Chapter 15
Ember sat in rigid silence as Asher brought around drinks and a plate of veggies and dip that Zinny had carefully arranged to resemble a teddy bear. Flat slices of carrot made up the body, with little bits of shredded cabbage making the fur, and tiny cut up radishes for the face and eyes. It frolicked through a celery and broccoli forest with a river made of ranch, and as Ember tried to look appreciative while she ate the food, she couldn’t help but stare at Zinny. Mostly, she just couldn’t bring herself to look at Acton.
We’re not bad people. Ember wasn’t even sure if they qualified as people. The stuff that had come oozing from Kaylee’s hand hadn’t been blood. It had been thick and dark, like chocolate syrup. The fact that Asher had laughed at the sight of a girl cutting her own fingers off was grotesque, and if Acton was to be believed, he had made her do it to remind her he was in charge.
She could hear them, sitting next to her, laughing and joking about the tourists and how the wife hadn’t figured out yet that the husband was flirting with someone named Beatrice. Asher talked about the women on the island, his loneliness, and Acton made a remark about how his relationships never ended well, and he needed to give up. Then, they were cut short on a conversation about Isaac’s latest “work”—Ember wasn’t sure she wanted to know what that was—when Isaac walked back into the bar.
He had a dark stain running down the leg of his pants from stuffing Kaylee’s fingers into his pocket, but outside of that one reminder, it was all so mundane that Ember almost felt the urge to yawn.
“Hey,” he said, taking a seat at the table. He picked at the grime around his finger beds. “What did I miss?”
“Whole lot of nothing,” Asher replied. “Trish might get lucky, so we can expect a screaming match by dawn. Might be he’ll hang around here a few days extra, if she takes off with both kayaks or something. How’s the queen bee?”
“Ah…” Isaac laughed, shaking his head as he stared at the table. “She’s pissed.”
Asher reached across the table for a bottle of beer, giving Isaac a significant look as he twisted the cap off. “You keeping those fingers?”
“I told her I lost them, but, yeah…”
“You can’t lie to a mind reader, Isaac,” Asher said, sighing as he watched Beatrice sit down in the tourist’s lap. “What the hell are you going to do with her fingers?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Huh. You’re sick. I’ve known a lot of sick guys, Isaac, but you take the cake.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Ember pretended to eat her food, wondering if she would be alive come sunrise, and wondering what she would do after that point if she was. Acton hadn’t spoken a word since Isaac’s return. She supposed that was as close to an apology as he would come for causing his girlfriend to be short three fingers and a thumb.
“She’s been a trooper.”
Ember looked up. Isaac was staring at her with a sort of flat interest in his eyes. Asher had answered his silent question, and was opening another beer and pushing it across the table to her. She reached for it, knowing that the motion looked robotic.
Isaac turned his stare on Acton. “What are you going to do with her?”
Acton sat forward, like he had been startled from his train of thought.
“I don’t know yet,” he replied in perfect mimicry. Then he looked over at Ember and smiled. “Does this bore you?” he asked. “You look like you’re about to fall asleep.”
Ember was shaking her head, frowning. She wanted to give him the answer he wanted. “No. No, I’m not bored.”
Acton’s smile only widened, and he briefly diverted his gaze before giving her a reassuring nod. “Em, finish your drink. We’ll leave, and go somewhere that’s less boring.”
Ember continued to nod, but she felt her blood run cold.
Acton leaned back in his chair, letting his arm fall around her again as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “It’s just out to that place by the spring. You like it there.”
She nodded again, clutching the beer in her hands and taking quick sips to calm herself down, but eventually her hands were shaking too much. She went to set the bottle down on the table, but didn’t quite hit her mark, and spilled it on her lap. She shrieked as the fluid made contact with her skin, even though by that point it was almost room temperature.
Acton grabbed the bottle before it hit the floor, giving Ember a quick assessment before going to get some paper towels from behind the bar. When he set them on the table, she only stared at them, so Acton turned his chair to face her and carefully dabbed at front of her pants leg.
Asher was on his forth beer, but didn’t seem to be even slightly inebriated. “Are you ever going to get sick of playing the babysitter?”
Acton turned around to glare at him, and Asher held up his hands in a disappointed acquiescence. Acton turned back to Ember, who was hugging herself and leaning forward, curling into a ball in her chair.
“Kaylee brought the clothes,” Acton said quietly. “They’re in the back room. Let’s go, and you can change into something dry.”
Ember slowly shook her head. “I’m dizzy.”
He helped her to her feet, even as she insisted that she felt too sick to move, and she shuffled into the back room, where Acton promptly balanced her against a stack of crates, holding her by her shoulders.
“You’re afraid of me,” Acton said matter-of-factly. “You should be. But I won’t hurt you. Do you want to go home now?”
Ember nodded sullenly, staring at the floor.
“Why?”
Her mumbled response was so quiet that she was surprised Acton even heard her. “Kaylee’s hand…”
“Her fingers will grow back.”
Ember looked up. “They grow back?”
Acton smiled weakly. “Just like your hair or finger nails. I won’t lie to you—cutting them off wasn’t pleasant for her. She won’t forget it, but she’s not permanently maimed.”
“That was really disturbing. I’m pretty sure that’s the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Acton paused, and a smile spread across his face. “That’s possible. If I promise to never do something like that in front of you again, would you forgive me?”
“I’m pretty sure your promises are crap, Acton,” Ember said with a sudden bold confidence. “You’ve never had any self-control.”
Acton seemed impressed with her outburst, as though something she had said pleased him deeply. He folded his hands in front of him and nodded resolutely.
“That’s true, to an extent. But my promises are not crap.” He gestured around the room. “I have provided you with new clothes, as I promised. You may not remember, but I promised you companionship once. I keep my promises, even when my debtor was too intoxicated to remember.”
Ember took a step forward. “I think I’m slightly intoxicated now.”
“I agree,” Acton replied. “I’ll leave you to change, I’ll take you somewhere to sober up, and we’ll come back when Zinny has washed your clothes for you. Then, I’ll take you home, and it will be at your discretion whether you ever come out to meet me again. No hard feelings. I won’t bother you.”
He folded his hands as he walked from the room, closing the door behind him. Ember sighed, looking around at the clothes. Kaylee had taken great care in displaying them. She had hung a broom across two stacks of crates to create a hanger for some dresses, and laid out several blouses and pairs of jeans on cardboard boxes in front of them. There was a pair of nice dance shoes—the kind with high heels, that Ember hadn’t ever worn before. There was also a pair of knee-high boots, a pair of ballerina slippers, some suede, fur lined clogs, and some strappy sandals.
None of the shoes were good for walking through the forest. Ember wondered if any of the people—for lack of a better word—living on the island ever wore shoes outdoors.
Isaac didn’t often wear shoes. She wasn’t sure how she had come by that knowledge, but she knew it
was a fact.
Shaking her head, and watching both doors warily as she ducked into a corner and faced the wall, she changed into a pair of the jeans, and then went to look through the dresses and blouses.
All of the dresses were covered in plastic, and so clean that Ember would have thought that they were new, except that someone had gone through and reinforced the straps with extra stitching and felt supports. Ember flicked through one dress after the next, each lighter than the next, shivering as she thought about going outdoors in any of them.
When she reached the last dress, she froze. In her reflection on the plastic, she could see a thin, pale face over her shoulder. She spun around, her breath catching in her throat.
No one was there. But as sure as the goose bumps on her arms, Ember knew she had seen a face, white and angry with dark eyes, staring at her from the far corner of the room.
“Acton!” she called hesitantly.
The door opened; Acton’s eyes glanced at her, up and down. “You haven’t changed.”
“I put on jeans,” Ember said quickly. “Someone was just in here.”
Acton didn’t move at first, his eyes wandering around the room. Then, he stepped in, and closed the door behind him, looking at Ember uncertainly.
“There’s no one here, Ember.”
Ember pressed herself further into her corner. “You didn’t even look!”
“Because there’s no one here,” Acton insisted. “Now change your shirt. I’m getting bored, and that’s dangerous.”
He stared at Ember. Ember looked around the room, wondering if a combination of alcohol and nervous ticks created by seeing a woman cutting off her own fingers weren’t getting to her.
Finally, she looked back to Acton. “Turn around.”
Sighing, he obliged. Ember avoided looking at any of the dresses as she ripped the plastic off of each one, and then put on a thin cotton summer shirt. She pulled a long-sleeved blouse over it, and then slipped on a shawl. The shawl was orange and the shirt was white with purple sequins, but Ember didn’t care; at least she would be warm.
“Done.”
When Acton turned back around, he scowled at her. “You know, those things look nice when Jessica wears them.”
“Jessica must not get cold easily.” Ember retorted, balling up her clothes before setting them in an obvious spot on a crate. “Now let’s go, or you can take me home.”
“Empty threat,” Acton said, opening the back door for her. “You’d rather be dead than going back there. You’ve said so more than once.”
Walking out the door and closing her shawl as she crossed her arms, Ember chose to ignore the remark. Acton followed her out, putting his hands in his coat pockets. As they walked down Main, dark and lonely and blanketed with stars, Ember was reminded of the first night that she had gone out with Acton. She had been so determined to impress him, and to shed her image as Gina’s damaged, outcast daughter.
She wondered if anything she had done had ever impressed him, or if it had all been a trick.
“What are you thinking about?” Acton asked.
Ember looked over at him; her words came out more sarcastic than she intended them to be. “You don’t read thoughts? I thought Asher said—“
“Kaylee is a thought reader.” Acton cut her off. “It’s a common trick here, more common among the females, but I don’t have it. However, it does seem to answer my question—you’re angry at me for not telling you sooner.”
Ember frowned, looking down. “No, I’m not.”
Acton spun to stop in front of her, putting out a hand to touch just beneath her collar bone and stop her in her tracks. “Yes, you are. You never used to lie to me, Em. Are you afraid of me now?”
Ember took a deep breath, staring at the damp, packed dirt road under her feet. She shook her head as Acton’s cold finger dropped back to his side, and looked him in the eye. He had said that if he wanted to kill her, he would just do it, and she believed him. There was no point in trying to escape, and she didn’t want to die a coward or a liar.
“Yes.” Ember tried not to flinch as Acton smiled. “You’re turning into the guy my mother warned me about.”
“I was always that guy,” Acton said, his smile stretching wider. “You just didn’t realize it.”
“And tonight, I watched you make a girl cut off most of her hand using mental telepathy, or something.” Ember sighed. “Why shouldn’t I be afraid of you?”
Acton took a moment to make it clear he was contemplating the question. Ember suddenly felt like a five-year-old awaiting a gold star for the picture she had painted.
“Because you’re a lost little girl with a bad family life, you’re secretly excited by the fingers you saw on the table tonight, you’re discovering that you’re attracted to dangerous things—namely, me—and your personal dogma is survival of the fittest.” Acton turned and started walking again, out into the woods. Not wanting to get left behind for whatever demon chose to come for her, she followed after him. “In short, you have potential. But mostly, Em, because I like you.”
“Why?” Ember called at his back.
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Acton responded.
“No—I mean, why do I have potential?” Ember tripped on a rock in the dark and caught herself by grabbing hold of a tree trunk. When she looked back up, Acton was standing in front of her. He had been at least twenty feet in front of her before, and hadn’t made a single noise backtracking to where she was bent over, awkwardly hugging a tree.
“You have potential because you’re here, Ember,” he said, making no move to help her up. “You kept chasing me, begging for my attention and approval, even after I threatened to kill you. Persistence is a key to success.”
“Success at what?”
As Ember finally regained her footing, Acton offered his hand. When Ember took it, he wrapped an arm behind her back and another under her knees, lifting her up to carry her.
“Hey!”
As Acton took off at a run, Ember grabbed the front of his jacket.
“Acton!”
He didn’t respond; they were moving so quickly that Ember could feel a breeze on her cheeks. She shut her eyes against the wind and tried to move her hands from his jacket to his shoulders as she bounced and jostled along, certain at every bump that he was about to drop her.
When the wind on her cheeks finally stopped, and she felt the ground gently rise beneath her back, she cracked her eyes open. The ground was warm, and there were fewer trees here, and they were smaller, allowing for a panoramic view of the night sky.
Shivering on the ground, Ember stared up at Acton’s eyes, eerily flashing in the dim moonlight as he looked down at her.
She shook her head in small, tight jerks. “You can’t do that anymore.”
Acton settled down on the ground next to her, stretching out so that he could stare straight up at the sky. “I’m not going to change, and especially not because you’ve told me to. I’m willing to extend you the same courtesy.”
Ember looked back up at the sky, suddenly taken with frustration and gratitude she felt at the prospect that Acton would never change, but that he never wanted her to either. She supposed his terms were fair.
“Could you at least make an attempt to not do any more mutilation in front of me?” she asked. “It made me sick.”
“It made you worried,” Acton corrected. “But you don’t need to worry. And no, I’m not changing that aspect of my life. I enjoy it too much.”
Ember’s gaze traveled around the sky, searching out the constellations that she had learned in school. They had taken a few fieldtrips to study astronomy, and a handful more overnight camping trips, but the stars in a place as rural and unlit as Tulukaruk were spectacular. It made her feel like she was at the bottom of the ocean, staring up at so much weight, just to be under it.
“They make me feel lonely,” she said suddenly. “It’s like I don’t matter…”
“It’s the alcoho
l,” Acton said flatly. “And you’re always lonely.”
Ember glanced over at him. “I thought you couldn’t read thoughts?”
“All of us…all of the demons.” He hesitated, as if he hated using the word. “We can’t all read thoughts, but we can read emotions, and especially painful ones. Those come from somewhere else. We feed on them.”
“Ah.” Ember rolled onto her stomach so that she wouldn’t have to stare into the infinite sky anymore. “So, that’s why you like me.”
“And I’m the only one willing to indulge your emotional neediness without killing you, so that must be why you like me,” he retorted. “Don’t judge me. You’re so desperate that you would rather make friends with a demon than be alone. You’re going to hell.”
Ember couldn’t help the sarcastic smile that was spreading across her lips. “At least we’ll be together. So, how does this work, then?”
“What?”
“This…friendship. Relationship. Whatever it is.” Ember paused, trying to order her words to make sense. “What do I do?”
When Acton didn’t respond, Ember looked over. He was giving her an odd look.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’ve never made friends with a victim before. I suppose you’ll come out each night, we’ll drink, torture a helpless soul, talk about our horrible lives, and then I’ll get you home before dawn.”
Ember frowned. “I don’t like the idea of torturing.”
“Well,” Acton snapped, “I don’t like the idea of not torturing. If you’re going to befriend demons, you need to accept that part of the deal.” When he looked and saw the sullen expression on Ember’s face as she huddled in the cold next to him, he shrugged. “I’ll think about it. I suppose it won’t last long, anyways.” He paused, and then looked over at her before quickly looking away. “You could go out in the water.”
For a moment, Ember wasn’t sure that she had heard him correctly. “What?”
It had started out innocent, when Asher had pushed her in. Then it had become a habit, and then, a desire. At first he had told himself that he liked the smell of her better after the water; the salt and cold stripped away all of the soaps and artificial smells, and it felt more like being with an island native. But there was something more to it, and it was in the invitation, and the heat. Every night after he made her go into the water, as she lay on the ground shivering, she would insist that he come and lie next to her because he was going to freeze to death—never mind the fact that he had been the one to put her in the water to begin with. He had refused her offer until the night she had cut her hand, and that was when he discovered the warmth.
He had accepted her offer the next night, and the next. She would press up against him, putting his hands flat on her back under her shirt and doing the same to him. At first he had worried that he would prevent her from warming back up, but he had quickly discovered that there wasn’t any stopping her. She warmed herself, and him, and the feeling was close to infatuation. On the night that she had kissed him, he had decided that the addiction would end.
Acton swallowed, shaking his head. “Nothing. Forget it.”
Furrowing her brow, Ember looked over at him. “Do you think my mother is going to kill me?”
Acton almost laughed, but it came out as a hiss as he shook his head. “That would be a shocking turn of fate. More likely she would kill me, or Ethel would. God knows she tries.”
Ember sat up sharply, looking down so that she could see his face. “She’s actually killed people?”
Acton’s expression remained impassive. “Ethel has had a few. But your mother…yes, she’s killed more than a few of us.”
The image of Gina with a knife in her hand as she opened the front door the night that Ember had locked herself out flashed through her mind, and she wondered how lucky she had been. Ethel had asked what was wrong with her before slapping her hard across the cheek.
It will all be over soon enough. Ember wasn’t sure if it was a threat or not. The way Gina had said it, she seemed to have meant it more as a promise. It was an inevitability to her, whether she wanted it or not, and Ember was almost sure she knew what Gina had meant now.
She had given up. Gina had given up trying to stop Ember from being with Acton and his friends, and she had already accepted her death. In her mind, she was already one of them.
But as Ember looked down at Acton, spread out so casually in the tall reeds, with the faint sounds of waves and the bubbling of the nearby stream on the breeze, she didn’t mind. Even if she was only an amusement to him, she could accept that he was only the same to her. If she was going to die in this place, it wasn’t the worst of things. The forest was magic at night when demons were involved. They were brutal, and beautiful, and if she had to do all of her living in only a few weeks, Ember was prepared.
Acton’s brown-green eyes watched her carefully, almost hesitantly, as she slowly laid back down, close enough that her arm was touching Acton’s but still far enough to allow him his space. He closed his eyes and shook his head, wishing that he didn’t want to reach out and take her hand.