Sunblind Read online

  “Whoa, Nellie!” Rayna shouts, raising her free hand like it’s a stop sign. “Sorry to disappoint you, Nay, but I’m not like that. I didn’t think that sort of thing ran in the family, but you being twins and all must mean the gay gene just got divided between you and Nap.”

  “I am not a lesbian!”

  I want to slap the disgusted expression right off of Nadine’s face. Being a lesbian would be a huge improvement over being what she really is.

  “Don’t freak out, Nay; there’s nothing wrong with it. I think your brother and Archie make a really cute couple,” Rayna replies, gaining some respect from me at least. “It’s just that I have a boyfriend, and I’m not in the market for a new one, let alone a girlfriend. Sorry if I led you on or anything and, you know, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered, but I’m so not curious about how the other half lives.”

  Rayna catches my eye, but she doesn’t catch my meaning. I’m trying to urge her to leave, to stop talking and just dash out the door before it’s too late. But she thinks I need her help.

  “Dom, you want to hitch a ride with me?” she asks.

  Of all the times to start being polite! No, I do not want a ride. I just want you to leave here before Nadine reveals why you’re here in the first place.

  “No one is leaving,” Nadine says.

  “Watch me.”

  Once again Nadine is too quick for Rayna. Before she can even take a step closer to the door, Nadine raises her arm, and the doorknob bursts into flames.

  “What the hell?!”

  “I told you!” Nadine declares. “No one is leaving.”

  I know exactly what’s going on inside Rayna’s mind; she’s trying to give reason to the unexplainable. She’s trying to logically understand how a doorknob can burst into flames, but she can’t. So now she’s eyeing all of us suspiciously, wondering which one of us is going to crack, tell her that it’s a dumb parlor joke that Nadine’s been performing since she was a little girl. When the silence threatens to choke her, Rayna starts to look around the room for an escape. Maybe she can jump through the window, or if she can make it to the back room, maybe there’s a window there that she’ll be able to open and crawl out of. I can’t be a hypocrite and say that I like Rayna; I don’t. But I feel sorry for her right now because I know exactly how she feels. Luckily, I know exactly what to do. Divert the attention away from the innocent bystander and onto me.

  “Great trick, Nadine,” I say. “Now why don’t you let Rayna go so you and I can finally have it out.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dominy,” Nadine replies. “I don’t want to have anything out with you.”

  As she shakes her head disapprovingly, Luba’s face is practically covered by her long, straggly hair. “Some girls are so egotistical,” she says, each word an effort. “They think every moment is about them.”

  “Everything you people do is about me!” I shriek.

  Luba looks up at me, her two black eyes surrounded by bloodshot red veins.

  “Not tonight, dear.”

  Clutching the six-pack tightly with one hand, Rayna starts to flail her other arm in the air. She’s trying to come off as forceful, but she merely looks frightened. “You people are all seriously in trouble!” she rants. “I told Jeremy I was coming out here to a party, and he’s . . . he’s meeting me here in like ten minutes so you better . . .”

  Nadine’s harsh laughter silences Rayna. “You didn’t tell Jeremy anything because you’re a whore and you were hoping to have some fun here tonight without him,” Nadine correctly surmises. “You’re bored silly with college boy because all he wants to do is wait until marriage, and you’re so slutty you can’t wait until lunchtime to have some fun. Isn’t that right?”

  It’s obvious by Rayna’s shocked expression that Nadine hit the nail on the skank’s head.

  “Oh my God, how do you know that?” Rayna asks. She’s so amazed by Nadine’s knowledge, she’s not even trying to defend her own morals. “Did you read my mind?”

  “No,” Nadine replies. “But Grandma did, and she likes what’s locked inside that pretty little head of yours and your pretty little body.”

  “Dom . . . Dominy, do you know what’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” I reply honestly. “But stay by me. I’m going to help you.”

  Once again Nadine’s laughter, loud and guttural and unnatural, spills out of her body and into the room. “How are you going to help her from up there?”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  Nadine doesn’t answer. Instead she raises both hands as if she wants to wrap them around my neck, and, although she’s several feet from me, I feel pressure around my throat, but nothing like the impact when my back rams into the ceiling.

  “Dominy!” Rayna screams.

  Her scream is so loud I hardly hear the beer bottles break into little pieces when they crash onto the floor. I try to move my arms and legs, but it’s like they’re super-glued to the ceiling. The second I sense that the connection is loosening, I see tiny silver ropes break through the ceiling and wrap around my wrists, my ankles, my waist, and my throat before disappearing once again into the wooden slats above me. I’m chained up tight, and I have a perfect view for what they’re planning to do next. If I had any sense I’d bang my head against the ceiling until I blacked out or stretch my arm through the silver rope so I can gouge out my eyes and go blind. But curiosity makes people stupid, and I’m about to become a fool.

  “Dominy!!” Rayna shrieks. “What’s going on?!”

  The poor girl tries to twist the doorknob that is no longer engulfed in flames, but as expected it’s locked. She rams her fist into the window, but the glass merely bends as if it’s rubber and not glass.

  “Let me out!” she cries.

  “Oh we’ll let you out, Rayna,” Nadine says. “In our own special way.”

  Terrified, Rayna starts to run around the circumference of the room but doesn’t get any farther than the corner. She whips around to face her three captors. Her mind understands that something horrific is going to happen, but her body refuses to give in so easily. She’s twitching; her fingernails are clawing at the walls; her jaw is shaking, but nothing other than unidentifiable sounds are coming out of her mouth.

  “Leave her alone!” I scream. But when I see Nadine and Luba join hands, I know there’s nothing else I can do. Wait! If I can just reach Napoleon, if I can prevent him from holding his grandmother’s hand, maybe I can stop them; maybe I can save a life instead of watching one end.

  “Napoleon, don’t!”

  Nadine looks at me, and I can see the silver light surrounding her become tinged with black. She doesn’t want any competition when it comes to controlling her brother’s spirit.

  “Don’t listen to that animal!”

  “Napoleon! I know you don’t want to do this!” I cry. “Think of Archie!”

  And sometimes the most obvious thing to say is also the most idiotic.

  Nadine’s sneer turns into a smile. I haven’t prevented disaster. I haven’t convinced Napoleon to stop helping his family. I’ve given Nadine all the ammunition she needs to ensure that Napoleon will do exactly as she wants him to.

  “That’s right, Napoleon. Please do think of Archie,” she whispers. “Think how beautiful his white skin will look lying inside a red velvet coffin. It can be easily arranged. Just make a choice. You’re either with your family or you’re against us.”

  I can hear every heart in the cabin beating. It’s like thunderous drums banging and banging and banging, only relenting when Napoleon’s sobs become too loud. And when a bloodcurdling scream erupts from Rayna’s body as she sees him grab hold of his grandmother’s hand.

  Immediately, three pieces of silver light fly out of Nadine’s, Luba’s, and Napoleon’s bodies, traveling through the air in quick, jagged spurts until they connect, and then like a rocket the single stream of light pierces Rayna’s heart.

  She begins
to convulse, her body slamming against the wall, her eyes rolling back into her head, so all I can see are two white orbs staring at me blindly. She is too consumed by pain and fear to even beg for help. And then the change begins.

  Slowly another silver thread starts to fly out of her mouth. As it exits, her body begins to shrivel, the smooth skin on her face wrinkling like a dried leaf; her luxurious black hair turns brittle and gray, and her back curves as if the bones underneath her skin are no longer strong enough to keep her upright. They’re sucking the life out of Rayna and transferring it right into Luba.

  The silver thread moves through the air and enters Luba’s open and eager mouth. Just as Rayna aged before my eyes, Luba becomes younger. Her skin color turns from ash to alabaster, her hair regains shine and returns to the beautiful ebony color it had when she was a younger woman, and her body grows strong and vital. By the time she’s swallowed all of the silver light, she is no longer frail and breakable and old, but healthy and sturdy and, as disgusted as I am to think it, beautiful. This is the woman who cursed my father; this is the woman who started all this agony.

  Seconds after I watch Rayna collapse to the floor, a mass of wrinkled flesh barely covering a skeletal frame, I feel the ropes retract, and I fall. Luckily, my wolf-like instincts prevail, and I hardly feel the impact when I land. I almost give in to my primitive nature, the part of me that wants to devour Nadine and attack Luba and even rattle Napoleon by the shoulders for his part, but there’s another person in the room who needs my help. Rayna.

  It doesn’t matter that I don’t like her. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t my friend. What matters is that she needs my help, and she needs it desperately.

  Racing to her side, I kneel next to her and tenderly lift her body until I’m cradling her in my arms. I gasp because she feels so lightweight, it’s as if she’s made out of paper. Her eyes are dull and unfocused, like they used to hold meaning until someone erased them with a dirty eraser, leaving behind dark blotches. She has no idea why they’ve done this to her, but she understands that all hope, along with her youth, has left her body.

  “Finish . . . this,” she whispers.

  What? No . . . no! I can’t do that. I don’t say a word, but my head is shaking so Rayna will understand I can’t be of help. But she insists.

  “Please, Dominy . . . help me.”

  I look up at the three souls who destroyed the one that I’m holding, and I can’t believe what I’m witnessing. Napoleon is so lost in his own grief and guilt that he can’t even look at me. Luba is so lost in her own newly acquired beauty that she’s actually staring at herself in the mirror, admiring her renewed looks. Only Nadine is watching me; only Nadine cares what I’ll do next.

  “Well, Dominy,” she says. “Are you going to grant the poor girl her last request?”

  There’s absolutely no reaching Nadine; there isn’t a shred of humanity or decency or morality inside her body. How did she ever turn into something so vile? And how can I ever do what Rayna is asking of me?”

  “With my help.”

  Jess’s light appears before me. Its glow is soft, not the blinding, show-offy light I’ve grown accustomed to, but more like the spark of a night-light, just enough to let me know that I’m not alone and that I have nothing to be afraid of.

  “Please, Dominy . . .” Rayna says, gasping for breath. “I can’t stand . . . the pain.”

  “Jess, I . . . I can’t do this,” I say, the tears flowing down my cheeks and stinging my flesh.

  The golden light grows large enough to wrap around me, reminding me that Jess is nearby; she’s with me like she’s always promised.

  “I can’t do this for you,” Jess says. “But I will take Rayna with me and bring her to the other side.”

  I know that I’ve killed before; I know that I’ve taken life, but it was always as a wolf. It was always when I was buried underneath an uncontrollable spirit. This will be the first time I’ll take a life as a human being, with forethought and not in self-defense. But looking at Rayna’s misshapen, broken body and the pain slithering out of her eyes, I know that it’s the only humane thing to do.

  “Please, God, forgive me.”

  Slowly I place my shaking hand on top of Rayna’s mouth, and at first her tiny body struggles. The will to live is such an incredible force; it’s built into all of us and stays with us no matter how much we plead for death. All I can hear is my own crying, so I have no idea if Rayna is making any sounds when I press down just a little bit harder. I keep my hand there until her body stops moving, until I see, for the second time, a soul release itself from its bodily host.

  This time is different than when Essie died; this time Rayna has Jess waiting to take her on the next phase of her journey. I don’t know where she’ll wind up, but I know that it has to be better than here. Holding Rayna’s lifeless body in my arms, I take solace in knowing that I helped in some small way to make her afterlife more bearable than her death.

  “Well done, Dominy,” Nadine comments. “A bit on the sentimental side, but really, well done.”

  I don’t have the strength to answer or argue with or attack Nadine; I have to use every ounce of strength I have left to bury Rayna’s body. Let her family and Jeremy think she ran away or was kidnapped. I can’t allow them to see her body like this; such a sight would be incomprehensible to them. No, I have to reserve my strength to dig a hole in the ground somewhere deep in the woods and cover Rayna’s body with dirt so she’ll never be found.

  And save just enough strength so I can cry myself to sleep tonight.

  Chapter 25

  The graves are piling up.

  Everywhere I turn I see another tombstone belonging to someone who died because of me. Some of them I killed, some of them I watched die, and one died thinking he was doing me a favor. Jess, my father, that vagrant Elliot, Essie, and now Rayna. Five for one. The odds really suck if you come into contact with me.

  Each day since Rayna’s death—correction, since I killed Rayna—has been worse than the one before. Each day since then I’ve carried with me those five lives, the people who are no longer living and wondered what they’d be doing if they hadn’t known me, if they’d never met me. They could be celebrating each day of their lives, enjoying the simplest pleasures or ignoring the gift that they’d been given. It doesn’t matter; at least they’d still be alive.

  Sitting in my classes, working through cheerleading practice, hanging out at home, all I can see are five mutilated and defiled and half-eaten corpses, piled one on top of the other to form a teetering death tower, a symbol of the horror I’ve unleashed onto this town. That’s my gift to the world. And all I can think is that the world would be a better place if only I had never been born.

  It doesn’t matter that my father was the catalyst or that Luba was the origin or that Nadine is the disciple. If it weren’t for me, none of this would have happened. It’s that simple.

  “No, it isn’t, Dominy, and you know that.”

  The ramifications of my being born and turning sixteen might be complicated, Mr. Dice, but break it down and every death has a common denominator: me.

  “I’m really not in the mood for any more Omikami advice,” I say. “Protect my brother, kill my brother, don’t trust Napoleon, no wait he can be trusted, kill Rayna it’ll all be okay, listen to my gut, you’re never alone. I’m tired of it, Mr. Dice, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”

  “You’ve been dealt a difficult hand of cards; that’s true,” he replies. “But you can’t cut a new deck.”

  I hear someone in the study hall laugh, and I assume it’s me. “Sounds like you’re getting your spiritual guidance from an old detective movie.”

  “Sorry, sometimes things do get lost in translation,” he adds. “How about kishi kaisei?”

  Wake from death and return to life. The words Archie spoke at Jess’s funeral.

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Well, in the end the choice is yo
urs, Dominy,” he says. “You can make whatever decision you wish. But remember . . .”

  “Oh my God,” I interrupt. “Please do not tell me that I’m blessed.”

  “No,” he says. “Remember that with every choice there are consequences.”

  When I turn to the right to face Mr. Dice, he’s no longer there. His words cling to me as I walk out into the hall, I think I understand their meaning, but my mind is so cluttered and anxious, I’m not a hundred percent sure that I know what he meant. Maybe one of these days someone will actually say exactly what’s on their mind instead of just being cryptic.

  “I love you, Dominy.”

  My boyfriend has the most perfect timing. Let’s see if he can follow up his words with action. Right here in the hallway.

  “If that’s true,” I whisper, “then . . . make love to me.”

  If Caleb is startled by my brazen request he doesn’t show it, not in his expression or his body language. His beautiful brown eyes don’t blink; they don’t glance around to focus on something other than me; they gaze right into my eyes as if they’re connected to me by some silly imaginary thread. Obviously, the connection isn’t as strong as I thought.

  “No,” he replies softly.

  No? Doesn’t every guy fantasize that his girlfriend is going to ask him to sleep with her? Isn’t that why they ask a girl out in the first place, in the hopes that it’s going to lead to her bedroom or the backseat of their car? Why does my boyfriend have to be different? And why is he leading me into an empty classroom and closing the door behind us? Hmm, has he changed his mind?

  “I dream about making love to you, Dominy, which is not something I ever thought I’d admit to you,” Caleb says, blushing slightly. “And one day I hope to make that dream come true, but I want it to come true because we both want it.”

  Someone hasn’t been listening.

  “I just told you what I wanted,” I snap.

  “And I want to have sex with the girl, not the wolf.”