Wicked Fate (The Wicked Trilogy) (25 page)

“Why haven’t
you been eating? And when’s the last time y
ou slept? You look like y
ou haven’t slept in days!”

He’
s
getting louder and louder and his irritated, green eyes are
burning into me.

I stand
in front of him
,
staring straight ahead at hi
s chest. The last thing I need to do is
look him in his face.
He’s wearing his Rolling Stones shirt and it reminds me of the old flirty Adam. It doesn’t help that he smells amazing, too. His scent reminds me of better days.

“Please let me ou
t of my room, Adam,” I say calmly.

The last thing I want to be is calm. I want to lash out and rip down his wall.

“Mage
,
please don’t do this,” he sighs
and grabs
my shoulders hard.

“Do what?” I ask in a daze
.

He’s so close, I can
feel the heat radi
ating off of his skin. I want
to lean into his warm
th and breathe him in. I want
to throw my arms around him and never let
go. I need
him to ho
ld me and tell me that I’m not alone, that he’s here for me; that no matter what he’
d always be there for
me. I just want him to say that everything’s going to be okay.

“Look, l
et’s go downstairs and get you something to eat
,
ok
ay? I shouldn’t stay long. I
just wanted to make sure you got home ok
ay. Where’
s your grandfather?”

That gets my attention. He can’t be here! He can’t find out my grandfather’s dead. What if he told everyone?  I won’t go to a home for teen girls. I won’t! They’ll
neve
r get me out of this house. I’
ll
never tell a soul. If someone asks,
my grandfather took a trip up state on business.

“He’s around. Thanks
for helping me out, b
ut as you can see I’m great now. I’m
just tired and now I
am
hungry. I think I’ll go downstairs and grab a bite to eat. You can go now
,
I swear I’m ok
ay
and again I really appreciate it
,
Adam. Now can I
please leave my room?” I ramble.

Anything I can say or do to take his mind off of my grandfather is a good thing. Tears form
in the corners of my eyes.

“Mage?” his voice shocks me with its sweetness.

His eyes examine my face.

He wants to know that I’m
honestly ok
ay
.

I close
my eyes agai
nst the rush of tears that are quickly developing, refusing to let him see me cry.

For the fi
rst time ever, I want Adam to leave. I want
him out o
f my house, out where he can’t ask questions. I don’t
want him to know
that my grandfather’s dead. I don’
t want him to know that he left me
at the worst possible time.

Does he have no faith in me? Doesn’t he think I’m strong enough to fight?
Bringing up the old hurt from over
the last couple of weeks causes
a burning i
n my chest and I know no matter how hard I try I’m not
going to be able to stop the tears.

T
hunder
rumbles outside as I feel the
tears roll down my cheeks. I put my head down quickly.
I swore to myself that I’d never let the ones who hurt me see me cry and here I am, standing in front of the person who’s hurt me the worst, about to cry.

What’
s happening to me? I
’m
beginning to think that maybe
I’m
going crazy. Maybe things that happened over time made my mother go in
sane. I’ve lost my
final human connectio
n, followed by the person that I’m pretty sure is my first love. I’d say that’s a damn good excuse to go out of my mind.

Not to mention, there’s a man out there somewhere that I assume wants to kill me. And this man—he has purple fire, whatever that means.

I want to pull my hair out!

I feel
my hurt and tears
turn into anger again. I want out of this room, away from Adam.  As a matter of fact, I want out of this house; this stupid
house with
all the memories I have to dig through. Stupid memories I need just to figure out how to live with what my family has passed down to me.

Without thinking
, I suddenly dig up strength and I push
Adam hard to the sid
e. I grab the door handle and swi
ng it open making it crash into the wall behind my door.

I don’t
feel
the stairs beneath my feet as I rush out of the house. I hear
Sire behind me
, but not Adam.
Good! I don’t want him to follow me. I just want him to go away.

I head straight
for m
y favorite garden. Once I’m there I fall
onto one o
f the marble benches. With my head in my hands, I let the tears fall. Rain splatters on the brick courtyard as Sire seeks shelter
under one of the marble tables.

It feels good to cry, to let the rain fall down on me. It’
s relieving me and waking me at the
same time. A good cry is exactly what I need.

The rain pattering down upon the roof of the house and the walks twin
ing through the gardens provides a fresh
sweet essence t
hat enlivens my spirit
.

I don’t
hear Bernie’s brother
,
Benjamin
,
co
me up behind me and I jump out of my skin when I turn to see
him
standing there. The hard rain has
b
ecome a light drizzle. He walks
over to me with a nervous smile pa
sted on his face. I think he kno
w
s he’
s interrupting some serious Mage time.

He sticks his hands in his dark jeans and shifts his head to the side to swing his dark hair from his eyes.

“Uh—B
ernie asked me to come o
ver and check on you. She would’ve come herself, but her car’
s acting funny. You ok
ay?” he leans down to peek
through the cur
tain of thick ebony hair that’
s plastered to my face.
“You don’t look so good. You want me to call someone for you or something?”

“No
,
I’m fine. Thanks for stopping by and checking on me. Tell Bernie I’m ok
ay
.”

I jump
up from the garden bench too quickly and a
nother wave of dizziness smacks
me in the face.

“Come on
. L
et’s get you inside and into some dry clothes. You’re going
to
catch pneumonia
, girl,” he half-carries, half-drags
me towards the house.

When we get inside Adam’s gone. I run upstairs and change out of my wet clothes and then we go into the kitchen and grab a quick bite. The food is exactly what I need and I feel better already.

“So my sister talks about you a lot, I feel like I already know you,” his eyes smile at me.

I take notice of the fact that his eyes are an almost exact match to Adam’s.

“Your sister’s pretty awesome.”

“She thinks you’re pretty awesome,” he leans back in his chair and stretches his arms above his head.

His sleeve comes down and I get a peek of a dark tattoo on his arm. I can’t make out what it is, but it’s kind of a turn-on.

B
en
jamin stays and eats dinner with me. It’s nice to
h
ave a conversation with someone
alive
. It feels
like dec
ades since I’ve spoken with another person.

“Thanks again, Ben. I’m sorry if I seem so out of it. Tell Bernie I’ll see her at school,” I say as I walk him to the door.

“No worries. I’m just glad you’re feeling better. See ya around?” his brows inch up and he tilts his head.

“Of course,” I smile.

We say goodnight, and I shut the door. I guess it’s time for me to go to the library to do some more digging.

The
following weekend
I stay in the library
reading through the jou
rnals and before long a week has
passed
. It takes me that long to finish
up the journals fo
r Robert McPherson, which means this is going to take me forever.

Even though it’s taking up all of my time, it’s exciting to learn about my family, at least the ones who kept journals. I can’t wait until I make it to my mother’s journals, t
o be able to know her and maybe learn more about my father.

I’ve figured out that only the members of my family who had the “gift” kept journals. The intensity in which Thaddeus guards the books is yet another reason I assume these journals hold
great secrets.

The week passes
in
a very normal kind of way. I go to school and act
like my usual quiet
self. Adam and I still aren’t talking and
Bernie
finally quit asking why. I hate
lying and saying
that Adam and I don’t like each other. F
or me
,
nothing could be further from the truth.

Since I
started keeping myself busy in
the library
with the journals, the weather has
been completely no
rmal. Except, of course, for the nights when I can’t
hold the lonely tears back, even then it only
rains outside.

Every day is sunny and
nice and breezy
, yet here I am stuck in a big dusty library; but this has to be done. It’s not too bad; at least the journals are interesting.

They’re filled with history, mostly
South Carolina history
, sometimes world history. It’
s great to hear about the different presidents and world events that were
happening in those days.

E
ver
y part of my family tree i
s documented somehow through the journals.
Every aunt and uncle i
s listed
, every birth or death. There’
s even an occasional old black and white ph
oto of some family member. It’
s great! All those hours sitting in this library
wondering who I am
and it was here the whole ti
me staring me in my face.  I’m
slowly learning that I, Mage McPherson
, the most non-
f
abulous person in the world, am
a part of something very awesome!

Chapter
18

The Language of Flowers

I’ve heard nothing from any evil-sinister-witch-person and it’s been weeks. I’m
beginning to thi
nk that maybe Eris was being honest
when she said that if Adam left me alone then she would leave m
e alone, too.
But why?
Why i
s it
such a horrible thing for Adam and me to be together?

I figure at some point I’ll
run across somethi
ng in one of the journals. I’m
already finding all kind
s
of cool things.

Some of the journa
ls have spells written in them—s
pells for all kinds of different thin
gs. I even found one that helps me sleep at night
c
ourtesy of dear, old Aunt Bitty.
I found spells for making things grow,
which obviously I have no
need for.

Actually, it seems
like most
of the spells in the books are useless to me. They’re for things that I can
do by just pointing my
finger or thinking it. I figure that maybe we’ve
just evolved sinc
e back then.