Coldhearted (9781311888433) (38 page)

He withdrew his hand. “Please, Edie, I’m so
sorry, but I know you’re lying. I know it. I know you love me. It’s
him, isn’t?” he asked through clenched teeth. “He’s making you do
this. Why? Has he threatened to hurt me or someone else? Don’t give
in to him, Edie! That’s what he wants! Do you want him to win? Are
you ready to give up? Please, don’t do this! We can fight him,
together! We’ll find a way. Please, baby, please don’t do this to
me. I can’t live without you.” The last came out as an anguished
whisper.

She didn’t know how, but her mask of
indifference stayed intact. No crying. She wasn’t even shaking, but
she was cold, so very cold. It wasn’t just Tristan, hovering unseen
behind her, his presence a reminder of what she had to do in order
to save Mason’s life.

She was cold because she had to
be—coldhearted. This apathy traveled throughout her veins, stopping
the course of blood and freezing it, as she transformed into
someone who appeared alive, but was dead inside; this was the only
way she was going to get through it all.

“
If you don’t leave right
now, I’ll call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing,
breaking and entering, and…rape.” She had to look away, staring at
a blank, emotionless spot on the wall. “I’ll say you raped me.” She
lifted up the sleeves of her sweater, exposing the quickly-forming
bruises on her arms. “I’ll say I struggled, but you held me down,
forced me to have sex with you. I was crying, begging for you to
stop, but you didn’t care and didn’t stop.”

These weren’t her words even though she’d
spoken them. Tristan had whispered them in her ear. He was a genius
when it came to verbal cruelty. She could only imagine with horror
what he would be like once he became corporeal.

He’d be a physical monster.

She dared to look at Mason. His mouth was
hanging open, shocked. She thought that she heard a glass slowly
cracking, but then she realized what it really was: his heart was
breaking.

Wounded, Mason retreated from her, and in a
choked-up voice, said, “I’m leaving. I won’t bother you again.” He
went to her bedroom door and unlocked the knob, but he didn’t turn
it, hesitating. He faced the door, refusing to look at her. “No
matter what, I’ll always love you. Remember that, Edie. I’ll always
love you,” he promised.

He went to move, hesitated again, and then
turned the knob, opening the door. He swung it wide, stepped over
the threshold, hesitated again, and then walked away. He continued
walking, until he was down the hall, past the kitchen, through the
living room, and finally out the front door. She heard the engine
in his truck turn over. It idled for a while and she knew that he
was hesitating again, deciding what to do, if he should leave or
not.

After what seemed like forever, he put the
truck in gear and headed toward the closed gates. Now it was her
turn to hesitate, but she knew that she had to let him go, so she
entered the code and watched as the gates fully opened.

Now he didn’t hesitate, as he drove on
through and away, out of her life, forever.

She’d vowed to never let him go, but now she
knew that her vows meant nothing.

Chapter 25

Tristan was standing behind Edie, as she
stared out the living room window.

From the reflection, she could see that he’d
changed back into the outfit that she’d first met him in: black
pants, and a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the top, with the
sleeves rolled up. She assumed that it’d been the outfit he’d died
in, and couldn’t help feeling a tinge of sorrow, despite his cruel
nature.

Twilight had arrived. The sky was gray and
blue, and a fresh batch of white snow was descending upon Grimsby.
The mixture of colors created a melancholy picture. There wasn’t
any happiness to be found in Grimsby. Despair reigned here, never
to be overthrown.

She felt a cold, solid hand on the small of
her back. It traveled up her spine and rested on the back of her
neck; a cold thumb began stroking her skin, massaging the area with
forced tenderness.

“
Don’t mourn for Mason
Fenwick,” he said. “Don’t mourn for mere peasants, weak and
ignorant, as they are.” He ceased his hard strokes, but kept his
hand on her neck. “You’re a queen, Edie, and queens don’t mix with
gutter trash.”

She turned and looked up at Tristan, finding
one side of his face was no longer transparent, but solid, as was
the hand cupping her neck.

What Arianna had feared, now came to pass:
Tristan was becoming corporeal.

Yet his touch hadn’t killed her. Maybe he
could control who lived and who died. Well, there was no maybe
about it. He could.

“
So if I am a queen, then
what does that make you? The court jester?” she asked
sarcastically.

His cold hand tightened around her neck but
not enough to hurt her. “I’m the King, my sweet, and queens,
whether they like it or not, follow commands. Or face execution,”
he threatened.

It was a hollow threat, she knew. If Tristan
killed her, now, she’d become a prisoner in her house, and he would
too. Even though she didn’t see with her own eyes the bond between
them, she sensed it. They were attached, and the line was so
strong, it could never be broken. Unseen forces had brought them
together, and those same forces could tear them apart. But she
didn’t see this happening anytime soon.

Tristan had been
right:
I’m yours and you’re
mine
.

When she spoke these words to him, with her
hand cupping his cold, solid cheek, his lapis lazuli eyes widened
in bewilderment. He smiled, sweetly, and shifted his cold lips to
kiss her palm that lay against his cheek. The sensation chilled her
to the core, but she fought off shivering. Encouraged, he trailed
cold fingertips along her face, making his way under her chin,
where he tilted her head up, so that her lips were ready for his
descending mouth. She waited until their lips almost touched, and
then she slapped his face—hard. His head whipped to the side from
the blow, and his jaw clenched, as he stared away from her, rage
building up inside him.

Only the side of his face and the hand
gripping her jaw with fierce strength were solid. The rest of him
was transparent and she stifled her fear to prevent him from
completing the transition. She was more angry than afraid and that
worked to her advantage. He remained as he was, ghostly and
frustrated. When he finally turned to face her, his eyes stared
into hers with absolute hatred. He kept up the pressure on her jaw.
She expected it to snap off and break at any moment, but as she
waited for the inevitable, he surprised her by letting go. She
couldn’t help it and reached up to massage away the soreness. The
bone seemed intact, but for how long, she didn’t know. Tristan’s
anger was boundless.

“
Are you hurt?” he asked in
a cold, clinical tone.

“
Yes,” she admitted, and
winced from the pain of moving her jaw to speak.

“
Good,” he said, and then
touched the cheek where she’d hit him. “You hurt me
too.”

“
Good,” she mimicked in the
same hard tone that he’d used. “Now if you’re done ruining my life
for one day, I’d like to go to bed and weep all night.”

She didn’t wait for a response and turned,
leaving Tristan in the living room. She passed by her uncle in the
hallway as she went to her room.

He exhaled a trail of smoke. “Is your
boyfriend still here?” The question was one of curiosity, not
judgment.

“
No, and he’s not my
boyfriend anymore.” She was trying not to cry and run into her
uncle’s arms for comfort.

He lowered his cigarette. “Oh, I’m sorry to
hear that, but I thought I heard you talking to him.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t talking to
anyone.” She looked over her uncle’s shoulder to see Tristan,
narrowing his cold eyes at her. “No one at all,” she emphasized his
nothingness to her.

Uncle Landon was confused, furrowing his
brow, as he turned to see what (or more precisely who) she was
looking at. By the time he’d turned back around, she was already
down the hall. She went inside her room, closed and locked the
door. It was a clear indication to anyone that she didn’t want to
be bothered. Tristan, of course, ignored this, and being a ghost,
entered her room, as if he’d been teleported magically inside.

“
So I’m no one?” He seemed
hurt, staring at her sadly.

He seemed to be waiting for her to rescind
her earlier claim.

For a second, perhaps a millisecond, she
felt sorry for him, but then she remembered who he was and what
he’d done. Her sorrow quickly vanished.

“
That’s right,” she
confirmed. “You’re no one.”

She ignored his gaze, as she went inside the
bathroom, not bothering to close the door. She showered, brushed
her teeth, and changed into her red flannel pajamas. When she went
back into her bedroom, he was sitting in the plum leather chair.
She ignored him still, slid into bed, and turned off the lamplight.
She was bathed in darkness, except for a sliver of moonlight that
shone through the open curtains of her window. She hadn’t planned
on crying, but she did, as soon as she inhaled Mason’s scent, still
fresh on the bed sheets. It was evidence that he’d been there, the
remembrance of what they’d shared, the love they’d expressed. This
was when she really started to cry, full on sobs, burying her face
into the pillow that he’d rested his head against.

She closed her eyes briefly, wiping her
tears away, and then widened them in astonishment. The lamplight
had been mysteriously turned back on and she could see that she
wasn’t alone. Mason was lying next to her; he was naked from the
waist up, the covers hiding his lower half. He was on his back,
unaware of her presence, because he was kissing another girl:
Rochelle. She was on top of him, naked too, and he was running his
fingers through her dirty blonde hair. He told her that he loved
her. Rochelle said the same, and then kissed him wildly, savagely.
He reciprocated her fervor, and then flipped her over, so that she
lay underneath him.

He slowly turned his head and looked at
Edie, as Rochelle began kissing his neck. He winked, and then
smirked, showing off those dimples. “You were good, but Rochelle’s
better. She was always better than you. She knows how to please me.
You, well, you’re no one, Edie. You’re nothing. Why don’t you die
and join your parents? No one here wants you. You’re nothing.”
Mason looked away from her and shifted again so that Rochelle was
on top of him. His hands roamed all over her body, as he planted
wet, noisy kisses along her neck.

Now it was Rochelle’s turn to mock. She
turned to face Edie, her eyes half-closed, moaning in delight at
Mason’s expertise. “Poor, poor, Edie,” she said in false sincerity,
and then sneered. “You’re such a loser. You’ll always be a loser.
You know when Mason was with you, he was thinking of me the entire
time. Think back, Edie, don’t you remember him saying my name?” She
giggled at something Mason was doing under the covers. “That’s
right. He’s never gotten over me. He loves me, not you. You’re
nothing, Edie. You’re no one.”

“
No one, no one, no one, no
one, no one...
”

This cruel melody played
over and over in her head, as Mason and Rochelle carried on right
next to her.
It’s not
real
. She dared to reach out and touch
them, to prove it, but she made contact and jerked her hand back,
horrified. She had felt them, warm and solid.

“No,” she said faintly.

She moved so quickly that she fell out of
the bed and on the floor. She looked up to see Tristan staring down
at her, still seated in the leather chair.

“
Bad dream?” he asked with
false concern.

She quickly sat up and raised her head to
see that her bed was empty. Mason and Rochelle were gone. Or rather
they’d never been there to begin with. Yet the lamplight was still
on.

She stood up and turned to see Tristan,
smirking at her. “I was never dreaming. You got into my mind,” she
accused, “planted that…ugly scene.” She held out her hands. “And
for what, Tristan?” she said, using his name before him for the
first time. “Because I said you were no one?”

“
You hurt my feelings,” he
said with an edge to his voice, smirk gone. “You know how much I
love you. How can you be so cruel?” He sounded mad and
disingenuously sad.

She got mad too and bent over, her face in
his; the area just below his solid eye twitched, in fear or
surprise, she didn’t know. “You call me cruel?” she said acidly.
“Take a good look in the mirror buddy because you’re the very
definition of cruel. And I don’t love you. I’ll never love you. Get
it, ghost boy? You can’t make someone love you. You’ve never loved
because you don’t know how to love. Love is compassion. Love is
mercy. Love is putting others before your own needs. You embody
none of these traits, so don’t you dare try to convince me that you
love me. I’ll never, ever buy what you’re selling.”

She refused to move her face even when she
saw his lips move toward her cheek. He kissed her chastely. It was
a cold kiss. The only one he knew how to give.

“
You’re so warm,” he said
softly, as if lamenting that he weren’t. “I’ll leave you to sleep
in peace. Sweet dreams, Edie.”

She closed her eyes briefly and in that
short time, he’d vanished. She didn’t know where he’d gone, but he
wasn’t in her room. She knew this because she wasn’t freezing to
death.

She stared at her vacant bed. She couldn’t
sleep there, knowing what’d really happened and what’d been planted
inside her mind. As a child, she’d been afraid to sleep in her bed
for fear of imaginary monsters, so she’d crawled into her parents’
bed, comforted by their presences. But her parents were dead and
she wasn’t a child anymore. Yet she needed the comfort of family
and Uncle Landon was all she had left.