Supernova (24 page)

Dominic put a hand to the back of her head and hugged her to his chest, holding tightly to the only person still living that made him feel like he was worth a damn. Regardless of what he saw looking back at him in the mirror, in her eyes, he was good. The drug dealer, the thug, the murderer – the freaky monstrosity. All those images faded away, and he morphed into something worth being when she looked at him.

Only she didn’t know about the monstrosity part, and he couldn’t bear to tell her just yet.

As if reading his mind, Kerrigan pulled back and asked, “Hey, one more question. How is it that you came to live with Grammy?”

A shiver of dread ran down his spine. It was too much to reveal in one day. He didn’t think he could do it, but he knew she wouldn’t back off if he was hesitant about telling her. He was trying to come up with something that was close to the truth, something that wouldn’t be a complete lie, when an unlikely savior interrupted them in the form of Gabe.

Tyson was carrying him up the beach toward them and stopped in front of the lifeguard’s shack before sitting him down. Gabe was whining and crying in pain as he cradled his foot to his stomach.

“It hurts so much,” he whined. He put his hand to his forehead, as only a diva could, and exaggerated cries of agony. You would think he was dying.

Kerrigan rolled her eyes, but started toward him, convinced it was just another ploy to get the attention of the lifeguard. Talon came back with the guy, who just looked down at Gabe with a disgruntled huff.

“What now?” he asked.

“He’s not faking this time,” Olivia answered for Gabe. “He got stung by a jellyfish.”

“Oh, God, I’m dying. Kiss it and make it all better,” Gabe whined with a pouty lip.

The others were trying to hide their amusement.

“Sure thing,” the lifeguard said. “Let’s just get you inside where we’ll have a bit more privacy, and I’ll make it all better.”

“See? I knew you’d come around,” Gabe said, still wincing in pain as the lifeguard picked him up and started toward the shack. “I was just joking about your minnow, by the way. I knew you was packing an eel, but you hurt my feelings, boo-boo. And when my feelings get hurt, I start acting all ugly. Now, I know that God don’t like ugly, but he don’t like teases either.”

He never once stopped talking until he made it inside the shack. Once he was out of earshot, the rest of them burst out laughing. Tyson was doubled over, while Dominic and Talon were nearly in tears, fist bumping each other like they were at a frat party.

“Bro,” Tyson said through fits of laughter. “I only wish I could see the look on his face when ol’ dude pulls his pecker out and pisses on him instead of what Gabe thinks is going to happen.”

“I swear, it’s just like an episode of
Friends
gone horribly wrong,” Kerrigan said, trying to catch her breath.

Just then, a hair curling scream pierced the air from inside the shack, causing another round of laughter.

“You guys,” Sydney laughed. “It’s…so mean…to laugh at his pain.”

“Yeah,” Olivia agreed, trying to stifle her laughter and failing miserably.

Moments later, Gabe limped out of the shack, shrugging off the lifeguard’s assistance. He snapped his head toward his friends and shot a dirty look toward them before bowing his head in shame.

“Bye, honey,” the lifeguard called to him in a faked girly voice as he blew a kiss at him.

“I…have just been violated!” Gabe screeched and stomped off toward the cars the best he could with his injury.

“Well, I guess it’s time to go,” Kerrigan said, snickering one last time.

Gabe spoke to no one the rest of the evening, which was highly unusual. It was the only sign that proved he had been traumatized. He did given a few choice gestures to Tyson each time he commented on the stink in the room whenever Gabe passed him by. But he kept walking with his head up, shoulders back, and strutting his stuff like a proud peacock. If he was ashamed that he had been urinated on by another human being, he wasn’t about to show it. It didn’t change the fact that he still considered himself better than the rest of them.

Spectral time came quicker than Dominic had realized, and he found that he was relieved to be able to be alone for once. After admitting so much about himself to Kerrigan at the beach, he felt self-conscious. It might have been all in his mind, but he could have sworn the way she looked at him was different. Perhaps with a bit more pity. She should have been disgusted with him for the heinous crimes that he had committed against humanity, or at the very least, afraid for her own safety. But she wasn’t, and that just didn’t make sense.

Then again, Kerrigan was so much like her grandmother that she was only capable of seeing the good in people even when they didn’t deserve it. No matter how much he succeeded in helping others out, it would never be enough. He was damned for an eternity. His spectral state was proof of that fact and served as a constant reminder.

Over the next couple of weeks, Kerrigan and Dominic had practiced her ability on a daily basis. She was growing stronger with each passing day, but each time she went to her “place”, it was always some variation of Dominic in her surroundings that brought her peace. On one day in particular, she tried to make a white rosebud bloom. In her inner sanctuary, the green leaves and sharp thorns had become a representation of Dominic’s rough edges. Beauty with a hint of danger. But she could never fear him. She accepted his thorns as part of his make-up, and as Dominic stood behind her, she imagined herself resting on the soft petals that unfolded with the exhalation of the cold breath that blew across the sensitive skin of her neck. It was on that occasion that not one, but all of the still closed buds in Grammy’s garden bloomed wide and welcoming.

She and Dominic had learned some things about her gift along the way as well. For example, the Light does not allow Kerrigan to manipulate things that aren’t a part of the natural order that was intended for them. In other words, she couldn’t make a pig give birth to a puppy. Not that she had tried to or anything, but she did try to give Dominic a set of boobs – her attempt at being funny when she caught his stare lingering a little too long on her exposed cleavage one day. It didn’t work.

They had been pretty successful at hiding their little secret from the rest of the gang. Until Kerrigan got the bright idea of repairing the damaged Magnolia tree in the garden. That was pretty much a dead give-away something was going on. Having spent so much time in that garden, Gabe and the girls started questioning how it was possible that it was suddenly as if nothing had ever happened to the tree. Dominic tried to convince them that miracles were possible, and Tyson, the big goof, happily went along with him.

Kerrigan felt terrible about lying to them, even though it really wasn’t a lie. Her gift was a miracle, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it from them for long, nor did she want to. She was confident her friends would never look at her like she was a freak. So, with Dominic standing by her side, always giving his unwavering support, Kerrigan told them the truth.

Sydney’s mouth dropped.

Olivia beamed proudly.

Talon looked like he was trying to figure out a math problem.

Tyson pumped his fist in the air, thinking he was going to cash in.

And Gabe? Gabe rolled his eyes and told her that there was no way she was going to steal the spotlight from him, but that he would be happy to share it with her instead, albeit reluctantly.

Letting their friends in on her gift was bittersweet. While Kerrigan was glad she would no longer have to hide it from them, the secret had been hers and Dominic’s. Something that only the two of them shared. Dominic felt her disappointment and offered her words of encouragement when she failed a task. When she succeeded, he wrapped her in a cocoon of his warmth or gave her his brightest smile. It was their own little world. Now they had five eager soldiers infiltrating their secret garden like a platoon of ants raiding a picnic.

Although Kerrigan resented their intrusion, she knew it was only because they weren’t just sharing in her gift, they were also popping that intimacy bubble that she and Dominic thrived in. Of course she knew it wasn’t their intention, but it was true all the same.

Since the beginning of her training, Kerrigan had been having more dreams, or rather, nightmares. They always started different, but ended the same. There was the same constant presence of something foreboding and sinister lying just on the edge of her dream. And ever present was the mocking caw of a black raven with orange eyes.

On more than one occasion, she had been running barefoot through a graveyard in a tattered green cloak. The rain was coming down in torrents, and she could feel the mud squishing between her toes. She kept moving, afraid that if she stopped, she would sink into the ground, becoming one of the cemetery’s undead residents herself.

She wasn’t sure what she was running to, or from. No matter which direction she went, she always ended up at an old oak tree. And perched on its lowest limb, was that same damn bird. It would do nothing but watch her, offering only a single eerie croak before taking flight into the chilly night air. She looked down at the platform headstone before her, the name Drake D’Mon carved into the cold stone. A deep rumble of thunder caused the ground to shake under her feet. Within moments, blood seeped from the sharp edges of the letters as they shifted and morphed into a different name. Dominic Grayson. And sometimes,
he
appeared before her. Dominic, strapped lifelessly to the top of the granite deathbed while a detached and faceless voice warned, “You’re nothing like her. You can’t stop it.”

She would wake with a start, sometimes with mud caked on the bottom of her feet, but always with her heart pounding so hard in her chest she was afraid it might burst with fear. Kerrigan had no clue what the dream meant, and she wasn’t the least bit curious to find out. There was still a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that it spelled out certain disaster for the man she was falling for.

Unbeknownst to Kerrigan, Dominic sat with her every night. He was becoming increasingly concerned about the obvious nightmares she was having. Her terrified moans and erratic jolts of movement gave away the nature of her dreams. He wished he could ask her about them, but doing so meant he would have to confess that he had been lying to her about where he had been going every night. Plus, she would see him for the peeping Tom that he had become.

But staying away simply wasn’t an option.

Dominic had been watching Kerrigan throughout a particularly bad nightmare. This one was different from the others in that she had been sobbing and out of breath, clutching at the material over her heart as she begged and pleaded with an unknown force. “Please, not him…” was all that he could make out of her muffled moans.

He was at her side in an instant, attempting to quiet her and bring her out of the dream with careless whispers meant only to comfort her. It was risky. If she had awoken without him realizing it and heard him in a conscious state – he shuddered to think about the consequences. Every single part of the relationship, the friendship that he had been building with her, would come crumbling down around him.

He would have failed.

As luck would have it, he was successful at rousing her without further adding to her traumatized state. Tears were streaming down her face, and her chest was heaving with labored breaths. Once the initial shock wore off, and she found her bearings, her head jerked up. She stared into the ceiling above her, as if she were trying to find any sign of life coming from his room.

He was startled when she jumped out of the bed, every ounce of her motions proving she was very much aware of where he should have been, where he would have been if only he could have been there.

Dominic took a step back when she moved toward her bedroom door, but he wasn’t fast enough, and Kerrigan walked right through him. His ghostly figure wavered, and it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving him light-headed. He drew his hands back to steady himself even though he really wasn’t in any danger of falling. Kerrigan stopped only for a second to look around her. She had felt it, too. But her attention was quickly drawn back to whatever mission she was on, and she walked out into the hallway.

With timid steps, she walked down the hall. Her body was still trained in the direction of his room as he crept along behind her, careful not to make any sounds to alert her of his presence. She stopped outside his door, her hand poised just over the doorknob, but she didn’t turn it. Instead, she pressed the palm of her hand against the door, followed by her forehead. She closed her eyes and let out the most heart wrenching sob he had ever heard.

“I need you, Dominic,” she whispered to no one. “Where are you?”

I’m right here!
He wanted to scream.
I have always and will always be right here!

But of course he couldn’t say it out loud.

Dominic clinched his fist and bit down hard to keep from touching her, from reaching out, from doing anything to make her feel better. It would only terrify her in the end. He hated himself in that moment. He wanted to be there for her more than anything else in the world, more than his own humanity.

That was the moment he realized he would sacrifice everything for Kerrigan Cruz. His heart, his soul, they belonged to her.

After collecting herself, Kerrigan turned the knob to his room, just wanting to be closer to him, even if he wasn’t there. She climbed to the top of the stairs and pulled the chain to turn on the light. His smell encompassed her, and her distress was laid to rest. This was his space. It lived and breathed everything that was Dominic.

She closed her eyes as a breeze filtered in through the opened window and blew her hair around her face. The wispy strands tickled her nose, and she couldn’t help but smile at the sensation. That is what being near Dominic did to her. It made her smile.

She walked over to his stereo and turned it on before she sat on the futon and let her fingers drift over the strings of his guitar. It was almost as if by doing so, she could hear him playing it.

Dominic watched in rapt fascination as she got up and moved around his room, touching everything she could lay her little fingers on. She was marking his territory, whether she realized it or not, but he didn’t mind her going through his things at all. That was the weirdest thing for him. Normally, he was a very private person, but he
wanted
her to know him.

She swayed along to the sultry beat of
Ride On
, the last song he had listened to, moving toward his wardrobe. Dominic’s heart began to pound in his chest when she opened it and pulled out his Rolling Stones T-shirt and held it up to her nose to inhale his scent. Then she slipped it on over her cammi tank and wrapped her arms across her stomach, as if doing so was the same as hugging him.

When she looked back into the wardrobe, she gasped in surprise. Dominic almost panicked when she picked up his gold-plated Colt 1911 pistol with ivory grips. One of his past “jobs” had given it to him in exchange for Dominic not beating him within an inch of his life. He thought it was a fair trade then. It had been a side job outside of his normal dealings with Ricardo, so he didn’t feel too bad about not following through. It may have been a bit tainted, but it spared a man his life. Dominic figured accepting the gift put him on an even keel.

That gun had been his baby and had saved his life on more than one occasion. It was ironic how it was suddenly in the position to threaten it. If anything ever happened to Kerrigan Cruz, he would simply fade to black.

Dominic rushed to his nightstand and knocked over the photo frame he kept there in hopes that she would think the wind had knocked it over and get distracted enough to put the loaded pistol down. Kerrigan’s head whipped toward the sound. Just as he had hoped, she put the Colt back, closed his wardrobe, and made her way over to the fallen frame.

He sighed in relief. That also caught Kerrigan’s attention. She turned in his direction and looked right at him, or rather through him. Her eyes were probing, trying to see something, anything. All Dominic could do was hold his breath and try to remain as still as a statue. When she couldn’t make anything out, she turned her attention back to the photo.