“So every time we try to kiss, I’m gonna get thrown on my ass?”
“Pretty much,” he says as he helps me to my feet.
“So if Ameana doesn’t agree to give you your Rah back—”
“—I will never be able to kiss you.”
************************************
CHAPTER EIGHT: BEFORE AND AFTER
My mother Marla, is going on and on about something that may or may not have to do with the senior dance. I’m not really sure. The truth is, I haven’t been paying attention. I’m at the breakfast table stabbing my eggs with a fork. Sometimes the eggs look like Ameana. Sometimes they look like whatever the Council may look like.
More than a few times they have looked like Marcus. I know it’s not his fault he can’t kiss me but I mean, c’mon. How many issues can one guy come with? And what if Ameana decides not to give him his Rah back?
And even if he could kiss me, do I really want to get close to an Angel who has yet to tell me his Core? I didn’t mention it last night because I wanted him to bring it up. Telling someone how you died means that you trust and confide in them. Why hasn’t Marcus told me yet?
And to top it all off, I have gotten a rash from whatever I came in contact with in the trash. The rash is on my right wrist. It’s the size of a penny and it itches like crazy.
“Piglet?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you zoning your favorite Mom out this morning? What are you thinking about that’s so important?”
“You know, end of the world stuff,” I say simply.
“You are so silly. How was your date last night?”
“Uneventful.”
“I’m gonna need more than that.”
“We just hung out. No big deal.”
“Well, did you have a good time?”
“I got what I bargained for.”
“And you didn’t have sex right?”
“Mom, I can assure that there will be no sex. There will be no making out. As a matter of fact, it stands to reason that I will die of old age never having kissed Marcus.”
“Well, you don’t have to be a nun. A kiss is nice. I just want you to put the brakes on after that. And yes, I know you think I’m being a prude.”
“Again, that’s not an issue.”
“Okay. Well, what are you doing later today?”
Going over to the house to make nice with Julian, the First Guardian that raped and ruined your life.
“Not much. I should go to the library and study. I have a Bio exam coming up,” I say out loud.
“Oh shoot. They’re showing ‘Casablanca’ downtown and I wanted to take you.”
“Rain check.”
“You’re going to make me watch it alone? Who am I going to look over at with big teardrops in my eyes, and say ‘I can’t believe I’m crying—again?’”
“Save your tears and we’ll rent it this weekend, okay?”
“Oh, alright. It’s my fault for raising such a reasonable young lady. Seriously, you’re such a good girl. Do you ever do anything wrong?”
“All the time. You’re just not paying attention.”
“I’ll remember that,” she says as she gives me a quick kiss and heads into her bedroom.
******************************
By the time I get to my third period class, I have gone from crabby to an all-out foul mood. Rio sees me coming down the hallway and he says, “Planning to commit murder, are we?”
Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. Who knew mood rings came with jokes?
It’s not just my issues with Marcus or having to speak to Julian that’s getting to me. It’s not even the end of the world although that is not helping things. It’s hard to be cheerful when you are so tired. I have not been able to get a good night’s rest since Sara was killed.
Every time I fall asleep I see the Pawn holding a knife to her throat. She calls out to me. The dream is very much like what actually happened. But then it gets much worse because when Sara’s dead body falls to the ground, she gets back up and chases me.
She screams over and over again, “You did this. You did this.” I try to talk but my mouth has been glued shut. She cries and bloody tears run down her face. Then they form a pair of claws. They reach out and choke me. I wake up sweating and gasping for air.
It takes a few minutes for me to calm down enough to realize that Sara isn’t chasing me. It’s all a dream. There’s no bloody claw, no Pawn, and no Sara…
Then it all comes back to me. She was stabbed and I let it happened. Marcus and the team say that it wasn’t my fault; they’re wrong. If Sara had never met me, she would still be alive today.
Okay, Emmy, try and keep it together. Just be normal. Go get lunch, sit and talk to a few people. Try and put everything out of your mind.
I head down to the cafeteria with Miku by my side. Lately I’m the one who has had to start conversations because she’s been mad at me. But today is just not the day for that; I remain quiet.
We pile our trays with food that neither of us is going to eat and take a seat. There is girl named Jennifer who has been trying really hard to get to know me. She seems nice, so as a favor to her, I’m not going near her. Look at what happen to the last friend I made.
I lower my head quickly when I see her. I feel bad about doing it but it’s better to hurt her feelings than to watch her slowly bleed to death like Sara. Plus, we now have the Hun to worry about. Yeah, Jennifer is better off sitting at a different table.
“What’s wrong?” Miku asks.
“So now you’re talking to me?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t talking to you.”
“No, what you said was Marcus and I suck and we are letting down the whole world.”
“Well, you are.”
“You think I made this decision lightly? So what exactly do you think my thought process was? Now, what should I do today? Go see a movie? Go to a concert? No, today I think I will fall for the guy who’s been told by everyone to stay away from me.”
I snatch my tray, throw the food into the trash and storm off. I don’t care who is and isn’t protecting me. Let an Akon come. Hell, let the Hun come. I can take them all on; my rage is begging for an outlet.
I go up two flights of stairs to the library. Only a few students are around. That way the Guardians won’t be mad at me. Although right now I really don’t give a damn.
I take out my Bio notes and try to study. None of it is making sense. Great, if the world doesn’t end, I’m gonna fail sophomore year.
My cell phone vibrates. I look down and find a text message from Marcus.
“Hey beautiful, why so sad?” he writes.
“I’m not in the mood,” I text back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.”
“How can I help?”
“You can’t.”
“I can try.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the Rah situation? Why didn’t you tell me Ameana’s mom killed her? And why haven’t you told me your Core?”
“Wow, should I answer in any specific order?”
“Forget it.”
“Okay, here goes: I was hoping the Rah thing would get cleared up in a few days and that I didn’t have to mention it to you and upset you. BTW it upsets the hell out of me too. You have no idea how much :( ”
“What about Ameana’s mom?”
“That is her business, not yours. Not to be a jerk but a Core is personal and she wouldn’t tell anyone mine and I owe her that same respect.”
“Why hadn’t you told me yours?”
“It’s complicated…”
“Your Core or the reason why you have yet to tell me?”
“Both.”
“Look, Guardian, I really don’t like this.”
“Don’t call me that. And what don’t you like?”
“Feeling left out.”
“I can’t cover a billion years of our history in a few nights.”
“It’s more than that and
you know it. You don’t confide in me.”
“I do. I just don’t go around bitching all the time about how I died.”
“Forget it.”
“What, you’re mad again?”
“No, Marcus. I’m not mad. I’m not anything. Just let me make it past today.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have to talk to Julian and that’s where my focus should be.”
“And not on me?”
“Not on trying to make you understand. I don’t have it in me to explain to you why you should confide in me.”
“I do.”
“So…how did you die?”
“Emmy…”
“Yeah, whatever, Marcus.”
My cell vibrates again but I press ‘ignore’ and I do just that.
I pack my stuff up and head out of the library. As soon as I come out, I see him leaning against the wall waiting for me.
I go down the hallway. He follows me. The students passing by look at us like we are in some kind of parade.
It didn’t take long for the whole student body to find out that Ameana and Marcus had broken up. I’m not sure how they know but they all do.
I felt bad for Ameana but the second she became available, there was literally a line of guys by her locker. She was gone most of the time but still the guys stationed themselves around her locker should she show up. Today, I overheard six guys asking their friends how they should approach her.
How has the school greeted the news of Marcus and me?
They took it like people who hear that aliens landed in some desert. No one believes it until they see it. And even then, they require more proof.
Every girl I know is after Marcus. They clamor around his locker, they giggle when no one said anything funny, and they find themselves needing to bend down at just the right time to pick up a pen or pencil.
His response is always friendly but never misleading. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to watch.
“You know you can’t go off alone,” he says as he walks beside me.
“There were a few people around and you don’t seem to have any trouble finding me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“There’s a point?”
“You’re acting like child.”
“Screw you.”
I run into my math class and slam the door behind me.
***********************************
On the way to the Guardian’s house, the Twins talk about the date given to them by the Sage. They looked online and found everything they could about the date and so far none of the information has led them anywhere.
“On the eighteenth of June sixteen years ago, New York Times crowned the crossword puzzle champion,” Rio says with no excitement whatsoever. The two go back and forth as if to see which of them found the most useless fact.
“New York City faced a heat wave,” Miku adds.
“’Barney Live!’ opened to rave reviews.”
“The Dark Knight.”
“Do the voice!” Miku shouts.
Rio does a bad impression of a very hoarse sounding Batman and Miku laughs.
It doesn’t surprise me that the twins are playing around because I know they’ve been researching all night. I’m sure they just need to let off some steam. I can relate.
But Jay, on the other hand, is very close to pulling the car (or ‘Siren’ as Jay calls his Audi) over to the side of the road and throwing them out. It’s just the four of us in here. I don’t know where Ameana or Marcus is.
After our little scene in the hallway, I stayed clear of him. I’m trying hard to focus on talking to Julian. I have no idea what I am going to say. I should have been practicing but how does one practice for a thing like that?
It doesn’t matter, I have to get this over with. Then the team and I have to go to Arden’s house, which is in upstate New York. Marcus had told everyone to meet back at the house an hour after school let out. That’s why Rio is with us now. He still insists on not moving back to the house. I think he’s doing it to punish himself. I wish he would just move back. I think it would put Miku at ease.
She hasn’t spoken to me since the lunchroom. But when we got in the car, she smiled at me. I guess it’s a start, right?
I didn’t think that we would be best friends, given that she and Ameana are so close. But I am just glad she’s not trying to be my enemy.
“Do the voice again,” Miku laughs.
Jay pulls the car over.
“Yo, real talk. I will drop you off right here,” he says.
That only makes the twins laugh harder. We take off once again and head for the house.
Once there, we all get out of the car. Normally, I love the house. It’s sleek and cosmopolitan. It looks like it belongs in Architectural Digest.
But today, in my mind, it looks like the creepy scary house in which every masked psycho lives, in every horror movie, ever.
“You ready?” the Twins ask.
“Um, no. I need to take a walk around the block.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Jay says.
“Alone, guys!” I plead.
“Emmy—”
“—Look, I’ll be right here on this block. Please.”
“Okay,” Rio says reluctantly.
I head for the Park down the block. Although New York City has warmed up, there is a cold chill in the air. I pull my coat closed and zip it up.
I get to the park and sit on the bench.
“You can come out,” I say.
Marcus appears from behind one of the trees.
“How can you be a leader and be so bad at ‘hide-and-seek’?” I ask him.
“I make up for it by being good at the ‘seek’ part.”
“Oh.”
He takes a seat next to me.
“I knew you’d want to be alone and I knew they’d let you,” he says.
“So the leader in you thought you’d fix their mistake?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I didn’t want my girlfriend to face a very hurtful past alone.”
I turn to him as if he has just spoken a different language.
“Your girlfriend?”
“Well, yeah. If that’s cool with you” he says, unable to look me in the eye.
“Yeah, that’s…yeah.”
He takes my hand and we head back to the house.
“Do you know why I like T-shirts with cartoons on them?” I ask him.
“I figure it’s just who you are.”
“The day my Mom told me about my being the result of a rape, I had just come home from babysitting a six-year-old girl, Tracy. We spent the whole day coloring, playing and watching cartoons. I loved watching them with her because it amused her so much.”
“Then, a few hours later, I come home and my life is turned upside down. One minute I’m watching Bugs Bunny and then, I’m told I’m a mistake.”
“You are not a mistake,” he says firmly.
“But that’s what it felt like. Once I got home from babysitting, I learned that my very existence ruined my mom’s life. I wanted to just act like I didn’t hear her. I wanted to go back to babysitting and watching cartoons.”
“Emmy, none of what happened with Julian is your fault. You have to believe that.”
“I made my Mom get me a bunch of cartoon videos because I thought they would help get me back to that place. Then, as I got older, I would track cartoon shirts on EBay. It’s stupid, but that was the only thing I could think of to get me back to being that innocent girl.”
I look up at the house. I think about the monster waiting for me. I see a flash in my head; my mom screaming as some stranger climbs on top of her.
“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” I run down the street and round the corner at top speed.
He can easily chase me down. He can easily stop me. But he doesn’t. I don’t know which Marcus let me go: the boyfriend or the leader.
I??
?m just glad he didn’t follow because neither of them needs to see me cry.
********************************
CHAPTER NINE: ARDEN
For reasons I will never fully understand, Jay switches cars for the drive upstate. We pull up to Arden’s estate in Scarlett (Jay’s red Lamborghini Gallardo). I asked them why we couldn’t fly there and Rio informed me that it is considered rude to fly over an Angel’s dwelling.
Judging by the long line of luxury cars parked along the estate, I’m guessing everyone else feels that way too. I’m not sure what I was excepting when we get out of the car but I’m certain it wasn’t this.
We get out of Scarlett and find ourselves standing in front of an ivory gate about ten feet tall. There is no way to see what’s on the other side of gate because the metal is woven into an intricate pattern that doesn’t allow for even the smallest view of the other side. All the sharp points on the gate converge to the center and spells out the word “Voluptas.”
“What does that mean?” I ask Jay.
“It’s not a word; it’s a person. The Goddess of Pleasure according to Roman mythology,” he replies.
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t let the slang fool you, girl, I’m a wealth of knowledge.”
“Really? So, how do we get past the gate?”
“No idea,” he says playfully.
Marcus pushes lightly on the gate and it opens up slightly.
“That’s it?” Ameana asks puzzled.
“That can’t be. She’s a Para. They need more protection than this,” Rio says.
“Well, it’s open, I say we go,” Marcus instructs.
He goes first and we all follow.
The gate clicks and locks behind us.
About a yard away from us is a pool the length of two football fields. It starts from the gate and stops just short of the mansion doors. The concrete pool takes up the entire front of the estate.
What little sidewalk there is on either side of the pool has been taken up by two rows of white Bengal tigers. They are facing each other from across the pool. Their coats are shiny, their eyes bright and the only hint of color on them comes from the pink in their noses.
There is a tiger spaced out evenly on both sides from the start of the pool to the end of it. The tigers on the same side are separated by long well manicure bushes that seem to reach the sky.