Once inside her room, she shut the door quietly and leaned back on it, staring around at the large bedroom with its canopied bed and en-suite bathroom. It looked like a normal teen bedroom. Posters of bands on the wall. Hot guys. Art work by Michael Parkes she found beautiful and twisted and ethereal all at the same time.
But her bedroom wasn’t normal.
It existed in a house with a basement where unquiet misdeeds occurred.
And that was putting it politely.
It was a house of horrors. And she was part of it.
Her eyes blurred with tears. Every time she’d thought she’d come to terms with it… a scream would rent the air and kill her determination.
She wondered what it would be like to be normal.
The pocket of her jeans buzzed and Eden wiped at her tears, as she dug in for her phone.
You were right. Twinkies. I don’t get them either. N.
Eden burst out into tearful laughter, thanking whatever fate had uprooted Noah Valois and landed him at South Salton.
Chapter Nine. I Am Ankh
“So, we’re just… sitting?” Noah asked her, a teasing smile in his eyes.
Eden smirked back at him, hoping the sadness she felt wasn’t written all over her face. School had been better this week, now that she had decided to stop avoiding Noah. She was supposed to be worrying about the SATs coming up in a couple of weeks, but since she somehow got through the PSATs last October, and considering the Awakening Ceremony was around the same time… she just wasn’t in the mood to care. So she was cutting class. And had enlisted Noah in her truancy. They sat together in his car, having managed to sneak out of the school unseen by her dad’s goons. Noah was fantastic at this spy crap. She wondered where he got that from.
They were parked down by the lake in a near empty parking lot and the rain was lashing against the windscreen. There was a hush in the air that soothed her and slowed her frantic heartbeat. “We’re just sitting.”
He nodded slowly and relaxed back into his seat. As if sensing her mood he didn’t even turn on the radio.
After a while, she sensed the slightest change in his posture, and knew he was going to say something. Eden felt as if she knew him down to his pinky finger, she felt so close to him. “You know when I was a little kid my dad used to do this.” He turned his head on the headrest and smiled softly at her.
“Do what?”
“Come and get me when it was raining. It didn’t matter if I was supposed to be with a tutor or with the nanny, he’d stop whatever he was doing, come get me, stuff my feet into rain boots and a mac and take me by the hand and lead me out into the backyard. We’d just stand there, the rain lashing against us, my hand tight in his.”
An ache, a wave of pure loneliness shuddered through her. “Why’d he do that?”
Noah shrugged, smiling at the memory. “He said that no matter how old he was getting, the rain always made him feel renewed; it woke him up and reminded him of why he was here. I don’t think he knew how to explain it. I don’t. But I got it. And even as a little kid he knew I got it, and that it was something for us. Just us. It used to drive my mom mad.”
Eden snorted. “She would be worried you’d catch pneumonia.”
Noah threw her this secret smile and gave a little half nod, like he wasn’t telling her something. “I guess.”
The hush wrapped around them again and Eden thought about Noah and his dad, and his mom all worried about him. It was such a small thing. She bet his life with his parents was made up of all these small things.
“Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you hurt someone to survive?”
She felt him tense beside her, the lines of his body taut, and she held her breath wondering at his reaction.
“Noah?”
He wouldn’t look at her. “Depends.”
“What do you mean it depends?”
“Well that’s a loaded question, Eden,” he snapped, jerking his head around to glare at her.
Eden felt her face flush with anger, and she bit her nails into her hands to control an unexpected flare of temper. “What’s your problem? It was just a question.”
“It was a stupid question.”
“It’s not a stupid question!”
His face twisted and suddenly Eden felt as if he knew what she was asking; knew and despised her for it. She flinched back, feeling ill with panic. “If you’re asking me if I think it’s OK to protect yourself from someone hurting you by hurting them, then yeah, it’s an act of survival, self-defence. But if you’re asking me-”
“Asking you what?” she snarled, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Why did she feel like he knew? Did he know? No he can’t.
The colour seemed to leach from his cheeks as he caught her look. Noah smoothed out his expression and leaned back against the chair. “I know this Teagan thing is bothering you, and I know you’re frustrated, but you can’t start having morbid thoughts, Eden. That’s not you. And you can find a way out of whatever your sick parents have planned without hurting the guy.”
Eden’s racing heart slowed as realisation dawned. He thought she was talking about the Teagan situation. She flopped back against the passenger seat and cast him a wan smile. “How did you know I wasn’t just asking a philosophical question?”
Noah smirked. “Because, you never ask questions unless they mean something. So you should know if you ask me something twisted and violent, I’ll pretty much know you’re talking from intent or experience.”
Eden laughed and let the silence fall between them.
But as she thought over Noah’s adamant reaction, the hush grew uncomfortable rather than soothing. He had been so vehement, so disgusted by the idea of hurting someone. In fact his reaction had been a little out there but then… Noah was a little out there. That’s what she liked about him.
But that look he’d given her. The disdain. The disappointment. She hadn’t imagined that.
Who was she kidding? If Noah ever found out the truth about her, she’d be dead to him. And that was the one thing she didn’t think she could make it through.
Throwing him a glare from out of the corner of her eye, Eden tried to concentrate on her breathing exercises. Damn this human who had come into her life and made himself so important to her; had made coming to terms with her inner monster that much more difficult to bear.
“Let’s go back.” She sighed, not daring to look at him.
***
He watched as Romany slowly stirred, sliding her hand along the sheets, searching for him. Noah knew she was awake as soon her hand came away empty. She grunted and brushed her hair off her face, her eyes sweeping the room until they found him, sitting on the sofa across from the bed. Romany groaned and shuffled up into a sitting position, holding the sheet over her.
“What’s wrong?” She murmured, her sleepy eyes adjusting to the light, as dim as it was.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Tell me,” she prompted quietly and Noah sighed, relaxing back into the sofa.
He hadn’t been happy when she’d turned up at his door again last night. It had been a long week, and his and Eden’s relationship had grown quickly estranged again. He had been waiting for his moment to tell her the truth, but he’d messed up that day in the car and now he couldn’t get her alone at school and she refused to meet him outside school again.
As always, Romany helped him relax for a while. She was good at that.