Shattered (4 page)

“Em, you’re stalling,” I said.

“Right.” She swallowed hard. “I guess
I’ll just pull the trigger. Make it fast. Painless. It’s like choosing a new
lipstick. You know? You can’t browse for too long, or else you won’t buy
anything. You just-”

“Em.”

“Right.”

She left her lounge chair with Paul and
sat next to my legs. She leaned over me like I wasn’t cuddled with Nate.
Hugging her was much easier with the potion in my system. I couldn’t hear her
thoughts, and I wasn’t at risk of a seizure. No one would ever convince me that
this wasn’t the right decision.

Emma took a loud breath and said, “We’re
moving out.” That was the last thing I’d expected her to say.

“Why?” Nate asked.

“My parents,” she said. “The Devin thing
is too much for them. Edith used to be involved with wizards like him.” Her
deceased sister and her actions would probably haunt Emma for the rest of her
life. She couldn’t do anything without her parents worrying she would follow
Edith’s path–becoming a dark witch and dying for her crimes. “They want to
keep an eye on me for a while and said Paul could come if we behave. I don’t
really have a choice.”

“Tell them you’re happy here,” I said.

“I did, but they don’t care about that.
They care about not losing another daughter. I’m not going to win this one with
them. I’m so sorry.”

Everyone’s eyes moved to my face, like
they were waiting for me to throw a fit. I understood why. When I met them, I
was nothing but skin and bones and a permanent frown. They expected drama from
me. They expected tears. But I was done being what everyone expected. I was
done being Leah. I was done being reckless. I wanted a normal life.

I’d come to terms with the fact that I
would never get to come home from hanging out with my friends to a house with
parents who were very much in love. That life wasn’t possible, but I could
still have some form of normal. I wanted
my
normal to include my parents in any way they could be involved and my friends
in any way I could have them. It didn’t include crying over everything.

“You better visit,” I said.

“All the time,” Em said. “We swear.”

We stayed by the pool for hours, mostly laughing
at Paul. Sophia made moving out simple and painless. She’d emptied their rooms
as soon as Emma’s parents called her.

My friends promised to come over
tomorrow, and after a few hugs, Nathan and I lived alone.

It was awkward for a total of three
seconds. I thought I might finally cry until Nate said, “Let’s swim.” Jokingly,
I pretended to take my shirt off, and Nate dropped his shorts. We laughed and quickly
embraced the perks of living alone. With them gone, underwear felt the same as
a bathing suit, and before we could think it through, flying high on nervous
energy, we jumped in half naked.

“I can’t believe you did that,” I said.
“I was going to put my bikini on.”

“Too late.”

“Way too late.”

He laughed and splashed me with a huge
wave of water. Then it was a war. Then we played chase. Then racing. But as the
sun set on us, the mood went from playful to steamy, and it became impossible
to keep my hands off of him. It had been a while since we’d kissed without our
faces covered in tears or our bodies smeared with blood. We kissed like there
was never a portal or the Peace Group or dead parents. We kissed like there was
nothing to the world but us.

“Sorry to interrupt.” That voice would
startle anyone. Nate jerked away from me and swam to the other side of the
pool. I adjusted my bra straps–as if that was going to make it look more
like a bikini top–before turning to my mother. “Hi, honey.”

I waved sheepishly. Nate climbed out of
the pool at the other end. He said, “Hi, Lydia. Sorry,” before slamming the
door to the pool house.

Mom laughed and sat on a lounge chair.
She was dressed in her typical uniform–black dress, black heels.
Sophisticated and chic. “Angel, do we need to have another talk?”

“I think we covered everything and more,”
I said. She’d told me way more about sex than I ever wanted to know. I could’ve
done without the graphic examples, mostly because she’d only slept with one guy
and he happened to be my father.

“You sure? Pools are dangerous places,
baby. It’s where
Christines
are made.”

I gagged and covered my ears. “Mom,” I
groaned. She laughed and pointed her finger at me. She guided my body out of
the pool, and a towel wrapped around me.

“Okay. I’ll stop. Sit. I need to talk to
you.” She gave me control of my body, and I sat on the chair next to her. She
examined my eyes like she always did when she saw me these days and smiled. I’d
passed her inspection. “Dry your hands.”

I wiped them on the towel and looked at
her suspiciously. A white envelope appeared on my lap. I sat up straighter when
I saw the Trenton logo printed on the top left corner of it. I’d almost
forgotten about the application we’d thrown together before the portal–with
drawings out of my sketchbook and paintings I’d done for fun–to meet the
deadline.

“It came in the mail today,” she said.

She grinned as I opened the packet. I wasn’t
smiling; I was still terrified of going to school again. The first time had
gone a little less than stellar.

“Dear Ms. Grant,” I read. We both rolled our
eyes at my fake last name. I wasn’t Leah Grant or even Christine Grant. I was
proud to be Christine Cecilia Gavin, named mostly after my father Christopher
Gavin. “Based on your extraordinary portfolio, we are pleased to inform you…”

She squealed through the rest of my
sentence. “You got in!” she screamed.

“You paid someone,” I accused.

“I did no such thing. You are remarkably
talented.” She joined me on my chair and kissed every inch of my face. “Oh,
God, this is amazing. My baby is going to college!”

“I don’t think I deserve for you to be this
nice to me,” I said.

“What? Don’t say that. Are you crazy,
kid? Why wouldn’t you?”

“Need I remind you of what I did?” She
shook her head. “Before that, I was secretly getting involved in finding my
killer. Before that, I snuck off to Chicago and…”

She shushed me and rolled her eyes. It
seemed like she noticed I was repeating a lecture from Sophia.

“You’re not going to be reckless
anymore,” she said. “I know you won’t let that happen. You’re being so mature
in choosing to take the potion. You know your limits. You feel that you’ve
reached them, and you’re doing something about it. That’s all that matters.”

She rubbed my cheek with her thumbs
gently, as though I was a fragile porcelain doll.

“Are you sure this school thing is for
me?” I asked. Trenton was completely her idea, her view of her daughter. I
wasn’t sure if being a college student really fit with my life.

“Completely sure,” Mom said. “The campus
is safe, I’ll make sure of it myself, and Trenton is the perfect place for you.
This is what I always saw you doing. This is why I made us live apart. So you
could have a chance to be what you want and do what you want. Paint and just …
be happy.”

Her tone made me feel rude for asking. She’d
given up so much for me to do the things she couldn’t do. The things I now knew
I would never be able to give back to her. Unlike her, I could love whoever I
wanted and work or not work wherever I wanted. And art school made sense. She’d
given me everything I needed to succeed there, I guessed.

“Thanks for everything you’ve done,” I
said. “Thanks for making this possible.”

She pulled me closer, crinkling the acceptance
letter between our chests. “I would do it all over again, honey. I know that’s
not nice to say, given how much pain you’ve been through, but…”

“I know,” I said. “I get it.”

I really did. I’d seen how our lives
would’ve been if she’d kept me, and truth was, my mother was nuts and being
Lydia Shaw probably kept her sane enough to function, and my Dad was once crazy
in love with her with an emphasis on crazy.
 

Because she happened to be who she was,
she could only stay fifteen minutes before kissing me and going back to her job
of policing the world. I knew Nate had heard the news from his room, but he
hadn’t come out. If my mother had just died, again or for real this time, it
would probably hurt to see someone with theirs.

Ready to console him, I searched the pool
house but didn’t find him. He must’ve crept past us. I tried the main house.
The kitchen was empty. The living room was too.

The lights flickered on the stairs and a
sweet voice said, “Up here. Close your eyes.” He didn’t sound distraught at
all. I closed my eyes and tripped. We both laughed. “On second thought, close
your eyes after you get up here.”

“I got into Trenton.”

“I know.”

I grinned at my feet. He had his
mischievous voice on. I made it up the stairs and spotted him in my doorway. I laughed.
He’d put on a pair of shorts since leaving the pool and was wearing one of
Paul’s hats.

“I have one for you too,” he said.
“They’re party hats.” He forgot about the order to close my eyes and gave me a
hat to wear. “I know your parents and Sophia will do something huge for you,
but I just wanted there to be a party from me to you. It won’t be as nice.”

I pinched his arm and kissed him. “It’ll
be nicer.”

“Don’t speak too soon. I have leftovers
and stolen hats. Paul left some things in my room to be funny I guess.”

I stepped around him and into my room. In
typical Nate fashion, he’d set up a picnic on the floor. Perfection.

I hoped that was what life would be now.
If that depended on us not mentioning Theresa, Devin, and the hunters I
couldn’t bring myself to think of, then so
be
it. I
wanted this. I wanted him. I wanted normal, and nothing was going to get in the
way of that.

****

Nathan

Christine thought tonight was
the
night. She had to be out of her mind
to think the special night I had planned for our first time would include
leftovers and Paul’s hats. So I kissed her, removed her hands from my
drawstrings, and told her we were still waiting. She didn’t need the advice
from her mother just yet.

I watched her doze off after she drank a
glass of the new version of the potion. Chris even smelled happy in her sleep.
She was so different from the girl I met. I remembered how cold and guarded she
was back then. She didn’t get sarcasm or humor or anything normal. I’d made it
my personal mission to chip away at the stone covering her heart. I knew it was
in there somewhere, big and as wonderful as she looked.

That first day in New Orleans, I smelled
the most amazing yet sad scent that had ever entered my nose. I’d fantasized
about meeting her since six a. m. when I followed the scent to her room.
 

Hours passed as I settled in the room
below her, and she was still asleep. But when she finally got up and came down
those stairs, I thought …
oh dear God
.
Something happened to me. Something I’d never felt before. It was like someone had
stabbed me right in the heart. She was more than beautiful, but this awful
sadness clouded her eyes. I hated it. Instantly, I hated everything that could
ever make her sad, and I loved her. I couldn’t explain it, but she smelled like
someone to love. Not
like
. A few days
before, I’d smelled and seen a pretty girl, Emma, when the hunter dragged her
in with a smelly panther, but this wasn’t anything like that.

It was a moment I would remember forever.
I wanted her to look at me, but she didn’t lift her eyes. She didn’t really
look at me until I tried to joke with her in the living room when Emma called
her to come down. Then, as quickly as she’d looked at me, she looked away
again.

That night, I smelled her spiraling into
a deeper sadness. I kept going up and down the stairs, trying to convince
myself to knock on her door. Finally, I went as Sparky, and she came out, and
played with me, and smiled at me.

I didn’t think things could get better,
but it did, so much better. She liked me too, she kissed me back, and
thank
the heavens, she forgave me for calling her a copy.

And that was it. How my life changed in a
week. How my sole reason for living became Christine Cecilia Gavin. And she was
still my sole reason for living. It was just a wee bit stressful that my sole
reason for living had an insanely dangerous and complicated life, seemingly
cursed before she came out of the womb.

They
are rejoicing over your witch’s blood.

Hearing Lydia and Christine reading the
acceptance letter had brought Devin’s last words back to me. Of course, I was
happy for her, but college meant she would be out of the house all day, and
that made Devin’s message seem like a threat.

My
witch
, had to be Chris.
Devin and the rest of them thought she was one of us. The
they
in his statement had to be Kamon and his triplets. Devin was
well acquainted with them. He and Shane knew Carter, William, and Owen Yates
well enough to tell them apart. That should’ve tipped me off, along with a lot
of other things I chose to ignore.