Читать книгу Born of Darkness - Rita Vetere - Страница 11

Chapter 5

Tampa, Florida–Present Day

Jasmine Fairchild stared at T.K.’s handsome face as he slept. Predictably, the sound of his gentle snoring grated on her nerves, and she found herself becoming annoyed. A few minutes ago, caught up in the ecstasy of their lovemaking, he had captivated her, and she thought maybe, maybe this time would be different. But it wasn’t. After it was over, T.K. had flopped back, exhausted, telling her he’d never been with anyone like her before, and that she was amazing. Instead of feeling content to remain close to him, she found she couldn’t wait to get out of his bed, his apartment and his life. Just like all the others.

She lifted back the disheveled sheets and got up quietly, not wanting to wake him or to engage in the awkward conversation she knew would ensue. After slipping on her panties, and while looking around for her jeans, T.K.’s head popped up.

“Hey, where are you going?” His eyes betrayed that he desperately wanted her to stay.

The look only caused her irritation to increase. Why did she have to be like this? So hot before and so cold after.

“Can’t,” she said, offhandedly. She had learned from experience it was better not to drag it out. “Aunt Dora’s probably waiting up for me. Look, it was great and all, but I’ve gotta go.”

“When will I see you again?” he asked, too quickly.

“I dunno. I’m pretty busy what with mid-terms and working at the Blue Flame…” She knew how lame it sounded. She never had been any good at pretending.

T.K.’s look hardened. “Okay. I get it. The earth didn’t move for you. Sure had me fooled for a while there, though.”

“It’s not that.” She caught the annoyance in her tone and softened a bit. “It was great, actually. I just don’t—”

“Don’t what?”

“Nothing.” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. I just don’t feel anything for you, was what she had been about to say. She wanted nothing more to do with him. She pulled up her jeans and, under his scrutiny, collected her bra, hooked it up in the back and slipped her cotton t-shirt over her head. Stepping into her sandals, she hurried out the front door of his apartment without a backward glance, leaving T.K. to wonder what he had done wrong.

The red numbers on the digital clock displayed on the office building across the street told her it was nearly four in the morning as she exited the air-conditioned lobby of T.K.’s apartment and stepped into the steamy, sultry night. Home was fifteen minutes away, and despite the lateness of the hour and Aunt Dora’s constant lectures on not to walk the streets late at night, she decided to do just that, and headed south on Willow. The air was thick and still, and so laden with moisture that halos formed around the street lamps. Jasmine enjoyed the sweltering heat almost as much as most people found it oppressive. The sauna-like humidity never caused her to perspire or wilt. Like an exotic flower, she seemed to thrive on it.

She passed a coffee shop still open for business and stopped to buy a large cup of Columbian, black. She’d had too much to drink before going home with T.K. and didn’t want any grief from her aunt on the off-chance she might be waiting up for her. Back outside, stopped at an intersection waiting for the light to change, she rummaged through her purse for her cigarettes, brought one to her lips to light it, then jumped when a man’s voice spoke close by her ear. She hadn’t noticed anyone nearby.

“Looking for company?”

She turned and came face-to-face with a man in his late twenties, dressed in jeans and t-shirt with cut-off sleeves, a look no doubt designed to show off the musculature of his biceps which, admittedly, was impressive. His dark hair was cropped short and gelled, giving him a tough, dangerous look. He looked her up and down with wolf’s eyes.

Jasmine said nothing for a moment as she studied him, sizing him up. Her appetite for sex was large, and she found the prospect of taking him up on his offer tempting, but something about the rapacious gleam in his eye caused her to reconsider. She narrowed her jade eyes down to slits and she stared back hard at him. Forget it, asshole, you don’t want to do this. Walk away while you still can.

The man’s head jerked back in surprise. His expression quickly changed from salaciousness to one of confusion. She had not spoken a word.

The light changed to green and Jasmine continued to stare at him. That’s right. It’s all downhill from here, buddy. Walk away.

The man turned from her and hurried in the opposite direction as if he’d seen a ghost, looking back over his shoulder at her before picking up his pace. Jasmine crossed at the light and continued on her way home.

She was used to it. What had just happened had happened countless times before. She had come to think of her particular ability as “pressing”. Some were more susceptible to it than others, but it was something she had always been able to do, pressing her thoughts on people. She tried not to take advantage of the talent, generally preferring to play fair, but she had to admit, it came in pretty handy sometimes.

Once, when she was nine, she had tried explaining it to Aunt Dora, but her aunt had not believed her. And when she first confided in her best friend, Carla had looked at her like she was a couple of cards short of a full deck.

“Prove it,” Carla had demanded. When Jasmine pressed a thought on her, Carla had stared back at her in amazement.

“That’s freaky,” she declared. “Can you do it all the time?”

“Yes. But I don’t like to. Especially with grown-ups.”

After that, she had experimented with her ability on one of her teachers, with disastrous results. Miss Richter had insisted she be transferred to another class, telling the principal there was something “off about the girl”. Jasmine, hurt and angry after she’d heard some of the kids talking about it at recess, had cried herself to sleep that night. The very next day, Miss Richter was permanently injured in a car accident and never came back. That was the other thing about Jasmine, the thing that convinced her she was, indeed, a freak. Bad things happened to people who crossed her.

All she wanted was to be like everyone else, to fit in. But she didn’t, and she never would. Especially after what she’d come to think of as the incident. What had happened when she turned sixteen had cemented her suspicion that there was something inherently wrong with her.

Getting used to high school had been difficult enough, and the first two years without Carla, whose parents had sent her to a private school, had been hell. The boys pursued her relentlessly and, as a result, the girls despised her. In the cafeteria, she always sat alone, her previous attempts to sit with other groups of girls having been met with icy stares and silence. Except for the snickering afterward when she walked away.

The real trouble started with her first sexual encounter, a boy named Brendon Walker. A sad smile touched her lips as she remembered the heady sensation of that first experience with what would soon become an addiction. The first time with Brendon had awakened a latent and powerful emotion in her. She remembered how the act itself had felt sacred to her, an awakening that had affected her profoundly. After that first time, Jasmine sought out sex at every opportunity, for she discovered it was the only time she felt truly in her element. She craved it the way most people craved salt on their food; she needed it as much as the air she breathed.

Brendon had been a willing participant in her search for sexual ecstasy. Unfortunately for Jasmine, having been shunned by the girls in school, she had no way of knowing that spiteful Sharon McGillivray, who was one tough cookie and ringleader extraordinaire, considered Brendon to be her property. The day came when, returning home late from school one afternoon, Jasmine found Aunt Dora on her knees, scrubbing away at the sidewalk in front of the house they shared. Even the solvent and scrub brush Aunt Dora was using had not managed to completely erase the words whore and slut painted in large red letters on the walkway.

One look at the dismal expression on Aunt Dora’s face had been enough. Something snapped in Jasmine. A kind of slow burn began inside her, something that grew and grew, until it became too huge to contain. Frightened by what was happening, feeling she would explode if it continued, she directed her growing rage outward with her mind. Immediately, a blast of energy flew from her body, so powerful it rocked her. It all happened so quickly, she’d not had time to think about what she was doing; her reaction had been instinctive. Once she expelled the strange energy, no trace of rage remained, only the empty feeling that had been her constant companion for as far back as she could remember.

She had cause to recall the strange incident the following morning in Lit class when an announcement came over the intercom that Sharon McGillivray and Brendon Walker had both died on the previous day. After watching the news reports, Jasmine learned both teens had died at the same time, in unrelated incidents—right around the time Jasmine had returned from school to find her aunt cleaning the sidewalk. The information had caused her to start shaking uncontrollably. I did that. I made it happen. But how? What did I do? She didn’t know, but it had scared her so badly, she’d not been able to go to school for a week. After that, she’d been extremely careful about controlling her emotions when someone angered or disappointed her.

Returning her thoughts to the present, she discovered she’d arrived at Bayshore and stopped at the stone balustrade to look out at the ocean lapping at the shore. A bright moon lit up the night sky, reflecting off the inky surface of the water. The deepest part of night was her very favorite time, the only time she felt really alive, and she often wondered why this should be so, and why the dead of night held such fascination for her. Maybe it was because the most ordinary daytime objects took on such an alien quality in the middle of the night, reflecting her own feeling of being somehow different. The darkness felt familiar to her, as if this was the reality, and daylight the illusion. A sense of loneliness washed over her and she sighed, wondering if she’d always feel so out of step with the rest of the world.

As she looked out over the moonlit water, a strange doubling-over took place in her thoughts. The moon suddenly appeared unfamiliar, the shore foreign. As if from far away, strains of mystic-sounding music reached her, and for a second, she caught the scent of animals. Jasmine shook her head to clear it, and all returned to normal. Smiling at her fanciful nature, she turned away from the water and resumed walking.

Continuing along Bayshore, she turned the corner at South Orleans. She loved the old neighborhood and the picture-pretty house she and Aunt Dora shared. Large old trees flanked both sides of the avenue. The scent of gardenia from one of the yards filled the night air as she walked along. Many of the houses had stood in the same spot for over a century, a couple of them dating back to the 1800s. About halfway down the street, she pulled open the front gate set into the white picket fence surrounding her house. All was quiet as she moved along the walkway to the long porch fronting the large clapboard house. Aunt Dora had left the outside light on for her, and she entered, using her key.

Before she got halfway up the stairs, Aunt Dora’s voice floated up to her from the living room and Jasmine trotted back down, resigning herself to yet another confrontation with her aunt.

“It’s late, Jasmine. Almost four-thirty.”

Jasmine found her aunt reclined on the large chaise-lounge in the living room, a book on the table beside her, and wearing the silky blue robe she favored. Her thick, silver-and-gold hair tumbled loosely in waves around her shoulders. Jasmine thought how her Aunt, now in her fifties, was still a beautiful woman, and wondered once again why she had never married. “I was just hanging out with some friends,” she said, keeping her tone casual.

“I didn’t hear a car pull up. How did you get home?”

“I, uh, well, I walked. It wasn’t far.”

“Jasmine.” Her aunt’s face was painted with disapproval. “We’ve talked and talked about this. It’s not safe to walk the streets alone at this hour of the night. It’s no wonder I wait up for you to get home. And don’t think I can’t see that you’ve had too much to drink.”

“Aunt Dora, I can take care of myself,” she said, trying hard not to slur her words. The effects of the alcohol she had consumed earlier had not completely dissipated. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m a grown woman now. I’ll be twenty-one next week.”

* * * *

Dora sighed. Tired, she didn’t feel like engaging in the ritual argument with her niece.

“Twenty-one,” she said, almost to herself. Her disapproval melted a little as she turned back to Jasmine. How the girl reminded her of Lilli. If possible, Jasmine was even more exquisite than Lilli had been at the same age. She had inherited Lilli’s golden wavy mane, as well as her tall, slim build and intense jade eyes; eyes which, against her sunkissed complexion, sparkled like emeralds.

“You’re thinking how much she looked like me,” Jasmine said.

Dora stared at her niece, startled out of her reverie. Having raised the girl, she should not have been surprised that Jasmine had articulated her exact thought, but at times the girl’s ability to practically read her mind still took her unawares. She stood up and tied her robe closer around her.

“Yes… she was very much like you. Beautiful. A bit of a rebel when she was your age, also like you. Until she met your father. Charlie was good for her.” Dora paused, remembering how happy her sister had been before Charlie died. “It will be the same for you, I imagine. Someone will come along and make you feel complete, and you won’t feel the need to swim so hard against the current anymore.”

Jasmine suddenly moved toward her and hugged her, hard. It was a rare moment, one of the few times she felt truly connected to her wayward niece.

“G’night Aunt Dora.”

“More like ‘good morning’. Get some sleep now.”

Dora watched Jasmine as she took the stairs, and asked herself once again whether she had done a good enough job of raising her. Had she loved her enough? So much about Jasmine remained an enigma to Dora. Even as a young child, she’d seemed so different from other children. Nothing Dora had ever been able to put her finger on, but there was just something about the girl that set her apart from others, an aloneness that often translated into aloofness.

As Jasmine grew older, the two of them had found themselves at cross purposes more often than not. She remembered the way her niece had displayed no embarrassment in asking about contraceptives when she’d turned sixteen, and all the sleepless nights Dora had endured—especially after the humiliating incident of the sidewalk graffiti. More recently, Dora’s disapproval centered on Jasmine’s lifestyle, the constant late nights and drinking. And tonight, the way she had hugged her, like she was desperate for love. Didn’t she know how much she was loved?

Dora remained staring after her niece disappeared up the stairs. The feeling that Jasmine was headed for disaster had been strong lately, although she couldn’t say why exactly. Perhaps it was just that Jasmine so closely resembled Lilli now, causing Dora to connect her sister’s terrible fate with the child. Dora had always been vigilant with Jasmine, never having gotten over her guilt at having left Lilli alone on the night of her death, yet her efforts were more often than not in vain. She’s not Lilli. Nothing will happen to her. Then, reminding herself that she had always done her very best for the girl, she followed her niece upstairs to try to get a couple of hours sleep.