Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (16 page)

Sam’s warm arm came around my shoulders to comfort me and I wrapped my ri
ght arm around his waist, clinging desperately to something real, something I believed in. And as I stared up into the kindness of his sincere, violet eyes, I began to wonder whether or not I would mind so much if there was a cure to turn me human. For a moment, I almost believed I’d take it, if it existed.

Twelve: Give Me Strength

It didn’t take long for me to snap back to reality. To be human was to be without Sam, without Max
and to be completely separate from my family, my ancestors. I would be no one, have no one and have no past history. My mother could want me to be human all she liked and I would not break my promise to listen to Louis. But deep down inside my soul, I knew who I wanted to be, who I really was and that person was not at all like the
normal
human being my mum wanted. The only person I was ever going to be was me and she just had to deal with that.

After a labyrinth of twists and turns down wide and narrow alleyways, Sam finally stopped me in front of a large, wrought iron gate. He dropped his arm from my shoulders and began fiddling with the latch. Once he managed to pop it open, he pushed the gate inwards with a loud, nails-on-chalk-board
screech and motioned for me to enter.

“Where are we,” I asked him, raising an eyebrow and feeling a little suspicious.

He grinned at me with shining innocence and brushed his unruly golden fringe out of his eyes with his fingers. “I thought you might need to talk,” he said.

“I think I’ve
already done enough talking for the day,” I sighed, but stepped over the threshold anyway.

Sam stepped inside behind me,
then closed and latched the iron gate behind him. He turned back to face me, in the tiny, old, dimly lit room and gave me a boyishly excited smirk. “Follow me,” he said as he stepped around me and eagerly began climbing a small set of stairs.

Before long, one tiny, dark staircase turned into two, then three and four. After my seventh lot of stairs, I was relieved to find that we had reached the top. Even if the top was only a round, shadowy room.

“Where are you taking me,” I muttered through heavy breaths as I took my final step.

Sam stretched out a hand and pulled me up next to him.
“It’s just a little bit further,” he said, still smiling in anticipation.

He led me over to a door on the side of the gloomy, circular room and twisted the handle. Bright sunlight lit up
the room, like fire in the dark and as the door opened, it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. Sam, holding my hand firmly, helped me outside into the glowing light of day and the fresh mountain breeze.

“Wow,” I said, when my vision finally returned.
  But, there was no way that ‘Wow’ could do the view I saw justice. Rolling hills full of lush pastures, thick green forests and small, country towns spread out for miles and miles in front of us. Then, at the very edge of the horizon, glittering in the distance was the vibrant blue Mediterranean Sea.

I let go of Sam’s hand and stepped over to the stone-walled edge. When I looked down
, I saw all the deep browns and reds of the tiled rooftops of the joined medieval buildings of Saint Jean. The tricky maze of alleyways that were its streets appeared to make simple sense as I stared at them and tried to commit their twists and turns to memory.

“This used to be the town’s
bell tower,” said Sam as he stepped up close beside me. “And it also happens to be the safest place to talk in Saint Jean without being overheard.”

Sam’s words stole my attention away from the incredible view and back to him. He smiled softly at me, almost reassuringly, as
though he was waiting for me to reply. I stepped casually around him, pondering whether or not to open up to him and I began following the dark, granite-walled edge as it circled around the small balcony of the tower. I glanced back at Sam and saw that he was following a few steps behind me.

I couldn’t be sure how much Mum had told him about our talk and whether or not there were things she was trying to keep from him. I took a final step and stopped. The view on this side of the tower was mostly of the Tiennan’s home, if you could call it that. It was built back firmly into the side of the mountain upon which Saint Jean was built, and was surely more of a castle, with its looming towers and stained glass windows, than a plain
, old house or home.

I turned around and looked back at Sam who had stopped a couple of footsteps behind.
“How do you know so much about Saint Jean,” I decided to ask, starting with something easy.

Sam smirked
at me, leaned his elbow on the granite wall that circled the balcony’s edge and then glanced out into the distance. “Well, apart from doing a little research on the net,” he said, as if admitting to a flaw, “I also have a few
friends
I can contact when I need to, who know more about the supernatural world and its people then I could ever hope to remember.” Sam’s serene violet eyes met mine as he rested the shotgun against the wall and clasped one hand in the other, and then leaned with a more relaxed posture against the wall.

I had to won
der what Sam’s idea of
friends
entailed and if it sometimes included characters with a personality not all that friendly. Immediately my mind went to my meeting with Cantrelle. I saw her sharp, pointed teeth and sunken eyes, and then her razor-like fingernails slicing into Sam’s flesh. Repulsed by the memory, I screwed up my face and took my eyes away from Sam’s.

“Yes,” Sam said,
suddenly as if reading my mind. “Cantrelle was and still is one of the
friends
I mentioned. We met many years ago, when she was much stronger, and found that we had something in common. You and your family. ”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.
It seemed to be just too hard to try and digest the reality of Cantrelle and Sam as, gulp, friends. Why would someone as nice as him, as good as Sam, want a friendship with Cantrelle, a scary, evil, witch woman?

Sam seemed to understand the meaning behind my silent response and soon continued.
“I never said that they all belonged to the same side as me,” he said, bluntly. “Besides if that were true, my information and their usefulness would be limited or worthless due to bias and I would never get the full story.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sam, in one graceful motion, straighten up from where he was leaning and take a step towards me. But, I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him without seeing the bloody wounds Cantrelle had made.

“My role in this life is to protect you,” he said, quietly, taking another step. “Which means that I would do anything to guarantee your safety, even if it means giving up my own.”

My eyes met his again and he was standing much closer than I expected. I frowned at his hopeful smile and apologetic eyes.

“Cantrelle would never have hurt you,” Sam said, sounding as though he was trying to earn back lost trust. “She is much too weak nowadays and the thought of seeing you become all that you can be is one of the only things truly keeping her ancient form alive. It was me she wanted to punish.” Sam’s smile lost its cheerfulness as he waited for my answer and his face began to look defeated.

My heart hurt to see him so sad, but I couldn’t seem to grasp why. He
was acting as though my knowing of his choice of
friends
had destroyed my trust in him, but it was quite the opposite. If anything I was angry at him for constantly putting himself in danger for me. I felt as though my life, just my being alive, was going to put him in more danger than I could possibly imagine and I didn’t want that. I couldn’t live with that. I loved—his personality, who he was. I cared for him more than I’d ever admit and I just didn’t want to be the reason for him getting killed one day.

“You can’t do this,” I said, shaking my head
at him. “I just can’t let you.” I took a step away from him and crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly remembering that I was still wearing sweat and dirt-covered running clothes. A flush of warm embarrassment washed over my face for a moment at the thought of what a miserable, disheveled little teenager I must look like. Then that thought seemed to help me get up the courage to say what I had to say next.

I looked into
Sam’s confused and already hurt-looking eyes and took a deep breath.

‘You can’t do this, Sam,” I said a
gain. “I’m only a misfit teenager who wants nothing more than to actually have a home. You can’t put your life on the line for someone like me. I can’t let you. I can’t be responsible for what might happen to you while you’re trying to protect me. I just can’t.” My eyes warmed and blurred slightly with coming tears, but I snapped my eyelids shut desperate not to cry yet again. I was sick of being weak, of being the maiden in distress. From now on I was going to have to get used to fighting my own battles.

When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find a pink, lipped mouth in
my line of sight. Sam had taken that last step towards me, and now there was no more than an inch or two between us. I glanced up at Sam’s eyes, which had lost their hurt expression and seemed almost happily relieved.

“Whoever said you had to be responsible for
me,” he said with a soft smile. “I’m big enough and ugly enough as they say to look after my own life and what I choose to do with it. And you know that what I choose to be doing with this amazing second life, what I’ve known in my heart, in my whole being since I was brought back to life was to be with you, to protect you and always be there for you no matter what.”

I went to open my mouth to complain, but Sam cut me off.
“No,” he said, sounding almost forceful. “This is what I want, Kitty. You are the most important thing in this life to me and always have been. I wouldn’t be alive again without you. I owe you this life, okay? Please understand that I do what I do for you, because I choose to do so. You are not forcing me to do anything I don’t want to do.”

A
disobedient tear slid down my face before I could stop it and I had to close my eyes tightly to stop the others from following. “Okay,” I whispered, through a throat tight with tears. “Okay.”

I felt the warmth of Sam’s body move closer that final inch and then his strong arms wrapped around my shoulders. He hugged me tightly to him, seeming as though he was too afraid
to let me go. I pulled my arms from where they forced a gap between us and wrapped them around Sam’s back pressing him even closer.

I couldn’t ignore the
intense feeling of safety I felt when I was with him. When he touched me, he seemed to make every inch of me relax and give in to the strength and support he offered. In some strange way, the piece of me that I felt I’d been missing while living between human and supernatural worlds, disappeared when I was with him. I felt secure, confident and whole. It was a feeling I’d never truly felt before and it was definitely something I could get used to.

Suddenl
y, my stomach churned and I pulled out of the hug first. I’d managed to avoid this feeling for longer than I’d expected and had almost forgotten what it felt like, but holding Sam so close had brought it back to the surface. I needed to get away again. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the little voice in my head that was calling for Max and screaming at me for being with and caring for Sam. Warm hands clamped gently, but securely around my upper arms and I opened my eyes to see Sam’s serious face frowning down at me.

“Please,” I
bit out through gritted teeth. “Let go. I need to do this myself.”

Sam’s eyes grew wide and worried, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t let go of me. But with a reluctant frown, his fingers released their grip and caressed down my arms until they disappeared from my skin. Sam stared hard into my eyes, fear furrowing his eyebrows and clenching his jaw.

“Thank you,” I said. I forced myself to look away from his eyes and to take a step away from him. Then I walked towards the edge of the balcony and at the wall, I turned and gently dropped into a cross-legged position on the floor. Closing my eyes, I leant my back against the cool stone of the wall and tried to calm my nerves and steady the adrenalin burning through my veins.

I heard a noise to my right
and I peeked through one eye to see what it was. Sam had taken a seat on the floor beside me. He’d made sure to keep his distance and was sitting about a meter away with his back against the wall too, but with his eyes firmly focused on me. I closed my eyes again, unable to stop the small smile that slipped across my lips at the comforting feeling I felt seeing Sam cross-legged on the ground beside me, and then I concentrated again on my breathing.

After a few deep breaths and some internal struggles, I opened my eyes once more and focused straight ahead. The feeling of desperate fear, anger and the need for escape had subsided. I could still feel it biting and scratching for control somewhere just below the surface, but I’d managed to beat it. I grinned, pleased with myself and my accomplishment and then let out a great sigh. I let my tense muscles relax and I turn
ed my head to look over at Sam. He was wringing his hands subconsciously as he stared at me. Then, at my smile, his eyebrows jumped in surprise and he made a move to scoot closer to me.