Betrayer, page 7
part #3 of The Shining Ones Series
I wouldn’t be able to tell from the yard what was left, if anything, but I couldn’t take a step. My legs felt weak and puny, as if it took all my effort to stay upright instead of collapsing to my knees, which is what I really wanted to do—drop to the ground and pound the earth with my fists and scream up to the sky about the unfairness of it all.
“Poe?”
I swiveled too fast and almost fell over anyway.
Joe.
My dad had crossed into the yard, and I hadn’t even heard him. He stood slack-jawed and pale, looking between me and my destroyed trailer. Emotions ran across his face, from fear to anger and back again. He’d never been very good at hiding what he felt. I was almost thankful, except it brought out the very emotion I’d been trying to hold back the whole time.
“Hi, Dad.” I choked out the words, but it was all I could manage before I covered my face. What was the use in hiding my feelings? The tears ran down the sides of my cheeks as my face crumbled in on itself and a sob erupted from my chest.
Joe bounded across the grass and closed the gap between us, wrapping me in his arms. His chest heaved with emotion as he crushed me to him, his breath ragged and painful-sounding. His distress only made me cry harder, and suddenly it wasn’t just the loss of the trailer that weighed down on me. All of our lost time, all the time I could’ve had my dad, but I’d been too stubborn or hurt to reach out for him, all the time he’d let his wife get in between us. We were mourning more than my trailer and we both knew it. Our combined misery was almost unbearable.
I broke away first, sniffling and wiping my nose on the back of the sleeve of Adam’s shirt. “Sorry, Dad.” I tried to give him a watery smile.
It was taking him longer to recover, and although his eyes were still teary and red, he pretended that they weren’t. He swiped the remaining tears from his eyes with the pad of his thumb before taking a deep breath and giving me an embarrassed shrug, neither of us quite comfortable yet with shedding so much emotion in front of the other.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called yet about work. I—” My dad’s hand went up and I stopped with a stutter.
“Haylee can handle it.” He frowned as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not here to give you a hard time about work, Poe. I’m here because I’m your dad and I’m worried about you.”
“I know,” I replied, meaning it. It hadn’t been easy for us to reach this point, for me to be able to trust him, but I knew his intentions were real this time. He really was worried for me. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t see this coming.”
“I’m not blaming you for this.” He swept his hand toward what was left of the trailer. “But I’m concerned. Nobody has as much bad luck as you do.”
It was my turn to be embarrassed. How was I supposed to respond to that? “I know that’s how it looks.” I licked my lips, my mouth feeling dry all of a sudden. “Don’t know what to tell you, really.”
My dad eyed me up and down, making me squirm. “How about the truth? You could start by telling me that. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
That was a loaded question and one that I wasn’t in a position to answer, but how to dodge it was proving more difficult than I’d imagined.
“There are some things that Adam and I have to take care of.” I paused. The words that came next got stuck in my throat, perspiration dotting my skin and making Adam’s shirt stick to my back, but I carried on. “And in taking care of these things, we’re going to have to leave the island for a while.” I watched as my dad’s face fell, the shock and disappointment battling each other out for dominance. The disappointment won.
“Oh.” His hand fell off my arm.
“It’s sudden, I know, and I wasn’t expecting it either, but something’s come up and it really is beyond my control and I wish I could do something about it, but…” My words trailed off because Joe wasn’t listening to me anymore. Not really. He’d shut down, no longer listening to the lame excuses, and could I blame him? It sounded ridiculous to me and it was coming out of my own mouth. What a mess.
“I promise that I’ll be back. I will be as quick as I can and Haylee will help out in any way she can, I know she will.” I gave him a weak smile.
“Do they know?” asked my dad. He turned to look at me then.
I stopped. “Who?”
“Birdie and Haylee. Do they know you’re going?”
His direct question hit its mark. My heart. Of course, they didn’t know yet. The thought of having to tell them made me feel weak in the knees. To watch as disappointment and sadness unfolded in their features. Just like they had in my dad’s. It seemed like a new type of torture specially bred for me.
“No, not yet. It was only really decided last night.” At least that part was true. “Plus, I wanted time to figure out how to tell you.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know,” replied Joe, his voice flat and emotionless this time. “I guess it’s time I got going anyhow, since I’ve gotta be back at the restaurant. Give me a ring when you’re ready to come back in.” Joe turned on his heel and marched off down the driveway. No good-byes, no hug, no anything. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have mattered, but now it did.
This time, watching him walk away had my heart in tatters.
And the only one to blame was me.
***
Rummaging through the wreckage had been a fruitless endeavor. There was nothing there to salvage, nothing left of my life with Daisy or anything else that had existed before Adam had walked into my life. It was all ash and cinders. Black marks and water-stained ruination. What the fire hadn’t destroyed, the firefighters’ hoses had as they doused my trailer in gallon after gallon of water. Even the appliances were warped and soot-stained. Everything in the trailer was a total write-off. The only thing of value had been the angel rings belonging to me and to Arthur, and Adam had stored those at his house after Jekyll Island. Leaving it all behind, I carefully made my way out of the mess and around back to my studio.
In total contrast to the trailer, my studio still stood intact. The roof had been hit by a few embers from the trailer, and small dark blotches marred its surface, but other than that, it appeared okay. I took my key out of my pocket and pushed it into the knob, unlocking it. As I stepped across the threshold, a different smell wafted up to greet me and I inhaled deeply, taking in another lungful for good measure. The smell of turpentine and paint, canvas, and glue, the familiar, soothing smells of a simpler time. I glanced around the room. It was dark. The few windows that afforded light were smudged from the fire, and the electricity had been cut off, but it didn’t matter. The space was as bright to me as if it were a sunny summer day. All my work had survived.
Running back to my car for boxes, I walked into my studio a second time, but this time with more determination than nostalgia. I started with drawers first, dropping pens and pencils into the gaping maw of a cardboard box, then sketch pads and spare tubes of paint—anything that would fit. Before I knew it, I had filled three boxes and still had at least another two to go before I could even contemplate looking at the canvases. Not that they would fit in a box. I’d have to carry most of them to Adam’s and then get Birdie to help me get my easels and the rest of the furniture. If I was lucky I could talk Birdie into storing them. Otherwise, everything would be sold.
Because as sad as it made me, I wouldn’t be coming back here. Not to the studio, not to another trailer. I’d made the decision to sell my land, the only thing left from my grandmother Penny, the moment I’d walked into the vet’s office. I couldn’t step foot back into this place even if I wanted to because emotionally, I was done. There were too many memories here, too many echoes of a time I could never have back, and I couldn’t live in the past anymore. And this charred, hollowed husk of a trailer with my studio was all that remained of the past.
I shut the door to my studio and didn’t even bother to lock it. I’d turn the keys over to a real estate agent once I got the rest of my things out with Birdie’s help. After that, it would be one more thing to check off my to-do list.
Feeling a sense of relief, I pulled my phone out of my purse and hit my speed dial, impatient as I waited for a connection. She picked it up on the second ring.
“Hey, what are you doing right now?” I asked, my voice casual but excited.
“Well, hello to you, too,” said Katie, not passing up a moment to be sarcastic. “Nothing, why?”
“I’m coming to get you in ten minutes,” I said. Not giving her a chance to argue, I hung up the phone.
It was time to turn over a new leaf. It was time for a new Poesy.
***
Much to my surprise, not only was Katie ready when I picked her up ten minutes later, but she was also waiting for me in Birdie’s driveway, her foot tapping against the broken shells and gravel, her arms threaded across her chest. Rushing back to Adam’s and dropping the boxes off in record time, I hadn’t bothered to spruce myself up at all, but I might’ve regretted that decision when I saw the look on Katie’s face. She got into the car.
“Jesus,” she exclaimed, turning in her seat to give me a thorough inspection. “Wow, when Birdie told me about the trailer being destroyed, I thought that was bad enough, but holy Christ, look at you.”
She had a point. I’d been avoiding mirrors for the last twenty-four hours, but in a fit of curiosity I’d pulled down the visor in the car and almost had a heart attack. What Birdie had forgotten to mention to Katie and what nobody had pointed out to me since the fire was that I looked like a cross between a cancer patient and a second-rate circus clown.
The fire had done a number on my hair. It’d gotten long enough recently that I’d been able to pull it back into a formidable-sized ponytail, something I hadn’t been able to do since high school, but that was no longer the case. The hair on my head had been singed away to above my ear on my left side; on the back right, there was a bald spot just above my neck where shiny pink new skin had formed, the result of a bursting blister and my super-fast healing coming into play. The other hair on my arms and face—gone. Literally obliterated between the heat and the flames. I had no eyebrows. None whatsoever.
Or clothes. I had none of those either, and I was starting to feel self-conscious under Katie’s stare as I sat in the car in Adam’s shirt and overly big sweatpants.
Katie continued to stare. “You know, for once, I have no words. You look like—”
“A friend who just had a traumatic experience,” I offered up.
“No, that wasn’t quite what I was thinking,” replied Katie with a tilt of her head.
I tried again. “A girl who needs a break and asked her friend to go shopping?” I stared through the windshield, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.
Still nothing from Katie.
“What, then?” I asked with a sigh.
Katie grinned at me. “A homeless person.”
I didn’t bother with a response as I started the car, making sure to rev the engine so I didn’t have to hear Katie’s laughter. With a squeal of the tires, I zoomed out of Birdie’s driveway and headed off the island. I wasn’t sure what our first stop would be—all I knew was I couldn’t get there quick enough.
As it turned out, our first stop was Katie’s hairdresser. It was a good call. The open gawking of the clients in the salon was the first clue we’d made the right choice. The second was the pale, almost ashen face of Ron, aka Roxy, Katie’s stylist, who took one look at me and almost had a conniption fit right on the spot. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I was like an extra out of a disaster movie.
He pushed me down into the salon chair, his charcoal-lined eyes staring back at mine in the mirror. With a slight lift to his perfectly arched brow, he started running his fingers through my hair, no longer gazing at me but rather assessing what he had to work with. The grunts and sighs emanating from his direction didn’t inspire confidence. I wanted to open my mouth and point out that his faux hawk belonged back in the ’80s, but pissing off the man who was about to fix your hair didn’t seem like a good idea. I kept my mouth shut. At least his touch didn’t smart the way his attitude did; apparently, my scalp had healed enough to endure whatever Roxy decided to inflict on it.
“All right, darling.” Stepping forward and turning his back to the mirror, he leaned up against his station before doing a thing with his finger that looked like he was waving a magic wand. “This right here is a hot mess. This side”—he pointed to the left side of my head—“I can’t do a lot with that unless you want an asymmetrical cut, and while I’d love to give you something with pizazz, I somehow feel it isn’t you.”
I frowned and gave Katie a sideways look. She was only half paying attention as she flipped through a magazine. “Definitely not. Poe isn’t that adventurous. What else have you got?” I opened my mouth to voice my outrage, but she’d already waved her hand at him to continue.
“Well.” Roxy paused for dramatic effect, making me want to either strangle him or get up and walk out. He flitted over to behind the chair again, his eyes on Katie. Great. Apparently, I didn’t have a say in the conversation anymore. “We could do something a little more conservative with the cut, but give it the wow factor with some color. Especially with those eyes.” He pointed at my gray eyes in the mirror, and I wished I could shoot laser beams from them right then. “She’s not waif-thin, but red would really make them pop. Definitely a slimming effect.”
I growled. No really, I did.
Katie dropped the magazine on the counter and clapped her hands in delight. “Perfect. Let’s do it.” She finally turned toward me with a conspiratorial grin. “You will love it, Poe. Roxy is a master, trust me.”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, still giving her stylist the pig eye for the waif comment.
Katie shook her head, her eyes alight with mischief. Her voice was full of confidence when she spoke next. “You’re gonna thank me. It’s time for the phoenix to rise from the ashes.”
Three hours later, I handed over Adam’s credit card to the receptionist and paid for the most expensive haircut I’d ever had in my life, which was somewhat ironic given the fact that I hadn’t come into the salon with a lot of hair to begin with. Now, somehow, I had even less.
I tried not to openly gawk at my reflection in the mirror behind the receptionist but failed. The gray-eyed stranger staring back at me looked as shocked as I was. There was no way that people would know it was me, not unless they stopped and really took a good look, and I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Katie’s comment of a phoenix rising from the ashes wasn’t far off. My hair looked like it was on fire.
Roxy had taken the most drastic option and had given me a severe pixie cut. I’d had to shut my eyes with every snip of the scissors to keep from bolting out of the chair and out of the salon. As he’d explained over and over again, each swish of the shears louder than the last one, my missing hair on my left side left him no choice. When I’d opened my eyes again, a pile of blonde locks and curls lay on the tiled floor like someone had sheared a sheep—a very blonde and singed sheep.
That had been an enough of an indignity. But the color—oh god, the color—that was the icing on the cake. It was like Ronald McDonald and Magenta from The Rocky Horror Picture Show had had a coloring contest and my hair had lost. The vibrant red was more burgundy than crimson, and I was sure it had a name like “cinnamon bark” or “cherry smash.” Whatever it was, you wouldn’t miss me in a crowd.
The receptionist handed me a receipt and smiled before asking if I’d like to make a follow-up appointment. I ignored her and walked out the door, Katie on my heels, already talking a mile a minute.
“See? Isn’t it awesome? You’re the only one I know who could carry off that combo.” Katie moved her hand up and down in my direction, trotting to keep up with my pace. “Now that you look like a proper hipster, we need to get you some clothes.”
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk as passersby gave me strange sideways glances and stares. I’d wanted a change—I’d gotten it in spades.
“Look, I’m grateful, really I am, but it’s a lot to take in at once. I mean, I’m trying to embrace the change, but it’s a little overwhelming right now. Can you dial it back just a bit? Please.” Getting irritated at Katie after I was the one to call her up for this expedition would hardly be fair, but I needed her to rein it in a bit, just tone the Katie meter down to subtle—not that there was ever any such setting.
“Don’t be such an old lady. God, no one died, and you get a clean slate. Plus, your rich angel boyfriend is going to pay for it all. Welcome to my club.” Katie smiled at me, perky as ever, as if what she’d just said should make it all better. I reached for her and pulled her aside, out of the pedestrian traffic.
“Please tell me you didn’t just say that out loud, Katie.”
She yanked her arm out of my grasp, rolling her eyes for good measure. “God, relax, it wasn’t like anyone was listening.”
I gave her a baleful stare that I hoped would shut her up. “But you don’t know that, do you? You don’t get it. Anyone could be listening in, anyone could be a spy, an angel, or worse. After Jekyll Island, all bets are off, and you just can’t go around spouting crap in the hopes that people won’t believe you or will think you’re insane. The danger is real, Katie. You know better.”
An expression passed over Katie’s face before she could lock it down, something I hadn’t seen before on her, but still something I’d recognized on Brianna when I’d been with Adam—envy and perhaps even jealousy. It left me dumbstruck, giving Katie an opportunity to formulate a comeback and confirm my sinking suspicion.
“You would think that, wouldn’t you? All you can see is danger and your fear, but what I see is a shot for some excitement, for something amazing and out of this world.” Katie flung her arms wide, her gaze never wavering from my face, her brown eyes startlingly beautiful but resentful. “Wake up, Poe. Imagine the possibilities. Think of all the people who would give up everything to be in your shoes, to be walking among gods.”
