Aftermath (4 page)

A gush of wind, one
after the other, blew past and the dark shadows were gone as far as I
could see. A new presence came with the wind and I knew that the
shadows hadn’t just left, they had fled. This was getting fast
out-of-control. The sounds of bugs and nighttime creatures returned
and I knew I was alone for the time-being. “Luke!” I called out
to him again, my voice shaky and sounding like a cry. Where was he? I
knew he could hear me. Why did he have to believe in me so much? This
was a stupid idea. I found myself wishing Hayden was there, for once
appreciative of his over-protectiveness.

I felt the ground with
my hands, working my way over to the trees. I dug through the cold
mud, pulled up a promising branch to use if necessary, and started
moving once again to find Luke. I debated whether to walk or run.
Running didn’t pan out too well last time but as I heard the
impending silence around me again, I knew it was my only option.
Before I could sprint, I felt a hard, angry arm around my waist and I
was lifted into the air, upside down. I still had the stick in my
hand and was prepared to use it until I realized what, or who, had
caught me.

“Drop the twig, Ana”

“Hayden?” The
combination of his touch and smell brought back all the familiarities
at once.

He didn’t answer. I
let out a slight squeal as I was thrown over his shoulders. Hayden
felt like a rock underneath me. “Hayden?” I pleaded for some sort
of response, and when I didn’t get one I changed my tone. “Put me
down! We have to find Luke.”
Wrong words.
Hayden tensed
slightly at my comment.

I heard footsteps in
front of me, and I quickly panicked.

The footsteps slowed
“Whew!”
Luke.
“All I have to say was what the f—“

“Shut it, Luke.”

“Geez, somebody came
back from Texas cranky. Ana is that you?” I slumped against
Hayden’s death grip, my mind running through everything that
happened in the last ten minutes. I had lost Luke, possibly come
close to death, and Hayden had returned early from Texas. “Damn. I
thought I told you to go back to the car!”

“And you expected her
to comply? “ Hayden scoffed sarcastically.

Hayden dipped down and
picked up the key chain I had dropped earlier. The adrenaline that
ran through my body now eased, leaving me a headache from the extra
blood that shot through my head. I winced.

“Are you okay?”
Hayden and Luke said simultaneously and I felt Hayden’s head snap
in the direction of Luke. There was too much tension in the air. I
dreaded when I would have to answer questions about what I was
thinking to go along with something like this. Even though it wasn’t
Luke’s fault, Hayden would blame him anyway.

“I’m fine,” I
finally answered.

When we got to the gate
I only saw one car and wondered how Hayden got here.

“Where’s the
truck?” I mumbled.

“Home.” He clipped.
Uh oh, the one word answers were not a good sign.

The lights on the car
flashed as it was unlocked.

My head throbbed again
as Hayden sat me down in the back seat.

“
I’m
driving,” Hayden said as a command to Luke.

Luke threw up his arms
in surrender. Not even
he
wanted to push Hayden any further
tonight.

“Hayden…” I
started, as we pulled away from Lafitte.

“Not now, Ana. I’m
not ready to talk about this now.” His jaw muscles clenched.

“Why the hell not?”
Luke butted in, obviously deserting his previous position of not
pushing Hayden. “You can’t shelter her from the Underworld
forever. She needs to know, has to know! She saved the guy's life for
God’s sake. This could be something.”

My eyes shot up. I
had
been able to change the future?

“We are
not
doing this now,” Hayden said through his teeth.

“Whatever, man. It
was amazing.
She
was amazing. Think about it, now we don’t
have to go Hunting later. How lucky did we get that this thing, or
these things, weren’t human?”

Hayden froze at Luke’s
last word. But his emotions quickly changed into something else.
Anger? Jealousy? I didn’t know. “Are you really that stupid? You
could have gotten her killed! I know you’re all bent on destroying
your own life but leave
my
girlfriend out of it. You say you
love her but then you put her life in danger.
If
you truly
loved her, you would leave her alone. She is with me. Whatever you
are trying to do to prove otherwise is not working and is going to
get her killed!”

“Don’t even start
with me. Yeah, yeah we all know your sob story. Well, who the hell
cares you’ve been waiting a hundred years for her? She is my true
One and you know I will never,
can never
, stop trying to make
her love me!”

“Whoa, hello? I am
right here. Stop fighting and stop talking about me like I am not
right in front of you! I was, once again, almost
killed
. That
may seem like a walk in the park for y’all but I am freaking out
back here and have a killer headache so if you guys could, please
save your displays of testosterone for another day.” Hayden whipped
around a curve before finally slowing down. I rubbed my temples,
trying to make the throbbing go away.

“No problem, babe.”
Luke turned his head to wink at me. That was apparently the last
straw for Hayden. The car jolted to a stop and I hit the back of
Luke’s seat. A new pain shot through my head.

“Ah, shoot!” I said
with my hands over my face, feeling like I broke my nose.

“Ana, I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean—“

“Just please take me
home,” I moaned.

“
What
is your
problem, Hayden?” Luke turned toward me, holding out his hand to
touch me. I was too busy cringing in pain to notice what was about to
happen. “Are you ok, Ana?”

“Don’t. Touch.
Her.” I heard a thump and my eyes shot open. The drive felt like it
took forever.
Please let's just make it home.

I leaned through the
middle, creating a barrier between them. “This is ridiculous.
You
guys
are being ridiculous. Please just stop. You are brothers, or
did you forget? And I really don’t have the time, energy or desire
to play referee, especially when it’s about me.” I dropped my
head, gripping it with my arms. I felt the car start moving again and
a few minutes later the fluorescent lights of the garage lit up the
car. The engine went off and no one moved until I lifted my head.

Luke’s hand was on
the handle, his torso turned to exit. “Just so you know, this isn’t
about the curse or what has happened between Ana and me. This is
about her. Just her. And I believe in her, something you fail to do.
If you haven’t noticed, Ana isn’t one to sit back and not do
something. She’s not made of glass; she can handle herself. She can
be something more and tonight has proven that. Just as she has
believed in me, I will never stop believing in her.” The car door
slammed behind him.

Hayden helped me out of
the car and we walked inside toward the kitchen. He handed me a
bottle of water out of the fridge and two headache pills from the
medicine cabinet.

“Thanks,” I said
before popping them in my mouth. I thought I would need the whole
bottle with the way I felt.

Hayden looked me up and
down for the first time, noticing my over-sized male shirt. I
squeezed my eyes shut not wanting to explain, or not knowing how:
either one, I just wasn’t sure at this point. When I opened my
eyes, sympathy displayed all over Hayden’s face. I sighed, taking a
step into his arms, my hands curling to his chest. He kissed my hair
multiple times and I finally felt the pain subside.

“That was awesome!”
I came down to the breakfast table the next morning, my hair still
damp from a shower.

Luke and Hayden shared
the same look of curiosity and confusion. No one commented in return
and I was too impatient to not continue. “Last night. That was—“

“Crazy? Dangerous?
Stupid?” Hayden looked at Luke with the last one.

“—Incredible!” I
sighed. “The running, the excitement.” I slammed my hand down on
the counter for effect. “We saved someone’s life. Someone’s
life
, can you believe it? I dreamt about it. We went there and
it came true right before our eyes and then BAM- we stopped it. How
amazing is that?” I sat down at the breakfast table next to Hayden.
“I can’t wait to do it again.” I molded into the chair with a
sigh.

“You sure did a
one-eighty from last night,” Luke spoke.

“Feeling better, I
suppose?” Hayden smiled at me and leaned in for a kiss.

“Yes. I feel great.”

“That’s amazing
considering you had a bad headache last night, it’s just after six
and
we have to go to school.”

“I know. It’s
weird, isn’t it? I just feel like I have so much energy. I just
want to run around or something. I can’t wait to do it again.”

“Do it again?”
Hayden eyed me, trying to hide his nervousness.

“Well, I’m not
exactly sure how this psychic thing works, but yes, I would want to,
have to
, do it again.”

“How about we just
get through today? It is the first day back and you have dinner with
your father. We can talk about this later tonight. You didn’t have
another dream last night, did you?”

“Surprisingly, no. I
slept great. How are you feeling?”

Hayden’s eyebrows
drew in. “I’m fine, why?”

“I just thought since
you’d be going back to school today, I don’t know, maybe you’d
feel uneasy?” I took a bite of buttered toast Hayden had left out
for me.

He looked at me
curiously, with a half-smile.

I continued. “It’s
high school, not hunting down ghosts. The same way I would feel
uneasy about hunting, maybe you feel that way about high school?”

“That’s very
thoughtful of you, Ana. But no, as long as I am near you I could
never be uneasy.”

“You technically
don’t have to go. I know I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to.”

He laughed. “Yes, I
am well aware of your skipping tendencies, but you know why I am
going. Luke, on the other hand,” he turned his head towards Luke,
obviously still angry about last night, “doesn’t
have
to
go.”

“Uh, yeah I do. I’ve
never graduated before.”

Hayden scoffed. “You
have been tutored your whole life. You’ve had enough credits to
graduate since you were twelve!”

“Yeah but I have
never gone through all the formal stuff. What do you care anyway?”

“I love how
all-of-a-sudden you care so much about going to a mortal high school
when a month ago you would have fought me just for mentioning it.”

“Things change,
brother,” Luke looked at me and winked, “things change.”

I rolled my eyes.
“Speaking of school, we'd better leave now if we don’t want to be
late.”

Hayden still watched
Luke with a clenched jaw. I kissed him on the cheek. “C’mon.”

It was my first day
back at Ecole since Katrina. Slowly, students and teachers had
started to return and the school was now officially open. Ecole,
thankfully, didn’t suffer that much damage from Katrina. Some other
schools had fared a lot worse. Nikki and Marie met me at my locker
before class. I was glad at least
that
remained the same.

Nikki frowned when I
opened my locker. “You’re lucky you had nothing in it, Ana. I had
mine all decorated and had to throw everything away. Gah, I hate
mold!”

Marie put an arm around
her. “We’ll help you get new stuff.”

“I know, I just had
pictures up of us,” Nikki sounded truly sad. “I won’t be able
to get those back.”

I looked around the
hall; it was empty of any familiar faces. “Where is everyone?”

“A lot of people
haven’t come back yet.” Nikki looked in the direction of my
glances.

“Really? It’s been
over two months.”

“I know but, I mean,
look at what we have to deal with: flood damage, and now we have to
share books? I don’t blame them.”

“Share books?” I
felt totally lost.

“Uh yeah, we lost a
lot of books because of Katrina. Plus because of what happened to the
gym, we lost half of the football team.”

“We didn’t lose
everything,” Marie added.

“What do you mean?”
I was dazed, still taking in all the new information.

“There are a lot of
new faces from some other schools.”

“Yeah, not so
friendly faces either,” Nikki agreed.

“I feel like I have
no idea what’s going on. Not only does it feel like the first day
of school all over again but it feels like a completely different
school.” I had hoped my decision to return to Ecole was the right
one. I had wanted to hold on to this part of my life, to have
something normal. Nikki and Marie meant so much to me and I hadn’t
seen Rachel for a while.