Deception So Dark Page 8

  Tristan, Deirdre, and Ember looked confused, but I didn’t have to open it, or even lift the fog, to know who had sent it. My hand fluttered to my belly.

  Dennis handed it to me. “One of the guards dropped it off.”

  Because everyone was watching, I opened it. Another plain sheet of computer paper from my mother, this time folded into quarters to look like a greeting card.

  Happy birthday, Babydoll

  …was as far as I got before the words became blurry, and my lungs shriveled up, and my blood burned through my veins.

  I tucked it under my paper plate, telling everyone I would read it later. But when I cleared the table, I swept it into the trash can with the rest of the garbage.

  After breakfast, Tristan and I played with my sweet, adorable new kitty for a while, then I put my new cooking supplies away. I vowed to cook something soon, if only to please Dennis and Deirdre. I found places for everything in the cluttered kitchen, straightening the disorderly cabinets and drawers as I went along. But I couldn’t put the knives away. I wanted them put away, but every time I looked at them, the blades glittered and glimmered, sparkled and glowed. I couldn’t bring myself to touch them.

  I didn’t want to cook, but I did want to paint. Specifically, I wanted to paint something for my boyfriend, who had given me the best birthday I’d had in eight years. I sent him upstairs to study, telling him that he would never become a lead investigator for the APR, and then executive director, if his grades were less than excellent. Then Marmalade padded along beside me as I took my new painting supplies into the sunroom, which was separated from the kitchen by sliding glass doors.

  Sunlight streamed through the glass walls, making the room warm and cozy despite the snowy outside view. Marmalade stretched out in a patch of sun while I set up. Deirdre used this room for crafts, and she had stacks of unopened supplies in a low cabinet and half-finished projects on a table. I placed a small canvas onto the easel, sat on the stool, and squeezed some paint onto a palette. Swirling my brush over the colors, I stared at the plain white canvas.

  I had no idea what to paint.

  A few feet away in the kitchen, Deirdre dug through a pile of papers while listening to an audiobook, while Mac sat at her feet and whipped his tail. Dennis came in to grab another piece of cake. Aria yipped while Ember whined into her cell phone. “But Kimber quit last week. You can’t quit the band too. We need you.” Her gaze landed on me, and when she saw me looking, she yanked the glass door shut.

  Her argument and Aria’s yipping continued, along with Deirdre’s audiobook and Mac’s panting, but the noise was muffled enough now that I could tune it out. I stared at the canvas again.

  Hmm. A painting. For Tristan.

  A patch of wildflowers on bright green grass. That’s what he saw when he looked in my eyes. That’s what I would paint for him.

  I put the brush to the canvas, sweeping shades of green across it, then dotted bright yellows and blues and purples over that.

  I turned seventeen today. The first birthday I had without my family. Was my mother sitting in her cell, watching the door, expecting a guard to come any second and escort her to the visiting room to see me? Did my comatose father have even the tiniest inkling that his middle child, his Tessa Blessa, had turned another year older? Had Jillian and Logan done anything to commemorate my birthday?

  I pictured my mind opening up, and I sent a message to them: You’re safe! I’m safe! I’m alive and I’m safe and I’m trying to find you!

  The only thing I felt in return was the Nightmare Eyes as they glowered and gleamed, dark as a starless night and black as a cavern of coal, weighing down on me from above. Burning into my soul. Accusing me. How dare I eat cake and paint and play with my new kitten, when Jillian and Logan were alone and lost and scared? How dare I enjoy myself, when my parents had murdered dozens of people, including two people from this town? Melanie, Nathan, and Cole were fatherless because of my parents. Winter’s father had a heart attack because of my mother. Dennis had a heart attack because of my mother. My parents had planned to kill Tristan.

  How dare I enjoy myself today, when I was Killers’ Spawn?

  “Tessa.”

  Tristan’s voice echoed in the fog. “Tessa, you okay?”

  I raised the fog a little to clear my head. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Are you crying?” He caressed my cheek with his thumb.

  “No,” I said. But when I wiped my cheeks, they were warm and damp. “How’s studying going?” I asked, to change the subject. “Getting a lot done?”

  “I spent most of the time making contact lists of psychics and car dealerships,” he said. “I want to follow up on Brinda’s drawings. But then I had a warning premonition about you. Something about eyes.” He glanced down at the canvas, brows furrowed. “What are you painting?”

  “A patch of—” The twin disks of black smeared on the canvas were nothing like the wildflowers I’d intended to paint. “Oh. I guess I need more practice.”

  “Those are the eyes in my premonition,” he said, frowning.

  Eyes? Yes, the black circles on the canvas could be eyes. But they looked more like my Nightmare Eyes than my wildflower eyes.

  I lifted the canvas from the easel and leaned it against the wall, facing away from us, then replaced it with a fresh, clean one. Tristan stayed with me, and as he nuzzled my neck, I painted the patch of wildflowers I’d originally intended. I darkened some areas and highlighted others, adding shades and tones to give the flowers dimension and depth.

  “There,” I said when I finished. Not bad. Obviously painted by an amateur, not good enough to display in a gallery or anything, but it was much better than my first attempt.

  “Wildflowers,” Tristan said. “For your wildflower eyes.”

  “I made it for you. To thank you. For getting me the perfect gift. And for helping me look for Jillian and Logan.”

  “It’s good, Clockwise. Really good.”

  “It’d be a lot better if you weren’t tickling me with your kisses the whole time,” I said, and swiped a dab of green paint on his nose.

  He kissed me, getting the green paint on my nose too. “Sign your painting so I can hang it in my room.”

  I dipped a thin brush into some paint on the palette, then signed my name in the corner. Tessa. My name glittered and glimmered, sparkled and glowed, reflecting in the sun.

  I’d painted my name in silver.

  I didn’t remember putting silver paint on my palette. I must have done it while I was painting the Nightmare Eyes.

  From the pages of the binder, my parents’ victims glare and glower, and meld together to become a single pair of eyes, dark as a starless night and black as a cavern of coal. The knife pivots on its point as it glitters and glimmers, sparkles and glows. Slowly, blood drips down the blade, drop by drop, drip by drip, then faster and faster, until it forms a river, a river of blood, a flood of blood. Blood from me, my tarnished blood, my tainted blood, my contaminated blood.

  In a low rumble the victims chant Killers’ Spawn, Killers’ Spawn, Killers’ Spawn. And the Nightmare Eyes watch it all from high above, as they glower and gleam, and flash silver with grief and shame, despair and rage.

  The effort of holding back a scream woke me up. From my bedside, Tristan was shaking me. “You’re safe, Tessa.”

  Safe. I was safe. Safe with Tristan. Safe with the Connellys. Safe in Lilybrook. I even had my new kitten sleeping at the foot of my bed, purring contentedly. There was no reason to have these bad dreams. No reason to feel the Nightmare Eyes hovering over me, even while I was awake.

  Except.

  My parents were killers.

  Except.

  My blood was tainted.

  Except.

  Nathan Gallagher hated me. Winter Milbourne hated me. Kellan hated me.

  Except. Except. Except.

  Tristan sat on my bed. “I came in here because I had another warning premonition,” he said. “It was those eyes ag
ain. The ones you painted earlier.”

  Should I tell him? About my dream, about the Nightmare Eyes?

  Above me, the Nightmare Eyes simmered. They didn’t want me to say anything. They wanted me to keep them a secret. A secret of shame and guilt.

  But Tristan already knew about that. He just didn’t know how deep it went. “Those eyes are from all the people my parents killed,” I confessed. “And Kellan, and Nathan. Winter. Melanie, too. They glare at me. Their eyes become one giant pair of Nightmare Eyes.”

  “That’s what you’ve been dreaming about? Every night?”

  “Every night.” Since I started, I may as well tell him the rest. “And a knife. The one my parents used to kill your dad’s team.”

  Shaking his head, he slipped into the bed, under the covers.

  “Tristan,” I gasped. “We’ll get in trouble.”

  “Shh.” He pulled me to him, my back against his chest, and reached under my pajama top. He rested his open palm on my stomach, covering all of my scars. “I wish I could make these disappear,” he whispered, his breath warm on my neck. “Maybe then you could stop feeling so guilty about your parents and the nightmares would stop.” His hand on my belly was warm, too. The good kind of warm, the loving kind of warm, and it soaked into me, into every cell.

  “No more nightmares tonight,” he whispered. “I’ll keep them away.”

  One by one, my muscles relaxed, and I snuggled against him.

  “Us,” he murmured.

  “You and me,” I replied, and closed my eyes. Together, our breath grew slower and deeper. No more nightmares. Not with Tristan holding me like this.

  Instead of a nightmare, I had a vision: Tristan, lounging on the sofa downstairs, his arm around Melanie. Nathan and Winter sitting next to them. All of the Lab Brats, laughing and joking around, wearing green and yellow and watching the Green Bay Packers on TV. Melanie staring up at Tristan like a rescued damsel worshiping her heroic knight. Tristan goofing off, booming with laughter.

  So carefree. So content. Tristan was never like that around me. Around me, he was always stressed and worried and concerned. In Twelve Lakes, he’d tried to keep me safe—safe from my killer parents, safe from a vengeful Kellan. Here in Lilybrook, he was trying to find Jillian and Logan. Whatever dragons he had slain for Melanie were nothing compared to the dragons he was trying to slay for me.

  With the exception of Melanie, none of the Lab Brats had come over since I’d gotten here. No football parties. No booming laughter.

  My parents had stolen money and stolen lives. I had stolen Tristan’s happiness. How long until he realized that? What would he do when he discovered he couldn’t slay my dragons?

  In my vision, Tristan’s laughter echoed, then faded into the fog.

  The art studio was the one place at school where I could forget about the Nightmare Eyes. Art was first period, but I wished it was my last class so I could have something to look forward to all day. I understood now why Logan loved composing music, and why Jillian loved dancing. Being creative felt like freedom.

  Our unit on mosaics had ended last week. I’d decorated a vase using glass tiles in different shades of purple. Mr. Vargas had given me an A. My first A in eight years; my first since my family fled from our big red brick house in Virginia. Deirdre, upon seeing my vase that evening, had promptly placed it on the mantle over the fireplace among Tristan and Ember’s school projects and trophies.

  This morning, a royal blue bowl filled with carefully arranged fruit sat on the center table of the art studio. Mr. Vargas wasn’t there, but he’d left a note next to the bowl that read simply,

  Paint me.

  Gladly.

  My classmates and I settled onto our stools and squeezed paint onto our palettes. As usual, no one spoke directly to me, but I overheard enough to understand that Mr. Vargas often left his students alone in the classroom so his direction would not inhibit our creativity. I took a brush in hand and studied the fruit arrangement for a few moments, then divided the canvas into six equal boxes. After mixing some yellow and green together, I painted the fat curve of the pear, in the bottom left square. The curve of the giant strawberry, complete with seeds and leaves, filled the next box, and the curve of the orange in the box next to that. The curved parts of the purple grape, the shiny red apple, and the yellow pineapple completed the top row. Any part of the canvas that remained white, I painted royal blue to represent the bowl.

  The bell rang, and I appraised my project with a nod, not so much proud of my artwork as I was that I’d kept the fog balanced while I’d painted it. No angry black smears across the canvas. Just colorful fruit. I left my painting on the easel to dry, certain my success in art class would carry me through the day.

  I was proven wrong less than an hour later, when my Spanish teacher passed out a test.

  We had a test today? I didn’t remember hearing about a test. The words on the paper didn’t even look familiar.

  I struggled through the test, guessing at most of the answers. My classmates turned theirs in before I was halfway done. “Señorita Tessa,” the teacher said from her desk in Spanish, “we can’t wait all—”

  The door flew open, and Tristan, my Tristan, strode into the classroom and over to me. Coatless in a Heron University hoodie, hair tousled, breathing hard, as if he’d dropped whatever he’d been doing at his school and rushed to mine at full speed.

  “Tessa,” he said, “We have to go. Now. ”

  Prickly dread crawled up my stomach and into my throat. Something was wrong. Tristan was supposed to be in class, an hour away. He wouldn’t be here if something wasn’t wrong. I swept my things into my book bag and rushed to the door, the movement instinctual after eight years on the run.

  “She’s in the middle of a test, Tristan,” the teacher called after us. “You’re not even a student here anymore. You can’t just come in—”

  “Sorry, Señora Diaz, but this is important,” Tristan replied in perfect Spanish, and whisked me out the door.

  “Tristan, what’s wrong?” I pleaded as we rushed down the hall, my dread turning into nausea.

  He stopped, rubbed my arms because I was shivering, and his lips slowly spread into a broad grin. “I did it, Clockwise. I found Jillian and Logan. I know where they are. Let’s go get them.”

  Jillian and Logan. Tristan found Jillian and Logan. That’s all I could think as Tristan drove at top speed through town. I wished I was psychokinetic so I could make the car go even faster. Better yet, I wished I could teleport. “Where are they?” I said, barely able to speak through my elation. “How did you find them?”

  “I used Google Images to find places that matched Brinda’s drawings.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

  We flew past a long line of cars that were crawling along at the speed limit on Main Street. “I searched for buildings that were similar to the ones she drew, and things like a one-eyed deer,” he said. “Names of towns that could possibly match any of her drawings. I found a few matches, but none of them panned out. But one drawing, that one with the two black curves and the lines sticking down from them? Got a direct hit.”

  “The one that looks like closed eyelids?”

  “There’s an old motel in Braddock, Tennessee called Forty Winks,” he said. “That closed eyelids symbol is its logo. I checked, and they don’t have a security camera, so I figured Jillian and Logan might feel safe if they stayed there. I emailed their photos to the manager and asked him to contact me if they show up. It took a few days, but he called me this morning just as I walked into my first class.”

  He grinned at me, lighting up from the inside out: first his eyes, then his smile. “Jillian and Logan came in early this morning and booked a room.”

  I could not breathe. Jillian and Logan were in Braddock, Tennessee, at the Forty Winks motel, right now. This very moment. “Go, Tristan! Hurry!”

  Tristan pressed hard on the gas. He turned off Main Street, but instead of turning onto the highway, he turn
ed onto a small road lined by trees.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “Isn’t this the way to the lake?”

  “The Lilybrook airfield’s on the other side of the lake,” he said. “Driving to Tennessee would take too long, even if I go at top speed. I got us a charter flight.”

  “A charter? Can you afford that?”

  He shrugged again. “Being an agent for your case in Twelve Lakes was a full time job. I may have lost that job, but I still have the money I made. Most of it’s in the bank, but I keep a bunch of cash in my desk at home.”

  “But still, a charter. It must be so expensive.”

  “I’m not going to let a little money get in the way of finding Jillian and Logan for you.”

  We reached the little airfield in less than ten minutes. There were three small planes outside the low, wide hangar. The fancy one had a big NWSL painted in navy along the side—Northern Wisconsin Science Laboratory, the APR’s plane. The others were smaller, but just as shiny and clean. A pilot was waiting to escort us on board the smallest plane. I grabbed the yellow getaway bag I kept stashed in the trunk of Tristan’s car, and we rushed on board.

  Tristan and I sat next to each other in two black leather seats, me bouncing up and down like a little kid. I couldn’t stop shivering as we took off, but I wasn’t cold. No, I was excited. Anxious. Impatient. And so happy that I wanted to do cartwheels.

  Instead, once the plane reached cruising altitude, I unbuckled my seatbelt and slid over to Tristan, straddling his legs with mine. We were the only two passengers on this little plane, and the pilot was up front, behind a partition. “You did it,” I said. “You found my brother and sister.”

  “I promised you I would, Clockwise.”

  I cupped his face in my hands, unable to stop looking into his big blue eyes, eyes that were filled with love as he looked back at me. “Tristan, you’re amazing.”