03 Saints (33 page)

“Seems like I’m not the only one keeping secrets,” he said. His silver eyes flashed in the muted light of the hall as he looked around. “I only kept it from you, because I feared this response…When you’ve gotten a better handle on your anger, come see me. I think we have some things to discuss.”

He turned and left without another word. I listened to every step he took, fighting the desire to follow him and beat the crap out of him. I didn’t care about answers as much as I did making him pay. Alex seemed to know what I was thinking. She nodded at me once in understanding then followed Reaper down the hall. I knew she would get answers from him that I couldn’t, even if I hadn’t been so worked up.

“Well, I suppose I shouldn’t worry about you taking care of yourself,” Daniel said lightly when we were alone again.

“My powers seem to work around friends and fail around enemies,” I said. “It doesn’t really help.”

“We will work on it,” he promised.

“How about almost killing everyone in the room when I get angry?” I asked. “Do you want to work on that as well?”

“You feel things honestly,” he said. “When you feel, you feel. That can be good, but for us…well, some anger management techniques might be in order.”

“I almost killed Reaper,” I said.

“He won’t hold a grudge.”

“How noble of him,” I said.

“What you want to do?” he asked.

“I haven’t decided,” I said. “Opening that box and beating the crap out of Anna sounds very appealing…as does beating Reaper until he cries.”

“If that’s what you sincerely want to do, I’ll help you. I’ll even beat up Reaper...until he cries,” he offered.

I contemplated what I wanted.

“Let’s go somewhere…far away from here. I need space to think,” I said.

“I can do that,” Daniel said.

He led me out of the room, where scorch marks blanketed the door from the fire I had caused, and to the cars outside. He picked the car he loved so much…the ridiculous looking one, and before I knew it, we were long gone from the school.

We drove around for hours. When we finally stopped, we were at the beach. I wasn’t sure if we were north or south of the school – I didn’t really care. By the time we stopped, I had found my emotions on the subject again. I voiced them as I followed Daniel out of the car and toward the dark waves lapping eagerly against the sand.

“How could he have lied to me like that?” I asked Daniel. “He knows what Anna did. He knows…and he keeps her here?”

“Do you want the voice of reason or the voice that agrees with your opinion?” he asked.

“Both,” I said.

“Reaper captured Anna before he knew you as a person. Once he realized your relationship with Anna, maybe he thought you would have the reaction that you, uh…had, and a wedge would form,” Daniel suggested.

“I don’t like it when you talk like this,” I said.

“Like I make sense?” he asked.

“Yes,” I agreed.

He shrugged and sat down in the sand. A cool breeze played over us as I joined him. I sat as close him as possible, needing his warmth as much as his understanding. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me even closer.

“She’s the reason I fear…fear. She made me fear being afraid,” I admitted to Daniel, meaning Anna. “She’s the reason that when I sleep I always wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, the memories of my time in hell…” I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can stay in the school.”

“We have options,” Daniel reminded me.

“Yeah, well, being rich and owning a bank gives you those sorts of options,” I said dryly.

“You own half,” he pointed out.

“Don’t remind me,” I said.

“I will if I want to.”

I sighed. Leaving didn’t feel as easy as he made it sound. Having options didn’t mean they were genuine options. The Saints provided us a way in to the Watcher’s world that we had been previously lacking.

“But I can see why Reaper didn’t want to tell me…even if I don’t like it. If I had someone who had hurt him trapped in a box, I’d be a little cautious, too.”

Daniel nodded and didn’t say anything. He held me and I realized I didn’t have to make a decision about Reaper or the school right now. All that mattered was that Daniel was holding me – that was as good as perfect. If I focused on the way his arm felt around me and the sense of steady presence – a presence I knew would never abandon me no matter my choice – I wouldn’t feel all the bad things and difficult memories. The present mattered more than what would happen in the future.

I focused on that and tried not to feel overwhelmed from such a long day. I had been told once that time for a Watcher moved differently than normal time; seconds could feel like days. Today, I felt that difference.

Chapter 14

When we got back to the school, I was still uncertain where I stood on the issue of Reaper.

I walked an emotional tight-wire of indecision. My indecision was not left to fester long. Reaper was smarter than that. He was waiting for us in the gravel of the front drive as we pulled up. His face was apologetic, and his hands were tucked in his pockets – it was a gesture I was all too familiar with. It was something Daniel did when he was trying to act innocent and boyish. But he was not Daniel; his charm would not work on me.

My heart sped in remembered anger when I saw Reaper, but I managed to steady my emotions. Daniel’s hand on mine as we got out of the car helped tremendously. His thoughts encouraged the calm.

Reaper didn’t waste any time.

“First, I am sorry. Second, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Third, if you want Anna gone, I can arrange to have her memory erasure sped up. I was working on a…timeline but that can change.”

“Alex made you apologize didn’t she?” I asked suspiciously.

“No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do,” Reaper said. He smiled ruefully. “Though…she might have said a few things to point out my…‘lack of consideration’ and ‘my inability to act with decency and respect toward someone loyal to my cause, when loyalty is rarity.’ She also called me a ‘toolbag.’”

“Sounds like Alex,” I said begrudgingly.

I forced down some of the anger, knowing that Alex would say the things I couldn’t. She would also fight dirty, and I nurtured the idea that she probably called him worse things than ‘toolbag.’

“I forgive you for not telling me about Anna, but I don’t know if I can handle being so close to her. Not when…” I shook my head at the memories. “I don’t know.”

“When you do know…” Reaper said.

“You’ll be third…maybe fifth to know,” I promised.

“I suppose that will have to be good enough,” he said. Reaper looked at Daniel. “We good?”

Daniel nodded at his friend. “No secrets like that again, though. Next time, I won’t stop her.”

“Fair enough…speaking of that…” Reaper looked at me again. “What happened down there? Why do I get the feeling you’re keeping a secret from me…a secret that’s perhaps more deadly than mine could ever be? A secret that endangers my people.”

“Living endangers your people,” I retorted.

“That wasn’t a real answer,” Reaper pointed out.

Daniel made a decision – it was one I wouldn’t have made under the circumstances. He put a hand out to Reaper, as if he were asking to shake hands. Reaper took the offered hand with a perplexed expression on his face. The two men shared a moment of wordless communication then Reaper dropped his hand again. He looked at me with increased respect and confusion. The confusion outweighed the respect, and I sensed Daniel’s story had created more answers than questions.

“You don’t know even know how to control it, or why it happens before the change?” he asked me.

“No,” I said.

“And the fire only happens when you get mad enough?” Reaper asked.

“So far,” I agreed.

“No wonder Marcus wants you so badly,” Reaper said. “Someone who can do the things you can do, before your birthday…without even changing…you’d be an asset to whichever organization you commit to.”

“You should keep that in mind,” I said pointedly.

“I will,” Reaper agreed. “I think a priority might be to train yourself to control your power. While I’m a fan of a good scare, and a good fight, I don’t necessarily like my friends to be the ones I’m fighting.”

“Then don’t lie to me again,” I said.

“I’m going to take care of her training,” Daniel said, ignoring me. “Starting tomorrow.”

“Fine,” Reaper agreed.

“Clare and I are going to go to our room now, if there isn’t anything else,” Daniel said.

Reaper stepped out of our way, and we passed him. His eyes were worried as he looked after us. I wasn’t sure if he was worried about what my abilities meant, or if he was still worried he had upset us. I knew he thought we were strong allies, but was he also figuring out we were dangerous ones? Would he come to the same conclusion I had long ago – that I attracted trouble? Did I care what conclusion he came to? A part of me said ‘no.’ Another part – the part that had found something that was missing, when I had gone on the mission with Daniel – said ‘yes.’ Staying here meant doing something I had wanted to do for a long time. And, if anything, Anna being in a box was payback for the imprisonment she had forced on me.

I would let her rot there. She would suffer as I suffered. It was a better alternative than the one I had in mind.

That night, exhausted from the fire I had caused and the emotional upheaval that had followed, I slept for the first time in days. My dreams were not peaceful, however.

The nightmare started out like my normal nightmare – I saw a white rose fall to a bloodied floor and Daniel transformed into a Nightstalker in front of an army of demons. I saw the yellow-eyed man, who I had come to know as Marcus, watching me with his predatory eyes, through a desert landscape, with a limitless army at his beck-and-call, and then I dreamed of my time in the prison – normal nightmares.

But then they changed.

Everything went dark – it was a forever dark, with no escape, no outlet, from the blanket of blackness. I felt my body twisting and turning, searching for a way out of the darkness. I searched, I moved, but the movement was as nothing in the world of dark I found myself in. There was no escape – only time. Time lost in a void. As I struggled to find a way out, I heard whispered voices surround me. They were low and first, but grew in volume. Panic rose in my chest at the sound. I felt the voices surge and transform, to where they pulsed in time to my suddenly racing heart. It filled me up and took over all thought. I screamed out for the voices to stop.

The first thing I saw when I jerked out of sleep was Daniel’s face. He was looking at me in concern, his green eyes reflecting the sharp moonlight that was flooding my room. He had a hand on my face, and I got the feeling he had brought me back from the darkness. I wondered, as I looked into his eyes, if he had eavesdropped on my dreams. The look in his eyes told me he had.

“Is that the darkness you see when you travel with Sara?” Daniel asked me.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“It’s terrifying,” he said.

“Yes.”

He hesitated, before he asked the next thing on his mind. “You’ve seen Marcus?”

“In my dreams only. It started after you left in New Orleans. I didn’t know it was him until…”

“Until?”

“I dreamed a Hobo I met in New Orleans told me not to listen to Marcus. My nightmares have been less invasive since then, but they’re still pretty scary.”

“The man you dreamed of was right. Don’t listen to Marcus. He’s putting the visions in your head.”

I pushed off the bed. “What?”

“Marcus…he can plant visions in a person’s head…he usually does it by getting in to people’s dreams. Don’t you remember his daughter having the gift of illusion? She got it from him…all his children do.”

I looked at him, annoyed he hadn’t shared that fact earlier. “Of all the things to leave out, don’t you think that one was pretty massive?”

Daniel shrugged. “I’ve never heard of Marcus finding someone he hasn’t met before. It’s almost as if…”

“I found him, instead?” I asked.

“Maybe. You are a freak,” Daniel admitted.

“Thanks,” I said.

He moved the hand he had put on my face and touched my lips, his concern written in his eyes. I sensed him wondering what else I would find and how I had searched out something I had never seen. It scared him more than the darkness scared me. He brushed my lips gently with my thumb then stroked the side of my face.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” he asked. “I can make sure you don’t have any more nightmares.”

I smiled at him coyly and pulled him in close. “No,” I said.

I kissed him. The feel of his lips on mine took away some of the darkness of the nightmare. He pressed his body in to mine, and I forgot about the darkness in-between worlds, and Marcus’ yellow eyes haunting through unfamiliar landscapes.

I forgot about anything that wasn’t Daniel and the moment we were in.