Electric (8 page)

I turned and looked at her. She stared wide-eyed at me, tears still rolling down her cheeks.

“She’s not our snitch, Sale,” Trevor said. “Look.”  He showed me a pamphlet about STDs. On it was a stamp from the free clinic downtown.  “This is why she went downtown.  “She didn’t go to meet Merlin. She has no idea who he is.”

I nodded. I’d realized that some time before this. She hadn’t acted like someone who knew Merlin and what he was. What Trevor and I were. She looked at me now like I was a monster from her nightmares. And maybe I was.

“I’m sorry,” I said so quietly I could barely hear my own voice.

Heather didn’t respond, she just stared at me, fear making her immobile and inactive.

Trevor ran a hand over my head. “I’ll take care of it.”

I didn’t say anything as he sat next to Heather on the bed. She flinched away from him, but he set a gentle hand on her cheek. “It’s all right, Heather. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I watched as he semi-glamoured her. It wasn’t like what a vampire could do, but it was similar. Trevor made it so we were here and asked her questions, but he erased the images of me, beasting out on her. He eased the extreme panic she’d been feeling. He’d left her with the indignant anger she’d initially felt when we’d first burst out of the closet.

When he was finished, he stood. Heather sat up, and glared down at me. “Get the hell out!  I should call the cops on you, you junkie whore.”

Trevor reached down and helped me to my feet. “We’re going. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

He pulled me toward the window.  Before he opened it, and we went through it, I turned and looked at her again. She was glaring at me. But deep in her eyes, I saw a trickle of fear. The fear of what I could’ve done to her. Of what I wanted to do to her.  Trevor had made her forget, but I could see that the sensation was still there.

I had a suspicion that Heather would never bother me again at school or anywhere else. Every time she looked at me, an odd unsettling feeling would settle over her, and she would have to fight down the urge to run from me.

Despite the horrible thing I nearly did to her, I pulled away from Trevor, and rushed back to her. Startled, she took a step back. I flung my arms around her and hugged her tight. At first she struggled to get away, but I held her so long that she stopped fighting and stood there stiff.

When I pulled back, she sneered, “This doesn’t change a thing, weirdo. We’ll never be friends.”

“I don’t want to be your friend.  I just don’t want to kill you either.”

I smiled, realizing that was a big step for me in regards to Heather.  I returned to Trevor’s side and we went out the window.

––––––––

“
W
e’re back to square one.” I fiddled with the hang nail on my thumb as Trevor and I sat cross-legged on my bed. “We don’t know any more than we did yesterday.”

“We know for sure that Merlin is behind the attack, and we know where to find him.”

“I suppose, but we still don’t know where he’s getting his intel.”

“I think we need to look at the obvious.”

“What do you mean?”

He gave me a look. Like I was being stupid look.  I knew what he was trying to say.

“Jamie would never tell Merlin anything. He’s scared of me. Could you imagine if he ever saw Merlin?” I got off the bed and went over to my dresser. I picked up the pair of nail clippers there and snipped off the hang nail, before I tore it off and it bled everywhere which was my usual habit.

“Sale...”

“No way. No effing way, Jamie would never have a hand in hurting Deanna Moser.”

“He wouldn’t have known what Merlin was going to do with that info.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Don’t believe it. Not going down that path.”

“Like with Heather, maybe it’s not Merlin that’s getting the info.”

“Jamie knows about Seth and Quinn. He would stay far far away from them both.” I put my hand up to stop him from saying anything more.  “Conversation is over.”

“I’m not trying to be a jerk, but we need to look at every possible lead.”

“Fine. We looked. Now we can move on.”  I sat back on the bed. “What we need to discuss is how to kill Merlin.”

He stood. “I think it’s time for me to go.”

“Fine. Go. We have a bit of a disagreement, so you bail?”

He looked at me, his eyebrow arched. “You’re being...”

“A bitch?”

“No, that wasn’t what I was going to say. Do you really think I would call you that?”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “No.”

“Sale, I need to get some sleep. I have to get up extra early tomorrow for work. Okay?”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine.” Except I didn’t believe him. He was leaving because he didn’t want to fight with me. I didn’t blame him really, I didn’t want to fight with me either. Yet I was. Inside. Every effing day.

He put his hand on my head. “Get some sleep. We’ll figure this shit out tomorrow.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded, but I didn’t look at him.

He tilted my head back, and leaned down until he was an inch away from my face. “I love you. Remember that.”

I wanted to stay mad at him, but really I couldn’t. Not when he was looking into my eyes the way he was. “Love you too,” I mumbled.

Gently he pressed his lips to mine, then it was hard and hot. He kissed me thoroughly until my head was swimming. After a kiss like that, a girl kind of forgets whatever she was mad about in the first place.

I walked Trevor to the front door. He waved to my mom who was in the living room watching more
Walking Dead
.  “Night Lynn.”

She waved back, then grabbed a handful of popcorn and went back to her Daryl Dixon ogling.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hugged me, then was gone. I closed and locked the door behind him.

“Everything all right, baby doll? You two have a fight?” my mom asked.

“Nah, we’re good.”

“Do you need a mama hug?”

I smiled. My mother was odd and weird and marched to her own beat, and I absolutely loved her for it. Other parents always looked at her funny when she showed up at parent teacher meetings with her spiky pink hair and big bad-ass leather boots and ripped up jeans. Everyone thought she had to be a bad parent because she still dressed like a teenager, but for me it just made it easier to relate to her. In some ways, she was still on my level.

“Yes.”

She got up from the sofa and enveloped me in her arms. She hugged me tight, and smacked my butt three times, as was her custom.  “There. Feel better?”

“Always.”

She kissed me on the top of the head, which was funny since she could barely reach, she was so short.  “You know you can talk to me about anything, right? I won’t ever judge you.”

“I know, Mom.”

She grabbed my face in her hands. “I’m serious. Anything.  I will never love you less. Ever.”

I stared into her eyes and saw the honest truth there.  I knew without a doubt she would love me no matter what.  Even if I became a criminal, or a monster.  It would feel so good to tell her the truth about me.  It would be one less secret I needed to carry around. I could unburden myself on her. She would carry it for me without judgment.

“Mom...”

“Yeah?”

I opened my mouth to let the words out, when Kyle came flying out of his room. “Salem, you will never guess who died.”

I took a step back from my mother and looked at Kyle. “Who?” Although I already knew what name he was going to say and my stomach churned remembering her sunk-in corpse.

“That girl you were asking me about. Deanna Moser.”

My mom frowned. “Who’s that? Did you two know her?”

My legs were a little shaky, so I sat down on the nearby chair.

“I knew her from school,” Kyle said.  “And Sale was asking about her the other day for some project she’s doing for the yearbook committee.”

“Was it an accident?”

“They think she was killed.”

“Jesus.” My mom looked down at me, then back to Kyle. “That’s horrible. Do you need to talk about it?”

Kyle shook his head. “I’m okay. It’s just weird, you know? I’ve never known anyone my age that’s died.”

“Sale, are you okay?”

I didn’t look up at her. Because, no I wasn’t okay. I was far from okay.

I clenched my hands, digging my nails into my palms. That gave a little relief to the pain in my heart, and in my soul. Closing my eyes, I tried to push it all away. I didn’t want to deal with it any more. It was too much. It was crushing me into a little Salem ball.

The air around me started to heat. It was like someone had opened an oven door. But I suspected the heat was coming from me. From the cambion bursting to break free of my human constraints. Life would be so much easier if I didn’t give a damn. If I could just float though the shadows and take what I needed to survive. Without worry. Without care.

“Baby doll?”

I could hear the worry in my mom’s voice. She was always so worried about me. I don’t know how she did it.  It must’ve been exhausting to do that 24/7. Especially after my little incident with being sick and turning into a cambion, and my disappearance for a couple of weeks.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her reach for me.

“Don’t touch me!” I flinched away from her.

“Salem! What’s wrong?” She reached for me again.

This time I was on my feet and moving away. My body was shaking. And so hot, unbelievably hot. Sweat dripped down my back, and off the tip of my nose. I wiped at it. When I did I noticed my hands. They were curling into claws. My nails had darkened and had grown a lot longer than they normally were. The change was coming. And I felt powerless to stop it this time.

“Are you sick again?”

I looked up at her and said in a guttural voice, “I feel great.”

Her eyes widened as did Kyle’s.

“Jesus, Salem, what’s wrong with your face?” He took a step away. “Mom, look at her eyes.”

Kyle’s fear was palpable. I lifted my head and inhaled it. It sent excited shivers down my back. It wouldn’t take much for me to cross the room and attack him. He would try to fight back but I would overpower him. I was so damn strong like this. Powerful. Invincible. It would be so easy to take what I wanted.

Closing my eyes, I pushed the urges down. I didn’t want to hurt my brother. I loved him. But the darkness inside sure didn’t give a shit. It wanted out. It wanted to take and destroy. I couldn’t let it.

“Baby doll?”

I opened my eyes again to see my mother coming near, reaching for me with her hand outstretched.  I shook my head at her. “Don’t, Mom. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

I couldn’t let her touch me. I couldn’t risk the chance that I would hurt her. Faster than I’d ever moved before, I jumped up and literally stuck to the ceiling. I crouched there like a crab and watched and waited.

“Holy hell.” Kyle stumbled backwards, nearly falling on his butt in an attempt to get away from what he was seeing.

My mom on the other hand didn’t even flinch.

“Get out,” I shouted at her. “I’m a monster.”

She looked up at me, as if I’d just knocked over a lamp and broke it, instead of transforming into some hideous creature and flew into the air.  “You’re not a monster, Salem. You’ve had some monstrous thing happen to you.” She raised her hand toward me. “Come down. We can fix this together. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere. You can’t scare me off.”

Her voice was calming and I could feel the beast inside being tamed.  I pushed off the ceiling, floated for a moment, then surprisingly landed on my feet. A first for me.

I was shaking violently when her hand touched my shoulder.  She grabbed onto me and pulled me to her. She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. At first I didn’t hug her back. I was afraid I’d attack her like I did with Josh when he hugged me.

But her presence was calming, not kicking me over into monster mode.

“You’re burning up,” she said as she cupped my face with her hands and really looked into my face.

I wanted to pull away from her, ashamed of how I looked. But she wouldn’t let me go. And I could feel the cambion inside waning under the gaze of my mother’s love.

“You’re not afraid of me?” My voice wavered a little.

She smiled. “Of course not. You’re my baby girl.”

Tears that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in rolled down my cheeks.

“Let’s get you into a cold shower to cool you down.”

She put an arm around me, and steered me toward the bathroom. As we passed Kyle, he shrunk back. I didn’t blame him. I was probably gnarly to look at. He was probably thinking it was just another female thing that he would never understand. He had that same look in his eyes as he did when our mom sat us down and gave us the sex speech. Complete abject horror.

After a half hour in the cool shower, I’d returned to normal. My mom had wrapped me in her fuzzy bathrobe and tucked me into my bed. She brought me a cup of hot chocolate and I drank it down heartily as she watched from the side of my bed.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Is this what you wanted to tell me?”

I nodded.

“Then tell me. All of it.”

Taking a deep breath, I started to tell her everything. Right from the beginning. I told her about Malice, and Thane.  I told her about my date with Josh, and how Trevor showed up and stopped me from finishing what I had started. And about my time with Trevor in Seattle and how I had come across Merlin’s sword and used it to kill Devon and Thane.

When I was done, I was crying again and my mom was holding my hands.  She too had tears but she didn’t look away from me. Not once during my story. And not once did I see the love for me waver in her eyes.

“Is Trevor a cambion too?”

“Yes. But he has greater control over it than I do. I haven’t seen him once camb out.”

She nodded. “Is that how he gets into your room at night?”

I blushed a little. I knew my mom knew about Trevor’s visits, but I never realized how much she really knew.  “Yeah. He comes through the shadows.”

“Is he here now?”

I looked past her and into the darkened corner of my room. He’d been there the entire time I’d told my story. He knew I was in distress and he came. As he always did. Now that everything was out in the open, I couldn’t lie to her any more.