Shattered (7 page)

Nate shielded my head from another wave
of balloons falling into the room. I never thought balloons could be so
terrifying. These stole my breath and my ability to speak, my ability to do
anything. I was frozen in the desk. The new balloons had storks on them next to
three terrifying words in silver writing.

IT’S A GIRL.

It’s a girl.

It’s a girl.

I wasn’t breathing.

A balloon landed on my desk as if someone
was guiding it to me. They wanted me to see it. They wanted me to know about
something. A birth. A baby. A girl. I didn’t know anyone pregnant, and I didn’t
know anyone important enough to have their birth announced through magic or
possibly psychic powers. Other than … my birth. Seventeen years ago, my mother
had a girl, and not many people knew that.

“Oh my God,” Nate said. “Sophia, please
call me back right away. We just got a balloon that says … it’s a girl.”

So there would be no question about the
sender, they sent another message in the form of a small cake decorated with
rattles and bottles right to my desk. Pink and white icing looped and swirled
on the top, forming the words: LOVE KAMON.

Kamon.

Nate packed my bag as I stared at the cake.
He lifted me out of the chair and into his arms. His heart pounded against
mine, this intense rhythm that seemed to sing: we could die right now. Neither
of us could fight Kamon.

He ran into the hall. I could barely see
anything through the tiny opening between his neck and my head. He’d braced it
there, shielding me, as we ran with unnatural speed towards … a broom closet. A
broom closet?

Nate locked the door behind us,
immediately finding the right key among the sea of other keys on the ring. He pulled
a jar down from the top of a dusty cabinet and tossed the contents to the bottom
of the door. It was salt or something that looked a lot like it.

He ducked under tattered brooms and
mop
sticks with missing heads and opened a door that
could’ve once been a laundry shoot.

“Babe, get in,” he said.

“In what?”

He gestured to the wall, and I just stood
there in shock until I remembered the balloons and the cake and whose name was
on it. I crawled into the opening and slid down a surprisingly clean pathway to
another room. I landed comfortably on a bundle of blankets that I could’ve
sworn were in my bedroom. When I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t seen
them in a while.

Nate tumbled in skillfully and rolled up
to his feet. He found another jar and tossed the salt (or not salt) at the base
of the laundry shoot.

“No one will get in here,” he said.
“Don’t worry. It’s magic. Everything is going to be okay.”

Okay? We’d just escaped from a room of
balloons, from a baby shower. Everything was not okay. “Why does it seem like
…” I couldn’t finish my question.

He did it for me.

“Like I’m prepared?” he said. I nodded.
“Because I am.”

He walked to a cardboard box in the
corner of the room and carried it back to me. He didn’t ask for my help as he
pulled out white candles and placed them in a circle around the bundle of
blankets. He struck a match and said, “Sit please.”

I assumed he’d meant on the blankets, so
I squatted down with my mouth still hanging open. I counted fourteen candles as
he lit them and adjusted them so that the circle was perfectly round. He
stepped over one and met me inside.

“What … the hell?” I asked.

“Paul gave them to me. And the powder. They’re
for protection. Just in case.” This seemed way more serious than a just in case
kind of situation. He’d planned the perfect getaway and barricaded us in a
cellar. “I have snacks if you’re hungry,” he said. “All your favorites.” I was
afraid to look in the box, but I did. He had a few bags of chili cheese Fritos,
two boxes of Cracker Jacks, a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, and a mound of candy bars.
“I figured you’d have your sketchbook for entertainment in the event that
something happened. There’s a toilet, too. It doesn’t flush but…”

“Nate…”

He sighed and pushed the box aside. He
pulled me into his arms and covered me with the familiar blanket. It felt like
it was here for this very purpose, to make me feel safe and at home in our
panic room at Trenton.

“Devin said something to me,” he said.
“…about you that made me think something could happen with Kamon. Your mom
knew, but she said everything was fine. But you know me. I couldn’t let it go.
I just kept thinking and thinking about it, and this was the only way I could
make myself relax–to be prepared–and I’m glad I was.”

I meant to say thank you. I meant to cry.
I meant to do a lot of things, but none of them happened. The only words I
could manage were, “He knows.”

“Seems that way,” Nate said.

“You knew that?”

He shook his head and leaned down to kiss
me. It was so coated in concern that it could’ve been a kiss from Sophia. “I
didn’t know,” he said. “I thought he would just try to hurt you because you
fought them.”

I stared at one of the flames. It swayed
like a dancer to a song we couldn’t hear. Fire had been such a big part of my
life, a big part of my fears. It was probably my most dangerous power, and it
was what I felt in my chest when I was angry. Like I was made of it.

I thought of my mother using her powers
to create fire with me, a vulnerable and impressionable baby, inside of her.
That was why we were here right now. Not because of her or any mistake she
made, but because of me and who I was and what that meant for people like
Kamon.

Tears finally spilled out of my eyes. I
didn’t stop staring at the dancing flame. My mother had managed to keep my
identity a secret for my entire life, and today, out of the blue, Kamon had
decided to throw her a baby shower.

A door rattled, and I jumped. Someone was
trying to get in. They were banging on a door above our heads. The broom
closet, I assumed.

“It’s okay,” Nate said, squeezing me
tighter. “Trust me. We’re safe.”

They banged harder and harder, and I
shivered, my mind drifting to what my life would be like if Kamon were to break
into this room. Maybe I would live in a glass cage. Maybe he would try to breed
me. Or maybe … he would skip all of that and just kill me because he hated my
mom.

The door banged again. This time, it
sounded like it had been kicked in.

“He won’t get in,” Nate promised.

“He’s not going to go away,” I said.
“He’s never going to give up. Not now. Not ever. Why did I even believe that
could happen? And why am I sitting here crying over this? Over him?”

He shushed me and gestured for me to keep
my voice down. I hadn’t noticed I was screaming. I hadn’t felt myself get
angry, but I was. So angry. So incredibly pissed at hunters and Kamon and
Julian and the fact that this shit still wasn’t over.

Nate tugged at my shirt and asked me to
sit down. When had I stood? It didn’t matter. Kamon was throwing haunting
parties and kicking in doors and I was down here hiding. There was something
very wrong about that. Something unnatural and cowardly. The impulse flashing
through my veins was: handle it, end it, climb up through the shoot and give
him the fight he was asking for.

I ran towards the laundry shoot, tugging
on my powers, begging my body for an ounce of psychic strength. I needed fire,
the thing I was made of, the thing that would make Kamon stop banging on doors
and screwing up my life, but a piercing headache brought me to my knees instead.
A high-pitched ringing in my ears deafened me, and blood poured out of my nose.
I didn’t even have to convince myself to stop trying to use my powers.
They
weren’t there,
not even a drop
.
I felt very close to blacking out.

Nate’s voice came through as the ringing
faded. “Chris. Look at me. Chris!” He pushed a wad of tissue under my nose.
Maybe it was here for the toilet he’d mentioned. “Look at me.”

I did. His eyes slowed my heart and
cooled the fire racing through my veins. It left me feeling empty and foolish
and utterly disappointed in myself.

I took the tissue from him and leaned my
head back. When the bleeding stopped, I stared at the ground. I was having a
hard time looking him in the eyes now. I’d almost done something incredibly
stupid again.

The banging had stopped. Kamon was either
gone or quietly plotting.

“Babe,” Nate said. “What are you doing?”
I hunched my shoulders. “You know better. I mean … I don’t want to sound like
your dad or anything, but you know better.”

I cleaned the blood off of my hands while
trying to find the words to explain myself. He was right, I knew better, but
sometimes the world moved faster than I could think, and my good sense flew
away with it.

And if I were honest, painfully honest, letting
my mind and emotions fly that fast and go where they wanted to go, even if that
meant going to thoughts of Kamon’s dead body, was much more natural for me. The
girl who wanted to fight was automatic. I didn’t have to try so hard to be her.

“I don’t have service in here,” Nate
said. “…but I’m sure Sophia got my message by now. She’ll find us. You know she
will, so please don’t try anything.”

I sighed, thinking about what I must’ve
just looked like to him. And my mother, God, if she had seen me like that, I
would’ve died. This was why I had to fight the person who was automatic to me,
because of the look on his face and the one my mother would’ve had and surely
killed me with.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’ve gone through
all this trouble, and I almost ruined everything.” I hid my face behind my
hands and groaned. “What is everyone going to think? I’ve really tried this
month, and…”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Look, there are
things we don’t talk about in our relationship and never bring up to other
people, right?” I nodded. “I move that this be one of them.”

He smiled, one of his gorgeous ones, and
forced me to. “I second,” I said.

“The motion has been properly moved and
seconded.” I giggled at his formal tone, and he positioned me comfortably on
his lap like I hadn’t just attempted to fight Kamon. “It’s done. No one has to
know that just happened.”

He tossed my bloody tissue into a bag.
He’d even prepared for us to have trash.

The thought of hiding from Kamon was
still eating me up inside. I wrapped my arms around Nate. He was helping me to stay
on this floor and in control.

“For the blood on your shirt,” he said.
“If anyone asks, just say I cut myself on the way down and healed, okay?”

I nodded, and he kissed my hair. We
stayed like that, cuddled and kissing and eating candy, until someone came flying
out of the laundry shoot. They crossed right over the protective salt.

The bundle of a person unfolded, and Nate
and I relaxed. Mom stood and said, “Honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just eating candy and
hanging out. No big.”

She laughed and examined the circle we
were in. Sophia popped in and yelled, “Found you!” She noticed Mom and sighed.
“Correction. I found you second.”

Mom looked proud of herself for a moment,
then her face turned serious again. She crossed the circle with caution and
kneeled next to us. She sighed softly and rubbed my cheek.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” I
asked.

“That you saw that. That he came here.
Everything. I’m so sorry, honey.”

I left Nate’s arms and rolled into hers.
Someone holding you should not feel this right. There was a bond I had with my
mother that time and distance or anything couldn’t break. “How does he know?” I
asked.

“It seems as though Remi told him,” Mom
said. “Apparently, she was there the night of the portal. Hiding.”

I covered my mouth, suddenly remembering
the shadow I’d seen. Remi was there that night. We just didn’t see her. We
didn’t see her, but she saw us, probably in the pool talking to each other like
we were related.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Don’t you dare blame yourself,” she
said. “It’s not your fault. Do you hear me?” I nodded and nestled closer, but I
knew it was my fault. If I hadn’t jumped into the pool, none of this would be
happening. “Look at you, angel. You’re sitting here calm after all of that. I’m
so proud.”

I smiled. That was exactly what I needed
to hear. I wanted to make her proud, not break her laws and bring her more problems
to deal with. Thank God for the potion and Nathan keeping me together today.

“Is he gone?” I asked.

“Yes. I saw him,” Mom said “…but he
left.”

“And I cleared the balloons and cake,”
Sophia said. She ran her hand through the protective powder and hummed. “Where
did you get this?”

“Paul,” Nate said.

Mom passed her hand over one of the
candles and smiled. “This is brilliant, Nathan,” she said. “You did all this?”
He nodded. “For her?”