Burning in a Memory (8 page)

             
“Go back?”

             
Her face must have gone white because Adam hurried to clarify.

             
“I mean, me and the others will go back there and at least chase them out of the neighborhood. Don’t worry. I won’t take you back there until its safe.”

             
“Adam, stay here with her. I’ll go with Tony,” Priya offered. He returned to her a smile of thanks. Tony came bounding back down the stairs a few minutes later, fully dressed.

             
“Who’s coming?” he asked. Priya and Preeti sprung after him and the three left out the front door. Angie lingered in the living room for a moment.

             
“How long do you think they’ll be gone?” Angie asked.

             
“No telling. If they do a sweep of the neighborhood, a few hours.” Adam clearly guessed.

             
“I’m surprised he didn’t give you more trouble about going back to Adelaide’s house,” she said with a laugh.

             
Adam made a face.

             
“To be fair, it was Tony’s mother who called me,” he said.

             
Angie opened her mouth to add something, but obviously thought better of it. She shut her mouth and looked between the two of them.

             
“I’ll leave you two alone for a while,” she finally suggested and went upstairs. The living room was quiet in her absence and Adelaide unwound the last of her nerves.

             
Adam turned to face her and kneeled down to be at her level.

             
“Before you have any questions, can I see if you are all right?” he asked.

             
“I’m fine,” she chirped automatically.

             
He shook his head, as if embarrassed.

             
“You took quite a hit when you first got out of the car. You could be injured and not even know it. Shock does that to people.”

             
She remembered her collision with the car door. It’d been painful, but she hardly believed it’d been crippling. Adam looked on helpfully and she could sense his concern was genuine.

             
“Okay,” she agreed.

Seven

              “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

             
Adelaide denied it again. As his fingertips lightly grazed her back to check for broken bones, she squirmed. Her cheeks already burned bright and hot, but she faced the wall to at least hide that aspect of her embarrassment. The last time she’d been on a couch with a guy, the situation had been much different.

             
“I guess the glass shattered worse than I thought, because you’re pretty cut up too.” Adam said as he continued his methodical inspection.

             
“But I’m not bleeding, so it’s already healing on its own,” she protested. She was ready to push her shirt back down and sit like a normal person.

             
“Well, I don’t feel any broken bones and if you swear you’re not in pain then I guess it’s okay,” he said.

             
He pressed down on the last few of her vertebras before the sensation of his hands disappeared from her skin. She let out a shaky breath and remembered how to move. Pulling her shirt down, she straightened out the wet cotton fabric that clung to her skin. 

             
“Thanks for the diagnosis,” she said once she finally regained her dignity. She turned and sat back down on the couch. He still kneeled on the floor, putting her face to face with him. While she’d been beaten like a rag doll, he didn’t sport a scratch on him.

             
“It’s my fault it happened.”

             
“It’s the shades fault it happened,” she pointed out and then paused before saying, “they’re called shades, right?”

             
A frown crept up on his face.

             
“Are you cold?” he asked instead of giving her an answer.  In the next moment, he stood and stepped away. When he returned he held out a bundle of clothing to her. When she picked it up, she caught the distinctive scent of Adam mixed with fresh detergent.

             
“I would have borrowed one of Angie’s outfits to make you feel more comfortable, but there’s too much of a height difference to make anyone comfortable. I mean, if you want to change,” he said.

             
“Thanks,” she said and accepted it.

             
“The bathroom is down the hall.”

             
She followed his directions and stepped inside. The bathroom had been decorated with beach colors, plastic seashells, and smooth granite counters. She held the new shirt up in the light. It must have been his and that fact made her grin. She slipped into the clothes and wrung out her old ones. Most of it was mud that already set into the fabric, but she could hope nothing was ruined. She kept her necklace on and tucked the cold plastic under her new shirt. When she exited the bathroom, Adam was waiting for her on the other side of the door.

             
“Angie might be smaller, but you’re bigger than you look,” she pointed out. His shirt hung too long on her figure and covered the shorts below it. His eyes flickered over her body, too slow to be inconspicuous.             

             
“It’s not bad,” he said. Clearing his throat, he looked at the floor.

             
“Did you hear anything from the others yet?” she asked. Adelaide never heard his phone buzz, but she suspected the others had to be in her neighborhood by now.

             
Adam shook his head.

             
“No. It’s probably going to be awhile and you should rest. Stay the night and I can take you back tomorrow,” he said. “You can have my room.”

             
“If I’m in your room, where are you planning to sleep?” she asked matter-of-factly. Adam seemed overly interested in the floor lately.

             
“I’ll be on the couch tonight. You’ll have my room to yourself,” he answered quietly.

             
“Thank you. It’ll be nice to rest,” she said. He nodded and led her up the stairs, giving her the polite, guided tour. The bathroom up there connected to the next hall. The extra blankets sat in the nearby closet. His bedroom was the first on the right.

             
When he opened the door to his bedroom she wasn’t sure what to expect. There was only one large bed in this room with dressers taking up the rest of the space. The room was at least ten degrees cooler than the rest of the house making the navy blue comforter inviting. She perched on the edge of the bed.

             
“You’re not a big fan of decorating apparently,” she pointed out. This place screamed bachelor pad.

             
“Well, it’s not technically my room. I’ve only been crashing here for two weeks or so. This is Tony and Priya’s house.”

             
She perked up.

             
“Why are you staying here then?”

             
“It’s a temporary thing until we move to the new house. It’s also safer so long as Tony and I don’t tear into each other,” he explained.

             
“At least he wasn’t that bad earlier.” Anything had to be better than the incident at the pizza parlor.

             
“He was too distracted by the shade attack. I’m sure he’s going to give me shit for dropping you off and going alone. But don’t worry about him, he’s just a hot head,” Adam said.

             
She laughed and smiled for effect. She didn’t care about Tony when Adam sat so close to her. Despite the brutal attack, the shades had bought her extra time with him and she was determined to use it.

             
“It’s nice that you’re so close with your family though,” she said. “So Adam…”

             
He suddenly spoke before she could finish.

             
“Those monsters that attacked us were shades,” he said out of the blue. He took her off guard and she wanted him to explain.

             
“They’re called shades. They are magical, like mages, but they are inherently different. Try to understand…” he prefaced in a near whisper.

             
“Mages are just like humans. We are born, we have kids, and we continue our bloodline. Our bloodline just possesses the ability to do magic. But as far back as we have existed, so have shades. They’re something else entirely. They’re the closest thing to evil you may ever know.             

             
“They are like parasites, though. They don’t have their own corporal body so in order to survive they take over bodies of mages. The transformation is a permanent one. Once it’s done, they embody exactly what you saw outside your house. Follow so far?”

             
She nodded only to show her attentiveness. She’d heard this story over a million times and yet it sounded different every time. And every time, just like this time, she felt cold and increasingly uncomfortable.

             
“Shades range in strength just like mages do. It really depends on the shade and the mage it took over. The ones at your house were weak. They aren’t very threatening but they’re a bitch in large numbers. And they’ll attack mages for a number of reasons. Sometimes just to kill us before we can return the favor. Sometimes because they want to take our bodies.”

             
Her mind escaped her now, and she imagined the whole thing too vividly. The shade she pictured, though, was always Mistel. She pictured the woman with her crackling pale skin and platinum blonde hair. Mistel may have not looked like that as a child, but Adelaide could never see her as anything but a shade now. 

             
She wrapped her arms around herself.

             
“That’s crazy,” she said quietly, “and sad.”

             
Adam tried to grin at her, but his dimples didn’t show.

             
“Hey, it’s a good reminder why I shouldn’t feel too suffocated by my coven being too close. Covens are what protect mages. It’s damn hard for a shade to attack a bunch of us so they almost never bother.”

             
“They sound important,” she said to the floor.

             
“Yea, well let’s put it this way. I’ve never heard of a mage surviving without a coven—never, not once in my life. They’re easy targets, and they are always taken.”

             
She hoped desperately that her face wasn’t as white as it felt, but Adam never commented on it either way. Adelaide then hurried to take control of the conversation and change the subject.

             
“I’m sorry I was so upset at you for telling me that you were leaving. I understand more now,” she said.

             
He smiled.

             
“It’s all right.”

             
“I was pissed that I met you and you were disappearing so quickly. How many times am I ever going to meet someone who will save my life twice now?” It might have been a shameless technique but it earned a blush from Adam.

             
“I don’t think it counts as twice if I’m the cause of one of those times. Those shades weren’t waiting around for you,” he said.

             
And just like that the mood of the entire room shifted on her again. She tried to catch his gaze but he seemed determined to stare at the door.

             
“Is this going to turn into a whole ‘I can’t be around you without putting you in danger’ thing? Don’t let it turn into that. Talk about a romantic stereotype,” she chirped, but she knew at that moment it already had. She’d lost him again. Desperate, she reached out and touched his arm. The sudden skin-to-skin contact made him react quickly.

             
“It’s not just you. I can only assume that my life isn’t going to change anytime soon, you know?” he said. He didn’t move far enough away to break the contact, but he did shift enough to stare at her. “Is someone going to notice you missing? Have you told your family you won’t be home?” he asked.

             
She opened her mouth but a loud buzz interrupted her. It took her a second to recognize the familiar ringtone that followed it and then she madly dashed to silence her phone.

             
“Did you use your magic to make that ring?” she said and tried to laugh. She smacked the end call button and stopped the buzz.

             
“No, I’m just incredibly lucky,” he said. This time she laughed more genuinely, but the spell between them was broken. “I’ll let you get that call and catch up on some sleep. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”