CHAPTER 18
He wasn't at school on Monday. It wasn't that surprising. Besides, I needed some time for myself to let it all sink in. I'd taken a bullet for Duane. That was how I'd died. Because I loved him more than my own breath.
It was all true, what Armand had said. Again, his words repeated in my mind. I wouldn't have wanted someone to tell me this. If a few weeks ago someone had told me this, I would have said that the person was crazy. My life wasn't a movie set. How could there be a love that...profound, in real life, for that matter?
But remembering it made everything different. I didn't just know I love him—I felt it.
At Chem I worked quietly beside Armand, the two of us silent as we did our assignment. When we were almost finished, I finally spoke.
"Hey, am I—" I took deep breath. "Am I just a political pawn to you guys?"
He dropped his mortar. He didn't speak at first, and then he said without looking at me, "From a certain point of view, yes."
I put my cylinder into place, afraid that it would drop from my suddenly shaking fingers. "How honest of you."
Armand finally looked at me. "To this war, yes, you are a pawn. But you know better. Duane's cheesy love notwithstanding, you know what I think personally? I think you're smart enough to face the inevitable. You have a free will. No matter what you choose, Duane will always back you." He lowered his voice. "However, if you take the side of the rebels..." A shrug. "You know they're not all candies and ice creams. And I'm a much nicer guy when I'm your friend."
I stumbled over the words 'friend' and 'nicer guy' a little. "He told me about the wolf pack."
Armand nodded. "If you have a single inch left of your memory about the things they did to you, we wouldn't be having this conversation now." He quirked half a smile. "They weren't a bunch of friendly doggies."
I stared after him as he went to collect our work to the teacher.
At lunch Ingrid asked us how our night had gone last night. Jamie pouted and harrumphed. She seemed in a really bad mood today. Nick hadn't come to pick us up this morning, and he wasn't anywhere to be seen either—I wondered if something had happened to them.
"Don't ask me," Jamie grumbled. "Ask her."
"Uh, it was...great!"
"Great for you and your new buddy." Jamie shot a dirty look at the cheerleaders' table. "Elena ditched me for Sylvie last night."
"It's not like that!" I said defensively.
Ingrid laughed. "Well, she surely thinks you're her new best friend."
I swung my head to where she was looking at. Sylvie waved at us with a huge smile and a wink at me. I flushed, thinking about the bodies of the Fae. It kind of made sense now—her extreme beauty. If I focused harder now, I could still see her real form. It was disconcerting, like seeing in double when you were drunk, except that the double had longer ears and—you know.
"I didn't ditch her. Sylvie helped me get home because I wasn't feeling so well."
Jamie looked away. "Whatever."
Time molded in a strange way, sand in hourglass, in a ticking clock, in a digital watch, in sweat and tips—before I knew it I was at the Ollie's, taking orders like it was no different days.
"Two burritos, one fish n' chips, one medium beef ribs, and two Alfredo fettuccines." I smiled. "Is that correct?"
The couple nodded.
"What about the drinks?"
The woman looked at her partner. The man scanned over the menus. "Just a jug of plain water is fine. It's refillable, right?"
I nodded. "So, two burritos, one fish n' chips, one medium beef ribs, two Alfredo fettuccines, and a jug of water. Anything else?"
"That's enough." They dismissed me.
I went to the kitchens and placed the order. One of the cooks took my slip of paper and frowned. "Table 7? Isn't a table for two?"
I shrugged. "Big appetite couple, maybe."
The cook raised an eyebrow. "As long as they're paying customers..."
I laughed and went away. I glanced at the clock. That couple was the last customer I had to deal with today. Mr. Cadwell had asked me to cut some of my shifts so that I could focus more on my schoolwork. The results of the latest quizzes hadn't come out yet, but I already had a feeling that my grades were slipping.
Taking off my apron, I let the wind cool my skin a little. I took the steps two at a time, impatient to wash off all the sweat and grease on my body. To my surprise, the door to the room was already open.
I went for the nearest weapon—a giant wooden fork decoration on the wall—and crept inside.
No one was inside.
I swung my door, looked into the closet, even under the bed—but there was no one. Remembering that supernatural creatures exist, I even looked up at the ceiling. But of course no Spiderman was hanging there.
And then I heard it—the shower. It was on.
I held tightly onto the wooden fork and pushed the bathroom door open a little, ignoring the voice in my mind that was screaming at me about how impossible it was to have a serial killer in my shower.
I swung the door open and saw a figure behind the curtain.
I pushed the curtain open and found her.
"Jamie," I said, shocked, "what are you doing here?"
She was fully clothed, crying inside the tub. The shower was running full on beside her. I turned it off.
She whimpered and hiccupped, then went straight to my arms. "I think Nick just broke up with me." She sniffed and blew her nose on my Ollie's uniform. "But I love him so much! And he said he loves me!"
"How did it happen?" I caught myself. "I mean, I've never seen you two fought before..."
"Two nights ago, the night at the cinema?" She hiccupped. "After Sylvie got you home, he drove me home and we made out a little in the backseat of his car. And then—and then, you know—you know—"
"I know what?"
"Well," she sniffed. "The backseat was really spacy. So we...you know."
I blinked. "You had sex with Nick?"
"No!" Jamie blew her nose again, this time with her own shirt. "We just...roll around a little, and he told me how much he loves me, and I told him how much I love him—" She whimpered. "He said he loves me!"
"Okay, okay," I soothed her. "And then?"
"It was really romantic. The moon was above as, and his car smelled so manly—"
"Jamie..."
"So I thought I'd do it, you know, with him, but he suddenly pushed me off and told me to go inside."
She broke into fresh tears. Then she stopped. "Wait—what's that? Why's that here?"
I followed her gaze to the giant wooden fork I'd grabbed off the wall earlier. It was probably an antique. I winced. "I thought there was an...intruder."
"Daddy is gonna be mad at you if you don't put it back. He got it off an auction. It's made by this famous sculptor called—"
"Okay, I will, I will. Now why don't you get up and I make you a cup of hot chocolate?"
"Hot chocolate isn't going to fix anything!"
I sighed. "Maybe he thought it should be, you know, more romantic for the two of you. Wait until marriage or something." The last one was a far fetch, but I'd say anything to comfort Jamie right then.
"No," she wailed, "it's because I'm ugly and he doesn't want me! He hasn't called me since then, and hasn't even answered my calls or my chats, or my texts, or my emails—"
Jamie could be brutal when it came to hunting down guys, I knew.
"—and he didn't even come to school! I thought he was sick or something, but his cousin Aaron said he was fine, that he was just busy. Like, busy? Like, busy avoiding my calls, that's more like it!"
I pursed my lips.
"That doesn't sound like Nick."
"I know, right? It's like he wants to dear-john me or something."
She burst into tears again.
I held her, thinking that she wasn't the only one who got dear-johned.
But life went on.
It was Thursday morning at school. For four days since I regained all my memories of the life I lived as Eiko, Duane hadn't come to school. No one claimed to have heard from him. Except for Armand. But he only said that Duane needed some time for himself.
I didn't pester Armand with the million of questions in my head. He wasn't the one I needed to hear the answers from.
Jamie went into a very dark mood. Ingrid and I tried our best to comfort her, but she was impenetrable. It was like a rule for girl friends. When your best friend is all the rage in love with her boyfriend, you try your best to be civilized with him even though you know he will be stealing her time away. But when he breaks her heart—let's just say that you've got to lessen the 'I told you so's for the sake of your friend and more into 'bad-campaigning' the guy.
"He's a jerk," Ingrid said, rubbing Jamie's shaking shoulders as she cried.
"A dick!" Jamie cried.
"A dickless ass without a tan," Ingrid piped up.
"Asshole of the year."
"Spineless prick."
"Stupid douche bag."
And a few dozens more.
"Er—actually, don't you wonder why he hasn't come to school? I mean, ditching school in risk of getting suspended just to avoid a g—to avoid you?"
The two of them looked at me. "I thought you couldn't stand Nick!"
I shrugged. "Just thought someone has gotta be devil's advocate. Maybe he's sick or something."
"No way!" Jamie exclaimed. "Aaron would have told me if he's sick. He told me he was busy."
"Aaron looked like a shady guy, Jamie."
"Aaron?" Ingrid queried. "The pale guy in Lucy's party?"
Jamie stopped sobbing and hiccupped. "What if you're right, Lena? What if he's really sick? Maybe something has happened to him, maybe—"
"Don't get your hopes up, though."
"Yeah," Ingrid agreed. "For all we know he's gonna show up tomorrow begging you to be back with him. I had this kind of ex once in my junior year. He dumped me for a freshman. So I hooked up with the current hottest senior at that time, and the next day he went back begging me."
"So you're saying—" Jamie hiccupped again. "—that I should hook up with Trenton Wellington or something?"
"No!" we both exclaimed.
Jamie buried her face in her hands and cried again. Losing Nick must be like the end of the world for her.
The bell rang. Lunch was over.
Quiz results came out. I got a B in Physics and A in Chemistry. An A in History, too. Mr. Harrington pulled me aside after class ended, saying that he had something to discuss with me after school in his office.
The school was quieter on Thursdays. No sport practices, no after-school study groups. I knocked on the office door.
"Come in."
I swung the door open and closed it behind me.
"Take a seat."
I swallowed hard as I pulled a chair up for myself and sat. I remembered that Mr. Harrington was a Vigil. Was he going to discuss something supernatural-related?
"Miss Cadwell, are you fine? You look a little pale."
I bit the insides of my cheeks. "I'm fine." My voice came out small.
"Don't worry, Miss Cadwell. You're not in any trouble. I only need to discuss about the essay you wrote."
I blinked. Essay. He's not going to talk about me being a kitsune?
"You see, even though I gave you an A, I still think you can do better. It's not that you don't deserve it—you do. After all, your work is among the best in the class. But I've taught you the year before. I know you can do even better than this."
"Okay."
"I'm not going to ask you to rewrite or do something more to suffice my standards. What I need you to do is to listen to a piece of advice I give. Alright?"
I nodded.
"You shouldn't abandon your school work just because you've found out that there's a world beyond the normal world."
He was talking about the supernatural world now. My heart pounded. I nodded.
"And you shouldn't give away your trust too easily."
I nodded again.
"Good. Now, Elena, back to the essay. I have a really good book for you. It focuses on the America-Japan history, and I know you'll need that. Do you want to borrow it home?"
It sounded interesting. "Yes, please."
Mr. Harrington smiled. "It's on the rack behind you. The one with red leather-bound cover. It's a bit old, so you have to be careful with the pages."
I turned and looked at the row of books behind me. I spotted no red cover, but I saw a maroon-leather binding that looked close enough to red. I drew it from the shelf and saw the title. Les Miserables.
That can't be right, I thought in confusion. The other books were not even anything close to red. Another row, perhaps?
I heard it then—a click.
I turned my head, but I was too late.
"I've told you," Mr. Harrington said as my hand flew to my neck, where three small needles had punctured the skin. "Don't give away your trust easily."
I stared at gun in his hand. Tranquilizer.
I held up my hand as my vision began to swim in and out of focus. It had turned into claw that night—I needed to do it again now. I willed it to change. It stayed a normal human hand.
"That was enough doses to retract your abilities, Miss Cadwell." He raised his gun again. "But only this will knock you out."
Another set of needles embedded my neck.
Blackness consumed me, and I knew nothing more.
I knew it shouldn't have happened to me again, with everything I'd already discovered.
But it did. I dreamt again.
In my dream I was running. The trees all blurred on my peripheral vision as I passed them. Several different sets of footsteps followed behind me. I couldn't run the way I should have been able to. I was supposed to be able to escape when the threat came. But they had hurt me before I could run.
And now I couldn't.
"Thomas! I've got her!" I heard the two-legged called out in their language. He was talking to the white wolf chasing behind me. A sense of dread overcome me. I should move faster—but my limbs felt like lead. The black wolf that used to watch me was nowhere in sight. This white wolf wasn't friendly. I knew he wanted to hurt me.
Another two legged shot me with their weapon. I skidded into a halt and fell to my side as I got hit. The pain made me whimper. The white wolf came into my view. He walked around my disarmed body in circles. Marking his dominance over my defeat.
The other two-legged creatures had caught up with us. They held their weapons pointed at me. The white wolf shed his form and joined them. He became a man with a ruined face, jagged with a fresh wound where the black wolf had hurt him earlier. He placed his foot on my body and put a great pressure on my bleeding wound. A high-pitched whine came out of my throat. I couldn't even raise a paw. My eyelids were drifting shut.
He said something to them. One of them handed him a long shiny weapon.
And then the true pain began.
Desperately, I willed myself to disappear every time the pain hit. But it was as if the more the pain I felt, the more solid I became, and the hurt I felt was tenfold. I wanted to be gone. If only I could die this second...
A bright light came as though it were trying to pry my eyes open. It was so blinding, that the only thing I could see was a pair of wings. The end to my pain, perhaps, had already come. Maybe the Gods had truly left me for dead, and this was someone one of the gods of people in this land had sent me.
At least I could fade away then.
But I didn't. Even as the light faded and the night was dark once again, even as I realized that the white wolf and the two-legged creatures that had hurt me were gone, I couldn't fade away. I realized then why—my flesh was too battered.
I lay there in the middle of the woods in the midnight and waited for the sun to come.
By the time the light from the sun came, I had shed my form.
I had taken on a human form again.
The stinging on my arm stirred me up from unconsciousness.
I heard the sound of clinking metal and plastic, a shuffle of fabric, and—
Cold fingers took me none too gently by the chin and forced my face up to the glare of bright light behind my lids. I squeezed my eyes harder.
"There's no use for that. Open your eyes now."
I did, and a strangled cry rose through my throat, which I immediately suppressed because I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing my true reaction. My mind flashed back to the night when he had intended to stab me with the silver knife. The long scar on his face wasn't an unfamiliar sight. The white wolf from my dream.
Thomas, the humans had called him.
"Thomas," I whispered. The scars on my skin throbbed with the ghost of the pain he'd inflicted on me. This man. This man was the one who hurt me and left me for dead in the woods.
Thomas smiled. There was something ugly in his smile that had nothing to do with the scar that jagged it. "I feel honored," he said. "You remember me even quicker than you remembered your own soul mate."
"Fuck you."
"Tsk, tsk. Pretty words are of no use to my cause, my dear."
I looked around me. My hands were chained into the arms of the chair, as were my legs. Silver. I was in some kind of dark room. A torture chamber, I suspected at first with trepidation, but then I scanned for any visible weapon around and found none.
But I remembered how he could hurt me. He was the weapon.
Thomas watched me with a small smug smile as the realization sunk into me. He leaned back against his own chair.
"You don't need to worry, my dear. This—" He let his index finger rise up and twirled to point around the room. "—is just for the sake of privacy. I promise you, I just want to talk."
I considered screaming—but he hadn't bothered to put a gag on me, and I knew for a fact from what I remembered that he wasn't a fool. He would have prevented me from screaming if he knew my voice could reach out to anyone who'd care.
I took another quick look around the room. We were both sitting in similar chairs, only mine had chains. The chairs, facing one another, were the only things I could see in the room.
An interrogation room.
"Are you done?" Thomas asked. "I assure you, we won't be interrupted for as long as we talk."
My hands. I remembered now. If I could just call for the claws...
"What do you want to talk about?"
"Why, about you, of course," he said. "You're quite the cursed prize around here, you know. People either want to use you or kill you."
I clenched and unclenched my fist. "Cursed prize?"
He leaned forward. "Let me tell you a story, Eiko." He folded his fingers together, as if he was praying. "There was once a lone wolf who traveled halfway across the world with a small ball. He told everyone that the ball holds the spirit of his beloved, but no one truly believed it held anything other than her memory. When no one would help him release his beloved, he went to find a way to release her in his own land, carrying the ball away with him."
I held my breath, my fist still flexing.
"Somehow," Thomas continued, "he succeeded. The spirit of his beloved, a fox, went into the woods without one last glance at him. But he still couldn't let go of her. He couldn't bear the thought of her alone in the woods, and he'd take any form of her he could still have. So he went after her in the woods, always watching out for her, always there behind her just close enough to be able to watch her but not so close that she would be scared away. For as long as she was a fox, he vowed he would stay a wolf and relinquish the man in him that longed for two legs.
"After almost half a century wandering with her, he stumbled into a group of people who had heard the stories he used to tell when he was still searching for help. This beloved of his, you see, is quite something else, not just a common spirit. The lone wolf felt threatened. He gave in to his primal instinct—challenge."
Thomas paused in his story and a wild glint emerged in his eyes. "Do you know the significance of this?"
I slowly released my breath. "You're talking about Duane."
"No, Eiko, I'm talking about you. This is about you all along." He leaned further, craning his head to create a looming shadow over me. A gesture of intimidation. "The challenge he made incited a war. You are the prize of this war, and if you need to blame someone for the casualties of the war, you'd better blame the one who started it. Duane started this."
I shook my head. "He was just trying to protect me. You're the bunch of barbarians."
Thomas barked a laugh, his nose suddenly within an inch from me. "Barbarians?" he hissed. His hand went to my right hand, which was already half-forming into claws, and twisted it backwards. My scream was caught somewhere in my gasp of pain. My wrist—I was sure he had just broken my wrist.
He squeezed it.
I tried to hold back my whimper and failed.
"Look at this fragile thing," he said, holding up my hand as if he were cradling a baby's hand. "So fragile. Such a shame, really." He brushed one of my half-formed claws. "It can be more. You can be stronger."
"Fuck. Off."
He slapped me. "That's not the way to thank someone who is going to help you, my dear."
"Well, I'm sorry, but the word 'thank' is translated into 'fuck' in my dictionary for you. So fuck you very much."
He twisted my bad wrist. I gasped. "Careful there, dear. I may have use of those teeth when you come into your powers later, but I still can sew them shut and open the stitch later only when I need them."
"Wh—what are you going to do to me until then? Lock me here?" I laughed. "It'll be a long time till I come into my powers. I'm still a—" I searched for the word Armand had used. "—baby."
"Ah." Thomas stood up and smiled. The light above us illuminated his deformed face. "True. But you'll grow up in no time."
He went for a black box on the seat he had been sitting on. Turning the lock, he showed me the content. Syringes. Not the mini tranqs Mr. Harrington had used on me earlier. These needles were filled with different kind of liquid.
Thomas took the blue one and held it up for me to see. "This—do you know what this is?"
I'd always believed that rhetorical questions were just meant for those who wanted to hear themselves talk, so I didn't answer.
"This is our key to your perfection, Eiko. The key to our weapon. With just the right dose, you'll be everything we'd always dreamed you to be. Strong and fast like a shifter, capable of magic like a witch—you'll be immortal. Like a god. Unbeatable."
I sneered at him. "So? You think I won't kill you when I'm a god?"
Thomas laughed. "I'm not Frankenstein, my dear. This wasn't even my original idea. The Vigil rebels came up with it to enhance the power the other rebels already yield. This is just an improvisation. We've tested it. It has worked..." He clucked his tongue. "...way too well."
He put the blue syringe back and took out a red one. "That was the key. This, though—this is the lock. We can make you yield into submission with this." He put it back into the box. "But that's not for you. I believe that the predator in you will see the advantage to this. I'm not even asking you to ally with us—that'd be impossible without the injection. But I wouldn't have bothered wasting my time talking to you if I'd wanted to use that."
I eyed him warily.
"You see, my dear. When we use this red injection on you, you will be a shell. Your own mind would be gone. Soulless, paraphysically saying. But the plan we have for you—it involves your soul. We need your soul to activate the fox spirit in you. After that—you'd better cooperate, my dear, or this one will be waiting for you."
I hated myself for not being able to do anything but glare at him at that time.
He studied me for awhile. "You think I'm the bad guy here."
Duh.
"I don't blame you for thinking so, my dear, but let's be realistic—this is politics. No one is bad or good here. What's moral or immoral is our intentions, and even my intention for you is good. It's a great advantage for you. You'll have your powers, and you get to keep your 'soul'." He held out his arms. "See? It all falls into your favor. We just need a little help from you."
"Screw you."
Thomas threw his head back and laughed—I'd like to say that it was an evil laugh, but I was suddenly seeing him with new eyes. He's pathetic. Desperate. "What? Do you think you're doing the right thing by taking Duane's side? My dear, nothing is black and white. If you go to his side you're just playing for the other party. Do you really think he's a saint? For all we know, your true powers emerge, he's going to use you for his own need. You're being manipulated, Eiko. None of us are the good guys or the bad guys. The difference is just that they use lies to keep you, and I say nothing but the truth."
He placed his hands back on the box.
"For the mean time," he said, taking out the last syringe—yellow, "you're going to have a—" I tried to struggle, but he was quicker, holding my arm into place as he pushed the liquid inside my bloodstream. "—long beauty sleep."
Darkness again.
I didn't know what to expect when I woke up, but it certainly wasn't my best friend's boyfriend in chains.
I thought I was still dreaming at first. My head sure still felt groggy. But there he was, his face twisted in pain as he trashed himself to a side like cat drenched with water. It looked like he'd been doing it for awhile.
"Nick?" I couldn't keep the incredulity out of my voice.
He didn't even look at me. "H–help," he said between his gritted teeth. Very, very sharp teeth.
I wanted to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't seeing things, but I realized that my own hands were also in chains, and so were my legs. My gaze flitted to the patch of sunlight from the window, then at him again. Nick was trashing himself away from the sun. Until now, he looked like he'd only succeeded moving about an inch every time he tried.
I guess I was kind of stupid, because it only dawned on me then.
Nick was a vampire.
"How—?" I broke off my own sentence. It looked like he was hurting badly. Better I helped him first, ask later. "I can't help you. I'm also bound." An idea came to me. "Can you drop yourself to a side and roll yourself out of the way from the sun?"
"C–can b–barely talk."
They must have drugged him with something to paralyze him. No wonder he'd only succeeded in moving so little.
To save time, I drop myself instead, finding that my neck and my head were screaming in pain as I rolled myself to Nick. When I was close enough to him, I tugged him by the chain on his legs and started pulling him out of the patch of sunshine. It was a difficult work. I had to slither like a snake with my knees and hands while pulling him at the same time. By the time he went out of the sun's way, I heard him sigh in relief.
"Thanks," he said.
"That's the first time I hear you say that to me. Never mind that. How do we get out of here?"
"There's no way out. We're both in chains. All the ways out are made of silver. The silver chains alone already hurt like a bitch. The bars on the door and window come with high-voltage electrocution system. My...previous cellmate tried it already. Didn't end well." He looked up hopelessly at the ceiling. "There's a square ventilation up there. But as you can see, it's so high up, we might need to be able to fly."
And apparently, flying wasn't one of our mojos. My gaze shifted to the bars. I wouldn't want to try if he was telling the truth.
Defeated, I took a deep breath. "So how long have you been...a vampire?"
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