Possessed (10 page)

I let out an exhausted sigh. “There’s
no justification for any of this. It will always be plain wrong and
what human wouldn’t be horrified by the sight of all those graves?
But you’re the one who keeps saying that the future doesn’t have to
be horrible and yet we keep having the same conversation. You keep
telling me that you basically deserve all of this, so your logic is
pretty twisted. Besides, if I thought you were a monster I would
have left a long time ago, so stop doing this. Stop telling me how
I’m going to end up feeling about you. What I feel for you is far
from repulsion…”

No, queen. Telling Ken you lurvee him
will make him happy. Keep quiet. He deserves misery.

“
I do believe the future has
the potential to be bright,” he paused. “But not for me. For you.
You can do and be anything you want, Arelia. Maybe I can’t give you
the happy ending you deserve. And you do deserve a happy
ending.”

“
You’re a quitter!” I
whispered, as I pulled away from him again. He looked as if I had
just slapped him across the face. My voice was bitter and furious
as I spoke. “All of these years you’ve been super depressed because
you never had the guts to fight for what was right, and you still
don’t have the guts. Louis’ soul is as lost as yours; don’t you
think you owe it to him to help him? He’s trapped like you are and
just as confused. You’re not alone in this. For once in your life
stand up and experience pain for something worthwhile. Nothing
worth fighting for is easy, isn’t that what you told me? Besides,
this isn’t about me or you, it’s about something bigger. Erzulie
told me to have faith. So you can either choose to fight by my side
or not; either way I’m not giving up.”

Keep me out of this, queen, or you’ll
be very sorry. I don’t make promises I can’t keep.

He didn’t say anything which made me
even angrier.

“
Say something!” I
shouted.

He was quiet, distant and contemplative
as the candlelight bounced off of him. I felt like smacking him
like I had smacked Ivan, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Even
though he was being impossible right now, he’d never been anything
but kind to me.

Standing in an enormous bathroom with
my torn dress, wild hair, bare feet and mud-stained face, I felt so
small and vulnerable, but I wasn’t going to go down without a
fight. I stood on my toes and clenched my fists, even though the
wounded one hurt like hell. “I fell for your crap! I fell for your
romantic and hopeful reflections about the future, and now I
realize how epically stupid I’ve been! How am I supposed to believe
you when you don’t even believe in yourself? You keep saying you
have faith in me, but why don’t you have any faith in yourself?
”

Maybe Ivan was right, there was no
hope. Both of them should live in eternal misery. No. I couldn’t
allow myself to think like that. I couldn’t allow his logic to win.
If everyone started to think like that, then… Then we were all
doomed.

He still didn’t say anything. Instead,
he examined his bloody palm. For some reason, at that second, he
reminded me of Tony, privileged and self-absorbed. I had thought he
was different, but clearly, I was wrong. The only thing I could do
was laugh. I stood there and laughed like a maniac. The rain beat
against the window pane and the candles blazed brightly as the room
filled with my feverish laughs. I continued to laugh until there
were tears in my eyes and my stomach ached wildly. I was so naive.
After what happened last summer I had vowed to be smarter, yet I
found myself in the exact same situation. What did that say about
me?

You’re beginning to see things my way.
I told you so.

In the middle of this episode, I felt a
surge of pepper and rum rush into my mouth. Lucus’ fingers slowly
stroked the back of my neck and made their way down the arch of my
back. A sugary dizziness possessed me as the smell of wet jasmine
and lilies grew stronger. His tongue was hot and determined as it
danced with mine. Ivan’s voice disappeared. Everything disappeared
except for him.

Afterwards, his lips grazed my ear.
“Perhaps I don’t deserve you, but I do want you. I don’t ever want
you to think I’m a coward. I’ve been a coward my entire life, but
not anymore. I can’t promise that I’ll change overnight, but I can
promise that I’ll never give up trying. A dark part of me is
addicted to this misery because I truly believe it’s my eternal
punishment. Marie had good reason for doing this to me, but God
knows Louis doesn’t deserve any of it. I need to ease his
suffering. I owe that to him. I want to be brave. I don’t want to
be held prisoner by my past. I want to be more like you. I’ve never
met anyone like you.”

“
You’ve never met a crazy
person with irrational mood swings?”

He laughed lightly. “You see crazy, I
see alive and spontaneous. Someone who’s not afraid of fighting.
You’re my beautiful spirit, Arelia. Je t'aime,” he said, as he
covered my mouth in another delicious rum and pepper infused
kiss.

Blood filled kisses.

The old Arelia would have been
skeptical, and maybe somewhere deep within me I was. But there
comes a point where being paranoid, overtly critical and analytical
gets infinitely tiresome and you have to let go a little. I didn’t
want to be one of those food-critic types who were so absorbed with
the supposed flaws of a dish that they forgot what the hell they
were eating in the first place. So, at his words, I allowed myself
to feel like Disney Princess again, and I didn’t even try to stop
the cheesy grin that spread across my face. The world was a hopeful
place once more. Did I need Lucus? No. Did I want him? Yes. Why?
Aside from the fact that he was really hot, he was kind, honest and
the trees were made out of cotton candy and chocolate when he was
around. I wanted to be more like him.

Oh please, queen. Are you really going
to buy into that? I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s told every other
chick that’s been in this house. And if I remember correctly, there
were quite a few… Don’t say a word. Different boxes. Blood-filled
boxes.

I wanted to desperately tell him about
Ivan, but when I opened my big mouth none of the words came
out.

“
We belong in different
boxes.” The words unwillingly escaped my lips. Shut up Ivan. I
tried not to think about that mystery girl he had been obsessed
with. Had he told her the same thing? What a lame thing to think at
a time like this.

“
I’ll build a box big enough
for the both of us, if that’s the case,” he whispered.

“
The bathtub is going to
overflow,” I said, as I alerted him to the almost overflowing
tub.

That a girl. Don’t say a word. You’ve
got stones in your passway.

He turned off the tap and then turned
his attention back to me. “You don’t have to say anything; I don’t
expect you to tell me what I want to hear.”

“
Please remember what you
promised me at the lily pond. Please,” I pleaded, not knowing how
else I could let him know that I felt the same way he
did.

He nodded and a slight smile played on
his full lips. He turned me around and my toes curled as I felt his
lips graze my neck and his hands on my back. He unzipped my dress
and my heart picked up pace. “I’ll never ask you to leave again, no
matter how painful it gets. I’ll be there right beside you sharing
it all. You’re stubborn, sometimes painfully infuriating, but above
all impossibly unique and beautiful. I love you. I have since I saw
you rescue Ben and even more so when you threw clumps of mud at
me,” he laughed. “I want to be someone you deserve. Somehow we’ll
get out of this together. We have to. Now, go on and take your
bath. I’m going to go calm Sabrina down and try to explain it all
to her. I should have done that a long time ago,” he said. “Meet me
afterwards?” he asked softly, as he covered my neck in
kisses.

I nodded. For the first time in my
life, I willingly kept my mouth shut. I wanted to remember the
moment exactly as it was. I love you too.

You’re in love with a
murderer.

Chapter 12

An Uninvited
Invitation

I fully immersed myself in the rancid
red water and tried to hold on to the giddy feeling that Lucus had
left me with. Mystically, flames danced around me and the steady
pace of the rain against the window pane soothed away some of the
horrific memories of the night. Maybe this was what Bade had meant
when he had said that beauty and love could be found in the ugliest
circumstances.

Although I was in a happy place, I
couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling I had in the pit of my stomach.
What had Papa Ghede meant by his warning? The only logical
explanation behind the whole scenario was Ivan. But how would I
stop him? He was more powerful than I had given him credit
for.

A firm knock on the door pulled me out
of my reflective moment, and my head emerged from the bizarre red
water.

“
Come in,” I said, figuring
that it must be Grand-mere or Aunt Mae.

The door opened and I was horrified to
see Ivan standing on the other side. Clad in nothing but black
boxer briefs, of course, he lazily leaned against the doorframe
while a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.

“
What the hell, Ivan! Get
out!” I shouted furious.

“
Hey, you said come in,” he
said, as he shut the door behind him. “Did you have fun with
Ken?”

I wasn’t going to let on that I was
nervous. I’d never taken Ivan seriously before, but after tonight,
I knew that he was a pretty powerful voodoo king. I needed to be
calm, and as much as I wanted to argue with him, I wasn’t going to
provoke him more than I already had. I sank lower into the water
and did my best to hide as much of myself from him as
possible.

“
After all you’ve done
tonight, please let me take my bath in peace. You know I haven’t
said anything, but nothing’s changed. I’m not leaving. This little
game isn’t going to work.”

His uncanny grey eyes examined me from
across the room, but he remained silent. He took a satin covered
chair from the corner of the room and pulled it up beside the
bathtub. Then, he placed his feet on the ledge and serenely lit up
the cigarette that was in his hand. The intimidating, threatening
smell of John the Conqueror root, cigarette smoke and rain
surrounded me. Despite the warm temperature of the bath water, my
body went cold and rigid. I wanted nothing more than to run out of
the bathroom, but considering that I was naked and there wasn’t a
towel nearby I didn’t really have much of a choice but to stay in
the tub.

He sat there and watched me in silence.
I felt unbelievably shy all of a sudden. Of course, I could hear
his thoughts. He was singing. Man did he love to sing.

And my road seem dark as
night

I have pains in my hearts

They have taken my appetite

To break the totally awkward moment, I
spoke first. “Whatever you’re planning on doing with Sabrina,
please don’t. Your issues are with me, not her.”

He laughed. “You really think I’d waste
my time messing around with Barbie?”

I shrugged. “How else can you explain
what happened to her? And you did sleep with her, which means you
could have easily taken a piece of her soul.”

He grinned and ran his fingers through
his hair. “Do I sense a hint of jealousy? Don’t worry, there’s
plenty of me to go around. Besides, we each choose to believe what
we want to. If you think that I’m playing around with the princess,
nothing I can say will change your mind.”

I rolled my eyes. “Feeling
philosophical tonight, aren’t we?” I asked, as I brought my fingers
to my temples. The dull ache in my head returned and for a second I
felt like drowning myself. Surely it would be better than sitting
there and arguing with Ivan.

Slowly, almost gracefully, he kneeled
by the bathtub and examined me. The candlelight made his cleft and
frown lines appear deeper than they actually were. “I don’t hide
what I am. I don’t hide behind a veneer unlike most
people.”

I swallowed hard and gathered my
courage. “Not everyone puts on an act. Besides, this isn’t the real
you,” I whispered. “I’m here to listen if you want to talk about
your parents, that girl or what you went through…” My voice trailed
as I examined Ivan’s cynical expression.

“
This is the me that I never
had the courage to be. The me I should have been a long time ago,”
he said, as he reached out and twirled a lock of my wet hair around
his finger. “So sentimental, queen. When did you turn into a
therapist? You’re making me nervous, being all mature and
adult-like.”

I slapped his hand away. Being around
him made me feel fatigued, drained and utterly depressed. He was a
veil of darkness that threatened to push me over the edge of my
sanity. “Why are you here?”

“
I wanted to invite you to
dinner. Given how you’re always stuffing your face, I thought you
might be hungry,” he said, as a smug smile lit up his
face.

I was totally taken aback by his offer
and more than a little skeptical. Truthfully, I was starving but I
needed to get back to Sabrina and then meet Lucus, not have dinner
with a psycho. “I’m not hungry.”