The 13th: Frozen Destiny (5 page)

“What is?”

“I kissed her today.” His hands loosened their hold around hers and fell to his sides. He frowned. “It was so weird.” Another sad smile before he hung his head. “I remember her as this warm girl, who melted against me every time I kissed her, but she -- she was like a block of ice, so cold and unyielding. She is not Kate.”

“Who she is, then?”

“I don't know. Her clone? Her illusion? An imprint of her? I don't know. But I know she isn't Kate. I thought of...” He shook his head and when he looked up at her, a crease cut between his eyebrows and his jaw locked. “I was tempted to use force to learn the answers. To dig my hands into her and to haul them out.” His gaze lowered to his hands. “But I couldn't do it, not even to find Kate, because...” His eyebrows lowered and for a second Claire thought that he might cry, but the eyes that met hers were dry. “She looks like Kate. She looks exactly like Kate, down to the birthmark on Kate's neck.”

“I don't understand.”

“You heard them, didn't you? They haven't said it directly, but you understood, right? They are a couple, Ethan and Kate, and they are pretending to be with us, to harvest energy or something. You said it yourself: Ethan would never do that to you. Well, Kate -- the real Kate -- wouldn't do it to me, either.”

“I don't understand,” Claire said. “I mean, I understand what you are telling me, it's just unbelievable. Who are they, if they aren't Ethan and Kate? And where are the real Ethan and Kate?

“Have you talked to any other students?”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“Have you?”

“No. I tried, but it was like they were running away from me.”

“Yeah. I had the same problem.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black pants. “It was weird how in one moment they were so close that I could touch them and then when I turned to them, they were always at least two steps away.”

“It doesn't prove anything, at least not that Ethan is not Ethan.”

“You heard them yourself.”

“I heard them wrong.”

“You are so stubborn.” He frowned, but then in the next moment he replaced it with a small smile. “And so loyal. Like somebody I know.”

Claire crossed her arms.

He took a step forward.

She shifted backwards and pulled her legs onto the desk. “What are you doing?”

“It is so preposterous, but at the same time, so logical.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said Ethan was pushy.” He leaned over her. “And quite blunt.”

You are acting weird.” She fixed her feet against his hips and pushed him backwards.

His fingers wrapped around her ankle. “Did you know that Mandy is my relative?” He leaned over her again.

“No.” She curled her back, trying to be as small as possible while her heart drummed in her ears, not in fear and not in excitement, but in a strange kind of anticipation. “Go away.”

“I can't remember how we are related, but I know that we are. I can't remember being related to Ethan, though. I know him like the back of my hand, but I can't remember being related to him. Isn't that odd?” He set his hands on the desk and his arms pinned her between him and the desk.

“Ryan, what are you doing?” She pushed against him, but he didn't budge.

“How do you know Tyler?”

“Get off.” She shoved him back, but he refused to move.

“Tell me how you know Tyler and I might.”

She sighed. “You are too much.”

“So I have been told. Tell me how you know Tyler.”

“Fine. He's my neighbour, I have known him since I was a child.”

“I knew it.” His mouth curved into a smile and his eyes sparkled in the dim light coming from the window at the end of the room.

“Get off.”

“Bear with me, just for a little while longer, please.”

“I don't want to.” His face was much too close, as if he was going to try to kiss her. She covered his mouth.

His tongue wiggled out and slid against the softness of her palm.

She squeaked as she jerked her hand away.

He chuckled.

“It's not funny.” Her mouth narrowed. “We have a crisis here and you are joking around.”

“This is an experiment, okay?” His nose touched hers.

“What is?” Her breath hitched. She should have pushed him away and tried harder to wiggle out of the prison of his arms. She was still Ethan's girlfriend, even if he was cheating on her -- which he wasn’t.

His mouth lowered onto hers, just a simple brush, light as a butterfly's wing.

The familiarity of the touch washed over her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, while her mouth opened and her tongue grazed his lower lip.

His tongue slipped into her mouth and slid alongside her gums then glided against her tongue.

Small shivers that had appeared at his first touch flamed into a fire and knotted in the pit of her stomach, making his touch so intense. She pushed him away.

With his hands still fixed on either side of her, he stared at her with something akin to wonder in his eyes and a smile that shone down on her like a supernova.

He took her breath away. Her fingertips brushed alongside his jaw. “Ethan.” He might not look like the dazzling blond creature that had swept her off her feet a year ago, but despite the black hair, dark clothing, make-up and different face, he was the boy she had fallen in love with. She had missed him so much.

He turned his head and pressed a kiss on her fingers. “Hey.” A short pause. “Kate.”

“I don't feel like Kate.” And yet, she was. Everything was so clear: her past, who she was and what she was capable of as Ryan's -- Ethan's -- kiss, erased the fog that had until now held her mind in some sort of haze. Was it the same with him? Yes, it was, she could see it in his eyes.

“I don't feel like Ethan, either. In two weeks I got quite used to being Ryan. I quite like these.” He tugged on a spike. “Do you think I can keep them?”

“Very funny.”

He cupped her face. “You won't mind if I kiss you again, will you? I just need to kiss you, really badly.”

She answered him by pulling him down and entangling him in another kiss, a copy of the one before. She should have recognized him the first time they touched, even though he looked different. Her body had told her who he was, but she had refused to listen to it. The kiss ended, but she held onto him as if when she released him the knowledge of who he was and who she was would disappear. “How is this possible?”

“I don't know.”

“I don’t feel dead, but... are we alive?”

“It doesn’t feel like an out-of-body experience.”

She closed her eyes and focused on the darkness, searching for the tug of her life thread that connected her soul with her body. It was there, but concentrating on it didn’t swish her back into her body. “No, you are right, it doesn’t.” Her eyelids fluttered open.

He smoothed her hair.

His caress was so gentle that she felt wetness at the corners of her eyes. She had missed him so much; the way he looked at her, the way he touched her and the way he cared for her. She buried her face in the niche between his neck and shoulder, inhaling his scent, which was different, but was still Ethan's. “What now?”

“What's the last thing you remember?”

“Falling asleep in the car. You?”

“Watching you sleeping.”

“That's so creepy.”

“What can I say, I'm a creepy kind of guy.”

She rolled her eyes, still holding onto him, with a smile on her face that slowly faded away. “Do you think it's the monastery?”

“Probably.”

“Ghosts?” she asked even though she doubted that a ghost would be able to cast an illusion so powerful that it continued even though they had broken the grip it had on them.

He released her and after she loosened her grip on him, his hand slid down her arm and wrapped around hers. He straightened. “Soul Eater, more likely.”

“A very powerful one.”

“He nodded.

“A hunt, then?”

“We don't know if we can use our powers.”

She wiggled her hand out of his, closed her eyes, rested her hands in her lap, palms up, and concentrated on the scythe. The first hint of a snath weighted her fingers.

“No,” He squeezed her hand. “If you do, it might alert them -- it -- to us.”

Dread lifted the fine hairs on her neck. She exchanged glances with him. Yes, he felt it too. “Soul Eater,” she whispered.

He nodded as he moved backwards.

She tossed her legs over the edge of the desk. She had felt a dark shadow crossing over her many times in the past two weeks without recognizing it as the subtle warning that it was.

He laid a finger over his lips before he wrapped his hand around hers again and tugged her off the desk. He led her to the door which he opened just a crack. He peeked outside.

“Do you see anything?” she asked him in a low voice.

He shook his head in a ‘no.’ “But he’s close.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “We should pretend everything is normal.” She unlaced her fingers from his. “As in ‘we are part of this strange world’ normal.”

He nodded and they stepped into the hallway, strolling across it, while the feeling of dread continued to hang over them.

#

Kate, who still here and there thought of herself as Claire, sat on the arm of a chair, her back against the wall behind her and her feet on the seat. With a book in her hand she was pretending to read, while over the edge of the book she observed her double being cosy with the black-haired boy. One day had passed since the big revelation and it felt as if it had happened months ago. Even with the new knowledge, her surroundings hadn’t changed, and she still wore somebody else’s face, but when she concentrated, she could see the transparency of the other students. She assumed they were all ghosts. Luckily, Mandy and Tyler’s bodies were solid, with not even a hint of transparency. Such a relief.

Claire, which was what Kate called Fake Kate now, put her hand on Ethan’s shoulder and shifted closer.

Kate’s eyes narrowed and a hint of jealousy nipped at her. She shoved it away. Ethan had to pretend, just like she did, but at least Fake Ethan/Ryan didn’t want to have much to do with her. What had before been a source of pain was now a welcome respite. She scrutinised Fake Kate’s body. She seemed solid and real, but there, just at the outline of her body, Kate saw a shimmer of colour. She might be imagining it, but she doubted it.

Their doubles were not alive and they were not Soul Eaters, either. If they had been, the shimmer would have been white and void of colour. Soul Eaters were souls who refused to leave and were bound to the material world by feelings of revenge and regret. Because they allowed negative feelings to consume them, they lost the colour of their aura and along with colour they lost their features, forgot the reason that prevented them from leaving and the memories that they had gathered through their lives. A Soul Eater would never be attached to another Soul Eater, let alone be jealous like Fake Ethan/Ryan had looked to be back in the gallery. Claire and Ryan had to be ghosts, like the rest of the students.

“What are you thinking?”

Kate lifted her head and at the sight of the black-haired boy she felt her mouth curling up on its own.

His eyes widened and he shook his head. “You shouldn’t look at me like that.”

“Is it that obvious?” She frowned, trying to keep the smile off her face. When she couldn’t, she thought of how he flirted with Claire. “You are quite friendly with Fake Kate.”

“She’s being nicer than usual. I think she suspects something.” He sat on the nearby chair. “Give me the book.”

She put the bookmark into the book, closed it and gave it to him. “I think so, too. At breakfast, Ryan was really kind to me. I mean, in the boyfriend-kind of kind to me. He even gave me a kiss on the cheek.”

“Yes, I saw. I didn't like it.” Ethan opened the book and started to flip the pages, his head bent and his eyes on the book. “So, what’s the plan?”

“I don’t have one, not beyond confronting our doubles,” she said in a low voice. “Have you noticed that except us, all the students are ghosts? But it’s weird, usually the colour of a ghost's aura is so vibrant, but their colours are dull and greyish.” She looked around the room. “Actually everything is so greyish here.”

“It’s the dust.”

She stretched out her legs until her toe touched his knee. She couldn't touch him in public, not the way she wanted to, so that simple brush was all she got. “Or a Soul Eater?”

“That’s it.” He glanced up at her, excitement written all over his face, before he hid it by returning his focus to the book. “That’s it,” he repeated as he turned a page. “This is a feeding ground. It has to be. That's why they talked about the energy harvesting. It would explain why all the colours are dimmed and dull and why we are always tired -- I'm always tired; you are too, right?”

“Yeah.”