Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy (10 page)

He laughed, too.
“Yeah, I feel the same way. But you know that’ll just get her expelled.”

“I know. Maybe
another school?”

“I don’t think
that’ll fix the problem.”

We were quiet
for a moment. I was lost in thought about what to do with Lyla when Lucas said,
“You know, speaking of abilities, I know it’s been a little awkward between us
since … you know.”

“Yeah,” I said. 
“It’s been like that for me and Clothilde, too.”

“Well, I feel
really bad.”

I looked at him,
and his hazel eyes stared earnestly back at me. “Why?”

“Because I never
really thanked you for saving me.”

“Oh.” I turned
my eyes down, toward pumpkins strewn about the porch.

He gently turned
my face toward him. “Don’t be embarrassed. That was … it was a miracle. You
didn’t just do that for me, you did it so Jonathan wouldn’t be without a daddy.
I don’t care what that turned you into. I can never repay you for what you
did.”

I sadly looked
down at the shadows of our feet lazily swinging over the chipped white paint on
the old wooden floor of the porch. “You should care what I am now.”

“You’re still
the same on the inside, Leigh.”

“Yeah,” I
sighed, but wanted to say so much more, like tell him how dangerous I was.

He rested his
hand on mine and gave it a little squeeze. He smelled like Jonathan’s shampoo,
like soap and apples. It made me smile inside. “Everything’ll be okay. You’ll
see.”

I forced a smile.
“Thank you.”

He tapped one of
the pumpkins with his shoe. “What’s Lyla going as for Halloween? Supergirl?
Wonder Woman?”

“I don’t think
she’s in the Halloween mood right now. Maybe in a couple of weeks. What’s Jon
going as?”

“What else?” He
brought his arms out in front of him, flexed and grimaced. “The Incredible
Hulk.”

Laughing, I
said, “That’s perfect!”

“A little
too
perfect!
I
have to keep him from smashing
things. He breaks things and says, ‘Jon SMASH!’ He broke the microwave.”

I couldn’t stop
laughing. “You want Clothilde to threaten him?”

“She already
did. How you think I got him to stop?” He checked his phone. “Oh! It’s almost
time for me to go.” He patted my hand. “I want to go see Lyla for a minute.”

We got up and
went into the house. Lyla was sitting on Clothilde’s lap, and Clo was hugging
her, smoothing back her hair, soothing her. Lyla wiped away a couple of angry
tears when she saw me and Lucas.

I shook my head
and chuckled. “If I was sent home like that when
I
was eleven, you would
have burned my butt,” I told Clothilde.

“Not her fault.”
She tapped Lyla on the shoulder. “Let’s take a look,” she said, and then gently
pulled the bandage from her cheek. There was a thin cut there, surrounded by a
yellowish bruise. “I have something that’ll fix that right up.” She patted
Lyla’s hip, and Lyla stood up.

As Clothilde got
out of the chair, I walked over to Lyla and extended my hand. “I’ll get it,” I
said, starting to lay my hand on her wound.

“No,” said
Clothilde, a little too forcefully. “I’ll get it.”

Lucas could see
the anger building in me, and he braced himself. “Why can’t I fix it?” I said.

“Because it’s
not that serious. I’ll just go get a little something to put on it.”

“Right. It’s not
that serious. I can fix that in like two seconds.”

“Why don’t you
just let her take care of it, Miss Clo?” said Lucas, gently trying to diffuse
the situation.

“Because she
thinks I’m poison now,” I said. “She won’t let me heal anyone, and she can’t
even bring herself to look at me half the time.”

“Leigh-Leigh,”
she started, but couldn’t bring herself to finish her protest, knowing it was
true.

“Whatever,” I
muttered.

Lyla stomped off
upstairs, upset with the tension in the room. Lucas, who hadn’t lived with women
in a long time, looked too uncomfortable.

“I’ll come back
later,” he said. “I gotta go pick up Jon. See y’all later.” Before he left, he
mouthed the word
sorry
.

I followed Lyla
upstairs and saw the door opened to her room. She sat on her bed, staring at
her school library copy of
Zarlina Road
in her hands
.

I knocked softly
on the door and walked in. “I loved that book when I was your age,” I said.

She pursed her
lips and put the book down on her nightstand and stared at the floor. I sat
beside her.

“I’m not angry
with you, you know,” I told her. “I don’t blame you for fighting back. But I
wish you’d open up to me and tell me why they’re picking on you, why they call
you a freak if they’ve never seen you heal—”

“There was a frog.”

I stopped short,
perplexed. “A frog?”

“A couple of
years ago. Some of the boys found it outside and started kicking it around. It
landed next to me. It wasn’t moving, but it was still alive. I picked it up and
healed it, and it hopped away.”

“Oh. Well, that was
kind of you.”

“Ever since
then, they’ve been calling me a freak and throwing things at me. They threw a
dead mouse at me once and told me to fix it and then laughed at me.”

I was so angry I
could have choked the life out of all those brats and their parents for raising
them that way. I steadied myself and said, “They’re afraid of what they don’t
know.”

She scoffed. “No
they’re not! They think I’m weird and laugh at me. When I get into fights, I
don’t even heal myself anymore because when I show up the next day with nothing
wrong, they notice and I’m an even bigger freak. ” I saw the tears forming in
her eyes, and I hugged her to my side. This time she let me.

“There’s so much
more to life than these kids and what they say and do to you. I’d like to tell you
that it’ll be easier when you’re older, but that’s not true. You’re always
going to have to deal with assholes.”

Lyla giggled,
and I realized what I had just said.

“Sorry, I mean
jerks.”

She giggled
again, wiping her eyes.

“Seriously,
Lyla, you have a wonderful gift, and it’s something they don’t understand.
Maybe they’ll never understand it. But you can’t let that stop you from using
it for good. As you get older, you’ll see how great it is to be an original.”

She sighed. “I’m
sorry I got suspended.”

“It’s okay.
We’ll make it work. But I’d like you to do something for me, please.” She
looked up at me with questioning eyes. “I’d like you to start talking to
someone—a counselor to help you deal with things. Not the paladin stuff because
we have to keep that hush, but about getting bullied and about … losing your
mom and dad.”

She rolled her
eyes. “I don’t need a counselor.”

“I think you do.
I think it would help to talk to someone who knows some techniques to help you
cope with things. It would be like having a friend you can tell all your
secrets to.”

She gave me an
obnoxious pre-teen look. “A friend I can tell all my secrets to? You don’t have
to talk to me like I’m a five-year-old.”

“All right, Sassy,
but just do me that one favor, please?”

She thought it
over for a moment. “Fine.” She leaned back in bed, picked up her book and began
to read.

When I went back
downstairs, Clothilde was in the kitchen, making some kind of salve for Lyla. I
wanted to talk to her, but my stupid pride got the better of me, and I just
left.

When I got back
to my house, a familiar black Mercedes was parked on the street in front.
Something in me just wanted to keep driving and hope I wasn’t noticed, but I
turned in to my little covered parking spot, shut off the car, and gathered my
faculties, telling myself not to start an argument.

I got out of the
car, and Miles got out of his.

“Hello, Leigh,”
he said, smiling politely, but on guard, like he was prepared for me to not
want to see him.

“Hey,” I said,
walking to my front door, and he followed me.

“I was wondering
if I could talk to you for a minute.” He sounded hopeful but cautious.

After I opened
the door, I hesitated at the entrance. “Um, okay. Come in.”

He looked around
the living room, approvingly. “You have a nice house.”

“Thanks,” I
said, tossing my keys on the coffee table. “Not as nice as your house, of
course.”

“I had a place
quite like this when I was around your age.”

“Oh, that’s
nice.”

There was
uncomfortable silence for a moment, and I gestured for him to sit. I knew he
was here for a reason, so I just blurted out, “Why are you here?”

The warm smile
he had been trying to keep up since he arrived faded, and a more serious tone
darkened his face. “I’d like you to come with us—Noah and myself—to France.”

“Yeah, Noah had sent
a message about that. So, what’s going on?”

“Remember the masks
we needed to get back around Mardi Gras?”

“You seriously
think I could forget that?”

“Yes, well, I’m
afraid there is something brewing, and those masks were just the tip of the
proverbial iceberg.”

I raised an
eyebrow and stared at him. “In other words, you’re asking me to put my life in
danger again.”

He thought
carefully about what he said next. “I’m afraid your life is already in danger.
And not just yours, but your family’s.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Have you been
getting strange dreams lately?”

I shook my head.

“Have you had
them before?”

I started to
shake my head again, but remembered something. “Back when we were dealing with
those masks, I had a weird dream that someone called me and told me there was another
mask and that I had to go back to New Orleans.”

Miles nodded
thoughtfully. “Anything else? What about since you’ve moved back to Louisiana?”

“Just … well, I
used to dream about my mom a lot.”

A glimmer of
hurt and regret flashed in Miles’ eyes, and then he said, “Were they just
dreams, or did they serve a purpose?”

“What do you
mean?”

“It’s one thing
to dream about someone, to talk to them, or see them in a familiar setting,
but, in any of these dreams, did your mother tell you about something or warn
you about anything that later came true?”

“Savoy,” I said
without even stopping to think. “When I first moved back last year—actually it
was the reason I moved back—this guy named Walter Savoy was after Lyla. My mom
appeared to me in my dream and told me about his cabin in the bayou. And later she
more or less told me to go to New Orleans.”

“You said there
was a dream where someone called you, telling you to go back to New Orleans and
that there was another mask. What did that voice sound like? Do you remember?”

I shrugged.
“That was months ago. But I couldn’t hear them very well.”

“Them?”

“I couldn’t tell
if it male or female. I remember that much.”

He thought for a
moment, lost in concentration.

“Um, my family
in danger? Remember? What did you mean by that?”

He sighed. “When
Father Ben was alive, he saw bits and pieces of your future. He saw you in
Paris, and had an image of something you needed to do, something that was very
important. And what you did would save your family.”

“’Bits and
pieces of my future?’ I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Father Ben
wasn’t exactly my favorite person. He tricked me to get me into this whole
paladin club in the first place. Look, sorry that you’re having problems again,
but I don’t really have time to run off to Europe. I mean, I have a job now. I
have rent to pay now, and I need to start paying off my student loans—”

“Those are taken
care of.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Miss Clothilde
told me about your financial hardship, so I took care of your student loans for
you. It was the least I could do.”

A sudden fury
rose up in me. I couldn’t believe Clothilde was sharing my business with this
stranger. I didn’t care how well she knew him. I didn’t care how well he
thought he knew me.

“You had no
business doing that. I can take care of myself. You might be my biological
father, but you’re not my dad. And I’m sure as hell not a charity case!”

“Fine. Then you
can work it off by going to Paris for me.”

“I don’t owe you
anything,” I said, rising from my chair. I marched to the door and held it open
for him. “I have company coming in a few minutes,” I lied.

He seemed
shocked and a little hurt, but he left anyway. Before I closed the door, he
added, “I know I can’t make up for the past, and I’m not trying to make up for
it, but please know I didn’t come here for you to help
me
. I wouldn’t be
here if I didn’t believe you and your family were really in danger. Please at
least think about it.” With that, he got in his car and left.