“Very good, miss.”
Wheeling the cart into the kitchen, I set two places and got out milk, a variety of juice bottles, and two mugs for the hot chocolate I’d ordered. After setting the platters of food on the table, I shouted, “Amon! Breakfast is here! Are you dressed?”
I jumped when I heard his voice right behind me. “I am having a problem.”
“You scared me.” I turned around and found him holding the shoes in one hand and his sweatpants up around his waist with the other. “Are they that loose?” I asked.
To prove it, he let go and the pants slid dangerously low on his hips. There were no white boxers in sight. “Um…Amon? Where are the rest of the clothes I gave you?”
“This is the one I chose. It covers the most.”
“Ah, I see. Then you made a good choice, but I meant for you to wear all of the clothes.”
“All of them?” His eyes roved over my body, still clad in pajamas. “But you do not wear that many.”
“No, not when I’m sleeping, but when I dress for the day I will wear clothes like the ones I gave you.”
“Very well. May I eat first, Lily?”
“Sure. Have a seat.”
While he sat down I uncovered the dishes. Fragrant steam rose as I removed each domed lid. “There. Now you eat while I go get dressed. I’ll bring back your other clothes, too, okay?”
Amon stared at the food with wide eyes, and he could only nod in response.
As I turned to leave, I smiled. My parents would raise their eyebrows when they saw how much food I had ordered for just one meal, but it was worth it to see the look on Amon’s face. He’d requested a feast, and a feast I gave him. One worthy of anyone’s bucket list.
He was now surrounded by eggs done eight different ways, hash browns and skillet potatoes, country ham, apple sausage, maple bacon, biscuits slathered with honey and melted butter, caramel-apple-topped pancakes with whipped cream, crème brûlée French toast, malted Belgian waffles, a fruit platter, and a basket full of croissants, Danishes, and streusel-topped blueberry muffins. If he couldn’t find something he liked among those dishes, then he was past helping.
I dressed in what I called designer casual and smiled as I assessed myself in the mirror. Though my eyes were still bright, I looked much more like the poised, calm, and in-control version of myself. Heading back to the kitchen, I dumped Amon’s clothes on the chair next to him. I put my hands on my hips and laughed as I took in the scene before me. “Which one did you like best?”
“All of it,” Amon mumbled with his mouth full. “Here, Lily. Sit.” He pulled out a chair and took my arm, tugging until I sat down. “Eat.”
I scooped some fruit onto my plate and nibbled on it while he filled his plate again. Halfway done, he paused and looked at me. “Why are you not eating?”
“Too many carbs.”
“What is a carb?”
“Uh, too fattening.”
“You are not fat.” Amon looked me up and down in a way that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. “You are too thin. Eat.”
He picked up a serving spoon and began filling my plate until the plate could hold no more.
“Okay!” I threw up my hands. “That’s enough.”
Grunting, he turned back to his food, but kept a vigilant eye on me and pointed to my plate every time I set my fork down.
When he poked my arm for the third time, I said, “I can’t eat any more. Usually I just have tea for breakfast.”
“Tea is not food.”
“It’s all I need.”
“No. A woman needs more than tea,” Amon stated, looking into my eyes. I suddenly felt very exposed, as if we were talking about much more than just breakfast. I got the distinct impression that he was studying me from the inside out and could see all my insecurities. Hunger and sustenance seemed to take on a different meaning in that moment.
“Yes, I suppose she does,” I answered, turning my eyes away.
Finally finishing his food, he pushed back from the table and declared he was ready to begin the search for his brothers. He struggled with the T-shirt, so I helped him twist it around. As I did, my hands brushed against his rather nice chest. I blushed and turned to pick up the jacket. After I thrust it into his arms, I noticed that the sweatpants were once again threatening to slide off his hips.
I cleared my throat. He’d been examining the jacket’s hood with a curious expression but looked up. “It’s, um, your pants. There’s a string, see? At the waistband? Just pull it tight and tie it.”
Casting aside the jacket, Amon found the drawstring and pulled it on one side, then the other. I left him to finish dressing and returned to my room to grab my bag and fill it with all the things we might need.
I put in my laptop, my cell and charger, my notebook, and my wallet. Then I returned to the kitchen and added some bottled water. Amon tossed in a few apples and oranges and I threw in a bag of crackers. After looping the strap across my body, I knelt at his feet, helping him tie his sneakers, and thought about where we should go.
Logically, the first step would be to take him to the hospital nearest the museum and see if anyone recognized him, but I bit my lip as I considered that he might not get a chance to find his brothers if we did. Odds were they’d lock him up after this escape. Taking him back just seemed wrong.
“Are you ready, Young Lily?”
Amon offered his hand to help me stand. “Thanks. Yes, I’m ready if you are.”
“Very well.”
He kept hold of my hand and closed the distance between us. Wrapping his arm around my waist, he said, “Hold on to me very tightly.”
“Amon…what are you—” My question turned into a scream as wind swept around our bodies, gritty sand stinging my skin like thousands of needles. I watched in horror as my body unraveled, piece by piece, to join the tumult, and my cry was cut off because I no longer had a throat, let alone a voice.
Panicked, I reached out to grab on to something and became aware of another presence nearby. Amon responded to my fear. He soothed me, holding me together, though I knew it wasn’t his arms that I felt. The storm swirled around us as we descended into a place that grew darker with each passing second.
Then I drowned in the quicksand.
Light penetrated the darkness, and where I once felt nothing, I could now sense the pressure of Amon’s arm around me, his hand clutching mine. The swirling sand became sluggish and started sticking together, and in the process, the grains re-formed my arms, legs, and torso. Risking the possibility that I might be horrified at the sight of my own flesh, I opened my eyes and was greatly relieved to find my skin still attached to my body. Not only were there no gaping wounds or scratches, but my skin gleamed with health. I realized then that the sand blast must have exfoliated my entire body, a thought that left me feeling slightly queasy.
We were standing in a park—Central Park, in fact—on a path I’d walked several times over the years. There was no one around to see us materialize and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but one thing was for sure: Amon was definitely not the person I had believed him to be.
In the distance I could make out Hotel Helios. Amon’s chest heaved against my hand, which was splayed across it, his head angled toward the sun, his eyes still closed.
“Amon?”
He opened his eyes and looked down at me and then at our surroundings with an expression of confusion that quickly turned into something else.
“Mehsehhah ef yibehu hawb!” he shouted, and threw up his hands in a gesture of intense frustration. He slowly turned in a circle, mumbling to himself in another language. When he recognized the hotel, a few more words that sounded suspiciously like expletives escaped from his lips.
Emotion was building up inside me that I couldn’t restrain. My very structured life was spinning out of control.
I was smart. I was cultured and tactful. I got along easily with adults. I was the epitome of cool, calm, and collected. And I was always, alway
s in control. I was Lilliana Jailene Young, and I was in danger of losing my wits over a boy—a crazy, fascinating, inexplicable, impossible-to-understand boy.
Amon eventually circled back to me and said, “My powers are weakened and my brothers are too distant. We are going to need help.”
“Help?” I spat, and then shouted incredulously, “Help? Really? You think? Because personally I’m feeling a little bit beyond help!” I had never shouted at the top of my lungs before in my life. Since meeting Amon, shouting seemed to be becoming a new habit of mine, but the upside was that yelling at Amon actually felt good.
Amon zeroed in on me like I was the mental patient. “Young Lily, calm yourself.”
“I don’t think so!” I shouted.
“Lily, we need to—”
“We need to nothing! I don’t know who you are or what kind of crazy drugs you’ve been feeding me, but you’re done. We’re done. Do you get it? I am finished helping you.”
Turning toward home, I stalked away, an action that felt immensely satisfying. Each step, every small unit of distance I put between us, helped me gather myself and get back to feeling normal. I shifted my bag so it wouldn’t bounce so much and hoped Amon wasn’t following me.
The few passersby who came into view gave me a wide berth as I stomped along, mumbling about lost, dying, homeless boys who were far too attractive for their own good. I couldn’t describe what had just happened without using Star Trek references.
I’d tried to rationalize everything that had happened, placing each strange event into a neat little box, but this, whatever it was that Amon had just done, had set off a bomb in my tidy mental office. This one wasn’t going to fit. In fact, it was way, way outside the box. The best thing was to get some distance and then try to figure out what was going on with me, because clearly I wasn’t right in the head. I wondered if Amon would come after me. If he did, I’d simply scream. There were usually people all over the park and someone was bound to hear me.
“Lily!”
Speak of the sun devil. Amon was coming after me.
“Young Lily, come to me now!” he called out as if I were a disobedient puppy.
“Leave me alone or I’ll scream!” I yelled back, picking up the pace to a half-jog, half–power walk.
I could hear him following me, and I took in a breath to shriek for help, when, with an imperious voice, he cried out, “Lily, you will stop!”
My legs froze with a jolt so sudden that my bag flopped around to my front and pulled me off balance. I fell in a heap on the grass, unsure what had just happened. In the few seconds it took for me to gather the items that had fallen out of my bag, Amon was upon me and offered a hand. When I stubbornly refused, he used his controlling voice again. “Lily, take my hand.”
This time I made a concerted effort to refuse his command and was rewarded with pain—stabbing, knife-twisting-in-my-gut pain. It made me gasp, and I absolutely knew Amon had caused it somehow. It actually hurt to disobey him. When my determination weakened and the pain overwhelmed me, I whimpered and gave in. My traitorous hand shot into his and he pulled me up. Resentment was an insufficient word to describe what I felt toward him at that moment.
“You will sit down and talk with me,” he ordered.
Gritting my teeth, I took a defiant step away and staggered, hunched over in wrenching agony. The rage I felt grew with each passing second. My whole body shook with it, and in that moment there was not a person or a thing on earth that I hated more than him. I was seething, and I’d never felt that way about anyone before. Not in my entire life.
“Let me go!” I hissed as he guided me to a nearby bench.
“No. You will not run away and you will not scream.”
Angry tears filled my eyes, and I let them run silently down my face, desperate not to give him the satisfaction of seeing the effect his actions had on me and yet unable to do anything to prevent it. “What are you going to do to me? Is this a kidnapping? An assault?”
He looked at my face then and noticed the tears. Tentatively, he wiped one from my cheek with his thumb, his expression full of regret. “Sit,” he said, but then changed the tone of his voice. “Please.”
Amon took the bag from my shoulder and set it on the bench next to me, then paced in front of me for a few moments. “I am sorry to use my power to control your actions. I know how deeply you abhor it, but—”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I spat.
He sighed. “I know more about you with each passing minute, Young Lily. Even without our connection I can see how you despise the idea of submitting your will to another, but you must understand, I cannot let you leave. You do not need to fear me. I have no desire to hurt you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re doing to control me, but I will fight you. In fact, I…I will hate you for this forever.” I’d never actually said those words to anyone before and I wasn’t really sure I could follow through with the threat. I’d never had cause to feel hate.
Sure, there were people I didn’t like, but I just categorized them in little boxes labeled Needy, or Low Self-Esteem, or Bully. It never affected me emotionally. I was always able to distance myself and keep my emotions in check, but with Amon it was different. The idea that the boy I took under my wing would manipulate me hurt more than I thought possible.
Amon’s look became stony. “Hate me, then. Struggle. Rail against me. Rebel at every turn, but it will do you no good. You will cause yourself only more pain. I told you, Lily, you are bound to me and you will remain by my side for as long as I wish it.”
The indignation and rage I felt melted into something else. My body shook and I felt like a dog that had been kicked by its master. “That’s a fine thing to do when all I’ve done is help you,” I said.
He shrugged as if he didn’t care how I felt, but I could see that he did, and that confused me even more.
“It is necessary,” he finally acknowledged.
“But why? Why can’t I leave? What do you want from me?” I sniffled loudly and, with a groan of vexation, rummaged through my bag until I found a pack of tissues.
“I told you. I need to find my brothers.”
“You must be heartless to take advantage of the kindness of a stranger like this.” Teardrops clung to my lashes, making Amon blurry. Why was I crying? I never cried. Crying was ugly. It was a sign of ingratitude. My emotions were too close to the surface. Attempting to tamp them down, I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. “Do you even have cancer?”
Amon knelt in front of me, taking a new tissue to dab at my sticky cheeks, and sighed. “I have found over the centuries that my heart is of very little use to me.”
He trailed the tip of his finger over the curve of my cheek and warmth began to seep into my skin. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to enjoy his gentle touch, but then I froze, and realized he had, too.
His hand dropped to his side and I sensed that he was as surprised by his gesture as I had been. He was trouble. He was my enemy. Wasn’t he? One thing was certain, though: he made me…feel. And I wasn’t comfortable with that.
Amon was charming enough on his own, but I sensed there was more than just me being physically attracted to him. I’d never been affected by a boy like this before, and the sensation was disturbing. Not in a creepy, horror-show kind of way, but the kind of disturbing that left me feeling unanchored. He had uprooted me from a very comfortable life and was holding my fragile frame in the palm of his hand.
Still, as I studied his handsome face, I recognized that part of me, a part that I didn’t want to claim or acknowledge, longed for the warmth his touch brought. That even if I was uncomfortable with the emotions he evoked, I’d never felt more alive. More like a real girl and less like the porcelain doll my parents had molded me into.
Amon seemed to have the ability to both cause confusion and chase it away. Being with him was exhilarating and frightening, and at the same time that it gave me a sense of power, it left me utterly weak. O
verall, I felt unhinged and jittery, with a side dish of guilt.“I don’t like this power you have over me,” I said quietly. “It makes me feel not quite like myself. Like I have no control over my body.”
“I am sorry for this. Again, I do not wish to exercise this power, but I cannot continue on my path without you. I need you. You have no idea how desperately.” He took my hands, rubbing his thumbs over my knuckles. “Lily, please know that I do not wish to make you sad or cause you harm. Can you at least believe that?” he asked.
For a long moment I looked into his hazel eyes. Amon was a lot of things, and there were many parts of him I didn’t understand at all, but I somehow knew he wasn’t a liar. I could sense it. “Yes,” I answered grudgingly. “I believe you.”
“Good.” Amon nodded. “Now, what is cancer?”
“It’s a disease of the cells. How do you not know this?”
He sighed. “You have so many questions.”
I closed my mouth and sat back, turning my head and shrugging.
“Why do you do this?” Amon asked.
“Do what?”
“Retreat inside yourself?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
He studied my face and said finally, “I did not mean to insult you. Your questions are welcome. Perhaps I can answer yours and ask for some answers in return?”
Hesitantly, I nodded.
“First, there are many things I do not understand about your world, but I do know that my body is not diseased.”
I started laughing and soon began to cry, hiccupping between sobs. I had thoroughly lost it. Uncontrollable giddiness overwhelmed me; I felt like I hadn’t slept in a week. When I grabbed a second and then a third tissue, he said, “Lily, take my hand.”
Eyeing his open palm suspiciously, I sniffled loudly.
“Please, Lily. I can offer you peace.”
Sensing that it wasn’t a command this time and realizing that it didn’t hurt to disobey, I let his hand envelop mine.
“Draw upon my energy,” he said. “Try to find balance.”