Witch Eyes (24 page)

“Let me make something clear.” Lucien strolled toward me. “I can take the pain from you.” Looking down on me made him seem even more smug. “Or I can make it worse than you’ve ever felt.”

My skull exploded. Shrapnel dug into every single part of my consciousness. Every thought I’d ever had was lanced and filleted and set on fire. My mind was torn apart, shredded into tiny pieces only to pull itself back together long enough for the cycle to continue. I was screaming. Dying. This wasn’t fire, and this wasn’t pain. It was hell.

Just as quickly as it started, the pain vanished. But I’d never forget the feeling. My whole body was shaking now, a broken mess of muscles that didn’t understand a single thing I wanted them to do.

“The boy has to die.” Lucien stood above me, but all I could see was a corner of his shoes. My stomach revolted, choking gasps of icy air punctuating the dry heaving.

“W-why?” I croaked between heaves.

Somehow, I managed to look up. And I saw the rest.

Fear like stinking humanity clawing against the holes in this body, the boy has to die. Everything centers around it. So much power in a new war, feasting for generations to make myself powerful again, and mend what she broke. That bitch, if I ever find her, I’ll carve her soul into diamonds.

And I saw flashes of images. Visions and impressions and feelings all wrapped up into one.

Trey and I, together, bound together by things deeper than physical touches and feelings. And in our wake, fires raged out of control, battles and feuds that were yet to come, and Lucien, kneeling before me.

I watched half in fascination, half in horror. He begged for mercy, but I had none. This other Braden—future Braden—was so cold. Ice and steel, not blood and bone. Lucien cowered beneath us, and I unraveled him … somehow. Finished what Grace had started and left him nothing but ash.

That’s what this is all about,
I realized. “You’re scared of us,” I whispered. “What we’re going to do.” He needed me, but he couldn’t risk Trey and I together.

It gave me hope, at what was the worst possible time. Maybe we had a chance after all.

Lucien’s eyes narrowed slightly, the first shadow of disbelief crossing his face. “You know nothing.” He started to raise his hand.

I felt the power calling from the cemetery, the door I hadn’t fully opened. I pulled at it, calling it to me with every ounce of willpower I had. The moment I started, Lucien’s hand stopped again. He hesitated.

I didn’t try to think it through. Didn’t have that luxury, and the wrong twitch might reveal the deception I was planning.

I threw myself into the spell and into the energy I had raised. The moment the energy peaked, I hurled it toward Trey, a spell with no words. No tools, no limits.

My body was nearly useless, ravaged so hard I couldn’t even stand. But Trey’s wasn’t. And that’s what I was counting on. My mind soared out of my body, riding on the tip of the spell as it slammed into Trey. There was only a second of resistance before I flowed inside of him like water.

Trey’s mind was full of rigid lines of obedience, hard edges where he’d had to develop a thicker skin, and corners that kept out the light. There wasn’t time to explore it all, as much as I wanted to.

Shock assaulted me, an alien presence that pressed against my control. There wasn’t any time to explain to Trey that I’d hijacked a ride on the spell and shoved him out of his own body’s control. I pushed it down, pressing on bits of spirit and thought that radiated
Trey.

Everything looks so drab to him.
Seeing the world through Trey’s eyes was anticlimactic. No matter how many times I’d wished to be free of the witch eyes, I’d never pictured it would be so … unimpressive. Bland.

From here, I could have stopped Trey’s heart, shut down his nervous system. Anything I wanted. Trey’s body and mind were at my disposal, and there was nothing he could do to resist.

I pivoted to the left and fired the gun in his hand. Right into Lucien.

Trey had training with the gun that I couldn’t have duplicated without years of practice. I’d never even fired a gun before, let alone fired a gun at something. But Trey’s muscle memory was strong, his body knew what I wanted, and the gunshot barely caused his arm to snap back in recoil.

The moment the gun fired, the spell faded and I snapped back into my own body.

As I straightened my head, I caught a glimpse of Lucien right before he fell out of my sight, hidden on the other side of the desk. A single bullet had taken him through the eye, leaving a bloody and violent hole in its wake.

I managed only a single, racking cough before everything in my stomach made its way to the surface. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought there was blood.

As I knelt there, heaving my guts out, I heard Trey walk around the side of the desk and crouch down in front of me.

“He … he saw … ” I could barely think, but the one thought that came clear was that I had to explain to Trey. I had to make him understand.

“It’s okay.” He touched his fingers to the back of my head, and I flinched. “Here.” He was so gentle I had to strain to hear the words.

The splotchy mess on the ground under me was soon punctured by pure red drops. Slow at first, it started to grow into a steady stream as my nose released everything. I whimpered, and felt fingers slide around my eyes. Cold plastic found its home as the glasses settled, and even as my vision dimmed … it still wasn’t enough.

“You have to go.” I couldn’t think straight, but I knew if Trey stayed, it would be bad. Jason would blame him. Maybe try to kill him, too.

Just as quickly as the moment happened, it was over. “I’ll call your father. Will you be okay until he gets here?”

The migraine kept growing, like a train coming out of a tunnel. I started whimpering. Nodding was out of the question, but I tried.

“He’ll think I did this to you.”

I felt him move away, and I curled up in a ball behind the desk. I think I might have been lying in breakfast, but it didn’t matter.

“You did great, Cyke.”

Days could have passed, and I wouldn’t have known. I tried to focus on something, anything other than the pulsing, but the pain was merciless and wouldn’t let me forget.

Finally, someone came for me. I never even opened my eyes. All I knew was that it wasn’t Trey.

Thirty-Three

One week later

“You’re out of bed, that’s a start, right?” Jade’s voice was quiet. She’d been here every day, the nurses said. They thought she was my girlfriend.

Riley had only visited once, and only stayed a few minutes before she darted out of the room. The whole time she was there, I didn’t hear a single clacking sound. It freaked me out.

Jade wouldn’t tell me what was going on with Riley at first. She changed the subject every time I brought it up. I kept pushing.

“I think she’s scared. Not that she’d tell me if she was. But she thinks Catherine did something to you. Maybe she thinks she’s next,” Jade had whispered, resting her hand gently over mine. I knew there was something more to it, but nothing huge. There had been some whispered fight between the two of them out in the hallway before Riley had come in. Jade refused to talk about it.

For the first few days, I’d spent almost all my time dripping with as many drugs as Jason could order the doctor to give me. By the second day, the headaches still hurt, but I was so drugged up I didn’t even care anymore.

They told me, eventually, that I’d started having seizures after being admitted. Despite giving me pills they thought would stop them, the seizures kept coming and there was nothing they could do but let me ride them out. They still weren’t sure how much damage had been done.

I had a dream, at least I think it was a dream, where Jason talked to one of the doctors. The words “permanent” and “possible blindness” came up often.

My eyes had been bandaged up with thick rolls of cotton, siphoning off every last shred of light that might have opened me up to the visions. It pulled at my hair, and made my skin itch, but they wouldn’t remove it. Everything to keep me safe, Jason had assured me.

“Why are you here? Isn’t your mother going to find out?” Finally, I’d pushed the nurse to let me out of bed. A struggle of words quickly turned into a struggle to control my legs, which shuddered and threatened revolution at the first sign of strain. It was like I hadn’t walked in years, instead of days. Finally, I pushed my way into the chair. I could feel sunlight on my face. But the world was still black.

“She knows Jason’s taking care of you. I don’t think she knows the rest yet. It’s just a matter of time,” Jade admitted. When I’d woken up, I’d found out that Jade kne
w the truth. Jason was my father. “She’s not talking to me much right now. Gentry either.”

I swallowed. Every day, I hoped to hear his footsteps in the hallway, to hear his voice in the room. But that never happened. “How is he?”

Jade pulled away, her fingers resting against my palm for only a moment. “I don’t know,” she said in a quiet tone. “He’s off by himself a lot.” The truth of it all hurt. Stung, actually. I’d hoped for something more.

She touched my neck, fingering the cool silver of the necklace John had given me in another lifetime. Her fingers touched something new, a weight I hadn’t felt before. “Trey gave me this. I put it on the chain when you were still asleep.”

“What is it?”

“Just a little star. He thinks it’ll keep you safe.”

A pentacle? I traced my fingers over it, and felt the circle surrounding thick lines. It was big; at least I thought so.

“Time for you to leave, Jade.” Jason’s voice echoed from the hallway. Even though I couldn’t see, I knew he was in the doorway watching the two of us. Whatever his real feelings about Catherine, Jason tolerated her daughter’s visits. I think it bothered him that she was the only other person who visited me regularly, but he never said anything.

Jade’s voice was slow in coming. “Okay,” she said, in a subdued tone she’d never taken with anyone else before. Jason had that effect on people. I could feel her get close again, as her arms wrapped around me. “Be careful,” she whispered in my ear.

Once she was gone, Jason settled himself against the edge of the bed. I heard the shift of the paper-thin sheets as Jason tried finding some sort of comfortable balance. “It’s about time for you to come home. Are you ready?”

I curled up in the chair, straining my body toward the light I could feel, but not see. “I don’t know. It’s been awhile since I had one.”

“You’re stuck with me, Braden. Maybe it’s not ideal, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about each other. I can help you.” Jason again tried the concerned parent routine, which seemed to be just another mask that was slipped on as the day went on. Sometimes, I caught a glimmer of the man underneath. That was the thing. I was never really sure who he was.

Stuck.
Trapped. I had the school; I could go to the football games. I could fail Algebra just like everyone else. I just couldn’t be friends with my friends.

“When do the bandages come of
f
?” I turned away from the window. Sunlight wasn’t something I wanted to see now anyway.

“We’ll take them off before we leave. I’ve got your glasses right here.” Jason wasn’t taking any chances.

“Then let’s go.”

¤ ¤ ¤

The sun was just starting to set when I started swinging. Two days in Jason’s home, and everything was still so surreal. It was like a museum. Even the furniture looked like antiques. I was supposed to be on “strict bed rest.” Jason thought it was for the best. “This way, things can settle down,” he said.

The fact that his almost-blind son had managed to sneak out of the house and slip away to the park was probably going to royally piss him off later. But I had to get away. More importantly, I had to see him.

While I still could.

Trey crossed the park slowly, dressed in thick layers. During my week in the hospital, I’d missed the day when fall really hit the town, and leaves started falling everywhere. Now, there was a solid crunch-crunch as Trey made his way across the leaf-covered grass.

“You showed up.” Somehow, I managed to conceal just how scared I felt at seeing him again.

“Hi.” Short and sweet. Trey sounded and looked tired. There were thick, dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was scattered and limp.

I wanted to say any number of things. Anything. I wanted to see him smile, to roll his eyes and admit that maybe I could take care of myself after all. “Did you tell her?”

That had been my argument for seeing him. To find out how much Catherine knew about me. If Trey had told her my secrets.

Trey’s jaw flexed, but he shook his head. “I should have, but I can’t.”

“Jason thinks Lucien might have told her after all.” I was giving him an out, a way to tell his mother and know that Jason would never find out about it.

“What about him? Does he know about you and me?”

Jason refused to discuss the feud with me. It had taken days to convince him of the truth of what Lucien had been up t
o. Even now, I don’t think he believed me. I was asking him to believe my story—that Lucien had been playing both sides against each other.

A demon wouldn’t have died, but Lucien wasn’t a demon anymore. When Grace had ripped the power out of him, he must have been left as something close to human. All humans die eventually.

“I told him. He thinks it was a
bold, strategic move
,” I said, emphasizing his exact words. “I think he’s not very comfortable talking about it, because of the gay thing. He wasn’t expecting that.”

“How long have you known?” Trey looked up at me, and I saw the hurt I’d put there. He’d wondered the same thing, thinking I was using him. We didn’t have to talk about it to know it was true. Suspicion was one of the building blocks of our relationship.

“That he was my father?”

Trey nodded.

Lying didn’t even cross my mind. “The day you picked me up, when it was raining.”

He grunted. I’d known the truth almost as long as I’d known Trey. Had it really only been a couple of weeks?

“Lucien?”

I closed my eyes. “Jason covered it up. No one knows what really happened that night. They’re saying Lucien booked a flight out of Seattle a few days ago.”

Jason wouldn’t tell me how he’d cleaned up the mess. The body, the damage to Lucien’s office, any of it. Lucien had vanished. One of the nurses claimed he’d taken a better-paying job in Massachusetts somewhere.

“I miss you,” I whispered.

I thought he might walk away then. But instead, Trey held out his hand. He looked so scared, like a little boy instead of the man I knew.

I threw myself off the swing and into his arms. Arms that wrapped around me, so tight I could barely breathe.

“She’ll tell you to kill me someday, won’t she?” My words were muffled against his jacket, but I had to know.

I felt him nodding, his cheek rubbing against my hair. “She’ll expect me to try.”

“What do we do?”

Trey disentangled himself from me and turned away. He cleared his throat as his hand moved to his face. “Just be careful, Braden. Everything’s different now.”

I watched him go, my eyes welling even before Trey was out of sight. All the times I’d tried not to cry, and now all I could muster up was a few tears.

I got back on the swing, rocking back and forth for over an hour as I tried to process everything. Everything that had happened, and where I ended up. I’d tried to find a normal life, and everything crumbled down around me.

When I finally looked back up, I saw that the sun was about to set. Jason was parked on the street in front of me. Of course he knew where I was. He didn’t get out, and I didn’t make him wait.

“You said everything you needed to?” Jason asked, turning up the heater as I shivered. He didn’t even mention that I’d snuck out.

“More or less.”

Jason pulled off into the street, driving us back toward his house. “It gets easier. Just remember, you’re safe. You don’t have to hide anything. I’ll take care of you.”

All the right words, just the wrong person. But Jason was trying. I knew that, and knew I had to give a little, too. “I know.”

At the light, he turned to me. “You can’t see him anymore. You know that, right?”

I thought about that on the rest of the drive. Looking out the window, I saw Belle Dam laid out around me, a town still full of secrets I’d barely glimpsed. It was like a game. And the only thing left to do was to make it my own.

“It’s like Trey said. Everything’s different now.”

THE END