Caged by Damnation (Caged #2)(12)

At dawn, I gave up the fight to sleep. Willow's breathing was slow and even, her eyes puffy and red, but she had found a measure of peace in her sleep. I didn't want to wake her. I left the bedroom with a quick glance at the window seat. The hazy apparition that Izzy claimed during sleep still misted against the window. She would be there if Willow woke up.

Quietly, I closed the door and tiptoed until I reached the stairs. On a whim, I slipped my legs onto either side of the banister and slid to the base. A tiny speck of laughter leaked through, but stopped abruptly when hands grasped my hips and lowered me to the floor.

I remained still, not daring to breathe or turn. The hands stayed fastened to me, but clenched into claws which bit into my pajama bottoms. It didn't hurt, but it had the echo of anger. I lowered my hands to the ones at my waist, pulled them away, and turned.

I was facing Ash, a darker Ash. Shadows danced against his skin and seemed to sink through his flesh. Anguish lingered in his eyes and he held a look I hadn't seen in months, a look that whispered in my ear and caressed my cheek. He was truly looking at me. We stood in silence, evaluating one another, hesitant to break the tentative truce the darkness had brought with it.

Warmth radiated from him. I wanted him to pull me against his bare torso and hold me the way he used to before everything became weird. Aware of a small tingle in my right hand, I glanced down to see it locked with his. He became aware of it too, but didn't pull away. I didn't want to break the spell that had ensnared us.

Closing my eyes, I hoped that I wasn’t dreaming. It was the first sign that Ash might be willing to repair our relationship; that we might be able to go back to the way things once were.

"I can't." Ash pushed away suddenly, nearly throwing me off balance. "S...." He ran his fingers through his tousled hair and locked his eyes with mine, "I don't know what's real anymore. What you said before about me hurting you, I don't want that, but being around you hurts me." He looked away. The darkness accentuated the fire in his eyes, announcing his lack of control.

"Why?"

"What?" Ash's eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Why does it hurt you? We're family, and no matter what has or hasn't happened in the past, this is real." I moved closer, lifted his hand, and placed it against my open palm. "I'm real. My entire life has been one big lie. Everything I thought I knew has been turned upside down and you...." My voice broke. "You are the only person who has ever managed to make me happy. Even in my darkest hour, you were there for me. I can't believe that you would just throw it all away because of what he did to us!"

I shed the deceitful cloak I had worn all summer, my defense against the chaos of my life. So long as I wore that cloak, I could hide how I truly felt. I could be brave in the face of my loss, smile through the last days before my best friend left, hug the ghostly apparition of my only human friend, and face the family I’d lost. That cloak had taken the place of my box. I no longer closeted myself in a dark abyss of numbness, but wore a mask against the truth. I couldn't do it any longer.

"How could you choose a life without me?" I sounded far away, lost, and a bit like the little girl who had shown up on Maye's lawn so long ago. I hadn't thought I could hurt more than I had then, but life had taught me that there were many types of pain. One kind of pain would be haunting, another like the cold sting of glass slicing through skin, peeling apart my only protection against the frigid winter.

Ash said nothing, he simply stared. In the face of my raw pain, he did nothing, which was almost worse than if he had done something cruel or walked away. His eyes never left my face. He chose to bear witness to my agony, as if he were watching a movie with fictional characters and false emotions. He showed no sign that he recognized the truth of my emotions behind my silver eyes.

"I...."

A single syllable was all he gave me. I couldn't take the betrayal. My pain multiplied, transforming into anger. I was possessed by a need for release that continued to build. Ash pushed backwards with a shocked expression that I barely took note of, gasping for breath. The anger was a fire pushing against every part that was me. Everything I had been through – what I was losing – those that I knew I would soon say goodbye to ... I screamed, gasped, and bore the pain in a single tide.

Ash moved into the corner near the door. Footsteps moved behind me on the staircase and I turned to see both Izzy and Willow hurrying down. When they saw my face, they moved away from me in horror.

The emotional tide came back in a single rush, bathing over me in a horrifying display of emotion that I didn't know I possessed. My attempts to quench what I was feeling were futile, until I looked across the hall at the mirror. It covered the burn damage from Ash's loss of control. My eyes had gone black, matching the ebony veins branching out from them to cover the entirety of my face. My skin looked the way Asmodeus's had when he had been enraged. I recognized it for what it was – a genetic trait passed down from the blood of demons and angels – the eternal proof that evil lurked beneath the surface, bathing in my veins, biding its time until it could consume me.

At once, the charred veins swept back towards my eyes and my face was once again ordinary. My screams turned to ones of fear and I crumpled on the stairs. What was I? A monster? Could a monster fight its nature or would it forever sacrifice its loved ones until death could claim it?