Destroyed (5 page)

Kai leaned back, scowling. “What was up with last night anyway?”

He was so arrogant. Something in my head snapped. My vision blurred and I could feel my face turning red. I knew I should correct him, make him think that I was here for him and not Puck. But I was so angry.

“Last night was a lapse in judgment. It won’t happen again. Please leave my greenhouse. I’ll be an hour and we can discuss your plans.” I practically spit out the last word. The sound of flies buzzed in my ears. I had to be careful or soon my anger would escalate to rage.

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but stormed away and slammed the door shut.

I wasn’t playing my part very well. I never was a good actress. Kai saw right through the spy gig. How was I going to get him to understand that I was on his side? That I was here for his own good? He said that he only needed me here to make sure he got back to the Guardians, but I didn’t believe that. He wouldn’t keep me around if he thought I didn’t love him.

I dug deep into the dirt of my greenhouse while I formulated a plan. The soil crept under my fingernails and left a cool coat of grit on my hands. I wanted peace. I gathered the smell of lavender and the taste of honey and released it around me. I inhaled and instantly felt better. I’d never tried to make myself feel something before. It was different, but it worked.

I couldn’t make any decisions until I heard what he had to say. I had to make him trust me and to do that, I had to let go of Puck. At least for a little while. I had to go back to the way I was before I met Puck. When Kai was my whole world. It would be hard, but I could do this.

I washed my hands in the sink outside the pale blue front door of the house. The paint was peeling. I hesitated before I entered. I hated this place. Why did he bring me back here? Was it so that I would be the same girl he sent to Vegas and not the one I’d become? Well, it would certainly make this easier.

I sat next to Kai at the kitchen table and twisted my hands, acting penitent. I didn’t think he was buying it.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m having trouble readjusting. Ginny gave me a lot of freedom, and this feels like a huge step backwards. You’re probably right not to trust me. But I would like to hear what you have to say.”

He clenched his fists. “Look, I don’t want to lord over you and tell you what to do all the time. I’m pissed as hell that you’ve been with Puck. I know I abandoned you, but it doesn’t change the way I feel. Plus, you’re right that we don’t know each other very well and that makes me nervous. What if it’s not meant to be? For the last six months, all I’ve thought about was what our life was going to be like after I got out of this mess. And it’s always been our life, not mine. I love you so much. I just want you to feel the same way.”

My stomach tightened. I closed my eyes for a second. When this was over he would definitely hate me. But I needed him to believe this lie. It was the only way. I leaned forward and took his hands in mine. He relaxed his fists. “You think I don’t feel the same way? Yes, I’m conflicted, but I can’t help that. I feel like you manipulated me before, when we were together. That you were using me.”

He leaned back and tapped his Adam’s apple. His bright red t-shirt fit snuggly over his chest and I could see the muscles underneath.

“What do you mean?”

“You made me feel all these things that weren’t real.” I almost brought up the fact that Puck was always honest with me. “Then you used me.”

There, I finally said what has been worrying me over the last few months.

His eyes widened. “What do you mean, I used you?”

“You didn’t love me, you just wanted my energy.”

He leaned far forward, flipped his hands over and weaved his fingers with mine. My fingers tingled. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, his face was inches from me, his eyes locked on mine.

“It wasn’t like that. I came to you because you fascinated me. I fell in love with you almost instantly.”

I blinked and tried not to react. If I were playing my part well, this would be the moment I kissed him. But I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Every action felt like a betrayal to both Puck and Kai. Plus, I didn’t believe him.

He let go of my hands and leaned back. “Maybe we need to start over. I can’t force you to feel anything now. You have a bigger influence over me than I have over you. Can we try again?” he asked.

Okay, this was doable. This I could work with. “Of course. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to try.”

“Good. But right now, we’ve got bigger things to talk about.”

“Like what?”

He paused. “You wanna go for a walk?”

We held hands as we walked and I worried that my hands would be sweating soon, but I didn’t let go. I was nervous and it was hot. I wondered what he wanted to talk about. We walked down to creek. The path was well worn and lined with redbuds and dogwoods. I’d walked this way many times over the years. Mostly with my father when I was younger.

Kai spoke. “Only a few of the Destroyers know that I’m the new Master. Most of them are still operating under your mother’s rules or lack thereof. She only told a handful of people that she was the Master. You aren’t the only one who thought your dad was in charge. In fact, that night when I came to visit you for the first time, I didn’t know which one was the Master. I figured it was your dad, Dwayne, or his dad, Mr. Yerdin. I was trying to figure out who I needed to kill.

“The Destroyer council is working with me to change things. I’ve told them I don’t want to do this for more than a year, and the next master should be whoever is the most qualified.”

I let go of his hand and sat down on the rocks. “That makes no sense to me. I thought the Destroyers were power hungry. They’re going to see right through you.”

He chuckled and sat down by to me. “Under normal circumstances, yes. But these are not normal circumstances. Those men recognize the need for balance and they understand how tough it is to be the Master. Plus, there is the fact that sometimes even Destroyers fall in love.” There was that L-word again. At some point I’d probably have to say it back to him.

“Last night you told me that Destroyers don’t normally have relationships.”

“Exactly. Love is so rare that you are my excuse. I told them I want nothing more than to spend my life holed up in a cabin away from everything, with just you for company. The council may not understand that, but they want the power, they like control and they are going to fight for it.”

I was so stupid. Here I thought that for once he wasn’t using me. My heart raced and I tasted cough syrup. Crap, the Destroyer power inside of me was showing and if I wasn’t careful I could hurt Kai. Which I didn’t want. Well, maybe a little. I knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help it. “So you are using me again.”

“Geez, Naomi. It’s not like that.”

I crossed my arms and stood up. “Then what is it like? It seems like you only want me around so I can be an excuse for you not to be the Master Destroyer. This wouldn’t be so bad if you were at least open about it from the beginning. Instead of feeding me lies about how much you love me, maybe you should just tell it like it is. Puck always told me when he was manipulating me and when he wasn’t. He always asked me to do something instead of tricking me into doing it. He didn’t try to pretend that he was something else.”

I probably shouldn’t have brought up Puck, but I couldn’t help myself. Kai stood and towered over me. A low buzz began in my ears, signifying that my anger was about to get out of control. I took a few deep breaths to control my anger, but it wasn’t working.

“What the hell, Naomi? Of course I have to pretend. That’s part of the job. I’m sorry if it bleeds into other areas of my life. If Puck’s so good to you maybe you should go back home to him, and I’ll figure out something else here. I brought you here so that I could have something good to hang onto, not to have one more thing to have to fight against.” He paused and tossed a rock into the creek. “I think I liked you better before you went to Vegas.”

“You mean when I was getting beaten on regular basis and was so desperate to get out of a bad situation that I’d take anything?”

That was low and I knew it. My hands were shaking. This wasn’t me. I had no right to be angry with him since I was essentially doing the same thing. Mother and Dwayne’s Destroyer energy lurking in my blood provoked me. The cough syrup taste turned to blood and I knew I had only seconds before the bombs exploded in my ears. Before I could ruin this even more, I fled back to my rose garden.

I knew it would be the first place Kai looked for me, but I needed to be surrounded by my roses. I sought out the oldest part of the garden, the one with the roses my grandmother planted.

I sat in the middle of the cluster of six bushes and let her energy fill me. She always gave off love and warmth. The roses smelled like oranges and tasted like honey. Oddly, being in that energy left me all the more aware of the different energies floating around in my own body.

I hated the fact that my mother and Dwayne were there. When Alejandro taught me how to bleed my energy into plants, I always used only a little bit. It worked by gathering small bits of my energy into tiny white balls and forcing them out my fingertips or palms. I wondered what would happen if I tried to get rid of Dwayne and my mother the same way. Could I reverse what I’d done?

I didn’t want to try on my Grandmother’s roses. Her energy was almost gone and I wanted to hang onto every part of her I could.

I wandered around the garden. I could name all of the hundred or so bushes that grew here. Listing off their names calmed me and allowed me to focus. Beverly, Celebration, Ebb Tide, Fox Trot, Top Notch, Snowball, Jason. I smirked at that one. The idiot betrayed me. I loved him like a brother until he delivered me right into the greasy hands of Dwayne. Fitting that I might kill his namesake rose with that same energy.

I set my hands on the dirt near the base of the plant and let myself feel its life. I hoped this wouldn’t kill it. Okay, maybe just a little bit. I concentrated on my own energy until I found Dwayne. He felt dirty and creepy. I wanted to start with him.

I gathered his energy into two balls in the pit of my stomach. When I did this with my own energy, the balls were of a bright white light, but with Dwayne it was dark, gray, almost black. It smelled of rotting garbage, tasted like cough syrup and made my skin feel like maggots were crawling under the surface.

I forced those two balls up my chest, down my arms and into my hands. This was the moment of truth. Could I get rid of them all together? For a moment, fear overtook me and I froze. There was no way to know what would happen. This could all go horribly wrong. But I had to get rid of him. I had to try. With new resolve, I concentrated, then pushed with all my might.

My hands burned with electricity and Dwayne’s energy overtook mine. I could feel him in every fiber of my being, see his thoughts, taste his horrible onion and kitty litter breath, and hear his voice telling me to die. I almost stopped, but I had to get him out of there.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended. The pain in my hands was almost paralyzing. I fell over onto the grass, cradling my hands against my chest. Blisters grew and popped faster than I could process. I whimpered and tried to catch my breath. I had to do something, find a way to make it stop, but first I needed to know. I listened hard. He was gone.

There are some parts of my childhood that I didn’t want to forget after dad went crazy. I made sure I had a section of my garden for those memories. The pale pink Fisherman’s Cot and the magenta Fisherman’s Friend always surprised me because I expected them to smell like fish instead of the overwhelming old rose smell. I planted a Picnic rose in between them. Sometimes, while tending them, I could almost forget who my father had become.

I sat up in the grass and unclenched my hands, crying out. My palms were raw and oozing puss, blisters still forming; the pain was overwhelming. I knew Kai could heal it, like many of my wounds before, but first I wanted to see what happened to the Jason rose.

It stood about three inches taller. The once straight stems curled in on themselves. The thorns grew longer. Four new buds had appeared. This plant was far from dead.

The red and white striped blooms had changed as well. The red had become darker, deeper, almost like blood. The white was now dark gray. It was a strange combination, but beautiful in its own way. The smell was different too. More exotic and dangerous. Not evil, but dangerous. It tasted like a bitter dark chocolate. I couldn’t sense Dwayne, but I could definitely sense Destroyer.

I banged on the front door of the house with my foot because I couldn’t grip the door handle and knocking was too painful. The blisters were growing larger and the pain was making me lightheaded.

My dad opened the door. He looked at my hands curled against my chest.

“Naomi, are you okay? Did you get bit by a snake or something?”

If the pain wasn’t so overwhelming, I would’ve grinned. Before he went crazy, every time I came running to the door in tears, he always asked if I’d been bitten by a snake. Usually it was something easier. I scraped my knees on the rocks, fell off my bike, or my cat scratched me. In spite of the prevalence of poisonous snakes in our little corner of the world, I’d never been bit.

I shook my head. “Get Kai please.”

He nodded and ran back to the office. I went to the living room and collapsed on the worn couch. Heat coursed through my hands, flames engulfing my arms. Another blister popped and I gritted my teeth to suppress a scream.

Kai sat down next to me, concern in his eyes. I showed him my palms.

“What happened?” he asked.

I shook my head. I was afraid if I opened my mouth only a whimper would come out. There was no way I could explain.

He took my right hand in both of his. I squeaked.

“Sorry, it will be gone in a second.”

He closed his eyes and I could smell aloe and hear birds twittering. He gently took my other hand. Within seconds the pain was gone and nothing lingered.