Dark and Twisted (22 page)

I’m being paid back for all the times I cut gym class. My legs feel like jelly, and I can hear Coach Bowlin in my mind yelling at me,
‘Come on, Day, there are no losers in this class! Pick up your ass, or I will hand it to you.’
How one is handed their ass was a mystery to me. I once asked Coach how he would actually do that, and he sent me to sit on the bench. I can now say I have had my ass handed to me, and I think I dropped it about a mile and a half back.

I clutch at a cramp in my side as I stumble over another rock. Jaxson the Tyrant, my new secret nickname for him, marches forward, and it takes everything I have just to keep up. As the terrain changed, so did his mood. The landscape is no longer the black sandy beach, now it is a frozen tundra. Frost covers everything. It even clings to my skin and hair. The cold sets deep in my bones, and I keep my arms wrapped around me as the wind lashes at my face.

Everything here looks dead, leaving an ominous feeling stuck in my gut. Black skeletal tress huddle together in clusters while brown patches of grass grip at my tights, ripping more holes in them. Large stones jut out of the ground every few feet, making us navigate around them, only to find another. My boots slip over the dark blue pebbles scattered everywhere, but they offer the only color in this dead landscape.

This is a strange world I’m in. Creatures that bleed black, boys who look completely normal but are some sort of mystical creatures. I narrow my eyes at Jaxson, examining the back of his head, trying to see the difference between him and a normal high school boy. Despite the eyes that change with his mood, I don’t see anything that drastically different. He looks like a typical temperamental, sarcastic teenage boy. His long dark hair hangs in his face, skinny jeans, piercings, and tattoos. I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup of paranormal creatures if my life depended on it. Funny, I would pick Buck out as being a troll.
Hmmm, I wonder.

“You’re staring,”

Oh yeah, there’s also that weird elfy intuition of his. “I wasn’t.” I trip over another rock. “Rrrrrr,” I growl at it. “Stupid rocks.” My voice rises. “I’ve about had it. I don’t know what weird elf boot camp you attended, but I need a break. I’m starving, and now my foot is throbbing. My daily workout routine consists of turning a page and reaching for the next
Oreo
cookie in the pack. Not hiking up Mount Everest.”

“We can’t stop. We have to keep going.”

I sit down on one of the stones and watch him walk away. I’m done. Let him go. I don’t care. Let that lizard creature or Cardelian find me.

He stops, his back going rigid. “You need to get up!” he snarls, spinning on his heels.

That’s it. I’m not about to take any more of his moody crap. I am sick of it. I glare at him—a look I have mastered giving to Buck. “Excuse me! You have another thing coming if you think you can just boss me around. I’m not going to take it. No, sir. Women have made huge leaps and bounds, and I’m not about to set us back centuries by listening to you like I’m some sort of puppy that will obey your demands.”

He narrows his eyes at me, and I am ready for a fight, so I try again but a little softer this time.

“Maybe you can march on like a soldier, but I am hungry and cold, and have been through hell.”

His eyes lighten and his shoulders relax slightly.

“We can rest for a moment, but then we must keep going. It is not safe.”

He takes off his bow, and he sits down on the ground across from me. I stare at the weapon. It looks dangerous with its black glass body and quivers with golden feathers.

Jaxson leans back against one of the stones and closes his eyes. I stare at him for a moment before I flop back on my back the sky changes between various shades of blue ending in a midnight blue. I watch it for a while, but it only reminds me of Jaxson’s eyes. I try to remind myself of what I should be focused on—like getting home and not breaking my ankle in the process. Yet guilt of what I did to him creeps back into my mind. He hasn’t brought it up, acting like it never happened, but it swells between us like a balloon, making me want to scream.

“Thank you,” I blurt. “Thank you for helping me, for giving me that medicine. Thanks for coming after me. I still don’t trust you, but thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

And we are silent again. I shut my eyes, wishing I was back home. I’m sure Essie has already notified the police that I’m missing. My stomach rumbles so loudly I’m sure he can hear it.

“I don’t suppose Faeylon has any fast-food restaurants?”

He snorts. “Not likely.”

“I need food and rest,” I complain again.

He goes silent again, which just annoys me. The silence stretches between us until I want to scream.

“Don’t you feel anything? Hungry, scared, happy, annoyed, mad? Anything?”

“It makes no difference what I feel.” He shrugs.

I blow out an exasperated breath. “Well, it would make me feel a little better about this whole situation if you felt something,” I mumble under my breath.

“How about, I feel it’s time to move?” He grabs his bow and stands.

I am alone and scared, and I don’t know what I am walking into, what he could be leading me to, but I have no choice but to follow him. It feels like he is leading me to my doom.

“I don’t understand why you dislike me so much.” I fold my arms protectively across my chest.

He glares at me, his cold eyes holding animosity in them. They change from the pale blue shade to the bright glowing blue.

“Is that what you think? That I don’t like you?” he asks in a mocking tone.

I study his sharp features, his full lips that I can’t help wanting to feel with my own. “You’re doing a very good job of covering it up. I know when someone dislikes me. Trust me, I’ve had enough experience. Remember, I’m a freak.” I feel lightheaded from the need to defend myself, and it mixes with a yearning I don’t want to admit.

He laughs. “You just learned that I’m an elf, yet you still believe that you’re the freak.” He shakes his head and steps closer to me. I jerk away from him as he brushes back a piece of hair from my face and cold electricity shoots through me where he touches.

“I’m trying to save you, and you’re making it difficult.” He says still touching me.

I have the urge to capture him like this, a picture in time of the boy that has the power to make me feel this way. It’s like the first time riding a roller coaster. The anticipation of what is going to happen next. A ride I want to last forever, but I know all too soon, it will come to an abrupt halt, leaving my heart racing and my legs shaking. Jaxson is my very own personal thrill ride, and I’m not sure what is over the next incline.

He looks like a character from an anime novel—a dark prince, a warrior. The leather cord of the necklace he gave me days ago is looped tightly around his neck, and the stone sits perfectly in the hollow of it. He must have picked it up when Cardelian threw it at him.

My chest aches to go back to the time when I admired him from afar as he sat in the back of class hunched over his drawings. His eyes are lit up as he watches me studying him. A lock of raven hair falls into them, blocking my view of the window into his world. My hand itches at my side to push it back, to run my hand through the soft layers. I grip my skirt instead to stop myself, squeezing the soft materiel so tightly that I’m sure I will rip it.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

“How I didn’t see that you were different,” I admit.

“That’s because you choose to see people for what they are and not their labels.”

My cheeks are on fire. “Do I do that?”

“Yes.”

He reaches for my hand, and I let him help me to my feet. Snow falls from my hair onto my shoulder, slowly melting where it lands. He watches it dissolve on my skin, and the way he looks at it so contently, warms my skin and makes my whole body hot and tingly. I shiver as he steps closer to me, and I feel small compared to him. He towers over me, his long, dark hair falling into his face.

“What are you doing?” I squeak. I wish my voice was steady and not shaky, giving away the bundle of nerves I am. It’s like he personally wound me up and now he is cruelly toying with me.

“Something I should have done a long time ago.” His voice is dark and perilous.

My heart races like I’m his prey, cornered and afraid of what he is going to do. As if he can sense my fear, he backs me up until I cannot go any farther, pressing me against the boulder behind me. He has me frozen under his dark gaze; my heart is races like I’m his prey. It would be a miracle if he didn’t hear it, but that doesn’t matter.

“Jaxson.” His name comes out in a whisper.

He leans down into my neck, his hot breath tickles at my pulse. I grasp the boulder for support, but my hands slide down the slick, wet surface. The sweet smell of him fills me, making me dizzy and unsteady like I’m in a dream. My breath comes out labored, mixing with my fear and anticipation of what is going to happen next. I close my eyes.

This is what I have wanted.

His hand goes to my shoulder, tugging the fabric aside, and my eyes fly open. “What are you doing?”

“I need to check your wounds to see if they are healing,” he says.

“Oh.” I let out a nervous laugh. Of course, he wasn’t going to kiss me. Why would he?

“They are healing nicely.”

He traces them, causing a twinge of pain to mix with the pleasure from his touch, and I have to bite back a moan. When he’s satisfied that I’m healing, he lets go of my sweater and takes a step back.

“What about you?” I ask.

“I’ll be fine.”

Regardless of his dismissal, I reach for him, and he goes still. He tilts his head to the side, allowing me to examine his wounds. I swallow hard, and standing on my tiptoes, I move the fabric away from his neck. His pale skin is like touching ice—hard, smooth, and cool. I let my finger trail the thin silver line at the base of his neck. Even though he is healed, I’m the one that caused it. I feel dizzy and sick that I could have done that. I grip his shoulder tightly for support.

“I didn’t mean to …” Tears sting the corner of my eyes.

He steadies my elbows. “You did nothing wrong.”

“How can you say that? I hurt you. I was just so scared.”

“And you are not anymore?” he asks.

“I’m terrified.” I shake my head.

He suddenly looks tired and sad. “Come on, we need to find shelter before night falls.”

He steps away from me, and I can feel the distance between us grow. I follow without another word.

We make it to the base of the cliff of ice where another cave waits for us to enter. At first, I hesitate on going inside, since the last time I was in a cave I was almost an appetizer. But a thick darkness begins to blanket everything around us.

“Trust me what waits for us out here in the dark is far worse than what might be lurking inside,” Jaxson assures me.

The cave swallows us in darkness, the only light comes from the glow of Jaxson’s eyes illuminating the walls of ice. As we make our way through, the terrain of the floor changes every few feet, making it difficult to navigate through. In places, the cave grows into large endless rooms and in others, it became so tight that we have to get on our hands and knees and crawl through. Ice drips from stalactite that decorates the ceiling.

We stop in a narrow part of the cave. Where we can see what is coming in and what is going
.
I sit down, my legs stretched out in front of me. “I have never walked so much in my life,” I complain.

Jaxson leans his head against the blue sheet of ice behind him, his hands rest on his knees. I pull my knees to my chest, shivering not only form the cold but from everything that has happened and start to cry. I want to curl into myself like when I was a little kid and have my dad wrap his protective arms around me and tell me everything will be okay, but that is not going to happen. I want to wake up from this nightmare and be back in my bed, back to my life.

“Your cold.” Jaxson voice barely a whisper.

I don’t bother hiding the fact that I’m crying when I look up at him from with red-rimmed eyes. “I want to go home.” I wipe at my eyes with the back of my hand.

He drags in a ragged breath, looking weary and defeated—all of his usual cockiness gone. It makes him look younger, perhaps his rightful age.

“I’m going to get you home, Ace, I promise.” He unzips his sweatshirt, the one he always wears and tosses a heap next to me. “I almost forgot how cold it can get here,” he says.

It’s a peace offering from him, so I pick it up and hold it in my hand. It’s a small comfort in this cruel, unknown world. I turn it over, examining it. There is a small rip in the cuff and it smells like him—the sweet metallic scent of snow mixed with pine. I want to bring it to my nose and breathe it all in. My heart constricts at the thought of having something that is a part of him this close to me.

“What about you? You will be cold.”

“The cold does not affect me the same way it does humans,” he shrugs.

“Another elf thing?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Something like that.”

I pull the sweater over my head, and despite it not being very thick, it offers some warmth from the elements. I stare at him for a little longer. His head is tilted back, gazing up at the ice that surrounds us. We are closed off from the rest of the world, and it’s almost hard to think that right outside of these thick walls of ice, another one exist.

I am beginning to see him for what he really is. His eyes glow bright, illuminating the small space in blue. What does it mean to be an elf? Did he go to school? Have a first kiss? I try to imagine him as a little kid growing up in a place like this, but none of it seems real.

“You grew up here?” I ask.

“No, Ace, I didn’t grow up in a cave.” The corner of his mouth twitches.

“I know that! I mean here in this land.”

“Then, yes, unfortunately, this wasteland was my home.” He sighs.

“Was?”

“Greeting cards lie. You cannot always go home. Once you leave Eyce, you do not return so easily.”

I don’t know what to say to him. I want to ask him why and what happened to make him leave in the first place. “And Abby grew up…in the City of Night?” I hesitate, trying to make sense of this new world.

“But you knew her as a child? And Cardelian?”

He is silent for a moment. “Yes, we were children together. We came together during summers, as most of the court children do or did. It’s how alliances are created between the lands of Faeylon.”

“Wait, oh, my gosh, did you just say court? Like in you are some sort of faerie prince.”

He cringes. “Elf. Elf prince. But I’m no longer a prince. When I left, I gave up that title.”

Even in this light, I can see the flush in his cheeks. I shake my head in disbelief. “This just keeps getting weirder and weirder. It just doesn’t seem real, you being …” I can’t bring myself to say it. Me, the girl who writes stories about girls that fall in love with zombies. Me, the book nerd who devours paranormal books like they are gummy bears.

“Elfin,” he says with a hint of amusement.

“What about this? What is it?” I pull my sleeve up, revealing the mark that Cardelian burned.

He cringes a little. “It
was
a protection spell. Remember when I painted the frost on your skin in your dream?” he mutters.

“I remember,” I say a little breathless at the memory of how carefully he touched me. I swallow hard. “This is the stuff from books. Spells, elves, faeries … they don’t exist.” I clamp my hand over my mouth. “Oh, my God, when a human says that a faerie doesn’t exist, do they die? Because I believe.”

Now the look of amusement on his face is obvious. “This isn’t
a children’s book
, and no fae died because you said that.”

I have a million questions that burn inside of me, but instead, I ask him the other thing that has been haunting me. “Jaxson, what happened to Juliet? Did you …”

“Did I kill her?”

I cringe from the sharpness of his voice a sudden mood change, but I nod my head yes.

“I didn’t physically have anything to do with it, but I might as well have been the one that brought her to her death.”

I shiver.
So
she is dead
.

“I tried to help her. She was being drained, but she didn’t want help. I thought that maybe, this time, Cardelian was just having a little fun and that he wouldn’t take it as far,” he says, his voice hoarse and tired.

“Drained?” I shiver.

“There are some things that are crueler than death.”

My heart constricts.

“If I would have listened to Abby in the first place, none of this would be happening now. She didn’t want to stick with Cardelian when we arrived, but I insisted he was different. I was wrong.”

It’s hard to believe the girl I saw a few days ago would be capable of having such a conversation.

“He was hurting her, and I was pretending we were all such good friends.”

Pain etches deep into his face, and it makes my body ache for him. I wish I could take his hurt away and make it mine. I scoot across the short distance between us as a strong desire to comfort him burns deep inside of me. Siting on my knees between his legs, I dig my fingers into the frozen muddy gravel below me to keep from touching him. The light in his eyes has dimmed, replaced with grief that makes me ache for him.

“Jaxson, what happened to Abby, to Juliet, to me, it’s not your fault.”

His eyes bore into mine. “You would not say that if you knew the things he did to Abby. The things that I’m capable of. I’m a monster.”

I can see the self-loathing vibrating off him. This goes much deeper than normal teenage angst. He hates his true self, not the sarcastic, rebellious teenage boy, but a paranormal creature that lives inside of him.

“What exactly are you?”

“I already told you.” He tosses a pebble against the wall and watches it bounce to the ground.

“I know what you are, but what can you do? I want to see what you really are.”

He tosses another stone, glaring at the wall. I see it’s going to take a little nudge to get him to open up.

“Like … do you make shoes in the middle of the night or bake cookies in a tree?”

“Not exactly,” he lets out a short laugh. Picking up another stone, he tosses it in the air between us. Instead of dropping to the ground as the others, it hovers there, turning over, encased in blue light.

“Whoa,” is all I can say as I stare at it.

I look up at Jaxson, and his eyes are brighter. He lets the stone drop and his eyes flicker.

“That’s not all I can do.”

His voice is hushed filling my stomach with a thousand butterflies. He holds out his hand to me, and I cautiously place my hand in his. With his other hand, he pushes up my sleeve, revealing the angry burn that Cardelian inflicted on me. I flinch when he touches it, but he gently begins to trace over the pattern. Where he touches, my arm lights up, and a cold burning sinks into my skin as the blistering disappears. A noise between a whimper and a moan slips out of my mouth. The burn cools, and my skin feels charged with electricity, but there is more than just an electric sensation.

Something passes between us, all the emotion I have ever felt is transferred to him, and I know he can feel all of my happiness, sadness, hopes and dreams, and I know his. It fills me until I feel like I might explode. He stops tracing the mark, his eyes no longer glowing, but he still grips my wrist in his hand. His chest rises and falls with mine. He is not just an elf. He is a boy. A boy that I like, who is confused and battling demons on the inside just like everyone else.

My words tumble out in a hurry. “I don’t think you are a monster. I think you are remarkable. What you can do—”

Before I can continue rambling, he pulls me close to him so that I sit between his knees, chest to chest. His heart beats hard against my ribs. I let out a small gasp at his closeness.

“You would not say that if you knew what I truly could do.” His voice is a husky whisper, holding so much more meaning behind it than the actual words.

I dig my fingers into the gravel until I feel the sharp stones push under my nails, and my body is shaking. His hand finds my face, cupping my cheek as his thumb runs across the top of it, and then down the line of my jaw, stopping on my bottom lip. His thumb lingers there. My body is at war. It is on fire with desire that is as cold as ice as it dances along my skin from his touch. Every part of me is screaming for him to continue his exploration, to keep touching me, to kiss me, but he doesn’t make any further movement. He stares, transfixed on my mouth until I can no longer take the tension and anticipation.

I sit up on my knees, hovering just slightly above him, and lean in,pressing my lips to his
.
A million fireworks explode in my chest as every feeling that I have ever felt or have ever wanted to feel pulsates through me. I press into him, closing any space between us. My fingers trace his face and his hands make their way to my hair, weaving his fingers into the strands. The studs in his bottom lip dig into mine, and little shots of pleasure, mixed with pain, move through me. His hands move agonizingly slow across my shoulder, then down my back to press me even closer.

My hands travel across his body, memorizing every part of him, every ripple. I wrap my arms around his neck. His kisses are feverish and desperate, holding all the emotions he was afraid to show me. I don’t think I’ll ever have the strength to let go of him again. This is what stories are made of, this is what the great writers attempt to capture when they try to recreate moments like this, but there’s no way they could ever do it justice. I could never rewrite what is happening right now. My toes curl, and I am filled with a mixture of dread and love that flows through me into him. I feel like I can die at this very moment and be completely content.

Jaxson is the one to break the kiss, and he presses his forehead to mine. My head spins as I to gasp for air. My whole body is on fire, burning in places I didn’t think was possible.

“I have wanted to do that since the first day I saw you,” he whispers against my lips.

I look up at him through thick lashes. He has dirt smeared on his cheeks where my fingers brushed against his fair skin, and his hair is a mess from where I ran my hands through it. His eyes make me feel weak. What I had mistaken for a look of disdain is not. How could I not see the hunger and desperation in them?

“I always thought you didn’t like me,” I admit.

He pulls me down to him, and I fold perfectly into his arms. I grip his damp shirt, which clings to his chest, as he twirls a piece of my hair lazily around his finger.

“I figured if I showed no interest in you, Cardelian would leave you alone, but I was wrong. Your aura is too bright for him to ignore.”

“My aura? What does that have to do with anything?” I snuggle deeper into him, momentarily forgetting my fear of what monsters might lurk within these walls.

“All humans have a color to their auras. Some are one solid hue, others are a murky brown color, and a few, like yours, are bright, like a rainbow,” he explains.

“So Cardelian wanted me because I look like a rainbow?”

He nods. “Pretty much. Auras are like a window into your soul. The purer the soul, the cleaner the colors. They make our magic stronger.”

I shake my head. “I still don’t understand,” I admit.

“When Cardelian fed off Juliet, he became more powerful. He was able to tap into her soul to feed off it. Magic is addicting, and with it comes a steep price. Juliet was the one to pay the price.”