Chapter Twenty-Nine (Daimonas)
When Newell came back into the kitchen, he looked really mad.
I could feel it heating the air around us and even though he smiled at Xed to let him know he was okay, we all knew he was lying. So Dominik and I ate our food quickly before we went upstairs to my room. As soon as I shut the door, Dominik slumped.
"I think I'm causing you too much trouble by being here." He muttered, pushing his glasses up on his nose. I frowned and shook my head.
"No, he's not mad at you. It was probably his friend that called." I responded with a shrug, sittng on the bed. Dominik looked around for a moment, then set his bag down on the floor by the television set before coming over to sit on the bed with a heavy sigh.
"Thank you... for letting me come over. I didn't think you would because of how I treat you." He admitted softly, making me shrug again. I leaned back on my hands, tilting my head to look at him as he clasped his hands tightly between his knees, eyes downcast as usual.
"I don't hate you, Dominik. I consider you my friend." I said with a smile. Dominik blushed at that, looking at me in surprise.
"You do?" He asked, perplexed. I nodded, smiling at his expression as I sat up and looked right into his eyes, making his eyes widen a little.
"Definitely. You're one of my best friends." I replied. Dominik stared at me for a moment longer, like he was trying to figure out if this was a dream or not before he averted his eyes, nodding shyly. We were quiet for a while before I decided to get up and put a movie in. Surely Newell wouldn't mind if we watched one before working on homework.
"What movies do you like?" I asked, sitting in front of the cabinet and looking at all the movies Vladimir had put in the house for me. Dominik shifted a little, nibbling his lower lip and subconsciously touching at the bruises on his face.
"Uhm, any movie you want is fine by me."
"You sure? I like Disney movies."
"Disney movies are okay with me."
"Cool," I exclaimed, relieved that Dominik didn't think it was weird, like Newell thought, "We can watch the Fox and the Hound then. I like little animals. They're so soft and cute. I've always wanted one, but Newell says he doesn't like to take care of things." Dominik didn't say anything, just watched me take the movie out. I took the disk out and stuck it into the DVD player, picking up the remote as I stepped back and sat at the end of the bed.
"Daimonas, what do you want from me?" Dominik asked. I blinked and looked at him, confused, as he looked down at his hands, wringing them out nervously.
"What do you mean?" I asked. What did he mean by want from him? I didn't want anything, except the help him, of course, but he knew that because I kept telling him. Dominik shook his head, looking frustrated now as he smacked his hands down on his lap.
"No, this doesn't make any sense," He insisted, making me frown, "You keep being nice to me and you let me stay over when I have nowhere else to go. Are you trying to get me to do something for you?" I didn't understand what he meant, just looked at him in confusion. He gave a frustrated growl and shot to his feet.
"Do you want me to say it flat out to embarrass myself?" He demanded angrily. Wow, he changed moods real quick. One minute he was starting to relax and get comfortable, but then it was suddenly like he thought none of this was real and had to keep reminding himself and everyone else. I couldn't find a better way to explain it.
"I don't want anything from you?" I tried. Dominik wrinkled his nose, grimacing as he looked me up and down, then looked around my room warily. It was like he was waiting for someone to jump out of my closet or out from under my bed. I noticed he did that a lot.
Instead of playing the DVD, I shut it off and took the DVD out, putting it back in the box, before I turned to face Dominik, who stiffened as I shut the television off. He stood there staring at me expectantly before I finally spoke.
"I want to know what happened to you, Dominik. I want to know why you blame yourself for everyone else being a jerk. I want to know why you're too scared to tell me things. I want to know why you always check rooms for other people, when you know it's just us two. I want to know what those people did to you to make you the way you are." I explained simply. Dominik looked rigid as he stood there just a few feet in front of me by my bed. He eyed the door for a moment, like he was debating whether to just run away, but I stepped out in front of him to block his path to the door, making him gasp and step back instantly. I frowned.
"I don't want to hurt you. I would never hurt you. I'm not like those people who are mean to you or ignore you, Dominik. I want to help you, but I can't do that if you keep running away. You can't keep running away from people. I already learned that a long time ago. People will find you no matter where you run. You need to stop and face them and kick them in the face until they're the ones running away from you." I insisted. Dominik stared at me for the longest time. It was hard to tell what he was thinking, until he started crying.
I didn't know what to do. I had never seen Dominik actually cry. I'd seen him come close and I'd seen the tears in his eyes, but I'd never seen them fall down his face as he choked on sob after sob. My heart clenched and a wave of guilt washed over me. I was doing that thing again where I got too pushy, too annoying. I didn't think about Dominik's feelings. I'd cry too if someone tried to make me tell them what happened in Michigan. I cringed as Dominik pushed his hands up under his glasses to rub at his eyes vigorously.
"Dominik, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"
"It is my fault," Dominik sobbed, making me look at him in confusion as he hiccuped and whimpered, "I was stupid. Really really bloody stupid. Jason used to be really nice to me. He used to be my friend. He was the only one who knew about my parents and what they did and he didn't hate me for it. He let me come over and he'd tell my parents he didn't know where I was and he walked me home from school and we walked to school and I couldn't help, but like him more than a friend. I knew it wasn't normal, but I thought Jason would be okay if I told him I liked him more than a friend."
"Wait, Dominik--" He kept going anyway, cutting me off and while I wanted to stop him because he was scaring me with how hysterical he was, I decided to just be quiet as he kept going.
"He said he was okay with it and I thought that was a relief, at least he didn't hate me. Even better was that he kissed me and told me he wanted to be alone with me, so he took me to the locker rooms and I thought he was just going to talk to me about it, but he didn't. His other friends were there waiting for us and I didn't know what was happening until it happened and-and I didn't know what to do. Jason said if I told anyone he'd do something even worse. What could be worse than that?" He choked. I blinked rapidly, getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Worse than... that?" I asked, hoping I was wrong.
"What, do you want me to bloody spell it out for you, you git?! Eight of them! There were eight boys that I sat in class with every day, three of them were my friends and one of them I was in love with, and they raped me, you twat! I haven't even gotten to the best part yet," Dominik was practically screaming now, clenching his fists against the sides of his head, "They didn't just do it like that! They used a broom stick and the statue they won from their game! The statue that I was forced to look at every time we walked into the bloody school because they purposely put it on display there!"
I felt the blood drain from my face at that. I knew what rape meant because Vladimir had taught me. He had to teach me because it happened to me and I didn't understand it. Of course, knowing what it was didn't make it any better at all. The fact that people had a name for something like that made me sick to my stomach.
Even worse that it happened to Dominik, and the way he described it sounded worse than my worst nightmares. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like and I didn't want to.
I understood now, why Dominik always checked to make sure no one else was around. Why he never let anyone stand behind him and why he was so skittish and why he didn't want Jason to get in trouble and everything else. But it was a realization that sat in my stomach like a heavy rock.
Dominik was on the floor now, sobbing into his hands after he threw his glasses on the floor. Guilt laid on my shoulders so heavily that they hurt. I hadn't meant to push Dominik this far. I should have known from the way he acted, because that was how I acted when it happened to me. I didn't like it when people touched me, and even now, I felt my skin crawl when people touched me. Even the most innocent of touches or pokes reminded me of those people and what it was like to feel so helpless and cornered.
But the people who'd done it to me were strangers.
The people who did it to Dominik were people he went to school with, people he knew, and someone he trusted and loved the way I loved Starling. But Dominik wasn't lucky enough to know Starling, he had Jason and even now, I got this weird feeling that even though Jason did what he did, Dominik still didn't hate him for it, not entirely anyway.
Instead of saying anything, I knelt down in front of Dominik and risked putting my arms around him, waiting for him to shove me away. Much to my relief, Dominik put his arms around me and hugged me tightly, burying his face against my chest. His whole body was shaking as he cried. I was afraid to let him go because I could still hear Newell's voice in my head.
He is a broken human, Daimonas. Think of him as a doll. You can only drop a doll so many times before it shatters and can never be repaired.
If I let go of Dominik, what if he broke into a million pieces? I wouldn't know how to put him back together again. I didn't want to imagine Dominik as a broken doll that someone left behind. The idea scared me. I had gotten attached to Dominik over the last couple weeks. If I lost him now, I don't know what I'd do. He was like a younger brother to me. I didn't want to see him fall apart.
So I held Dominik for the longest time. I let him cry. For a while, he stopped and just sniffled, but then he started up again and I held him even tighter when he started trembling. We sat there for a while, eventually shifting and leaning against the side of the bed. I kept my arm around Dominik as he wipe at his eyes. I held his glasses out to him and he took them with a tired nod before replacing them.
We still didn't say anything, we didn't need to. We just sat in silence until I heard Newell's voice outside the door.
"Daimonas, you better be doing your homework. If I walk in there and you're watching TV, I'm unplugging it and taking it out of your room." He said loudly. I rolled my eyes.
"I'm doin' it! It's just taking a little bit." I responded. I only heard him grunt before his footsteps moved away from the door. I sighed and gave Dominik a look to ask if he was okay. He just nodded, rubbing at his eye again. I crawled over to my bag and brought it back, taking out my homework.
"Uhm," Dominik said, sniffing, "I finished mine... if you want me to help you." I nodded with a smile.
"Thank you, Dominik." I said. He nodded and scooted to sit beside me as I spread the homework out on the floor. We didn't talk about Dominik's experience again. I don't think he wanted to relive it again and I could tell he tried hard not to. I didn't want to ask him about it because I didn't want to see him cry again. It hurt so much to see him cry.
"So," Dominik said softly, doodling an interesting picture of a bird on the side of a notebook while I scribbled down answers to the worksheets, "Uhm, what are your parents' names?" I blinked.
"Oh," I looked down at my paper, "Newell and Xed. Xed is the big one that looks like he belongs on WWE."
"WWE?"
"It's a weird wrestling show that I saw a couple minutes of one time when Newell and I were watching TV. Newell looks like someone who came out of a fashion magazine, huh?"
"He is pretty."
"He'd like to hear you say that," I said with a grin, making Dominik smile shyly as he looked down, "He's really self-conscious, but he'd never admit it. I can mostly tell when he's with Xed cuz he turns bright pink and stuff."
"How long have they, uh, been together? Are they married?" He asked. I blushed at that, trying to imagine them being married, but I couldn't. I don't Newell was the type to get married. He would probably say something along the lines of: "Marriage? Pah, that's a human invention, a chain, to bind two people together for eternity. It's stupid", only with bigger words and phrases that I didn't understand.
"I think they've been together a long time," I answered from what I knew, "They're not married, though. I don't think it's Newell's style." Dominik nodded at that. I nibbled my lower lip.
"Why, would you get married?" I asked. Dominik turned red out of embarrassment and shook his head rapidly, looking down at his drawing of a bird.
"No way," He mumbled, "That's just... No. I don't think it's my style anyway." Even though he said it, I knew he was considering the idea. It sounded like just a word to me, though. Marriage was kind of like dating. It was just a word that said you were together, and I'm sure there was more to it than that, but I think knowing that someone else loved you more than anything in the world and would never leave you was enough for me. I didn't need a marriage thingy to say I loved someone. Just that someone.
Of course, that sounded super cheesy to me, so I didn't tell Dominik that.
"What about your boyfriend," Dominik said suddenly, making me blink and look at him to see him frowning at his notebook, "Do you want to marry him?" I shrugged.
"It doesn't matter to me," I responded, then smiled down at my homework, shifting a little, "Whatever Starling wants to do is okay with me." Dominik shifted a bit uncomfortably.
"Is he really nice?" He asked. I nodded.
"Very nice. I think he'd like you too. He likes to help people and make them happy. That's what he did for me."
"Do you think you'll ever see him again?"
"Gosh, I hope so," I sighed heavily, slumping back against my bed, "It feels like it's been forever and I don't want to wait anymore forevers to see him again." Dominik said nothing to that, just continued to draw his bird, but he looked a little sad now. I felt kind of bad because I had Starling and Dominik didn't have anyone.
"Would you think about finding someone else?" I asked Dominik, who blinked and looked up at me, then back down at his notebook. He seemed more relaxed now, much to my relief, but there was still a heavy sadness surrounding him that was beginning to make me sad too.
"I don't think so," He said at last, coloring in the bird's feathers on the page, "I just... I don't feel like I can be with anyone else."
"Well," I said slowly, "Maybe you will find someone. Someday. There's lots of people on the planet. Bazillions of them. There's got to be at least one person who'll love you a lot and protect you." Dominik looked like he was going to cry again and I felt bad for being the cause of it, but he blinked the tears away and just laughed quietly.
"I'll pretend there is." He replied. I tilted my head, confused, but I didn't press the matter. I didn't want to make Dominik upset, so I changed the subject to the homework. We managed to finish it before it got dark and around that time, we decided to watch a couple of movies. Dominik and I shared my bed and I gave him some sweatpants and a shirt to sleep in. I changed into my pajamas before we crawled into bed and I turned the lights out, keeping the television on to watch rerun episodes of Spongebob.
"Daimonas?" Dominik asked quietly, his voice tired.
"Hmm?" I asked sleepily, snuggled down with the dolphin Starling had given me. There was a pause that made me open my eyes to see that Dominik had fallen asleep. I smiled at that, sitting up and shutting off the television before I slumped back down into bed.
As soon as I closed my eyes, though, I was plunged into a vision. At first, I didn't understand what was happening because three hundred things were swirling around me at once and when I gasped, everything abruptly stopped and I was standing in front of a bath tub. I blinked and a second later, the tub was filled with blood. I cried out and stepped back, then froze when I saw bubbles coming up from inside the tub. I'd seen enough movies to know someone was under there.
So without thinking, I ran over and reached into the tub, grabbing the person by the arm and pulling them up. A scream caught in my throat, though, as I pulled Dominik up out of the tub, his body pale and cold as ice, his blue eyes staring blankly. I tried to lift him out of the tub, then stopped when I saw blood flowing out his wrists. I looked back up to see him staring at me tiredly, blood dripping down his face and from his dark hair.
"You can't save me." He whispered, then slumped back down into the tub. I went to grab him, but when I reached my hands into the bloody bath water, I felt something push me and I fell head first into the tub, but I didn't hit the bottom. I fell into a dark, bloody pit that choked me. I couldn't breath as I flailed and fought to get the surface.
I blinked once and everything changed. I was standing outside in a huge, empty parking lot. It was cold, the icy rain stabbing me like little knives. I looked around and froze, seeing Xed lying on his back in the parking lot, his chest completely ripped open and blood pooling around him. Newell was sitting beside him, covering his face with his hands, and even though I couldn't see it, I could hear him sobbing.
And I had never heard Newell cry before. Horror gripped me tight as I waited for Xed to get and do something, make Newell stop crying, but it didn't happen. Xed was staring lifelessly into the dark sky, lips parted and blood oozing from the corners. Newell continued to sob and rake his nails through his hair. I started to go near him when I felt a sharp pain cut through my chest and looked down to see a knife sticking out the front of my chest. My eyes widened and I looked up, spinning around to hit whoever had stabbed me, but my hand collided with a black shadow figure.
I couldn't tell if it was male or female, but it was tall and muscular and even though it had no features, I could feel its rage and hatred as it caught me by the arm and twisted it behind me, shoving me to the ground that instantly turned into bloody water. My head plunged in and I woke up, breathing hard.
I grabbed at the blankets, my breathes coming out in sharp, desperate pants as I tried to find Dominik.
"D-Dominik? Dominik, are you here?" I managed, feeling at the lump under the blankets beside me. I heard a quiet little moan and was able to see Dominik in the dark as he slowly rolled over onto his back, rubbing his eyes.
"Daimonas...? What's wrong?" He asked, looking a little alarmed when he felt me trembling.
"Just... I..." I couldn't find the words and I didn't want to tell Dominik about what I saw in my dream. What if he tried to do what he did in my dream? I didn't want him to get ideas from that. I shivered.
"I need to go check on my parents." I told him. He nodded and we both climbed out of the bed. Much to my relief, Dominik stuck by me as we left my room and crossed the dark hallway to Newell's bedroom. I knew better than to walk in, but part of me was too scared that something had happened to them, so I opened the door and looked inside.
Warm relief spread through me when I saw Newell sleeping soundly on his side with Xed spooned right up behind him, an arm around his waist tightly. Both them were sleeping rather deeply, which surprised me with Xed considering he was normally a very light sleeper, but I guess he just got too tired.
I led the way back to my room, running a hand through my hair as I went to my nightstand to get a ponytail holder to keep it out of my sweaty face. Dominik shuffled back to the bed and flopped down, looking up at me through the darkness of the room.
"Are you all right?" He asked. I nodded, then realized he probably couldn't see that well in the dark.
"Yeah, just... a really scary dream." I said shakily. Dominik nodded sleepily and didn't respond. I waited until he fell back to sleep before I crawled into bed and scooted closer to him so if he moved during the night, I'd wake right up and save him from whatever happened to him in my vision.
My throat was closing up in fear, though. I couldn't stop trembling.
If that was a vision, what if it actually happened? What if Dominik and Xed actually died? How could that be possible? What was powerful enough to kill Xed the way he was killed? It couldn't be Hunter, because Newell said Hunter would stay in the United States and he used guns and knives to attack people. Whatever attacked Xed wasn't human, and it was strong enough to beat Xed, the most powerful thing I'd met since Vladimir. And whatever it was wasn't hunting Newell.
So what did it want?
Why did it want to kill Xed and Dominik? What could they have done to offend someone?
Dominik was an innocent human and Xed was a mostly innocent merman. I couldn't think of anyone who would want to hurt them. Part of me wondered if maybe Zephyra was trying to piece itself back together to destroy us, but then, they wouldn't leave Newell behind, would they? I wasn't sure and it was starting to scare me.
I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.
I stayed in bed while Dominik got up to shower and change into his uniform. I took my time getting ready, my eyes feeling puffy and sore from not sleeping. My body ached and I felt like someone had hit me over the head with a hammer, so I took some pain killers that Newell had bought for me because they worked on me, but not him. They weren't strong enough for him.
Xed had breakfast waiting downstairs and tried not to sigh in relief at seeing him okay. He looked like he always did, his chest just fine and closed like it was supposed to be, his muscles bulging every time he moved. His blue hair was damp from his bath and his mismatched eyes watched everything Newell did.
And Newell looked just fine too. He was wearing one of Xed's black v-neck shirts that was sliding off one of his shoulders and dark plaid sweatpants, a newspaper in his hand and a mug of blood in the other. He kept the contents of the mug hidden from Dominik by sitting on the other side of the island counter from him.
"Daimonas, eat your breakfast." Newell said without looking up. Dominik raised an eyebrow at me. I just smiled awkwardly and played with my eggs mostly, fighting down the vomit that was threatening to rise from lack of sleep and my overly vivid vision.
"Oh," Newell said, still not looking up, "Daimonas, you may be home alone when you get back today. Xed and I are going to stop by the mini-mall not far from here for a bookshelf in the piano room. I'm going to pick up some sheet music too." I almost agreed to that until I remembered that in my vision, they had been in a huge parking lot and from what I'd seen, malls had big parking lots.
"No," I exclaimed, making everyone stare at me before I swallowed hard, "Uhm, no, I wanna go with. Can you wait until I get back? Please? And can Dominik come too?"
"I don't know..." Dominik said uneasily, glancing at Newell, who lifted a brow at that. He looked at Xed, who shrugged and gave a nod. Newell sighed.
"Fine, but don't take your time coming home. I want to leave as soon as you get back." He said. I nodded, trying not to sigh in relief. If I could have them all together, I wouldn't need to worry about them. If Xed and Newell stayed home while I was at school, nothing would happen to them and as long as I didn't let Dominik go into the bathroom alone, I wouldn't find him in the bath tub like I did in my vision.
But something told me that trying to stop all this was going to be a lot harder than I thought.