When I make it across the cobblestone street and step onto the red brick sidewalk covered by messy shadows of sunlight and tree branches, I decide that this is as close as I’ll get, putting about ten feet between us.
He smiles a fraction more, letting it show in his eyes, which I instantly recognize as another matching trait of Genna Bishop. His eyes are the color of a brilliant aquamarine stone, so bright and unnatural even for contacts that I feel like I can stare at them forever, that they hold the keys to an unimaginable mystery. He feels dangerous and my conscience is screaming inside.
Finally I say, “What are you?”
His brow rises just slightly and his close-lipped smile lengthens. He folds his hands together loosely with his forearms propped on his bent knees. “To the point, huh?” he says, nodding subtly as if to compliment my directness. “I like you already.”
I stand with my free hand relaxed at my side.
“Then match me,” I say, challenging him, “and do the same. Tell me what you are and let’s skip the games and the fifty questions.”
“Well…,” he says, letting out a breath and goes into a stand, “as much as I’d like to, I can’t tell you what I am.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”
He takes a few steps toward me and regardless of that ten foot distance I wanted to keep between us, I don’t move. I stand my ground.
He answers with his eyes, rather than repeating himself.
“I can, however, tell you my name and verify that question eating away at your curiosity.”
My jaw tightens and I cross my arms over my stomach. “Okay then? Who are you and what’s the answer to the question I haven’t even asked yet? And how do you know what the question is?”
“Thought you wanted to skip the fifty questions?” He grins and I sneer back at him, but I don’t entertain him.
“My name is Malachi (Mal-ah-kai),” he says placing one hand behind his back and holding the other out to me, but I refuse to shake it. A nonchalant shrug moves his shoulders and he withdraws. “No formal introductions. Okay. I can handle that, though you should know that it’s incredibly rude.”
“I don’t care that it’s rude,” I snap. “Please, I just need some answers and I don’t have a lot of time. My friends will come looking for me.” This is also my way of warning him that I’m not exactly alone, just in case he’s a psycho.
He smiles crookedly, placing the other hand behind him where they both rest horizontally at his back. “And no, I’m not human, to answer the unasked question that I took from your mind.”
I don’t know which to start with: him not being human, or how he knows what I’m thinking.
I choose quickly. “You can read my mind?” I say it sarcastically.
He nods, smiling the same clever smile I’m already starting to tire of.
“What? Are you a vampire or something?”
Malachi roars with laughter and doesn’t have to answer verbally for me to know that my question was completely asinine, if not even somewhat offensive.
The laughter fades and Malachi shuts his eyes, subtly shaking his head side to side; the tip of his tongue gently grazes his lips to wet them.
“Come here,” he says and I look at him like he’s crazy. “I won’t hurt you. I just need to…check something.”
There’s no way I’m moving closer. I move two steps back instead, my face twisted into a suspicious, refusing scowl. Malachi cocks his head to one side, his features allaying.
“Fine,” he says. “Then we have nothing else to talk about.”
He starts to walk away and I panic inside.
“No, wait….”
I know he’s manipulating me, that by threatening to leave when I still haven’t gotten everything from him that I can, that I’ll give in.
I have to give in.
Malachi turns on his heels to face me again, a victorious smile burning around his eyes. He brings his hands around to the front and folds them together, resting against his pelvis. And he waits.
“Okay,” I say taking a deep breath, “what do you need to check exactly?”
“Just come here.” His smile widens. “You might even like it.”
All of my thoughts just kind of freeze inside my head and I swallow even more vigorously. I hate myself for letting his carnal words cause any reaction other than disgust. Immediately I think of Isaac and how if he were here, Malachi might already be dead. Or, at least preferring it that way.
Malachi reaches out his hand again, this time for more than a handshake. I glance carefully all around me at the traffic moving down Commercial Street and the people walking by on the other side down Wharf Street. But I never really let my attention fully leave Malachi who now stands close enough that once I do reach out my hand it will be easy for him to take it.
I feel his fingers slip underneath mine and slide into the palm of my hand. Gently, he clamps his thumb down on the top of my hand and pulls me toward him. I glimpse the tiny tattoo between his fingers. I don’t want to be any closer and I sure as hell don’t want him to be holding my hand, but I feel calm and relaxed and consenting all of a sudden, as if someone else is inside my head making my decisions for me, telling me that it’ll be okay and I’m not doing anything wrong.
Malachi’s body is inches from mine and I watch nervously how his eyes close heavily and he leans toward my head. My first instinct is to pull away because I don’t want this, whatever it is. His closeness feels entirely wrong, and I don’t like it. But that calming voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me to ride it out, that it’ll all be over soon.
His eyes are still closed and he parts his lips as he moves his face closer to mine. I hear his breath inhale deeply first through his nose and then I hear a tender imbibing sound as if he’s taking my scent in through his lips. His breath has no smell, but I can feel the heat from it on my face.
Now my eyes start to shut and I feel my body becoming more and more accepting of his. My mind is intoxicated, but by what, I don’t know. Shivers attack my skin all over, rendering me powerless to move. But I don’t want to. I feel the weight of my legs turning to mush and the strength of my arms wilting away, causing them to fall helplessly at my sides.
But I come to my senses, snapping my mind back into my reality, my conscience, not the one unmistakably being dictated by Malachi.
I shove him away from me and I nearly fall into the lamppost behind me. I catch it instead, using it to hold me up because my legs are still trying to find control again.
“What did you do?” I lash out at him, my eyes trying to focus. I’m completely bewildered. And angry. And curious. And yes, captivated. But I want to slap the perfect skin off his face.
A clever grin spreads across his lips as he stares at me. He seems to be using this moment to gather his own composure, but clearly the experience didn’t make him weak like it did me. I think it had the opposite effect.
There’s something different about him and at first I can’t put my finger on it. I watch him closely, every move, every breath, every blink of his eyes. Somehow he appears softer, the aquamarine of his eyes, brighter. His jawline is more pronounced, his arms more heavily muscled. If I didn’t think it were impossible, I would say he looks…younger. Just a little. I don’t know….
He begins to pace in slow, small steps back and forth near me as I brace myself against the black lamppost. I don’t want him near me again, but somehow I know I have no choice.
I just hope he’s done his worst already.
“What did you do?” I repeat, my voice softer and with less demand.
“It doesn’t matter what I did,” he says, walking toward me but I’m relieved when he passes me up and goes back to sit on the steps of the rock building. I stay put, treasuring this distance now placed between us again.
He props his wrists on his bent knees.
“You’ve already been Marked,??
? he says.
I don’t ask what that means because he already knows I have no idea what it means. I just stand here by the lamppost, not taking as much note as I should about why it just flickered on, the orange-white light spilling over me in the surrounding darkness.
“Her name is Genevieve,” he goes on, looking past me from the step. “But I can’t figure out why she would’ve stopped feeding from you—you have a strong essence. She could keep that beautiful black hair and delicious creamy skin for years just after a few feedings on someone like you.” It seems like he’s talking to himself, rather than to me.
I can barely form a sentence. I can’t think straight and I don’t know if it’s because of the bizarre things he’s saying to me, or because of whatever it was he did to me. Maybe it’s both. I don’t know. But my head is full of tumultuous little pieces of perplexity.
He looks right at me again. “Of course, you probably have no idea who I’m talking about, so I imagine that nothing I’m saying to you is making any sense.”
“I thought you could read my mind?” I say, finding an inlet into this one-sided conversation. “If you could, then you’d know that yes, I know who Genevieve is—or I’m sure I do—but she goes by the name, Genna. Genna Bishop?”
Malachi shrugs. “Yeah, that’s her alright,” he says and then shifts the subject, “and yes, I can read your mind, but I usually can’t see others like me inside anyone’s head.” He grins. “But I know that right now you’re thinking about that werewolf boyfriend of yours, wondering where he is and what my head might look like in his teeth.”
I’m only a little ashamed seeing as how he’s being decent and offering up answers I wouldn’t have otherwise. But he still sort of violated me and because of that, I don’t feel so bad for picturing Isaac doing his worst. Hell, he’s still violating me by digging around inside my head right now! And there’s too many strange things happening for me to be able to be perplexed by the fact that he can even read my mind.
I think my head might explode.
“Can you elaborate a little more?” I say and I move my purse to the other shoulder. “Why would I not know who she is, especially if, as you say, she’s ‘fed’ from me?” I’m satisfied with myself getting two complex questions out of the way in one sentence.
Malachi leans back and rests his back against a concrete step, dangling his arms from the elbows on the same step and lets his legs fall apart.
I hear another car coming off Commercial and it pulls onto the cobblestone street between us and the Mexican restaurant, blinding me with its headlights.
“Just that we usually don’t show ourselves to others,” he says and I wait for him to elaborate further, but he doesn’t.
I use this brief, quiet moment to think about the lacking answer he did give and I picture all the times at school and at The Cove and even at Isaac’s house and I was the only one who could see Genna.
I jerk my head up and stare harshly at him. “Tell me one thing, please. Are you real? Is Genna real? Or, is there something wrong with me?”
Malachi laughs and looks at me like maybe I could possibly be right about that second part. “Really? If I wasn’t real and something was wrong with you, how would you know anyway? I could tell you, yeah I’m real, but if you’re fucking loony toons then how would you know? What difference would my answer make?” He shakes his head, laughing quietly.
I don’t respond. I just look at him, my face only getting more irritated by his taunts.
When he realizes that I’m serious he gives in and says, “Yes, I’m very real and so is Genevieve. You’re not crazy.” He lifts his right hand without moving his arm from the concrete and raises his finger as if to make a small announcement. “But, the fact that you can see me right now; that’s what’s interesting.”
17
I FIND HIS COMMENT as mysterious as he seems to find it and finally I just walk over and stand in front of him. A couple walks by on Wharf Street, the man holding the woman’s wobbly, intoxicated body up so that she doesn’t fall. She’s giggling and grabbing him in all the right places. When they cross the street I say to Malachi, “Why is that interesting?”
“You seem a little dizzy,” he says, holding out his hand, “why don’t you sit down.” When I don’t accept his help, he pats the concrete step beside him. “Really, you should sit down.”
I don’t know how he knew it before I did, but I am slightly dizzy. I touch my fingertips to my forehead and close my eyes for a moment and I see blackness consumed by white spots and strange unidentifiable shapes. My body sways more with my eyes shut so I open them again and carefully take the seat next to Malachi on the step.
“You did this,” I say, looking down at the concrete with my hand still touching my forehead, “didn’t you?”
“You’re still asking fifty questions,” he says matter-of-factly.
“Because you’re not answering any of them!”
I hear him sigh next to me and then I raise my head and look over. His eyes shine plainly in the darkness, but just around the edges of his pupils in a perfect, fine, circular line.
“Well, the fact that you can see me,” he begins, “can mean one of two things.” He holds up a finger. “One, you’re more deeply rooted in the supernatural world than most humans for…” he waves his hand around suggesting a calculation in his head, “…well there are a lot of reasons that could be, really.” He raises two fingers now and his eyebrows arch a little higher as he looks over at me. “Or two, you’re sort of in-between life and death, reality and insanity. So which one is it?”
My heart sinks like a stone.
I want answers, yes. I’ve been wanting them since I started seeing Genna Bishop and found out that I was the only one who could. And I’ve wanted answers since November, when I’ve been thinking all along that Viktor bonded me to him. But the answers that are starting to unfold before me right now; they’re doing nothing but shaking me to my bitter core. Because I know it’s true. I’ve known all along, but I’ve done everything in my power to doubt it, to make excuses, to find something else that it could be. And just days ago when I sat on that roof with Harry and told him everything, I let him talk me into making excuses for it then, too.
I can’t anymore. I’ve been bonded to Viktor all this time and I know it in my heart because I can feel it. I feel it when I look at myself in the mirror every morning, when I lay alone, or next to Isaac and my cheek is pressed to his chest and his heart beats evenly through my muscles as he sleeps. I feel it when I look at my family and my friends and this forlorn feeling often overcomes me, as if my heart knows my time with them is limited and it’s keeping it from my mind.
I gaze down at the concrete steps, letting the truth kill what’s left of me and I swallow back my tears.
“Ah, I see now,” Malachi says and I feel his body move closer as he pulls his back off the step and leans over to me. “A Blood Bond. I truly am sorry. I would never wish that upon anyone.” He feels sincere, which might shock me a little if I could care in this moment.
I wipe the one tear in each eye that managed to cloud my vision and I barely look over at Malachi. “You know Aramei?” The sorrow in my voice lingers. I don’t want to talk about my own Blood Bond, but I know I need to.
“All who are like me know of her at least,” he says, “but I’ve never seen her personally. She’s more heavily guarded than your own President, or that gold that’s supposed to be in Fort Knox.” He chortles lightly, lost in a totally unrelated thought.
“Aramei is famous because of her ‘predicament’,” he says gazing at the Mexican restaurant across the street, “like Pelicia-Cinnia, Claire Black and Rafe Fien, to name a few.”
I don’t care to ask about these people, whoever they are, but I understand enough of the picture he’s trying to paint.
“Will I be…Will I be like them?” I say this reluctantly because I’m afraid of the answer.
“I can only see the future of my own Charge,” he says nodd
ing toward the restaurant as if that’s where his ‘Charge’ is, and then I feel his hand underneath my chin. “You should be asking Genevieve these questions.”
I look into his sympathetic eyes and he pulls his hand away now that he has my gaze.
“Why?” I say.
“Because I’m guessing that since she’s been around you so much and has obviously Marked you, that you’re her Charge.”
“What does that mean?” I say. “I don’t understand any of this.” Without realizing, I don’t even let him answer; the anger and self-loathing I’ve been pushing down into the pit of my stomach has found its way out. I push myself to my feet, letting my purse stay on the concrete step. My hands come up and I press my palms hard against the sides of my head. This is all too much. I left my friends at the restaurant to follow answers and what I found is more than I ever imagined, more than I can handle.
I feel like somewhere between there and here, I made a turn toward the ocean without knowing and flung myself off a pier. I must be dead, standing here talking to this strange being, letting his words open doors I never knew were hidden, flooding my afterlife with the answers to everything. Yet, these answers are only creating more questions and death is supposed to be final.
I swing my body at the waist to see Malachi still sitting on the step, the light from the lamppost leaving only one side of his face in the shadow of the building.
“Please,” I beg, my hands out in front of me, “just tell me what you are!” The truth is that I have too many questions and they’re all scrambling for the only exit of a burning building, completely choking the way out. I go back to the one thing I know he won’t tell me, just to keep myself talking, to keep my mind from collapsing under the weight of all those questions trying to break free.
“I can’t tell you because it’s forbidden,” he says, rising into a stand. “We’re unable to speak our own name.” The door to the Mexican restaurant opens and a small group of young couples file out, their appearance made evident by the lamppost on the sidewalk. “But that boyfriend of yours can tell you though.”