Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence (21 page)

That search for the man I loved wasn’t going so well. I decided to go a bit further forward. Maybe, just maybe, there was an entry in here after the time he met me.

My heart skipped with the hope of it as I flipped the pages with great speed, reading down a few lines in search of my name. I almost flipped right past exactly what I was looking for, but the words ‘blue’ and ‘eyes’ stood out, so I went back two pages. I was the only girl he knew with blue eyes. This had to be it.

I saw her up close today. I never imagined eyes so blue before. Were it not for the fact that she was so caught up in her instant attraction to me, she would have noticed my sudden inability to breathe. I literally stopped for that single moment as our eyes met, and for once in my life, somehow, for some strange reason, I felt like everything would be okay. The burn I’ve carried in my soul these past years dissolved, and I found myself laughing, realising suddenly that nothing funny had happened.

Great clarity came over me and washed everything else away: Pepper. Rochelle. Emily. Arietta. I felt as if I’d made things out to be worse than they really were. But under all of that clarity I wanted only one thing: to be with this girl; to hear her voice directed at me; to see her smile because of something I said or did. And her thoughts. Oh, her thoughts. She is incredibly sweet and so very lovely. I find myself hoping we’ll have nothing to say just so I can sit and listen to her beautiful mind.

Everything Uncle told me about falling for a human, I finally understand. And as much as I will hate myself for thinking this way, I finally understand why he allowed Arietta to betray Victor.

Love.

I have watched this girl now for weeks, but talked to her only today, and as sure as my heart does not beat, I am in love. All I have to do now is make her fall in love with me, then… then, I don’t know. Maybe it will be a summer fling, maybe I will grow tired of her. Most likely I will kill her. I have made no decision, merely watched her, tried to make some conclusion about what should be done. But for today, I will sleep, and tomorrow I will see her again, and hopefully every day after that.

Reading between the lines here, it was pretty clear that David didn’t trust this emotion he called love. From what I’d read before, he’d been in love many times—with each of his victims, right before he killed them. I imagined he believed that was the kind of love he was feeling for me. He seemed confused by it, really, unwilling to trust that it was a real and true emotion.

The next page started with a dose of David’s infamous whiplash love.

I take back what I said. That girl has got to be the most irritating little thing I have ever encountered.

And my God, I think I still love her. Maybe even more than before.

Tonight, when I took a young stranger in my arms, rolled her neck to reveal her artery and placed my lips to her flesh, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bite her. I do not even know why. I do not have any reason, and nothing inside me can find an explanation. I just couldn’t.

I dropped the girl to the floor, left her in the street, and found myself at Emily’s bedside moments later.

She is always peaceful when she sleeps, despite what I’ve done to her. I laid on the bed beside her, put my arm across her waist and fell asleep. When she woke to find me there, she said nothing. She never says anything. Never screams or tells her parents. I like that. It must surely be to do with the Bind, but it’s nice. I always feel a little less alone after waking beside Emily. And for that reason I have not yet sent my brother those tapes. I’m not sure now that I will. He may use them against me—send them to Ara. As a matter of fact, that is precisely what he would do.

Today, when Emily woke, she dared to touch me—stroked my cheek. Her human touch felt, for once in my life, nice. Yet wrong.

That little blue-eyed human girl who moved here only weeks ago is moving into my heart like a parasite—so much that an act I’d come to enjoy with Emily, come to do quite often, now brought me a feeling of guilt. But I couldn’t lay with Ara. It would frighten her to wake and find me beside her. Why should that mean I must sleep alone?

The battle of conscience within me seems unfair, as if Ara has taken a piece of me away and won’t give it back. I want it back. I don’t want to feel this way.

I looked Emily over carefully, really taking in her face for the first time since we met. She always had tears in her eyes when she looked at me. Always. As if her heart was shattered.

I never cared before, except to keep her emotions at bay so as not to cause a disturbance, but as I ran my hand along her waist, slipping it just under her shirt, I stopped. I couldn’t go any further. I knew having sex with her again then ignoring her at school, showing my affections for this new girl, would kill Emily inside. I knew because I understood the pain she felt—the Bind. I understood now how she could cry herself to sleep every night. I understood because I wanted it to be Ara lying beneath me. I wanted it to be her I woke with. And for all the goodness in the world, I knew it never would be.

This made me angry.

I pushed Emily’s hand away and sat up, rubbing my head. As always with this girl, she was on her knees, behind me, comforting me. I let her, but I wasn’t sure I should. So many thoughts raced through my mind—so many of them littered with regret, then anger for feeling regret.

I was angry at Ara. Angry at Emily. Angry at myself for being angry. And I hated Emily in that moment. She is Bound to me. There is no hope for the girl. For a time I thought perhaps I could turn her—keep her. Now, knowing Ara’s heart, her mind, if I turned Emily and she regained her memories of what I’ve done to her, I will never stand a chance with Ara.

This blue-eyed beauty must be made to believe I am good. Or all hope is lost.

Aw, David. If only I’d known back then how he felt. It could have saved me so much wondering—so much doubt. No wonder he’d laugh at me when I worried if I was good enough for him. All along, he thought he wasn’t good enough for me.

Emily is not helping things with Ara. Her affections for me are obvious and I find myself on pins-and-needles waiting for her to slip up. She has no idea that I have fucked her more times than she’s shaved her own legs, but if she doesn’t stop looking at me that way, Ara will suspect it. It will plant a seed of doubt in her already quite doubtful mind.

I went to Emily early this morning, intent on killing her. She would be just another random girl murdered in a burglary gone wrong.

But as I rolled her over and wrapped my hands around her neck, I pictured the funeral I would be forced to attend. The girl I would be forced to mourn. The new friend Ara would lose. Another funeral she would have to attend.

I let go of Emily.

It would break her. Ara. It would break her to see death so soon again after losing her family. She wouldn’t survive it. She blames herself for what happened to her mother—as if she is some kind of curse on humankind.

I moved right back off Emily and stared at her as she stared at me.

Ara would find some way to blame herself for this, too. She would believe Emily died merely because she came into her life.

Emily asked me what I was doing in her room. When I told her I meant to kill her, she just cried. She lowered her face into her hands and she cried. And something hurt in my chest. Something I’ve not felt for a very long time. I touched it, laid my hand over it to make sure it was real. What I did next I have not done since I was human.

I reached out and touched her face, moving my hand along her shoulder and her arm, then I pulled her close and wrapped myself around her. When I said her name, she looked up at me, her eyes so wet with tears, and I could only smile at her and say that I was sorry.

Then, I erased it again—every night we’d spent together. Every morning she woke with me in her bed—every time I’d come to ease my soul between her legs. I erased it to the deepest, darkest depths of her mind and left her sleeping, her eyes still wet with tears.

She came to school today, her face still red. I nodded casually at her, and when she looked at me, her confusion grew. I smiled, because I was glad to see that she couldn’t find any logical reason why she would suddenly feel love for me—when she never had before. She denied it, brushed it off, but spent the day looking at me, catching quick glances when she thought I wouldn’t see.

I don’t know where things with Ara will go. I don’t know if I am capable of loving her once I get what I want. In fact, I’m afraid to bed her for that very reason. But for her sake, at least until I tire of her, I will leave Emily alive. However, for my sake, even if I eventually turn Ara and keep her, I can never turn Emily. No one can ever know what I did to her. She cannot even know.

For the first time in my life, I am ashamed.

“Don’t you think it’s a little rude to read someone else’s journals?”

A lengthy shadow climbed along the ground beside my legs. I looked up and slightly behind me, right into the smiling green eyes of David. “Oh my God!” I put the book down on his shadow. “Are you really here?”

He pinched his own arm. “I think so. Are you?”

I jumped up and threw my arms around him, and when his hands cupped the solidity of my ribs, my little bump sticking into his stomach, we both exhaled the sudden relief. We were both real.

“Are you ready to go?” His voice came through muffled against my neck.

“I…” Was I? I hadn’t made any decisions yet on whether or not I still wanted to kill Drake. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” He leaned out from me, our bellies still touching. “I came to rescue you.”

I smiled. “I’m not being held prisoner.”

“Well, then let’s go.” He took my hand, stepping out from our embrace.

“Wait.” I stopped him. “Does Drake know you’re here?”

“Not yet. I was just headed in to see him. Why?”

My stomach dropped. “In that case, do not, for any reason, take your eyes off me. I’m not his prisoner, as far as I know, but you’ll forget you saw me if you look away for too long.”

“Why?” Those emerald eyes shrunk into slits of confusion, then something must have sparked in his brain—a memory perhaps—and they opened again. “That’s why no one has found you. He’s using a spell.”

“He does that often, I’m guessing.”

“He does,” he said with a nod. “Which means you’re right; I need to keep you within sight at all times. Even after I’ve told Drake I’m taking you. For all we know, Ara, I’ve found you several times before and he’s spelled us both to forget.”

My mind felt foggy, thinking back to days past. It could be entirely possible. “Let’s just get out of here then—forget talking to Drake.”

David let go of my hand and bent to pick up his journals. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Ara. I do actually need to speak to Drake first. We need his help.”

“Why?”

“Things have reached a critical level at the manor.”

“How so?”

“Walt has assumed complete power—”

“What!?”

“The second I left to come find you, he announced himself the new ruler. And, Ara.” He bent at the knee slightly to look right into my eyes. “Our people are following him.”

“Why?” I said, my voice weak with shock.

“Because he told them we are united with Drake to bring a demon into the world—”

“But that’s a lie!”

“Not entirely,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “Far as they know, you are carrying the witch that reigned terror on their world. What would you do if you were them?”

“I guess I’d try to kill me.”

“Precisely.” He tucked the journals under his arm. “So we no longer have the protection of the monarchy—the knights. We’re on our own, Ara.”

“Where will we go?”

“I have a place. But like I said—” he offered me his hand, “—I need Drake’s help. Maybe some men.”

“He’ll help,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m sure of it.”

“He’d better.”

As we walked across the grass and into the shaded chill of the castle, David took a deep breath, as though inhaling a memory. He didn’t say anything though. I expected him maybe to explain the sudden link that smell had to a memory—but he didn’t. He just walked quietly beside me, letting go of my hand to take a quick flip through his own journals.

He stopped dead then and his head turned slowly, his eyes meeting mine. “Of all the journals, Ara.”

“What?”

He rubbed his face, shaking his head. “Why this one?”

“Which one?”

He held up the most recent one.

“I grabbed them at random,” I said, wincing apologetically.

“From the look on your face I assume you read it.”

I nodded timidly.

David’s feet parted slightly and he grew a bit taller. “Did you read all of it?”

“No.”

“Did you read the last few pages?”

My eyes went to the journal, gauging the distance from my hand to his. I wanted to grab it and run away so I could see what he was clearly about to hide from me indefinitely. But if I did that he would forget he actually ever saw me. “No.”