Secret Worlds (279 page)

“So, you all could be overreacting. I mean, this isn’t exactly a safe lifestyle in the first place. What if they fell to the resonance?”

“A whole family of five?”

I gulped. That was a lot of us. Still, if they had found a god instead of a daimones, it was possible. In order for us to return them to the jar, we had to absorb their essence. Their essence left a resonance, and echo of the old being that tainted our being until we imprisoned the being in the jar. It was possible to do this with a god we came across as well; after all, it was because of Zeus and his ilk that we were in this mess. The gods held a much stronger essence and could actually possess us.

“Still,” I said. “We don’t have to panic yet. I’m staying.”

“Oh, no.” Aunt Jo glared at me. “I’m not goin’ home empty handed.”

“Please. This year is really important to me.” I gave her my wide eyed look. The tears welling up in the corners were actually real.

She stared at me for a few minutes before sighing with a shake of her head. “Fine. But you better not make me regret this by gettin’ killed.”

I beamed and wrapped my arms around. “Thank you.”

Aunt Jo looked up at the gloomy haze of the sky. “Don’t thank me yet. Somethin’s brewin’ here, and it tastes dark and bitter.”

I stood up and slammed the game controller on my vacated spot. Across the television screen, winner scrolled over Batman in the background. I turned back to Serenity with a grin.

“Best three out of five?” she asked.

I laughed. “Oh, no. Two out of three. You’re not going back on this bargain.”

I sprinted into my bedroom, tossed my purple rose comforter to the side, and dug through my backpack until I pulled out my handheld camcorder. I flipped open the display screen on the side as I walked back in. The light at the top flashed red and then a steady green. Serenity’s image appeared in the side screen.

She grabbed a couch cushion and blocked my view with a laugh. “Now? Can’t you at least wait until I’m not in my underwear or something?”

I hopped up on the couch and batted away the pillow. “I’ll do only a close up of your face and edit out all the naughty parts.”

“You make it sound dirty.”

I grinned at her a wriggled my eyes brows. “Well, maybe it is. You know the underside of the Proprius Project.”

The smile on her face disappeared, and she sat up, brushing her hair from her face. “It’s too early for there to be an underside yet.”

“True.” I plopped down beside her, keeping the camera trained on her face. “So, Serenity Vargoss, how did you enjoy the first day of the project?”

“It was pretty hectic,” she said. “Hopefully James will be able to iron out all the kinks in our team.”

“What did you think of him being named lead developer?”

She gave a one shouldered shrug. “It’s something I don’t have to worry about. I can focus on actually writing the program.”

“How do you see this project turning out? Do you think it will succeed with all the different groups involved?”

“I think there’s the potential for something extraordinary here.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “The concept is brilliant. Whether we accomplish it I think is up to the people running this.”

“Brilliant, huh? You almost sound like you were complimenting Mercer Chaplin.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Who said he came up with the idea?”

I shrugged. “It seems like his sort of thing. So, why don’t you like him?”

“He’s an asshole.”

“I think it’s more than that. How long have you two known each other?”

She flashed her gaze to me and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t see what that has to do with the interview.”

I snapped the display shut and rested the camcorder in my lap. “It doesn’t. But this goes so much deeper than you want to let on.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “It’s not something I want to even think about, much less talk about.”

“You weren’t some crazy stalker or anything?” I asked. “Maybe an ex-girlfriend?”

“What?” she gaped at me. “Of course not.”

I reached out and poked her knee. “Come on. I’m worried about you.”

“What about the woman that showed up the other night?” she asked. “You called her your aunt.”

I clamped my mouth shut and chewed the inside of my cheek. She watched me with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile hovering. Touché. If she expected to me to back off with that threat, she was wrong. Besides, Aunt Joanna wasn’t leaving anytime soon. She’d flat out told me she wasn’t returning home without me. So, Serenity would see more of her in the months to come.

“Aunt Joanna came to visit for a while,” I said. “She wanted to surprise me.”

Serenity raised an eyebrow. “She came all the way from Georgia for a surprise visit?”

I shrugged. “That’s what she said.”

“I almost thought you were an orphan with how little you talk about your family.”

“We don’t really see eye to eye,” I said.

“Is that why you always avoid their phone calls?”.

“What about you?” I asked. “It’s not like you’re so forthcoming about your own family.”

She leaned back against the armrest and clutched the pillow to her chest with a sigh. “Mercer is.”

I blinked. “Mercer’s what?”

She glared at me. “I swear you can be dumb at times. We’re related.”

My jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you say anything? Your uncle? He seems too young to be your uncle, though. A cousin?”

“Something like that,” she mumbled.

“Come on. Tell me.”

“Look, we’re barely related, okay? I don’t think we’ve ever even done a thanksgiving together. He thinks he’s too good for our family or something.” She shook her head. “Like I said, he’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, but a famous asshole. I mean, he could help you get almost any job you want.”

She rolled her eyes with a soft chuckle. “And end up owing him for the rest of my life? Hell no.”

“So, what happened between the two of you? The usual family tiff?”

“Not exactly …”

The air conditioner pushed a cool breeze through the vents and it, along with the music from the video game was the only sound in the room for several moments. I leaned forward, waiting for her to say more. Now was my chance to delve more into the mystery that was Serenity. We’d been roommates for three years, but neither of us had gotten too deep in our pasts. We’d both focused more on our common interests—video games, comic books, and science fiction movies. A part of me had wanted to open up, but how could I? She’d never believe I came from a family that hunted evil spirits and gods. It sounded almost as ridiculous as some of those teen book plots. I’d always wonder why she held back, though. Every time I’d asked she’d deflected to something else. It couldn’t be worse than
my
secret.

She cleared her throat. “It’s nothing.”

“It has to be something if you’re holding a grudge for this long.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “He’s just the type of person who chews others up and spits them out without even realizing it.”

“You already said he was an asshole,” I said. “Several times.”

A smirk flitted across her face before it changed to a frown. She met my gaze. “That’s why you should stay away from him.”

I sighed. “I told you, it’s just an interview.”

“I saw your look, Cassi, and I’ve seen it before. This is so much worse than James. He’ll break more than your heart.”

“What more could he break?”

She gave me a sad smile. “You have no idea.”

“Yeah,” I blew my hair from my face with a long sigh. “How can I if you won’t tell me?”

Her frown deepened. It was time to back off. Whatever her secret was, she really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Are you worried he came here to one-up you or something?” I asked, thinking maybe I could help the situation without making her reveal it. “Maybe’s he’s changed.”

“He’ll never change,” she said.

“You don’t know that,” I said. “There are lots of stories devoted to how people can change.”

Those are just fiction. Great for comic books.” She waved her hand to the television. “Real heroes don’t exist.”

“All stories come from somewhere,” I said. “All legends are true.”

“I’m done with this conversation.” She stood, dropping the pillow onto the couch. “Just drop whatever fascination you have with him. It’s not worth it.”

She headed back into her room and slammed the door, leaving me alone with only Batman looking triumphant on the screen. At least one of us felt that way.

The next morning I hurried across the campus toward the Waller Hall. My alarm had once again failed to wake me. Professor Marshall was going to kill me. Not really, but she would give me her death stare for disturbing her lecture. Maybe I would get lucky and could sneak in the back and grab a seat without her noticing.

A girlish giggled carried across the quad on the warm morning air. Mercer stood by the fountain in the center surrounded by a group of college girls. He tilted his head and laughed as he took the hand of a busty girl with a blonde ponytail. She arched her back and pressed her chest forward as she smiled up at him. These girls seemed to have no classes they were late for. As much as I wanted to join them and admire the way his blackberry colored hair glinted with blue highlights in the sun, I couldn’t afford to miss this class. Marshall would make me regret it with a quiz concerning only her notes. I rounded the corner of Turner hall and stopped short.

Aunt Joanna sat in front of a large board covered with a multitude of photographs of a girl. The perfume of several bouquets of flowers as well as half melted candles that surrounded the board wafted to my nose. The students had come together to create the monument for Tessa several days after her death. A small memorial had been held a couple weeks ago with her roommate giving a tear jerking speech that had most of the girls sobbing loudly. The school had allowed her monument to remain for the rest of the year.

“Are you spying on me?” I hissed at Aunt Jo as I came up behind her.

She nodded up at the center photo–a headshot of Tessa. “Pretty girl. Such a loss.”

“Yeah.” My voice softened. “She’d been going through a lot at home. I wished she’d talked to someone.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered.” Aunt Jo spun her wheelchair to face me. “
They
still would have gotten to her.”

The corner of my eye twitched. “You can’t be serious.”

“Can’t ya feel it, Cassi girl? This place is burnin’ with resonance.”

I sighed and rubbed my temple. “Aunt Jo, I don’t have time for this. You can’t be wandering the campus like this.”

“Why are you playin’? Didn’t ya just hear me? We have a duty.”

“I should have known this would happen if you stayed,” I muttered. “The only duty I have right now is to get to class.”

“Yer just gonna let this continue? More of yer friends will die.”

I clutched the strap of my bag. “I don’t sense anything abnormal, and I’ve been here for years.”

She snatched my right arm and yanked me forward. Caught off guard, I stumbled, and my bag swung around on my shoulder. Aunt Jo moved her head to the side to avoid getting smacked in the face. She pulled the sleeve of my shirt up to my elbow and twisted my wrist around, exposing a small black tattoo. The inked fox surrounded in fire sat and stared at us with its flaming tail wrapped around its front. My heart pounded in my check. I should have worn the bandage today. Not that it would have made a difference when Aunt Jo was determined to see it.

“It’s completely black,” Joanna sputtered. “What in Tartarus have ya been doing?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She leaned closer to the tattoo, and her fingers squeezed my wrist bone. “Yeah, that’s exactly what ya have been doing.”

“What do you expect me to do? Go out after classes and hunt them down? Take road trips during the weekends?”

“If ya did, ya might have kept yer edge,” she muttered. “Now, ya wouldn’t know one if they slapped ya in the face.”

I glanced down at the fox on my wrist again. Every Pandoran was given a tattoo when we reached puberty. It was how we contained the resonance of the daimones we fought. My mother had helped me choose mine. I swallowed the lump in my throat. My mother had held my hand as I had endured the needle for that. She’d smiled and said that the fox suited me. Not long after … 

“What are you talking about?” I said in a hoarse voice.

“Yer blocked, Cassi girl.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen something like this.”

“Blocked, how?”

She glared at me. “Well, ya keep denyin’ what ya are.”

“I’m not denying it. I’m just taking a break.”

She held my wrist up, twisting it to the point she could snap it with one sharp movement. “This is beyond a little vacation. Ya have squandered everything we taught ya. Yer just like any of these others, a babe ripe for the pickin’.”

“But I have stayed sharpened,” I said. “I’m a teacher’s assistant for my self-defense class.”

“But ya been ignorin’ yer resonance.” She let go of my wrist with a snort of disgust. “We’re gonna have to retrain ya.”

“I’m really busy.” I rubbed my wrist with a sigh. “Are you sure you’re not just making this up because you have nothing to do?”

Her glare bored into me. “Tomorrow you will meet me at my hotel and we’ll restart yer training.”

She wheeled past me in a jerky motion. I stared after her, straightening my backpack. My family never failed to come into my life and cause chaos with the demands they made of me. To them, my fate had been decided at birth. I glanced at the giant clock tower on top of the main hall and groaned. Class would be halfway over by the time I made it.

As a shadow played across the red bricks of Turner Hall, a chill crept up my spine. Someone had listened in on our conversation. I sprinted toward the building and around the corner. Three of the girls from Mercer’s earlier retinue passed me, giggling and chattering. My spy had disappeared. The only place they could have run to was Turner.

The glass door squeaked shut behind me as I entered. The soft yellow lights reflected off the painted white brick walls eerily, and I walked down the hall carefully as not to cause my canvas shoes to squeak on the tile floor. Classes had already started, leaving the hallway empty. My heart pounded in my ears.