The Noctalis Chronicles Complete Set

  They listen without moving, and I forget they are there as I keep talking, spilling my story like rain from a heavy, dark cloud.

  I stop right around the time I met Tex and shut my mouth. I am done sharing for the day.

  “Wow,” Brooke and Coby say at the same time. Rob doesn’t comment.

  “So that is my story,” I say, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Texas makes a noise in her sleep and rolls over, her eyes opening.

  “Hey,” she says, a smile spreading on her face when her eyes find me.

  “Hey,” I say, and lean over to give her a kiss.

  “No PDA in front of me, please,” Coby says, covering his eyes.

  “Shut up,” Tex says, and puts her hand on the back of my neck and thrusts her tongue into my mouth. She leaves no doubt about what she wants, but I am positive that if Coby doesn’t like us kissing, he would have a problem with us having sex.

  “Hey,” she says, breaking the kiss. “You ready to go to bed? Or at least take me up to bed?” I answer by picking her up. She folds herself into my arms and I relish the warmth of her skin and how her blood pounds against it.

  “No sex!” Coby yells, even though both of us can hear him perfectly fine.

  “No promises!” She calls back as she kisses me while I carry her up and then place her in bed. Her arms latch around my neck.

  “Hey.”

  “You’ve said that a lot.” Her fingers twirl the hair at the back of my neck.

  “I know. I just need to keep telling myself that you’re here. I kept having this dream that I couldn’t find you. I didn’t like it, but then I woke up and you were right here.” She is still scared, so I don’t let her go. I hold her and wait for her heartbeat to slow.

  “I feel like nothing is certain anymore.” I know she’s not just talking about the recent situation with Coby.

  “I can’t promise you anything, Tex.” She pulls back.

  “I’m not asking you to. I was just thinking out loud.” Her anger flares, and this is one of those times when I’m not sure where it came from, or what it’s directed at.

  “God, why do you have to be so mysterious all the time?” She gets off me and goes to the closet, pulling her clothes off and grabbing one of the sexy nightdresses she enjoys torturing me with.

  “Just say what you freaking think once in a while. I may be able to read your emotions, but I can’t read your damn mind.”

  She pulls the dress down and goes to sit on the chair by the window, and she won’t look at me. I’m still trying to decide whether I should go over and say something, or if I should wait for her to make the first move.

  “I’ve been lying to my parents my entire life, but this one felt like the worst. I’m just so scared that I’m going to slip up and say something wrong. And then I think back to when I was begging Ava to let me meet you, and how dumb I was.” She leans her head against the wall and closes her eyes.

  “Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives.”

  I know exactly how she feels. Her heart and breathing have calmed, so what she says next surprises me.

  “I think we should break up.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Ava

  “Have you talked to Tex? Her mom just called and her brother ran away,” Dad says the next morning as I’m trying to sneak past him to meet up with Peter.

  Crap. I knew I should have waited till he left.

  “Yeah, she called me late last night. I can’t believe it. What did her mom say?” I grab a granola bar and make sure Dad sees me putting it in my purse. I’m “running late for work” so I need to “eat my breakfast in the car.”

  “She was hysterical, calling anyone and everyone who might have seen him, or where he went, or with whom. They’re going over his computer now. I bet it’s one of those internet things, but I really hope not.”

  “Yeah, it’s so crazy,” I say, grabbing my keys so I can make a swift exit. “I bet she’ll fill me in when I get to work.”

  “She mentioned something else,” he says, just as I’m about to kiss him good-bye.

  “Dad, I’m really in a hurry.” I could use my supernatural speed to bolt, but that would raise even more suspicion, so I have to stand still and feign innocence as Dad stares at me in that way he has that leaves me shaking inside.

  “She said that she hoped you could come back to work soon, which is odd because you’ve been going to work every day for the last few weeks. So. What I want to know is where the hell have you been and who the hell have you been with? I think I know the answer, but I want to hear you say it, Ava.” I knew this was going to come crashing down on me, but I thought it would be the food thing that would tip him off.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” I say, because I am doing that enough already. “I’ve been with Peter, but it’s not what you think. I just . . . I just couldn’t deal with going back to work. You know, after mom.” Tears would be good right about now, but I’m going to have to do without them.

  “It was just too much, but I didn’t want to disappoint you, so I . . . I lied.”

  I stop talking and wait for a reaction. Dad’s face is impassive until he opens his arms to give me a hug. I reluctantly lean into them, making sure I don’t hold him too hard, and that I let go as quick as I can.

  “You don’t have to lie to me, Ava. About anything.” The weight of his words settles over me like chains, and I know he knows more than he’s letting on.

  “Whatever it is, you can tell me.” Could I? I stare at him so long I have to remind myself to blink.

  “So, whatever it is you need to do, go ahead. Just be safe, and know that I love you and I will support you no matter what. It’s you and me against the world now.” This is such a contrast to the Dad I’ve known for the past few years. We never seemed to be able to carry on a conversation without Mom being our go-between, but he’s right. It is just the two of us and suddenly, I’m feeling the need for another one of my mom’s letters.

  ~^*^~

  “I’m guessing you heard all that,” I say when I get in my car a few minutes later, after running upstairs to grab a letter to bring with me.

  “You could tell him,” Peter says, putting his hand on top of mine on the shifter.

  “That’s always an option, I guess. I just don’t know. I feel like it would be too much for him to handle on top of everything he’s already going through, and then he might tell Aj, and then it might get out and then my mind starts taking me to wild and crazy places and you need to stop me right now,” I say, rambling even faster now that I don’t have to breathe. If I want to, I can ramble for days and days. This is a scary thought.

  “This is so much worse than if I just had to tell him I was gay. Why can’t I just be gay?” I never thought I would utter those words, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when you become an immortal being.

  Peter and I end up going to the cemetery (Mom is buried up north with the rest of her family and I visit frequently) for a little while at his suggestion. It’s the place where it all started, and it feels kind of right.

  “I should probably head over to the bookstore to see what I can do aid in the Coby search, but I just really want to avoid that whole scene as much as possible so no one gets suspicious about my seeming lack of concern.”

  Peter and I walk hand in hand to the mausoleum and lay down in the grass by the two broken angels who are considerably worse for wear since I last saw them.

  “It’s weird being back here,” I say, stripping off my shirt and shorts. I’d go completely naked, but I’m not comfortable with that quite yet. Peter doesn’t give a crap, but sex in a cemetery is just a little too cliché, so he keeps his pants on.

  I rest my head on his shoulder and he plays with my hair as the sun flits in and out from behind the clouds, as if it’s teasing us.

  My phone rings, interrupting the perfection of the morning.

  “It’s Tex,” I say before I answer. She’s sobbing so hard on the other end, I can
barely make out her cry talk. Only years and years of hearing it have made me fluent enough to understand what other people would think was gibberish.

  “Viktor. And. I. Broke. Uuuuppppp . . .” Oh, Jesus. I look at Peter, and even he seems concerned.

  “Okay sweetie, you need to take a nice deep breath and tell me what you mean. Where are you?” I can distinctly hear “Last Kiss” by Taylor Swift playing in the background. The space sounds metallic; maybe she’s in her car.

  “I’m supposed to be looking for Coby, but I’m at the O’Hurley place.” Peter is on his feet, handing me my shorts and putting his shirt on. It’s so close that we don’t have to take the risk of flying in daylight.

  “I’ll be there in two minutes. Two.” I hang up the phone and we head toward the woods.

  “I don’t get it. How can she break up with him if they’re Claimed?”

  “She can’t,” Peter says.

  Peter

  When we find Texas and her car, she is crying and playing music loudly. Viktor is about a mile away, pretending to not be there, but I can sense him and I am sure Texas can as well.

  Ava pulls the door open and Texas throws herself at Ava, and Ava ducks at the last moment.

  “I’m so sorry!” She says as Texas falls flat on her face and lies on the ground for a moment before rolling over on her back.

  “No big deal. It’s just one more shitty thing in a line of shitty things that has become my life. I might as well lie here and get run over. There’s no point anymore.”

  I have never heard Texas be so morose, and I am not sure if I am the right person to assist in the comforting.

  “Go, I’ve got this,” Ava says, low enough that Texas can’t hear it, even if she wasn’t still sobbing loudly.

  I run to Viktor as Ava tries to get Texas at least sitting against the car without touching her skin.

  “Shhh, we don’t have to talk about it right now. Just let it all out.” She pats Texas’ back gingerly and Texas sniffs loudly.

  I find Viktor in a tree. I climb up after him, breaking a few branches on my way.

  “She wants to end it,” he says, staring off into the distance. The rest of what he does not want to say floats in his mind like wisps of smoke.

  “That is not possible.”

  “I know,” he says, jumping to the ground. I follow him, waiting for him to say more. “I love her.”

  “I know,” I say again. “She loves you as well.”

  “She’s very young. And . . . innocent. The only thing I want more than her is not to ruin her. Not to kill her. I don’t understand how you held out so long with Ava. It is a struggle every single day. Every moment.”

  Saying the words out loud is superfluous, because I can hear them in his head, feel them coming from him.

  “It was not easy, but I needed her. I was selfish. One day, I will have to answer for it, but for as long as I have happiness, I’m going to hold onto it with both hands, because I have no idea when it will be yanked away from me.” He uproots a tree with one pull, and tosses it against another tree, where it cracks in half. Two pieces that cannot ever be put back together.

  “I can’t leave her, but I can’t stay.” Another tree meets its end.

  “You have to ask yourself, which you want more.”

  “It shouldn’t be about what I want. It should be about her.”

  “It should be, but it never is, when love is involved.”

  Viktor is doing quite a bit of tree clearing, but I don’t stop him.

  “I shouldn’t have fallen for her.”

  I wonder how many men have said the same thing. The number must be countless.

  Tex

  Even though she doesn’t breathe anymore, Ava gets me to calm down enough I’m not hyperventilating.

  “So what happened?” She pulls a tissue out of her purse and hands it to me. It’s almost funny that she still keeps tissues in there since she doesn’t need them anymore.

  “I just had this dream that I couldn’t find him, and then I woke up and I kissed him and then I just, I don’t know, I thought about all this bad stuff I’ve brought into my life and that I didn’t want to do it anymore. I have to think about Coby now. I can’t let anything else happen to him. I mean, he’s all undead now, but you never know.”

  I keep talking, spilling my guts about everything. Ava and I haven’t really talked like this in so long. I’ve missed it, and I’ve missed her.

  The words keep coming and I can’t stop them. I tell her things I don’t even know are true until I say them out loud.

  “Wow, that’s . . . incredibly mature of you, Tex.” I can’t gauge Ava’s reaction, because her face is so still when she listens now.

  “So you think I’m doing the right thing?” In my head, I know it’s the opposite of what she’s done, but different strokes and all that jazz.

  “I can’t say, and you know that. I am not telling you what to do. Not for a million dollars. But I think I have something that might help.” From her purse, she extracts what looks like a letter, and she opens it as if it’s made of glass.

  “My mom wrote me all these letters before she . . . before, and I’ve been reading them one at a time, you know, to savor them, and every time I’ve needed advice, she’s been there, as if she’s looking down on me.”

  “That sounds like her,” I say with a smile, because if there was anyone who had massive amounts of advice, it was Claire Sullivan. It’s weird thinking of her in the past tense. I still think I’m going to go over to Ava’s house and she’ll be there, cutting a freshly made pie.

  “She left one for you, and one for Jamie. He already got his, but I was saving yours for an emergency. I think this qualifies.”

  Ava tries to hand me the letter, but I can’t take it from her.

  “Ava,” I say, trying to protest, but she clamps her hand on my shoulder that is covered by my shirt and digs her fingers in until it hurts.

  “Take it,” she says, and I know she’s not going to let up, so I do.

  “Ouch. That wasn’t very nice. I should zap you for that.” She laughs and stands.

  “I’m going to see how Peter is. I’ll be back in a little while.” With that, she’s off, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

  I hold onto the letter, and wish I had long sleeves so I could use them so I don’t get fingerprints on it. This feels like a private thing, but Ava has told me to read it, and I’m desperate.

  Texas Anne,

  What can I say to my daughter’s best friend? I’ve watched you grow up before my eyes into an accomplished, gorgeous and stubborn young woman, and I wish I could be around to see you as an adult, because you’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.

  I am so, so lucky that you are Ava’s friend and she is so, so lucky to have you as a friend. I remember all those times when the two of you were like one person; inseparable, your heads of hair mixing together. Light and dark.

  I’ve given you enough advice to last a lifetime, and I know that brilliant mind of yours has stored it all up, but I wanted to leave you with a few things.

  Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes the hardest. You will have days when it is all you can do to breathe in and out, or to lift your head from the pillow. You will have days of sorrow, days of pain, and days of darkness. It is not what you do with those days, because they come for us all. What matters is what you do with the day after.

  If you are sad, let yourself be sad. But when you let sad be the only thing you feel, you’re shutting yourself out of all the other emotions in life. You can’t have happy without sad, but you can forget what happy feels like if you let sad take over.

  When those sad days knock you down, I want you to acknowledge them and move on. You can’t be sad forever. Not even if you live forever.

  You can find light, even in the darkest of times, to paraphrase a quote by Albus Dumbledore. Yes, I read Ava’s Harry Potter books when she wasn’t looking. I wish we could have shared them, but by then it was too lat
e.

  Find out what makes you happy, even if it’s hard. Even if it’s the hardest, because, in the end, it will be worth it.

  I read the letter a second time, being careful not to get my tears on it. Oh, Claire, how did you know? I look up at the sky and smile. Ava was right, it’s like she’s up there, watching us.

  What makes me happy? Waking up next to Viktor. Going to bed with the sound of his hands on the keys of my laptop. Always knowing he is near, but still being excited when I walk into a room and see him.

  Even though Coby’s decision was a very, very stupid one, perhaps the stupidest, I have not seen him have such a good time in many years. Seeing Coby happy makes me happy.

  But that is tempered by the pain my parents are going through. They’ve got other people running the bookstore while they work on gathering people for a search party to look for Coby. The police have already written him off as a runaway, and even though he’s so young, he’s “troubled” and therefore unlikely to be found, according to them.

  Sad with happy.

  Viktor

  I hear Tex and Ava talking and then Ava appears and we all wait for Tex to read the letter. I read it in her thoughts. I only met Ava’s mother briefly, but her letter is beautiful and heartfelt, and I wait to see what Tex will do with it.

  She cries as she reads it a first and a second time. Then she folds it up, puts it back in the envelope and screams my name in her mind before screaming it out loud.

  That is all I need and I take off toward her car, reaching her in mere seconds that take longer than seconds should.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says, still crying as I clutch her in my arms. I kiss the tears from her cheeks and she laughs and keeps saying she’s sorry.

  “Well, that didn’t last long,” Ava says behind me. “She held out longer than I did, though, but I tried to stop seeing you before the Claiming.”