Everlasting (Night Watchmen, #1) (10 page)

“She’s a dormant,” Jonathon finally says. He tugs on air as if he had been holding his breath. When I look up at him, he briefly smiles before looking back at his wife. I know he doesn’t believe this. I can tell by the way he examines me out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t eat the lie Mack wanted me to feed them. I glance around the crowd of Watchmen and novices, over the many curious eyes pretending not to stare, and wonder how many others rejected the taste of Mack’s lie when he went back to the auditorium to ‘clear things up.’

Katie tilts her head, and I can see the dots of truth moving further apart. “A dormant? Like, your partner isn’t of age yet?” Her eyes narrow on me and her nose lifts a little. She’s always been good at sniffing out the truth.

“Yeah.” I don’t think I’m breathing.

“That hasn’t happened in forever.” Her smile appears and I think it’s genuine. “But that means…”

“I’m not a Defect,” I finish for her, waiting with bated breath for her to take my lie.

She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes. “See! I told you! So what are you? What side?”

“Hunter.”

“See!” She’s thriving off the good news, literally jumping in it, and I jump too, though I don’t know if it’s from relief that she believed me or relief that I at least have powers. “Even with the little hiccup of your partner not being here, this is still awesome news, Faye. You’re going to stay at the Academy! You’ll be around while I train and then, maybe, after we graduate, we can be assigned in the same sector!”

“Maybe,” I say, trying not to dampen her lifted spirit. I smile, hug her back, jump when she jumps…I do all the right things, playing my part well. Mack’s words take up residence in the forefront of my mind. No one can know, and for a moment, I think I can actually pull it off. If I can get my best friend to believe me, then I can get anyone to. I’ll be safe…for now.

“Congratulations,” Jonathon says quietly. I think he means it. From one Hunter to another.

The corner of my mouth lifts. “Thank you, Mr. Coccia.”

“And your parents? Any word?” Eliza asks blatantly, clutching her purse to her chest. Her nose seems permanently lifted in the air.

The temporary band aid on my heart has been ripped off carelessly.

“Mother,” Katie snaps, giving her a harsh look.

“Nothing.” It’s the most I can offer, the most I can say. My insides suddenly feel like they’ve been on a rocking boat for far too long.

Katie scowls at her mother and rubs the back of my arm. “I’m sure they’re okay,” she says, but I know she’s not sure. There’s no way she can be.

Eliza continues on, oblivious or uncaring of my feelings. “Will you be attending the festivities?”

Katie snorts and shakes her head. “Unbelievable,” she mutters in my ear before she turns back and says, “duh, mother. Why wouldn’t she? Just because her partner isn’t here doesn’t mean she can’t celebrate. She did survive the Culling. She does have her powers, even if they’re muted.”

An acute smile purses Eliza’s lips. She isn’t a fool. I don’t like how small she makes me feel in just one look. I shift uncomfortably. The setting sun feels a little too warm. I pull at the collar of my shirt. I don’t wear lies very well. I never have. She notices too. I can tell by the way she’s looking at me with narrowed eyes.

“Anyway,” Katie says to her parents, “we should get going. I want to see my room before the festival and I’m sure Faye does too.”

“Okay,” Jonathon says, taking Eliza’s hand. He looks relieved to go. “We should be meeting with the Elders anyway. About that one matter.” He looks at Eliza, a look my mother always gave my father when she was mentally telling him something.

I don’t think I’d want someone to be able to come and go through my thoughts. I don’t think they’d want to either.

“What matter?” Eliza asks, shaking her head in question.

“You know. That one.” It’s obvious he’s trying to get her to go along with it. His eyebrows arc too high, asking her to just agree.

“Right,” Eliza says, looking back at the both of us. “Well, I don’t know what your father is talking about, but if privacy is what you want, then you may have it. We’ll meet back up at the festival.”

Katie rolls her eyes and pulls me away without another word. “She really is heartless sometimes. I don’t know what her issue is.”

I want to say her issue is that she has no personality, she wasn’t gifted with empathy, but I don’t because I don’t want to encourage Katie in hating her mother. Eliza is the only mother she’ll ever have. She should cherish her, even if she isn’t perfect.

“I think I’m in that building.” She points to one of the six buildings that sit between the dining hall and the Witches Quarters. “One of the Elders told me after Chett and I left the stage. Do you know where you’re staying?”

I shrug. “Mack didn’t tell me.”

“Mack? I’m guessing that’s Elder Maddock, right? You’re on a nickname basis with Maddock?” She’s smiling that smile, the one that hints at mischief and late night laughs and
sneakery, the one that I love the most.

My lip twitches before it finally loosens enough to let out a genuine small smile. “Yeah, Elder Maddock,” I repeat in a drone voice. “He uh, he told me to call him Mack.” I scratch the back of my head and hope she doesn’t ask too many questions.

She stops and forces me to face her under a beautiful pink-petaled tree. “When?!”

Here’s the hard part, where I have to choose between my fate and my friend, where the secret I hoard hides in the back of my throat, waiting to slice through me should I reveal it.

I sigh deeply and shut my eyes. There are knives of regret stabbing them, making them water. There are cotton balls filled with lies in my mouth, sucking out all the moisture. There’s a stale, emptiness in my stomach, making me want to hurl.

She grabs my shoulders and my eyes open. I can barely see her past the watery blur. It’s like trying to look through a rain-pattered window. The world is blurry, rippled, distorted. “Faye?” I don’t like the worry in her voice. It turns the hoses on in my eyes. “Faye, you’re scaring me.”

She’s pulling me forward as I try to stop the leak in my eyes. A large, blurry door opens and noises surround us. A barrage of heightened, excited voices slams against my eardrums. I shut my eyes and drop my chin to my chest, hiding my breakdown as best as I can.

This is not helping me. This is not hiding me.

“Can you direct me to my room?” Katie says, stopping in front of someone who’s wearing formal, slick black shoes.

“Name?” The voice is dry, monotonous, and a lot like Nathanial’s.

“Katie Coccia. Witch.”

“Room 214.”

She pulls me forward, and then up some stairs. “We’re almost there,” she says soothingly, quietly. Her voice could guide me through an apocalypse. A few steps later and we’re behind a door, the quiet wrapping around us like a warm blanket. She moves me to a bed and I fall onto it, my head landing in my hands. Everything floods out of me in a rush as a riptide of guilt crashes down on me. I’m sucked into the undercurrent, gasping for air and trying to find a way to the truth that doesn’t involve my death.

Her arms are around me, and her words are held back as she lets me go. She lets me cry. She lets me just…be.

When I think I’ve cried every bit of guilt and fear out of my body, she lets go of me and heads into the bathroom. She comes back with a hand towel and wipes my face. “What is it, Faye? You can tell me.”

I can’t. I’m not supposed to.

“Faye,” she says again, calmly. “Faye, I’m here. Always. Tell me.”

My throat clenches. I gasp for air. The lie in my throat presses the knife against my skin. It knows I’m going to. It’s ready for me to slit my own future.

I take a deep breath and say, “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not…I’m not a dormant. I’m not a Hunter. I’m not a Defect.”

She shakes her head a little and flinches back in confusion. “Back up a step. What do you mean?”

I grab her hands and find my way to her eyes. “I’m both, Kat. I’m both and I’m dangerous. Bad people might want me, my parents are lost, and I have to hide as a dormant. I don’t know anything more. I don’t know anything at all.” I look away from her, too ashamed...too scared.

“I don’t know what you mean. Both? What do you mean?” She sounds patient, li
ke she’s trying to meet me halfway, but every time she approaches the halfway mark, the road grows a little further.

I pull the fabric over my arm back and show my mark; the awkward heart shape. “I mean I posses
s both sides and wear the mark of old power, from the time before affinity bonds, and you’re not supposed to know. No one can, not yet at least.” I bite my lip.

She stands up, runs her hands down the front of her pant legs, sighs a little, looks back at me and then away from me. I feel like she’s slipping, like the earth is rotating around me, but not with me.

“You were the one that caused the screaming,” she states, sounding like she’s finally found the rock I’m hiding under.

I nod, unable to look at her. I’m afraid she won’t look at me the same. I’m afraid I will see the freak I am in her eyes.

“Wow.” She falls down next to me. “Are you okay?”

I’m frozen in shock. I look over at her. “Not really.”

She laughs. “That was a dumb question. Of course you aren’t, but everything will be. I promise. I’m here for you. You aren’t facing this alone.”

I think I could cry again. I think I want to, but I don’t. I have dried every tear up and, in her friendship, have found the much-needed strength to get me through this day. I should have never doubted her.

“So what now? What’s going to happen?”

“I have to be trained by a few Watchmen while pretending to be a dormant. I don’t know anything after that.”

“Did you meet the Watchmen?”

Fire burns behind my cheeks.

“Oh my, you did, didn’t you? A guy, was it?” She’s nudging me, smiling and poking again. She’s trying to lighten the mood and I want her to.

“His name is Jaxen,” I admit, trying not to smile, trying not to lose my cool.

“Jaxen. Jaxen, as in your future boyfriend, Jaxen?” She wiggles her brows, beaming like a proud best friend.

I laugh a little. “Kat, really? He has a Witch,” I point out.

“And?”

“And that’s that.”

She purses her lips. “Not really. Not if he and his Witch don’t get along. You know it’s more often than not that this happens.” I know she’s thinking of her parents when she says this. I can see the slight falter in her smile. I rub her back.

“Well, I don’t want to be the cause of that happening,” I say. Being a home wrecker isn’t my style. “Let’s just not talk about it, okay?” Sounds of laughter and excited shouting drift down the hall. I walk over to her window and move the blinds aside. Lights flicker on outside the dining hall. The festivities have begun. “We should get going.”

She stands and walks over to look out the window with me. Her shoulders slouch a little. “I hope things get better.” I know she’s talking about her partner. I wrap my arm around her shoulder.

“They will. They have to.”

And for a moment, I think I believe this.

After Katie finishes preparing for
the festival, she steps out of the bathroom wearing a black corset and black tulle skirt that rests just above her knees. Black socks with tiny purple broomsticks on them reach up to her knees. Her auburn hair is a perfect mess of curls that hang down past her glittering shoulders. She places a hand on her hip and pops it out. “What do you think?”

“I like your eyeliner,” I say, trying to sound unsure. I laugh when I get the reaction I want. She sucks her teeth and I stand up. “You look great, Kat. Duh.”

She sits on the chair outside her bathroom and grabs one of her boots. She pauses before sliding it on and looks up at me like she just realized something. “Aren’t you going to dress up? It’s Halloween. You have to. Everyone is.”

Of course she notices I hadn’t changed. “Everyone is also partnered with an affinity bond, and you don’t see me sailing on that ship, now do you.” She winces. “Kidding,” I add quickly, “I was thinking of wearing a mask. Do you have one I can borrow?”

She snorts. “Why, so you can hide? No way.”

I roll my eyes. “Kat, come on. That’s really what I want.”

She sighs, relents, and then walks over to her large suitcase sitting in front of her closet with clothes spewing out of it. She digs around, tosses a few things over her shoulder, and then stops. “Here,” she says, holding out a mask she used when she was Catwoman one year. She brought a few different costumes for the Samhain Festival just in case she changed her mind.

I move to take it, but she yanks it back.

“This mask comes with a complete costume, a costume you’re going to wear,” she says with a mischievous grin.

“Kat, you can’t be ser…”

She shushes me with her finger. “I am. Very. Put it on and let’s go. Black eyeliner is on the counter. So is the glitter and hairspray.” She pauses, gives me a once over, and then says, “Better yet, go put the outfit on first, and then let me fix your make up.”