I Become Shadow (23 page)

When I finally turned onto his street, my damaged stomach did a jump. I counted the addresses on the mailboxes. Excitement grew as I got closer to his house. Gareth turned to me, looking bewildered. I’d explain everything. I would.

Made it. Managed to park. The world was fuzzy, closing in around me fast. Everything was a struggle now. I stumbled up the sidewalk toward his front door, clutching my stomach. Fortunately, no one was doing yard work. There were no witnesses to my labored, blood-soaked march up the well-manicured lawn. Try explaining that one at the summer block party.

I knocked. Heard feet approaching.

The door opened.

“Junie.”

And everything went black.

I FLUTTERED IN AND
out of consciousness only catching glimpses of what was going on.

Junie and Gareth carrying me
.

The feeling of hardwood on my back. A table?

Junie cutting off my shirt with scissors. Dangit! I liked this shirt
.

Gareth cleaning my face. Are you crying?!

I came to, albeit briefly, because of hushed voices that were trying not to be loud but failing miserably at it.

“We have to get her to a hospital,” Gareth hissed.

“No, we don’t, and for the hundredth time, we can’t. Trust me, I can do this,” Junie replied calmly.

“You’re not a doctor. I’m taking her,” Gareth stated.

“You can’t take her to a doctor. Too many questions,” Junie said a bit more sternly.

“Well, there will be a lot more of them when she dies.”

“She won’t die. I won’t let her. We’ve been trained for this. If you let me get to work, it’s nothing I can’t handle. The longer we wait, the worse it gets. Please trust me.”

“Sorry but no, I’m calling for an ambulance. She’s too important to me.”

“And what do you think she is to me? If any part of me thought a hospital would be better for her, do you think I’d be standing here right now? You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. It’s nothing you could understand.”

I heard movement, footsteps, and some scuffling.

Then Junie said, “If you get in the way of me saving
her one more time, I’ll kill you where you stand. Do you understand me?”

There was silence. I tried to speak, tried to tell them to stop, but nothing seemed to be working. My brain was telling my lips to move, but they wouldn’t cooperate.

“I’m Type O Negative. I’m a universal blood donor.” Gareth said quietly.

“Good. Now we’re talking. Roll up your sleeve,” Junie replied.

I heard cabinets opening and dishes being collected before passing out once again.

Gareth, holding my hand and watching Junie work
.

Junie, hands bloody, checking my breathing
.

Rolled onto my stomach looking down. What an odd pattern for a dining room rug
.

I HAD DREAMS ABOUT
the attack. But instead of fighting the attackers I was fighting
me
. Like clones or something. It was a weird sensation to be fighting mirror images, punching my own face to a bloody mess. Truly strange. But something had irked me about the attack. The age of the attackers, their movements, fighting styles … it all had felt too familiar. Thus the odd dream about fighting myself. And like dreams seem to do, when I began to wake up, it slipped away a dim mist. Almost forgotten. Gone but for the faintest trace.

I WOKE UP IN
a dark room on a couch. Junie was sitting next to me, holding my hand and smiling down at me.

“Morning, sunshine,” he said.

My face flushed red. I wanted so badly to jump up and hug him, kiss him, lose myself in his arms. I couldn’t move. I weakly gave him a “Junie.” I could feel the all-too-familiar sensation of the hard gel bandage over my stomach and back wounds.

“Put a scare in me there for a bit,” he said softly.

I scratched my stomach, and Junie gently lifted my hand away.

“Let it be,” he said sweetly.

“Where’s Gareth?”

“Asleep. Or passed out to be more exact,” he added with a sly grin. I gave him a look he knew all too well. “I
may
have taken a little more blood than was needed so he’d pass out and shut up for a while.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned guiltily. I glared at him. “I’ll apologize when he wakes up.”

My glare melted into a smile.

“I’ve missed that,” he said, grinning back. I realized he was lightly stroking my hand. I liked it. It felt right in every way that Gareth’s touch didn’t. I squeezed his hand in mine.

“You feeling okay?” I nodded and he continued, “Because you look awesome.”

“That good, huh?” I grunted, struggling to sit up. He moved to stop me, but knew better and helped me instead. I caught my reflection in a mirror across the room.
Wow
. One black eye, a cut over my other eye, a badly bruised jaw, and who knows what was going on beneath my clothes.
My clothes
 …

“Who put me in these?” I asked staring down at the
extra large gym shorts and old T-shirt I was wearing. Junie’s silence told me all I needed to know. Angrily I started with, “Junie Miller …”

“I didn’t peek when I was doing it, I swear,” he said holding up his hands.

“Oh, really, how’d you do it then?”

“Not easily.”

I guess they were more hygienic than the filthy rags I had been wearing. I took a deep breath to calm down and caught a whiff of something. Something clean and flowery.
Is that me?
I smelled my arm. Soap.
I’m clean!
I looked up.

Junie smiled and raised his hands up even more, “Okay, the bath was a little harder and I
may
have seen some stuff.” He started to laugh a little.

Of course I wasn’t mad; how could I be? My anger was less about him and more about how crappy the circumstances had been that had led to it. There was nothing attractive about cleaning an unconscious, limp, bloody body in a tub. He’d done what was right, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun with him.

“Stand up,” I said flatly.

Still grinning, he hopped up from the chair beside me, even stood at attention to be an ass about it.

“Now take off your clothes.” I commanded. “It’s only fair. You saw me, now I see you.”

He started to smile, thinking it was a joke, but when I didn’t return it, he got straight-faced again. I glanced at the stereo in the corner and added, “You can put on some music if it makes you feel better.”

He took a deep breath. His shoulders dropped, and he
lowered his head a bit. He grabbed the bottom of his baby blue T-shirt and raised it over his head. The moment it blocked me from his eyes I forced myself to my feet and stood directly in front of him. The good thing about not feeling any pain is that you can ignore injuries. When he got his shirt off I was right there, my face inches from his.

“Hi,” I said softly.

“Hi.”

“Thanks.”

He shrugged and said, “It’s you. I’d do—”

But that’s all he got out before I kissed him.

I WOKE UP WRAPPED
in Junie’s arms, curled up on the couch. He was warm and smelled like summer. I wished we could stay that way forever. It felt right.

I pushed the blanket aside and wafted some air into my shirt to cool off a little. Yeah, I was still clothed, not naked. Get your mind out of the gutter. What we did or didn’t do last night is our business. Stop prying.

Yes, this was good, this was real, but it wasn’t everything I needed. I needed something else, something I couldn’t control, and fighting it any longer wasn’t an option. By my count it had been over twelve hours since I’d last seen Gareth and that equaled the longest I’d gone without seeing him since that first day on campus. It was too long. Painfully so. I needed to see him. As great as being with Junie was at that moment, I had to see Gareth with my own eyes to believe he was safe. The beast inside had to be satisfied. It’s like when you’re in the backyard and you know you blew out the candle in your room, but that little voice
inside you nags and nags until finally you cave and you go to check on it even though you know the answer. I tried to fight it but I couldn’t. I had to check on my candle.

As gently as I could, I lifted Junie’s arms off of me and rolled off the couch. He gave a quiet, sweet mumble of something and wrapped his arms around a pillow, still asleep. I kissed him gently on the forehead and stood up. I crept upstairs to Gareth.

When I cracked open the door at the end of the hall, that unnatural sensation of pleasure flooded me. He was fast asleep, comfortably nestled in the blankets. Having not had my fix for so long, the jolt was more powerful than usual. I could only imagine how great it would feel to curl up next to him. Would it feel like it did with Junie? Could it? Or were those feelings still a lie, a sham? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

I shut the door. As I walked back down the hallway the rush of seeing Gareth faded and left me light-headed and woozy. Side effects from massive blood loss, no doubt. I wall-walked my way back to the stairs, prepared to lie back down with Junie on the couch.

When I got back to the living room, he was gone.

He wasn’t upstairs; I knew that. A quick search of the ground floor led me to the basement door. It had been left slightly cracked open, like an invitation, and there was a faint bluish glow creeping out. I silently padded down the stairs. Walls hid my descent on both sides and opened up at a landing where the stairs turned. I stopped there.

Junie was sitting on a couch in the middle of the room facing the video feed of a small child sleeping. Emily, of
course. To the left of the huge image were many smaller feeds showing other places in the house: a dark, empty kitchen, a hallway lit by a single night-light. But Junie was transfixed on the sleeping child and nothing else.

Junie looked so at home, so at peace watching her. I knew that peace. I did the same thing for hours on end each night with Gareth. It was a feeling unlike any other. I held my breath. I didn’t want him to know I’d invaded. This was his space, his moment, and I wanted to let him keep it.

Emily gave the cutest little sigh and rolled over. A fatherly grin slid across Junie’s face. She was as much a part of him as Gareth was of me.

“You gonna stand there all night?” he asked without so much as a backward glance. He motioned with his head to come join him.

I slid into the couch, brought my knees up to my chest, and rested my head on his shoulder. He reached over and wrapped his arm around me. We sat there together in silence staring at the screen. Strange—having just gotten my Gareth fix, and now snuggling with Junie—for the first time ever I felt truly and fully complete.

“Gareth okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Sorry I got up. I had to.” I looked up at him. His face was a mixture of understanding and pain. I understood. It hurt me, too.

He squeezed me tighter. “It nags on you, I know.”

“It does. How’s Emily?”

“Fine. It’s funny …” but he didn’t finish his thought.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“I like stupid.” I lifted my head off of his shoulder and stretched on the couch with my legs across his lap.

“I know you do.” He took a deep breath. “Tonight was the first night I’ve missed her being tucked in. Every single night since I was linked, I’ve been there to tuck her in. I know not physically there, but … it’s hard to explain. It’s dumb, forget it.”

“It’s not dumb, Junie, not to me.” I reached over and grabbed his hand.

“It was like the moment I missed it, I knew it in my gut. I got nervous. When I woke up and you were gone, part of me was glad. It made me feel better to know that you have the same sort of … sickness. That you have to know …”

“…  that they’re safe,” we said together.

He absentmindedly began to pet my left calf with his free hand while his eyes went back to the screen. I closed my eyes, ready to fall back asleep. But my brain, doing what it does best, annoyingly reminded me of a promise I made to myself a long time ago. A promise to come clean, about everything, if I ever saw Junie again. One of these days my brain and I are gonna have it out. It ain’t gonna be pretty, either.

Who knew how much longer we had here. The FATE team could arrive at any minute, or more attackers could bust in on us. Good timing or not, it was now or never. I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and sat up.

“We need to talk.”

“Like, really talk?”

I nodded.

“Coffee?”

“Absolutely.” I said, grateful for the postponement.

He got up from the couch and walked over to a coffee machine in a small kitchenette in the corner. He pushed a few buttons and it filled two mugs. He carried them over to a small table and sat down. I sat down across from him.

I cupped my hands around the steaming mug, staring into the dark liquid. “If you could just let me say it all without interrupting, it’d be easier.”

“Sure.”

I took a sip of the too-hot coffee and before I lost my nerve let it all out. A rush, a jumble. I started from the very beginning, from the moment he jumped off of the balcony and left me alone in my room. I told him about the first time I’d seen Gareth and the feelings that came with it. He nodded, having felt something similar with Emily, though obviously not in the same way—his devotion was paternal. I told him about the mugging and the unbelievably amazing, almost indescribable sensation I felt from Gareth’s touch. Our fake relationship and subsequent breakup from the kiss were covered too. Then to Gareth’s wheat breakthrough, and finally to the attack that had brought us here.