The Ballad of Aramei

  Zia….

  “Well, you’re welcome,” Minna says, pursing her lips haughtily. “I save your asses from that Praverian scum and this is the thanks I get.” She takes another toke of her cigarette, leaving bright pink imprints around the filter.

  “Just get to it, alright?” Isaac says. “Tell me how you knew where to find us.”

  Minna smirks. “The Bond, of course—how is it that I know more about it than you do?” She clicks her tongue.

  “I closed my mind off to you,” Nathan says and he looks truly appalled. “Believe me, I know how a Blood Bond works. It was bad enough I had to bond you to me. Y’think I’d leave the link open?”

  “Of course not,” Minna says with smoke billowing between her lips and slipping into the night air, “but when you’re asleep and dreaming, you seem to have no control over your mind wall.”

  Nathan breathes in deeply and his eyes shut softly with regret.

  “You have a lot of dreams about a pretty black-haired girl,” Minna teases and I see the muscles in Nathan’s arms harden and his nostrils flare. “You know, I could pretend to be her for you if you’d like.” Her rough lips lift into a carnal grin.

  Isaac’s arm swings out horizontally to stop Nathan in his livid steps forward.

  “You’re going to leave our friend alone,” he says in a low, stern voice. “Harry isn’t like Zia, the one you reaped here. You’re going to get in your car, or whatever it was that brought you here, and go back to Providence to your miserable existence. And if any of us ever see your face again, you will be killed.”

  Minna twirls her hand around with the cigarette between her fingers. “You can threaten me all you want,” she says, “but it will never change what I am and what I do. Maybe I won’t be the one to harvest that Soul, the one you call Harry, but one of us will. In due time.”

  Daisy lunges on Minna, knocking the cigarette from her fingertips and they crash to the ground; her purse with the jar inside falls a couple feet from her hand. Before Minna can get a word out, Daisy starts to transform sitting on top of her. I stumble backward into someone, I have no idea who. Her transformation is so fast. She doesn’t go through the waves of pain or the seemingly endless, torturous minutes it takes us all to shift. In a matter of seconds she is fully transformed, rising many feet above Minna’s splayed body and she leans over her, blade-like teeth dripping with saliva. Isaac, Nathan and all of their siblings left standing outside jump on Daisy together, all of them in their mediate forms with swirling black eyes and long, black fingernails and graying skin. But they look like birds attacking a bear. Elizabeth is tossed past me, soaring inches from my head. Xavier is thrown to the ground and just misses being crushed by Daisy’s beastly foot. Isaac and Nathan struggle to hold onto her and I just watch in horror.

  Amid the carnage, Minna rolls over onto her hands and knees, grabs desperately for her purse and scrambles as far away as she can.

  I keep my eyes on her, just in case she tries to run, but she seems too traumatized to let her mind tell her legs what to do.

  What looked like a mound of bodies starts to shrink toward the ground as they finally get Daisy controlled. Isaac and Nathan pull her giant arms behind her back and it takes all of their strength combined. Daisy starts to calm; her enormous body is pinned against the ground, each breath forced from her nostrils stirs the dirt around her snout. Gradually, her skin and hair begins to change; the golden-blond replacing the wiry black fur, the black-grey flesh turning creamy-white again.

  She lies naked against the earth with Isaac now holding both of her wrists still.

  “I’ll take her inside,” Xavier insists, waving Isaac away from her. Xavier, looking concerned and furious, bends down and takes his twin sister into his arms. And as he goes to leave with her he points at Minna and says to Isaac, “Kill that crazy old bitch, or I will!” And he and Daisy slip into the trees down the dark path leading back to the house.

  Nathan runs over and picks up Phoebe’s body.

  He and Isaac stare down at Phoebe ceremonially. Isaac reaches out his hand and brushes the blood from the corner of her mouth.

  I literally choke on my tears, bursting into an uncontrollable sobbing fit. I bury my face in Alex’s chest and she holds my shuddering body tight against hers.

  “So what now…,” I hear Isaac say and I lift my head from Alex, “…you take Zia back in a jar—I can’t believe I just said that in a literal sense—,” he looks back at us momentarily, “—and hide her away in your serial-killer basement safe? I’m sorry, but something about that just doesn’t give me much peace of mind.”

  Nathan disappears with Phoebe through the trees following the same path that Xavier just took.

  Minna sucks on her cigarette and flicks the long ashes on the ground. “They’re perfectly secure,” she says. “The ones you saw have been there for a very long time—I told you, the safe is protected.” She moves closer to Isaac a few steps. The fully smoked cigarette falls to the ground at her feet and she crushes it with the toe of her granny-boot. She just looks at him for a moment, studying his face. “You people are so blind,” she says pursing her mouth sourly. “But one day you’ll know—if you were smart, you’d leave people like me alone and turn your misguided disgust towards the ones you call friend.”

  I step away from Alex and stand next to Isaac. “Nothing you can say is going to turn us on Harry. He said you’d try that. It won’t work.”

  Minna smiles a chilling smile and I hate her even more for it actually having an effect on me. I swallow down the doubt that her manipulative words have brought to the surface. “You got what you wanted, now leave.” I glare at her with all the revulsion I can squeeze out of my face.

  Minna smiles and readjusts the purse strap on her shoulder. She looks behind us at the small crowd of people still watching and listening and probably still trying to understand everything that happened. Then she turns her gaze back on Isaac and me. “You know…I will need werewolf blood sometime,” she says and Isaac tenses up next to me.

  I take a hold of his contracting hand.

  “You won’t be getting it from anyone here,” Isaac growls. “Not even my brother.”

  The corner of Minna’s wrinkly lipstick-stained mouth lifts into a subtle, shrewd grin. But she doesn’t respond. She turns and walks away, disappearing into the cover of the trees in the opposite direction of the house.

  I can only wonder what that grin meant, what kinds of tricks and scams her wicked mind is conjuring up.

  Alex runs up behind me. “Okay—.” She pauses in mid-sentence and holds up a finger. “What the hell was that?”

  My shoulders finally relax as I let my breath out. I didn’t know I had been holding most of it in the entire time.

  “I’ll explain it inside,” I say.

  Feeling an intense pang of grief, I realize that it’s coming from Isaac and I turn to him, grasping his hand. “Baby, what is it?”

  He can’t look me in the eyes, but stares down at the ground instead. I curl both of my hands around the curvature of his jaw, gently forcing his absent gaze and even though he’s now looking me right in the eyes, I sense that he doesn’t really see me.

  “Phoebe’s dead,” he says, seemingly more to himself, his own callous guilt. “I can’t believe she was Avril’s sister. Phoebe is dead because of me.”

  His eyes and his full attention lock on me now and the pain is straining his face. I lean in and kiss his lips tenderly.

  “Don’t do that. Please,” I say.

  Isaac kisses me back softly and then he smiles faintly under his grief. “But you’re safe now and this is over.”

  I smile back, running the tip of my finger along the side of his neck.

  “I think I’m going to let you spend some time with Alex.”

  I look at Alex on my right. She’s waiting impatiently with crossed arms and a raised brow. I look down at her wrists and wonder.

  “You broke out of them.”

  Alex grins hu
gely and raises both hands in front of her; the chain links left dangling.

  “Yeah, I could’ve broken out of these babies a long time ago.”

  “Well, why didn’t you?”

  “Because then I never would’ve gained your trust, Dria.” She cocks her head to the side.

  Isaac reaches in his jeans pocket and pulls out the key to the shackles. “Let me take what’s left of them off.”

  Alex holds out her wrists and Isaac removes them, afterwards, kneeling down to remove the ones from her ankles. She moves her wrists and legs around as if readjusting to the comfort of being free again.

  “Much better,” she says.

  I smile warmly at her. This is real. My sister is home, where she’s supposed to be.

  “I’ll see you upstairs later,” Isaac says and kisses me goodbye. I start to stop him because I don’t want to leave him alone, especially not after what happened, but he says in my mind: “No…I want you to be with your sister. Do that for me.”

  I nod and reluctantly let him go.

  Once he’s gone, the others from the small crowd leave, too. Sebastian walks out last and I run over to stop him.

  “Sebastian—”

  He puts up his hand and doesn’t turn around to look at me. “Not right now. Just…,” his hand bobs a couple of times, “…just not right now,” and he makes his way down the dark path and out of sight.

  I feel so much sorrow for him and I can’t imagine what he must be thinking right now, how he’s going to deal with knowing the girl he loved wasn’t who she pretended to be and obviously didn’t really love him back. She used him. And I hate her for it. I try to shake the depressing, angry thoughts from my head and turn back to see my sister. But a small, childlike form sitting on the ground where the crowd just stood catches my eye.

  “Cecilia?”

  Seeing that it really is her and she looks to be in a state of shock, I run over to her and lean over, taking her hands and helping her to her feet. “Oh my God…Cecilia, are you alright?” I brush my hands across her face as if pushing hair away from her eyes even though her hair is too short for such a thing.

  Alex steps up behind me.

  “Is she…,” Alex squints at her as though looking at her really close might answer her own question, “…human?”

  My eyes widen warningly at Alex.

  Cecilia suddenly snaps out of her mind and looks at Alex as if the h-word used in such a way is finally what’s going to set her completely over the edge.

  “You people are fucking crazy,” she says holding up a finger. She steps away from me. “It’s a crazy-house. And my mom is forcing me to see a shrink?” Her hands come up in surrender and she draws her chin back. “I don’t think so. I’m outta here!” She pushes her way past us and hurries toward the path.

  “Maybe I do need a shrink!” she yells out as she continues to walk away from us. “That’s it! I’m getting on that Thorazine stuff. Yep! I might even get my very own strait-jacket! I hope Hollister makes strait-jackets!” And her shouting voice fades as she disappears.

  “I’ll have Harry fix her right up,” I say nervously to Alex.

  She nods as if to say, “good idea—whatever that means” and we head into the house.

  Chapter 23

  FOR ONLY THE SECOND time since I stepped foot inside the Mayfair house, I’m inside Rachel’s bedroom. The first time was months ago when she set me up to witness her molesting Isaac when he was going through his before-full-moon stage. Of course, something like that is the only reason I could believe when he told me he didn’t remember kissing her and that he wasn’t in his right mind. If any regular guy ever said something like that I’d know he was a lying, disgusting pig.

  But valid excuses never really have completely wiped that scene from my mind. And it’s why I kind of refused to sit on Rachel’s bed moments ago when I first walked in. I cringed when she offered for me to sit down. And then I felt the need to clean out my ears because I wasn’t sure if I heard her kindness right.

  She’s a totally different Rachel, practically overnight. Okay, not totally. She’s still a difficult bitch with no qualms about speaking her mind, but she now treats me a lot like Zia treated me.

  I miss Zia. I really do. But this is something I’m going to have to get over.

  “Where are they going?” Alex says about Isaac and his brothers and sisters.

  Rachel moves to the window to look out over the driveway. Alex and I walk over to stand beside her.

  “To bury Phoebe.”

  “What, like to literally bury her?” Alex says and it’s the same thing I was going to ask with the same amount of confusion.

  Isaac walks out of the house and into the light filtering down from all around the house, carrying Phoebe wrapped in a long, thin black cloth. Nathan, Xavier, Daisy, Shannon, Elizabeth and Camilla follow closely behind. They vanish into the woods single file.

  “Well, they’ll bury her afterwards, but…I’ve only seen it once before.”

  I turn around at the waist to see Rachel at my side, “Seen it?” I stumble over my words because I can’t decide what to verify first. I settle with what came first. “Wait…they’re going to bury her body here, in the woods? After what?” I just can’t wrap my mind around either possibility.

  “They’ll cremate her first,” Rachel says somberly, “and then bury what’s left of her bones.”

  My neck springs back and I feel my eyes blink a dozen times. “You’re serious?”

  “Yeah, I think she’s serious, Dria.”

  I look over at Alex and then back out the window.

  “It’s the Law,” Rachel says plopping down amid her evil, memory-searing mattress. “Try reporting every death that a family like this suffers to the police. Way too much exposure, girl. It doesn’t take a frickin’ genius to figure that out,” she scoffs.

  I turn my back to the window and lean against it, looking across at Rachel to let her finish and ignoring her mock comment. That’s just the way she is and how she’ll always be. Funny how I’m already comfortable with it.

  “We don’t attend this burial because the one who died is a direct sibling,” she says. “Now if it was Isaac who bit the dust, being Alpha, everyone in the pack would attend.”

  I flinch at her words.

  Alex sits on the end of Rachel’s bed and kicks off her Chuck Taylor’s.

  “You say you’ve only seen it once before.” I walk forward a few steps with my arms crossed. “Who was it?”

  “Zia’s sister, Avril. Back before Zia joined the pack.”

  A thin silence falls across the room; all I can hear is the sound of my breath.

  “I always thought there was something weird about that girl,” Rachel adds, stirring the quiet with her less than sympathetic comments. “She snuck away a lot. I used to watch her like a paranoid meth-junkie.” She laughs all of a sudden. “Now that I know what she was, it totally explains why one day, out of the blue, I trusted her more than I trusted anyone here. I just stopped watching her altogether—she must’ve messed with my head because she knew I was onto her.”

  “I imagine she messed with a lot of heads around here,” Alex says.

  I filled her in a little on the Praverians shortly before we came up with Rachel to her room.

  “Yeah…,” I say absently, looking toward the door and thinking about Sebastian. “She hurt a lot of people.” I try to swallow down the ache I feel for him.

  Just then, I see Sebastian walk past the bedroom door carrying a duffle bag. My hands drop to my sides and I run out into the hall.

  “Sebastian?” I come up behind him and lay my hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  He turns around and I quietly fold inside seeing the depth of the pain in his eyes.

  Rachel and Alex stop in the doorway behind me.

  “I’m going home.”

  I shake my head in a soft, jerking motion. “Home? But this is your home….”

  Sebastian’s robust shou
lders slump over and he tries softening his expression for my sake. “Look, I’m sorry, but…this just isn’t for me.” His eyes scan the hallway, lastly falling on the door of the bedroom that he and Zia used to share.

  He looks at me again. “I’m not cut out for this. I miss bitchy, shallow cheerleaders and watching football. Hell, I might even try out for football—I can run down a whole team now, after all.” He smiles faintly at me and I smile back, trying to hold the tears inside. I reach up and pat him on his shaved head.

  But I let my smile fade. “Don’t let her do this to you. You can so easily find another girlfriend.” It was a lame thing to say, but it just came out.

  Sebastian laughs a little under his breath, also realizing how lame it was, but he lets it slide. “It’s not about that; what Zia did was—shit, I can’t even categorize it—but she was really the only reason why I was here. No offense to anyone, but I’ve been missing home ever since this started for me. I just want to go back to my old life, y’know? I want to go to college.”

  “But…Sebastian,” I hesitate because I have to say this with the right amount of compassion. “…You can never go back to your old life, not being what you are.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel speaks up from behind; “what if you hurt someone?” She moves out into the hall now, too. There’s something hidden in her voice and then I realize what it is when she says, “I tried that once. I went home. I almost killed my mom.” She’s holding back her true feelings on the matter, making herself sound faintly amused by it when really I think she wants to either hit a wall, or break down and cry. “I had to find another pack after that—no way in hell I was going back to Ashe and his rabid family.”

  I notice Alex and Rachel share a look of agreement.

  “I appreciate the concern,” Sebastian says, shouldering the heavy duffle bag, “but I just can’t stay here.” He looks only at me again. “Tell Isaac I said thanks and if you see Harry again, let him know I’m alright and not to come looking for me.”