Wiz chuckled to himself. Ignoring him, I checked
the other drawers until I found socks. The shorts were too big. I widened my waist to fit Wiz’s frame. Confident that his huge shirt would hide my stomach.
He laughed.
I guess because he doesn’t believe that I would leave him. But I would leave. There was no reason to continue working with him. He’d shown me his priorities last night. Instead of checking out the Fairy Council’s headquarters he was checking out the area between Destiny’s legs.
Disgusting.
And he has the nerve to go crazy about Eight.
“And why would you quit?” He sat on his bed.
“We have a psycho coming after us for a shadow—”
“He
’s not coming anywhere.” Wiz lay back on the bed and tucked his hands under his head. “Have you seen him appear? He knows where I live. Everyone knows that Wiz with the different colored eyes lives in the center of Haven. Why hasn’t he come?”
“He’s planning—
”
“He’s afraid I’ll kill him.”
“You’re an overconfident moron.” I went to my sneakers and put them on. “He scared me, and I take his threat seriously. And if it’s no big deal, why did you meet at Cinnamon’s to discuss it?”
“Because I wanted to keep you busy, while I try to kill him.”
“Sure.” I walked to his door. He materialized in front of me, out of thin air. No sparks or flare of magical scent. One minute he was on his bed and the next he stood in front of me. I almost pissed myself.
“You’re staying here!”
“No. I’m not.” I shivered at his voice. We stared each other down for several minutes. “What is your problem?
And when did you get so fast?”
“You have your whole life ahead of you to date. For now, let’s just say you stay to yourself.
No more Zero for a few days. Give me your time until your birthday.”
“Move.”
He stepped forward. I didn’t inch back. His body pressed against mine. “I meant what I said last night. I do like you.”
“We need to find the—
”
“No we don’t.
I told you about those silly shadow stones to keep you busy.” He placed his hand on my chin and lifted my view to him. “If things were different I would make you mine. My love would sear a mark into your skin and every guy would see it and turn the other way. It wouldn’t matter what mimic you changed into.”
“You’re full of it
.” My voice sounded shaky. “J-just cause I kiss a guy for the first time doesn’t mean you have to go crazy.”
“For the first time, huh?” He traced his finger over my top lip.
“He was my first kiss.”
Wiz growled. His nostrils flared. “No, Cameo. I was your first kiss and don’t you ever forget it.”
My mouth dropped open. I stood there stunned for several seconds and then I just burst out laughing. “What in Shango’s name are you talking about? You’ve never kissed me.”
He inclined forward and whispered in my ear, “I’ve kissed you so many times in our dreams. I’ve caressed you as we floated on pink clouds. How easy you forget,
dream lover.”
Fear crept up my spine.
Our dreams. He knew. He. . .what is going on?
I pushed his hand away and put some space between us, scared of him more than I’d ever been in my life. “What are you talking about?”
“Kissing and touching you in our dreams never violated the blood promise.” He
gestured to the long scar on the side of his waist that he’d told me a few days ago was a blood promise that he did with B.D. “I’m not supposed to hurt or kill you in any way, but most important I’m not to touch you in any sexual way. That was one of the many rules in the promise. Almost eighteen years ago, I didn’t think it was a big deal. You were just a baby, but now. . .I bet B.D. knew I would fall for you. And I know why. Because you and I are so much alike. We’re made from the same magic.”
I leaned back on the wall and just stared at him in shock, not truly understanding what he was saying, but scared to interrupt him because maybe then
he would tell me more of his secrets, ones that I was clearly involved in.
B.D. and Wiz knew me when I was a baby.
How and why? What did he mean that we were made from the same magic?
I thought back to the first time he mentioned the blood promise, in my bedroom when he’d woken up. He said that he’d made the blood promise almost eighteen years ago.
“When is the blood promise’s deadline?”
I asked.
“At the end of your birthday
night.”
“And then what will happen?”
His scar rippled on his waist. Blood dripped from his nose. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. “I can’t tell you.”
The blood promise was punishing him for even thinking about violating it.
What did he promise?
We gazed at each other. He looked like he wanted to say so much more, and I was definitely willing to listen, but I knew the spell would hurt him more if he revealed too much.
“Why did you tell me about the dreams being real?
” I asked after a few minutes of quiet.
“Because I don’t like you talking with Eight. I thought that was pretty obvious.”
“You were having sex with Destiny last night. Am I just supposed to sit back and be with no one. If we can’t be together then we should just be with anyone else. I can pretty much date who I want.”
“Be careful
, Cameo.” The worms pushed against his skin, but this time it wasn’t just a few lines on his face. Worms moved along his chest, arms, and legs. They stirred around his waist and wiggled around his neck. I jerked back in horror. My stomach clenched. The drapes hanging on the windows shook. The air condensed with power. It smelled of his citrus scent and chilled my skin.
“You go near Eight and I’ll hurt him,” he growled.
“Why?” My lips quivered.
“Because I don’t like to see you touching anyone else.”
“W-what are those things?” Terror saturated every cell on my body. I wished for escape. “What are you?”
“A very bad guy.”
I edged away from him. “What does that mean?”
“It means you need to listen so things can return back to how they used to be. Where you listened and I said what needed to be heard.”
“And if I don’t.” I hugged myself. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I’ve been trying not to
!”
Oh goddess. What was this blood promise about? Why am I involved?
A bang came at the door.
“Wiz?”
It sounded like Rich.
“Yeah?” The worms disappeared. His eyes darkened to normal as he opened the door.
“We found B.D.’s other location.” Rich entered with his sister. They looked exactly alike, even the muscular arms, and long braids. Except Tina’s small breasts helped everyone tell them apart. She stomped in and glared at me. We never got along, and I had no idea why. Besides the fact that we didn’t have anything in common. She liked women and belittling people as much as possible. I loved. . .well Wiz and avoided people whenever I could. Either way, if she saw me coming she usually went in the other direction. We’d barely said more than a few words to each other in all of the three years of knowing her. I kind of believed that she didn’t want Rich talking to me either, but him or her never said anything about it.
“Are you going to try to kill
B.D.?” I directed my attention to Rich. He exchanged glances with Wiz and Tina. Wiz grabbed his jeans off the floor and put them on. He extended his hand. Within seconds his jacket soared to his fingers as if it was drawn to him. A breeze rushed past me. My heart dropped to my feet.
How in Shango’s name did he do that?
“Give us a minute.” Wiz gestured for Rich and Tina to leave and then turned to me as they left. “I want you to stay here. I can’t risk B.D. being near you so close to your birthday. And I don’t want Zero putting more information into your head or his disgusting tongue inside your mouth. So you will stay here and I’ll be right back.”
“
And if I leave?” I showed him my best defiant expression and hoped my shaking fingers didn’t give my fear away.
“You’re not leaving.” Wiz
blurred to me. I cringed and shut my eyes close, falling into my usual reaction when my mother would beat me. I waited for the worst—a threat, slap, or punch. I stood there, frozen in position.
Nothing happened for a several seconds. And then h
is breathing filled my ears. His citrus scent coiled around me. His lips pressed against mine, so light I almost thought I imagined it. My skin tingled with awareness. He went deeper with the kiss. Warmth suffocated my fear and desire replaced it. He could’ve killed me right there, while I lost myself in the feel of him, the electricity of the moment. He could’ve done anything and I would’ve lounged in his arms to except my death. But instead he dipped his tongue between my lips, groaned in pain from the blood promise, and in the next instance he disappeared without any warning or sound.
Chapter 14
After ten minutes of silence, I opened Wiz’s apartment door. Three kids stood in the hallway with machetes and cans of spray
with the tops off.
“Sorry, Cameo,” one kid said. I think his name was
Fuentes or Fuego. He twirled a lighter in his hand.
It must be Fuego.
“Wiz said to keep you here until he comes back
,” Fuego continued.
“There are kids on the ground guarding the windows so you won’t climb the walls to escape,” the young girl said
. I remembered her name rhymed with rain, but couldn’t figure out if it was Shane or Lane. I cursed myself for not making more of an effort to befriend everyone in Haven. Wiz hated me being around the area, and I just wasn’t that good with talking with others.
“Then I guess I’ll go back in the apartment
.” I returned to the apartment.
Wiz, what are you doing?
Four years of working with him and everything I thought I knew, had been replaced by questions. Sure we had our secrets. I’d told him I was an orphan and my parents died when I was young. When in fact, I had no idea who my father was, but I was very aware of my abusive mother. I lied to him about other things, like completing school too early. He’d taken my excuses and reasoning with a nod and a grin. We didn’t pry in each other’s lives or past. We hustled in our jobs, united our funds to provide food and items in Haven, and the days when work was nonexistent, we lounged at Orisha Beach, just him and me.
Those were the best days.
The sun bathed our flesh, his golden smoothness, and my pale scales. Sand crinkled between our toes. Cool water waved around us when we chased each other on the shore.
Days after big paying jobs Wiz brought a radio and picnic basket full of fruits, cool cheeses I’d never heard of, crackers with dried fruit, and bags of my favorite candy—sour apple
cracks to strawberry bombs. We would lay on our blanket with full bellies, tired muscles, tanned skin, and Wiz’s favorite jazz station drowning out the sound of the waves crashing against the habitat boundary wall that sat in the middle of the ocean so no one would swim away from our caged city. We relaxed from dawn till dusk. Once we fell asleep there, my head on his chest, his heartbeat tapping in my ears, his fragrance blanketing my skin and watermelon candy on my tongue.
I’d had the most incredible dream while I cuddled on the beach with him. In the dream, Wiz and I swam within clouds, playing hide and seek. Each time he found me, he smothered me in kisses.
He said the dreams were his doing that he was actually with me in those dreams. What was I supposed to do with that?
And this blood promise that he made with
B.D. involved me.
Why and how?
The very idea, of him knowing who I was when I was a baby and making a complicated oral blood contract about me, freaked me out and turned my mind into mush.
W
ould I have even discovered any of this if it wasn’t for meeting B.D. that night? Probably not.
But then
Eight’s pictures had really triggered the end. Realizing that Wiz didn’t age, told me that I had no idea who’d I’d been friends with all these years. But if I was really truthful with myself, things shifted between Wiz and I when the lines appeared under his skin and his magic became so lethal he dropped into comatose states. The first time it happened, he’d passed out for ten minutes. One tiny worm pressed against his cheek. When he woke up, he refused to discuss it.
Our small pot of personal secrets grew into a tub.
In the last three months our beach days occurred in silence with stress creasing the edges of Wiz’s eyes. He’d been dealing with something, but he wouldn’t tell me, and I didn’t push. I had my own stress.
And what will I do with this new information about mom being murdered? Did that have anything to do with Wiz, B.D., or this blood promise expiring on my birthday?
Eight had asked about the last time I saw Mom like I’d visited her. He never knew about the abuse, but he assumed it when I ran away from home. I’d manage to hide from her in this caged city for years. Yet, somehow Mom had found me. She had never ceased searching for me. Three months ago she spotted me in Cinnamon’s while I ate with Rich, teaching him how to read. She stomped inside, yanked me by shirt collar, and dragged me outside. I had to beg Rich and Cinnamon to not step in and gone into the alley with her, thinking I was protected because I was older, more independent, and smarter.
I was wrong.
She hit me with guilt stricken insults. When I told her I wouldn’t come home, she hit me with a closed fist. It stung, not just the act, but the realization that all those years I hadn’t gotten it wrong. She really didn’t love me, and would hurt me any time she could. Cinnamon pulled her away from me long enough for me to I run. Yet, my mom screamed that she would never leave me alone.
I
never told Wiz about the incident and begged Rich not to let him know.
What if Rich told Wiz anyway? Would Wiz kill her? He’d been in front of my old home the day my mom hung from the tree. Why was he there? Was it just to search for me or had he just killed her?
I shook my head and tired to wring those crazy questions out of my mind. It couldn’t have been Wiz who hurt her.
Think, Cameo. Think.
The rest of those three months I walked the streets in fear with so many disguises I forgot who I was. The night before Mom hung herself I’d witnessed her talking to the lobby guy at Aztec Hotel. Somehow she’d found me. When I watched her leave, I stockpiled my dumpster near Cinnamon’s with lots of supplies, just in case I had to hide in there for a few days.
Now she’s dead and Wiz is the one I need to fear.
Things truly had changed in these past months. I circled Wiz’s room.
He trapped me in here for how long? And why? What was he going to do with me? What would happen to me on my birthday? And even crazier, what was Wiz?
All supernaturals healed better than humans and lived longer, but
they did eventually grow old. Wrinkles covered their faces. Gray hair highlighted their tresses and signaled their age. None appeared the exact same from year to year, a tiny wrinkle or laugh mark appeared. Some change occurred. But Wiz hadn’t aged at all in ten years. There was no aging line or wrinkle near his mouth or eyes, not even a tiny one to say that this person was in his thirties. His lack of aging had to deal with the B.D.’s shadow. He said he had it, but I hadn’t believed him. I kept focusing on those freaking shadow stones. Maybe he used B.D.’s shadow somehow to keep himself from not growing old. He’d been around the same age when he took the burglary picture.
How did he find Fortimer’s Trunk
and how did the trunk even get in the Santeria habitat?
The library book said Fortimer escaped with the help of others. But when did he escape? And who did he escape with? And even more important, how am I involved?
I didn’t like that shadows shifted into other images like me.
Uneasiness rolled around over and over in my stomach. I covered my stomach with my hand, but still found no relief.
Was I somehow a shadow or related to shadows? I never knew what I was. I didn’t know my father. Oh goddess. Is Wiz my father or something? No way. None of this makes sense.
Yet, those thoughts lingered in my head until I had a mounting headache beginning at the back of my brain.
And then there was Wiz’s declaration of love, out of
nowhere. He just sprang it on me, said the dreams were real, and then kissed me. I touched my lips.
I can’t focus on the kiss. That would cloud my judgment. He didn’t mean it the way I desired. He did it to control and get me to listen. Right?
I didn’t know what was real or fake, deception or the truth. My reality exploded into a foggy craziness. But I did know for sure that I couldn’t let myself focus on Wiz’s declaration of love. Wiz did things for a reason, every move he executed tended to be thought out and full of an underlying motive.
So why did he tell me he loved me?
Maybe because love-struck Cameo followed his orders with no complaints while pissed-off Cameo kneed him in his groin and craved to have distance from him.
Don’t think about the kiss. Or the taste of his tongue. Oranges and lemons. He smelled and tasted like citrus fruit.
Dang it, Cameo. Don’t think about that.
The kiss flashed in my head.
His lips smoothed against mine and my whole body reacted—my skin flushed, lust tightened in my chest, secret places no one saw or touched woke up with interest in the man behind the kiss. And I was ready to surrender my whole being to him just so he wouldn’t end it.
Stop thinking about it.
I hid my face with both hands. Eight was my first kiss, at least the first one not in my dreams, yet I’d had no hot reaction besides experiencing joy that someone liked me and feeling pure appreciation for the person giving me my first kiss. With Wiz, I could’ve walked into my own demise. With Eight, I wanted to high-five him and buy matching best friends shirts.
Just stop.
I blew out air and scanned the
space. A smile spread across my face.
I’ll search his room
, maybe some answers are here.
With no delay,
I began to rummage through his drawers, peek under his bed, and look inside his closet.
Nothing.
I turned over the mattress, yanked out clothes and shoes, pushed away spell books as well as poked around and through every box stacked in the far corner of his kitchen.
Nothing.
Where do you keep your secrets, Wiz?
For regular fairy glamour all a person had to do was spray dirt or water on the object or say six special words to break away the enchanted concealment.
I said the words, “What was hidden now is seen.”
Nothing
appeared to change in the room. I looked around on the floor, under the bed, in the closet, peered in the bathroom, and even checked the hallway. Chewing the inside of my cheek, I happened to glance up. A door emerged in the middle of the ceiling.
Holy Shango.
I rushed and grabbed all the sturdy boxes I could find, stacked them on a chair, got on the bed and very slowly climbed onto the boxes to reach the door. It took several scary minutes, but I managed to balance on top of the stack of boxes. The door was locked when I turned the knob. \
Of course.
If someone is going to go to the trouble of putting a door in a ceiling and hiding it with fairy glamour, they would definitely lock the door.
I hit the door and wiggled the
doorknob so much until I feared it would break off. I needed Fin. Most likely she could get in with no problem. She’d gotten into Wiz’s apartment the other night with ease. The difficulty would be getting out of Wiz’s room and convincing her to do it.
Fin.
I laughed.
Fin can solve several of my problems.
All that time I sat in the room, trying to figure out a way to escape when I could just shift into to Fin and stroll out of Wiz’s apartment.