Twenty-One
“Have a good night?” My mother gives me a knowing look as I come through the door after Tex drops me off. I pull the neck of the hoodie I borrowed from Tex up so it covers the bruises.
“Oh yeah.” I roll my eyes and rub them, hands coming away with glitter and mascara. Waiting on the kitchen counter is a strong pot of earl grey tea and a plate of sugar cookies. I slump down in a chair and give her the quick and dirty version of what happened, leaving myself, Peter and Ivan out of it. I tell her about Tex and she laughs. Her skin is a little gray and she looks like she stayed up all night, but I still look worse.
“You didn't worry, did you?” I put another spoonful of sugar in my tea. At this point, it's half liquid, half sugar, but I need it.
“Of course not. You're a smart girl. I know I can trust you.” I'd be a horrible person if I betrayed my cancer-stricken mother's trust. Oh, wait...
“Where's Dad?” I ask, to change the subject.
“He had to run in to the office to do some paperwork.” She brushes sugar off the counter. I know she wants him to be here all the time, but would never ask him to.
“He'll be back.” I give her a hug and wince. I tug the strings of the hoodie tighter, almost strangling myself. I also stole some of Tex's intense cover-up that she uses for monster zits. I hope it works on noctalis-inflicted marks.
After I've finished my tea and cookies, I say I'm going to take a shower.
“I think that's a good idea. You're getting sparkles all over my clean counter.” I look down and see that I am. There's even some on the cookie plate. She comes over and gives me a hug, glitter be damned.
“I'm going to lie down,” she says, giving me a tired half-smile, only one side of her mouth twitching upward.
I'm relieved when I shut the door to my room. I let my shoulders sag under the weight of everything that's happened. I can't take much more. Soon I'm going to be crushed. The tears I don't bother to stop drip down my face, grateful for release.
First things first. Shower. I throw Tex's hoodie and borrowed pants in the hamper. I'd left the dress crumpled on the floor of her room.
I turn the water on as high as it will go and scrub and scrape until my skin is red and raw. I let the water pound on my face, seep into my eyes and make me cry more. I'm glad for the background noise of the water, because I'm being quite loud. I don't turn off the water until the hot runs out and I'm shivering. The tears have stopped, but my neck hurts like hell. I wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror and examine my neck. The marks are red from the hot water, but they don't look too severe. I think I'll be able to get away with just make-up.
My phone buzzes and it's Tex asking how I'm doing. I text her back saying I'm fine and throw in a smiley for good measure.
I'm combing out my hair when there's a tapping at my window. I don't have to look up to know who it is. All I want to do is shut the curtains on him. Instead, I grab some clothes, change in the bathroom, come back in and stand by the window. He's standing on the overhang outside, wings furled, shirt off. I'm pissed and scared at the same time. He's kinda breathtaking, standing there like that.
“What do you want?” I say through the glass. I'm not opening the window.
“Please let me come in.” Dear God, I'm having vampire movie flashbacks.
“So you can let your brother strangle me again? Hell, no.” I cross my arms. If he wants in, there's nothing I can do to stop him. That doesn't mean I can't put up a fuss.
“Ava. You need to let me in.” I'm still not opening the window.
“Can't you just come in? I thought that inviting thing was a myth.” I'm playing with fire.
“It is. But I do not want to force you.” He rakes a hand through his hair and I catch a glimpse of his eyes.
“I don't want to see you. Ever again.” The words hurt coming out of my mouth. They are sharp and make me want to cry all over again.
They're also not true.
“Ava, please. Let me explain.” I've never heard him plead before, and it isn't satisfying. It makes my stomach twist in a sick way.
“Go ahead. I can't wait to hear it.” My hair drips down my back and I grab my towel to dry it. I open the window a little so I can hear him better. He moves closer, somehow keeping perfect balance.
“Ivan and I have a history. It is not a good one, and I am not going into it, but you need to listen to me.” Now there's desperation in his voice. This is bigger than I thought.
I wave my hand for him to go on.
“I should have seen it coming, but I was blind. He's going to try and use you to destroy me. There are things about me that you do not know, that I cannot tell you. All I can ask is that you trust me when I say that you are in danger and I would do anything to stop it.” From what Ivan said, Peter is the one in danger, but that's impossible. Ivan must have said it just to mess with me.
“So what are we doing to do?” I hate how the word 'we' just comes out of my mouth, as if 'we' are a given. My sense abandoned me back when he started begging.
“There is only one option. I would have come sooner, but I wanted to give you some time.” Time to freak out and worry a little?
“I'm not going to like it, am I?” I wrap my arms around myself against the chilly air seeping through the window.
“No.” Bingo.
“Why should I believe you?” I try to do what he does, look at him without blinking. Of course my eyes get all dry and I have to. So much for that.
“You don't have to. But I would not lie to you about this.” He's right, and I hate him for it.
“What is it? This thing you have to do?” I move aside so he can climb in the window. My promise not to let him in wasn't even a promise. I always cave when it comes to Peter.
Somehow he slips in, even with the wings. I shake a little, being so close to him, a remnant of the fear left over from last night. I'm more aware than ever how dangerous he is.
“Are you going to kill me?” I grip the towel to stop my hands from shaking.
“No.” He moves around me and goes to my night stand. The only thing on my night stand is the Swiss Army knife I'd gotten out to protect myself that second time I went to see him. I forgot it was there. This is not going well. He's going to kill me.
“You said. You said you're not going to kill me.” I stutter. Facing him, I start to inch toward the door. He can outrun me, but I'm not going down without a fight.
“I am not going to kill you.” He flips the knife open with a click. The next moment he lifts his wrist to his lips. “Don't watch.” Of course that only makes me look closer as he bites into his wrist and blood seeps out.
“What are you doing?” I shriek and then clamp my hand over my mouth. Mom is downstairs.
“Come here, quickly.” I go to him, if only because he's dripping blood on my floor. Before I can grab a tissue to staunch his wound, he grabs my wrist with his bloody hand.
“I'm sorry.” He moves the knife over my own wrist and I cry out with the pain and surprise of it. I struggle, but he's too strong.
“Stop,” he commands. Taking my arm, he turns it so the open wounds meet. An instant flash of cold rips through me, as if my blood has crystallized.
“Stay still.” I hear his voice from far away as our blood mixes and drops onto the floor. He turns my arm upside down so his blood seeps into my wound. “Shh,” he says, holding my arm so tight I can barely feel it, as if it's not my arm anymore.
“Nonono.” I'm spewing nonsense, but I can't stop. I'm shaking because I'm cold and I'm scared and I don't know what's happening.
“This is the only choice. The only way.” He keeps pressing and the blood loss is making me woozy. Cold burns through me. I'm crying and trying to break away and he's not saying anything and I just want it to stop and there's so much blood and Ijustwantittostop.
I must have blacked out because when I open my eyes I'm laying down on my bed. My eyeballs are sticky and hard to move, but the first thing I look at is my arm. Someone bandaged it with white gauze, but there is still a little bit of red soaking through the white. I can't move my head so my eyes search the room. I'm tucked into my bed, the covers up to my chin, but with my arm on top.
“Peter?” My voice doesn't come out the way it's supposed to. I listen, hearing only the sound of my clock, which is really loud.
“Ava.” His voice comes from my bathroom, where the door is open. My stomach cramps, and I feel like I'm going to throw up, but I can't move. Then there is an arm around me and someone is dragging me to the bathroom where I do end up puking. Someone holds my hair as I heave. A Peter someone. He gets me to the sink and turns the water on.
I rinse my mouth out and he's still holding me up.
“What did you do?” my voice rasps.
“I Claimed you.”
***
When I thought about losing her, it made me think back to that night so many years ago. The night my human life ended and my eternal existence began.
After the ship struck the iceberg and it was clear the ship would sink, they called for women and children only to be lowered in the lifeboats. My sisters cried and clung to my father's leg, begging to stay with him. My mother was silent, her lips forming a hard line. She hadn't spoken in quite a while, except to tell the girls to hush and to hold onto her hand. The other hand clutched at the pearl necklace she'd worn for dinner that night.
My father pulled her aside and told her that she needed to take the girls and get in the boat. She shook her head, refusing. He took her arm and dragged her toward the boats, the girls crying and fighting the whole way. One of them fell and he picked her up, shoving her into my mother's arms, but her little fingers were latched to his collar. Lucy, my youngest sister.
“Get in the boat, Princess,” he said. It took my help to pry her little chubby fingers from his jacket, handing her to Mother before he gave his wife one last desperate kiss. The kind of kiss you remembered for the rest of your life, because it was the last. He stripped off his coat and wrapped it around them. His little ladies, he called them. I reached out my hand and my mother clasped it, her fingers biting at mine. I wished she could pull me into the boat with her. Her fingers held so tight it hurt, but I wanted it to hurt. I wanted pain to accompany this tearing apart of our family on this cold night. Other frantic passengers streamed around us like a raging river.
My father gripped my shoulder. This also hurt. We said some other things to each other, but they were lost in the chaos. The boat lowered over the side of the deck. I watched my mother's face until I couldn't see it anymore as the boat jerkily disappeared over the side of the deck. They were gone.
The moment after we could no longer see them, my father hugged me so tight the oxygen left my lungs, puffing into the freezing air.
“We will see them again.” He said it, even though we knew it wasn't true at least in this lifetime. We knew there weren't enough boats. We knew how cold the water was, how fast hypothermia could set in. We clung to each other, jostled about by the desperate people who didn't want to die.
I swore to myself in that moment, that if I lived, I would never feel that way again. I intended to keep that promise, even though I was not alive. Promises and memories were all I had left.
After I Claimed her, I would not be free. Neither would she, but at least she'd be alive. I would do my best to keep her alive, even if it meant my end. Especially then. Keep her alive. My Ava.