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A muffled voice answered, “Girl, don’t disrespect your elders.”

“How am I disrespecting you, old man?” Lissa asked.

“You forgot to knock.”

“How is that gonna make you any more of a morning person?”

While they argued, I inspected the loft Cain had described from his childhood memories. Warmth filled every
crook, betraying a lingering feminine influence. Pictures covered the brick walls in shades of black and white. No doubt they were tacked with a sea of famous faces, but I had never kept track of musicians and players in the theater. It was a pointless pursuit when their lives passed by me so quickly, only reminding me that I was unchangeable.

At
the opposite end of the vast floor was an open bar and kitchen area. Another entryway decorated by heavy chains and locks stood next to it. This was obviously the more popular exit, since there was a rack for coats and a woven mat for catching excess dirt. Further in, the entertainment area was populated by a curious blend of old and new furniture. The giant flashing box I once heard called “tee-vee” was flashing with lifelike images of richly dressed people. As I walked on the gleaming hardwood floor, I realized how ridiculous my heeled boots appeared and paused to remove them.

“Okay! I’ll bring it to ya in a sec!” Lissa called back before twisting to greet me. Pasting a strained smile on her face, she did not meet my eyes before motioning to the couch. “You can chill here while I make the old man a sandwich.”

I sank into a leathery surface that was so much softer than Cain’s magical bed. I smiled when I found an old radio similar to the one in his apartment. Except this one was littered in picture frames of varying sizes. The faces smiling and occasionally frowning out from the pictures trapped within made my heart swell. Once I refocused my sight to take in the greater distance, I could see each and every face and at last saw evidence of a life Cain had happily lived.

As a boy, he stood on a sleek white ship,
his arm wrapped around a girl with curly black hair and dark eyes. Who was the little girl? She looked so similar to him, though subtly different. Her nose was more rounded and her skin a darker shade, yet their wide grins were the same. Was this his sister? And if she was, why had he never spoken of her before?

“So Cain must have told you the good news?”

Jumping slightly, I reached to curl my hair around my fingers and faced her. “Good news?”

She was setting the last of her ingredients on the sandw
ich she was making for Pop. At my words she rolled her eyes. “Seriously? He can’t let anyone be happy, can he? What are you, like his maid or something? Are you running from the FBI and don’t have nowhere else to go? Because I know a guy who could get you the papers you need, if you know what I’m saying.”

I found my gaze again wandering to the little girl a younger Cain kept his arm around.

“Hey, you hear me okay? Orona? Hey, what’s up with you? What you looking at?” Lissa walked around the kitchen counter until she was blocking my line of sight. Cocking her hip and balancing the sandwich plate and drink in her hands, she said, “Chica, you may dance better than any of Jude’s little hos. But if you’re gonna work for him, you need to start learning the American way. That includes some social skills.”

“Lissa?
” the man called. “Who you talking to out there, girl? Where’s my three-course meal?”

Pausing in her study of me, Lissa groaned and stomped over to the bedroom. “Nobody, Pops. She’s a friend of mine who just started working downstairs, okay?”

Standing, I walked across the room to the picture-laden stereo. Only one other picture showed the little girl, perhaps a year or two later. Her brightly smiling face was unaltered, but Cain’s had faded about the edges. His arms were wrapped completely around her thin frame this time, drawing her more tightly to him than in the previous photo. The girl’s hair had been replaced by a colorful scarf.

“That’s Amy,” Lissa said, suddenly at my side. It was the softest tone I had ever heard her use before. “Cain never talks about her. Jude told me she died o
f leukemia when she was seven.”

“She was his sister,” I said while clutching my chest. With my free hand I brushed aside th
e tears that had begun to form in my eyes.

Lissa watched me curiously. Though she could never understand the tragedy of living after everyone she had ever loved was gone, I wanted to tell her anyway. I vividly remembered the day I returned to my island, only to find my parents dead and my surviving sisters wrinkled and white
-haired. Time was not a kind friend to one such as me.

“So he hasn’t told you about her yet, either?” Lissa inquired. And I wondered if
she was thinking of the child she lost.

Yet I couldn’t help
but stare at Cain’s sister Amy and wonder what kind of terror she had suffered, knowing she would die so young.

“You know, Jude once told me that’s how
he’d know if Cain found the one,” Lissa said. “He’d be able to tell her everything, about how his alcoholic dad killed himself and his mama by capsizing in a storm. Or how Cain though it was his fault for not pouring out the booze before they got on the boat that night. But especially what happened to Amy.” She paused to lean against the stereo, eyeing me. “I wouldn’t worry about it. He didn’t tell me and I still broke his heart.” Lissa shrugged and slapped her hands on the dusty wood, leaving oily traces of her prints behind.

She sank back on to the couch and picked up a button
-covered stick. “You wanna watch some ’toons? I gotta have at least a solid hour of Cartoon Network before I’m ready to entertain,” she said without turning to me.

I sat down next to her again and was amazed by her ability to deflect emotions. She felt them very deeply, or so her aura revealed to me in the silent moments after her announcement. After watching her stare numbly at the “tee-vee,” I attempted to drive her into conversation. The more I understood of Lissa, the better I might discern what happened between her and Cain.

“You didn’t go home with Derek last night?”

Lissa’s brows drew together pensively. “Who told you about Derek?”

“I hear things,” was my honest reply. She studied me long enough to convince me Derek still had some hold over her.

Resignedly she began, “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, Cain has a reason to hate him, you know. I went back to Cain a couple of times after Jude. But Derek was into me, like
really
into me, you know? You were with Cain during the storm, right? Well, I went home with Derek that night. It’s never been anything serious, but I can’t help but to keep hoping. My mama told me to stay away from men like him, who want to give you gifts without commitment. She told me they always want you to give them more than you’re capable of giving.”

I waited as s
he trailed off and rubbed her hand over her flat belly. I thought of the bruises and the blood she had coughed into her hand in Derek’s apartment. And I recalled what she had drunkenly whispered at the club where we danced.

“
—didn’t mean to do it. Derek said it was the only way. He’s got a wife and kids out of the city. I should have known better… but he said it wouldn’t hurt. Oh God, what if she tells him everything?”

“Lissa,” I said, placing my hand just over the bruise her sleeve concealed. She turned to face
me, startled and vulnerable. I saw hope in her eyes. Perhaps now she would listen? “You must stop seeing Derek. This man does not love you, I fear. And nothing you do can convince him to love you.”

Her eyes narrowed as she jerked away from my touch. “Maybe it’s not Cain who doesn’t want everyone else to be happy. Maybe it’s you. I didn’t go home with him last night, but he’ll be back from his…
business trip, today. And I’m going with him if he asks me.”

“You sell your soul by choosing this,” I adamantly replied. “You allowed your circumstances to pull you down a path you never should have followed. When you experience the kind of love you and Cain shared, you do not simply toss it aside.”

Lissa interrupted, standing to her feet. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get me and Cain back together! Why is it so important to you? Don’t you know what an amazing guy he is?”

I stood
and reached to grasp her hands. “The child you made with him could have healed you. Instead you chose to chase after money and security. But wealth will not provide you happiness. People matter most and love is what melds us together.”

Lissa shook her head, unwilling to hear anymore. “Sorry
, Orona, but I’m not getting into this again with you. It’s too late! Don’t you get that? I had a good thing and I threw it away. Don’t you think I know this already?”

“You could have talked to Cain and he would have understood your fears. Why did you not give him a chance to take care of you, instead of running to a man you barely knew?”

Lissa took a step and glared up at me with splotches of red on her emotional face. “Derek never knew about the baby. It wasn’t what I wanted. I’m never going to make it if I end up like my ma, with six kids and a roach-infested apartment!”

The man from the other room called to her, “What’s going on out there, Lissa?”

“Nothing, Pop! Cain’s friend was just leaving!” She pulled her lips back in the tightest of smiles. “I think it’s safe to go downstairs now. You should talk to Jude about what he wants you to perform.”

I followed as she walked toward the door leading down to the club. Yet instead of going through the opening she was holding for me I stood before her and said, “I am sorry I cause you pain. But you and Cain will never find joy until you can forgive one another first.”

-laura

Chapter 18

Human
Understanding

The door slammed behind me and the narrow stairwell I descended opened to a dark hole that threatened to swallow me whole. While I followed the sound of music, I felt the memory ascend so heavily I could still taste the tears on my tongue.

Seid dropped me onto the sandbar, our favorite place. The waves crashed around us, though they never touched the sphere of his influence.

Trying to gather my dignity, I pulled my tattered dress back up
to cover my chest.

Seid’s eyes brewed malice and fury as he approached. Our eyes never broke contact as he delicately snapped the remaining ties of
the soiled fabric and threw it into the sea. He then gathered sea foam, shells and summoned the clouds for the lightning he needed to weave it together. What he crafted for me was of a silvery blue fabric so lovely I could almost forget the hard look in his eyes as he placed the cloak in my hands and stepped back.

“Seid?” I whispered, trembling still from our close call.

A muscle popped in his jaw and he took another step back.

“Seid?” I said
, fear evident in my words this time. When I tried to follow him, to wrap my arms around him, I tripped and fell to my knees. “It wasn’t their fault!” I pleaded, recognizing the sneer on his perfect lips. He blamed my father for what had happened, I saw this now. And when Seid’s wrath was sprung, few nearby could escape its clutches.

“No more!”
he growled, raising his hand and pointing it to me. Instantly I felt the changes begin, the gills reveal themselves from underneath his invisible touch. Yet this time was different. This time I felt other parts of me beginning to change and twist into something lighter, dangerous and powerful.

“
What are you doing to me? My love, please!”

“You were
with
him!” Thunder rolled over our heads as he spoke.

I gasped as my insides shifted again and clutched
my sides. The pain was unbearable and he inflicted his wrath on me with only the force of his will. Those glorious blue orbs were frozen into cold and dark seas now, indifferent to my screams. In all our tumultuous and tender times together I never believed he would use his power on me.

“I pledged myself to you!” I cried. “
Why are you doing this?”

“You know why,” he said, seething.

“I didn’t betray you! You would have known if I had! Please spare them! Punish me!” The pain ceased and a cruel smile transformed his features into something dangerously beautiful.

“Wi
ll you avow yourself to my will?”

“
I shall do whatever you ask!”

As the images from the past blurred and were replaced with the present, I realized I had fallen into the stairs some time ago. I clutched the railing with my hands to hang onto something as I was forced to relive my past.

The curse crashed through my body just as passionately as it had the first time. A ripping and mending of flesh took place in aftershocks, in the memory of true pain. For the second time in a day’s span, Seid’s gift reminded me not only who but what I was. And in my mind, I felt the sting of his betrayal afresh. Last time, it was my openness to Cain that
had brought on the attack. Had I said too much to Lissa?