When hurt threatened to eat her alive, Livvy buried herself in darkness. She scoured the web for artwork that could translate into sugared creations, visited artists’ sites and held strange emailed correspondence with people called Cryptonight, Chi-dread and Hexter. The Dark Cravings album grew to double the size but her gaze fell most often to a tattered-winged pixie framed over her desk.
John’s house stood quiet late into the following week. How could she hate him and love him in the same heartbeat? But she did. Memories hit at the oddest times—Tow’s beer bottle sent her mind to the taste of John’s kiss on the deck. David brushing Luster Dust onto pastry made her lips quiver. Andrea scrambling eggs flashed her to another day, another place, another hand. Her eyes strayed far too often to the sleeping house across the shrubbery.
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It may be time to think about that privacy fence.
Unfortunately, Lowe’s didn’t sell a patch kit for the heart.
Pregnant.
The test lay silently on the bathroom sink ledge, its bright pink plus sign shining like a spotlight.
Livvy’s fingers shook as she picked up the long white plastic stick.
“Well? What does it say?” Behind her on the closed toilet lid, Andrea bit her lip. Livvy handed her the test and sat on the tub edge. Her sister glanced at it and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God, Tow’s going to kill me.”
Livvy laughed. The laughter felt good. It had been too long since her throat felt the bubbled sound. “Tow’s not going to kill you. He loves you.
He’s in the living room going nuts as we speak.”
“But I’m on the pill! I can’t be pregnant.”
“Andrea, you’re working twelve-hour rotating shifts. You never know what day it is. Lord, you set the garbage out two days early last week and the Sorensons’ dogs dragged it all over the neighborhood. You can’t tell me you didn’t miss one tiny little pill.”
“Okay, I missed a couple. But Livvy, I can’t have a baby. I cannot be… Oh God, six months pregnant on my wedding day! I can’t!” Andrea 390
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stared at the test as if sheer will could erase the mark. “What am I going to do?”
Livvy stroked her messy strawberry-blond hair.
“First, blow your nose. Then go out there and talk to Tow. You two need to decide what you want.”
Andrea sniffled, grabbed a length of toilet paper and blew loudly. She looked at the test and wiped her eyes. “Livvy, I’m having a baby.”
Livvy nodded and hugged her sister, shoving the tiny pang of envy aside.
Confusion fluttered on Andrea’s face. “Liv, why did you have a pregnancy test in the
medicine cabinet?”
She let a sardonic tone seep out. “Why do you think? Ironically, I never had to use the test. I got my visitor two days after…after Murphy went to New York.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Why bother? He doesn’t care.”
Andrea squeezed Livvy’s hand. “You know
he’s back, right? His truck was in the drive last night when I got home.”
“I know. I saw it.”
The empty box mocked her from the sink ledge and she tossed it in the trash. Jealousy rubbed the fragile scab on her pain and she wanted Andrea to leave her alone. She craved the distance from her sister’s joy as much as she craved the embraced wings of an angry bat.
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“Tow’s going to wear a hole in the carpet. Go put the poor man out of his misery.”
Andrea slipped out of the bathroom and Livvy yanked her clothes off. She snapped the shower to high but still overheard the happy masculine shout.
The water spray hid her envious tears.
Four days. He’d been home for four days and managed not to see her. But she’d left the house each morning no later than 6:12 a.m. The earliest she’d come home was 7:41 p.m. He’d listened for her car.
Livvy.
In four days, he’d written exactly eight words.
His monsters were silent, the story stalled.
Livvy.
Gina hung up on him twice when he’d called to see if she knew any results. The only thing she would say before slamming the phone down was he was an idiot.
Livvy.
Tow spotted him coming in the house and
nodded, which earned a smack on the arm from Andrea.
Livvy.
Her incoming number on his cell display
tightened his chest. It was fine, his heart no longer beat anyway. He flipped the phone in the last millisecond before voice mail kicked in.
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“Hello?”
Silence. Eyes closed, he thought he’d missed the call and nearly snapped the phone shut. Then he heard her. Hesitant, tense, filled with a pained tone he’d put there by cruelty, the sweet sound caressed his ear.
“Hey. The last thing on earth I wanted to do was call you but…I’m desperate and need a favor.
I wouldn’t ask at all but time’s running out.”
A favor? A baby? Please no
.
“What do you need?”
“The Bernstein cake? The one you drew for Ashley? She wants Thorn freestanding, not painted flat. David and I have worked all day and we can’t get Thorn right. Our best effort looks like Yoda with wings. Would you…would you be
willing to try? The cake has to be delivered tomorrow. I can arrange it so you’d work with David. She’s just a child, Murphy. Can we be adult enough to do this for her?”
He’d go to the moon for her. Timbuktu, the Antarctic, wherever. He’d do anything, give anything, to erase the hurt he’d put in her eyes.
His truck, his house, his left nut, his life, if only she would laugh the way she had with him. He’d deliberately destroyed his right to ever hear that sound.
“Please, Murphy.”
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“Tomorrow? It’d have to be early, Liv. I’ve never worked in 3-D…or sugar either, but, yeah, I’ll try. For Ashley.”
“Okay. We open at eight.”
She hung up. No goodbye. No tears. No small talk. Business over. Click.
John closed the phone and stared at the monitor.
Andros whispered in his ear.
Thorn went insane. Screeching, throwing
himself against the stone walls, he tore at his flesh with razored fangs. Andros
wrapped him in a protection spell, the magic folding like a baby blanket, to hold the
violence at bay. The terrorized bat sat
rocking in the corner, the only movement
possible. Glazed, unfocused and empty, his red eyes recognized no one. Not even Jondi.
Vory moaned and screamed, her cough
wracking her frail body with brutal shivers.
Despite the heaped blankets, she shook with cold as painful fever ravaged her. Over and over, her cry of agony echoed to the castle parapets and tormented Jondi.
His hands clamped over tiny hidden ears,
Jondi squeezed his eyes, trying to block out the sound and sight. Something had gone
terribly, terribly wrong. Andros had given Thorn the potion and the bat jerked like
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lightning had struck his bony frame. The
sound that careened out of his foaming
mouth shattered beakers and bowls. The
wizard had jumped so fast to avoid the snap of fangs, he’d seemed like a white blurry cloud.
“Impossible,” he muttered, pouring over
the thick tomes in his laboratory. “It should not be. The potion was correct. This should not be happening.”
“Make it stop,” Jondi whimpered.
Andros rose from his seat to pat his
shoulder, to offer some comfort. A high-
pitched scream of excruciating misery
blasted the walls before fading to a barking cough.
Frantic with despair, Jondi clutched the
wizard, begging for aid. “Why won’t she die?
You said death was near but she’s still
screaming. She’s in so much pain. Please, help her die.”
“I can’t, Jondi. You know that. Vory
lives still because she is strong, so very strong in spirit. Death will come. But not until her spirit caves and accepts the end.”
“It’s my fault.” Jondi sniffed. “I’m sorry I ever met her. If she’d never met me, then she’d wouldn’t be hurting, be dying now.
It’s all my fault, Andros.”
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At that moment, Thorn grunted, shifting
his bound body to bang his head against the white stone. Blood splattered before Jondi could race to him, wrapping thick blankets around the misshapen ear and its pointy
counterpart. The deep red liquid soaked the fabric, and still Thorn banged. Jondi cradled the large wrapped head, feeling the
repetitive bash into his chest, a heartbeat on the outside of his small furry body.
As tears dripped from his blue fur onto
fevered black skin, Thorn clutched him in a terrifying lucid minute. “Let me die. Please, just let me die.”
“Never!” Jondi vowed, horror cracking
his voice.
Thorn’s red eyes went wide, circles of
blazing evil. “I smell it. Feel it. Like ants on my wings, biting, eating, fire with no burn.
Blood all over, on the floor, the stone—get it out, out, out, out…”
His maniacal chant dissolved into grunts
once more, and the bat began thrusting his battered head toward the stone floor. Jondi bundled his blood-brother tighter and
rocked him before turning frantic eyes to Andros.
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“And this? How is this curing his spirit?
He’s crazy! This isn’t Thorn. What went
wrong, Andros?”
“Nordrake.” One word filled with bitter
contempt and fiery scorn. “Whatever his
spell, its evil persists, twisting and distorting anything good or wholesome.” Andros’s
oversized rocker creaked with his weight as he slumped dejected into the cushioned seat.
“He’s won, Jondi. Nordrake’s hate is too
powerful. He’s won.”
“With a baby coming, Tow and Andrea need the house. Since they aren’t having a huge wedding now, they had enough for the down payment, and everything is signed, sealed and official. And I just need to get away from there, you know?”
Leo leaned on the counter as Livvy wrapped up his chocolate-chip muffins. She tossed in an extra one with a wink at him.
“It’s not right. And I don’t like you moving to Tow’s apartment. It’s a rattrap, Liv. I wouldn’t let my sister live there.”
“You don’t have a sister, but thanks. It’s fine for now. I’ll find something better later, once summer is over and I get some space
from…things. I’ll figure something out.”
“You love him.”
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A sad smile leaked out and she nodded. Now why couldn’t she fall for someone like Leo? Her mother had loved him. He was such a good, decent man, any mother would. Any smart woman would. But they’d learned a long time ago they were better friends than anything else. Besides, Livvy’d still be longing to hang out under the bleachers with a dark-haired bad boy.
“I can’t believe he was jealous of me.” Leo laughed. “I wish I’d known that when I stopped him. It would’ve made things a lot more fun. I was worried about you that day.”
Livvy sighed. “Apparently Murphy saw me
kiss you goodbye the night of the jazz show and it just kind of mushroomed.”
“Liv, I’ve kissed you a million times. It’s like kissing my nonexistent sister.” His brow cocked and he leaned farther across the counter.
“Although you were my first hickey.”
“Leo, we were fourteen. And that doesn’t
count—you wanted to make Missy Anderson
jealous and paid me three dollars for that hickey.”
“I should’ve written him that ticket.” He grinned. “I will. Every chance I get, I’m nailing him. And I’m going to make him do a field sobriety test just for shits and giggles. You can safely bet that by the end of the month, that asshole will be cursing the day he hurt my best girl.”
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“Leo, behave. Leave him alone.” Livvy didn’t want Leo to risk getting in trouble but he was cocky enough to try to get away with it. “And what’s this ‘best girl’ stuff? I thought you and Kelsey were getting pretty involved.”
Above his uniform collar, the flush seemed bright across his cheeks. “We’ll see. She has lousy taste in music. But I might bring her with me Saturday if she’s not working.”
“Great. I can tell her all your bad habits, like the mold experiment you used to keep in your refrigerator.”
“It’s still there, so she knows.” He straightened and his gaze cemented out the store window.
“You sure you’re ready for this?”
Livvy froze. John had the driver’s door opened and was stepping out. Bright morning sunshine deepened his hair to a nearly blue-black raven’s wing. He’d finally gotten it trimmed. The front no longer threatened to slip over his forehead. She almost missed that endearing lock of hair.
“I swear I can hear your heartbeat from here.
Want me to stick around?”
Quickly shaking her head, she tried to breathe.
Air stuck in her lungs with a sharp jab. He wore a crisp black suit and tie. The jacket made his shoulders a mile wide and she couldn’t swallow.
“Hey, Liv, know what makes a good cop?”
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Leo had circled the counter and now stood directly beside her. With effort, she pulled her eyes from the window. “I don’t know. A big gun?”
“No. The ability to immediately assess a
complicated situation and make a snap decision about what move will rectify the problem.”
Devilment sparkled in his eyes a split second before he grabbed her. “You owe me three
bucks.”
“Leo, don—”
His mouth descended on hers the instant the bells jangled over the shop door.
Leo told the truth in that they had shared many kisses over the years, all platonic. This one was not. It was firm and intimate and completely surprised her. Shock was all that kept her from pushing him away at first. When she shoved at his chest, he was already pulling away. His raised eyebrows mocked her. He snagged his pastry bag off the counter and tossed a jolly “Bye, Livvy” in her direction.
John’s eyes were averted too far above the trooper’s head not to have seen what occurred.