barely registered the
squeak of wrought iron gates. Jamie lifted her head from her arms
and blinked, staring out into the dark. The care smelled of
leather, men, and her own tears. Had she really been crying? God...
She wiped her cheeks, grasping the strap of her backpack
tightly.

The car
stopped.

The men got
out.

Jamie almost
puked.

Her car door opened, and
the one that had spoken to her was standing there, waiting for her
to get out. The other one was getting her suitcase from the trunk.
A couple of yards away, hidden behind some looming trees, was a
cabin. One light was lit, showing through one of the many tinted
windows. A curtain swung back into place, and the light in the room
showed a large, dark figure move.

Suddenly, she wanted to
run. To scream. To find her mother and clutch onto her. To
cry.

But her mother... If she
was going to be happy, Jamie had to do this. She had to be strong.
The worst that had happened to her in her life was bad grades, and
that had hardly been something to cry over. She wasn’t going to
start now.

With a strong resolve, she
wiped her cheeks and squared her shoulders, stepping out of the
car. The men started to walk along the dirt path, rolling her
suitcase behind them. She drew in a deep breath, smelling the
musty, fresh scent of the world around them and
shuddered.

The extent to her wildlife
knowledge was what she had learned in a month of girl scouts before
she, and her mother, realized that she was too sensible to be
selling cookies and learning how to make cotton dolls. Her feet
crunched branches, crinkled leaves, and carried her to her
doom.

Jamie stared around her as
she got closer to the house. Shadows ran through the forest,
dancing in the darkness. They taunted her, called out to her. God,
this was probably what her mother had wanted to take her to several
years before. Wasn’t it.

The door was opened before
they were on the porch. Seconds after it was opened, they were
already on their way to the car. Headlights flared, unlike last
time, and then they were backing out. Her stomach rolled with acid
as she stood there, several feet before the open door.

Because of the light that
now poured out of the wooden cabin, she couldn’t make out the
features of her new ward. Hair was close to the head, so she
assumed it was a man. His large figure filled the doorway, and the
hand he held out seemed like it was passing through another
dimension and reaching for her.

Drawn, almost as if in a
trance, Jamie held out her hand slowly. The second their fingers
touched, she yanked her hand back and gasped. It had almost hurt,
the tingling sensation that had flown up her arm. Like a static
shock, but ten times as powerful.

His hand dropped, and he
cleared his throat. “Come in.” He stepped back, holding out his
hand as if he would grandly allow her entrance.

At the deep sound of his
voice, Jamie almost fell over from dizziness. Her fingertips, in
the place that he had touched them, almost burned. He was almost
twice her height, and, as she got a better look at his face, almost
twice her age. But that wasn’t what stuck with her. It was the
black as midnight hair. The pale amethyst eyes. The large, bulky
frame and the utter power that radiated from him.

As she walked in wearily,
staring at him with wide eyes, she noticed that he was
oddly...silent. He held himself with arrogance. He held himself
with a quiet strength and reserve, as if he were a king of some
sort. The settings around them completely belied that thought,
though.

Forcing herself to stay
quiet, to not run away screaming her ass off, Jamie looked away
from him and stared at the inside of the cabin. Everything was made
out of wood. Besides the plaid curtains that reached the floor and
swept up dust particles, the lamps were fashioned as the rest of
the place was. The room was closed off, three more doors branching
off to separate rooms of the house.

She wondered which one she
would be sleeping in...if she was even sleeping in the house, that
is. Would he set her outside? she thought numbly, turning pained
eyes back to him.

Only to find him staring
at her with an unreadable expression.

Jamie recoiled.

“
You had a long ride. I’ll
show you to your room and then you can sleep. Tomorrow, we will
talk.” She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but he had a soft accent that
she couldn’t place. God, he was so...regal. And huge. Jamie nodded,
odly calmed by the sound of his voice.

He didn’t seem like he
would hurt her. Actually, that was the exact opposite. The way he
had been looking at her was the way she sometimes found her
mom...after a bout of crying, though. Jamie couldn’t picture this
man crying, though.

“
I never got your name,”
she said, causing him to freeze. He turned and stared at her as if
she had grown two heads. Jamie stared at him straight in the eye,
refusing to back down. If she was going to live with this guy, she
had to know a name at least.

“
They said you were like
me,” he murmured. A look entered his sad eyes, almost like...pain.
Jamie’s face turned red and her shoulders slumped awkwardly. What
was she supposed to say to that? “But I never...”

“
I just asked for your
name,” Jamie said, hating how... intimate he sounded. As if he knew
her. As if he had a right to talk to her like that. She kicked up
her chin and hardened herself against him. He might be twice her
size. He might be able to crush her into nothing but a pile of
bones and cartilage. But that didn’t mean she would let herself he
represented as a weak girl who couldn’t take care of
herself.

He looked at her with
clear eyes, and shut himself down completely. She saw no emotion,
no hint of pain, no smile or arrogance. It was like he was a vessel
and the soul had left. She backed up a step, taking in a breath and
finding only the dull smell of the cabin.

“
Your room is through this
door.” He gestured towards the door on the far right, and then
nodded toward the door in the middle portion of the room. His feet
were as light as a cats as he walked to it and pushed the thing
open, letting her go in first.

“
This is the kitchen. It’s
open all day and night, so have whatever you want when you want it.
I have someone who takes stock and fills it up when it needs to
be.” Her eyes widened when he opened the pantry. She peeked inside
and swore she almost died. Within the amazing walls of the pantry,
she saw jars of pears and peaches, a bowl oranges and a whole
buttload of brownies. Boxes and boxes, just lining the
walls.