Burdened (A Burdened Novel) (11 page)

I spot Glen’s face first, which is half-showing; the other half is buried in a chest. Shining the light over the chest and following the body, Scott’s face presents itself.
Mr. Don’t
, in the flesh, doing.

They’re fully-clothed, so they weren’t doing anything. They are sleeping, and I don’t want to bother them. If they wake up and have to leave, I know Scott will take care of her and not let anything happen to her. That’s just the type of guy Scott is, even if he wasn’t into Glen.

I look back at Glen, seeing a small snowflake-like shape under her right eye. Now, I’ve never seen that before. I ignore it for now, making a mental note to bring it up later.

I walk back downstairs, tripping over the last two, looking for Andrew. The house is pretty much empty now.
“Hey, Andrew?”

“Hey, I’m in the kitchen.”

Andrew is throwing bottles into a trash bag that he’s lugging around. “Hey, you sure you don’t need any help?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I made the guys from the baseball team give me their word they would come over tomorrow to help. But I may have most of it done tonight.”

I start grabbing things, throwing them in his trash bag as he spoke. “Um, it looks like Glen and Scott fell asleep in your bed.”

He looks at me, shocked, eyes wide. “Scott!” he exaggerates.

“Yeah,” I answer, moving to the island that sits in the middle of his kitchen. I stack cups and paper plates to be thrown away. “They were in a deep sleep too, and I kind of didn’t want to wake them.”

He comes over with the bag. “It’s okay, just let them sleep.” He throws the things I stacked in the trash bag. “I’ll just sleep in our spare room. Did they at least have their clothes on?”

I laugh at his question. “Yeah, they were fully-clothed and on top of the covers.” I straighten up the kitchen, putting things back in their place—well, where I thought there place should be. “I saw a throw lying across the end of the bed and threw it over them. They just looked so sweet and comfortable laying there. They looked perfect.” I stop, thinking about my words. They really did look contented together.

“That’s okay. They’ll be fine ‘til I kick them out in the morning. I hope he came in a separate car, because the guys he came with left.” He stops cleaning. “Speaking of the guys he came with, what happened with that guy who came out to talk to you? You
know, your not-friend?”

“I risked the risk.” I think.

“And that means?” He looks at me with scrunched, low eyes.

“Honestly, I don’t quite know.” I look around the kitchen and see that we are about finished. “But I don’t care.”

He smiles at my stupidity. “Okay…I mean, you don’t know until you know, right?”

“Right,” I respond. “So what room is next?”

“None. I’m done for the night. I’m going to kick everybody out of my backyard, lock all the doors, and go to sleep. I might even go pick up Angela and ask her to spend the night.”

“I didn’t know you had a thing for Angela.”

“I wouldn’t call it
a thing
. But I would say we do a
thing
. From time to time, that is.”

Laughing, I say, “That is so disgusting.”

When I make it home, I jump in the shower, exhausted. I put on some fitted joggers and a t-shirt that says ‘9:30 is my bed time.’ Before I had left Andrew’s, I had helped him get most of the people out and checked on Glen. Because she isn’t here, I go to my room, leaving the bedding downstairs in the family room. If my mom sees it, she’ll probably be pissed, because we aren’t sleeping down there, yet I left everything in the floor. She hates things to look a mess.

I climb in my bed, feeling tired and comfortable. I close my eyes, ready for sleep to take me, until his words claim the vacancy in my head: ‘Wait for me.’ I will do that. But then the words, ‘Risk your life and I’ll risk mine,’ fill every corner of my mind.

Why am I willing to risk it? Why is he so worth it? Why does he have this addictive effect on me? And why can’t I—

My window ticks by a couple of rocks hitting it, bringing me from my thoughts. I walk over to the window. Nathan is looking up at me.

I run down the stairs, out our back door, and into his arms. It feels weird to be this happy to see someone, like I had not seen him in years, when it was really only hours. I still can’t understand it. I just know that it’s something I want, and I am happy that I am finally getting it.

“Missed me?” he asks, letting me hug him.

I pull back, realizing that may have been too much. “Hi.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“A little,” I answer truthfully.

“Your mom home?”

“I’m not sure. Why?”

“Can we go inside your house?” I give him a suspicious look. “I’m not trying to try anything with you. I promise. I just want you to be able to rest while we talk. There is a lot we need to talk about, and I don’t want you standing outside in the cold.”

I lace my fingers through his right hand with my left, and pull him in the direction I had come. Not sure if my mom is home yet or not, I look at him with a face that tells him to stay quiet. He nods.

We have a quiet house; our floors do not creek and our walls don’t wine. I love it. I trust that Nathan will not try anything, not that I would even try to stop him if he did. But I have been in the dark for too long and I am ready to know what the hell is going on.

I walk us to my room—no family room for him; he is welcome in all my space. I close and lock the door behind us. My mom knows, if my door is locked, I really don’t want to be bothered. I can worry about my ‘Glen not being here’ story later.

Speaking of Glen… “Scott was asleep with my friend in Andrew’s bed,” I say in a hushed voice.

He turns to me. He doesn’t seem surprised, but he’s caught off-guard by the information. “You saw this tonight?” he asks, looking around my room. “Is that why your friend is not here?”

“Yes. They were snuggled tightly next to each other in the bed and I didn’t want to disturb them.”

He nods as he scans my room again. “Okay.” He walks over to the chaise. In my room, I have a chaise, bed, and desk chair. “Come here,” he says smoothly, sitting down on the chaise. Butterflies fill my stomach once again.

I pull the comforter from my bed before joining him. Surprisingly, it is big enough to wrap around us comfortably. We sit with his legs on the floor and mine lying over his lap. I lean against the armrest and one of his arms rests behind me, loosely wrapped around my lower back, his touch warming, bringing me a sense of comfort.

We sit here for a while, neither of us saying anything. It upsets me that he isn’t jumping right into whatever it is we need to talk about. My brain is racing over whys and whats, and maybe a couple of whos. I’m confused and slightly irritated because of all the secrets.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

“For what?”

“For choosing me.”

“Choosing you? Why wouldn’t I?”

He takes a while to answer me. I wait patiently. “Tracey, I’m not normal.”

“Not normal.” I chuckle. I don’t take him seriously.

“You should take me seriously,” he says, like he’s in my head.
“Because I am.”

I turn my head, slowly looking at him, shocked by what I just heard. “What are you saying?”

“Saying a lot without saying anything at all.”

I remember thinking that when he said those ‘piss me off’ words, “Don’t Tracey,” which I despised. “You’re in my head. Why?”

“I’m not normal.”

“And!”
He is going to have to give me more than that.

“What more are you looking for?”

“All!”

“How about you ask me your questions, and then I’ll answer them and possibly provide a little extra information along the way?”

“Or, you could tell me everything and I can get my answers along the way.”

“Okay Tracey, I’ll be honest with you.” He clears his throat and straightens his back slightly. “I don’t really know where to start or how to explain this.” He rubs his hand over his chin. “I’ve never had to before, so I don’t know what to say. I have asked a few others about how I should go about explaining this, but no person is the same, and everybody responds differently to information and situations.”

“Okay, continue,” I say expectantly, after his pause takes longer than I can stand.

“You are a down-to-earth person, and from what I’ve got from you already, you’re calm and willing to understand.”

“Right.” I move my hand in a ‘keep going’ motion.

“I just need you to make this a little easier on me.”

“And that would be by me asking you the questions first? Giving you a runway?”

“Yes.”

I nod. “Okay, I can do that.” He grabs my hand. I let him, studying his hand as my fingers follow his veins through his hand to his wrist. “Why are you in my head? What can you hear?”

He breathes. “It means we are meant to be together. When we first entered each other’s presence, you were marked on all of me—my heart, mind, body, and soul—and me on you. I wasn’t expecting it, but it happened. Because of the marking, and my need and desire to know you, I’m able to be inside your head. I can hear more than what you want me to, but you can also block me out, if you want, just by closing off your mind to me.”
And I can be in your head like this as well.
I look at him curiously, hearing his voice in my mind without him speaking.

“How did you do that?”

“It is a gift of my family. If you choose to stay with me and become a part of my family, you will get it as well.”

“So you all can talk to each other in your minds?”

“Yeah. It comes in handy in certain predicaments.”

“Okay. I can’t stand to be away from you because all of me
wants you.”

“Yes.”

“So why resist me before, if you knew the way you felt about me?”

“And that’s the part I don’t know how to explain. See—” He takes his hand from me and scoots over. I don’t get why he is doing it again—moving away from me. “I’m only moving away from you because, by my touch, I can influence your feelings and thoughts. And when I tell you this, I want you to hear your own thoughts and have your own feelings. And
not
be influenced by the way
I
want you to feel.” He responds to my thought.

I’m going to watch what I think, moving forward.

“You can be yourself around me, you know.”

“I do. But continue with the hard part as to why you resisted me, and if you can, throw in why it’s a risk.”

He looks at me and nods as he gathers his thoughts. “I’m not fully human, Tracey. Actually, I’m not human at all, I only look the part. I could tell you what legends say and what myths suggest. But when compared to the truth, they do not compare.” He looks at me staring back at him.

“I’m a burdened Sephlem.” He pauses for a long moment. “What makes me burdened is that I’m…tainted…by demon’s blood.”

“Sephlem?”
Demon’s blood
!?

“That’s the name of my people, like many other allegorical creatures. We have stayed under the radar, while others have failed. Keeping who we are a secret has been hard for us, but we do what we have to do. We can be dangerous when necessary, and we have abilities that go beyond natural human abilities. There’s a full race of us, but only the families are mentally connected.” He looks at me to see if I’m following him.

I nod.

“Now,” he continues, “what makes the sum of us that are mixed with demon a risk is that sometimes the danger that is within us, we cannot control. This is what scares the hell out of Scott, and made me think twice about pursuing you.

“Growing up, we all heard stories about how the burdened Sephlem would find their mates and would later murder them out of anger, jealousy, hurt, or just letting the inner-beast consume them.” I maintain my calm as I listen to him. “Then there are some Sephlems, and a few other creatures, who want the burdened Sephlems, and our mates, dead. They believe we are a danger to ourselves, our mates, and the world.”

“How are they a danger to themselves? Well, you?”

“Well—” He grabs my hand, using the comforter, and brings it to his chest. “Now, place your other hand to your chest.” I do. “They feel the same?” I nod with a confused expression. “That is because my heart was replaced by yours. Your heart beats for me and for you. And what happens when you don’t have a heart?”

“You die.”

“Precisely. Although, this hasn’t happened for a while. But about a year ago, there were two burdened Sephlem cases. Many started to panic again, and some burdened Sephlems, hybrid Sephlems, and full-blooded Sephlems turned up missing—and others, dead.” I pull my hand from his chest.

“And that’s the danger of being with you?”

“Yes, that’s the danger in choosing a life with me. But Scott and I, our part of our family, were raised differently. They taught us, young, how to control it and, knowing that it was a part of us, how to not let it control us. They taught us how to not be consumed.” He takes a long pause. I assume he’s gathering his thoughts.