Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2) (13 page)

The light of the bathroom cast a soft glow
on
his
face
,
caressing his features, softening them.  With his hair in a state of disarray and his countenance completely relaxed, he looked much younger than he was, boyish really.  Her heart clenched tightly.
  She felt as though she’d betrayed him.

Shame clawed at her as she slid beneath the cover
s
beside him.  She kissed his forehead lightly and saw his eyelashes flutter.  He was asleep already.  She rested on her side for several minutes watching h
im sleep, wondering if he dreamed
.  He looked peaceful, and vulnerable, and the squeezing in her heart intensified.  Exhausted and with another tw
o-
hour drive ahead of her, she settled her head against the pillow and inched closer to Luke.  Sleep found her immediately, and she floated off into oblivion.

Chapter 9

The sun had not yet made its appearance when Arianna and Luke left the Main Street Motor Inn.  Stars still orname
nted the velvety abyss and the M
oon had
just
begun its descent.  They’d dressed and grabbed food from the takeout window of a fast-food restaurant before they’d resumed their drive to Rockdale.  Luke had not mentioned their night together and Arianna wondered why.  In fact, for the remaining two hours it
had taken
them to jo
urney to the town she’d lived in just a few short weeks ago
, Arianna had begun to fret about his silence on the subject.  She had been reluctant to bring it up herself, especially since at the height of her arousal, Desmond had invaded her thoughts, and had become the subject of a sexual fantasy.  Merely recalling the scenario
, of her fantasizing about
Desmond
while making love to Luke,
made her cheeks burn, guilt and dis
comfort conspiring against her.  She was certain Luke had no way of knowing of her fantasy; he was not capable of mindreading.  Yet, he
’d
acted as though he knew and
had been oddly silent for much of the ride.  He’d left the radio on, but it had not been playing so loudly that a conversation would have been impossible.  She wondered whether he had been displeased with her sexual performance.  He had seemed happy enough with it last night.  But she didn’t know what he’d been accustomed to.  Perhaps he was used to more adventurous interplay, or found her body unattractive. 

Suddenly plagued with insecurities and doubts she was unacquainted
with
,
she began to feel anxiety stir in the pit of her stomach.  First, her little jealous schoolgirl episode in the dinner
had occurred,
and now this.  She was the Sola
, possessed
supernatural power and was designated to unite her fellow witches
, yet was worrying over
her boyfriend being quiet
.
  It all seemed so absurd.  Whatever his reason for silence, she was determined to not waste another moment fretting over it.  They were headed to find Lily.  Everything else would be addressed, or not, another time.

When finally they turned on to Lily’s street, the uncomfortable silence that
had plagued Arianna for the two-
hour drive had become unimportant. 
The white Victorian waited at the end of a long tree-lined street. 
A warning breathed at the back of her neck and tiptoed down the length of her spine.  Lily’s house typically looked warm and inviting, but not today.  Cloaked in t
hick fog
, the steep roof pitches and pointed decorative gable trim assumed a hostile, foreboding quality
. 
Mist
shrouded the entire neighborhood, covering it like a funeral shroud.  It
clung to the cedars that flanked the residential ro
ad
causing t
heir limbs
to
dr
oop as if carrying the fog as they would the weight of wet snow.  As they drew closer,
Arianna immediately noticed that both of Lily’s parent’s cars were parked in the driveway.  The digital clock on the radio read 7:45 a.m.  Neither Lily nor her parents would have left for school yet.  The presence of the cars should have been a promising development, but
didn’t feel promising in the least
.
 
Something felt off. 

“Looks like their home,” Luke commented and ended their silent streak.

“Looks like,” Arianna replied but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not right.  “But there are no lights on.”

“Maybe they’re still sleeping.”

“Sleeping in on a weekday?  What about school and work?”

“Maybe they’re sick, who knows?  Either way, I think you have your answer,” he said more gently.

The answer he though
t
she had was that Lily was fine, but no longer interested in maintaining a friendship with Arianna
.  What he did not know was that that would have been the preferred answer to what her
body, what every cell within her
, screamed.  Inside of her, it was as though an alarm wire had been tripped and silent sirens were wailing.

“I don’t have any answers,” Arianna said softly.

“You can do whatever you want.  I’m not telling you what to do. 
We can go up to her front door and ring the bell.  You know I’m with you. 
I just don’t want to see you get your feelings hurt
, that’s all
.  I care about you.”

She thought it ironic for him to
worry about her feelings after hurting them with his reticence for the two hours it took them to get from the motel to Lily’s, the motel they’d shared a bed in.

“I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine,” she said a bit more testily than she’d have liked.
“And I highly doubt Lily’s going to slam the door in my face or something if that’s what you were implying.”

“I wasn’t implying that at all.  It’s like I just said, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Huh,” she huffed then mumbled under her breath, “That’s why you were so chatty on the ride up.”

To her surprise, Luke had heard her mumbling and replied to it.  “I wasn’t the only one quiet in the car, you know,” he shot back
staring straight ahead
.  “First I felt stupid, thought maybe you
’d
had
too much
to drink last night
and
regretted
sleeping with me
.  I was sober, and nervous as hell, but you, you’re a lightweight.  The beer must have hit you like a ton of bricks.  When you didn’t say anything about it, I figured I’d better keep my mouth shut.”

He had no idea what she was, that alcohol had no effect on her whatsoever. 

“I was sober and knew exactly what I was doing, thank you very much,” she argued.  “And you’re my boyfriend, right?  Keeping quiet was the
worst thing you could do.  I mean, with
all
the girls you’ve slept with, surely you know the silent treatment never goes over well.”

“What do you mean
all the girls I’ve slept with
?  I haven’t slept with a lot of girls.”

“Oh give me a break,” Arianna huffed.  “You expect me to believe that?  You’re the badass guy that’s hot and knows how to fix shit.  That’s the stuff of every girl
’
s fantasy.”

Except hers apparently.

“Arianna, you’ve only been at our school for what, two weeks?”

“Yeah, so?”

He turned in his seat to face her.  “So, you may think you know what goes on there, but you don’t.  Our school is divided into social classes.  In the small group I’m in, yeah, I suppose I’m a stud.  But beyond them, I’m a fucking leper.  I smoke. I drink.  I have tattoos.  And it’s no secret my mom’s a goddamn junkie.  None of that nominates me as prom king,” he said. 

“Bullshit,” Arianna said. 

“Bullshit?” he asked incredulously.  “Arianna, you’re the second girl I’ve ever slept with, okay,” he admitted, his cheeks suddenly streaked with scarlet bands.  “And you’re the hottest girl I’ve ever seen.  I have no idea why you even did
it
.
  Every guy at school wants you.
” He refused to meet her gaze, chose instead to stare at his lap.

She was shocked.  For all his flirtation and macho bravado, he had been unsure all along.  The way he’d behaved, his hot and cold moods and his overt attempts at seduction
,
had seemed like
things a hormonally
charged playboy would have done.  But he was not a playboy at all.  He was vulnerable.

She reached out and took his hand in hers.  “Hey,” she said and craned her neck to look into his eyes.  “Hey, last night happened because I wanted it to, because
we
wanted it to.  All that other stuff doesn’t matter
.  A
ll the bullshit at school, all the bullshit in your head
, it’s just that: bullshit
.”

He didn’t reply, just smiled thinly and blew out a small puff of air through his nose.  He looked sad
,
and his sadness made her chest ache.  Without thinking, she yanked his hand toward her, pulling him to her side
of the car
, and kissed him.  At first, he kept his lips closed.  But she swept his lips with her tongue playfully then nibbled his lower lip.  Finally he smiled then returned her kiss.
 

Their kiss continued for several seconds and was passionate.  Luke had returned from whatever brooding doldrums he’d hidden in and she was sad when it ended.  Now it was time to find out, once and for all,
what had happened to Lily
. 

“
My, my Arianna, you have a knack for improving my mood,” he said and smiled warmly.  “Are you ready to do this?” He nodded toward Lily’s house.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” she said and felt anything but ready.

They climbed out of his pi
ckup truck and out into the miasma
.  Somewhere beyond the clouds and fog, the s
un waited, prepared to rid the
area
of the
seemingly impenetrable murk that had besieged it.  Luke took her hand in his and walked alongside her.  She watched as the fog licked at his body like innumerable serpentine tongues, their silky, sinuous shapes passing over and under him menacingly.  She willed the sun to burn through the clouds, to incinerate the spectral vapors, but as far as she knew, she did not possess the capability to raise the sun.

Arianna and Luke walked up the driveway and walkway and stopped on the large front porch.  She rang the doorbell and waited for a response.  After nearly
a
minute had passed,
she
rang again. 

“Cool it with the doorbell,” Luke advised.  “Give them a chance to get to the door.”

But she did not hear movement inside.  The street was quiet, unnaturally so, and had someone been moving inside the house, she would have heard it thank
s to her newly enhanced hearing.  She stood perfectly still and focused on the area beyond the walls, listening for conversations, for water running, for movement, breathing,
anything
.  But the house was completely still. 
She quickly stepped back from the door and scanned the porch, searching for a ceramic frog.

“What’s the matter?” Luke asked perplexed.

“I’m looking for something,” she said.

“Okay I get that, but what?”

“A frog, I’m looking for a frog,” she said as she moved to the far corner of the porch.
“
This
frog as a matter of fact,” s
he said as she lifted a weathered gray frog that rested against the front of the house
between two gnomes
.
Beneath it was a key.

“Are you kidding me?” Luke asked.  “People actually leave a key to their house on the front porch?”

“Yeah, they do.”

“Seems really stupid to me.”

“Well
, maybe to us, but
does
this look like my neighborhood
or yours for that matter?”

“No,” he replied
and she watched as his eyes examined the stately houses and the luxury cars that sat in front of them.  “I guess not.  But still, thieves target neighborhoods like this.  They prey on trusting fools like them.”

Arianna bristled at hi
s implication that
Lily and her family
were
fools.  Regardless of his thoughts on the subject,
suggesting they
were
anything less than the kind and decent people they were seemed harsh
.

“They’re not fools, okay.  They’re decent peop
le,
”
she snapped.