Dysphoria and Grace: (NA Apocalypse Romance) (The Night Blind Saga Book 1) Read online

  I could grab Suki from my car, but that would end badly for all of us. And the thought of it being my fault Eve gets shot is not one I want to entertain.

  After a quick check to make sure I’m not being watched, I jump into some bushes lining the building beside the front door, realizing too late they’re holly bushes. They rip into my skin and clothes, and there’s pain, but I’m too numb to feel it. What are they doing to my friend?

  Stupid question.

  And what am I doing?

  Hiding in the bushes. A goddamn coward.

  At least an hour later, once I’m sure she’s dead in there, the door opens and Eve stumbles out, dazed.

  I push my way out of the bushes, scraping my arm and neck on jagged branches. “Eve!”

  When she sees me, she breaks down, dropping to the ground in the middle of the parking lot. I scoop her up and support her weight to my car, opening her door and setting her in the seat. I close it behind her, then hurry around to get into the driver’s seat.

  “What did they do?” I ask after I start the car.

  She stares off into the gray sky.

  “Eve, tell me what they did.”

  She shows me her arm, a smear of blood at the inner fold of her elbow.

  “Oh my God, Eve, did they . . . stick a needle in your arm?”

  She nods, folding into crippling sobs.

  “They made me . . . like it.” Her words fall out, crumble at my feet.

  “What?”

  “When they stuck it in my arm . . . something happened to me. I wanted them to do what they did.” She peers over at me, makeup smudged all over her face. “Can you believe they . . . made me . . . like it?” Then she’s sobbing into her hands again.

  There’s a white hum in my ear and my vision blurs. I reach beneath the seat and grab Suki, then grip my door handle, but Eve stops me. “No, they’ll kill you. Please . . . just take me home.”

  THREE

  At dinner, Henry blabbers on about bullshit, and Eileen stuffs Corbin’s face with food, though he can easily feed himself. I pick at mine, imagining ripping a man’s body parts off one by one, starting with his dick. When your best friend’s broken into a million, irreparable pieces, thoughts like these seem justifiable. She didn’t even want to pick her car up from school, insisting I take her straight home. And there was nothing else I could do, though I beat my brain for something. Anything.

  Nothing.

  “What do you think about the whole Mindset thing?” Eileen asks Henry. “Seems kind of drastic . . .”

  He dabs a napkin at his moustache. “For one thing, they’ve barely tested it for a year on laboratory animals, and the trial tests for humans has only been, what—two months? They’re jumping the gun on mandating. And now they’re saying you’ll be fined some astronomical amount of money if you refuse it.”

  “But will it really help eradicate crime?” Eileen’s words bring my face up from my untouched food. Eve had mentioned something about this earlier today.

  “They think.” Henry takes his last bite, dabs his moustache with his napkin while he chews. “But I think it’s a pipe dream.”

  Ha. Plumber humor.

  I stab my green beans with my fork, imagining it’s Officer Perve’s face. They’re about to have one more murdering criminal to deal with.

  “What’s wrong, Gracie?” Henry asks me. “Rough day?”

  I don’t have it in me to bitch at him for not calling me by my Zalaan name. You’d think after a few years . . .

  Corbin slams a fist on his tray, sending a bowl of noodles flying. His shrill laugh is diamonds on a chalkboard. Oblivious, carefree, so loved, despite the constant fucking whirlwind of disaster that follows him everywhere. Must be nice.

  After cleaning up the noodle mess, Eileen props her elbows on the table and gives me one of those concerned-parent sighs, coupled with the I’m worried about you gaze. “Do you want to tell us what’s bothering you?” She ties her dark blonde hair that’s graying at the roots. “What are those scratches on your arms from? Did you get in a fight?”

  I eject myself from the table, slamming my chair against the wall, and exit to lock myself in my room. When I call Eve’s phone, it rings and rings, clicking over to voicemail, so I hang up and send her a text. You okay? Call me. Or text

  After twenty minutes of no response, I try her again. Straight to voicemail this time.

  Are you avoiding me, Evie?

  She can’t possibly blame me for this . . .

  But I left her.

  What could I have done, though?

  I could’ve told someone what happened. I still could.

  Should I?

  No, it might put her in danger.

  What extents men like that wouldn’t go through to protect themselves.

  The sounds of Corbin’s morning tantrum session wake me seconds before my alarm. Six twenty-nine. I turn it off and lie there, listening to the murmurs of Henry and Eileen as they calm their son. After digging around in my blankets, I find my phone buried between my bed and the wall, and check it for a message from Eve. Nothing; no call, no text, and an almost-dead battery.

  I plug it into its charger and lie there in sickened sadness. There’s no way I’m going to school today as if everything were okay. Eve won’t. If she doesn’t tell her parents what happened, she’ll lie and say she’s sick, which is what I’ll do, too. I’ll wait for Eileen to take Corbin to daycare and go to her Zumba class (or whatever the fuck it is she does during the day), then I’ll go to Eve’s. She can try all she wants to push me away, but I won’t let it happen. She’s all I’ve got in this world, and I’m not about to let her go that easily.

  There’s a tap on my door. “Ophelia? Are you up?”

  Eileen only calls me by my Zalaan name to coax me into doing things I don’t want to do. Family photos, baby showers, shopping, or—gods forbid—church. She seems to think it’s important I go to school every day, too.

  She opens the door a crack. “It’s after six thirty.”

  “Staying home today. Sick.”

  “Gr—Ophelia, honey, you’ve missed too much school this semester already—”

  “I’m dizzy when I try to sit up, and my head starts pounding. I barely slept at all last night.”

  If she were smart, she’d know the only time I’m ever cordial is when I’m manipulating her. We have such a beautiful relationship.

  Eileen sighs, concedes. She doesn’t want to fight. “Okay, well . . . Do you need anything? Aspirin?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  She leaves my doorway and I wrap myself up in my blanket to tamp my raging nerves.

  When Eileen returns with a cup of water and pills, I rise from the bed, pluck the pills from her palm, and swallow them with a gulp of water.

  “We’re leaving soon,” Eileen says, “but I’ll be home later if you need anything. I’m taking Corbin to daycare and heading to yoga.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know, you’re lucky you don’t have to get the injection yet.”

  “Why don’t I?”

  “Ages twenty-one and up. You’ve got a few months to go.”

  “What do they do?” I ask. “The injections.”

  “Something to do with targeting the part of your brain in which violence stems from. The vaccine pinpoints the exact location and is supposed to shut it down. Only those in entertainment, sports, law enforcement and the army, and other crime-fighting regimes of that nature, are exempt. They need their aggression to perform their duties, I suppose.” She looks at her hands in her lap while something inside me explodes.

  “That’s not fair.” I sit straight up. “That’s not fucking fair!”

  “Grace Anne—”

  “They’re as bad as the criminals!”

  “Calm down, sweetheart. What’s come over you?”

  I slam myself into my bed, a death grip on my blanket, gritted teeth to keep from saying anything else.

  “Are you okay?” Eileen asks. “
You’ve got something on your mind. Wanna talk about it?”

  “Always got things on my mind. I’m fine. I need sleep.” I will her away, but she doesn’t budge. Fire builds in me, and as much as I try to douse it with reason, it spits out at her face. “I said I’m fine!”

  She flinches from the burn, rises from my bed. I see how much I’ve hurt her, as always. Ever since she chose damaged goods to bring home ten years ago.

  She stands at the doorway to my room and studies me for a moment before opening her mouth to speak. “I’m trying, Grace. Ophelia. Have been for years. I want to help. That’s all I’ve ever wanted—to be there for you. When are you going to stop pushing me away? I love you. When are you going to just . . . let me love you?”

  I find a spot on the wall across the room, a perfect fissure in the lavender paint to prove that all is broken. No matter how pretty you paint it, it falls to pieces, eventually. It’s inevitable. So, why even paint it? Why even try?

  Seconds later, there’s the click of the door as it meets the frame. I sob into my pillow, desecrating white faux satin with stolen, black eyeliner, the spoils from yesterday’s risk, and yesterday’s pain.

  Why can’t I let you love me?

  There is nothing left to love.

  FOUR

  When Eileen’s car putters off out front, I hop from my bed and dial Eve again. Straight to voicemail. After about three seconds of cleaning smeared makeup off of my face, I decide fuck it, and put on some shades. I yank on some clothes, toss my hair in a rubber band, slip on my boots, grab my purse and keys, and I’m out in less than five.

  Beside the garage door, the remnants of yesterday’s smashed tomato have dried on the white paint in the sun, a grisly foreshadowing of how the day was going to go. Maybe I brought this ill fortune on myself.

  I spent the last three years cultivating this friendship that means more to me than anything, and two assholes come along and smash the thing beneath their boots. Not only am I fighting some murder-urges, but I’m also feeling like an asshole myself for kicking Eileen’s tomato.

  When I get to Eve’s, her car, as well as her mom’s, are parked in the driveway. I park at the curb and my heart races as I step out and shut my door. I pace myself up the walkway so as not to appear that anything is wrong, because I don’t know what Eve’s told her mom yet.

  I ring the doorbell, and there’s mumbling as her mother approaches, then silence as I’m sure she’s sizing me up through the peephole. I fidget, though I hate appearing nervous, and I exhale slowly when the door opens a few inches.

  “Yes?” Her mom cocks an eyebrow at me.

  “Is E—uh, is Lucy here?”

  “She is.” She studies me for a moment before opening the door wide enough to step out onto the porch with me, then she pulls the door closed behind her. “Do you have any idea what happened to her yesterday? She’s been completely distraught and won’t tell us what’s going on. I mean, so much so, that she left her car at school yesterday? Her father and I had to go pick it up today.”

  The urge to spill everything builds up, but I swallow those bitter beans back down where they came from. “No, I’m not sure, Mrs. Davisson. I was worried about her, too, because she wasn’t returning my texts or calls. So I . . . wanted to come check on her. May I . . . see her?”

  I guess she can read my heartbroken and pathetic desperation that says I will collapse in your yard and bawl all day if you say no, because she gives a sad nod and opens the door. I follow her inside, realizing only now how much it hurt when they decided, a year ago, that I was no longer welcome in their home. Coincidentally, it was right after Eve told them she was no longer their little Lucy, and that they should henceforth refer to her by her Zalaan name: Eve.

  I showed their sweet, innocent Lucy the light and dark ways of the Zalaan Goddess, and Eve took her place.

  We pass the wall of various shapes and sizes of crosses, which have accumulated a dozen or more in the past year, until we get to Eve’s room on the right. Her mom taps on the door, then opens it. “You have a visitor.” She moves out of the way to let me in.

  Eve’s in her bed, facing the window. She sniffles when I enter, but doesn’t turn.

  Her mom shuts the door behind me, but my bets are on her sitting on the other side of the door to make sure I’m not further damaging her child.

  My assumption is wrong, though. The faucet runs in the kitchen, and dishes begin to clank in the sink. I kneel at Eve’s bedside. “You okay?”

  I wait a minute or so, and when she doesn’t answer, I rise from the floor to take a seat on the edge of her bed. “Please don’t do this. I want to help.”

  She ignores me, still.

  “You weren’t the only one who was violated,” I say.

  She rolls over. “Did they . . . ?”

  “No. But he forced himself on me, then he made me leave. I told him I wasn’t leaving without you, Eve, but he . . . he made me go. He was gonna kill me, and then . . . I’d never see you again.” I show her my scraped arms and neck, and begin to cry. “I waited in fucking holly bushes for you. I’m so sorry, Eve. I’m so, so sorry.” I collapse beside her in her bed and wrap my arm around her. “But you’re not broken. You can recover from this, okay?”

  She nods, though her tears still fall.

  “Any dark or evil force,” I chant, “may now return to its source. May our homes and we be free, safe and well, so may it be.” I kiss my pentacle, then touch it to her skin. I repeat the chant a few times before she joins me, and we chant over and over until the wave of word energy rushes over us, a calm.

  “It hurts so bad, Ophelia,” she says after a few silent minutes.

  “I know. But you’ll get through it. You’re a strong girl.”

  “How?” She swipes at a few stray tears. “How do you . . . not let it break you?”

  “You look it straight in the black, evil eyes and you tell it to fuck off. You tell it you won’t be broken so easily. And you get up and keep moving. It’s what I’ve done my whole life, with everything. Including when the same thing happened to me when I was nine. I mean, I know it’s not entirely the same, but that doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, you just let it make you stronger, okay? Because the alternative road is an even darker one, I promise.”

  I take her hands in mine and squeeze them tight. “Promise me you won’t go down that road, okay? I . . . I need you.” My own tears fall again, but softer this time, honest emotion I’ve tamped for too long, being that strong girl. “I’ve had very few people to give a fuck about in my life before, and I’m not gonna lose you. You can’t let them win, Evie. Stay strong. Promise.”

  She grips my fingers tight. “I promise.”

  “You’re allowed to wallow for today, but you can’t stay here. This is a dangerous place to stay for too long. Tomorrow, we learn how to move through it, and get on with life, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, and one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A bit of dark Magick . . .”

  FIVE

  “Did she tell you what was wrong?” Eve’s mom asks me at the front door.

  “She’s heartbroken, Mrs. Davisson. She was really into this guy, and he broke her heart.”

  Words Eve herself instructed me to lie to her mother when she probed for answers. Mrs. Davisson can’t know the truth. It would hurt her too much.

  “I didn’t realize she had a boyfriend.” Eve’s mom hugs herself, ashamed at the apparent neglectful attention of her adult child.

  I give her a gentle pat on the arm.

  “Thanks for stopping by to check on her.” She opens the front door.

  “Of course.” I step out onto the porch and glance up from my boots. “I care about her a lot.”

  “I know you do, hon.” She looks from left to right, then back at me. “Listen, I . . . You aren’t a bad person. We were just worried about Lucy, okay? There was such a drastic, sudden change . . . But you two care about each other, and
I don’t want to stand in the way of that.” She fidgets with a stray hair on her T-shirt. “Why don’t you stay the night tomorrow? It’s Friday, and I think Lucy needs the company. Would that be okay with you? If you don’t have plans. And as long as Lucy’s okay with it—which I’m sure she will be.”

  “I don’t have any plans,” I say. “Thank you, Mrs. Davisson, I’d love that.”

  “Great.” She pats my shoulder. “See you then, dear. Drive safe in this rain.”

  “I will, thank you. And can you have Lucy text me later when she wakes up?”

  “Sure will.”

  “Thanks.” With a wave, I hurry along the dampened front walkway to my car, and breathe a sigh of relief when I get in. Things are slightly better than they were an hour ago. Eve doesn’t hate me, and I’ll get to spend time with her soon. And at her house. Wow. Maybe my luck’s changing.

  But I still death grip my steering wheel on the way home. The drizzling rain echoes my dysphoria. Eileen might be home when I return, and I’ll have some lying to do. But even more so, because all is not well with Eve, or me, and it never will be. For me, it never has been, so that’s something I’m used to. But Eve . . . she’s standing at the edge of this dark cliff, about to dive headfirst, and I can’t help feeling responsible. If I’d never befriended her, enticed her with the velvety abyss . . . maybe that wouldn’t have happened to her yesterday. Maybe she’d be safe at church somewhere.

  To my dismay, Eileen’s car is out front when I get home. I pull around to the garage, preparing my lie. Story of my life. I’ve almost forgotten what total truth is, if I ever even knew what it was.

  By the time I leave the garage, I’m jogging up the walkway through the backyard in the pouring rain. Eileen meets me at the door. “Where were you?” She moves aside to let me in, then shuts it behind me.