The drive back was painfully quiet. The radio was off, so the only sound was the hum of the engine and the roar of her pulse. They had only known each other for two days, but it seemed like they’d already done this—sat together in an awkward, expectant silence—too many times.
It was her fault, of course. She messed everything up. She was such a waste of a human existence.
Marc pulled into the driveway and cut the engine of his truck. The silence between them sank even deeper.
He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. Why wouldn’t he say something?
And why didn’t she just get out? She wanted to get out, away from all of this. But Lara felt frozen in place, a victim of her own inertia. She could see her warped reflection in her window and her lip curled. God, she was sickening.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed.
“For what?” Marc asked, his soft murmur startlingly loud.
Lara was suddenly angry. He knew damn well why she was sorry, but he wanted her to say it. Why wasn’t she ever enough? Why did he always have to push her like this? “I’m sorry I’m not what you want me to be,” she snapped.
She could feel Marc’s eyes on her, but she stared ahead through the windshield. The house was dark, except for the dim glow of lights from living room window. Paige was probably waiting up for her.
Her mother had never really waited up for her. But she had known that Lara would never get into trouble, would never do anything wrong.
Well, she’d certainly shattered that notion.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lara,” Marc said. “I’m only worried about you.”
“Yeah. Everyone is worried. Everyone is sorry. Everyone wants me to be okay. I’m sick of it.”
“Well, that’s the unfortunate consequence of having people care about you.”
“Less than forty-eight hours ago, you didn’t even know that I existed. What the hell do you care if I’m bruised or bleeding?”
“I would care if anyone was hurt,” he said. He finally seemed to be taking offense to her words and it gave Lara some twisted rush of power. “Even a stranger. I want to be a doctor. I told you that.”
“So that’s what I am?” she asked sarcastically. “An interesting case study?”
“You know that’s not true. Why are you trying so hard to stay angry?”
It was a slap across the face. Marc was right. She wanted to be mad. She needed it, but she didn’t know why. And it was humiliating that he saw through her bravado to the truth.
“It makes it easier, right?” Marc asked. “Anger can be easier than grief.”
Lara looked at him sharply. He’d done it again and she almost hated him for it. “You don’t know anything about me,” she hissed.
“Then why don’t you tell me something.”
“You want to know something, Marc?” she asked heatedly. “You really want to know?” He didn’t answer, but returned her glassy gaze calmly. “I killed my parents. Are you happy now? Do you feel better? I sure as hell don’t.”
Lara had expected him to look horrified, but his expression didn’t change. It irritated her all the more. Marc reached out to draw her into an embrace. “Come here,” he whispered as his hands closed on her arms.
“Get your fucking hands off of me,” Lara shouted, scrambling as far away from him as she could.
Marc was quiet as he pulled back. He turned away from her and gripped the steering wheel. “I think maybe you’d better go inside,” he said.
It was the most insulting thing that he could have done, Lara realized as she struggled in her fury to unlock her seatbelt. She wanted to fight. She wanted a reason to tear him to pieces, but he had backed away so civilly.
“Bastard,” she muttered as she got out of the truck. She slammed the door and stormed towards the house as she heard Marc pull out of the driveway. Lara refused to let herself look back at him.
With shaking hands, she fumbled with her keys at the front door. When she was bending down to pick them up off the porch after she’d dropped them for the second time, the door opened from the inside.
“Are you okay?” Paige asked.
Lara retrieved her keys and pushed past her aunt. “Fine,” she snapped. “Everything is just fucking fine.”
When she reached her bedroom Lara shut the door and locked it behind her. She didn’t think that Paige would come in without permission, but Lara needed to lock it anyways. It felt sort of symbolic, as if she were barricading herself in the safety of her room. She slid down against the door until she was curled on the floor, her knees drawn tightly into her chest. Closing her eyes, Lara wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees.
Alone. Finally alone. God, she missed being at the Bennetts’ house. She wanted to lie down and slip into that dazed state of consciousness that she’d floated in those two awful weeks. She couldn’t do this any more. Life just took more energy than she had.
Lara felt his presence without opening her eyes. “What’s wrong, angel?” Kabran asked softly. “Date didn’t go well?”
“You know it didn’t,” she said.
His cool fingers slid fluidly into her hair. His touch drifted to her cheek as he moved closer to her. "I really don't like the feel of this makeup on your skin."
"Then don't hit me any more," Lara said impatiently. “Don’t cut me.”
Kabran's thumb gently traced her lips. "Look at me, Lara," he whispered.
She opened her eyes abruptly and got to her feet. "You think you can seduce me after what you've done? What kind of masochist do you take me for?"
He smiled and his luminescent body shined brighter, and Lara realized that he'd gotten exactly the answer that he'd wanted. "Quite a proficient one, actually. You live in a palace of anguish and guilt that you alone built and furnished for your own comfort." He leaned closer, speaking intimately in her ear. "And you know you want me to hurt you, Lara. You want it and you need it. That’s why you sent your Adonis away at the party, that’s why you’re alone with me now. You want to feel what your mother and father felt when they were dying. You want to be connected to them, to what should have happened to you. Don't you, angel?"
"Stop it," Lara hissed.
"That's what you want, isn't it?" He held her face tightly so she had to look directly at him, into his dark eyes. "They're dead and you're alive and the pain inside is more than you can contain. You need to feel it outside, too, don't you?"
"Stop it, Kabran!" she yelled at him, struggling in vain to pull away from him. "Let go of me!"
"You can't bare it. That's why you cut up your palms with your nails and bite your lip until it bleeds, isn't it? Answer me, angel," he shouted. "Do you want me to hurt you? Do you??"
"Yes!" she shrieked. "Yes, damn you, do it!"
The first blow went straight to her stomach and the next was across her face. He moved so quickly that Lara couldn't have stopped him if she wanted to. Kabran hit her again and again and she reveled in the pain. Sometimes it was a sting, as when he pulled her hair or slapped her bare skin. Other times he punched or kicked her—that was dull and blunt and she felt it in the muscles and bones themselves. When he started to scratch her face and bite her, Lara imagined what it must have felt like to crash through that windshield or be thrown from the car. Mom, Dad, I am with you.
She turned her head and saw Kabran sitting on the edge of the window seat with his legs stretched out in front of him. His beauty seemed unparalleled right then. His skin was so pale, the exact contrast of the darkness of his hair and eyes. The way he held himself, with his ankles crossed, gave him a casual grace unlike any that she had ever seen. Lara started to laugh silently. "You know, you almost look real, standing there," she told him. He looked up at her and she saw that she had startled him. "How is it that you feel real to me, Kabran? That I can touch you like everything else?"
"It's not easy," he answered her dispassionately. "Everything I feel for you, I become. You're my anchor, you make me real."
"But why me?" she asked, exasperated. She sat up and curled her feet under her. "Why do you want me?"
Kabran was silent and Lara didn't think that he was going to answer her. He seemed to be drowning in that seductive despair that she understood so well. "I loved you from the moment I first saw you," he answered softly. "You were standing on a hill and the wind was blowing your hair back from your face. There was knife in your stomach, but you were smiling."
What was he talking about? It was familiar, but not.
Lara felt her skin crawl, as if she had an itch, but couldn’t tell where it had started.
“I ran to you,” Kabran continued, “and you fought me tooth and nail. I saved your life and the only thing you said was—”
“I told you to let me die,” Lara whispered automatically. She clamped her hand over her mouth as the memories assaulted her. “Oh God. I dreamed of it. God, how could it be real?”
Kabran was at her side, then. He looked down at her with awe. “You remember, angel?”
Lara shook her head. “Just a little. Just dreams,” she insisted. “It’s not possible. I don’t believe it.”
The ghost touched her with excruciating gentleness, lifting her chin. Looking into his fathomless eyes, a profound sense of recognition shocked her. It went beyond superficialities, piercing through her to the soul. She knew him.
“Oh, God,” she said again.
His arms encircled her, drawing her roughly against him. “Angel,” he whispered. “I love you always, I love you madly.”
He had said that before, but it couldn’t be true. And yet, Lara knew that it was true. She knew it with an innate certainty that terrified her. "But why?"
Kabran pulled back slightly. He looked into her face. “For the same reason you love me,” he said. “You can see the darkness in me just as I see it in you. The darkness is so beautiful sometimes, isn't it, angel? You’ve only just found it again, but you know that it was there even before your parents died. There was always something pulling at you—a sadness that had no reason."
"Yes," Lara whispered. She felt the power of his words and in that moment, she knew that she was closer to him than she'd ever been to anyone. Where she had felt that Marc could see right through her, she felt that Kabran could do more than just see—he could touch.
"Is that why you first appeared to me in a mirror?" she asked.
The ghost smiled. “We’re the same, you and I. It only seemed fitting.”
“What happened to us? What happened after you saved my life? Why are you a ghost and I’m not?”
“I couldn’t let go of you, Lara,” Kabran replied. “We were together…and then you finished what you started that day we met. I followed you before the night past. I’ve been searching for you.”
Lara felt her stomach drop. Whatever romantic images her mind might have conjured were obliterated. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer, but she needed to ask. “Why did I…finish it?”
She thought she saw some sort of ugliness flash in Kabran’s eyes. “Maybe that’s something you could tell me,” he replied smoothly. “If you remember.”
“But you stayed a ghost…for me?”
“I had to. If I had let go of you and let myself be reborn...then I would have lost you. I wouldn’t even remember you. So you see? You are my anchor; I exist for you. I just want you to understand."
Lara was quiet as she thought about this. "You'd rather follow me from one life to the next than live, yourself?"
Kabran laughed shortly. "You are the only reason that I've ever found to live, whether I loved you or hated you."
He leaned closer and Lara lay back on the bed. “Can you feel it, angel?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. “You are mine.”
He kissed her and Lara felt the cold shocks run down her spine and all her bruises tingled with pain. And then she was swept away, drowning in an ocean of sounds and images and raw emotion…
We are bound...Kabran's hands on her body, scratching...
"I love you always, I love you madly," she said to him, he said to her, she said to...
Her hair falling on his bare chest below her...
Screaming, hating, tasting...
Running as he chased her, tackled her, laughing as they fought...
"I love you always..."
His breath in her ear, fingers intertwined, firelight and tears, palms pressed and blood mixing...
"Do you love me, angel?"
"No."
His lips on her, biting, worshipping...
Eyes locked on each other, soul tied to soul...
"Do you love me, angel?"
"I love you madly..."
Passion. Love. Hate.
"I told you to let me die!"
"I wish I had let you die!!"
Tears on his cheeks and she laughed. Tears on her cheeks and he cried...
"Did you really want to die?"
"Yes."
"And do you still?"
"Yes."
Turning away from her in the cold...
"Can you feel it, angel?"
"I feel you with my entire being."
Tired and bawdy, cold and lustful. Mercurial desires tearing her apart.
Weary, so weary…
Torn and ravaged, always…
Blood spilling, those dark eyes anguished, watching her die.
"I love you always, I love you madly. We are bound."
Part 5
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