Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (13 page)

Max glanced over his shoulder at me, but could only hold my gaze for a moment before he looked away once more.

His eyes were f
illed with a strange, shameful curiosity that I just couldn’t seem to understand. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done to surprise him and I hadn’t meant to if I had.

“You clearly don’t like me,
” he said slowly, sounding almost dumbfounded. “Don’t want me around and for good reason, yet you still care what happens to me.” He turned around to face me, searching deep into my eyes, and shook his head softly. “You confuse me, Kitty Bloom,” he said.

I swallowed hard and tried not to notice the desperate look of loneliness lurking in Max’s dark amber eyes. He was so serious and seemed so hopeful that my heart ached just looking
at him. I knew I could help him. A part of me begged for a chance to heal that lonely hole inside of him.

Max suddenly looked away from me
again and struggled to keep his eyes focused on the ground. “I just don’t get it,” he said, cynically astonished. “You know that I’m a bastard and you obviously fear me, yet you care for me, worry for me. Why is that?”

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head once more in blatant confusion, and then looked up at me with questioning eyes.
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t think of what to say. I wanted to tell him the truth, needed him to know that I cared, but—I couldn’t bring myself to tell him.

“Why
is that, Kitty,” Max asked again. He stalked closer to me, his mind clearly in agony and he grabbed my shoulders tightly in his hands.

I bit my bottom lip and fought hard against
voicing the answer echoing over and over in my head.

“How can you hate someone and care about them at the same time,” he said.

I stared at him, scared by the intensity and desperation in his eyes. The answer to his question was now obvious, but the truth frightened me. I breathed deeply and bravely bit out the words. “I don’t hate you,” I said.

Max’s eyes widened and his grip on my shoulders softened.
“What,” he whispered.

My eyes blurred with coming tears and I could no longer hold his gaze. I dropped my head onto my chest and
squeezed my eyes tightly shut. “I don’t hate you,” I said again.

I bit my
lip nervously and waited for an answer. I was sure I’d just confessed to something I shouldn’t have. There seemed to be more meaning hidden behind those four innocent words than I ever thought there would be and I was certain that Max would have noticed it too.

“You don’t,” he said quietly.

I risked a glance back up at his face. His eyes were hopeful, but somber.

“
I don’t,” I said again, quietly. “Even though I should.”

A streak of pain flashed across his face and his
eyes hardened slightly. Max let go of my shoulders and took a step back. “Of course, you should,” he snapped though tight lips.

He looked away from me and pouted angrily.

I took a quick step towards him and put my hand reassuringly on his arm. “But I don’t,” I said. “I can’t.”

His eyes met mine again and I could see his pain through the shield of anger
. I took a breath and tried to find the right words to tell him how I felt without making things worse. There was no doubt in my mind about him being a bastard, no question as to where his loyalty obviously lay. Max was born and bred into evil, it was in his nature, and it was who he was. Yet, a part of me seemed to understand the world from his perspective, seemed to see that there was more to Max than just the side he belonged to. In some ways, I felt he was like me, just another prisoner of the life we were born into. Expectations surrounded us. Ways we should act, ways we should feel, what we should become. Max seemed just as trapped as I was. And I felt for him and could understand his pain as my own.

“I
realize that I don’t know everything about you,” I began, “and that the majority of what I do know doesn’t do you any favors, but I feel that I understand you. I’m not trying to say that deep down inside I believe you’re a good person, because I’m pretty sure that isn’t true.”

Max raised an eyebrow at that and crossed his arms.

“Look,” I said, continuing quickly, “I might not like how you handle situations, that you tried to seduce me into becoming a mindless pet and that you threatened to kill Sam. But a part of me understands who you are and why you act the way you do. It makes me worry about you when I know I shouldn’t and makes me feel like I wouldn’t be whole without you.”

I gritted my teeth as soon as I finished and worried that I’d said to
o much.

The tense anger in Max’s face subsided and he frowned at me. I dropped my hand from his arm feeling a little bit embarrassed about confessing as much as I did.
I was beginning to feel guilty too, worried that I’d betrayed Sam somehow just by saying what I had. All I knew was that I’d told Max the truth and that was all that was important to me at that moment.

“You aren’t what I expected,” he said
, suddenly.

I narrowed my eyes at him, confused by his response.
“How so,” I asked.

His expression turned almost warm and a small smile crept over his lips.
“You matter to me, too,” he said. He reached over and put his hand gently under my chin, looking almost amused by some sudden realization. “I didn’t think you would,” he said. “I thought you would just be another asset, another toy to add to my collection, but you’re not. You actually matter to me.”

Suddenly, Max’s smile disappeared and his face screwed up in thought. He looked away from me and
his lips pulled back in a sneer. “You actually matter to me,” he repeated, sounding almost disgusted. “I—care about you? What is wrong with me?”

Max dropped his hand from under my chin and took another firmer step back. He shook his head hard in con
fusion. His lips formed silent words as his mind seemed to retreat loathingly away from the self he had been only a few seconds before.

His serious, almost fierce eyes, met mine again and he seemed to stare straight through me
. “I have to go,” he said, impassively.

I opened my mouth to try to stop him, but no words came out. I wasn’t sure what to say. Max ignored my attempt entirely and turned his back to me, stalking quickly towards the mist entwined forest. I took a few stumbled steps after him and stopped, watching as his dark form disappeared into the thick, white tendrils of the fog. What had I done?

Ten: Mother Knows Best

I jolted awake and found myself, to my surprise, in my own purple satin, summer pajamas and in a color-coordinated room that looked all too familiar. Somehow, I’d managed to end up back at my new house. Bright, cold, early morning sunlight shone happily in from the window. A stark contrast to the loud argument I could hear going on downstairs.

“She deserves to know,” yelled a male voice, who I was sure must have been Sam.

              As soon as I thought of him an overwhelming sense of guilt came over me. I felt as though I’d betrayed him. I remembered what I’d said to Max, what I’d let myself feel for him and I couldn’t help but dread the thought of Sam ever finding out.

“It was only a dream,” I whispered to myself, trying to calm my thoughts and my heartbeat.
But, deep down I knew it had been more than that. Max had entered my dreams like the last time. Everything I’d said to him had been real and he was sure to remember it upon waking.  An icy chill wrapped coldly around my heart and I began to hate myself.

“It is my burden just as much a
s hers,” shouted a female voice. “I am her mother and I have the right to decide if and when I should tell her.”

Hearing my mum’s voice
removed me from my disturbing thoughts and I started to worry more about what was happening downstairs. With my curiosity substantially peaked, I pulled myself out of bed and tiptoed, out through my open bedroom door, to the top of the stairs. I peered over the side rail, but couldn’t see anything more than a couple of shadows reflecting onto the steps at the bottom.

“You never
tell her anything,” snapped Sam. “You’re too afraid of the truth, too afraid of what would happen if she knew everything. You’re scared that she’ll leave you.”

“Get
out of my house,” screamed my mum. “I never asked for your help. We don’t need you. I can handle this on my own.”

There was silence for a moment and I began to wonder if Sam had obeyed my Mum’s commands and left.
But the continued presence of dark shadows on the steps proved I was wrong.

“You just don’t get it do you,” asked Sam
in a calmer tone. “Kitty needs to know the truth. She needs to know what you’re planning. Give her the benefit of the doubt and tell her. If she is truly
your
daughter, there is no reason for her to abandon you.”

“Get—
out,” said Mum, fiercely.

Silence filled the room for a moment longer and then a shadow, matched by
heavy footsteps, disappeared from the bottom of the stairs. The front door squeaked open and slammed shut. Sam was gone.

After pausing for a second to collect
my thoughts, I did the only thing I could think of. I ran down the stairs to confront my mum. By the time I’d hit the final step, she was nowhere to be seen. I knew that she was still somewhere inside, because I hadn’t heard the front door open again, but I just wasn’t sure where. A quiet sobbing sound pointed me in the direction of her studio and I found her, sitting on her painting sheet in a corner, with her head in her hands. Even though she was only in her paint splattered work clothes, she looked so fragile, so broken, nothing like the Mum I knew. Seeing her like that almost made me want to scold myself for wanting to confront her. As I stepped into the room, she glanced up at me with big, ocean blue eyes and I felt her pain.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag,” she said, sadly.

I frowned and made my way over to her, taking a seat beside her on the paint smeared sheet. “You know Sam,” I said. It was more of a statement than a question.

She looked at me
dejectedly, and breathed out a deep sigh. Then her eyes wandered away from mine and her attention focused on the odd patterns in the hardwood floor. “I met him for the first time earlier this year,” she began, slowly. “Although, I must confess, I’d noticed him around throughout the years. I didn’t know what he was at first, but I suspected. Your grandmother used to tell me a story about a daughter of Lilith who walked on both sides, never choosing one completely. She was believed to be always protected by a guardian and watched over by a soulless shadow. Even though the story is a myth, I couldn’t seem to miss the similarities between Sam and the guardian.”

Although my grandmother’s story intrigued me, I would not let it distract me from the serious matter at hand. Mum had known about Sam for years and hadn’t told me. It annoyed me that she had gone out of her way to avoid telling me anything that might help me now or in the future. I deserved to know the truth and I deserved to hear it from her before I had to go and discover things on my own. Deep inside I was furious that she had failed to tell me
anything about everything. I was in the dark about my own life, my own reason for being and it seemed I always had been. Then I thought of Sam and it made me wonder if maybe there was more at stake than just a mother informing her daughter of her birthright.

“What made him come to see you,” I almost whispered.

Mum looked up at me in anxious surprise and frowned as she glanced away from me again. “He’d heard of my plans to come back here,” she sighed, “and he tried to talk me out of going. He told me that I was putting you in danger by bringing you back here and that I should be preparing you for the arrival of your birthday. But I didn’t listen to him. I told him to leave us alone. When we met him on our first day here, I hadn’t seen him for two months. Until that day, I’d been sure we would never see him again.”

Internal anger made me fold my arms tightly over my chest as I tried hard not to let the emotion show on my face. I couldn’t believe that Mum had dismissed Sam so easily and clearly without even giving him a chance to explain himself.
Questions swirled around and around in my head. I had so many things I needed answered, so many things I needed to understand better. Why my mum had been so stupid and stubborn, was definitely one of them. It was beginning to become obvious that she had kept everything from me more for her own selfish reasons than to really protect me. So, I had to wonder, what did she get out of coming back here?

“Okay,” I said softly, trying to control the flow of questions in my mind.
I stared at the evenly cut planks of wood that made up the studio’s floor and decided to follow the train of thought that led to my past. “I have to know,” I said, as I turned to look at Mum. “What happened when we were in Saint Jean before? Why does Max remember me and I don’t remember him? What happened to my father?”