CHAPTER ELEVEN
Time stopped; time was racing.
If you've ever been kissed for the first time, you probably are too caught up in the moment to even realize what had just taken place. But if you felt like you were running for your life, most of your life, and the only boy in the universe that seemed to understand gave you this first kiss… well, maybe you could understand why I was so NOT caught up in the moment it happened.
Spot was all muscle and heat and a most delicious feeling I couldn't describe. He held my elbows as if I were going to evaporate from his arms right there and he kissed me like he would never see me again. My brain was working overdrive, and yet, I was thinking nothing at all. For that split second, the entire world was right.
He broke the spell first, leaning back slowly to stare down at me. I was too choked with emotion to do anything but stare back. Love seemed a far reach from what just happened, but I could finally identify with all the flowery sentiments. They made sense now.
Something inside me broke, and I dissolved in tears. I was crying for too many reasons and not enough. I was so overjoyed at seeing Caleb again, yet hopelessly buoyed by my father's desire for me to lead the gang that rivaled Spot and my friends. Nothing made sense, and yet, everything was right.
Spot was very patient, just sort of hanging on to me, though I wondered if it had more to do with the fact that he wanted to hold onto me instead of just trying to comfort me.
"I'm sorry for not telling you I was hiding Caleb. I couldn't get his location away, because if you knew, your happiness would tip off your father. I couldn't risk the both of you getting hurt," Spot whispered in my ear.
"I'm not angry with you," I sobbed. I didn't think I was. I was happy. Caleb was alive, Spot kissed me. I was beyond elated.
After I'd finally calmed down enough to sit back down on the couch, Spot nodded that everyone could rejoin us again, since they'd all stepped out to give us some privacy, I supposed.
"So what happened with Hayden?" I asked.
"Yes. What did happen?" Joker asked, eyeing the boys with a most unusual look. Did she actually looked miffed?
Spot smiled at me. "We made Wicked and Joke lay low while we took care of Hayden," he explained to me.
Ah, that's why Joker looked so angry! Spot had made them sit on the sidelines. Wicked, however, looked sympathetic. I wondered if she knew that Spot had made the right choice in making them stay out of whatever scuffle had ensued.
"Anyways, so we talked to Hayden," Lysander continued.
Talked? It didn't seem like you could talk civilly with that man. He was so frightening that any sort of exchange with him would probably leave me shaking in a corner. He unnerved me.
"And?" I promped.
"We're going to meet with the Black Mist in two days," Spot said, though his mouth was set in a grim line. "Hayden is arranging the meeting."
"So what the hell are you guys going to do? Sit around and smoke cigars?" I demanded. "You aren't going. None of you. End of story."
"The Black Mist doesn't want any of us," Lysander told me. "He wants you and Spot. Just you two."
I snorted. "Then I'll go alone. None of you should get involved. It's my fight."
"Princess, it became our fight when the Black Mist slaughtered our families," Spot said gently. "We want to help you overthrow your father. That's why I'm going to meet with him. Just me."
"Spot Conlon, don't be blind," Joker said. "You can't go alone. The Black Mist is probably going to have goons crawling all over the place. One wrong word and you could get killed."
Spot smiled but it was cold. "If he wants to negotiate like gentlemen, he'll keep his friends out of it. But I won't be unarmed and blind, Joke. Count on it."
I frowned. "I still don't think you should go alone. He asked for us both. Why can't I come?" Spot glared at me but I pressed on. "He'll know something is up if you show up without me. Then all bets are off."
"She has a point," Silver said, though he ducked his head when Spot threw him a terrible sneer.
"Shade isn't coming," Spot informed him.
"Like hell I'm not," I exclaimed.
"Pip, listen to me," Caleb said quietly and I silenced my defiance to listen to my brother. "You are our ace in the hole. If you get injured or killed, that's it. Everyone loses. We have to protect you. All of us."
I kept my mouth shut for a long few minutes, chewing this information over. "Fine," I said simply.
"Fine?" they all exclaimed at once, which I found hilarious.
"Yeah, fine. Can't argue with that logic," I said and then shrugged.
They all just gaped at me and I started laughing again, feeling momentously better than I had in a very, very long time. Smiling, Spot put his arms around me and I leaned against him. Joker cleared her throat loudly.
"All right. Let's all go before the two of them rot our teeth out with their sappiness," she said and shoved everyone out, winking at me before she disappeared as well.
"Tell me what you're thinking," Spot said quietly, threading his fingers through my tangled mess of hair.
Not much of anything, I thought, which was very true. I couldn't breathe and look at him at the same time. I couldn't say that, though. It was pathetic. "I'm thinking… I need a bath," I said finally.
"A bath?" he asked, sounding amused.
I looked up and gave him a silly look. "Yes, a bath. You know, a rag, water, soap…" I trailed off, though he finished for me.
"…Naked. I know the drill."
His eyes softened to such a blue that could only be described as a cloudless summer day. I tilted my head and smiled.
"Why, Ben, are you flirting with me?" I asked, placing a hand over my chest playfully.
"Indeed, Pippa, I am," he teased back and then bent to claim my mouth again, before I could say anything else.
After a heartfelt goodbye to Caleb, I promised everyone I would not express my emotions around my father and give away that I knew where Caleb was or that everything just changed in my world in a few short hours. As long as my father didn't ask questions, which he usually didn't, I would be fine.
The problem was not keeping secrets from my father and acting normal. The problem was resisting the urge to punch the man in the face for taking so many innocent lives. But I knew he would pay for what he'd done, in two days, when Spot went to meet with him.
I knew my father was probably dirty and underhanded, so he would definitely have some tricks up his sleeve, but Spot had his own tricks. I was pretty confident in the fact that Spot would win if there were ever to be a scuffle between him and my father.
Honestly, I wasn't worried too much about leading my dad's gang after he perished. I didn't want anyone else to lead, because it would just prolong the suffering, but I wanted it disbanded. I was not going to war because of some old fighting about some property anymore. It was time to let it go or reach a compromise.
Going through the motions around my father was tedious. I was not the same girl that I was before I met Spot. I was stronger, my attitude had toned down a little bit, and I'd let people in when I hadn't before. I was changing, for the better. I no longer really cowered from my father so much anymore, though I did just enough to avoid getting hit so often.
It was like something inside me snapped and I just wasn't going to take it anymore. I wasn't going to take the glares, the taunts, the horrible names, the shoves, and the hits. I just didn't.
However, when my father was gone for the day on some mysterious errand, I went snooping around in his study. Before, I wouldn't have dared to even lay a finger on the doorknob. But I wanted answers.
Inside one of his desk drawers, I found an odd assortment of letters and papers. The letters, I figured, were a correspondence between a doctor and my father. Why was my father speaking to a doctor? But after reading through one letter, I found that my father was inquiring this doctor about some symptoms I had after my mothers' death. If I'd had any symptoms, other than the obvious amount of grief, then this was news to me.
My father went on and on about how hysterical I was, all the time, crying and screaming, and, he said, I was telling him about strange dreams I was having, in which she was an angel and she was telling me to do things. I had never read such a lie in my entire life!
This doctor, however, seemed to have heard this story before. After my father had reassured him that my hysteria couldn't be cured by the usual means, the doctor agreed to make the trip overseas from London to perform what he called a 'lobotomy' on me, which apparently was a procedure that, not only calmed your hysteria, but erased your memory of the traumatic thing that sent you into hysterics.
"This sounds an awful lot like what was going to happen to Wicked," I said aloud. Hearing it out loud, in my voice, slammed me back into reality. My father was arranging for me to have this asinine procedure done on me!
I shoved all the letters back into m father's drawer and flew down the steps, grabbing my shoes. I had to tell Mirror and Nightshade! I had to tell Spot! In my rush, I noticed an unmarked letter come through the mail slot. I threw open the door and glared around but nobody was there.
I snatched the letter from the ground and peered inside to see a note scrawled hastily on thick card stock.
Beware the birth of May. – KM
I didn't know what that meant, or whom the initials belonged to, but I stuffed the note into my pocket and ran like hell towards Manhattan. I threw open the Lodging House door and seized Mirror's arm.
"Shade! What are you doing?" she shouted as I hauled her onto the walk and forced her to come with me, towards Night's house.
"I'll explain when we get to Night's house!" I promised and we ran the whole way there.
I rapped on the door and Nightshade answered, looking wide-eyed between the two of us.
"Lord, wha' nae?" she demanded.
"It's called a lobotomy," I blurted. "The medical procedure that wipes your memory. I found it in my father's desk. He's been receiving correspondence from a doctor in London who does them. He's convinced the doctor to come here and perform it on me, but there wasn't a date mentioned. And then I got this." I shoved the card stock at her.
Nightshade motioned Mirror up and both girls peered down at the note. They both frowned.
"The birth of May is a poetic way of saying May first. A fortnight from now," Mirror said quietly.
I shook my head, confused. "But what does it mean?"
"It's a warning," Mirror said grimly. "Someone knew you were going to be snooping around in your father's things today. Someone who doesn't want your memories wiped. KM."
"I don't know who KM is, though," I told them, shaking.
"Whose name that you know begins with the letter K?" Mirror asked, though all three of us knew exactly whom it was who sent the warning.
It was Kern.
The next chapter is the last, because I said so. Don't worry. I'm leaving it open for a sequel, if you want one. You might not want one after what happens next chapter, which is almost done. Just saying.
Not much else to say except you should vote/nominate me for the summer FF awards. The link is in my profile. Go crazy, because then I would love you forever. :3
Hope you've enjoyed. Love me with a review? :]
CTB!
xx Wicked
