Inception (The Marked Book 1) (8 page)

“I’m fine,” I said as he rushed over to me. My voice had surprised even me. It sounded far too shaky and weak to be mine.

“You don’t look fine,” he said as he bent down and scooped me up off the floor and into his arms.

I didn’t have the strength to fight him off. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. Instead, I just wrapped my arm around his neck and resigned myself as he carried me out of the storeroom and into the private employee washroom.

“What happened? Did you black out?”

“I don’t know,” I said dimly as he placed me down onto the chair. He grabbed a hand towel from the cupboard and turned on the facet, soaking it under the cold running water.

I could see his expression through the mirror, his face stirring with an array of emotions I couldn’t quite decipher.

He returned to my side with the wet towel in his hand and bent down on the tiled floor before me. The fact that this was the second time that Trace Macarthur was kneeling down at my feet did not escape me.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he carefully wiped the sweat from my face. The cool wet cloth felt good against my skin.

“I think so,” I sighed, letting my eyes close.

“Does anything hurt?”

I shrugged, looking down at my torso and limbs, twisting my left arm around, and then my right. Shit. Blood—
my
blood.

“Oh my God, I’m bleeding!” I said stupidly.

He cupped his hand around my arm and held it out, examining the wound with careful eyes. His skin was considerably hotter than mine—if that was even possible—and even though the added heat should have bothered me, it didn’t.

“It’s just a scrape, you’ll survive,” he said quietly. “I’ll get a bandage.”

“It all happened so fast,” I noted, mostly to myself. “I guess I’m coming down with the flu or something.”

He got up and tossed the towel into the sink. “Yeah, or something,” he said, sounding frustrated.

I couldn’t tell where the aggravation was coming from but it was making me feel uncomfortable, like I was some sort of burden to him. The whole idea seemed ridiculous since I never asked for his help to begin with. I contemplated saying something to that effect but decided against it being that he was my boss’s son and all.

He opened up the bottom cabinet and pulled out a first aid kit and then returned to my side, pushing both his hands through his hair as he cleared the view in front of his eyes. His midnight black hair falling just short of his broad shoulders.

“Let me see your arm,” he said without making eye contact. His thick lashes fanned out, shielding those incredible eyes.

I held out my arm to him and looked away for a distraction. I found one in the chair I was sitting on and began picking away at a loose piece of material as he cleaned and bandaged my wound.

Neither one of us filled the silence.

“It’s probably that spell,” he finally said in a barely-there voice. He was still kneeling on the floor in front of me, picking up the scattered first aid supplies.

My eyes reduced to slits. “What did you say?”

He raised his eyes to mine, unreadable in every way. “That fainting spell that’s been going around,” he clarified. “Maybe you should take the rest of the day off.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. I feel much better.”

His mouth opened as though he were going to say something else, argue the point perhaps, but he just pressed his lips together and nodded instead.

After taking a few minutes to straighten myself out in the washroom, I headed back into the storeroom to pick up the napkins I’d gone in to get in the first place—before the room decided to go haywire on me. When I came back out, I found Trace in a heated discussion with his father at the foot end of the hall.

I could hardly make any of it out, though I could tell right away it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. From Trace’s rutted brows to his sharp hand gestures and quick body movements, everything about it screamed hostility. For a second, it looked like he might actually come to blows.

His father, on the other hand, was the polar opposite. His stance was relaxed and his movements fluid and calming. It was clear he was trying to tame the beast—his loose cannon of a son—and by the looks of it, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

I approached cautiously, like I was coming upon two animals in the wild, careful not to disturb them or make any sudden movements. That is, until I heard my name being spoken and then my back stiffened.

Why the heck were they talking about me?

What could they possibly be discussing about
me
that would have Trace so fired up? Was he angry that I fainted in the storeroom? Was he was worried that I’d become some kind of work liability? Something wasn’t adding up. Trace didn’t strike me as the type to worry about things like that. It had to be a mistake, I decided, though I continued moving forward slowly, absolutely intent on
accidentally
overhearing their conversation.

“Karl has the final decision,” I heard Peter say, prompting me to move even faster now, to get as close as I could.

I made it all of three steps before Peter spotted me and quickly put the air brakes on in an effort to quiet his son. His resolve was nothing short of suspicious and only confirmed that they were
definitely
talking about me.

Trace glanced back, though his head barely turned halfway in my direction before he got the message and aborted the conversation, escaping into the main hall instead.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on—here, at home, with my uncle—and I was over it. I was over the shady conversations, the secret phone calls, the cryptic explanations, the weird stares, all of it. They were hiding
something
, of this I was sure, and I was determined to figure out exactly what that was.

It was time to start tearing off the blinders.

9. revelations

The vast gray expanse was casting an abundance of misery all around us as the unrelenting rain hammered down onto the house, leaving no window untouched or ray of light obliterated. Mondays were painful—an unusual form of punishment where we were forced to pay restitution for all the horrible things we did on the weekend. Or so it goes. This particular one was already proving to be a colossal comedown before it even began.

My uncle sat in his usual chair reading the morning paper as I sloshed my cereal around feeling almost as disorderly on the inside as everything was outside. My mind was on spin-cycle.

Dominic never made it to All Saints last night, and even though there was a part of me that craved the very sight of him, I was relieved by his failure to show. I didn’t necessarily want him seeing me in all my post-blackout glory, but more than that, I needed time to process everything, time to figure things out, and more importantly, time to map out my plan.
Operation-Tear-Off-The-Blinders
was in full effect, starting with my uncle dearest, and whatever the heck it was he was hiding.

I carried on with the rest of the morning like it was any other day, putting on an Oscar-worthy performance. I finished my breakfast, cleared the table, and got ready for school just as I normally would, though I made a special point to synchronize myself with my uncle so that we left the house at the same time.

He pulled away in his black sedan none the wiser, and I, as per usual, in the back of the town car. I waited for Henry to get us a safe distance from the house before crying out about a forgotten homework assignment that had to be turned in today.

We were back en route to the house in no time.

Once there, I told Henry that I would only be a couple of minutes and then took off straight for my uncle’s office.

The rain hammered hard against the windows, pouring its dreary shades of gray into the large, dank office. I had no idea what I was looking for as I (carefully) ransacked his desk and drawers, doing my best not to displace anything or disturb the general layout of his workspace.

It only took a few failed tries before I found a manila folder with my name on it, hiding inside one of the bottom drawers of his desk under a stack of filed documents and loose work sheets. I opened it briefly, noting what looked like hospital records, and then slipped it into my backpack.

I moved to the sprawling glass bookcases that circled the entirety of the room and began skimming the hundreds of titles at random, looking for any suspicious objects or secret compartments that I could excavate for clues. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for, or even what I was expecting to find. The expectation was there though, evidenced by the savage turn my eyes had taken as they drank in every item, every sight and every corner, desperate to find something. Anything.

He had the oddest collections of books, I noted. Rows and rows of Bibles, eclectic editions I’d never heard of, encyclopedia-thick books on demons and
vampires
and other mythical creatures normal people didn’t build libraries on.

What a strange coincidence it was that my uncle had an unbelievable collection of books on the very subject I was recently committed for. On the very creature my father was killed by.

Coincidence my—and then I saw them.

On the other side of the glass partition, in a special meshed enclosure, a series of leather-bound books that looked older and more valuable than all the other books combined.

The Origins of the Revenant Vampyre.

The gilded title leaped out at me.

I slid open the mesh door and slipped my hand into the cool, dry book-pen, carefully separating it from its siblings before wrapping it up in my work shirt and slipping it into my backpack.

Something told me I would find all the answers I needed right here in this room, in these books. The answers to questions I had yet to even form, and in that moment, like a dog with a bone, I vowed to come back again and again until I uncovered every last one of them.

I stalked the halls of Weston with even more anxiety than I had on my first day of school. I felt as though I were carrying a precious gem in my backpack, and just knowing it was in there made me hyper-vigilant about every single body around me, with my stomach doing roller-coaster dives every time an arm or shoulder accidentally brushed up against my body.

At lunch, Taylor was already waiting for me at my locker when I arrived carrying two semester’s worth of catch-up homework. Her long blond hair was pulled to the side, and she was flirtatiously playing with one of her earrings while some tall, chestnut-haired, football-player-type wearing a lettered jersey hovered in the space beside her.

“Jemma,” she called out to me, her eyes widening with excitement. “I want you to meet someone.”

The football-player-type turned around at her announcement and drank me in with his desert-colored eyes.

“This is Caleb,” she said, twitching her brows in a way that let me know he was worth knowing. “Caleb, this is Jemma. She just transferred here last week.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said shifting the weight of my books. I tried not to appear too antsy.

“Same,” he said as he stepped forward and took the pile of books from my hands. “That’s amazing.”

“What is?” I asked, clearing a path to my locker. I twisted the dial on the lock back and forth until it clicked open.

“First time I’ve ever regretted missing school.”

Mm-kay. Was that a line?

I looked back at him unsure. His expression seemed genial. If it was a line, he was definitely serious about it.

“Caleb here plays for the Weston Bulldogs. He’s our star player,” she beamed. “Best slap shot in the West Coast.”

She must be referring to that last place hockey team she was bitching about earlier, but I didn’t bother mentioning that part. I smiled back at her as though I cared.

“I was out half the season,” he offered as though that might explain their current standings. “Shoulder injury.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, but he’s back now. Right, Cale?”

“You know it.” His grin spread across his face, alive with the possibilities. “We’re playing Easton next Friday. It’s my first game back. I better see you both there.”

“Are you kidding?” said Taylor, playfully pushing him. “We wouldn’t miss that for anything.” She was dead serious.

Personally, I could think of a few hundred other things I’d rather be doing on any given Friday night.

After a few more minutes of tantalizing hockey talk, I politely excused myself, letting Taylor know I had a catch-up assignment due and that I would be spending lunch in the library working on it. Luckily, she didn’t offer to come with since she was obviously
normal
and not willing to spend her lunch break doing homework.

Once in the library by myself, I spotted a deserted table near the very back of the library, furthest from any prying eyes, and started in on the hospital records. I skimmed through the stack of files fairly quickly, only to realize there really wasn’t anything new or useful in there—mostly just official records, some background information, and notes about things that I had discussed during my one-on-one sessions with my attending physician, Dr. Javier. All of which were
supposed
to be confidential and sealed. I didn’t even want to start thinking about how my uncle got his hands on these.

I moved on to the book. On pins and needles, I carefully removed it from my bag and unwrapped my shirt from around it. It was definitely old. The leather binding alone was like nothing I had ever seen before, and the corner bosses and clasp definitely looked as though they were hand-crafted in a different era. I had to be extra cautious with it. The last thing I wanted to do was snag the cover or accidentally tear a freaking page out.

I wiped my palms against my skirt, said a little prayer, and cracked open the book.

The first detail that caught my attention was the paper. Or lack thereof. I didn’t know what this thing was written on, but it definitely wasn’t paper, that I knew for sure. Papyrus swiveled around my mind as a possibility but even that didn’t seem to do the texture justice.

The second oddity was that the entire book appeared to be written by hand and had no copyright or author information anywhere in it. It looked a lot more like some old diary than it did an actual book. Then again, even diaries usually had a name scribbled somewhere on the jacket, didn’t they?

My heart picked up as I peeled back the first page.

“Jemma Blackburn please report to the administration office. Jemma Blackburn,” called a voice over the intercom.

Really though?

I shut the book and tucked it back into my schoolbag.

Taylor was already waiting for me outside the office when I turned the corner. “What’s going on?” she asked, her eyebrows raised with curiosity.

I was about to ask her the same question. “No idea.”

“I think your uncle’s in there.”

“Seriously?” I said and then peeked in through the window.

Yup. He was definitely in there. I couldn’t help but think about the last time I was called into the office at school—six months ago when the men in white jackets came for me.

I pulled open the door and stepped inside. “Uncle Karl? What’s going on?” I asked, already feeling queasy. “Is everything okay?”

“Jemma.” He nodded his greeting. “You’ve been excused from your classes today. A family matter has come up.” He motioned for the door. “Do you have all your things?”

I didn’t move. “Did something happen? Is Tessa alright?”

“Yes, yes. Tessa is fine. Everyone is fine. Come on, let’s get your things, and we’ll continue this in the car.”

I nodded and then followed him out, waving ominously at Taylor as she signaled for me to call her.

Outside, Henry was already parked and waiting for us at the front of the building as the rain continued to adorn itself to the world around us. My uncle and I both climbed into the back of the car, each taking a window seat.

He raised his hand to Henry who responded with a nod through the rear-view mirror and then raised the glass partition.

That can’t be good.

“Hand it over please,” he said as we pulled away from the school building, our conversation now in full privacy.

I looked down at his extended hand. “I don’t know what—”

“I’m not in the mood, Jemma.” He cut in before I could finish my lie.

I opened my backpack and handed him the folder.

He put it on his lap and then held his hand out again. “The other one,” he said sternly.

It reminded me of my father’s scolding voice—a voice I rarely used to hear but when I did, could reduce me to tears with just the sound of it.

I pulled out my faux-gift-wrap shirt and plucked the book from the center, handing it over begrudgingly.

“How did you know I had it?” I had to ask.

“Never mind that.” He opened his briefcase and placed the book inside. “I think it’s time we had ourselves a talk.”

Perfect, just what I needed—a lecture from him on the finer points of why stealing is wrong. I should tell him to brush up on his lying speech as well because I’d been doing even more of that one lately.

“I’m sure by now you’ve already come to the realization that vampires aren’t exactly a thing of fiction.” He narrowed in his charcoal eyes for confirmation.

My mouth unhinged.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He briefly turned his attention outside the window. “And I’m sure you overheard my conversation the other morning where your name was concerned, presumably prompting your sudden thirst for knowledge?” He looked over at me again.

I managed to wrangle out a nod this time.

“How far did you get with the book?”

“I read the cover,” I said disappointedly—mostly in myself. If I had any real wherewithal, I would have read it during class.

“What’s going on, Uncle Karl? What exactly do you know about vampires? And where did you get all those books? Are you some kind of vampire historian? Like a vampologist or something?” My eyes flared at the idea.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said and sharpened his stare. “There’s a lot you don’t know about the world we live in, Jemma. Things you won’t ever read about in a textbook, or find in a library—not even in this
one
book,” he said signaling to the leather-bound book inside his briefcase. “Knowledge is power, but it’s also dangerous...in the wrong hands.”

I turned my body towards him, intrigued.

“There are things out there,” he said staring out the window as though said things were just outside the car, “that most people will never know about—can’t know about. They will go an entire lifetime reading a different kind of history book, never knowing the full truth, and for that, they are blessed with the kind of blissful ignorance only a false sense of security can provide. You, my dear Jemma, no longer have that luxury for it was never intended to be yours to begin with.”