Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) (7 page)

In-between
. Like Ava said this morning. “You’re insane.” I say it because I want it to be true, but I know he’s right. I just wish I knew what it meant.

“Did you give yourself that mark?” he asks, pointing to my hand.

“No. I’ve always had it. I don’t even know what it is.”
And it’s growing now, apparently.

“You should move in as soon as possible!” he shouts, making me jump. “Don’t hesitate!” Then he says under his breath, “This house is protected and hidden from anything that would want to harm you from the spirit world. I have done my due diligence in keeping it covered in wards. You will have no worries anywhere you stand on this property. Stay! And bring your sister as well. Today.”

“Today?” A second ago I was figuring I’d have to bargain for a chance to prove myself.

The others look surprised, too.

“We need to make sure you remain in one piece. If the demons find you out, you’ll be in bits before sunset.” Sid points at Kara. “She’ll take you to gather your things and your sister. I’ll let Connor or Jax fill you in on the house rules.” He leaves the room, whistling as he goes out the back door.

The others stare at me. I can only stare back, trying to get my head together.

I’m moving in. With Ava. My sister will be safe, and with me.

That’s all I can focus on right now. Everything else feels too overwhelming. It wasn’t something about the demon that made it able to bite me, it was something about
me
. So it won’t just be
that
demon. It could be any demon. That could bite me. Claw me.

Kill me.

“We should get going,” Kara says, snapping me back.

I look over at her and realize the others have wandered off. It’s just her and me and Finger in the room. He’s still hypnotized by his game.

“I’m fine,” I mumble. “I don’t need you to come.” I head for the front door.

She follows after me. “Sid says I go, so I go.” Even though she says it, she doesn’t seem too sure. There’s a skittishness in her wide-open gaze as she looks at me now, and she’s not getting too close.

I stop before opening the door. “Really, you don’t have to be around me. I can see you’re freaked.”

And she doesn’t even know it all.

Imagine how she’d look at me if she knew I could smell her fear in the air, a slight burnt tinge, or see the evidence of every sex partner she’s ever had on her skin. She’d run screaming in the other direction.

“I’m not freaked,” she says, swallowing. A red spark reflects in her eye.

I raise my brow at her.

“Okay, I’m a little freaked.” She grunts. “I’ll get over it.”

I shake my head. “Fine, come if you want. But know that I can tell when you’re lying.”

She gapes at me again, but follows. If she thinks
I’m
scary, it’ll be interesting to see her reaction when she meets Ava.

EIGHT

It turns out that when Sid said Kara should go with me, he meant she’d drive me. She waves for me to follow her through the kitchen, out the back door, across a long yard. We walk on a dirt pathway through tall weeds—obviously Sid is more concerned with the way the house looks from the front than from the back. A few cans of paint are stacked up beside an old bed frame that rests against a shed.

Earlier, Connor said something about Sid going out to “the shed” to do something. My feet slow a little as I study the small structure. Three heavy padlocks latch it tight, and there’s a small circular symbol of power in red paint at the center of the whitewashed door. It’s a symbol I don’t recognize, but I know instantly that it’s a lock all its own—an anchor, keeping everything inside the structure tied to this plane.
Grounded
. What the hell would that be needed for?

My mouth goes dry as realization settles in. Casting. Casting magic is performed in that crooked shack. I can’t tell from here what type of power is being used, but my stomach feels uneasy anyway.

Kara shouts from the end of the yard, “We need to get this done.”

I turn away from the questions I don’t want to ask about my new benefactor and follow Kara into the garage.

It takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When they do, my jaw drops at the two gorgeous, shiny cars and the motorcycle.

Kara walks beside the closest vehicle, a sleek black Camaro—probably a ’67 or ’68.

I can’t help smiling as I take it in. “This is
your
car?”

“I wish.” She pets the hood, her fingers sliding along the new paint job.

Once we get in, it’s obvious the whole thing’s been refurbished, from the leather bucket seats to the eight-track player holding a blue tape that says
The Carpenters
on one side.

My smile grows as we back out of the garage, the engine rumbling around us. I don’t have to walk, or skate, or ride the heinous bus. It’s perfection. I call Ava, but she doesn’t answer. My guess is that she’s still at her music lessons. I hang up without leaving a message and text her a zero. She’ll know that means I’m on my way to find her: time’s up.

“My sister’s in the summer arts program at Saint Catharine’s Academy,” I say. The Carpenters in the tape deck are singing about birds and love. “Is there something else to listen to? Do you maybe have anything from this millennium?”

Kara snorts. “Wow. Bashing the jam. Not cool, sir.” She pops the eight-track tape out, silencing the groovy bell-bottom orgy. “For your information, Betsy runs better with The Carpenters in her deck.”

“Betsy. The car has a name.”

Kara pulls into the traffic and puts an earbud back in. “Every car has a name. You just have to find it.”

I laugh. “Really. What’s that one’s name?” I point at a white van ahead of us.

She shakes her head. “You can’t seriously expect me to know a stranger’s name. I’d have to hang with the thing, get to know it.”

I watch her profile, the way her chin juts as she speaks, like she’s defending her gift of naming cars. “I see,” I say, deciding to play along. “I’m not a car, but maybe you can guess my name.” ’Cause, weirdly enough, I realize it hasn’t come up yet, not even during that whole meeting with Sid.

She looks sideways at me, like she didn’t realize it either until I mentioned it.

“I know we haven’t really hung out yet,” I say, “but we have, um . . . connected.”

She smirks—almost a smile.

It’s quiet for a second. Then I say, “So it’s more of a vehicular naming power, then?”

She stays silent, but her smirk is definitely a smile now, and warmth fills my fingers and toes with my accomplishment.

“If you can’t do it, it’s fine,” I say, “but at least admit it.”

“I’m leaning toward
Asshat
. Am I close?”

I laugh. “You’ve got the first letter right.”

“Points for me.”

I see she’s not going to ask, so I say, “It’s Aidan. Aidan O’Linn.”

“I was feeling a lion, actually,” she says. “Well, several of them. For your name. I was gonna say Daniel.” She glances sideways at me again. “Like Daniel in the lions’ den.”

My skin tingles. “Daniel,” I repeat under my breath. My mom painted that scene on my bedroom wall when I was little. She painted me in the den, lions surrounding me, Daniel a shadowy figure off in the distance. I always wondered why she drew him like that.

Mom runs her hand over the lion’s image, like she’s pretending its mane is trailing through her fingers. “The lions won’t touch you, Aidan. They can’t hurt you. God’s closed their mouths.”

When Mom drew her dream images, she drew a lot of ocean scenes with caves etched out of the side of a cliff, but the only time she mentioned God in relation to it all was the day she painted those lions on my wall. She was a witch, after all. God didn’t really come into the picture much.

The familiar weight of the memory presses down on me. I wonder if she was trying to tell me something, to show me my future as she saw it in her fractured mind: danger always surrounding me. Danger only I seem to see.

“Daniel’s okay in the end, though,” Kara says, like she’s sensing my troubled thoughts.

“What?”

“Daniel, in the story. He doesn’t get eaten by the lions.” She shrugs. “And the king—Dairy Queen or whoever—was so stoked that Daniel was unmarked by the lions that he made the people start worshiping Daniel’s god. I guess you could say Daniel was a rock star.”

“Is that right?” I know the story—it’s ingrained in my soul with all the other sacred texts—but her version is very entertaining. “And it’s Darius, not
Dairy Queen
. King Darius.”

“Yeah, sure. But did you know that Daniel was the head magician? Who knew they had Harry Potter people in the
Bible
?”

“He was a prophet,” I say, correcting her again.

“Whatever you call it, he kicked ass. The guy went into the palace a slave and ended up a Babylonian bigwig. Very inspiring.”

It’s odd hearing the prophet Daniel talked about like he was some Middle East version of Steve Jobs. “Bigwig, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Inspiring?”

“Something like that.”

She goes quiet as we merge onto the 101 freeway. I let my mind wander through the ancient worlds and legends in my head as I watch the scenery of the city, the buildings, the funny mismatched moods of art and culture everywhere. Life meets death in the paintings that adorn the concrete walls on either side of the freeway—the artwork of famous people, long dead; some images colorful and new; some overlaid with chaotic graffiti; the names of gang members as big as buses, painted alongside images of children jumping rope.

“So, Aidan O’Linn,” Kara says as we pull off the freeway, “what’s your sister’s name?”

I rest my head on the back of the seat. “Ava.”

“And she doesn’t have your
talents
?”

“Ava’s nothing like me.”

Kara seems to know where the school is without me telling her, and after a few more lights we’re pulling into the busy parking lot.

“Which side?” she asks. The campus is large, at least two city blocks of buildings and grassy areas.

I scan the faces in the crowd, try to get a feeling for the emotions and energy I’m about to dive into, and point at the back corner of the lot where there aren’t as many cars. “Just park back there, under the trees.”

“Are we about to kidnap this girl?”

“She’s my sister.”

“Maybe I should leave the motor running.” She parks the car and turns off the engine.

We get out, but I don’t move far. Kara’s right, this is a little sketchy. And once I take Ava, we’ll have to hide—her foster parents will call the police when they realize she’s disappeared, and it’s not like we can get in touch with them and explain what’s going on. Ava’s never had to hide, not like me. She’s always had a bed, food, and running water. She’s never had to depend on me like she’s about to.

Kara waits in silence, maybe sensing my nerves.

“She’s got music classes. Over there.” I point across the parking lot to a building on the west side of campus. “I don’t think her foster parents send the car until three thirty because she stays for extra practice hours. So we’ll have a good hour to cover our tracks.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?”

I chew on my lip, trying to decide if I should tell Kara what I’m about to do. She’s going to figure out about Ava eventually. But I really don’t want that guy Sid to know anything, or he’ll be looking at Ava the way he looked at me: like merchandise. “Just trust me. And don’t ask questions.”

I bend down, pretending to tie my shoe to buy me a second. I focus my thoughts on Ava, pushing an image of myself out there, into the air, hoping she hears me:
I’m coming
. Then I stand and start toward the west buildings. Kara follows. We move through a line of BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes, and I ignore the stuff around me as much as I can. There’s a sleek wraith of a demon to my left following a young girl in a blue blazer who’s getting into the back of a black Lincoln; there’s a wash of envy and desperation coming from a tall brunette, about sixteen, who’s waiting for her ride as she stares down a bouncy blond walking by hand in hand with a guy with floppy hair.

I try to focus on Ava, on where she might be. I can’t let her music tutor see me pick her up, so I need her to meet us halfway, maybe near the bathrooms. I picture the hall and the door to the bathrooms as I remember them, and then I push the image out to her as hard as I can.

“You all right?” Kara says.

“Fine.” I unclench my fists and try to relax, hoping my messages were received.

“You look like you’re about to flip out. I’m not really in the mood to get arrested, so just be aware that I’ll deny knowing you if this goes bad.”

“Calm down,” I mumble, trying to convince myself I’m not freaking out, that the ghost of a young girl in the window to my right isn’t making my flesh crawl. That I’m not worried I’ll screw this up and the system will swallow both of us again.

Kara looks at me sideways. “Wise words.”

We cross a grassy area and walk through an arched walkway with climbing roses. The mood in the air changes with the shift in our surroundings, and the lacy sunlight softens the jagged edges of my nerves.

I glance at Kara; her eyes are half closed, like she can feel the calming energy from this place, too. “Thanks for the ride,” I say.

She gives me a questioning look.

“I mean I’m just glad I’m not doing this alone.”

She considers me for a second and then says, “It’s gonna be fine, kid. Really.”

I wish she hadn’t said that. Statements like that perk the ears of mischief-makers.

We leave the peaceful archway and go through the double doors, into the wide hall.

Where I collide with a gaggle of chattering girls.

Books fall, squeals erupt, and I lurch away, trying to avoid stepping on any toes, only to lose my balance and land firmly on my ass. Of course
.

Kara’s quickly distanced herself—she’s already down the hall, by the lockers. No one would guess she was with the klutz that just barreled in. The guy trying not to be noticed.

“Ohmygod, you okay?” one of the girls asks.

“You almost broke my phone, you freak!” another one screeches as she tightens her shiny lips and messes with her iPhone.

The third one in the group starts picking up some books. She reaches down with ink-stained fingers to grab the one by my hand—the one that I’m now gaping at:
Art and the Psychic Mind
.

My mom had that book.

A shiver runs over my skin.

The third girl gasps, her hand gripping the spine of the massive tome. “It’s you!”

I look up at her, and my lungs stop working.

Rebecca.

Holy shit
. I might have said it out loud. I’m not sure.

I’m frozen for a second. And then I’m all movement, scrambling up, grabbing the last few books off the floor, handing them back to her as I babble out an apology. My brain screams at me to get the fuck out of here, and I tense my legs to bolt. But before I can move away, she’s suddenly closer, whispering, “How did you find me?” her emerald eyes wide with amazement.

She thinks I’m here for her.

Her copper hair is almost gold in the thin beams of light coming through the doorway behind us now, her skin is milky white, porcelain, and little freckles dot her nose. My heart begins to race as the familiar smell of mango shampoo fills the air.

“You know this freak?” iPhone Girl asks, looking me over like I’m a pile of trash.

The other girl blinks at me and then gives me a crooked grin. “Emery, introduce us,” she says, using the middle name from Rebecca’s ID—the name she said everyone calls her.

Another girl seems to come from nowhere. “Oh, hey, he’s cute. Who’s this?”

iPhone Girl smirks. “The asshole who owes me a new phone.”

Rebecca just stares at me. “I . . .” She’s probably realizing she doesn’t know my name.

I’m not about to give it, since I came here for a kidnapping.

“I . . . I met him at a club,” Rebecca finally gets out, questions surfacing in her eyes. “SubZero.”

iPhone Girl looks doubtful. “Seriously. This guy?”

The other girls just keep smiling. One bites her bottom lip, the second licks a lollypop suggestively, like a bad cliché.

Something seems to dawn on Girl #2, because her eyes get huge. “Oh, God! Is this one of the guys you met the other night? From USC?”

iPhone Girl rolls her eyes. “Does he look like frat meat, Samantha?” She scrunches up her nose like she’s smelling garbage again. “More like Reseda Community College.”

I turn to Rebecca at the mention of the other guys she met at the club—those guys in the alley. “You knew them,” I say without thinking. College boys. How the hell did she get mixed up with a bunch of USC frat boys? Fresh anger rises at my memory of them, at the way they manhandled her, that guy with the mark of murder on his soul . . .

But wait—I don’t even really know this girl. I take a breath and push the anger back down.