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“You need to put your prejudice behind you and try to work with the magick folk if we’re going to get out of this.”
“My prejudice?” He asked, his voice dangerously soft. “When they kill someone you love, and trust me, they will; I’ll ask you to put that aside, and we’ll see how easy it is for you.”
I opened my mouth to retort, but nothing came out. That chubby, screaming toddler flashed across my mind, and when my eyes refocused, Rycon was gone. The electric blue door to my childhood home was swinging on its hinges. For the first time since I had met the shifter, I felt like I was more heartless than he was.
Clair came home around six thirty and found me on the couch with Amon’s book in my lap. It was a sure sign that summer was coming, as the sun had barely started its descent in the sky this late in a Canadian evening. The light had started to turn a soft pink as it filtered through the windows, and it reflected off of the silent tears on my cheeks.
“Oh honey,” Clair whispered, the smile falling from her face as she walked into the living room in her scrubs. “What’s wrong?” She put her shoes down by the counter and padded over to the couch in her socked feet. Just seeing her made me feel better, and I scrubbed at the tears on my face, embarrassed that she had caught me crying. It was such a mom thing to be able to do. To take the pain away just by being there.
She sat on the couch next to me and pulled me into her arms. She was strong and warm, and she smelled like lavender. How a woman worked a sixteen-hour day and finished smiling while still smelling like a spring flower was beyond me. I curled into her embrace and closed my eyes as she kissed the top of my head.
“Everything's a mess,” I whispered. She laughed softly and stroked my hair.
“Well, thank goodness for you, cleaning up messes is my specialty.”
“I don’t know if you can clean up this one. I think I need to handle this one myself.” I murmured. She patted my shoulder and pulled back to really look at me.
“I feared this day would come!” She exclaimed dramatically, laying the hand that wasn't holding me against her forehead in mock drama. “The day you no longer need your mother is one I’ve been dreading.” She smiled at me and used her thumb to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “Why don’t we go out to the garden? I have to clear the weeds to make sure the perennials can breathe. Then you can tell me all about your mess that you don't need me to help you with.” I nodded into her hand while trying to imagine a way to explain my predicament without sounding like a crazy person.
“Alright,” Clair said matter-of-factly. “Let me get changed out of these clothes, and I’ll meet you out back.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were both in the backyard, kneeling in the dirt. I felt like a child again, helping Clair with the gardening. She had always kissed away the bruises other kids gave me at school. She taught me about plants and different leaf profiles. Like which plants had healing properties and which ones would give me a rash.
Clair knew more about gardening than anyone I had ever met, maybe even more than Meredith. We pulled weeds together in silence. I waited for her to ask me why I had been crying. I waited for her to ask me why there was a hole in the kitchen wall where Rycon had thrown the knife two days ago. I waited and waited, but she never asked. I think she knew I couldn’t tell her even if I tried.
Instead, she told me that she was late planting sunflowers this year, and was worried they would strangle the rest of the plants. She told me that Tammy from her work was fighting with her husband. She told me that she had spoken to Jeremy, and yes, I matched the vic’s profile, and no, she wouldn’t allow anything to happen to me. I didn’t have it in my heart to tell her it was too late. Things had already happened to me. Instead, I told her I was fine.
She used her wrist to brush her hair out of her eyes, her floppy gardening glove dropping soil around her face. She met my gaze, and when she spoke next, her tone was serious.
“Raven, you’re a fighter. You always have been. Whatever you’re going through, just know, I’ll always be here to fight with you.” Then she threw a huge chunk of dirt at me. I watched as she picked up and ran, and I knew, as I grabbed a huge handful of soil, that if she would fight for me, I would fight for her too.
We had a dirt fight in the backyard before eventually heading inside to collapse on our ugly couches, exhausted.
“What about the sunflowers we were supposed to plant?” I asked, thinking about the little sac of forgotten seeds that sat in the aftermath of our dirt war.
“A couple more days won’t do any harm. I’d much rather make us dinner. I’m starving.” She said before getting up to make us something to eat.
Jeremy came home much later, scratching his head at the two exhausted, dirt covered women in his life, who had crashed haphazardly on the sofas in the living room. He tucked each of us in with clean blankets and shook his head as he made his way upstairs to shower.
36
Amon stood in the middle of my living room, his face white with fury.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He demanded. I was dreaming, I had to be. There was no way Amon could have gotten past the wards, could he?
My aura was sickly. It was nothing more than a bleeding pulse collected around the triquetra at my throat. The charm’s daemon-repelling blanket had spread like ivy, and I could now see its metaphysical fingers digging into my skin. I moved to touch it, but the charm burned white, and I tore my hand away. What the-
“Do you see what you’re doing?” Amon snarled. “You’re being careless and stubborn. You need to take that thing off before it’s too late.”
“It protects me from beings like you.” I snapped. I suddenly realized that Clair was still asleep on the couch. I inched closer to her, intending to put myself between her and Amon. I wasn’t sure if he could hurt her from my dreams.
“You are a being like me, Raven.” He hissed. His usual amused mask was gone. “On top of that, you have invited the Nightshades? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“How do you know that?” I asked suspiciously, my eyes narrowing. He watched me, unnaturally still, as only a daemon could be. I knew that if he had been human, he would have nearly screamed with exasperation.
“If I was not currently hosting Ash Nevra and her...court, I would come to collect you right at this moment and you would thank me.” He growled, his lips barely moving.
“Don’t act like you’re doing me any favors. We all know you just trapped me so you could use me,” I snapped back. I knew I was being bold, but this didn’t feel real, and I wasn’t afraid of him.
