Chapter Twelve
I blinked my eyes open wide and sat up in a rush. I swiped at the corner of my mouth with my hand and wasn’t surprised to see it come away with wet drool. Disgusting. I wished I had control over my body while I slept, then maybe I wouldn’t drool all over myself.
Thankfully, there was no one else around to see me as I wiped my hand off on the bottom of my shirt. More disgustingness. Oh well, there was nothing for it. I was just a disgusting person at times, I guess I could own that.
I brushed the messy hair out of my face, pushing it behind my ears. A strand got tangled in one of my earrings and it took me a minute or two to work it out. I used to have to take the earrings out when I went to bed at night because when I would move around in my sleep the metal backs pressed into my skin and it didn’t feel good. But after getting plastic backs, it didn’t hurt as much, hardly at all so now I usually slept with them in. Now, the only problem I had with them was getting my hair tangled around them. I could either sleep with my hair pulled back or shave my head so I didn’t have to worry about it. I liked my hair, so I usually slept with it pulled back or I braided as much of it as I could. There was more of it to braid now but I hadn’t been planning on sleeping this time.
I had read several of the letters before falling asleep. I hadn’t made it through all of them because there seemed to be a lot more of them than I had originally thought there to be.
Page after page of Rain’s anger, love for me, and hatred for his now dead sister. With each line read, each and every word, even the horrible ones, I fell a little bit more in love with the man who’d helped create me. Anyone who put that much effort into searching for me was worth falling in love with.
I was struck by a sudden thought. One that excited me. If Rain had used magic to search for me but couldn’t find me because Vivian had done something to block him, did that mean I would be able to find him myself? If he’d searched for me with magic, then wouldn’t it make sense that I would be able to do the same thing for him? Unless he had some magical block on him the same way that Vivian had, I didn’t see why not.
Of course, on my own, I wouldn’t even know where to start. There were plenty of books on the shelf in my room and they were all about magic and I guessed I could look through them. Then, if I didn’t find anything, I could always ask the guys to help me out. I knew they would be more than happy to help me out. I would look through the books before asking. Only because I didn’t want to seem helpless and I had no idea how I would even begin to pick out which one of them to go to for help.
Quinton was out because I didn’t want to disturb him. He’d walked out of my room in a bad mood and who knew what was happening with the Council. I didn’t want to know. It seemed like it was Quinton’s burden to bear so I would leave him to it. Better him than me.
Dash was out due to his injury. I knew he was healing, but he still needed some recovery time before I bothered him with anything. I hoped he was in bed and knocked out because of his pain meds. He was healing quickly, but not fast enough for my liking. Then again, I would have preferred him to never have been injured in the first place. Dash was out of the running. For now.
Damien was out purely because I wasn’t comfortable enough going to him for anything just yet. It would take a lot for me to get there with him. I also didn’t really want to tell him all about my messed-up family dynamic when I hadn’t discussed it with most of them yet. We were nowhere near where we’d need to be in order for us to be able to swap our dirty laundry with one another.
Abel and Addison were both out. They seemed to work as a unit, so I always lumped them together as one. They would be more than happy to help me, this I knew to be true. But it wouldn’t be worth their help because they would for certain laugh at me. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that they would have a good old time at my expense. Only after they worked the hilarity out of their systems would they help me. This meant the Salt and Pepper twins were out. This was too serious to me for laughter and amusement.
This left me with going to either Tyson or Julian. Funny enough, I didn’t think either would enjoy being lumped together at the moment. Maybe I could get them to hug it out.
Separately, they didn’t sound like bad choices. Together, it was a no-go.
I wasn’t interested in being alone with those two again any time soon. It hadn’t taken much for them to come to blows and thinking about a repeat gave me a really bad feeling.
Then there was Annabell. I was well and truly over the whole Annabell thing. I feared for the safety of the next person who brought that horrid bitch’s name up in my presence. I cringed inwardly every time someone brought up her stupid name.
If I had Tyson and Julian separately, then I felt like they were the perfect fit for this. That, and they were the only options left to me.
Tyson was my bestie, but when it came to magic, I didn’t have a preference between them. I had Ty’s phone number but not Julian’s so Tyson would probably win by default.
The letter I had been reading when I’d fallen asleep sat in my lap. I picked it up and folded it back up before putting it back into the box on the top of the pile. It was a mess in there now because I had been pulling them out at random and placing them back in the same way. I’d done the same with the pictures. I would need to find a better place for them that wasn’t a cardboard box. I didn’t want to put the pictures in frames and put them out on display for anyone who came into my space to see. For several reasons. First, a young Vivian was in a lot of the photos and, as pretty as she was, I had no desire to look at her face any time soon. Then, there was the little fact I had never met or spoken to Rain before and it would be weird on my part if I put his picture up all over or, at least, I thought it would be a little weird and slightly creepy. I also didn’t want to answer questions about who they were and their relationship to me. The fact we were related was clear to see in the pictures.
I had grown up thinking I had Vivian’s eyes but really hers were a poor imitation of Rain’s and his eyes were my eyes to a T.
What I really needed was a fire safe lock box to put them in. They were important to me and I never wanted to chance losing them, but I didn’t want to put them on display either.
Fire safe lock box it was. I wondered if Quinton had one of those sitting around in his storage unit for me to use and seriously doubted it. I didn’t want to ask him out of fear he’d go out and buy me one.
I had my debit card from Marcus, but I didn’t like using it. I had checked the balance on an ATM machine while we were at the hospital because I’d wanted money to get Dash a diet pop and a candy bar from the vending machines. I didn’t think that Marcus would care that I used the money in that account to buy Dash a diet Coke and a Snickers bar while he was hospitalized. Honestly, I thought Marcus would be upset with me when he saw how little I actually used the thing. Giving me that card and the money in the account had been extremely important to him. It would hurt his feelings, that I didn’t want to use it.
The amount of money that was in that account was insane. And it was all there for me. Not that I wanted it or could ever even spend it in the next ten years. It felt too much like a payoff. Like Marcus had given me money to make himself feel better about leaving me. I knew this wasn’t the case. For shit’s sake, I’d told him to leave, even encouraged him to do so. He’d wanted me to go with him and I’d refused. My place was here with the guys. He’d given me money to make sure I would never want or need for anything, and he’d done it because he cared about me in a really big way.
I was bitter about the whole thing because I would much rather have Marcus Cole in my life on the daily than his money in the account he’d set up for me. But I had let him go all the same.
I missed him every single day. And I was going to spend some of his money on a fire proof box for my valuables.
I had never had things of value before to keep safe. Part of me wished I didn’t have them now.
I closed the lid on the cardboard box and essentially closed the lid on my feelings about what it held inside of it. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about Marcus Cole and how sad I was at him being gone. He was still in my life and a phone call away, not that I had tried to call him in the past few days.
I had books to look through.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed and climbed off. I padded across the floor and didn’t stop until I stood in front of the bookcase.
Most of the shelves were empty. Two were stuffed full.
I read the names and titles on the spines of the books.
Magic for Beginners
Spells for Beginners
Was there a theme to this? I hoped not. What I was looking for wouldn’t be in the beginners section for witches.
I kept on reading the spines.
Ritualistic Magic
Candles and their Uses
Herbs
How to Meditate
My eyes widened on that last one.
Meditate?
I did not think so. I would not be meditating any time soon. I did not think I would enjoy it.
Fuck that.
On to the next one.
A History of Angels and Demons
This one, too, made my eyes widen. The History of Angels and Demons? Angels and Demons? I could get behind the existence of angels but… Demons? No thank you. Demons were scary. I didn’t want them to be real. Did this book mean the guys thought they really did exist? I hoped not and knew I was probably wrong to hope.
The rest of the books were a lot of the same. Books about magic and books about things that freaked me right the hell out.
But I couldn’t figure out where to start with the books, which books to read to give me instructions on how to find Rain Kimber.
I had nothing.
I required assistance, someone to point me in the right direction. These books weren’t going to do it for me. I had no idea where to start. I could dig through the boxes until I found my laptop so I could look it up on the internet. Google had an answer for everything. But would it be the correct answer? There are a lot of whack jobs out there, people who believe they are witches but no magic to their name and no real clue what they were doing. I needed someone who actually was a witch and knew what they were doing.
I moved away from the book shelf and crossed the room to the window. I pulled the curtain aside and took a good look out the window. I had to lean into the loveseat to do it because it was in front of the window.
I was surprised to see that darkness had descended while I had been sleeping. That was one long nap. It hadn’t felt like I had been sleeping for that long. Normally, I woke from really long naps feeling groggy and wishing I hadn’t slept in the first place.
I didn’t feel groggy this time. In fact, I felt oddly full of energy. It was bizarre.
I spotted the Rover parked out front. The Camaro was there, as was the silver SUV. My ride was still here, and I felt immense relief at seeing it parked out front. I wouldn’t have minded if someone had needed it to get themselves home, but it was my security blanket and I felt better simply knowing it was there. The Camaro hadn’t moved since I got here. If the silver SUV really was Julian’s, then that would be perfect for me.
I caught my reflection in the window and winced at what I saw. Holy crap! Somehow, I had forgotten about the miracle rub on my face. It looked to be slightly smudged and I wondered if I had left some of it behind on my bed. I would have to wash out the horrible smell from my blanket and sheets in the morning. With my luck, the smell wouldn’t wash out.
Julian had said I only needed to keep it on my face until I went to bed. Well, I’d already done that, night had fallen, and I wouldn’t be going to sleep again any time soon. Seemed like as good a time as any to get it off my face.
The hallway was dark. The only light had been what spilled out of my open doorway. There was no light coming out from the space between Dash’s door and the floor. If he was in there, then he was snoozing. I hoped he was sleeping. Sleep would be good for his recovery.
I flipped the light switch for the bathroom up as I stood in the open doorway. I didn’t want to waltz in there in the dark. There could be something creepy hiding behind the shower curtain that would pop out at me when I had my back turned while I flipped on the light switch. I’ll pass on that, thanks. I always had to check behind the shower curtain before I could pee or even brush my teeth in the bathroom. Half the time, I had to just open the whole thing up or it would bug me and I’d have to rush myself to get out of there as fast as possible.
The first thing I did after stepping into the room was move across the floor to where the bathtub was. I slid the curtain open wide. I let out a relieved breath when there was nothing there to jump out at me.
The walls in here were a soothing, calm grey. The shower curtain was black, as were the thick bath towels and hand towels.
I think black must have been Dash’s favorite color. That and orange. There were little things in orange throughout the house. Like the ottoman in the living room. Or the bright orange toss pillows covering the black couch in the living room. I’d snuck a little peek in his bedroom when I probably shouldn’t have and noticed the comforter on his bed was black but the pillowcases on the pillows were that same cheery, bright orange.
Dash liked black and orange. It was a good thing to know and something to remember. Everyone had a birthday, and, eventually, I would probably run across something I wanted to buy for him. I could always wait for Halloween to roll around and I could stock up on things for him then.
I shrugged off my thoughts and plucked a hand towel off a circular holder hanging on the wall by the sink. I turned the faucet on, not caring whether the water came out hot or cold and shoved the wash cloth underneath the spray. When I pulled it out it, was wet and thankfully warm. Huh. Guess I did care whether the water was hot or cold after all.
I wrung out the wash cloth and held it up to my cheek.
I met my own eyes in the mirror and this time I did it without flinching. What ever was left behind after I wiped the goop away didn’t matter. Whether it worked or not, it didn’t matter. Good or bad, my face was my face and unless I had some plastic surgery then I was stuck with it.
And, in the end, it was superficial and, therefore, didn’t matter. I would not be one of those girls and I would not be like Vivian. She would care about something like having a wicked looking scar on her face.
This time, I did flinch. Would there ever come a time where thoughts of that woman wouldn’t randomly pop up in my head? I sure hoped so. I’d had more than enough of that woman, even more so now after having read the majority of the letters in the box. I was starting to hate her.
I shook it off and, in a rush, pressed the wash cloth to my cheek.
I felt no pain.
How weird was that? I should have felt some kind of pain. There simply wasn’t any.
A thought slid through my mind, something Julian had said to me in the dining room. When he made me drink that cup of water he made me think about healing and being filled up with energy.
Weird.
Had it actually worked? I did feel like I had an absurd amount of energy for just having woken up from a nap. In all honesty, I couldn’t remember when the last time I felt this good was. Probably not ever.
Curious, I swiped at my cheek with the wash cloth. There was still no pain. I ran it across where the raised line of stitches was and felt absolutely nothing. I pressed the wash cloth flat against my cheek and my eyes widened in surprise. The swelling was completely gone. The tightness was gone.
Quickly, almost frantically, I pulled the cloth away from my face. There was still some white crusted to my face, but the stitches were plain to see.
The redness had been completely washed away, replaced by a white line tinged with the lightest of pink colors around the edges. The vicious line hadn’t gotten any shorter, it still curved around my cheek. I didn’t think there would be any cure for that save for a time machine. But it was thinner, a lot thinner. It was only raised a tiny bit. Makeup would take the color away, but the line would always be visible.
The stitches stuck out, looking out of place and awkward on my face. They were meant to be there to hold my torn face together. Now there was nothing for them to hold together and what they had originally been holding together had shrunk down considerably. The stitches had to go, I didn’t care what Julian had said about leaving them in until they dissolved. I had no desire to walk around with those suckers stuck in my face when I no longer needed them in there. They looked stupid and drew attention to the freshly healed scar.
I tore my eyes away from my reflection in the mirror. It was hard to do because Julian truly was something special and I was blown away by the things he was capable of. He’d used plants and his magic to heal my face and I was amazed by him and left in awe. The scar had been unavoidable, but I had honestly thought that when it healed naturally it would look a whole hell of a lot worse than this.
This I could live with. Easily.
Warmth spread through my chest as I filled up with gratitude towards Julian. I thought Quinton could live with this as well. Quinton’s reaction to my face had really bothered me, and Julian had just helped relieve some of the stress of that situation. If Quinton could look at my face and feel a lot less guilty, then I could most certainly be happy with it.
As quietly as I could, so as not to bang around and make a lot of noise that would wake up Dash, I pulled open drawer after drawer until I came up with what I was looking for. I found a pair of tiny scissors that would normally come with a sewing kit and some tweezers. I laid them out on the counter beside the sink.
I rewet the wash cloth, rinsing out the white goop already smeared on it. When it looked relatively clean again, I used it to scrub off the rest of the white stuff on my face. Once it was all off of my face, I moved across the room to the storage closet. I opened the door and dropped the wash cloth down into the hamper on the floor in there that had a couple of dirty towels at the bottom of it.
I would have to make a point to remember to wash the dirty laundry in there if I was going to add to it. Dash didn’t need to wash my dirty clothes. And I didn’t even mean that because he was injured. I was jobless with no prospects in sight because I hadn’t had the time to go looking for them. I was essentially a high school dropout and I had zero plans on ever returning. Hell, I hadn’t even looked into what it would take to get my GED yet. But I knew simply having my GED and that being the extent of my education wouldn’t get me very far in life.
I was jobless, penniless if you didn’t count Marcus’s money (And I wasn’t counting Marcus’s money), and I was now living with Dash rent free. I knew if I tried to offer him money he wouldn’t take it. None of them would take my money for any reason. So, no way would I allow Dash to do my laundry on top of all of that other bs.
I closed the closet door and moved back to the countertop. I picked up the little scissors and lifted them up to my face, up to my cheek. I gently snipped along the line, cutting away at the stitches as I went.
When I had snipped them all down the center, I laid the awkward little scissors back down on the countertop. I picked up the tweezers and went to work pulling the stitches out of my face. Each one I dropped into the small trash can under the sink.
When it was all said and done, I looked back at myself in the mirror and couldn’t stop the corner of my lips from tipping up.
Not bad.
The scar was obviously noticeable and always would be. But only because of it’s placement and it could have been a whole hell of a lot worse.
It made the big green eyes in my head look a lot less haunted. Instead, there was a hardness to them that was new to me. No more demons playing at the front for all to see. There was a guard in place now, something that made me look a whole lot older than I was. At the same time, it made me look a lot less fragile.
I couldn’t help the smile that bloomed to life on my face. It was big and happy.
A normal person wouldn’t have been so damned happy to learn they’d developed a layer of hardness around them, but I didn’t care about all that.
Fuck normal.
I wasn’t about to strive towards something I could never, ever be, so I wasn’t about to even try.
What I was going to do was embrace the me I was turning out to be. The one with the new, extra layer of hardness to her eyes. The one who proudly wore her scars on her face for the whole wide world to see.
Nothing had made me happier than seeing that fragility in my eyes hidden away from view.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew it was still there and the hardness was only the outer shell.
But it was a good start.