The next day I took the dish next door, just to return it of course. It was the neighborly thing to do after all. Ulterior motives? Who, me? The door swung open when I knocked into an abandoned living room. The books, knickknacks, furniture—all of it was gone. Lucas was gone.
Clutching the plate, I raced across the joint lawns back to my house. My eyes were burning and my throat ached from trying to hold back a sob that so desperately wanted to escape, but who knew who was watching and I wasn’t going to let either one of them see me cry.
*****
I woke to the sound of the doorbell. Seven on the dot, the guy was like clockwork. I burrowed under the blankets and waited for Jason to get it out of his system, but I didn’t hear any banging or shouting. Not sure what to expect, I trudged over to the window. Sure enough, Jason’s car was parked in the driveway, but I couldn’t see the porch from this angle. What was he up to? I moved over to my bedroom door. Then I heard the footsteps on the stairs. Cripes, the door. In my haste to distance myself from Lucas’ vacant house I had forgotten to lock the door.
Apparently that oversight was enough of an invitation for Jason to come on in. The telltale creak of the top step drew my attention and my entire body stiffened. What did he want? Why wouldn’t he just take the hint and go away? If there was anything that qualified as an emergency I would think it was this. I snatched my cell from the dresser and speed dialed Lucas’ number. Not surprisingly it went straight to his voicemail. Figures. Deciding it better to face him in the hallway than in my bedroom I threw open the door, hoping my face didn’t give away just how hard my heart was pounding. That would be embarrassing.
“Nice to see you again,” Jason said, like we had just run into each other at the grocery store or something.
“Get out.”
I wasn’t feeling particularly hospitable at the moment, plus, you know, demon and all. Doesn’t inspire a whole lot of friendly.
“Now, now, Mel, is that any way to treat a friend?”
“We are not friends, Jason.”
“Oh, but we were. I had you won fair and square.”
“Maybe, until you tried to trick me into doing things I wasn’t comfortable with.”
“Oh, you seemed pretty comfortable in my arms in the back of that club.”
“Don’t even get me started on the club, you jack wagon. I never would have made out with you if someone hadn’t spiked my drinks.”
“Well, then you understand why I had to do it. If you weren’t such a goody-goody, I wouldn’t have had to resort to such . . . uncouth measures.”
Goody-goody? Well, I guess I could be called worse. In fact, coming from him it was practically a compliment.
“I will have your soul, Mel,” he insisted, “One way or another.”
“No, you won’t,” I stated simply.
“All of the rules have already been thrown out the window when it comes to you. I will not lose you. I will have your soul by force if that is what it takes. So, will you come with me? Join me, Mel?”
“Not in a million years.”
Could I make this any clearer?
“So be it.”
He sounded resigned, almost disappointed. For one absolutely naïve moment I thought he was giving up; leaving me alone. I was wrong. He moved so fast I didn’t even see it happen. Suddenly he was just there, right in front of me, inches from my face, pinning me to the wall. The pressure from his hands made my shoulders ache. I tried to squirm away when he removed one hand to run his creepy fingers across my cheek, but he was too strong.
“Too bad it has to be this way, Mel. You and I could have had a lot of fun together.”
Just the thought of it made me cringe. I tried to shove him off of me but he snagged my hand in mid-air and pinned it along with the other to the wall. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t break his grasp. I was completely at his mercy and that was terrifying. Screw acting tough, I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs; not that there was anyone to hear me. Jason seemed to find it amusing. He laughed, but then abruptly stopped, snapping his hand up to grip my chin roughly.
“Enough of this,” he snarled. “Now, you are mine.”
His hand slid lower until it circled my throat. He stayed like that for a moment, leaning in close to me and inhaling, like he could smell my fear . . . and he liked it. Then, he squeezed. I fought. I fought as hard as I could, twisting my head and hands, trying to break free, but I might as well have been fighting against a statue. He never faltered, only squeezed tighter until oxygen became the thing dreams are made of. My lungs screamed for air, burning like they were on fire. Fighting became too difficult and I sunk back into the wall. Black spots formed in my vision and my cloudy brain wondered if there were bugs in the house. This was it. Jason was going to kill me and take my soul wherever it was he took souls, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. That last part made me the angriest, but all the rage in the world wasn’t going to save me now.
Except . . . maybe Lucas’.
The roar that filled my ears was inhuman. It shook the house and sounded like a lion had taken up residence in my hallway. In a blur of body parts, Jason went pin wheeling off me and I collapsed onto the floor, hard. I had no idea what had happened, or what was still happening beside me. I didn’t really care either, not at the moment. The only thing that mattered right that second was air and the fact that it could once again reach my lungs, bathing their fire in soothing coolness, quenching their thirst. I gulped it greedily and squeezed my eyes shut until I was certain I could handle opening them. When I did, I wished I hadn’t.
Jason and Lucas were brawling on the floor a few feet away. It looked like any other boy brawl that you might see in the hallway, except for the fact that when they missed each other their fists were doing some serious damage to the floors and walls, slamming right through them like they were made of paper. The whole upstairs landing looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Lucas had managed to pin Jason to the floor and was repeatedly pummeling him into submission.
“If you ever go near Mel again, I will destroy you! You ever touch her again, I will slice you apart and send you back to hell in a hand basket,” he growled, sounding out of breath but angry enough to follow through on his threats.
Jason gave one last ditch effort to break free before relenting.
“Fine, you can have her . . . for now. But they will never give up, not on her. She will be ours one day and then I will laugh in your face.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Lucas told him, shoving his knee further into Jason’s abdomen, causing him to grunt in pain.
When Lucas released him, Jason zipped from the house so quickly I barely saw him move. It just looked like a flash of color hurtling down the stairs.
“Are you alright?” Lucas asked, crouching in front of me.
Gently he took my face in his hands and tipped it upward until I was looking at him. He ran his hands over my hair and jaw line, wiping tears I didn’t know I had from my cheeks, before tipping it up even further to expose my raw throat.
“That son of a . . .” he grumbled and his eyes flashed with anger so intense it almost frightened me, but then he tilted his head and kissed my bruised neck with infinite tenderness.
Despite my best efforts to maintain my composure, my eyes slid shut and I leaned into him. His arms came around me and he held me tight. When I had regained the ability to think clearly I blurted out, “You saved me.”
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t my most coherent line of thought. My voice sounded rough like it was pushing up through shards of glass and it hurt just as badly. Lucas noticed my wince and hushed me from saying anything else.
“I should have been closer. I’m sorry. I just never thought he would go this far. Attacking a human, stealing a soul is unheard of.”
He led me down to the kitchen, where he made me a cup of tea and poured a generous helping of honey into it.
“This should help your throat,” he explained, passing me the steaming mug
.
It did help. Almost immediately I could feel the hot liquid coating my raw throat and soothing it. I guzzled the entire cup, oblivious to the scalding temperature.
“Lucas,” I croaked. My voice still sounded terrible, but at least it didn’t hurt as much. “You came back.”
“Of course I came back. I promised you I’d be here and… I had to see you one last time.”
“I know I shouldn’t have called you, but when I heard him in the house I didn’t know what else to do.”
“No, I’m glad you called. Are you kidding me? I’m glad I gave your cell back.”
“Gave it back? I thought you found it?”
“Yeah,” he hedged, “it may not have happened exactly like I said.”
“You stole my phone?”
Wasn’t there some sort of commandment about not stealing, or did that only apply to us humans?
“Sorry about that. I was trying to keep you away from Jason.”
Like that made it all better. Okay, maybe it made it a little better but still . . . sheesh.
“I’m just glad you’re alright,” he murmured as his knuckles brushed my cheek, and all thoughts of cell phones went right out the window. “If he had . . .”
Lucas swallowed hard and suddenly I was seeing him through blurry vision.
“I missed you. I missed you so much,” I cried, losing hold on my composure again. Near death experiences will do that to a person.
“I missed you, too. Every day.”
“Then why did you move out? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you come back? Forget the rules.”
“Because I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t safe . . . for you. Nothing has changed, Mel. We are still not allowed to be together and if we were found out we would be facing the wrath of the elders. Trust me it’s not something you want to be on the receiving end of. Me they would go easy on. They’d have to because I’m a soul solider and we’re rare, which makes us valuable to them. They need me. But humans? You’re a lot more common. If they were to make an example of you; exact their revenge on you just to teach me a lesson I could never forgive myself. You’re the one that this relationship would ultimately put in danger. Do you understand?”
I nodded. He was trying to protect me, just like always. But it just wasn’t fair.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. I’m leaving.”
Those two words hit me like a freight train and sent me reeling. He had been gone for almost a week already, but this sounded different. More final.
“The elders found out about my breach of contract. They know what I told you,” he clarified in response to what I’m sure was an incredibly confused look on my face.
“What will happen to you?”
“I’m not sure yet. There’s going to be a trial. After that I will learn my punishment, but you can’t count on me to be here for you anymore. I doubt Jason will bother you again, but there are others like him out there, Mel,” he said, clasping my hand. “Just use your head and you’ll be alright.”
He took a deep breath and held it, staring at me closely like he was trying to memorize my face, like he may never see it again. My heart squeezed like a lemon being made into lemonade. My chest was filling with heart-ade and it was drowning me from the inside out. I clutched his hand tighter as though that would somehow keep him here with me.
“Lucas . . .”
“Never change, Mel. Never,” he insisted. “You have the most beautiful soul I have ever seen. Don’t let anyone change that. No matter what.”
I suddenly found myself incapable of speech. Maybe it was because I already knew that it wouldn’t matter what I said. Lucas was leaving, really leaving and I was never going to see him again. Would I even know what had happened to him? Because of me? Would I have to spend the rest of my life wondering?
“Lucas,” I tried again, but a desperate sobbed escaped instead as he pulled me into his lap.
He buried his face in my neck as my tears soaked into the front of his shirt.
“Don’t cry,” he pleaded. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
I tucked myself into him as tightly as I could, memorizing the feel of his body, his hard chest, soft hands, strong arms. I don’t know how long we sat there like that, hours, minutes. Whatever it was, it wasn’t long enough, but when he pulled back I knew it was time. He had to go. Standing, he pulled me into his arms one last time and whispered into my hair.
“Find happiness, and know that I will always love you.”
I tipped my head back to look at him and his soft, delicious lips crashed onto mine.
“Always,” he repeated, sounding hoarse.
Then he slipped out of my desperate grasp and withdrew from the house as quickly as Jason had, without stopping, without ever looking back, he was just gone.
*****
Life without Lucas was . . . cruddy. There were better, more accurate words, but I'd succeeded in avoiding them for most of my life and I certainly wasn’t about to start now. So, cruddy it was. Days came and went. A lot of reality television was involved. Mom went to work, came home, burned some stuff and went back to work again. I managed to convince her that I had been out when the damage to the upstairs hall was done. The police were called, a report filed, and repairs mostly covered by the insurance. The damage to my neck was a bit trickier to hide. It involved a lot of concealer and an array of summer scarves.
Mostly things were normal, except for the gaping hole in my chest. I felt like some kind of freaking jigsaw puzzle with a piece left out. You could make out the picture just fine without it, but it still wasn’t complete. If mom noticed she kept it to herself. Uncharacteristic of her, but I appreciated it. There was no way I could explain any of this to her; I barely understood any of it myself.
July came and went and the summer was quickly disintegrating. Back to school supplies were already lining the wall of every store in town. I wondered what that would be like. Would Jenna and Kyle be there? Would Jason? I hadn’t seen or heard from him at all since Lucas sent him packing, but if we were trapped in the same building all day everyday things could get . . . awkward. Definitely wasn’t looking forward to that. Even if he couldn’t take my soul to hell in the afterlife, it didn’t mean he couldn’t make this life a living hell.
My apprehension grew as days continued to tick off the calendar. I even broke down and asked mom to home school me in one irrational moment of panic. Of course that just got a confused and more-than-slightly-concerned look. I quickly dropped the subject. It looked like I was going to have to face my demons . . . literally. Fun, fun.
August was hot, as August tends to be. Staying holed up in the house twenty-four-seven became more difficult resulting from our lack of air conditioning. I found myself pulling the loser role of the century and attending movies alone just to bask in the cold air for a while.
The first day of school was right around the corner. Seriously. Come Monday morning I would be climbing onto that big yellow school bus—cool, I know—and heading off to my own personal hellhole. I was in no way prepared. Okay, yes, I did have my notebooks, folders, and number two pencils ready to go, but mentally . . . no way. Definitely not ready.
What if I couldn’t avoid Jason? What if he wore me down? Lucas said he wouldn’t bother me anymore, but I wasn’t so convinced. Besides, what about the ‘others’ Lucas had mentioned? How would I know one if I saw one? Who could I really trust? The answer was simple . . . no one. This was shaping up to be a very lonely year. Heck, it was shaping up to be a lonely life without Lucas.
I couldn’t stand just going through the motions every day not knowing where he was or what had happened to him. Had he been punished for warning me about Jason? I knew it was a possibility, a probability even, but I still prayed he hadn’t. If there were angels and demons there had to be a God right? Someone, somewhere, who would listen to me. So I prayed every night for Lucas, just in case it helped.
Labor Day weekend. There were supposed to be fireworks
in the town park on Sunday night. Somehow I just couldn’t find the energy to care, but mom insisted I go even though she wasn’t going to be able to make it. Why was I not surprised? According to her I had been ‘avoiding humanity’ long enough. Little did she know it wasn’t humanity I was avoiding, just what pretended to be human. Having resigned myself to being the strange new girl who doesn’t talk to anybody, I had zero motivation to celebrate much of anything, but still I trudged my way across town. On foot, because mom had the car. Another downfall of having no friends—no rides.
When I arrived the park was already crowded with families, groups of friends, and cuddly couples all lounging on blankets. Gag me. I had forgotten to bring a blanket, of course, so I just plopped down on the grass and stretched out my legs. No one spoke to me; I didn’t speak to anyone. This was how it was going to be so I might as well get used to it. The first whizz was followed by a loud bang. A flurry of twinkling blue lights rained through the sky and the crowd ooh’d and ahh’d. Even I had to admit it was pretty. Reclining back on my elbows I stared up into the cloudless night sky as explosion after explosion of color lit the darkness.
The fireworks lasted almost forty-five minutes, no dinky show here, and were really quite impressive. The finale rained constant colors over us for nearly five straight minutes. It was breathtaking. And I’m not talking figuratively here. I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until a dark silhouette blocked my view and I gasped. At first I couldn’t figure out what the guy’s problem was. Why would he stand right in front of me to watch the fireworks? Then I realized he wasn’t watching the fireworks, he was watching me.
Scrambling backward, crab style on my hands and feet, I tried to distance myself from him. What did he want? Who was he? What was he? Jason? I couldn’t tell. With the light from the fireworks behind him it was impossible to make out more than just his shadow. He stepped closer and my heart leapt into my throat. What was I supposed to do right there in front of all of these people? Would they help me? Could they help me? He took another step and my dread cranked up a notch . . . or ten. He continued towards me until he stepped into the light of the street lamp behind me. Then my heart—and my scrambling—stopped completely.