My Heart be Damned (18 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Step-Monster

“Water?”

I lifted my head to see Marshall holding out a bottle of water to me. I lunged for it gratefully. This training session he hadn’t gone easy on me. My whole body ached, and I was cover
ed, from head to toe, in sweat.

He sat down next to me, unscrewed the lid to his own water bottle, and took a large swig of it. I watched as his throat moved and sweat ran down his face, do
wn his chest, down his arms...

I took a gulp of my own water, trying to cool down a very different kind of heat running through my body.

“I was thinking,” Marshall said, “that we should go and see one of my friends tomorrow. He knows a lot, kind of keeps his ear to the ground. Maybe he can shed some light on why you’ve got a bounty on your head.”

I started to nod and then stopped. “Let’s say yes, provisionally. I’m not sure though.”

Marshall rolled his eyes. “I think this is a little more important than going out with your little boyfriend.”

His jealousy was cute. “Actually, my dad has it in his head that he wants us to move house tomorrow. I’m still trying to talk sense into him.” I glanced down at the time on my watch. “And if I want to do that, I better get home. Mind driving me?”

Marshall jumped to his feet and held out a hand to help me up. I took it, my eyes fixed on the way my small hand seemed to fit in perfectly with his large one. I stared up into his eyes, lust coursing through my veins. Our bodies leaned in closer, and I thought for sure he would kiss me.

“We should get going,” he said instead.

I was more than disappointed. Trying to regain my composure, I nodded curtly and spun away from him, grabbing my hoodie from the floor.

The car ride home was a tense one. The sparks of lust were gone, replaced with confusion and frustration. We were ten minutes away from my house when I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“My friends know what I am,” I said, staring down at my hands. “They saw me fight, and had questions, so I had to tell them. I’m not sure if they one hundred percent believe me, though.”

I snuck a peek at Marshall’s face. His jaw had tensed, but otherwise, he didn’t reveal anything else. “I’m sure if they’re still talking to you, then they subconsciously believe you.” He paused. “You didn’t tell them about me, did you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Scared of the Sisterhood coming to find you?” I teased.

His eyes narrowed darkly but then quick as a whip, he turned to wink at me, and I assumed I’d imagined the strange look before. “I have my ways of hiding from them.”

“Yeah, sure you do.” However, there was something about the way that Marshall had said it. It made me think that - maybe - he wasn’t lying. I mean, how else had he managed to stay under the radar for so long? You managed a year, the argumentative side of my mind reasoned.

“You think I’ll get into trouble?” I asked. “Not that I’m scared, or anything...”

“If you were any other Hunter then yes, probably,” Marshall said. “But they managed to lose you for almost a year. I think that gives you an excuse to screw up.”

“So you think I screwed up.”

“Yes.”

I pursed my lips together, not wanting to argue with him. He glanced at me, and his face softened.

“You know you did,” he expanded. “One of the first rules of Hunting is to keep it a secret. Lie beyond all means. And you broke that rule.”

“Rules were made to be broken,” I muttered childishly. “It’s done now. I’ll have to deal with whatever punishment they give me.”

Marshall parked the car outside of my house and switched off the engine. As the hum of the car died down, I repeated his words over and over. An excuse to screw up. How much more might I, conceivably, get away with? Would I even get away with this? Well, no Harbingers of Death had come for me yet. I opened the door.

“Let me know about tomorrow,” Marshall said, switching back on the engine. I wondered if he’d first turned it off because he thought we would talk for longer. I wanted to talk for longer, but I couldn’t think of much else to say.

I nodded once, grabbed my bag from beside my feet, and climbed out into the chilly air. I didn’t look back, not once. Taking all the stairs in my building two at a time, I didn’t stop to process anything until I was safely inside my house.

“
Amerie
?” Dad called from the living room.

I sighed. My house hadn’t been a haven for me for a very long time, but it was even less so now. I dumped my bag by the door and dragged my feet to the living room. Bitch Face was there, taking our personal belongings and putting them into cardboard boxes. They cluttered the living room. Only the sofa remained, which Dad was sprawled across, a beer in hand.

“You need to pack up your room,” Dad said without looking at me.

“I’ve put some folded boxes by your door,” Bitch Face added. “Give me a shout if you need any help.”

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm myself. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “I’m not moving,” I snapped. “You can’t make me.”

Dad sighed heavily. “Go upstairs and pack. Now.”

“No.”

He sat up, struggling a bit against the beer belly that he’d accumulated this past year, and gave me the look of death. The look I knew meant I had no choice. The anger inside me spread like a wildfire. If I didn’t get out of that room, there was no telling what I’d say or do. So I turned around and stomped up the stairs, making sure my steps were purposely heavy. Assholes.

“Guess they got to you too,” Daniel said.

He dumped a loaded box outside of his door and ran a hand over his shaved head. There were bags under my brother’s eyes; he wasn’t sleeping again.

“Have you been taking your sleeping tablets?” I asked, stepping towards him.

He backed away. “You know how I feel about pills.”

“If you can’t sleep then you’ll need them.”

“I can sleep,” he argued. Forever arguing with me. “Back off,
Amerie
. You’re not Mum, so stop pretending like you are.”

“Well someone has to look after you, Daniel! Unless you want it to be Cindy?”

He shot me a dirty look and stormed back into his bedroom. I stared after him for a few moments before heading in after him. It had been a long time since I’d stepped foot in Daniel’s room. Maybe back when we first moved into this shit hole. Nothing much had really changed; in fact, it was almost as though Daniel was purposely avoiding making his room comfortable.

There was nothing on the walls, when before they’d been lined with posters of all the rap artists he liked. His old desk was covered with clothes, discs, and DVD cases. The bed was unmade, as usual, and he sprawled across it, earphones in, music up so loud I could hear it from where I stood at the door.

He spotted me. I expected him to be mad that I hadn’t knocked or whatever, but he just looked so tired. I crossed the room and sat next to him, slipping out one of his earphones, and plugging it into my ear instead.

“
Dre
?” I asked.

“His early stuff.”

I nodded, not
recognizing
the song. “You ever didn’t decorate your room.”

He stared around at the bare, flaking walls and the dirty, stained carpet. “What was the point? I knew this day would eventually happen. Either we’d be homeless, or Dad would find somewhere else for us.”

“Did it have to be with her, though?”

Daniel shrugged and then reached into his pocket to switch the track. “What’s it matter? No one will ever be Mum. So why not Cindy?”

“Don’t you think Bitch Face suits more than Cindy?”

Daniel laughed. A real, honest to God laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You should take your tablets if you can’t sleep, though.” I stared into his face, waiting for anger to reach his eyes. But it never did.

“I close my eyes, and I see her. I open my eyes, and I miss her. What’s the better option? Living a make-believe life in my dreams, then waking up, and
realizing
she’s dead? It’s like losing her all over again. But then, staying awake just keeps me in this world, where she’s not here. Which is a better option? You tell me that?”

He sat upright, accidentally pulling the earphone out of my ear with him.

“I don’t know, Daniel, but at least you’ve got fourteen years of memories. She lives through us. Right?”

He didn’t say anything, and I was beginning to feel like maybe he regretted telling me about how he felt. This was the longest conversation we’d had all year. Even when Mum had first died, he wouldn’t talk to me. Wouldn’t sit in the same room with me while I cried. Horribly, I sometimes wondered whether he even cared about her at all, because he didn’t seem as though he did. Now I knew. He had his own way of dealing with things, and I had to
realize
his way was different from mine.

“I should finish packing,” he said.

I nodded. “Okay, sure.” I climbed off the bed and headed to the door. I paused when I reached it, unsure of what to say, but no words came. I walked out into the hall and grabbed a folded box. It was obvious that a change needed to occur in this place. But would this change actually be for the better? Would having a woman around the house looking out for us be what Daniel needed to be able to sleep again? With a deep breath, I decided to try. To at least give it a chance for my family’s sake.

Most of the furniture had already been here when we’d moved in, which was particularly handy considering most of our own furniture had been repossessed. Once my mother died, Dad
spiraled
down into a pit of alcohol abuse and self-pity quicker than her funeral plans had been drawn up. He lost his job, drank most of our savings, and gambled away the rest. We lost the house and most of the things in it. What we didn’t lose we sold so that we could pay the deposit and first month’s rent on a new place.

I’d forgiven Dad for that. It was understandable – he’d lost his first and only love. Mum used to love telling the story of how she and my dad were high school sweethearts. How there had never been anyone else.

I wondered what she’d think of Cindy.

Because of owning hardly any furniture, we managed to fit all of our belongings into Dad and Cindy’s cars. Dad had a beat up old Ford, and Cindy had a new Renault. The one that screams ‘school-run-Mum’. I had no idea why she had a car for eight people when she lived alone, but it was convenient for the boxes.

We arrived at Cindy’s a little bit after noon. My stomach grumbled, which only added to my foul mood. Apparently, making a quick detour through a McDonald’s drive-thru was not in Bitch Face’s schedule.

The only thing saving me from having the biggest hissy fit ever was when we arrived at our new house. Cindy lived in Shepherds Bush – an area in London that wasn’t too far from most of the places I liked to frequent. It would cut my journey to school down by half an hour. Definitely a bonus. Her red brick house was the end house in a little cul-de-sac, and decidedly modern. Three stories high, with a white single-car garage and a white front door. Very
Stepford
style. The front garden had perfectly trimmed bushes, and even the grass was immaculate. Our first house was bigger, and nicer, but this was unquestionably an improvement from the last one.