Paradox (Unearthly Paradox) (20 page)

He tapped my nose. “Be good.”

My heart sank as I watched him walk away, and I wondered how I had become so attached to a guy so quickly.

An hour later, I was sitting in the recovery area with the other girls, taking advantage of the drinks and candy they were handing out.

Lilly was smashed, making me think that she’d had a lot more than the two Cruisers and two cocktails. For all I knew, she had popped a pill or something. I had no idea whether she was a casual drug user or not.

Lilly swung her arm around my neck and leaned her head against my shoulder. “You know I love you?”

“You’re so drunk.”

“As I said, I had to do something while I was waiting for you and Jett to finish having sex.” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Whoopsie.”

My eyes went wide as Sarah and Bec’s jaws dropped. I couldn’t believe Lilly had just said that in front of people we’d only just met. But I guessed it served me right. Maybe we should’ve waited until bedtime to take that next step in our relationship, or at least a time when we didn’t have an audience in the next room.

Lilly dropped her hand. “Sorry,” she whispered loudly.

When I shuffled my butt to the side so I could turn to face her, Lilly tumbled over onto the ground. She spat sand out of her mouth as she sat up.

“I think you might need to get this girl to bed,” Sarah said.

“I don’t need to sleep…” Lilly’s voice trailed off in a yawn.

We laughed, but I didn’t find it as humorous as Sarah and Bec did.

“I can’t take her to our room until Jett gets back. I didn’t bring a key.”

Bec picked up Lilly’s bag and threw it to me. “Did she?”

Feeling really awkward about going through her stuff, I looked over at Lilly, hoping to get a nod of approval or something. But she had flopped onto her back and was staring at the stars. I rummaged through her bag but came up empty. I pulled out my phone and tried calling Jett, but there was no answer.

“Can you go and get the key from your boyfriend?” Sarah asked.

“Um, I guess.” I didn’t feel comfortable about going to the club. I had never been there. But looking at Lilly, I knew we couldn’t wait. I had no idea how long he would be gone.

Sarah rubbed Lilly’s knee. “We’ll look after her ’til you get back.”

“Thanks.” I stood up and dusted the sand off my clothes. “If you need to call me, my number’s in Lilly’s phone. I won’t be long.”

“Got it,” Sarah said.

I nodded and headed up the beach. Once I was out of the gated area, I made my way down the mall to the club. There was a line of about twenty people waiting to get in. I didn’t have time to wait in a line that didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

My stomach lurched when I realised what I had to do. I glanced down at my dress and was glad I’d chosen it. It wasn’t exactly club attire, but it was better than what most of the girls on the beach were wearing. Sucking in a deep breath, I walked to the front of the line.

The bouncer didn’t even wait for me to speak before he said, “Back of the line.”

The bouncer didn’t look happy when I didn’t move. I looked to my right. I had the full attention of the girls at the front of the queue.

I cleared my throat. “I just need to speak to Jett for a minute.”

He laughed. “Don’t you all?”

“Can you call him or something? I really need to see him.”

“Ah, no, I’m not calling him. You can wait like every other person here.” He pointed at the line.

I cringed as I thought about what I was going to have to say. I was totally into commitment, but the G-word made me squirm. “I’m his girlfriend, and I really think he’ll be okay seeing me.”

The girls snickered. “Yeah, you wish, honey,” one of them said.

The bouncer crossed his arms. “If you’re his girlfriend, then why don’t you just call him?”

Groaning, I threw my head back in frustration. “He’s not answering.”

When I looked at the bouncer again, he was completely fixated on my pendant. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.” He unclasped the rope and stood to the side.

So the branding was useful after all. If I’d known that would work, I would have flashed it like a badge from the start.

The girls gave me dirty looks as I walked past them. I smiled to let them know there were no hard feelings. Yeah, right. That was just my bitchy side coming out to play.

The bouncer called to the cashier, “She’s right to go on through.”

As I entered the club, my heart fluttered with the beat of the music resonating through my body. Sweaty people were packed like sardines on the dance floor. I didn’t see any beers or cocktails, only water bottles. Those people were there for drugs.

Standing against the wall, I scanned the room. I spotted a window above the bar that looked pretty fitting for the owner’s office. A set of stairs to the far right seemed promising.

Making my way through the drug-fuelled bodies, I headed that way. At the top of the stairs, I entered a long room with scattered sofas. A bar at the opposite end had about half a dozen people milling around it. I looked around for a door to the room I’d seen from below, but there wasn’t one.

Walking up to the bar, I hoped I wasn’t going to have to go through the same thing as I did downstairs with the bouncer. As I got closer I realised that the bartender was the same girl who had come to my house to see Jett and been shut down. Then I remembered that she hadn’t seen me that day, but the girlfriend card probably wouldn’t go over very well with her.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked once she’d finished serving the group before me.

I made sure my hair wasn’t covering my pendant. “Um, I need to speak with Jett for a moment. Do you know where he is?”

She looked me up and down, her eyes stopping on my necklace. She sucked in a slow breath, then a smirk spread across her face that I wasn’t sure I liked. She motioned toward a waist-high swinging door that led into the bar area. “Sure. Come this way.”

I went around and pushed through it then followed her through another door behind the bar. We entered a short hallway.

She pointed at the door at the opposite end. “That’s his office in there.”

Her evil smirk only grew bigger as she turned around and walked off.

The closer I got to the door, the more my stomach churned. I was worried what she was so eager for me to see. Memories of my last boyfriend crept to the forefront of my mind. He had cheated on me, and I wondered if I would walk in on Jett doing some girl.

I knew I wouldn’t find out by standing in the hallway. I thought about knocking, but then I remembered all those times Jett had come into my room without an invitation. I opened the door and saw a bullet enter a man’s forehead just as I heard a muffled pop. He dropped to the floor, blood oozing from the hole in his skull. I slowly shook my head, not wanting to believe who had pulled the trigger.

Jett dropped the gun and strode toward me. I backed up until I hit the wall of the hallway, then I turned and ran… smack into Jett, who had somehow gotten in front of me. I didn’t stop to think about the impossibility of that as I tried to push past him.

He stuck out his arm, blocking my exit. “Just wait. Let me explain.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks. He was everything I didn’t want to believe he was. He was a monster—a killer without an ounce of remorse. “You just shot a guy. What is there to explain?” Ducking, I slipped under his arm and ran down the hall and back through the bar door.

The girl behind the bar almost looked like the Joker with her wide grin. I wanted to slap it off her, but I needed to get out of that club. I was done with Jett. She could have him. I didn’t want any part of someone who could do that to another person.

The vision of the shooting played over and over in my head as I weaved and dodged people and tables to get to the exit. I had slept with that psycho. I wanted to puke.

Outside, I sprinted down the mall. More than a few people stopped and stared at me, but I didn’t care. Back at the beach, I showed the security guy my wristband and went in search of Lilly. I wanted to find her and get our asses out of there. There was no way I was returning to our room. We would get a different one in another hotel so Jett wouldn’t know where to find me.

When I got back to the spot where I’d left the girls, no one was there. I scanned the dance area and spotted Bec. The moment she saw me, her eyes went wide. She rushed over. “I don’t know where Lilly is. We only looked away for a second, and when we looked back, she was gone.”

“Shit.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bec said.

I waved her off and started working my way through the crowd. At the edge of the Schoolie section, I stopped cold when I saw the bridge girls running away from the darkened area behind the temporary fence. They were hunched over and giggling.

Terrified for my friend, I ran back through the gates and sprinted over to where the threesome had come from. I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew something was wrong. I closed my eyes and tried to block out all the noise from the Schoolies celebrations and focused on something that would give Lilly’s location away. Then I heard it—a girl’s whimper.

I took off in that direction, and within seconds, I saw them.

Two guys were holding Lilly on the ground, while another two stood nearby, watching. Tyler knelt between Lilly’s legs with his pants halfway down.

Alex looked over at me and snarled. “Your turn next, you stupid little bitch. There’s no water here for you to drag us under.” He leaped and tackled me to the ground.

A rage that I never knew existed built up inside me. My vision turned a shadowy black. I felt as if I were being swallowed by darkness that was then pierced by a bright light that flooded my senses. I could see every detail better than if it was daylight. The next thing I knew, I was on my feet with no idea how I’d gotten away from Alex, who lay on the ground, holding his neck and gurgling while blood spurted from between his fingers. I leapt at Tyler and ripped out his throat. I knew it was me doing it, but I was completely disconnected from the action, almost like watching it on a movie screen. I took down the other three boys with amazing swiftness, killing all of them.

As suddenly as it came, the light disappeared. I knelt in the sand, staring at my blood-covered hands. The bodies of the five boys were strewn across the sand.

“Lilly?”

No answer.

Getting to my feet, I spotted her a few metres away. She sat on the sand, arms around her knees and rocking back and forth as tears streamed down her cheeks.

I walked toward her, holding out my hand. “Lilly, I—”

She scooted back on her butt, her mouth opening as if she were trying to scream, but no sound escaped her lips. The sheer terror in her eyes made me stop.

I plopped back down on the sand, trying to comprehend what had happened, what I’d done, and how I was even capable of such a thing.

Strong arms wrapped around me from behind. “It’s okay,” Jett whispered. “Everything will be all right.” He swept my hair back and kissed my cheek. “I need to make a phone call, then I’m going to get you and Lilly out of here.”

I was too stunned to answer. I couldn’t seem to get my brain to focus on anything but the bloody bodies in front of me. I had ended five people’s lives, and I didn’t understand how. Even though they were assholes that had just raped my friend, I wasn’t sure they deserved to die like that.

Jett was whispering into his phone, but I couldn’t focus on what he was saying. My mind kept replaying the images of me doing… what I had done. They had been living, breathing human beings, and I had killed them. All the research I’d done came flooding back. A human could never have done what I did to those guys. There was no doubt about it. I was a demon.

Jett pulled me to my feet then he lifted me into his arms, cradling me like a baby. As he carried me toward the water, I saw Jenna walking the opposite direction with her arm wrapped around Lilly’s back.

Water touched my ass and my feet. Slowly, he submerged my entire body. As my head went under, I thought maybe he meant to kill me, that he had known all along I was a demon. I didn’t care. I deserved it after what I’d done.

But he brought me back up, whispering something I couldn’t hear over the soft
whoosh
of the tide. He carried me back up to the sand dunes.

Jett lifted me higher and pressed his lips against my forehead. I didn’t understand how he could want to touch me, but I was grateful for the human contact.

He carried me all the way to the hotel, where we entered through a back door. In our room, he sat me on the toilet seat then took off my clothes, putting each garment into a plastic trash bag. Next, he stripped, throwing his own clothes in with mine, then turned on the shower.

I was completely numb as he guided me under the water. I turned when he said to turn. I closed my eyes when he said to. Afterward, he wrapped a towel around me and led me to the bed.

“I’m going to give you something that’ll help snap you out of this,” he said.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be “snapped out of this” because then I’d have to deal with the reality of what I’d done. Being numb felt good in a way. But I had to face it sometime. Still not able to form any words, I nodded.

Bending over, he searched through his bag. Finding whatever it was that he was looking for. He went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water and a tiny blue pill. I took the pill, popped it into my mouth, then downed the glass of water.

He sat beside me and gently rubbed my back. Even though he’d also killed someone, I didn’t understand why he wasn’t scared of me. He had done it from a distance, using a gun. I had ripped those boys apart with my bare hands.

Within minutes, the fog started to lift from my mind. Questions poured into my brain, questions I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers to.

I glanced to the left and saw my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were their normal brown, but I knew that I was the black-eyed demon I’d read about. “I’m evil,” I murmured.

Jett pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. “You’re not evil. You’re just a little different.” He rubbed his cheek against my hair. “They deserved what you did to them.”