Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) (5 page)

“The first time I woke up?” I asked, cutting him off.  “What do you mean, the
first time
?”

“I think it might be better if you see for yourself.  Give me a
second.”

He
stood and left the room quickly, and I wandered blindly toward the window.  I watched as the wind blew the leaves across the yard, wishing I could go out there and chase them the way I had as a kid.  It was going to snow soon.  I closed my eyes and imagined it, big soft flakes that would brush against my cheeks like kisses as they fell around me.

The thought of kisses brought thoughts of Nathan.  And thoughts of Nathan put a hairline crack in my walls, allowing just a little bit of my pain and anger to slip out and flow through my veins like poison.

I had trusted him.  I had believed him when he told me he would always be there.  I had loved him.  And what had I gotten in return?  Betrayal, that’s what.  He had left me. 

Hell, he’d probably been happy to do it.  Being with me had been one disaster after another.  Four lifetimes of it.  If I was honest—and I wasn’t about to be, not right that second—it was kind of hard to blame him.

I caught sight of myself in the window and flinched when I saw the look on my face.  It was inhuman, my expression, and my eyes were glowing again, this time much brighter than they had been in the bathroom mirror.  I moved closer, curious to see if my reflection would take on a life of its own again, but there was just me staring back.  A very angry, very cold-looking version of me, true, but still just me.

“What?”  I asked.  “No snide remarks?  No ‘I wanna share your toys’ speeches to give?”

Apparently not. 

I turned away from
the window with a sniff of disdain and started pacing the room.  I
wanted
someone to fight with.  I wanted someone to take my anger and hurt out on.  I wanted to scream and throw things and cuss like a sailor.  But there was no one there to accommodate me.

Not even my alter ego in the mirror.

I was still pacing when Tyler walked back into the room.  As much as I wanted to fight, I really didn’t think Tyler deserved my wrath.  I stopped my angry back and forth motion when I saw what he was carrying.  I arched an eyebrow and he held the laptop out to me.  Wary, but more than a little curious, I took it from him and sat down in the chair he’d abandoned.

“
Just push play,” he instructed me softly.  “I believe this will help you to understand better than I could.  Afterwards, I will try to explain.”

Yeah, that didn’t sound good, did it?

I had to force my shaking fingers to open it—and even then I lifted the top so slowly you would have thought the demons of Hell were waiting to jump out and get me.

After pushing play, I decided that wasn’t so far off the mark.

“Okay, this is kind of creepy,” I whispered with a shudder as the very room I was sitting in came into focus on the screen. 

The scene itself didn’t look all that bad—at first.  I was sitting at the end of the bed, apparently staring at the wall.  That wasn’t what sent shivers of dread down my spine, though.  It was the look on my face.  There was no
emotion at all.  It was like all that was there was a shell that resembled me.  An empty shell. 

Until
I heard a door open and close, that is.

That’s when the
real
creepy factor set in.

“Em?  Are you okay?” Nathan asked as he moved into camera range.

“I’m cold,” the shell said, a weird little smirk turning up her lips. 

“I know you are.” 

Nathan walked a few steps closer and I saw the shell thing take a deep breath.  Her smile got a little wider, a little scarier, just before she dropped her head.  The fire red curls I’m famous for fell forward to cover her face, keeping me from seeing her expression any longer.

“I need to give you a shot, Em,” Nathan said softly as he moved closer.  “It’ll make you feel better.  I promise.”

I wanted to scream at him to run.  Seriously, couldn’t he see that thing wasn’t me?!  Sure, she looked like me, but he had to be able to see the difference, right?  Whatever that thing was, it was dangerous! 

I wanted to look away when the thing lifted my head again, but I was frozen in place, my gaze fastened on the thing’s eyes.  They were glowing!  Like,
glowing
!  My pretty blue eyes, always my best feature, had turned into ice-blue orbs that were lit up like a couple of LED lights.  The smirk was no longer a smirk, but a sinister smile that would have stopped my heart if I’d still had a heartbeat to stop. 

I had never seen anything so blatantly evil in my whole life.  I slammed the laptop closed, unable to watch, just as it launched itself at Nathan, snarling like a wild animal. 

“He’s all right,” Tyler said, answering the question I hadn’t been able to ask myself.  “It was close, but I was able to restrain you before you fed.”

“Before I
fed,
” I repeated in a horrified whisper.

Fed. 
Though Tyler must have said the word a hundred times in the last couple of hours, I guess it really hadn’t hit home what he was trying to tell me.  Suddenly though, I was getting the message loud and clear.

Humans
ate
. 

Monsters
fed.

It wasn’t me,
I tried to tell myself. 
It wasn’t.  I would remember.  It was somebody else.  It was some
thing
else.  I don’t have anything to feel guilty about.  I don’t.

But if that was true, why did I feel so awful?

Tyler barely flinched when I picked up the laptop and flung it across the room, but the impressive thud it made when it hit the wall wasn’t enough to represent the pain and anger eating at me.  I wanted to scream myself hoarse and then start all over again.  I wanted to rampage through the room, breaking everything in sight, until it resembled the shattered, desolate thing I’d become.  But, more than anything, I didn’t want to feel
any
of that. 

I didn’t want to
feel
anymore, period.  

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, another dry sob lodging in my chest.  “I can’t, Ty.  I’ll screw up, I always do.”

“Em, look at me,” Tyler said softly, reaching out to tilt my chin up when I didn’t immediately obey him.  “You’re going to be fine.  You
can
do this, Em.  If anyone can, it’s you.  You’re stronger than anyone I know, beautiful.”

His aura flared a little brighter, and I caught a faint hint of his mouthwatering scent.  But, rather than back away from me like I was contaminated when I sucked in a deep breath of it, he just gave me a sympathetic smile and molded one of his long-fingered hands to my cheek. 

“You sure about that?” I asked, trying to turn away as a sad little sob broke through the dam I was using to hold them back. 

In answer, he pressed a kiss to my forehead.  I knew then that he
wasn’t
sure.  He wasn’t sure at all. 

Day 1: 

I have decided to stay in bed
.  Maybe forever.  I’m calling it my coffin.  What?  I’m dead! 

Anyway,
I found a crack in the ceiling over the bed that I’d never noticed before. My mission in life now is to decide if it looks more like a duck or a pig…

I know, right.  Deep thinking at its best
.

Okay, so I didn’t take the news that I was a life-sucking demonoid with a smile.  Really, I don’t think anyone would.  For those first couple of days, I kind of went on autopilot.  I moved only when I had to, I talked only when I had to.  I climbed behind my internal walls, pulled the covers over my head, and mourned for everything I’d lost. 

The real problem was that I didn’t know how to be me as a darkling.  I didn’t look like me, I
barely sounded like me, and I sure as hell didn’t
feel
like me.  Mostly, I think, because everything that made me
me
was suddenly missing.  It was all gone, all of it, and I didn’t know how to cope with the losses that just kept hitting me from every direction. 

My friends?  Gone.  My boyfriend?  Just a painful memory.  My Grams?  Yep, you guessed it—absent and not showing any signs of becoming a presence in the house again anytime soon.

My life was over, and, unfortunately, I didn’t know how to start a new one. 

Tyler checked on me every
half hour like a prison guard waiting for the convicts to revolt.  I could almost feel the frustration rolling off him every time the door opened and then closed when he found me exactly where I’d been since I’d seen that damned video.  I felt bad for worrying him—but not bad enough, apparently, since I wasn’t in a hurry to do anything about it.

“It’s a nice day out,” he said when he came to give me my shot at noon
my second day on the new meds. 

Indeed. 
And he was telling me this why?  Because I looked like I cared?  It wasn’t like I could go out and enjoy it, after all.

“The sun is out, the birds are singing,” he continued as he prepped my thigh before
using me as a pin cushion.  “The Earth is even still turning on its axis.  Weird, huh?”

How awesome for the rest of the world. 

“All right then,” he said cheerfully when he was finished playing nurse—seriously, he’d looked like he was actually enjoying himself when he stabbed me that time.  “Well, let me know when you’re finished pretending to be a corpse and want some company.”

I
really
hoped he wouldn’t hold his breath while he was waiting.

Day 4:

Nothing much to report.  I decided the crack looked more like a sheep than a duck or a pig
.  I stared out the window for about twelve hours.  I let Tyler give me my shots. Yeah, my life is so exciting.

On a brighter note, I have now come up with at least a hundred ways to kill a fairy. 

By day four, Tyler’s patience had started to wear thin
. When it was time for my last shot of the day, he marched into the bedroom like he was going into battle.  If I hadn’t been so mired down in self pity, I might have found the look on his face when he saw the empty bed amusing, but I didn’t.  I didn’t find it
un
amusing, either.  Actually, I didn’t care enough to feel any way about it.

I lifted an eyebrow at him when he
finally found me sitting in the empty bathtub, and then went back to staring at the wall—you know, for a change of scenery.  Sighing, he came to sit on the edge of the tub.  After studying me for a few minutes, he reached out to touch my cheek.

“
You about done moping?” he asked when I turned to look at him. 

I glared
at him in answer and jerked my head away.  Moping.  I wasn’t
moping
, I was mourning my passing.  Uh, there
is
a difference, you know?

“Guess not,” he
muttered, pushing my legs over so he could climb into the tub with me.  When I didn’t protest, he pulled my feet into his lap and started rubbing my instep through my sock.  “Shea called.  I have good news and bad news.  Which do you want first?”

“The bad,
” I muttered tonelessly, not really caring either way.

“All right,” he said
, switching to my other foot.  “Shea’s going to be out of town for a while.  She’s leaving today.”

“What do you mean she’s
‘leaving’?” I asked with a shrug.  “Looks to me like she’s already gone.”

Tyler gave me a warning look that said very clearly that I was starting to try his patience before explaining. 
“The Council is meeting to decide a very important matter.  If she’s not there when they vote, it could be disastrous.”

“
Figures,” I muttered, throwing my hands up in a gesture of contempt.  “I’m having the life emergency of all time, and she’s running off to vote on how many toads should go into a potion or something.  Now why do you suppose I’m not surprised?”

The way he looked at me was just creepy.  I saw something in his eyes, something that looked entirely too much like fear for my peace of mind, before he said, very matter-of-factly, “I doubt Shea has ever used a toad in a potion
, Em.”

“
Whatever,” I grumbled.

“Enough!”
he snapped, giving me a hard look.  “That’s
enough
, Ember!  Do you really think she would leave if she had any other choice?”

My totally unfazed expression had him muttering something not quite gentlemanly under his breath.  Seriously, I couldn’t understand why Grams
’ exodus from Moonlight was such a big deal.  Hell, she had already left me.  What did it really matter if she was in town or not?

“
I really don’t care, Tyler,” I told him in a dead-sounding voice, sliding down a little further in the tub and crossing my arms over my chest.  “So she’s gone.  Big deal.”

“
Ember,” Tyler said in a warning tone.

“What’s the good news?”
I interrupted before he could start on another ‘You’re not quite dead, so stop acting like it’ pep talk.

“Nathan’s coming home.”

If he was expecting tears of joy—not that I could accommodate—he was in for a disappointment. 

“Em?” Tyler said when I just stared at him in horror.  “Hey.  You okay, beautiful?  I thought you’d be happy.”

“Happy?” I repeated, my voice trembling.  “The last time he was here, I tried to kill him, Tyler!  I tried to kill the man I love more than my own life!  And you’re bringing him back for round two?”

“That wasn’t you, Em,” he said softly. 

“Really?” I snapped.  “Funny, she sure as hell
looked
like me.”

For a long time, he just sat there and studied me. 
After a few seconds, I wanted to shrink and crawl down the drain, never to be seen again.  I wondered what he was thinking as he looked at me.  Was he seeing that video in his head?  Was he watching me snarl as I tried to claw my way toward Nathan? 

Was he finally starting to see that that had been me, after all?

“It’s all right to be afraid, beautiful,” he said softly just at the very moment when I was about to jump up and run.

“I’m not—” I began, but he cut me off with a shake of his head.

“Sell your crap to someone who buys it, Em,” he said gently.  “And just for the record, that’s not me.  I see your fear every time I talk to you.  I see it in the way you cringe away when I touch you.  You don’t understand what’s happening to you and you’re
scared
.  And that’s okay.”

I looked away before he could see the truth in my eyes.  He was
wrong, I wasn’t afraid.  I was
terrified. 
What would Nathan
see when he looked at me?  How could such a beautiful man ever love me?  How could someone so good and decent ever want the thing I’d become? 

“
He’ll be here day after tomorrow,” Tyler said, grabbing my hand and hauling me to my feet as he stood up.  “Now.  Get up and move around.  Take a shower, read a book, watch a movie, text Kim—who, by the way, is driving me mad asking me why you haven’t called her.  Do
something
, beautiful.  You might not have a pulse, but you’re not quite dead yet.”

Giving him a disgusted look, I pulled my hand free and went back into the bedroom—where I crawled back into bed and pulled the blankets over my head.

Day 6:

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse...

I wonder how a fairy would fare after being put in
a blender…

Fairy smoothies.  Yum.

I spent the night before Nathan was scheduled to come home alternating between fear and terror.  Just the thought of facing him scared the shit out of me.  The thought that my demon double would make another appearance…

Yeah, that’s where the terror came in.

Thanks solely to Tyler’s incessant
nagging
, I got out of bed the next morning and got my stuff together to take a shower.  Even though I kept telling myself that I didn’t care, I was careful to look my best.  I put on Nathan’s favorite jeans and a gauzy gold shirt he’d once told me he really liked.  Thanks to my new undead status, makeup wasn’t necessary, but my hair definitely looked like it could use a little help.

I was
running a brush through my curls when I caught sight of the mark on my neck in the mirror.  Dropping my brush on the counter, I leaned forward and traced the pearlescent outline with my fingertips.

I had once hated that mark with my entire being.  To me, it had meant that I had lost control of my own life.  And if Nathan had been a true monster, I would have.  With that mark he could make me do, believe, see, hear, or feel anything he wanted me to. 

I can see something in that mark that you can’t
, he had once told me. 
I can feel the beauty of the bond it formed between us.  And if you would only forgive me, maybe you would feel it too.

And I had, only it had been too late to tell him.  He had saved me from the lost plane with that mark.  He had used it to drag what was left of my soul back from the ghouls that would have devoured me.

I just hoped he wasn’t sorry for it.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered to my reflection.  “What do you say to a guy you tried to
suck the life out of?”

Hindsight being what it is, talking to the mirror probably wasn’t my best idea ever.  In my defense, though, I really hadn’t expected an answer.  My reflection hadn’t talked back to me since my first day as a dead chick.

As luck would have it, she picked that moment to change her mind.

“
Well, you could tell him what a pathetic loser you’ve become since then, I suppose,” my reflection suggested, that evil smirk firmly in place.  “Miss me, twinkie?”

I yelped in surprise and
jerked away from the mirror.  That just made Evil Ember’s smirk a little more…well, evil.  Determined not to let her get the best of me, I steeled myself against the instinctual fear the sight of her caused and rolled my eyes. 

“Hardly,” I scoffed, glad to hear that my voice only trembled a little.
  “You can’t miss something that isn’t really there.  You’re just a figment of my imagination.  Go.  Away.”

“Oh, now, Em,” she said in a mock whiny voice.  “You know you don’t mean that.  We’re going to be
besties, after all.  Forever.”

“Not likely,” I muttered.
“You see, I already have one of those, too.”

She shrugged at me and smiled and I felt a chill go down my spine at the sheer darkness I saw in it.  It was like looking into Bastian’s eyes.  Though she was the perfect
replica of me, there was something missing.  It took me a minute to figure out what that something was, but when I did I shivered again.

Humanity.  Compassion.  Mercy.  The girl in the mirror?  She didn’t have them.

“So,” she said, hopping up on the vanity on her side of the glass and stretching her legs out in front of her.  “Tell me, Ember.  When are we expecting that yummy boyfriend of ours?”

“Go to hell,” I snapped.

“Been there, done that,” she crooned with a shrug.  “Nice place to vacation, but it doesn’t have the right curb appeal for a permanent residence.  I don’t have to worry about that now, though, do I?”

“We’ll just see about th—”

“What the hell are you doing, Ember?”

No!
I cried silently, closing my eyes in horror. 
No, please, don’t let him be standing there.  Please.

I wasn’t getting that lucky.  Even with my eyes closed, I knew he was there. 
I could feel the connection humming between us.  His scent, so unique, was suddenly filling the room like the most delicious perfume.  And that voice.  His voice was like music to my ears.