Lost (12 page)

“What do you smell like to yourself?” I asked, surprised that I’d never thought to ask that before.

“I don’t really have a scent.” He bit his lip and gave away his lie. I bucked my eyes, forcing the issue. “Okay … fine. I smell like snow.”

I grinned, not expecting that, but it made perfect sense. “What do you think that means?” I asked. He hunched his shoulders. “Oh, come on, Nate. It means something. I smell like spice and something sweet, and you think that’s my past. Sophia smells like sugar, and that’s her sweet personality. You smell like snow … so …”

“I’m cold?” He laughed, and I pinched him. I wasn’t going to let him joke his way out of this.

“Snow is beautiful, magical, and pure,” I said. “You are obviously these things, a hundred times over. Of course you smell like snow. I should’ve guessed that.”

He kissed me softly then trapped my lip in his teeth. A growl rumbled in his throat.

“Snow can also be dangerous … provided the right conditions. It’s not always friendly and calm,” he said. He held me with his eyes and my heart raced. “I … don’t want you to think of me as a little timid snow flurry, Chris.” He seized my lips and took my breath away. “I’m far from it.”

He pulled me on top of him and showed me what he’d meant by that. His lips attacked me in wonderful ways, fiercer than they’d ever been. He didn’t stop my hands from crawling under his shirt nor did I stop his from slipping under mine.

We kissed and kissed, and he sniffed every few minutes to gage if I wanted him to stop. He never got the signal because I couldn’t force my brain to produce it.

The reason why I’d wanted to wait wasn’t enough right now. I didn’t know how long it would take to find the red candles and talk to CC, but I knew I loved him enough that my future with him was sealed. We would always be together, chase shifting children with
N
names around our home, escape Kamon for good and live the happily-ever-after my parents couldn’t.

And technically, I’d had the talk with Lydia. The moments I’d fantasized about with CC didn’t actually compare to the real thing.

“Nate, I trust you.”

“Good to know,” he said and kissed my neck softly and carefully like it was fragile glass.

“No, I mean, I
trust
you. You said we should wait until I trust my boyfriend that much. And I do. I trust you completely, and that’s all that should matter.”

His lips froze on my neck, but his hands worked their way to my hips.

“You think we’re ready for that?” I nodded, and we stared at each other for several tense seconds, fireflies and fog swirling around us, then we crashed into each other and knocked a can of soda into the popcorn. It sounded like what my skin felt like, alive and buzzing and ready for more.

He rolled us over so that he hovered over me, breathing like a madman, then he rolled several feet away from the blanket.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I … um … need to go to my room.”

Good point. We probably shouldn't make love in the backyard. “Okay. Let’s go.”

He shook his head and rose to his knees.

“No …
 
we should sleep separately tonight.” I laughed at his joke. He didn’t join me. “Seriously. I won’t be able to control myself.”

I crawled closer and lifted the ends of his t-shirt. He caught my hands. “Nate, that’s sort of the point.”

“Not tonight. I’ve fantasized about you saying what you just said since I met you.” He looked away, his gorgeous face embarrassed. I chuckled and tried to reach a kiss to his lips. He jerked away. “I have our first time planned to the tiniest detail. And … if I let myself sleep in the same bed with you tonight, none of what I have planned to make it a special night we'll never forget will happen.”

I forced his face back to mine and kissed him softly.

“You planned it?” I asked. He nodded and smiled. “Tell me. What happens?”

“I’ll surprise you now that I know you’re ready.” He kissed my cheek and groaned. “I’ll clean up out here. Goodnight, Chris.”

A short laugh escaped my chest. Not only had he stopped us, he'd also ended the date. It took me a moment to appreciate the abrupt extinguishing of our beautiful fire. I wanted our first time to be special, not rushed and outside, and especially not on a day Sophia predicted it could happen.

I waved goodbye before walking to the house slowly, reflecting on my amazing day.

I wasn’t going to kill Lydia Shaw, Nate had finally opened up about his past, and my future with the most romantic and wonderful boy in the world seemed brighter than ever.

Nearly seventeen years in a Catholic orphanage forced me to bow my head when I thought of the unsettled part of my life. I didn’t have a candle to light, so I willed fire to simmer in my hand for her.

“Please watch over Remi,” I whispered. “Keep her safe. Please don’t let him hurt her. Please, God, don’t let him breed her.”

My skinned buzzed when I realized I could do more than pray now. I took in a slow breath that Lydia would be proud of and pushed my brain to think of something she would be pissed about. Images flickered through my head until I saw Remi, brushing her hair in an ornate mirror. She slicked on dark purple lipstick and smiled at her reflection.

She was practically naked. Her top was sheer except for in the necessary places, and her leather shorts were more like underwear. She ran into a closet and laced up black boots that came to her knees. She closed the door, and I gasped.

An old newspaper clipping of my face was there, trapped against the door by a knife piercing my forehead.
 

In the morning, Nate gasped as I walked into the kitchen dressed in all black. “Oh boy, I’m in love with a hunter. This presents a problem.”

“I’m not a hunter. It just seems like … appropriate attire for training.” I kissed him and hooked my thumbs into the belt loops on the back of his jeans. It felt like we’d erased our boundaries last night and there was no place my hands couldn’t go. And, for some reason, that was where they wanted to be. “How did you sleep?” I asked.

“I didn’t. That was torture. I caved and walked halfway to your room … maybe a hundred times after you called me. I was trying to convince myself that I was coming to check on you after the vision about Remi, but I knew I wasn’t coming to talk about that creep. I wasn’t coming to talk at all actually, so I stayed in my room.”

I chuckled.

“Then I guess this romantic night you have planned is going to happen tonight?” He bit his lip and shook his head. “You’re not sleeping over again?”

He leaned us into the counter. “I didn’t say that. We’ll just have to behave until I leave.” He chuckled and pecked my lips. “Experiencing that and leaving for two months seems like a recipe for suicide.”

“Agreed,” I said.

He smiled and pressed his nose against my neck, enjoying my scent, I guessed.

Sophia cleared her throat, and we jerked away from each other.

She narrowed her eyes at Nathan and whipped up my breakfast with a snap.
Oatmeal and a glass of grape juice.
When she turned her back for a moment, our hands found each other again. Two of his fingers walked up my spine. I giggled and gave us away.

She swatted at Nathan with a newspaper and snatched me into white light before I had a chance to say goodbye.

When it cleared, we were standing in a small living room. Lydia’s back was turned to us. She was staring at the photographs on the ledge of a fireplace.

“Good morning,” she said, without turning around.

“Hi.”

Sophia kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you after your lesson, dear. What would you like for lunch?” she asked, like we weren’t standing in a strange place with toys scattered around the floor, obviously someone’s home.

“Anything is fine.”

She winked and left me alone with Lydia who still hadn’t turned to me.

“What kind of people do you think live here?” she asked. I glanced around the room and gave her an honest answer. “Messy people.” I thought about it for a second, and a less judgmental answer came to mind. “Or busy people. Busy people without a maid.”

“And?”

She finally turned around and clasped her hands in front of her.

“And … they have kids. I assume they play a lot. Maybe that means they’re happy.”

She smiled and nodded. “Exactly. A happy family lives here. Money is tight but not scarce. Both of the parents work. There are six children.
Four girls, two boys.
They have everything they need and most of what they want. They only have one problem. One of the daughters has been missing for a year.”

For a moment, I thought finding their daughter was my lesson, but my eyes found a photo on the wall of this dark-haired, blue-eyed family. All pale. All stunning. One frowning and sticking out like a sore thumb.

“I told you I intended to break your bad habits,” Lydia said. “The sympathy you have for Remi Vaughn is one of them.”

I wanted to cry as I stared at Remi’s school pictures, especially at the ones with her smiling with missing teeth. She looked happy. Not at all what I expected of her past. I thought she would have lived alone and unloved in some heartbreaking place that made living with Kamon appealing.

“Why is wanting to help someone a bad habit?” I asked.

“Because that someone doesn’t want to be helped.
And because Kamon plans to use your weakness for her to capture you.
He’s right about her having that power. You’d run
to
her, not away, and get yourself hurt. I can’t let that happen.”

I followed her through Remi’s former home, staring at the pictures of her happy family and the artwork of sleek black panthers in every room. They were obviously proud of what they were.

Lydia stopped in a room with two sets of bunked beds and dolls covering the floor.

“At one point in her life, she lived in this room and played with those toys until she outgrew them. I met with her parents a few months ago to tell them where she was. They weren’t surprised. They invited me here and told me everything I needed to know about Remi. They described her as a fun child with a wonderful sense of humor. She loved spending time with her siblings and taking care of the younger ones when they came … until she shifted on her thirteenth birthday.”

She pointed to the bottom of the door, at claw marks I hadn’t noticed.

“She didn’t handle it well. She’d known her entire life it would happen. They even celebrate each child’s first shift with a party. But for some reason, she cried during hers. And didn’t stop until a week after. She never returned to the fun child they knew.”

If this was supposed to make me pity her less, it wasn’t working. I could feel my heart breaking even more.

Lydia led me down a short staircase to a dark basement. She clicked on a light next to a twin-sized bed. It glowed red and cast an even darker shadow around the room. Remi must’ve lived in this drafty space. There were traces of her everywhere – the red light, black curtains, and
Emo
band posters on the walls.

“When she was fifteen, her parents noticed that she’d stay in her animal form longer than their other children.
Sometimes for days.
After she made seventeen, she would stay a panther for weeks at a time. They told her why it was happening. They told her to accept that she would always be a shifter or it would get worse, but she never did.” Lydia sat on Remi’s bed and opened the drawer of her nightstand. “Sit down,” she said.

She pulled out magazine clippings and placed them on my lap. They were all of Kamon. Not the hunter I knew. The articles celebrated Dr. Kamon Yates.

“He’s a doctor,” I said. I’d meant it as a question, but I became sure of it before I’d asked it.

“Yes. Magical kind all know of him. Most know to stay away from him. But some, the ones who want to be human, they flock to him. There are clippings here from three years ago. She was sixteen and dreaming of the exact life she is living now.”

I shook my head as I flipped through the articles of Kamon and his miracle drugs. There were pictures of him cutting ribbons at hospital openings and kissing bald and incredibly cute children.
He
was
two entirely different people
.

“Just because she thinks she wants this, doesn’t make it okay. We –
you
still have to help her. She’s trapped with him.”

“She’s not trapped,” Lydia said. “She wants to be there. I know what you fear for her. But you don’t have to fear that. In a hunter’s eyes, Remi is not good enough to breed. She’s trying hard and has mastered teleporting already, but it will take her a decade to be up to standard in that sense. And even if he were to copy her, it wouldn’t happen the way you think. He wouldn’t sleep with her or have someone else to. He’s surprisingly civilized when it comes to that. Does that make you feel better?”

I shook my head. It didn’t matter if it happened tonight or ten years from now, in a bed or in a lab, I couldn’t stomach the idea of Remi or anyone being bred.

“Un-brainwash her,” I said. “Or let me try. She’s in a trance or something.”

 
“She’s not brainwashed. She’s in love.” I turned my head to her slowly. My mouth hung open. “She fell in love with the idea of being human. Then she fell in love with him.”

“He’s old!”

“He’s forty and she’s almost twenty, but that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t feel anything for her. He uses that to keep her around so she can bring you to him.”

The basement grew cold and quiet as I stared at the clippings in a new way, noticing the tiny stars drawn around his head and the scribbled hearts on the backs of the articles.

“She is not a victim,” Lydia said. “She wants him. She believes she will have him. And she will sacrifice anything or anyone to get what she wants.” She scooted closer to me and grabbed my hands. I felt fragile and young, but not in the way Nate and Sophia made me feel. It wasn’t annoying when she did it. “The past is the past, Christine. You can’t hope to save Remi to make up for your parents.”

My breath caught as she jabbed at the wounded part of my heart. I squeezed her hands; it was all I could manage to do as I shattered next to her.

“She just got involved with the wrong type of people,” I said, unsure if I was talking about Remi or CC. “She could’ve had a normal life.”

She released my hands and caught the tears on my cheek. The most famous woman in the world was consoling me. It was unbelievable and wonderful and made me cry even more.

“You won’t give them the normal lives you think they deserve. There’s nothing you can do. Trust me, I know how frustrating it is to be powerful and powerless at the same time. But when the heart wants something that is impossible, you have to come to terms with the fact that it will never be.”

I tried to say something about life being unfair but it came out blurred and broken.

“You will be in danger as long as your heart is open to Remi. I would have to keep you boarded up in a house forever for her not to find you, and I don’t want that. Eventually, you will see her and you will have to choose between helping her and saving yourself. I’ve seen it. And right now, you choose wrong. You want her safe, and she wants you dead. You are all that Kamon talks about right now and she’s livid. She will only need a moment, and you will give her several as you plead with her. I’m begging you to let this go. Let her go.”

I was crying too hard for this to just be about Remi. All those mornings I’d prayed for her and the secret tears I’d cried had more to do with CC. I’d only known Remi for a few days, and even then, I’d hated her. This was about being powerless as a baby when my family died and being even more powerless now as I waited for candles for
a
séance or for Sophia to mention them. This was about the things I couldn’t change, the things Raymond and CC would never have, and that I’d never have them.

Remi was happy, living her dream life. My parents were in the spirit world, likely still together as their souls were bound in life and death. I was the only one crying.

I felt when the hook Remi had in my heart yanked out. I felt when I decided to choose correctly when I would see her, to not confuse her with CC and put her life over my own.

I felt lighter, freer.
More settled than before.

A door slammed upstairs. Remi’s younger siblings added life to the house, screaming playfully and growling, like one was chasing the others.

“Bren, I told you to pick up these toys!” a woman yelled. Her mother, I guessed.

“Ready to go get your butt kicked at chess?” Lydia whispered as the sounds of the normal life Remi had left behind rustled above us.

I smiled and nodded, and we left my second bad habit in the gloomy red room.