Duality: Vol 2, Euphoria (A New Adult Paranormal Romance)
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Authors: Elle Casey
Contents
Duality
Volume II
Euphoria
By Elle Casey
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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War of the Fae: Book Three, Darkness & Light
War of the Fae: Book Four, New World Order
Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 1, After the Fall
Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 2, Between the Realms
Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 3, Portal Guardians
Apocalypsis: Book 1, Kahayatle
Duality, Volume I, Melancholia
DEDICATION
To Monie.
My little Influencer puppy, who makes me happy every day with her antics and joie de vivre.
Chapter One: Rae
MALCOLM AND I MOVED APART when Jasmine came back down the hall. As his hands slid away from mine I experienced a sense of loss that was much greater than it should have been, making me wonder if this is how Rainbows feel when I leave them behind. It was weird to think that I was the Rainbow now. I could only hope that Malcolm wouldn’t grow to hate them like I always did.
“Here you go,” Jasmine said, coming into the room and tossing me some pajamas consisting of a t-shirt and a pair of flannel shorts. I caught them and put them on the bed. “They’re not sexy, but they work. Malcolm, you good with your man-jammies?” She pointed to his jeans.
“Yeah, I’ll just wear my clothes. No big deal.”
“Good. So, my parents will be home tomorrow afternoon. They said for us to just chill until they get here. They also said if things get hairy we should head downstairs.”
“Hairy?” I asked. A chill brushed across my arms, making me want to hug myself to get warm. I resisted the urge. Jasmine was being so brave, I figured I should try to have some courage myself.
“You know … parents coming over, cops, nutty chem teachers, dumbass kidnapper jocks, that kind of thing.” She was all business, even though she was talking about ridiculous stuff that shouldn’t have been happening to us.
“Where is it?” asked Malcolm. “The panic room or whatever?”
“Under your feet.”
“I mean, how do we get into it?”
Just hearing him ask the question made me feel safer, like he was ready to get us there if he needed to. The idea of going into a room like that because we were being hunted down by parents or cops or mentally deranged people was kind of blowing my mind, making me feel helpless. I never considered that leaving my parents one day was going to involve this kind of craziness. I always figured I’d just get on a bus and ride until the end of the line or something, fade out into the country somewhere. It all sounded very romantic at the time I’d been thinking it, but now it seemed not only naive but just plain stupid. I had about enough money to buy a bus ticket to the next town over. That’s it.
My heart sank as reality seeped in. This night at Jasmine’s was going to be a temporary pause in what would end up being another move to another town, I just knew it. The idea of leaving Malcolm behind made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to grab him and hug him to me hard, but I didn’t. I just stared at the floor.
“The panic room door location is need to know information, and right now you don’t have the need. Don’t worry. If the time comes, I’ll get you down there. I’ve practiced a zillion times.” She backed out of the room, stopping in the doorway. “You guys need anything else?”
“Toothpaste?” I asked, feeling like a serious pain in the butt.
“In the bathroom, right hand drawer. And you’ll find new toothbrushes under the sink.”
“I don’t want to be too much trouble. I can use my finger.”
“Ew.
Please. Use a toothbrush. I have to share the bathroom, and germs and I don’t get along very well.” Jasmine turned to go, hesitating a few steps out into the hallway. “You guys are going to be fine. My parents will help you, I know they will.”
“Thanks, Jazzy,” I said. “It means a lot, that you’d help us like this when you could get in trouble over it.”
“Ha! I laugh at trouble. Trouble is my bitch. Now go to sleep. We have a big day of doing nothing ahead of us tomorrow. And I have to warn you … there could be Kootch and Ding Dongs involved, so we all need a good night’s sleep for that train wreck.” Jasmine left us alone in the room, closing her door down the hall behind her.
I looked at the clothes on the bed and then at Malcolm. “I guess this is it, then.”
“This is what?”
“This is where we finally find out if we can break away.”
“Not live the same old lives. Day after day,” he said, his voice soft.
“Week after week,” I added.
We smiled at each other. My lips trembled a bit.
“Scared?” he asked, reaching up and taking my arm in a soft grip.
“Yeah. Scared as hell. My parents … you don’t know … they’re freaks. And I have no money saved. Not enough, anyway.”
“At least you have parents and a
little
money.”
I immediately felt like a complete jerk. “I know. I’m lucky. Sorry, that was really insensitive.” Here I am complaining about parents to a kid whose mother killed herself and father drank himself into oblivion.
Shoot me now.
He shrugged, letting my arm go. “No big deal. I can see how people suffocating you and being paranoid all the time would be annoying.” He looked around the room, avoiding eye contact with me.
Searching for a way to get past the embarrassed silence, I moved behind an old-fashioned privacy screen divider that was in the corner of the room, taking the pajamas with me. “It’s not just that. It’s … I can’t even touch them without it causing problems, but they’re always
trying
to touch me, so it’s like we play this game of tag or something. They’re always
It
and I’m always the one trying to get away. I think they come in and touch me when I’m asleep, and I know they sleep on my floor sometimes, too.” I took off my clothes while I talked, pulling the pajamas on when I was in my underwear. The t-shirt was well-worn and smelled of fabric softener. It was so normal it seemed abnormal. Everything in my world was upside down.
“That’s creepy. They actually kind of stalk you at home.” I could tell from the sound of his voice he was facing the door.
“Yeah.” I sighed, feeling guilty that I was talking this way about my parents, even though it was all a hundred percent true. “And I’ve never known if they actually love me or are just addicted to me. I think that’s the worst part. It makes me hate them sometimes, and then I feel like crap for thinking like that.” I stepped out from behind the divider, feeling self-conscious about exposing so much skin in clothes that weren’t meant to be seen by anyone outside of the house.
We stood on opposite sides of the room, looking at the double bed between us. My face heated up as I imagined being in it with him. I didn’t know if it was something he wanted, but a part of me wished we could just get in there together and cling to each other all night. I was so scared right now, and being near Malcolm made me feel stronger. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel totally alone, and I didn’t want the feeling to go away.
He broke the weird mood by getting down on his knees and looking under the bed. A few seconds later, he grunted as he pulled on something. I walked over and got down next to him, helping him get the trundle bed from underneath. It was a twin size with a regular mattress on it.
“So how does this thing work?” he asked, studying it as he stood.
“I think you can just leave it like this, but some of them pop up to be higher with a little lever underneath.”
He grabbed the sheets off the top and shook one out. We did the team effort thing and got them put on. I took the extra blanket off my bed and put it on his.
“There you go. Bed, sweet bed,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.
Malcolm just stared at it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, wondering why he had that look on his face, like he was trying to figure something out or memorize it, maybe.
“I was just thinking how nice it is. Usually my beds are kind of crappy.” He sighed heavily and then seemed to perk up a little. “I’ll go brush my teeth and stuff and then you can have the bathroom … unless you want to go first.”
“No, go ahead.” I climbed onto my bed and laid on my back, staring at the ceiling. “I’ll wait.”
After he left the room, I looked down at his bed, sadness bringing on the melancholy. My beds had always been top-of-the-line. When I was little they were fit for a princess with canopies and drapes and fluffy pink lacy pillows. Now it was luxury all the way for me with Egyptian cotton sheets in huge thread counts and silky to the touch, velvet spreads with hand embroidery. It was so unfair that my life had been about privilege and Malcolm’s had been about doing without. We were opposites in every way, even how we’d been brought up. And yet, neither of us is happy. Does that mean that happiness lies somewhere in the middle? In not having everything but not having nothing either? I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, trying to block out all the confusion. It seemed like the more information I got, the more questions it ended up generating.