Malice (21 page)

Time slowed as he trudged along. I was tempted to scream but what would be the point of that? It would only alert those following us where we’d gone. There were several of them, but only one of…whoever was lugging me along. I thought it best to keep my mouth shut and take my chances one on one.

“Put me down!” I demanded, not for the first time.

My blood had rushed to my head. I was getting dizzy. He was getting tired, I could tell. He would have to put me down, hopefully sooner rather than later.

For now, he ignored my request.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” he finally said.

I blinked down at the dirt path beneath us. Foliage lined the edges.

“Find out what? That you stole my best friend’s body?! Who
are
you?” I ground out with as much dignity as I could muster. It wasn’t much. Being held upside down, draped over someone’s shoulder, bound by their magic…? Well, there wasn’t much dignity to be had.

Is that why there’d been a sudden change in his personality? He’d held my hand. He hadn’t done that in the thirteen years I’d known him. I should’ve guessed something was amiss.

Abruptly I realized that we’d emerged from the woods. I could see from my upside down vantage point that a cottage was directly ahead. No lights lit up the windows.

“Is this where you live?” I demanded.

“No, Sammy,” he said irritably. “You know damn well where I live.”

“I know damn well you aren’t Tristan. That’s what I know.”

“Just because you
think
you know everything, doesn’t mean that you do.” He mimicked words I’d said to him. To Tristan. To…
whoever
. That had been days ago. How long had my best friend been gone and I hadn’t even noticed?

Before I could ponder that any further, I was being dropped onto my feet. I stumbled from the unexpected impact as his magic loosened its hold on me. He reached out to steady me. I tried to pull away but he wasn’t about to let me go anywhere.

“We’ll talk inside,” he said.

My heart pounded. I didn’t want to go inside. I wanted to run.

But more than that, I wanted answers.

“We’ll talk inside? I thought you said you didn’t live here.” I crossed my arms over my chest. I took a step away, edging away from him.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t. I’ve just noticed it before. I’m sure it’s a summer place. I haven’t seen a car in the driveway or lights on for weeks.”

“We’re going to break in?”

He gave me a look.

I shut up.

Of course we were going to break in. It was just that kind of a night.

My body tensed, ready to bolt, as he turned his attention to the door. I realized too late I’d given myself away. His hand flashed out, like a steel vice it latched onto my arm.

“Sammy, really?” he asked with a resigned look.

I said nothing.

He reached for the doorknob and a tendril of crimson sizzled across the air. The door swung open. He nudged me inside with one hand and felt along the wall for a light switch with the other. When I was in, he let me go. He turned around, focusing his attention on something in the yard. More crimson magic spilled from his palms. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. I didn’t have time to figure it out.

The cottage was small with an open floor plan. A tiny kitchen was straight ahead. Resting on the countertop was a butcher’s block. Without a backward glance, I hurried toward it. I already knew that my magic was no match for a Striga’s. I needed to find another way to defend myself.

I pulled a knife from its resting slot. The blade glimmered under the light.

From directly behind me I heard Tristan groan.

I pivoted on my heel in time to see him slap his hands over his weary face. He scrubbed at his eyes for a moment and through his fingers said, “Please, please tell me you are not going to stab me.”

“Please, please tell me where my best friend is,” I irritably tossed back.

I held the blade in front of me. It was so disconcerting to see this familiar body in front of me while not knowing who was inside of it.

I hated squishing spiders. The hearty way they sometimes
popped
was enough to make my stomach lurch. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to slice through flesh. Not when this body was so familiar to me.

Tristan was one of the last people on earth I’d ever willingly hurt.

It’s not Tristan
, I reminded myself.

“What happened to you? Who did this? Was it Levi? We’ll fix this!” The words tumbled from my mouth.

He shook his head. “No one did this to me. This is who I really am.”

“What?” The word came out somewhere between a protest and a sob. I shook my head, unable to articulate everything I knew I should say.

“I know this has to be hard to wrap your head around. It all happened so fast. But if we could just talk…” He started to back away. I felt my defense lower just a little. He felt like less of a threat when there was some distance between us. Even though really, I knew it wouldn’t matter. One flick of his hand he could quite literally send me up in flames. Or at least, judging by what I’d seen on the beach, I assumed he could.

I wasn’t looking forward to finding out first hand.

And yet, he hadn’t hurt me this far. In fact, he’d told me more than once he didn’t want to hurt me.

As he backed away I noted his posture was changing. His shoulders were slumping again. It gave the illusion of my best friend again. Was it a trick? Or was it simply that the high of using magic was fading? And his confidence along with it?

It wasn’t far to the nearest couch and Tristan dropped himself onto it.

“How about I talk, you listen? I think then we can clear this mess up.”

I nodded and I felt myself gravitating toward him. I crossed the room and settled onto the chair opposite of where he sat. I settled onto the edge. My body was tense, ready to leap up at any given second. I held the wooden handle of the butcher knife tightly in my hand. My fingers were beginning to tingle from the strain. I relaxed my grip just a bit.

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. He lowered his head and buried his hands in his hair. He gripped the wavy locks in an anguished tug. At that moment, he was making himself vulnerable to me, whether he meant to or not. It would be so easy for me to use the knife I still gripped.

But I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

It was impossible to forget the conversation we’d had on the boat before the attack. It had felt so sincere, so genuine, so Tristan. I felt disoriented trying to figure it all out. The person on the boat was the same person before me now. It had to be. There’d been no time for him to change this evening. I’d been with him the whole time.

His hands dropped to his lap and he leaned back into the cushions. He eyed my knife warily. “You have to know, I would die before I let anyone hurt you.”

He said the words with such conviction that my heart ached.

Weren’t those words supposed to just be a figure of speech? Those words were not meant to be spoken as the truth. But when I saw the way that Tristan was looking at me, it seemed he meant what he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re my best friend.”

Such a simple answer.

I waited for more.

“Who are you? Really?” I asked.

“I’m still me.”

“That might be so. But I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m the same guy that taught you to tie your shoes, to solve quadratic equations. I’m the guy who knows you better than almost anyone.” His tone was calm, insistent, unwavering.

“Prove it,” I said. Alex had told us that when someone was taken over, no part of their memories remained. “What’s my favorite color?”

“Persimmon, which, apparently, is not just a fruit.”

“How do I feel about strawberries?”

“You’re not too fond of them. They give you hives.”

“Where’s my dad?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Is that supposed to be a trick question? He left years ago. No one’s heard from him since.”

“Who is my best friend?”

He shrugged. “You don’t have one. You have three. Fin, Daph…and me.”

“Who the hell
are
you?” I asked, bringing us back around to the original question at hand.

“My mom? She was Lamia. My father…
wasn’t
.”

“But that’s not possible,” I argued. “There are laws against it.”

“There are laws against a lot of things,” he wryly pointed out. “My mom didn’t know what my dad was. He hid it from her, pretending to be human, until after she was pregnant. When she realized she’d been deceived, she came up with a plan to get me away from him. She succeeded. But she thought it was too dangerous for us to stay together. She brought me to Cecily.” He scraped a hand over his face. “Cecily isn’t my real grandmother. I love her like she is, but she’s not. She was an old family friend. She agreed to take me in when my mom begged her to. My mom didn’t want me raised Striga. She didn’t want me raised by
him
. So she did the best she could do.”

He stopped talking and I realized my body had gone rigid. I was staring at him, wide-eyed, confused, and momentarily speechless.

“What I need you to understand,” he said quietly, “is that I was four years-old when I was left with Cecily. I had no say in any of this. I’ve done what I was told. I was raised the way my mom requested I be raised. In secret. I never wanted to keep things from you, or lie to you, but I was never given the choice. It can be,
it is
, dangerous if anyone finds out.”

“Because of The Council?” I asked, finally finding my voice.

He shrugged. “I’m not too worried about The Council. I’m worried about my so-called father. If word ever got out…If he ever found out…There would be trouble.”

“Trouble?” I echoed.

“You know the Striga have a hard time conceiving. He wanted a child. He acted on a hunch that Lamia blood would…help with that situation. He was right. And then my mother took me away. If he ever found out that Cecily had been hiding me, she would be in danger.” His gaze cut in to me, willing me to believe him.

Whether it was right or wrong of me, I did.

“Where are your glasses? Can you even see?” The question was random but I needed to give myself a break from the current conversation.

He winced. “Yeah, I can see just fine.”

I let those words take hold. “The glasses were just for…what? A fashion statement? And the way you dress? The way you act? Is there anything about you that’s real? Do I even know you at all? Are you just some stranger that has played me for years?” My voice had kicked up several notches as my panic escaped in the form of my accusation. I clamped a hand over my mouth, afraid of what would shoot out of it next.

“I understand that this is hard for you,” Tristan said in an even tone. “I’m sorry for that. But I need you to understand that this has been hard on me too. This isn’t the way I want to live my life. No one should have to live their life like this. Hiding who they really are? Living in fear of being found out? I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. When I was younger, it wasn’t a problem. I was scrawny and pretty easy to ignore. As I got older…”

“You went from scrawny to kind of imposing,” I filled in for him.

“I guess that’s one way to put it. I couldn’t afford to be intimidating.”

“So you went for the complete opposite.”

He shrugged. “I guess maybe part of me thought that if I portrayed myself as nonthreatening, I could really be nonthreatening.”

“You’re…You’ve got…” My head swirled with the realization of what Tristan truly was. “What kind of half-demon bakes cookies?” I demanded, my voice shrill.

“The kind that wanted to find a safe way to tap into magic. I started working with potions but it was disastrous. I nearly blew up the kitchen. Cecily suggested I start with something less complex. Something safe.”

“Like gingersnaps,” I muttered.

He shrugged.

I pulled in a few deep breaths.

This was insane.

Maybe I should’ve been pissed about the secrets he’d been keeping. At the moment, I was so grateful that it was
him
, that he was alive, that the rest of it didn’t matter nearly as much as it maybe should have.

“At the risk of sounding argumentative, I’m not half demon. Striga simply have traces of demon blood. And really, I’m only
half
-Striga. Please don’t make me out to be even worse than I am,” he said quietly.

“Right. Sure,” I said with a curt nod.

“Is there any chance you still have my band?” he asked.

“What…? Oh…,” I patted my front pocket, feeling the small lump there. I finally relinquished the knife, setting it on the coffee table. I wiggled around so that I could retrieve his band from the confines of my pocket. I held it up to him.

He held his wrist out to me from across the room.  “Put it back on.”

“What?” I didn’t understand his request. “Why?”

“You’ll feel safer with me if I’m wearing it.”

“Why would I feel safer?”

“My mother charmed it for me. When I’m wearing it, I can’t tap into Striga magic. I also can’t take it off myself. It can only be removed by Lamia. She made sure of that.”

I opened my mouth, closed it again, not sure what to say. Suddenly I felt like I was on information overload.

“Cecily takes it off sometimes so that we can practice. She was afraid if we didn’t that someday my magic would be completely overwhelming. She wanted me to be able to control it. But at the end of the day, so to speak, she always makes sure it’s back on. That’s why you would feel safer. With it on, I’m the Tristan you know. Without it,” he said, his voice taking on a sad edge, “I’m the person you saw on the boat.”

I slowly shook my head. That wasn’t true. “I won’t feel safer. If you’re wearing it, you won’t be able to defend us. I want you to leave it off.”

“I feel like I’m losing control when I don’t have it on,” he admitted. “I can feel this…this power building up.”

“It might be good for you to lose control every now and again,” I cautiously said.

“It’s not good. It’s dangerous.”

Despite everything that had happened tonight, it was hard to reconcile ‘Tristan’ and ‘dangerous’ belonging in the same sentence. The words just didn’t mesh.

“So you do practice magic.” I said the words more for my own benefit than his, trying to wrap my mind around it. “What’s your affinity?”

“I don’t really have an affinity,” he admitted.

I could tell he was trying to blow it off. I also knew him well enough to listen to what he
wasn’t
saying.

“You don’t have an affinity because you excel equally at them all.”

He didn’t deny it and that was all the confirmation I needed.

“Wow. Just…wow.” I slumped in my chair and we were quiet for a few moments. The room may have been quiet but my mind was a furious mess of thoughts. I took a good look at him. His eyes were green. He looked weary. He was slumped down in the cushions in a similar fashion to me. His face was pale but for the injury on his forehead.