Shades of Human (Faerie-Tail Awakening Book 1) Page 8

  “Tear me a new what?” Completely dry except for the roots of his caramel hair, Sexonlegs flashed me a megawatt smile. He patted the space beside him, actually patted it, like he was summoning me to sit like a bloody slave. But then his cocky expression changed, his mesmerizing eyes scouring the blood spots on my tight shirt and lopsided apron that now only hung from my neck and was twisted with its strings dragging on the floor. He stood abruptly and was right in front of me before I could think to move. His stare intensified as his gentle hand grazed my punctured arm before tilting my chin up. “You’re hurt.”

  “I…” My tongue tied in my throat. He actually looked concerned, like the thought of me being injured or worse scared him on some unexplainable level. My traitorous body heated up at his nearness as thoughts of grabbing hold of his waist and lifting up on my toes to crush my lips against his parted ones invaded my mind. It was the adrenaline. It had to be. I’d just escaped this stranger and defeated the thing from my nightmares—the monster that had killed my mother fifteen years ago. With my blood pumping and breath panting, I felt more alive in this moment and more sure of myself than I had in all my short nineteen years of life.

  I licked my lower lip, and Sexonlegs cracked a crooked grin. The same one he’d flashed in the alley before attacking me.

  My brain caught up and rebooted and I planted my hands into his chest and shoved. “Back off!”

  Adamaris staggered, caught off guard with his eyes set on the bottom lip I’d wetted. The concern and glint of desire in his gaze shifted back to that expression I now knew well. Annoyance. “You almost screwed us.”

  “You wish, predator.” Tasey made an appearance—yes, the name was here to stay. Seemed only fitting since this little blue and black device saved me from likely death. “But I am not your prey. I am not weak. And I will not let you take me out.” I shoved him again, flicking the switch for good measure. “This is my life, and no matter how crappy it is, I will not let you take it from me.”

  Sexonlegs bared his perfect white teeth. “I’m not the one you need to be afraid of. Not anymore.” He came closer, ignoring the threat of Tasey as I held the buzzing device up. “I saw you down there in that alley. I saw what you did.”

  “Attempt to save an innocent instead of hunting one down?”

  The anger melted from his face and he shook his head with a chuckle, but the sound wasn’t amused or even mocking. Matched with the look on his face, it teetered between tired and resigned. “You did what I knew you would do the moment you saw that woman. You risked your life in place of saving another person’s. You walked right into a trap. You are the most selfless, reckless, stupid young woman I have ever come across. Why?” he questioned as I went to fire back for the ‘stupid’ comment. “Why did you have to be like this?”

  The way he turned away from me and strode to my canvases, not seeming to actually want or expect an answer, only confused me more. Confusion fed my annoyance and I spat back, “Me? Why did you have to appear in my life? I mean, you were my first freaking kiss, or at least as close to one as I’ve ever gotten that I almost wanted. You, a guy that is too freaking hot to be real and a stalker to boot. Why did you have to target me and frighten the hell out of me while turning my world upside down? Everything was perfectly fine before you showed up?”

  “Was it?” Sexonlegs whirled, pegging me with a stare that could break me if I were made of glass. “Your mother died when you were four. You spent your life in and out of foster homes. And now you live in this dilapidated warehouse and struggle to feed yourself”—he picked up the empty tuna can from the table with one finger and dropped it into my bucket bin—“waking night after night from nightmares that are more real than you will let yourself believe.”

  “How do you—”

  “And now you’ve made my mission impossible,” he spoke over me. “You made me care for you with your self-sacrificing nature and inability to ever turn your back on someone in need. Which included me, a stranger that sprung from your bathtub. You could have let me drown, and you didn’t. And now you’ve gone and done it. You broke the mirror—you gave the queen power.”

  “Shut up!” I’d had enough, seriously. For a moment I had almost felt touched at his declaration of care, remembering how he’d looked over and touched my arm then chin with such gentleness that went against the strength he clearly possessed. But I was done. Seriously done. From being stalked at work, ambushed in the alley, to shifting locations through glass, and then confronting and defeating the monster I’d never been able to forget, I was just done. I swung the door open and held Tasey up. “Get out. I’m not even playing. Get. The Hell. Out.”

  Sexonlegs clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking as his nostrils flared. Then he surprised me and nodded. Leaving the cocoon of leaning canvases against the walls, window ledge, and on dodgy easels I’d created from old wooden crates, he strode past me and out through the door. Outside on the landing, he paused. “I’ll go. But I won’t go far. See you tomorrow, but until then—keep those pretty lips shut. No humming, no lyrics, no—”

  I whirled and slammed the door, cursing the fact that there was no lock. Not that having one would make a difference. He’d gotten into the warehouse and made it all the way up to my loft without even tripping the alarm. I had a feeling the buckets around the lower level to collect water from the leaking roof were probably to blame, but I was too tired to go out and empty them now. What would be the point? He’d just find another way in. And what the effing hell was his obsession with me singing? Freaking nut job. But I was starting to think there was more to it. So much more.

  With a deep sigh and with my heart still hammering, I went and sat on the foot of my bed, filling the same spot he had been waiting for me on. It was slightly damp and I shifted, reclining back onto my lumpy pillow. Lying in the minimal light from my only lamp with Tasey resting on my chest, I refused to let my eyes wander to the door. I didn’t want him to come back. I swear I didn’t. But that didn’t stop the thoughts of what would happen if he did. What would I do if he traipsed back in, ripped off his T-shirt and climbed over me?

  Your heart’s desire, a wish it will take. Once a stalker a lover he could make.

  I popped up faster than a jack-in-the-box, eyes wide and searching the rusted metal walls of the place I called home. There were no shadows. The metallic surfaces on the portable cooktop were scratched to buggery, making any clear reflection impossible. Anything else that could cast a reflection was the same. It was the first thing I did when I found a new item to add to my collection of things. No mirrors. No reflections. Yet that raspy voice remained, turning into two, three, and then countless voices whispering promises of my heart’s desire.

  All of them offered me the same thing. A man made for things I’d only ever dreamed about, who was strong and capable of keeping me safe. For once the voices didn’t belong to the monster I had killed. But the voices didn’t know me at all.

  I didn’t need a man.

  The only thing I had ever hope for and never dared to wish for was to have my mother back alive. And I wasn’t about to give in to any false promises now. I’d seen that woman in the alley—that trap. The cost of getting your heart’s desire was too steep a price to pay.

  I plugged my ears and laid back down, squeezing my eyes shut. Tonight I thought I had defeated the monster that had always haunted me, but now I had to wonder…how many more monsters were out there? And what would they do to force me to play along?

  Chapter Thirteen

  This was the longest bus trip of my life.

  Sitting in the back row, I couldn’t ignore the shifting eyes and fleeting glances that kept getting sent my way. And no, none of them were from my stalker or even a guy who might have thought I was cute. I tugged my parka together at the front, feeling absolute paranoia setting in. The fur-lined hoodie tickled my neck, and my shitty sneakers tapped the top step, unable to stop. Every set of eyes on the bus had taken me in as I hopped aboard. Young, old, and everything i
n-between. There was no distinction between male or female. Kids didn’t hide their stares, and a few men kept doing double takes.

  I covered my face with my hands and tried to breathe.

  I already had enough crazy going on in my life on top of just trying to survive. I didn’t need any added complications. And what the hell was everyone’s problem? Had a bird crapped on my head as I was heading to the bus and I’d been too distracted to notice?

  Except I knew that wasn’t the case. I hadn’t stepped in anything or had anything fall on me to warrant their stares…because this had been happening all freaking day!

  It was late afternoon and my Monday just kept getting weirder and weirder. It started at school with a few second glances as I passed people in the halls. In occult studies, Sexonlegs had been late—no, of course I wasn’t looking out and waiting for him. Yeah, I know I’m lying too. After escaping my worst nightmare and confusing all the adrenaline pumping through my veins for undeniable lust, I wanted to see him again. To find out if those stirring impulses had worn off. I hoped they had. And I prayed they hadn’t. What was wrong with me?

  Apparently something seriously huge.

  With the voices promising me the one thing I was beginning to want and was sure I should run from, I didn’t know up from down.

  But Adamaris hadn’t been in class.

  With other students taking notice of me since my embarrassing outburst last week, I’d vaulted up the moment the bell rang—and ran right into Sexonlegs.

  Just thinking of that moment brought me right back in time, stealing the bus and crappy weather from outside away and replacing it with moving images and sensations…

  Trapped at the classroom exit, heat had flared through me from my core up. My face burned as students clambered up the steps behind me. But it was the look on my stalker’s face that threatened to make my heart stop.

  Sexonlegs stared at me like he could barely recognize me. Like I was a complete stranger and not the girl he had been stalking, and coming onto, and freaking out since last week. Crushed for reasons I buried deep down before they could mist up my eyes, I went to dart around him as other students brushed past me and through the double doors.

  Sexonlegs caught my arm, tugging me back. “Calliope, what have you…” He trailed off, head tipping to one side as he studied my face. God he was sexy, hair falling loose from behind one of his ears and his eyes so intent on reading my features like the words of an epic love story. He reached out and touched my cheek, brushing the tangle of fiery hair back over my shoulder. My lips parted, my breath hitched, and everything around me vanished as if it had never been there at all, as if only he and I existed, standing close, warm flesh kissing, and lips pulsing to do the same.

  The sudden narrowing of his eyes into angry slits ripped me out of my desirous—stupid, stupid, stupid!—thoughts. “Now you’ve gone and done it.”

  I jerked back with as much force as if he’d backhanded me. Though he hadn’t even moved, the sting was worse than the times my third foster mother had slapped me for stealing bread crusts and hiding them under my mattress on the floor of their attic.

  I covered my face like I was covering a welt. “Screw you.” He grabbed for my arm again, but I darted around him and into the moving sea of students that bustled along beyond the door.

  “Calli, hold on!”

  Being swept away on the current through the hallway, I didn’t stop. More stares came as I bumped into guys and girls, their frowns and expressions of surprise, confusion, and even shock heightened a fear in me that I didn’t understand. It was more than my outburst last week. Most of these kids I didn’t even know or recognize, but they couldn’t stop staring.

  “Calliope!”

  I burst out through the doors and made it to the bus. And now I was here, stuck in a panic that made my heart race and had my pulse thumping in my ears. Even my eye was twitching, throbbing along with the hastened beat. I was only halfway home, the bus bouncing along the bridge over Yantic River, but I couldn’t wait to see what they were seeing. I’d held off long enough. Told myself I was imagining all the stares before my Occult class. But they only seemed to be getting worse. Besides, I’d defeated a monster last night. How terrifying could it be to look at my own reflection? I didn’t have a mirror, and wouldn’t have used one even if I did. Even if I hadn’t heard the voices last night, I wasn’t that brave. Not yet. Maybe not ever, because as I turned away from the recurring glimpses and stares, my hands started to shake. The window was right there. It had been a few feet away from me this whole bus trip. I could do it. “You can do this,” I reiterated under my breath. But if I believed that, why was my back sweating under my T-shirt and why was my heart racing faster and faster as I arched my face up?

  Fear had its hooks in me. What would I see? What would I find? What if the monster I’d killed was right there, waiting for me to acknowledge it? Is that what Sexonlegs had meant when he said I gave it power? Would it leap out and pull me down into Hell?

  I didn’t have a single answer, but I knew I had to do something. My life was spinning out of control, and I couldn’t keep hiding away from all that was falling apart around me.

  Breathing too fast for someone sitting idly on a bumpy bus, I bit the bullet and flicked my eyes up.

  God, if that awesome dude who’d dealt me the crap-on-a-stick entry to life did exist, I had to ask, “What the effing hell?” Because the face looking back at me wasn’t my own. I mean, it was still me, sort of. My hair was the same waist length and vibrant shade of red. My features were mostly the same, but then again, they weren’t…

  My skin was somehow paler, my freckles almost gone as if I’d taken a face bath in a bowl of bleach. My eyes were too wide, but it wasn’t only because of the look of fear I was sporting. They had always been a little on the large size, but this was more than that. If they got any bigger I’d be a shoe in for a real-life anime series. It was the window reflection distorting the view. It had to be. The sun was bleaching out my imperfections and enlarging my eyes.

  I took a few painful, slowing breaths. “That’s all it is,” I whispered to myself. But then I saw what couldn’t be confused or enhanced or altered by a simple washed-out reflection of imperfection in the glass. The thing Sexonlegs had been staring at when his expression had changed and those clipped words had left his lips, now I saw it too. My ears…

  I reached up slowly as if afraid my listening attachments would suddenly turn into venomous snakes and bite me. The distance passed too soon, and then there was no going back. “No effing way.”

  I couldn’t catch my breath. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air on the bus and I started to hyperventilate. The remaining passengers shifted, and their stares drilled into me as if I were a new exhibition at a museum. Tugging my hair out of its ponytail, I covered the damning evidence…my ears that were now pointed at the tops. No tiny nub on one side. No small imperfection. Fully pointed…

  Just like the monster I had killed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Leaping off the bus, I pounded the pavement, tearing down the street until I reached the alley. It was still daylight, the sun high enough in the sky to light everything up while being low enough to create shadows that seemed to lengthen with each slowing step I took. My eyes peeled wide as I tried to keep my breaths level. The remains of last night were nowhere to be seen. Actually, the closer I crept, the more that became apparent. There wasn’t even a splinter of the mirror to be seen…

  The lack of danger should have quieted my heart and afforded me the return of some calm. It didn’t. Voices, sightings, threats, a stalker, and now even my own reflection. Was any of it even real or was I falling off the deep end?

  To prove my insanity wrong my hand glided up my neck to…my pointed ear.

  “Real,” I gasped out.

  Heart walloping all over again, I took off running. I didn’t know what I was running from. The danger was gone, and I couldn’t run from myself. Whatever was happening to me
—oh, God, please don’t let me be turning into that monster I killed!—I wanted to escape it. I wanted to lock myself away, hide under my covers, and sleep until this whole nightmare was over with.

  I hit the rickety bridge at a dead run, engulfed by cold darkness as the bordering trees enveloped me. My shitty trusted shoes found the right spots that wouldn’t crack the deteriorating planks under my gait and deliver me to the dark tumbling river below. A river that I suddenly wondered if monsters would clamber out of to drag me down into an abyss.

  I ran faster.

  I was almost there, the rusted walls of the warehouse were in sight beyond the darkness—and then I hit a brick wall.

  Stumbling back from the tall, dark figure, I hit the railing, palm eating splinters as a crack erupted. The wood gave way. There was no stopping my forward momentum. I tipped, body spinning and arms pinwheeling without effect—and then a strong hand caught my wrist and hauled me back.

  Slamming into the hardest chest I’d ever felt, my breath left me, lungs winded from the double hit. And then I saw his face with all its devastatingly sharp lines and rough masculinity. Breathing as hard as I was, Adamaris’s eyes drilled down into me, but then a clank had him releasing his stronghold. I fell backward, hitting wooden planks that creaked with the threat of snapping. My backside bloomed with heat as a new bruise came alive. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Swooping up the round item that had fallen and laid precariously close to the edge of a plank, ready to tip into the babbling water below, Sexonlegs glared, ignoring me to turn his attention to…

  “Hey!” I shoved up to my feet, biting my lip as the splinters in my palm stabbed in deeper. “Dammit!” Adamaris turned away, and I grabbed his arm with my good hand. Damn, those arms are hard as rocks. Sexy, perfectly shaped rocks of power and purpose. Down girl! I shook my head, noticing the item he had swooped up off the decrepit bridge. My amorous thoughts fled at once.