Spiral (Spiral Series) (5 page)

As I hit the throne my whole world was suffused with light.

As I had for countless nights in a row, I sprung up in my own bed, drenched in a cold sweat. My dream felt so real, I wondered how it could possibly be fiction. It always happened like that. Dreams would start in the days leading up to my birthday and continue until a few days after it. I was supposed to be excited for a party and presents, but instead, every year I just felt miserable and scared from the gut-wrenching dreams. I hadn’t slept enough in days, which on top of my panic made me exhausted and irritable. I wasn’t a lot of fun to be around, even for myself.

Despite that, I had made plans with my friends to go out to dinner the next night, Friday, and hang out afterwards. Jackson was coming, my best guy friend - my only guy friend, really - and I couldn’t wait to see him.

Jackson was my sanity and had been for years. Even if he had started to pull away recently - for no reason that I could figure out - I knew I could always count on him when I needed him.

He knew about the nightmares. And since they were steadily getting worse, like a spider steadily climbing up a wall, I really needed to see him.

If I could be with Jackson, everything would be alright. I would be safe even from the Snake Man who haunted my sleep.
I lay back in my bed.

I couldn’t see any of it now because the room was in darkness, but everything was in different shades of my favorite color: blue. I pulled the sky blue bedspread up to my chin and tried to sleep, hoping that the nightmares wouldn’t come back.

I shoved my way through the front door. I rarely came home, back to Locke, but I had been summoned and I had a bad feeling about why. Locke, the family home of the Silve Unicorns, was massive. It was more like a castle, except that instead of being built of large stones it was built of dark brick. Far away from even a small town, it hadn’t been visited by a non-Silve in years.

The last person to visit who wasn’t Silve had probably been Natalie’s mother. And she had been Spiral.

I was probably in trouble. I shouldn’t have gone to see her, especially at that romance slam. The look on her face when I said her name, it was like I had slapped her. Maybe she did remember something after all, or at least she would if I could get a chance to talk to her. I just wanted to talk to her.

I tried to shrug off the feeling of foreboding that had wrapped itself around me, but I couldn’t. Thinking about Natalie’s mom didn’t help. The only thing that helped even a little bit was thinking about Natalie, but since I couldn’t be with Natalie I tried not to think about her either.

Of course, that was impossible.

I couldn’t have cared less if I was in trouble.

I would have done it all over again if it meant seeing her face.

As I moved in search of the Elders - the older and more experienced unicorns in charge of the Silves - my feet made no sound on the plush black carpet. My legs carried me quickly and I barely had a second to glance into the dark depths of the rooms I was passing though. I didn’t care.

I didn’t care about the ancient artifacts that hung on the walls, or the beautiful woodwork. Each of the rooms had been done by a different generation of Silves and at some point I would have my turn, but at the moment I didn’t care about that, either.

All I cared about was keeping Natalie safe, something I hadn’t been allowed to do. They had taken that out of my hands, even though they shouldn’t have.

Now I had been summoned to Locke, probably first to be yelled at for disobeying the direct order that I should stay away from her, then to be told that she was in danger.

When I reached the next door I stuck out my hand to open it and realized that I had balled it into a white-knuckled fist. My fingers were clenched so tightly I could feel my nails digging into my palm. If something were to happen to her, or, Unicorn forbid, something already had, I would never forgive myself.

Or the Elders.

Or the Watchfuls.

Or the Visioners.

Especially the Visioners.

I flashed a cold smile at the wall and shoved my way into the next room. Fresh air wafted into my face, with the wonderful smell of spring in the country drifting on it. Fresh plants just bursting out of the ground and trees and flowers starting to bloom made the air fragrant and warm. My favorite thing about spring was the intense color and the promise of the coming fall. I knew that with every passing spring I got closer to Natalie.

The room I passed through now was plainer than the others. Since one wall was solid glass doors looking out over the garden, and they were usually open in the summer months, no one had put any fancy or expensive furniture in this room that might get ruined by the outside elements. Instead, the carpets were a plain, clear sky blue and the furniture was comfortable brown leather. Coffee tables sat between chairs in little groupings of two or three, providing comfortable places for people to sit and talk. I loved this room. It was where my mom had always liked to be. She was too pale, as I was, to spend all her time outdoors, but she still loved to sit and enjoy the breeze.

Before I could reach the outside garden, where the Elders usually waited, my path was blocked. Stepping through a side door that led from the kitchen was a twenty-year-old girl, about the same age as me. I smirked. It was the only possible reaction I could have to this girl.

“Gretch,” I greeted her. Gretchen Oys was my best friend’s sister, but we had never gotten along. She hated it when I called her Gretch. That’s why I did it.

If it hadn’t been for Jar we would have started an all-out war years ago. As it was, we exchanged fake pleasantries whenever we were forced to be in the same room, and otherwise we avoided each other like the plague. It didn’t help that Gretchen’s best friend had always had a crush on me, but since my heart wasn’t free it didn’t really matter. Gretchen couldn’t forgive me for caring about someone who was clearly so hopelessly out of reach.

“What are you doing here?” she growled. “Trouble always comes crawling back.”

“I happen to live here,” I said coolly. I did, technically, have a room, even if Gretchen had tried her very best to get me kicked out of it. Jar had finally stepped in and told her to cut it out, and since she loved her brother more than anything she had listened, barely.

“That’s not an answer,” she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. Gretchen was beautiful, but it didn’t do her any favors. Her whole life everyone had been telling her how pretty she was, and she had taken it to heart.

Now she thought she should have whatever she wanted, and if she didn’t get it she would whine and stamp her foot like a child. The only person who didn’t fawn over her and from whom she didn’t get her way was me. I refused to bow to her demands and so she had decided to destroy me, brother’s best friend or not. I couldn’t have cared less. It was the sort of trouble that created more noise than real damage.

“I have business, which is mine and not yours,” I said. I knew better than to try and get around her. She would just make a scene. She had to choose to leave on her own.

“Kay is here,” said Gretchen quietly, eyeing me venomously. “She can’t see you or she’ll . . . .”

I knew the next word would be “cry.”

I didn’t flinch. I had told Kay no a thousand times. After I had figured out how much she liked me I had made it very clear to her that I didn’t return her feelings. I had even tried to be nice about it, which definitely wasn’t my usual way of doing things with girls, but we had known each other for years, and I cared about her in a strictly platonic sort of way. Nothing had worked. Jar called it “The Problem,” because as long as Kay was hung up on me Gretchen would have to hear about it and she wouldn’t let it go.

Gretchen thrust her hands onto her hips. “Seriously, do you have to cause trouble in EVERY aspect of your life?”

“I won’t be long,” I sighed, not in the mood to argue with her today.

“You better not be,” said Gretchen, walking forward menacingly. The only problem with her acting threatening was that she wasn’t very tall, definitely not over five feet two, and it’s just hard to be threatening when you’re a cute, blond-haired, short girl who obviously isn’t some world class martial arts champion.

“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” I asked. I was already tired of my friend’s sister and I had only been in the same room with her for two minutes. Besides, I was almost bursting to find out what the Elders wanted to talk to me about.

If they told me I had to stay away from Natalie again I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand it. Just being around her once had made me want to be around her more. It was intoxicating and I wanted it all the time.

“You think you’re so cool living somewhere else with my brother,” said Gretchen as she sidled towards me. I had to force myself not to back away. “When all you really are is a bad influence.”

“We live with my dad too. I think I have stuff to do and you’ve wasted enough of my time,” I said. I had lost all patience. I couldn’t stand Gretchen at the best of times and this was not the best of times.

Gretchen’s perfectly formed eyebrows arched upwards. “Your time is not precious. Kay’s time, now that’s precious. What a wonderful girl like her sees in something like you. . . .”

She looked me up and down, taking in long legs and broad shoulders, black hair swept away from silver eyes and sharp cheekbones. Unintentionally she released a slight intake of breath. I smiled.

“You can’t see it either?” I asked.

“You are the most arrogant, the most . . .” she fumed.

But Gretchen didn’t get to finish her tirade, because the glass doors that opened onto the garden were suddenly thrown back, banging against their hinges. Gretchen’s breath hissed in. She had been looking forward to screaming at me. Her good time was foiled again.

Framed in the open doorway was a tall woman. Her dark hair was swept severely back to reveal an overly large forehead perched above a button nose. Her light silver eyes drank in the room in front of her, and her casual dress - she wore jeans and a long-sleeved black T - belied the power that she wore like a blanket around herself.

“Pierce,” she said, her voice light but impatient, “why are you keeping us waiting?”

Next to me Gretchen guffawed, happy that at least I was going to get in trouble from somewhere. I sighed inwardly and shrugged at my aunt. “Just catching up with dear old Gretch here,” I said pleasantly.

Gretchen’s amusement vanished as she gave me a look that would have peeled fresh paint from the wall.

“Well, if you’re about done,” said Eleanor. She knew about Gretchen’s feelings for me, or rather her explosive hatred of me, but I was pretty sure she couldn’t possibly know the full extent of it. If she had, she would have insisted that one of us hop a plane to Siberia and that we take turns coming home for the family Christmas.

“Sorry,” I said, stepping around Gretchen. “I was just coming. Bye, Gretch.”

I made a show of casually walking towards my aunt, like I didn’t have a care in the world. Eleanor’s eyebrows raised a fraction further, but she didn’t say anything. Behind me I heard Gretchen give out an angry gurgle and slam back into the kitchen.

“Was that really necessary?” asked my aunt calmly as I fell into step beside her.

I grinned at her. She was my mother’s sister, and when Aren had died she had taken care of me. My dad definitely hadn’t been fit to do it.

Eleanor would never replace Aren in my life, but she knew me about as well as anyone at this point. It had taken us a while to get over her taking Natalie away from me, but I had finally forgiven her. Other than my dad, she was the closest family I had left in the world outside of Jar, and that had to come first.