Bitter Demons (20 page)

In front of Peachville High School.

I sat on the floor of Mrs. Shadowford's
office for way longer than I intended.

I closed Jackson's file and wiped away my
tears. Outside, I could hear the tapping of rain against the roof.
The clock on the wall said eight-fifty-eight. Mrs. Shadowford could
be home at any minute. I carefully placed the file back where I'd
found it and closed the drawer tight. I double-checked the floor to
make sure I hadn't dropped anything or left any papers flying free.
Everything looked just right.

The door of the Shadowford van slammed closed
outside and my heart rose up into my throat. They were home. I only
had a few minutes to get out safely and get back up to my room.
With my emotions going haywire, I was worried I wouldn't be able to
make myself invisible, but after a few failed starts, I finally
disappeared and was able to slip out of the room and lock the door
behind me.

I was only halfway up the steps when the
front door opened and Ella Mae wheeled Mrs. Shadowford into the
house. I froze in place and waited for them to unlock the door to
her suite and go inside, then darted up the stairs and into my
room.

Exhausted, I collapsed onto my bed. My search
hadn't gotten me any closer to finding Caroline's attacker, but it
had brought on a whole mess of new emotions I wasn't prepared to
deal with.

After reading the account of how Jackson came
to this world, I understood better why he didn't want me to know.
It couldn't exactly be a fond memory for him at this point. At the
same time, how did he expect us to get closer and really learn to
trust each other if we couldn't be honest about where we came from?
Did he think I would hate him for what he'd done?

I spent the next three hours sulking about
the information in Jackson's files. I went from being angry at him
one minute for keeping it a secret from me this whole time, to
feeling such sadness at his being trapped here for so long, unable
to save his brother. I'd never felt like such a basket case in my
entire life.

The rain wasn't helping, either. It continued
to pour like a waterfall outside my window. I sat in the
windowsill, staring out at Jackson's house and thinking about how
it must be to be trapped so far away from home.

I didn't even know how old he really was.
He'd been here in our world for fifty years, but his brother was
here fifty years before that, which put Jackson at least around a
hundred. How could someone who'd lived so long and gone through so
much really care about a sixteen-year-old girl like me? For the
first time, I really started to understand the vast differences
between us.

At midnight, I put on my only raincoat and a
pair of faded and ripped jeans, then ventured out into the cold,
rainy night. I floated down onto the ground from my window and
trudged through the wet grass and mud to the barn. My mood was
foul, to say the least. I had no idea what I was going to say to
Jackson. Should I even tell him about the file?

I had so many questions firing through my
brain, I wanted to scream and beat my head against the wall.

Inside the barn, there was no sign of
Jackson. I sighed and crawled up onto the crate he'd sat on the
other night. I pulled my legs up and sat criss-crossed with my head
propped up on my hands. When he finally did walk through the door,
he was different.

He looked exactly the same, but the way I
suddenly saw him was different. I'd heard that guy call Jackson a
demon and Jackson had even admitted it, but until tonight, it
wasn't this real. It was like having a suspicion you secretly hoped
wasn't true, then finding proof that it was true all along. This
gorgeous guy that I'd totally fallen for wasn't real. This wasn't
what he really looked like at all, and tonight it hit me for the
first time that we'd never be the same.

Jackson was smiling, blissfully unaware of
the emotional meltdown happening less than ten feet away inside my
body. He shook the rain off his hair and laughed.

"Man, it's really coming down out there," he
said. "I was afraid you weren't going to make it."

"I'm here," I said. I was teetering on the
edge of something very dangerous, and I struggled to keep myself in
one piece. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Did you find anything in the files? Were you
able to get in?" He walked up beside the crate and leaned in to
kiss my cheek.

I pulled away. Crap, I hadn't meant to do
that. It was a reflex, and it was too late to take it back. Worry
creased Jackson's forehead.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure what to say. I'm kind of
freaking out."

He ran a hand through his hair and paced a
few steps. "Okay," he said. "Do you want to talk about it? Can I
help?"

Hysteria bubbled just under the surface. I
could feel it pushing against my skin. I tried desperately to push
it back under. To get a hold of myself and just deal with it. But
finding out more about Jackson's past had me rattled. I felt like
my heart was being torn in a hundred different directions.

"I don't know," I said. "I think I really
messed up."

He stepped to me, put his hand on my knee.
"Did you get caught? Did someone see you?"

"No." I balled my hands into fists so hard my
nails dug into my palms. "Nothing like that."

"Harper, tell me what happened. Just spit it
out. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it."

Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks.
Outside, the rain began to fall harder. "I found Mary Anne's file,"
I said. "There wasn't anything special in there. Nothing about her
family or where she's from. Other than it being strangely empty,
there was nothing to notice."

"That doesn't sound earth shattering," he
said.

I choked back a sob, took a deep breath and
kept going. "So I looked for my own file. You know, as a comparison
and just out of curiosity. Nothing new there, but then, when I
started to close the drawer and leave, I saw another a name that
caught my eye."

Jackson leaned in toward me, waiting to hear
if I'd found some new important information about the crow. Tears
finally escaped and made a run for it, streaking down my cheeks. I
lifted my hands to my face and wiped them away, but the tears kept
falling.

"Whose?" he asked.

"Yours," I said.

Jackson's face went pale and he stepped away
from me. "What do you mean? They have a file on me in that
drawer?"

I nodded and sniffed.

His face twisted up and his lips grew tense.
"Did you open it?"

I could hear the anger in his voice. I
guessed it was probably a bad idea to piss off a guy the Order
called Wrath, but the truth was too heavy to keep from him. I
couldn't hold it inside. I had to tell him.

"Yes," I whispered.

Jackson stood there for a minute, not moving.
Then, he kicked his boot hard against an old lawn mower near the
door. I jumped at his burst of anger.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know it was wrong to
go snooping through your business like that, but it was right there
in front of me and you've been so secretive since the day I met
you. At the hospital, I found out just enough to torture me, and
you wouldn't give me anything else. What did you expect?"

"I told you about Aerden," he said. "I opened
up to you in ways I haven't ever opened up to anyone."

"I know," I said. "But all you told me was
that he's your brother. You didn't say you were twins or that you
spent all those years wondering where he'd gone and trying to find
a way to rescue him. You didn't tell me you killed all those
people. That's the stuff that matters."

"You want to know what matters?" he asked in
a raised voice, his hands gesturing wildly. "Trust, that's what
matters. I thought I could trust you, Harper. I thought I could
count on you to let me tell you in my own way, and in my own time.
Not like this."

The muscles in his arm tightened as his fists
clenched tight.

"Look, I understand why you didn't want me to
know all those terrible things you did. I understand why that has
to be a painful part of your life, but you have to understand that
I am a part of your life now whether you like it or not. Our
destinies, our lives are intertwined forever. Six months ago, I had
nothing and no one in this world that I cared about. Then I come
here and I meet you, and suddenly I have something that
matters."

I hopped down from the crate and took a few
steps toward him. He held his hand up to keep me away, and I froze
to the spot, my feet glued down with fear. Fear that I had just
messed up the best friendship I'd ever had.

"Jackson," I said, wringing my hands
together. "I needed to know. My time in Peachville has been one
secret or tragedy after the other, but you're the one thing that's
kept me anchored. I needed to know who you really were, can't you
see that? The Order will always have their secrets. You told me
that. But you and me? Why do there have to be secrets between
us?"

"They were my secrets to keep or tell," he
said. "Not for you to steal away. I've had enough stolen from me in
my life."

"And I haven't?" I said. A raindrop fell onto
my cheek and I swiped at it. "You think things have been super easy
for me all these years?"

"Sixteen years is nothing compared to the
hundred years I've been separated from my brother and the fifty
years I've been trapped in this human body without my soul, without
my powers. My whole family is still back in the shadow world with
no idea where we are or if we're even still alive," he said, his
chest heaving with each breath. "That's my reality, and there's
nothing I can do about it. So forgive me if I don't want to talk
about it all the time."

"One time," I said, jaw tightening. Lightning
cracked outside, sending a bright flash of light into the barn.
"That's all it would have taken. Just once for you to tell me the
truth about who you are and where you came from."

"Even once is hard enough," he said. "It's
like having old wounds ripped open again."

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Jackson," I said.
"I just wanted to know the truth."

"And now you do," he said. "You know all the
horrible things I've done. All the people I hurt. And I'd do it all
over again if it could give me any chance of getting my brother
back."

"Do you think I'm going to judge you for
that?" I asked. I felt the storm inside of me shift and strengthen.
Another raindrop fell onto my forehead and another on my arm. "Is
that the kind of person you think I am? Don't you think if I was
that kind of girl, I would have just left you there in that
hospital to die? Do you think I still would have risked everything
to keep you safe?"

As my voice grew louder, so did the storm.
Drops began to fall from the ceiling, and I stepped aside, thinking
I must be standing under a hole in the roof. But when I moved, the
rain moved with me. Cool drops fell onto my face and the top of my
head, dripping down to the ends of my hair.

"I'm so sick and tired of being pulled in a
hundred different directions," I said. "I just want to know that
one thing in this town is true and real. If you're going to turn
your back on me for reading that file, then maybe what we have
isn't as real as I thought it was."

"And what exactly do you think we have?" He
glared at me, his jaw tight. I saw a raindrop slide down his cheek.
"Do you think we have some kind of future together, Harper? You
know as well as I do that as soon as the Order decides they want to
take you through the initiation, everything changes for us. If my
brother was your slave so that you could draw power from him and be
a puppet for these witches, these slave merchants, I couldn't bare
to even look at you anymore."

"So don't let that happen," I said. My tears
were flowing again, cold against my flustered face. The rain was
falling so hard around us now, we might as well have been outside.
"Help me stop it. I can't fight them all by myself."

"You're already half-way theirs," he shouted
through the rain.

"For someone called Wrath, you're a coward,"
I said, knowing I was going too far, but unable to stop the words
from tumbling out of me. "What happened to you? When you came
through that portal, you were brave and fierce. You were ready to
fight for what you wanted. Aren't those things still worth fighting
for?"

Thunder sounded outside the door so loud, I
could feel the vibrations in my feet.

Jackson turned and gave me a cold stare. "If
you don't know the answer to that question, then you don't know me
at all."

With that, he turned and left the barn. I sat
down in the rain and let the sorrow consume me. In the back of my
mind, I knew there was no hole in the ceiling large enough to let
this much rain through, but I didn't understand then what it meant.
Instead, I let the rain wash over me until I couldn't cry another
tear.

I couldn't face school the next day. I told
Ella Mae I wasn't feeling well and thankfully, she let me stay
home. I spent the morning in bed, a tissue close at hand.

Sometime after noon, I peeled myself off the
bed and forced my body into the shower. I'd gone to bed with my
hair still soaking wet from the rain and now it was all knotted up
and wild. Everything seemed to be falling apart around me. The
Order was tightening their hold on me and threatening to put me
into seclusion. Brooke was doing everything she could to sabotage
me. Caroline still hadn't woken up. And Jackson probably hated me
now.

Not to mention the crow who wanted to steal
my power.

I washed these thoughts down the drain and
stepped out of the shower. What it all boiled down to was that I
was alone. Well, I'd been alone in this world most of my life. I
could handle it. I got dressed and braided my hair into one long
braid down my back, then stuck my head into Caroline's room to see
if there'd been any change.