The Ballad of Aramei (11 page)

Daisy, although reeling about not being able to go, is always respectful. She bows her head without reluctance and moves her way past him toward Harry’s car.

Once she closes herself up inside, Isaac turns back to Harry and says, “So what’s the story we have to get straight?”

Nathan steps up next to Isaac.

Harry reaches up and scratches the side of his jaw where a little stubble is starting to grow. “Since Genevieve is already gone,” he begins, “you can use her as the scapegoat.” He notices the disapproving lines appearing around my eyes and says, “She won’t care. She’s long gone and if you try to make up some random name and pass it off as one of us, you’ll run the risk of getting caught in a lie easier. Minna will ask questions: names, past lives, anything she can think of to trip you up. It’s better to just go with what you all already know.”

“About Genna?” I say, still not comfortable with this tactic, which is only making me feel kind of like a traitor myself.

Nathan doesn’t look all that accepting of it, either.

“Yes,” Harry says, getting a little aggravated with my doubt. “You can be honest about everything except me. And when it comes down to any questions about who her Charge is or was, that’s the only part you have to lie about.”

“We’ll just say we don’t know,” Isaac says.

Harry nods. “Yeah. One lie is easier than a hundred of them.”

“I never thought I’d be intimidated by a human,” Nathan says, smirking. He glances over at me it seems as if to say ‘no offense’, but at the last second he retracts it. I guess I’m still so new to this werewolf life that I’m easily forgotten. He turns back to Harry. “At least she can’t do anything to
us
.” He backtracks a bit, suddenly unsure of his brash theory. “Right?”

Harry grins. “For the most part, yes,” he says. “They’re not really a threat to anyone or anything but our kind—her house is probably rigged to catch someone like me as soon as I enter the door—but the most you have to worry about is pissing her off and becoming her next hex target.”

Nathan and Isaac both draw their chins inward, their faces riddled with distrust.

“Want to elaborate on that, man?” Isaac says.

Harry is grinning from ear to ear. “Just don’t piss her off,” he says just before Daisy leans out the passenger’s side window and shouts, “Harry, come on!
Please
.”

Just as Harry starts toward his car, he turns back and says, “Oh! And don’t let her get to you about my kind. She’ll say anything to make you believe it’s in your best interest to tell her everything you know.” And then he opens the car door and hops inside with Daisy who will probably look as bitter as she does now, for a while.

But she still manages to blow me a kiss as they speed off.

Chapter 8

NATHAN FOLLOWS US BACK to their house and while I’m up in Isaac’s room grabbing a few items of clothing to take, Zia comes running into the room, laughing hysterically. I jump when she squeals coming around the corner and slams the door behind her, pressing her back against it.

“What the hell?” I say, trying not to smile, but it’s kind of hard not to.

Her body jerks against the door when a loud
bang
hits the other side.

“Help me hold it!” she says to me, laughing.

The door jerks open an inch every few seconds as whoever is on the other side continuously bangs against it.

“Adria!” Zia shouts and finally I run over to help her hold it shut.

“Open the door, Z!” I hear Sebastian growl from the other side.

He doesn’t sound happy.

“What did you
do
?” I say, still trying to hold back my own laughter. My back jerks against the door and I’m wondering all of sudden why she didn’t just reach up and lock it.

I go to turn around, still bracing one hand against the door and just as my fingers pinch the flat cone-shaped lock to twist it locked, one more bang hits the other side and the door swings open, sending me and Zia onto the floor.

Sebastian storms in. Completely bald.

While I’m trying to register what I’m seeing, frozen in my spot on the floor, Zia is trying to scramble away in the other direction toward the window. Sebastian rushes her and grabs her around one ankle. She can’t stop laughing and it’s really the only thing keeping me from thinking Sebastian is here to literally kill her. There’s not an ounce of humor in his body or in his face, which has grown even more enraged over the past few seconds.

“I’m
sooory
!” Zia screeches, her eyes shooting tears from laughing so hard. “I swear I didn’t mean it!”

Sebastian rolls her over and sits on top of her, straddling her waist, both of his hands pinning her to the floor by her wrists. “So, it was an
accident
that you shaved my head while I was asleep?” Sebastian roars down at her. The rumble in his voice shakes me a little.

Finally, I get up from the floor, but I move around to the side, keeping my distance. I’m still not sure if I need to jump in and help Zia, or if I should just leave her to whatever punishment he has in store.

Oh my God…I can’t believe she shaved his hair off….

“No…it’s just that…,” Zia still can’t stop laughing even though I also see there’s obvious pain in her face maybe from how much pressure he’s putting on her body. But she can take it; this, I’m sure of.

I’ll start worrying when she stops smiling.

Her spiky white-blond hair bobs up and down, back and forth against the hardwood floor as she tries to break her way free from him.

“Adria! Help me!”

Sebastian barely turns his head to see me standing off to the side. His eyes are churning with anger and revenge, but they’re not black and this tells me that he’s not as enraged as he appears to be.

I put up my hands in a surrendering fashion. “Hey, don’t look at
me
. I can’t believe you shaved his hair off. Really.”

“Oh seriously!” she shouts and Sebastian releases one of her wrists and holds her face in his hand, squeezing her soft, creamy cheeks beneath his fingers. “Look me in the eye, Dria, and tell me he’s not fucking sexy with a shaved head!”

I look back and forth between them. A couple more times. Okay, so maybe she has a point. He
does
look hot.

“See!” she squeals with her cheeks still pressed between his fingers. “Even she thinks so! Now let me up!”

Sebastian’s head spins around harshly to see me and at first I’m not sure why, but apparently he’s waiting on me to confirm or deny that what she’s saying is true.

“Yes,” I say, “I admit it’s a sexy look on you.”

Isaac walks into the room and says, “Damn straight, Bas. If I swung that way, I’d do you.”

Zia cackles with laughter. I think her voice is starting to become hoarse from laughing and yelling and crying so much.

Sebastian loosens his grip on her face and starts to get off her waist, but Zia reaches up and grabs him by the front of his green t-shirt and pulls him down to her. “Tell me you love it,” she says with their lips not even an inch apart, but she doesn’t give him a chance to answer. She pulls him into a hungry kiss instead, his heavily muscled arms tightening as he holds his weight up from the floor by the palms of his hands.

“Are you ready?” Isaac says, ignoring them altogether.

I think Isaac’s disinterest in them using his bedroom floor as a make-out pad piques Zia’s curiosity. She breaks the kiss and rolls her head to one side to see Isaac and me standing above her.

Sebastian pushes himself off her and helps her to her feet afterwards. He runs his hand over the top of his bald head.

“Where are you two going that’s so important?” Zia says, still smiling hugely and out of breath. She reaches up and rubs his head, too, dragging the tips of her fingers down the center and then over the bridge of his nose.

Isaac grabs a black sling back from the floor of his closet and pushes a few things down inside and shoulders it.

“We’ll be spending more time with Aramei for a while,” Isaac says and never looks at me because he knows I’m not slow to catch on.

I shoulder my small bag, too.

Zia raises a finely groomed brow. “Oh? He’s found a new slave to look after Aramei now?” She grins over at me, draping an arm around Sebastian’s waist.

“Looks that way,” Isaac says. But he never makes eye contact with her; instead, he rummages through the top drawer of his nightstand.

Zia’s smile drops from her face and both of her hands drop to her sides. “What’s with you two lately?” she says. “I wasn’t going to say anything before but you’ve both been acting weird ever since…,” she looks right at me, “…well, since you started growing hair in all the wrong places.” She smirks playfully, hoping to get a reaction out of me.

She always does.

“You suck, Zia,” I say, smiling across at her.

“But you love me,” she says, striking an overly dramatic pose. She bats her eyes and pooches out her lips.

“Yeah, I do,” I say, beaming.

“Okay, all joking aside,” she says, “what’s going on with you? And with Daisy, Harry and Nathan, for that matter.”

I hear a
crunch
as Sebastian casually cracks his knuckles. “I’d like to know myself,” he says and his deep brown eyes fall on Isaac as if he’s the one of us who he expects will give him the answers. Maybe it’s a guy thing.

Isaac leans away from the drawer and shuts it softly, afterwards slipping a pocketknife down into his front jeans pocket.

“It’s crazy what my father expects of us,” Isaac says so convincingly that even though I know he’s making up this excuse as he goes, I’m totally believing the pace of his story. “Adria and Aramei both being bonded apparently has set off a shit-storm of expectations from my father.”

I jump in, “She’s been trying to communicate with me.”

Zia’s mouth forms the letter O. “No way! Like actual communication? Are you serious?”

I nod. “Yes,” I say, “but I’ve not been able to get anything out of her, at least, not what Trajan wants, anyway.” It’s a huge lie but necessary just the same.

Zia crosses her arms and looks off toward the wall in thoughtful amazement. She shakes her head a few times. “That’s pretty incredible,” she says finally looking back at me. “Just that she’s tried to communicate with anybody at all, really. Don’t take it the wrong way, but I’m glad it’s you and not me.”

I scoff. “How else am I to take that?”

“C’mon,” she says grinning, “I’m just sayin’.”

I just smile at her hopelessly.

I can sense Isaac getting anxious. I take a few steps toward the bedroom door to show them that we really do need to go, but I pause before stepping out into the hall.

“I do feel sorry for her,” Zia says about Aramei, seeming sort of lost in a sad memory, probably of the times she herself spent caring for her. “I would
never
want to live like that.”

The ensuing silence gives us the opportunity to cut this conversation short.

“Well, we need to head out,” Isaac says coming up behind me. He stands in front of Sebastian and a slim smile breaks his face. He shakes his head, laughing gently. “I can’t believe she shaved your head, man.” And then he steps out into the hall with my hand locked in his.

Isaac’s final comment set the tone for more craziness and the next thing I know, Sebastian has Zia slung over his shoulder and is carrying her off to the end of the hall towards their room. Zia kicks and screams and laughs the whole way. By the time Isaac and me make it to the top of the stairs, their bedroom door slams shut and all I can hear is Zia’s muffled laughter behind the door.

I shake my head, laughing under my breath as we descend the stairs.

Nathan comes out of the kitchen as we enter the den. He’s also carrying a bag over his shoulder and he’s changed his clothes. He stops at the den entrance wearing a tight black t-shirt that says OBEY across the front in bold red letters.

“Ready?” Nathan says with his mouth full. He swallows down whatever he was eating and takes a big gulp of water from the bottle in his other hand.

“As ever,” Isaac says nodding toward the door. “Let’s go.”

I follow them out and just as I emerge onto the front porch, a familiar smiling face is staring up at me from the bottom of the steps.

“Adria!” It’s annoying Cecilia from the skate park. I don’t know how she found out where we were, or why she’s here, but there couldn’t be a worse time for someone like her to be showing up out of nowhere.

Isaac glances over at me nervously. Nathan looks at me with a curiously raised eye.

“What are you doing here?” I say to Cecilia as I come off the bottom step to meet her.

Her smile widens, displaying all of her teeth. She’s wearing a skin-tight babydoll tee with a low-cut V-neck that scoops right down in-between her plump breasts. She only ever dresses like this when she’s trying to gain the attention of a guy. It’s how she landed her ex-boyfriend, Marc: her huge boobs, which makes me feel even worse for her. This girl has always been in serious need of a straightforward friend to guide her off the path of being the most gossiped about girl in Hallowell. I would consider taking on the role, but with Cecilia, there’s a lot more to it. Like my sanity, for starters.

“Baby, we really need to hit the road,” Isaac whispers at me harshly from behind.

Cecilia is all but glued to Nathan. I notice that she’s slow to answer my question because she can’t seem to stop gawking at him. And Nathan, well, he suddenly appears uncomfortable, avoiding direct eye contact with her, which I find sort of hilarious.

“Sorry,” Cecilia says taking one step up, “I found out from your aunt where you were—,” she turns all of her giddy attention on Nathan and only Nathan, “—Hi, I’m Cecilia, a good friend of Adria and Isaac’s.” She reaches out her hand and Nathan reluctantly shakes it but he looks as if he’s doing something he’s going to regret.

Isaac and I exchange looks, probably thinking along the same lines though we aren’t inside each other’s heads at the moment. Since when did we become good friends of hers?