Soul of Darkness (25 page)

Their reproachful gazes melted together until all that was left in the end were a single pair of eyes…the bluest I’d ever seen: Aidan’s eye
s―
lifeless and accusing…

I could still hear the whimper that had escaped me in my sleep as I shot upright from my nightmare, beads of sweat dampening my skin. Tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed were slowly gliding down my face and falling on my chest as I sat trembling, my body shaking violently despite my efforts to calm down.

I knew it had only been a nightmare…this time. For, all too vividly, I remembered the sight of Aidan’s lifeless eyes. Back then, it hadn’t been a dream…it had been reality.

Trying to calm myself, I breathed in deeply and looked around. It seemed the sun had set, plunging the room mostly into darkness, which was why it took me a moment to realize I wasn’t alone on the bed.

The eyes that had haunted me in my dream were now gazing at me with a mixture of uncertainty and apprehension as Aidan sat next to me with his back resting against the headboard.

In light of the recent awkwardness between us, I swiftly turned my gaze away from him, feeling embarrassed by my present lack of composure.

I expected him to get up and leave or to at least distance himself from me in my current state. What I hadn’t expected was for him to reach out and pull my trembling body toward his.

Hugging me to his side and letting my head rest against his chest, his arm tightly wrapped around my waist, he didn’t look at me and didn’t utter a word…only held me.

And I understood: Nothing had changed between us. But, right then and there…because I needed him…he would be there for me, would soothe me.

And I was grateful for it.

A few minutes later, Malcolm’s voice floated toward us from below.

“Persephone, Aidan…dinner is ready. Come down, please.”

We awkwardly untangled our bodies and headed toward the hall. When Aidan opened the bedroom door and I walked through onto the landing, I was surprised to find Aaron leaning against the wall outside our door as if he were on guard duty.

“Didn’t trust us, huh?” Aidan addressed Aaron in a low voice while walking past him.

“I never trust you,” Aaron returned, his voice as filled with resentment as Aidan’s had been.

I said nothing and just headed for the kitche
n
―
man, was I suddenly hungry. We ate in silence for the most part, though Malcolm occasionally tried to start a conversation. However, none of us felt like engaging in anything other than eating.

After finishing and taking care of the dishes, Malcolm handed each of us a toothbrush and other toiletries, and we went our separate ways heading to our respective bedrooms.

I brushed my teeth and hair, got into my pajamas, and slid beneath the covers, while Aidan combed through several drawers of a large hardwood dresser, finally pulling out a pillow, comforter, and a smaller blanket.

Instead of heading toward the area with the most space, he walked right up to the side of the bed. After folding the comforter to create some cushioning, he threw the blanket and pillow on top of this makeshift mattress and headed toward the bathroom.

A few minutes later, he came out, extinguished the lights, and lay down next to the bed. Though I was so tired that I’d ordinarily have fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, sleep was nowhere to be found.

The utter darkness surrounding us emphasized the sound of my own breathing and the frantic beating of my heart as I lay there thinking about the small space that separated his breath…his heartbeat…his body…from my own.

As I held my breath so that I could instead listen to the sound of Aidan’s breathing, the space between us seemed to shrink until I felt I might be able to touch his soft, warm skin if only I reached out.

“Stop what you’re doing,” Aidan’s low, arrogantly cold voice rang out from the dark beside me.

Utterly startled by the sudden sound of his voice and his icy demeanor, it took me a moment to respond.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” I defended myself, though it wasn’t completely true. I
had
thought about him in ways I shouldn’t have under the circumstances.

But my thoughts and feelings were my own.

I wasn’t forcing them on him.

I hadn’t even told him how I felt.

Therefore, I was more than ready to defend my freedom of thought
―
a right I felt entitled to even if he could read my mind…or precisely
because
  he could read my mind. Why should it be my problem if he overheard my thoughts? If he didn’t like what he heard, he should just stay out of my head!

“Trust me, I’d like nothing more. But I’m finding it a bit hard at the moment,” Aidan replied through gritted teeth, by the sound of it, “So, do me a favor…and stop thinking altogether. Just sleep.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered sarcastically.

Prying my thoughts away from Aidan, though I couldn’t stop thinking altogether like he’d requested, I instead concentrated on the only things in my life that hadn’t gone to hell in a handbasket: my mom, my dad…my home.

I really missed my family, and it was high time I gave them a call. I decided I would contact them the very next morning and tell them I was okay.

And with my thoughts circling around my parents, the home I’d grown up in, and the sanctuary of my room, I found my inner peace and finally fell sound asleep.

This time, there were no nightmares.

Morning arrived faster than I would have liked. Though sleeping seemed to be all I was doing lately, no matter how much I slept, I always felt exhausted.

My tired eyes followed the rays of sunlight as they filtered in through the thin, white bedroom drapes, creating a soft and comfortable atmosphere.

From my position on the bed I could tell that Aidan had already left. I got up, threw on my clothes, and stretched before heading to the bathroom, all the while yawning widely.

I need coffee…coffee…coffee
, was all my mind could come up with while I brushed my teeth and hair and splashed water on my face…and everywhere else, as well.

Like a zombie I followed the smell of freshly brewed coffee that floated toward me all the way up the stairs.

Hmmm,
I thought, purring inwardly when I came down to the kitchen to find a full pitcher of coffee on the counter. I headed straight for it, took the clean cup Malcolm had already set next to the pitcher for me, filled it with coffee and milk, and plunked myself down at the table…while the three McKinley men, if I remembered their family name correctly, just sat and stared at me.

“Yes,” I said, ready to own it, “I need coffee in order to survive.”

I took a big sip, sighed with pleasure, and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Malcolm was grinning from ear to ear while Aaron’s and Aidan’s lips twitched slightly as though they’d started to smile as well. They stopped the moment I glanced their way, trying to hide their amusement.

“And here I thought you were auditioning for ‘The Walking Dead’,” Malcolm chuckled, surprising me with his knowledge of popular current TV series.

I hadn’t pegged him as the type who watched TV…or even owned one. I must have been wrong. It seemed Malcolm was just as much a part of the modern world we lived in as the rest of us, despite belonging to another ‘hidden’ world of ancient magic.

“Yeah, I could totally pull off being a zombie without my morning dose of caffeine,” I mumbled, grinned at Malcolm, and took another sip. I couldn’t quite say why, but I found I liked him.

It was strange how Malcolm was suddenly the one…the only one…I could feel truly comfortable around. My relationships with Aaron and Aidan were just too complicated to allow me to let down my guard.

And I was grateful to Malcolm for behaving normally around me, for making me feel as though it were just another ordinary morning in an ordinary family.

Thinking of family, I remembered I wanted to call my own. Just as Malcolm was setting a plate of scrambled eggs and toast down in front of me, I said:

“Malcolm, I should really call my parents and let them know that I’m okay. I haven’t spoken to them in such a long time, they’re probably worried.”

The plate Malcolm was setting down abruptly slipped from between his fingers and clattered loudly as it plunked down in front of me.

Malcolm’s unexpected clumsiness, which I wasn’t accustomed to, and the fact that the table was suddenly utterly quiet without even the sound of a scratching fork or knife cutting through the silence, made me very anxious all of a sudden.

Why had my simple statement caused such a reaction?

“What?” was all that came out of my mouth, though my mind had formed a whole stream of thoughts.

When Malcolm’s mouth opened yet closed shortly after without a single sound having come from between his lips, I knew something was very wrong. The courageous, outgoing Malcolm I’d come to know seemed unable to dredge up the courage to answer me.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, my voice trembling because I could do nothing to stop the fear from building.

“Why won’t you tell me? Tell me what’s wrong!” I finally found my voice, screaming at him to break his silence as panic overwhelmed me.

For, somewhere deep inside, I already knew what he was about to tell me, why his face looked so drawn and apprehensive after the mere mention of my parents. Nothing but the fact that something had happened to them would make him this reluctant to talk to me.

“Persephone,” my name came out as a low, hoarse sound, “I am so very deeply sorry.”

Malcolm’s few words were enough to send shivers across my entire body. These were words often heard at funerals.

“They can’t be dead…You must have gotten it wrong!” I denied any truth to what he’d implied, though my chest had already started to constrict in agony and my breath seemed to be rushing in and out of my lungs with increasing speed, every single one feeling insufficient to fill my body with the oxygen it needed.

“I think she’s hyperventilating,” Aaron suddenly warned his father, “What should we do?”

Suddenly, even in my state of panic, I realized: They’d all fallen silent after I’d first mentioned my parents. And following Malcolm’s last statement, no one but me had openly questioned the truth of my parents’ demise. Which meant: If it was really true, if they were actually dead, each of my ‘companions’ had known.

And not one of them had told me.

I could not believe it. What had I done to them that they hadn’t told me about my parents’ deaths? How could they have kept this from me…how could they have deprived me of my last chance to ever see them again, to say goodbye the way I should have…the way I’d needed to?

I suddenly felt betrayed…and deeply hurt.

And at this point, I didn’t even have the strength to ask about how they had died. Instead, my mind went over some of the last words I’d exchanged with my mom during our conversation over the phone…when I’d lied to her about having madea friend…when I’d told her that it wasn’t a good time to tal
k
.

If only I had known it was the last time I’d ever hear her voice…

Why had I said the things I’d said?

Why had I lied?

Why had I been so goddamn impatient with her?

And now I couldn’t take it back!

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Malcolm rushing toward me with a small paper bag, seemingly trying to help me breathe properly.

But before he could even reach me, I felt myself already shutting down…slipping into oblivion, so tha
t―
at least for a whil
e―
I might possibly forget…

Chapter 17 * Grief

I
t was a sunny afternoon in autumn. Rays of sunlight streamed in through the kitchen bay window, bathing the room in a warm light. The comforting sounds of my mother’s movements surrounded me as she bustled about the kitchen, preparing the filling for the pumpkin pie while I finished making the crust.

I drank in the familiarity of this scene: our bright, homely kitchen…filled with the spicy scent of pumpkin pie, which was enhanced by the warmth of the sunlight pouring in…the fine coating of flour on the countertop and on my hands…

Here, locked inside this memory, I found a profound sense of peace. This was right. This was as it should be.