Darksoul (31 page)

Silence.

“It’s sweet, you know.” My voice was still quiet. “What you do for each other. But for the love of God, leave me out of it. I’m not a gift to be given. I mean, I’m flattered. Really. Okay. I’m not. Just—” The floor grew blurry. Damn it. “I don’t want to see you anywhere near me for three weeks. Make that two months.”

Before they could respond, I yanked the glass doors open and stepped into the balcony, letting a shiver ripple over me before l
ocking myself against the cold.

“Oh,” I said, realizing. “I almost forgot.”

Turning around, I pulled Ash’s shirt over my head, balled it up, and threw it straight at his face. It flopped there and slid to the ground. I would’ve gone back to get my dress, but firstly, I didn’t feel like it, and secondly, I didn’t think I could bear to be here any longer. Hunter looked as if he badly needed a smoke. At this whole situation, at the fact that I was only wearing a bra and a pair of panties—I wasn’t sure.

Ash’s eyes were downcast. “Zel,” he said quietly.

I jumped on the snow-encrusted ledge. It was steel and slick and felt icy under my bare soles; a quick adjustment and the sensation was gone. Looking down at him, I said, “Yes?”

“Can you handle the
nine-floor fall?”

I blinked
at him. “Why, Asher. Are you doubting your own teachings?”

He said nothing. Hunter had a cigarette in his mouth and was lighting up, a crease between his brows.

“To put it in cheesy movie words,” I said, and gave him a smile that was all ice, “I’m unbreakable.”

I took a step back and let the air swallow me whole.

Three weeks.
They lasted three weeks.

It’d been hard, going home in my underwear without shoes, but I managed it. Darting between trees, trying not to be seen, going as fast as my Nephilim genes would allow—I was sure no one had caught
a glimpse of me.

I snuck in through
my room’s window and collapsed in my bed. Mom found me there, half-naked, feet still dripping with melted snow. She right away came in and gently asked if I was okay. Nothing about last night. It was as if she didn’t know. Or as if it’d been wiped from her memory. Should I be thankful or pissed?

I decided to
be neither. I needed to think.

Ash had given me the rings. The bracelets. And now, every time I looked back on
the training sessions, it was him I saw: hugging me after the building-jumping exercise and burying his face into my hair, planting
vaehn
marks against my shoulder, gracefully evading my thrusts. Hunter had done the appearance-switching stunt once, and I was less mad at him. Still, this whole situation had my nerves frazzled.

During their absentee t
hree-week period, they didn’t go to school. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved about that or not. Maybe I was worried that someone would notice their absence, that the weirdness would catch on. But strangely enough, not even Sumi commented on it.

In the second week of March
, I found the little gadget sitting on my nightstand, its screen dark and smooth. A pair of buds was hooked to it, and under it, a note awaited me with one simple word.

More.

It was Ash’s unmistakable dismal scrawl. I almost threw the whole thing to the trash. But then I realized the paper was folded, and when I opened it, the sight of tens and tens of composers greeted me: names I’d never heard of, sans Bach. I was tempted to fling it out the window. Crush it under my shoe. But he’d hit me in my soft spot, and I put it back where I found it, doing so as carefully and primly as possible. I wouldn’t listen to it. I wouldn’t.

I listened to it.

It wasn’t because Ash gave it to me. Cello music won over anything. Even anger.

That night, I stood on
the roof of my house, gaze fixed on the ground below. A warm spell had passed through and most of the snow had melted, leaving the grass slick and full of slush. The Amelian gun was tucked into the waistband of my jeans, safety engaged. I wondered if I’d ever get to kill demons with it. If I’d ever get to learn. Even though it was useless to me, I still liked to have it around. Its reassuring pressure felt nice and cool against my hip.

I sighed.

Suddenly, there was a soft rustle behind me. So soft I barely caught it. An ever-familiar waft of cigarette smoke brushed past me, curling into the dark gray sky.

“You called me?” said Ash.

I hadn’t. But I wondered how he’d known I’d been waiting for him—not for someone else. “Thanks for the music,” I said.

There was a moment of silence. Then, in a quiet voice: “Anytime.”

I hated that tone. The one he was using right now. It was soft, strangely vulnerable, and it left me feeling as if I were the bad guy here. As if I were the one who needed to forgive, when I had every damn right to be angry.

I dug my nails into my palms. Hard. “Can I ask you a question?”

He waited.

Casting him a sidelong glance over my shoulder, I asked, “How many instruments can you play?”

“Just the two.”

The drums and the viola. An interesting mix. After a pause, I said, “I see.”

“Zel…”

I kept my voice even. “You should leave. I just wanted to thank you for the gift.”

“I need to clear up something first.”

Oh, God.
“What could you possibly—”

But he was already in front of me, a swirl of shadows and black wisps curling around him before coiling away into the
dark. Frowning, I took a step back. He stood on a slice of ceahel, monstrous wings arched behind him, the sharp tips of his feathers glinting like the edges of a hundred blades. He looked, I thought, like Lucifer’s right-hand man—down to the cigarette in his mouth. Panther did nothing to detract from the image. In fact, she enhanced it.

“Hmm,” murmured Ash
, cocking his head to the side. “I wonder if it’s possible for you to hate me more than you already do.”

Me? Hate him? Clearly he didn’t know how the stupid teenage heart worked. “There’s a difference
between anger and hate, Evans,” I said coldly. “So—”

Suddenly, my
mouth clamped shut without my permission, cutting me off. An icy sensation rippled down my body and locked it in place. Shit. No matter how much I tried to move or speak, I couldn’t. I felt as if I were trapped. As if I were suffocating.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His eyes looked sincere.

Apology so not accepted!
I wanted to scream.

He glided closer on
the
ceahel
, so close that all I saw was his chest and the part of Panther that slithered around his collarbone. Straining against his hold, I tried to lean away, but stayed helplessly frozen as he bent down to meet my gaze.

“I can’t have you fight me,” he said, and
soft amusement tugged up the corner of his lips. “Or punch me in the face.”

I stopped struggling.

“It’ll be a quick one.” He leaned even closer, lashes falling. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at my nose or at my mouth. “Promise. I’m just going to…”

He closed the distance between us
.

It was a gentle thing, his kiss. Hesitant lips, as if he wasn’t sure he should be doing it like this, holding me against my will.
A muffled sound of alarm escaped me. My heart pounded a thousand miles an hour. Something in me wanted to be able to move so I could respond, could swoon and do the stupid shit I would’ve done a month ago. But now, all I wanted was to gain ahold of myself so I could pull back and backhand him on the face. I didn’t want this. Not after—
C-Crack.

I froze.

A thousand
images flickered in front of my eyes. Heat. Fire. In the hallways, in his car, in my room. His lips on mine, gentle and burning and slow, sometimes rough and hungry, tongue piercing tickling the extremities of my mouth. But there were other memories, too: him holding me, wrapping his arms around me and telling me that I needed to do nothing, that all I had to do was stay still inside his embrace. And then there was that time I remembered, pushed him away, and—
Movement exploded back into my limbs. I reached up and shoved him so hard that he almost slid off
the
ceahel
. My hands were flying, sliding and unsheathing, and—
The point of
my sword pierced the center of his chest, keeping him more than an arm’s length from me. I was breathing hard. My mouth burned, tasted of cigarettes and caramel and winter, and I wished—God, how I wished—that it didn’t seem so sweet, the taste, that it didn’t leave me wanting more.

“I could ask why,” I said
. My hand shook around the hilt of the sword, making the blade tremble, and I unsuccessfully tried to steady it. “I could ask why, but I won’t.”

He said nothing.

Tears welled in my eyes and I clenched my teeth in an attempt to hold them back. “You don’t think I know what this is? This is just one of your stupid games. A stupid game you played with me. And if I ask you why you did it, I know what you’ll say.
It
was for fun, Zel. I was just playing around, Zel. It meant nothing, Zel.”

“I would say that, yes.”

“Just answer me this one question.” The tears started to fall. “How big of a fucking joke am I to you?”

He
faltered. Then, quietly: “Zel—”

I gestured wildly with my sword. “I mean, you want me to be with Hunter, you don’t want me to be with Hunter. You hug me, you don’t hug me, you kiss me, you hide it from my memory—are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack? It’s not cute! It’
s not romantic! I get it, Ash—you have no feelings for me and you didn’t want me to remember so I didn’t get my hopes up. But—”

His face soften
ed. Just a little. “I didn’t want you to remember because I’m a selfish ass.”

“Okay, see—there you go again. Do me a favor and stop sending mixed signals. Please. If there’s anything you do with your life, learn how to not fuck with somebody and their feelings. That’d be greatly—”

He said something in Russian.

“What?” I said
, reaching up to wipe my cheeks.

Pushing my
weapon aside, he glided closer, his wings trailing behind him like a cape of tapered steel. I wanted to aim the blade at him. Keep him at a plausible distance. But he started speaking Russian again, first in a quiet voice, and then in an endless, agitated rush. He ran his hand through his hair, taking bothered drags of his cigarette. Suddenly, I realized—he was frustrated.

“No, please,” I said
, sniffling. “Slow the hell down and start over. In English, if you could.”

He stared at me for a moment before
continuing his rant. His words flew over me, melting into an exotic-sounding, exasperating mush. I tried to pretend I was following along but soon found myself lost. After what seemed like forever, Ash said, “And I just—”

He finished
the sentence in Russian. Then, at long last, he met my eyes, dragged a tired hand down his mouth, asked something I couldn’t understand. He was still in far Eurasia mode, and I stared at him. Blankly. He cocked his head at me, as if waiting for a response.

“I don’t know what you just said.” I reached up and grabbed his jaw and tilted his
face down so I could look straight into his eyes. “But here’s my answer: no. To whatever you just said: no. And just so we’re clear, I still don’t want to see you anywhere near me for the next two weeks. Or maybe the next year.”

“Good,” he said, and h
is voice softened. “Because I already said everything I wanted to say.”

A myriad of shadows enveloped him and he was gone.

As if they’d planned to come in succession, Hunter visited me a couple of days after that. On Saturday, while Mom was out for work and I was alone. I’d come home after a much-needed photography outing, dragged myself upstairs, opened the door to my room—
And stopped.

Hunter was leaning against my desk. He was looking down at an open sketchpad—his, I guessed, because I’d hid mine under the bed (like I’d ever want anybody to see my terrible art)—and had a thin paintbrush tucked behind one ear. White-blond tufts fell over his eyes, obscuring his lashes. He glanced up when he heard me. Right away he straightened and closed the paint-caked book, sliding it under a tattooed arm.

“Hazel,” he said.

I slammed the door shut and started down the hallway. But before I made it to the stairs, a band of
zokyies
appeared in front of me, revealing him in their midst. They wriggled and winked out of sight, curling into the air as if they were nothing more than slips of light.

That proved to me
he secretly wasn’t Ash, the fact that the
zokyies
had gotten so comfortable with him. But I wasn’t convinced. Warily, I said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d show me—”

“Yes.” Ice shards rippled down his arm,
elongating it until the needlepoint tip scraped against the floor. He lifted Syizhael and eased the hair off my shoulder. An unpleasant shiver slid over me. As if he could tell that I wasn’t enjoying it, he let the ice morph back, fold into itself, and turn into his hand once again—the scarred hand I was more than used to seeing. Then he brushed the back of his forefinger against my jaw, a gentle caress. “Do you believe it’s me now?”

“I believe you need to stop touching me.”

Out of all the things he could’ve done, he laughed. Quietly, like he always did—as if he were trying to keep it to himself. I’d yet to see him laugh like a hyena. Or like me.

“Listen, I actually—” I took a step back. “I’m not mad at you. You only did it once. The stupid turning-into-Ash thing. So—you’ve been pardoned. Go on. Be happy. And come back to school sometime.”