The Holders

28



“The plural of cactus is ‘cacti’ not ‘cactuses’, you illiterate oaf!” Mr Reid snapped, kinetically lifting the u, s, e, and s off of the Scrabble board and hurling them into Mr Anderson’s chest.

“No one says cacti! Never in my whole life have I heard anyone say cacti!”

“Of course not, you grew up in Scotland! You wouldn’t know a cactus if you were sitting on one!”

“I do believe ‘cacti’ is correct,” Cormac cut in timidly, holding his own tray of letters down against the table as though he thought they also might soon become projectiles.

As Mr Reid and Mr Anderson continued to argue, and Cormac tried in vain to keep the peace, I brought my legs up onto the ottoman I was seated on with an amused smile. I’d opted out of the evening’s Scrabble tournament, but was more than content to sit with Chloe and watch the grammatical high jinks unfold.

It was the morning of my first official day out of the infirmary, and I was feeling much better. My strength had returned almost entirely, finally allowing me to climb a flight of stairs without becoming winded, and take a shower without having to sit down and rest on the edge of the tub halfway through.

However, despite the fact that my physical being was almost one hundred percent, my emotional state – while much improved – was still far from perfect. It had been two days since my meeting with Jocelyn, followed by, bar none, the worst night of my life. After Alex had gotten me back to the infirmary, I’d basically spent the night blubbering, stammering, and sobbing, until finally passing out sometime in the wee hours, only to wake up the next morning dehydrated and puffy. Since then I’d been better, though I still wasn’t ready to actually see Jocelyn in person, which was why I was currently sitting in the lounge listening to this week’s Scrabble war instead of with Alex and Min in Jocelyn’s office hearing how the remainder of Taron’s reading had gone. I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever, but seeing him meant thinking about everything he’d told me, and right now that was all still too confusing. At some point I’d think about it and decide what I wanted to do with the information he’d given me, and, honestly, it would probably be someday soon.

Just not today.

But… soon.

“It’s twelve points, not nine!” Mr Anderson yelled, trying to snatch the score sheet and pencil away from Mr Reid.

“I see, so you can count, you just can’t spell?” snipped Mr Reid, holding the sheet behind him like a game of keep-away.

“For heaven’s sake!” Chloe chimed in, looking up from her history assignment. “Is it so hard to behave like men and not prattling boys?”

“Yes, exactly,” Reid agreed, waving at Anderson. “Stop acting like a child!”

“I’m a child?” Anderson retorted. “Perhaps you should take it like a man!”

“Bloody hell…” Chloe huffed, shoving away from the table and stomping across the lounge to the bookshelf.

“You’ll get nine points, or you’ll get none!” Reid said, pointing the tiny game pencil in Anderson’s face.

“Perhaps we could make it ten and a half?” Cormac suggested meekly. “You know, split the difference?”

“No!” both Anderson and Reid yelled simultaneously, glaring at poor Cormac like he was out of his mind.

I felt the comforting pull in my chest before I heard his voice say, “You’ll have to forgive them, Cormac. They’re a couple of idiots when it comes to these things.”

“Alex,” said Mr Anderson, ignoring the jibes, “‘Cacti’ or ‘cactuses’?”

He stepped up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, grazing his thumbs up and down the back of my neck. “I believe it–”

“Cacti,” Chloe announced loudly, holding a large volume from one of the bookshelves. “C-A-C-T-I.”

“Ha!” Mr Reid barked. “There, you damn fool, I told you so! And that’s nine points,” he said, making a bit of a show writing the number down on the sheet. “Thank you, lass,” he said to Chloe.

“Pleasure,” she said, not hiding her sarcasm as she closed the book with a slap and stuffed it back on the shelf.

“That’s weird,” Alex said as Chloe returned to her table, “I was sure both were correct.”

“Sst!” Chloe hissed, shushing him quickly while glancing over to the game table to make sure no one else heard. “And have them fighting all day?” she whispered, giving Alex and I a sneaky smirk before returning to her work.

I felt Alex chuckle behind me. “You up for a walk?” he asked quietly, squeezing my shoulders.

I nodded still smiling, and we left the lounge hand in hand. “Where are we going?” I asked as we paused at the stairs.

“I wanted to go down to the lake, but it’s a little cold for that, so balcony?”

“Great.”

He waited until we got up to the second floor to ask, “How are you doing?”

“All right,” I said, knowing he was referring to Jocelyn. “Better.” I waited until the balcony door was closed behind us before continuing, “Still afraid to see him. Still have no idea what to do, or think, or how to feel. I have spent years hating him, and part of me still does. But now there is this other part of me that doesn’t, and the sick thing is, I don’t want that. I want to hate him, even though I know that’s horrible, and yet, at the same time I don’t want to hate him…” I squeezed my eyes shut with a frustrated huff. “I don’t know.”

Before I had a chance to open my eyes, I felt a pair of arms holding me securely.

“You’re not sick,” Alex said quietly, lightly kissing my forehead, “and you’re not horrible. What you’re feeling – all of it – is natural, and no matter which side you come out on, what really counts is that you’re trying.” He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my eyes to meet his. “One step at a time.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, letting out a long breath. “And step one is getting over being weirded out by the whole name change thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it: he actually changed my name and I had no idea! How creepy is that? It would be like someone telling you that up until yesterday the sky had been purple, even though all you can ever remember it being is blue. I can barely even wrap my mind around it, not to mention that the whole idea is scary as hell! He could do anything he wanted! He could change history, and no one would even know!” I sat down on the window seat with a deep breath, trying to quell my paranoia. “I guess I just figured that if someone messed with my mind like that I would know. Or at least know that something wasn’t right, but there is nothing.”

“It’s a dangerous ability to have,” Alex said sitting next to me, “which is why it is so important that we stop Darragh before he is able to do any real damage.”

“Speaking of Darragh, how did it go? Did Jocelyn get anything useful out of Taron?”

“No.” Alex shook his head, clearly disappointed. “Nothing else. Just that same name, Ciaran Shea.”

Well that was a little let down. “What do we do now?”

“Jocelyn looked into it, and it appears Ciaran is one of the Originals, or that’s what they call themselves, anyway. They are a group of Holders who live in Dublin,” he hesitated with a slight eye roll, “but they are not like us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say, they don’t like to get their hands dirty.”

“And Ciaran is one of them?”

“Looks that way. Jocelyn is arranging for some of us to go and meet with them, and see if we can find this Ciaran for ourselves.”

“But if he and Taron were working together, wouldn’t Darragh know about him too?”

“We’re not sure what Darragh knows at this point, which is why we have to move fast.”

We sat in silence for a minute while I looked for a new topic, not liking at all how uncomfortable the Darragh subject was making me.

“I’m not sure I’ll know what to do in my own bed tonight,” I said, hoping my diversion tactic wasn’t as plain to him as it seemed to me.

“I know,” he laughed. “What will you do without the creaky, rock-hard mattress, and the constant running of the broken toilet in the bathroom?”

“And the nurses constantly coming in to check on me, and then there was this guy who would not go away…”

I peeked over at him with a grin, to find him shooting me a wry glance. “Sounds awful.”

“Oh, it was!” I bit back a giggle. “I swear he was with me twenty-four seven, poor guy must have no life at all.”

“Must have been hell. You had to spend all that time staring at him, was he at least good looking?”

“Ah,” I shrugged, no longer able to contain my smile, “he’s all right.”

“Just all right?” he growled through his grin, grabbing me around the waist and dragging me with a shriek up onto his lap.

The next moment his mouth took hold of mine as both of his hands wound into my hair. My eyes fluttered as his lips worked their way down, nipping at my chin before blazing a tingling trail to my collarbone, then climbed back up the side of my neck, ending at his favorite spot just under my ear. The noises coming out of my mouth as my head lolled back were entirely involuntary and not exactly graceful, but given Alex’s reactions to them, they were exactly what he wanted to hear. I slid my hands down his back then slowly up his sides, relishing the moan that rumbled in his chest. Just as my fingers reached the buttons on his shirt, he let out a long breath and rested his forehead on my shoulder.

“We should stop,” he said with a hoarseness that made me shiver.

“No, I don’t think we should.”

He looked up at me with a grin. “We are in public, after all.”

“Then let’s go somewhere private,” I whispered, bending forward and kissing his neck as he’d done mine. As my lips teased the hollow of his throat, his chest begin to heave under me and suddenly his hands were grabbing at my back, fisting my shirt, pulling me closer.

“Becca,” he breathed after a too-short moment, “we have to stop.” Reluctantly, he took hold of my shoulders and lifted me away from him. “You’re not ready for this yet, you need more time.”

“Fine,” I sighed, with a frustrated grin.

“Don’t worry,” he said, kissing me lightly on the nose. “Soon.”

We sat, both of us trying to get our pulses back down to where they should be, while I was again trying to find a topic of conversation. Wonderful as kissing Alex had been for – ahem – personal reasons, it had also kept my mind from the hard lump forming in my stomach that I was trying desperately to ignore. I felt the tension creep into my face, and hoped I could find a new distraction before Alex noti–

“Becca, what’s wrong?”

Damn. “It’s nothing,” I said, standing. “Let’s go back in.”

“Becca,” he said, reaching out and grabbing my hand before I could walk away. “Please tell me.”

I looked down at the soft concern on his face, and felt the truth spill out of me before I could stop it. “I… I’m scared, Alex,” I admitted, looking away. “Darragh… he knows about me, I know he does. Cail would have told him by now. This is getting so serious, and I’m supposed to be the one who fixes everything. I’m not supposed to want to hide in my room.” I stopped, still looking down at the floor, both relieved to get the words out and ashamed at what they were. “What if I can’t make everything better?”

“Come here,” he said, pulling me back down onto his lap. He held the side of my face, and looked hard into my eyes. “Listen to me. It’s OK to be scared, it would be foolish not to be. But I want you to understand that it is not up to you to make things better. It’s up to all of us. You are never going to be alone, do you hear me? I will always – always – be there, right next to you. Even if I am just all right looking,” he chided, trying to get me to smile.

I tried to grin, but I don’t think it worked. “This is going to get really dangerous, isn’t it?” I asked, already knowing the answer was yes.

I looked at Alex expecting just for a moment that he would tell me no, and not to worry, and that everything would be fine, and anything else that he thought might comfort or reassure me. But of course he didn’t. He didn’t, because Alex would never lie to me. He simply nodded and said, “Probably.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes. I’m scared for what may come, scared for what could happen if we fail, but more than anything, I’m terrified for you. You have no idea what it does to me to know that Darragh is after you. To not know what he’s planning, or how you’re going to be involved.”

“So what do we do?”

“We trust,” he said, brushing his fingers lovingly through my hair. “I trust in you, you in me, and we in us. We trust the Order to have our backs and we trust that, together, we will all find a way to win. It will be hard, but the way I see it, as long as we have each other then we have everything we need to make it through.”

As I looked into his stormy-gray eyes, a calming sensation rippled through me like a gentle gust of wind over a silk flag. He was right, and in that moment, deep down, I believed that everything would be OK. I may not have known what was coming, but I knew that Alex was my rock, and as long as I had him next to me I’d be OK. Maybe this was why we were bonded. Maybe some fate somewhere had destined us for each other because she knew that individually we weren’t strong enough for what lay ahead of us, but together we could face anything.

“I love you,” I sighed, turning my head into his hand.

“I love you too,” he said, kissing my forehead.

“I wish I could be more like you.”

“Like me?” he laughed.

“Hmm,” I agreed, leaning over onto him and resting my head on his shoulder. “I’ve wanted to say that for a while now, actually. You’re amazing.”

“Now I know you’re still under the weather,” he chuckled, feeling my forehead. “Shall we go in?” he asked.





ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS



If I may paraphrase Confucius, “Show me who your friends are, and I’ll show you the book you’ll write.”

OK, that may not be entirely accurate, but I’m pretty sure that most authors would agree when I say that the people around us are just as responsible for our books as we are. Our friends and family give us ideas and inspiration, they tell us when we’ve done well and when we’ve totally screwed up, and they give us the kick in the pants we need when our steam has all but run out. Without the support I’ve gotten from all the people I am lucky enough to have in my life, I know that this book would never have found its way off of my laptop. So to everyone who has lifted, encouraged, nudged, poked, kicked, shoved, and just generally put up with me; this one’s for you.

From the moment I sent my amazing agent, Carly Watters, the email telling her that I had a new book in the works, not only did she refrain from panicking at the fact that I had completely changed genres on her, but she immediately got behind The Holders and couldn’t have been more supportive. I can’t express how fortunate I feel to have her in my corner along with the rest of the PS Literary team who are nothing if not tireless advocates for each and every one of their authors.

There isn’t much I can say that would do justice to the gratitude I feel for Strange Chemistry and my brilliant editor, Amanda Rutter. They believed in my work enough to take a chance on me, and their support and enthusiasm has been more than I could ever have hoped for. To be counted as a Strange Chemistry author – as one of Amanda’s authors – is truly an honor.

Don’t tell anyone, but I can’t spell. I’m not all that great at typing either, as my fingers often have a mind of their own – a problem that auto-correct tends to only make worse. I bring this to your attention so that you can better understand what incredible, patient, and all round wonderful people my Beta Readers are. These are the people who generously give countless hours of their time to read though all the wonky, typo-ridden, early drafts of my work so that I can make it better. Mary Smith and Cathy Pleskovich: my proofreaders, Elizabeth Shaw: my resident go-to, Samantha Smith: my detail-oriented YA expert, Mary Arnold: a surprise fan and always my cheerleader (also my grandma), Patti, Beth F., Jocelyn, Beth L., Ondrew, Julie: my Chocolate Books support system, and Natori Walters: the first person to read my work who was actually a young adult.

A huge thank you to fellow author, Carol Oats, who was kind enough to call upon her Irish heritage to help me make some sense out of the beautiful but incredibly complicated pronunciations of Irish Gaelic. Big hugs are also due to one of my best virtual friends and queen of my online support system, Angela Cook, whose passion, drive, and positive attitude never fail to impress me.

Finally, to my amazing husband, without whom this book would still have huge plot holes, nameless characters, and a missing chapter. Your endless support is the only reason I am able to do this at all, and not a day goes by that I am not amazed by everything you have done to help my dreams come true. You’ve read, plotted, sacrificed, listened, re-read, listened some more, changed diapers, fed kids, and eaten cereal for dinner more nights than any grown man should ever have to. Anything I need, you find a way to get it for me, and anywhere I need to be, somehow you always get me there. Thank you for believing in me and making me the luckiest woman in the world.



ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julianna was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and spent the majority of her educational career convinced she would be a musician. However, after receiving her music degree from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, she realized that she’d been born in the wrong era for her dreams of singing jazz to adoring fans clad in zoot-suits and flapper dresses to come true, and began to wonder if her true calling might be elsewhere.

While Julianna had always excelled in writing throughout school, she’d never considered it a career possibility until about three years ago, when she’d gotten her first story idea and decided to go for it. She grabbed her laptop, started typing away, and has never looked back.