Darkness Brutal (The Dark Cycle Book 1) (14 page)

EIGHTEEN

Kara’s quiet the whole way as I drive us back home. She stares out the car window, watching the sleeping city blur past.

I want to plead her forgiveness, knowing it’s my fault she was knocked around. But in order to explain that, I’d have to explain everything else, and I’m not sure how.

“Are you okay?” I ask—maybe six times.

She doesn’t answer.

When we pull into the driveway, she stays quiet, looking out the window. I turn off the car and get out, but she still doesn’t move, so I go around to her door and open it. Without a word she scoots out, grabbing my arm for support.

She leans on me all the way to the house, stumbling a few times.

My feet stop the second time she loses footing, and my heart speeds up. Maybe I should call a doctor, put her back in the car, and take her to the ER. “Please, Kara, this is killing me. Tell me you’re okay.”

She looks up, her eye swollen a little, her cheek cut. “Not my first time at this rodeo, cowboy. I’ll be fine.”

“I could take you to the doctor.”

“Calm down. The prick didn’t get in any body shots, just a knuckle to the face and a penny loafer to the thigh. Maybe two. I’m good.” She motions to the back door. “Now put your big boy pants on and take me upstairs so I can sleep this mess off.”

I get her to her room, set her on the bed, and tiptoe down the hall to my own room to check on Ava. She’s sleeping soundly. I slip off my shoes, toss my hoodie onto the bed, and head downstairs to the freezer and then the bathroom, grabbing a wet washcloth for Kara’s face. I enter her room again with a bag of frozen peas and the rag.

She takes them, muttering a thank you. As I settle myself beside her, she gives me an odd sideways look. “What’s wrong? Don’t you have your own room?” She puts the bag of peas over her left eye.

“Just making sure you’re okay.”

“Always gotta save the girl.” She moves the peas and studies me. “Why is that? Isn’t it exhausting?”

I laugh, but it has a bitter edge. I’m glad she’s warming up to me, but I say, “I’m no savior.”
I’m the reason you’re sitting here with frozen peas on your face
.

As we both fall silent, I look around the room, realizing we’re surrounded by a collage of newspaper clippings and images, scribbled words and drawings. There’s a strange theme of life and love. Every inch of the walls is covered. It’s a work of art, really. There’s a sunscreen advertisement with children playing in a pool, a flyer for an unwed mother’s home with a teen cradling her round belly, and a drawing of an older woman gazing out a window with longing in her eyes.

The largest image is a tattered movie poster of
Gone With The Wind
. The stars embrace in frantic desperation against a backdrop of images from the Civil War.

None of it is what I expected from this sad, dark girl.

Kara breaks through my thoughts. “I’m sorry I freaked out at you in the kitchen. You’re not a total ass.”

“Actually, I
am
an ass.” I take the rag from her and pick up her hand, wiping her bloody knuckles with the wet washcloth. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

She stares at my attempt to clean her wounds for a second like she’s frozen, but then she pulls her fingers back and shivers. “You need to go to your room.”

I study her face, her white-blue eyes. The memory of kissing her at the club surfaces, and I realize that she’s still only wearing her bra.

I try to swallow. “Okay.”

I stand and head for the door, feeling off kilter. This is Kara. I don’t even like her. What am I thinking?

“There was something there,” she says, stopping my movement. “In the room when he attacked me.”

I turn back. “What do you mean?”

She shakes her head. “I told the guy that I just wanted to sit for a second, and he flipped out. A complete one-eighty—too quick for me to stop him. And there was a faint rotten egg smell. I didn’t even connect the dots until he started hitting me.”

I shift my feet. “What do you think it was?”

She looks right at me. “As if you can’t guess.”

“Kara, please believe I—”

She raises her hand, waving off my words. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You didn’t know.” She touches her cheek absently, feeling for the bruise, and flinches when her fingers find the wound. “So how was the Angelic One?”

My heart sinks. “She was fine.” I move closer to the bed, wondering what to do, what to say. It’s obvious she’s hurt by what happened, but it’s more than the violence. She almost seems . . . jealous.

Why would she be jealous of Rebecca?

She puts the bag of peas back to her cheek. “Well, good. Did you get the information you needed?”

“Yeah, I think so.” I study her, wishing the house didn’t muffle her emotions so I could know what she’s really feeling. “Your arm’s bruised.”

She moves her arm, looks at the emerging violet splotch, and then says, “My hip, too.” She puts the peas down and stands, peeling back the waist of her pants a little, showing me another bruise. “Kinda looks like a turtle.”

I can’t help smiling at her silly observation. And then something beside the odd-shaped bruise catches my eye. Her tattoo. I hadn’t gotten the chance to see it close-up until now. It’s made up of woven green vines and a cluster of small violet flowers. There’s a pink lily off to the side, and the vines continue to climb from her hip, reaching up to her rib cage.

Violets and lilies
. Ava’s words. She said something about violets and lilies from the dream about our mom the other day. But what was it?

. . . he must touch the violets and lilies to find surrender, to find his hidden blood . . .

Without thinking, I step a little closer, reaching out slowly to slide a fingertip over the largest petal of the lily. Instantly a vibration moves up my arm, and I swear the mark on my hand burns against my skin.

I clench my fingers into a fist, but I don’t step away.

“Did you feel that?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I feel so much, always so much.

She takes my hand and brings it to her side again, resting it on the violets. I look at the purple flowers between my fingers and feel the heat of her skin, the way it slides beneath my palm, soft as silk. And that vibration moves through my arm again.

Her breath quickens.

I find myself moving closer as her blue eyes go wide with wonder. My heart stutters and my chest aches with some unknown need.

“Are you doing this?” I ask.
Are you making me want this?

“No,” she breathes. The smell of her turns to spice, sharp and warm, and I know I’m sensing her now, even through the block in the house.

We stand like that for an eternity, still as statues on the outside, but inside I’m running, running toward a place I’ve never been. I should be terrified. But all I feel is strength. Rightness.

And then Kara moves, her hands skimming up my chest, testing the boundaries. Her palms slide to my shoulders, her fingers tracing the line of the muscles in my arms, down to my waist. She grips my shirt, stretching it a little, waiting for me to tell her to stop. But I watch her lift it, let her pull it up, raising my arms, and I even take the last of it off myself, dropping it to the floor.

We breathe, staring at each other.

The vibrations move between us. My left arm buzzes with them. I think she’s doing it. Whatever’s happening, it’s her.

I reach up and brush my marked knuckles across her cheek, amazed at the feel of her, the way her eyes seem to see everything, the way she pulls me into her. I can’t seem to remember why I shouldn’t kiss her. And kiss her. And . . .

I kiss her, taking her face in both hands, skimming my thumb over her jaw as she leans into the touch, reaching out to curl her fingers around the back of my neck. I have to remind myself to breathe. I need more of her. The emotions roll over me in a rush, a tangle of sensation and movement, heat and sugar and heady aromas.

I grip her tighter.

Her nails dig into my shoulders. My hands slide down her spine. The kiss deepens, goes on forever, until I can barely see sense. I explore her shape, the feel of her ribs, the textures and taste of her skin on my tongue as I kiss her neck, her shoulders, her chest. As I draw trembling gasps from her lips, she grips me so hard it hurts.

Our bodies mesh. Our breath mingles in frenzied desperation. Nothing else exists except her. Her warmth. Her spice. Her.

I whisper her name into her neck, pressing her against the wall.

She rocks against me in answer, and the poster behind her rips at the edge, falling to the floor. I kiss her harder and fumble for the waist of her jeans, not sure what I’m doing. My fingers tremble against the denim.

I need everything. Everything.

But as I pop the button of her pants and the sound of the zipper scratches the air, she goes still, whimpering. Her body shivers against mine like a frightened animal, and everything turns cold. Guilt rears its head as our lips part.

Disoriented, I stare at her pain-filled features, and my palm slides down her arm, trying to reassure her, reassure myself she’s real and what I think just happened actually did.

She bows her head, forehead resting against my chest, breath coming in stops and starts.

Then realization falls over me in a rush, and I’m aware that I wasn’t acting fully on my own a moment ago. I didn’t see her ice-blue energy tangle around me this time, like I did at the club, but I could feel it. And there’s no way that was natural. There’s no way I could lose it so completely with someone I’m not even sure I like.

I wonder when everything changed. I wonder when she took control. And I wonder why the fact that she used her strange power on me doesn’t bother me. Not even a little.

It all was so real, so urgent, so much like my own feelings.

A small sound comes from her, another whimper, like she’s in pain. At first I think I hurt her. But then her shoulders shake, and she presses harder into my chest and begins to weep. And weep.

I hold her against me while the bitter tang of it all swirls around us. Dark sorrow in her bones and her skin, years and years of pain and hurt. She pours it over me in salty tears and waves of energy.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

“Shhh.” I run my hand over her hair, attempting to comfort her as my body comes back to earth in a crash and I try to figure out where it all went wrong.

She cries until her tears are used up, until the connection between us becomes something else, a soothing link I don’t think I’ve ever felt before: peace and stillness. After a while she goes limp, leaning into me more, falling asleep standing up.

I take her to the bed.

She’s unsure at first, ashamed, looking at her hands rather than at me, so I lie down and pull her to my side. She settles after that, nestling her head into the crook of my arm, her hand on my chest, over my heart. We breathe and feel the rhythm of each other’s pulse through skin and bone. And soon we both drift off into sleep.

I drop my backpack onto the floor and head for the fridge, pulling out the carton of milk before I hear the crash—the sound of glass shattering and a deep thud.

My body goes still as chills fall over me in a rush.

A cry comes from the walls. Mom’s room.

Muffled words and another crash.

I drop the milk. It spills onto the yellowed tile to the rhythm of the
thud . . . thud . . . thud
in the walls.

Everything goes still. My cheeks are wet with tears. My heart is the only sound left on earth as it crashes like thunder against my chest.

Mom’s bedroom door opens, and one of her boyfriends stands there. The smells of violence and terror and
wrongness
spill out from behind him. He adjusts his belt, his knuckles stained with blood. Then he sniffs and wipes his nose with his shirt.

“What’re you looking at, you little prick?”

I can only shiver and stare past him at Mom’s fetal form in the bed.

He growls, grabs his jacket off the back of the couch, and heads for the door. “See you next week,” he sneers as he walks out.

When the latch clicks, I run to her side. I stare down at her on the bed, not sure if I can touch her. There’s so much pain coming off her. It weighs me down, presses at me.

She wraps her hand over mine, and I see pink scratches, a smudge of blood. “I’m okay, Aidan. Don’t worry. Mommy’s okay. Just a disagreement is all.”

A whimper escapes my throat as a million questions circle in my head. “I’m sorry.”

A tear slips down her bruised cheek.

All the men that come here seem to hurt her and make her cry. Why does she let them?

“Why did my daddy go away?” I ask without thinking. “Didn’t he want to protect you?” I wish I was bigger so I could punch the men away myself.

Her brow creases in pain, and I’m suddenly sorry I brought it up. I should know better.