Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) (25 page)

“I’m supposed to have sex with you.”

Instead of looking away, her eyes burn into mine. “Yeah.”

I nod, my mind ticking through it all. And I remember—

“But you stopped me.” I know I wouldn’t have stopped on my own that night after the party. “Why?”

She comes forward a little, like she wants to touch me. But she doesn’t. “It felt wrong, Aidan. I know you now—I saw into you when we kissed. I realized I couldn’t trap you like that. You have a right to choose this power if you want it, but it’s not right for someone to force it on you—to force anything on you.”

I know she’s not just talking about me. Having sex with me because she was
supposed
to would have been like what happened with those men her father handed her to. How could Sid trap her like that?

“You’re not going to follow through with this now, Kara. It’s okay. Sid can forget about using you as his pawn.”

She studies me. Her hair wisps across her mouth; a strand brushes my sleeve. “It’s not that I didn’t want to. Whatever this is—this link when we connect—it makes me nuts inside. Like all I am is hunger, and you’re
—
” She swallows, but then finishes. “You’re the only thing that’ll satisfy me.”

“It’s just the curse.” I feel my insides stir as she holds my gaze. “We’re not slaves to anything. Even our own desire.” But in the same breath, I reach out to brush her hair from her eyes, and my thumb grazes her jaw.

A buzz races up my arm.

I’m suddenly mesmerized by the way her eyelashes brush at her cheeks as she blinks. Her lips part, just a little, and something hooks me in, pulling me closer. My head clouds with all the memories of kissing her, the feel of her in my arms, in my hands. I want that feeling again. The sense of urgency and rightness. The sensation of a million sparks bursting under my skin.

I graze her neck with my fingers, and she leans into the touch.

I need this connection with someone. We don’t have to follow it to its end. Just one . . . small . . .

. . . kiss.

Our lips touch, delicate and effortless.

Like we’re merging clouds.

Folding over each other.

Becoming one.

Two halves of one whole.

At the thought, the sensation in my hand goes from a slight buzz to engulfing flames, searing and sharp.

I hiss in pain, stepping back as it travels up my arm, past the elbow, arching over my shoulder, pushing me to my knees.

Kara collapses with me. “Oh, God. Aidan!”

I suck air in and out of my lungs, trying to see past the raging energy that’s suddenly made it impossible to think. The fire dims a little as I focus. And after another few seconds it’s down to a dull throb.

“I’m so sorry,” Kara says, sounding tormented.

“I’m okay,” I manage to get out.

“We barely touched that time.”

“Must be getting stronger.” Everything is.

“Wonderful.” She sighs and helps me to my feet. “We should go back to the house.”

I release an exhausted laugh. “Where we can’t accidentally have sex, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

As we’re walking to the car, something dawns on me. The thing she said to the demon, telling it to go back to her dad. “Where the demon was in the graveyard—that’s where your dad’s buried, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t respond, but I know the answer.

“I’m sorry, Kara.”

She shrugs and says, “The man doesn’t deserve any better. Wish I’d thought to put the bastard there myself.”

THIRTY-FIVE

Ava’s on the couch snuggled next to Finger when Kara and I come through the door.

I walk to the archway and give her a pointed look. “You said you were sorry before. Are you sorry again?” I hold up the amulet to make a point.

She hugs Finger’s arm tighter. “It was just the grocery store, Aidan.”

“Nothing is
just
anything right now, Ava,” I say quietly. “You know that.” I can’t say more with other people in earshot. And I shouldn’t have to. Ava knows what’s at stake.

Jax yells from the upstairs landing, “The lovers are back. Guess I lost the bet, Holly. Chick flick night is on, people. Dammit.”

Rebecca emerges from Holly’s room and gazes down at me and Kara. Her expression is confused. And maybe a little hurt.

Holly’s behind her. “Oh, good. We won’t have to watch
Die Hard
again.”

“I like
Die Hard
,” Ava pipes in.

“It’s
Pitch Perfect
, bitches!” Holly yells, looking giddy as she skips back into her room, hair ribbons and ponytail swaying. “Aca-mazing!”

Connor watches us from the kitchen. Kara gives him a nod, as if she’s trying to tell him everything’s okay, but he still shoots me a look full of brotherly warning. I give him a thumbs-up just to mess with him.

I trail behind Kara as we walk up the stairs. Jax punches me in the arm as I pass. “Bitches are in heat.”

I lean closer to him and say casually under my breath, “You talk to me like that about them again and I’ll break that crooked nose on your smug face.”

Rebecca’s gaze feels glued to my back as I walk away. I need to talk to her, but at this point I have no idea what I’d say. All I know is I’m tired as hell. And hungry.

Movie night and junk food might be all I can handle right now.

Sid finds me in my room after I take a shower. I tell him I’m not ready to talk to him again. Not until I digest what he already told me.

“I just want you to know I didn’t bind the amulet to you,” he says. “I wouldn’t do something like that against your will.”

I walk past him into the hall and hang my damp towel over the banister. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“I gave it to your sister, hoping you’d change your mind.”

He appears to be waiting for a response, so I say, “That’s so helpful.”

“She obviously did the spell to bind it to you.” He pauses. “I didn’t know she had that ability, Aidan.”

I glare at him and move in closer, hoping he feels what I’m about to say in his bones. “You talk to me about her or try to get in her business, you’re not going to like how I react.”

He studies my face. “I merely wonder why you’ve kept her talents a secret.”

“Because she’s none of your goddamn business.”

“Very well.” He starts to leave and then turns back to say, “I know you’re angry with the secrets we’ve kept from you, but you have to see it was for a good reason.”

My jaw tightens. “All I see right now is a liar.”

The whole house smells like burnt popcorn, and there’s a bunch of chicks singing pop music in blue blazers on the TV. We’re piled in the living room—even Finger; he’s still got his Xbox controller in his hand even though the others took over his domain. Jax keeps sticking Jujubes up his nose and snorting them at Holly. She’s snuggled on the love seat with Rebecca and Ava. Jax and Lester are on the floor with me. Kara, Finger, and Connor are on the couch behind us. Apparently it’s required that everyone take part in family night.

But thankfully “Uncle Sid” isn’t joining us, or I wouldn’t be sitting here at all.

There are a million unsaid things in the air. Rebecca keeps glancing across the room at me, and I wonder what the hell I’m planning on telling her. She deserves an answer. It’s not helping that I’m leaning against the couch with Kara’s leg an inch from my shoulder. She brushes up against me once, and I nearly jump across the room.

“You okay, dude?” Jax asks, holding out a Jujube.

I take it and pop it in my mouth. “Peachy.”

Nothing about the movie really registers, even as it wraps up in a big dance number and the boy gets the girl. If only reality could be like a musical.

The last few days are swirling around in my head like a tornado. I’m going back and forth from the conversation at the Devil’s Gate with Sid, to the kiss with Kara after her revelation, and back to what Ava’s been doing when I’m not looking. What is she hiding? Why can’t my sister just let me protect her?

I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts, I don’t notice Sid come in.

He leans on the archway. “Let’s have a meeting in the morning before everyone starts their daily tasks, folks. There’s a job in Anaheim we’re working on that we need to make a plan of attack for, so to speak. And a decision about our biannual YouTube special needs to be made: Griffith or the mental hospital. But for now, it’s clean up and off to bed.” He looks so normal—well, not normal, but definitely not some ancient Babylonian magician. I can’t begin to imagine how freaked the others would be if they knew. Because who assumes there are people who travel through time? Or that they hang out in LA and become ghost-busting con artists?

Lester turns off the TV, and everybody gets up, cleaning candy and popcorn off the floor. Sid disappears out the back door—heading to his dark shed, no doubt. Just the thought of that place makes me nauseous.

Trying not to think about it, I pick up and arrange pillows and then stand on the arm of the couch to pull a gummy bear from the ceiling.

“Hey, that’s from two weeks ago when we watched
Footloose
,” Jax says, pointing at the red bear pinched between my fingers.

“Sick,” Lester says.

“I double-dog-dare you to eat it,” Holly says to me with a wicked grin.

Everyone says
oooohhhhh
in unison like we’re ten years old and she just dared me to kiss someone.

So I play along, jumping down from the couch and popping it in my mouth.

The whole room bursts into surprised laughter.

I wait a second, letting them all relax. Then I spit the juicy red glob at Jax.

It hits him in the cheek, sticking for a beat before plopping to the carpet.

Silence fills the room until Jax reacts, flinging his whole box of Jujubes, pelting me with a dozen hard jellies.

Then chaos erupts. Kara throws a fistful of popcorn at Finger, Holly smashes the remnants of a Ho Ho into Lester’s nose, Jax shakes a soda and sprays it onto the girls, yelling, “Wet T-shirt contest!”

Everyone’s throwing candy and pillows and Xbox remotes. Finger panics at that point and gathers all these into his arms and runs from the room. Ava’s even caught up in it all, giggling harder than I’ve ever heard. I let myself fall into the fray, whacking Rebecca with a pillow as she lunges for Lester with a blanket, trying to throw it over his head. She swats back at me and bursts out with a squeal, and then I’m laughing, falling to the floor with Ava, trying to wrestle the remote from her hand as she yells, “Make them watch it again! Turn it to the kissing scene!”

Movie night is officially my favorite idea ever.

We’re still recovering an hour later as Rebecca, Ava, and I make our way upstairs. The others have already gone to bed, except for Connor and Kara, who’re finishing cleaning up in the kitchen. I would’ve offered to help, but it was clear that Kara wanted some time alone with him. And it gives me a second to talk to Rebecca.

Ava heads to our room, giving me a thumbs-up as I walk Rebecca to her door.

“Thanks for convincing me to come here, Aidan,” she says, leaning on the frame and hugging a notebook to her chest—a sketchbook, I think. “Being here’s really helped. You know, with everything.”

“How did things go today?” I ask. “Is the protection working?” I haven’t seen the Boss Demon around at all, but I’m not taking anything on faith with that guy.

She holds up the amulet around her neck. “Seems to be working great, I think, keeping all the bad energy back, or whatever, like Sid said it would.” She touches my chest where my amulet rests with her fingers. “How about you?”

I back up a little, and she pulls her hand away.

“Sorry,” she says, studying the floor now. Her copper hair falls like a curtain over her face. “I can’t help it.”

God, this is going to kill me. “Rebecca. Don’t be sorry. You and me . . . it’s just not good timing.”

“Because of Kara. I know you like her.”

I sigh. “There’s a lot going on. It’s not just Kara. My life’s a shit storm right now. The last thing you need is to get tangled up in it.”

She tilts her head a little. “It’s a bit late for that.”

“You need to go home as soon as you can and forget about me.”

“I won’t ever be able to forget you.” Tears glisten on her pale lashes. “And I know it’s you, Aidan—you’re the one I need. It doesn’t matter if you want that to be true or not. From the second I saw you sleeping beside my bed, I knew.”

She sounds so completely sure of this.

“I used to draw this angel,” she continues, her voice soft, “before Charlie died. Sunsets and crashing waves and fierce battles, and this angel was always in my work, golden and magical. Powerful.” She lowers her head, running a finger along the top of her sketchbook. “But after Charlie left me, I had nothing inside. I couldn’t see my angel anymore, you know?” She sniffs and wipes a tear from her face and smiles this odd smile at me. “Then you appeared in my life, and you talked to me, you gave a crap—it was almost like you were sent to me. And suddenly he was back, my angel, amazing and full of light. So I drew him again. But it wasn’t until the party that I realized . . .” She reaches into her sketchbook and pulls out a folded piece of paper and hands it to me. “It wasn’t an angel I was drawing. It was you.”

I unfold it and see the image of a young man surrounded by gold and silver lightning. He’s standing firm in a lake of fire, like he’s ready for battle, a dagger in his hand.

His marked hand.

“I drew this after I saw you at the school,” she says. “And look.” She points at the warrior’s chest where a small gold amulet rests.

My pulse speeds up.

“That’s the amulet you’re wearing right now,” she continues. “This is you. And it’s the same figure I’ve been drawing since I was thirteen.”

There are gashes on his arm like the ones healing on my arm right now from the demon’s claws. “Wow” is all I’m able to come up with.

She takes the image and folds it again before slipping it back into the pages of her sketchbook. She hugs it to her chest protectively. “We’re connected, Aidan. Somehow. I don’t know how. But it was true before I met you, and it’ll be true after I leave this place.”

Her words feel so much like Kara’s. How can this be happening to me with two girls at once? And it’s not like they’re just feeling it and I’m numb. It’s in me too, this urge. But I
can’t
be drawn to both of them. How the hell do you make a choice like that?

I blink at her, stuck.

Then she’s leaning in, pressing her lips to my cheek, before slipping into her room and shutting the door behind her, leaving me to my confusion.