Page 9 of Magpie
“ Y ou can’t be here,” I say, barely tasting the words on my tongue as they leave my mouth.
I do not let my gaze travel to his, do not let our eyes meet.
I refuse to believe he is standing here.
I’m looking at the moon, but every fiber of my body can sense him, can feel him as he moves around my apartment.
He is seemingly studying the bare walls of my empty home, as untouched as the day I first entered it.
He may simply be standing beside me, but the urge to resist his aura is staggering.
He is a need I cannot resist, and he fucking knows it .
He knows all he has to do is stand near me, and I will melt into him.
Just as he knows the darkness in me calls out to the darkness in him.
No.
I am more than that darkness; I am stronger than it. I clawed my way out of its murky embrace once, and I refuse to let myself fall back in.
I close my eyes forcefully, steeling my spine and holding myself tight. I do not need him. I never did. I can feel his irritation wafting off him as I continue to hold my ground against the alluring call of his essence. Against that sickly-sweet numbness that begs me to sink into its depths.
“It’s time to come home,” he says again, the spell of his voice settling over me, tingling down my skin.
I keep my eyes shut. “You’re not here. You can’t be here.”
I hear his shoes clicking on the floor as he moves. I feel him come to a stop in front of me. I will not meet his eyes. I will not.
“Magpie…” he croons.
I clench my jaw. “You’re not here. You can’t—”
A strangled gasp escapes my lips, cutting off my whispered mantra, as his velvety gloved fingers grip my chin.
He tips my head back. My mouth is still slightly open, breathing in the midnight-rich scent of him.
His other hand rests against my cheek, swirling his fingers in a soothing motion over my skin.
I am helpless against him, no matter how much I scream at myself to pull away, to turn, to run.
My flesh refuses to fight, instead leaning into his touch.
I feel his icy lips brushing mine as he whispers, “Open your eyes.”
Because part of me still longs for him, and maybe that part of me always will, I obey.
He grins, his teeth flashing bright in the night-dark apartment. “You know you cannot survive without me, so why do you insist on flying so far from home, Magpie?”
His hand drops from my cheek, instead curling around me, pulling me close against him.
My heart hammers in my chest as his hand travels up and down my back in a soothing gesture.
It moves up my shoulders, my neck, until it is winding in my hair, weaving into the tangled locks.
His heady scent fills my nose, numbing my mind with that all-too-familiar haze.
He presses his cheek against mine, his mouth close to my ear.
My arms twitch. A desperate yearning to wrap myself around him begins to pull at my resolve.
I feel him smile as I am unable to stop myself from leaning against him, desperate for the heat his body can provide.
I have been cold for so long .
I feel his lips parting, hear the brief inhale of air before he will whisper in my ear, before he will fill my mind with beautiful words and desperate longing. I will be his once more, and I’m not sure I will ever find the strength to break away again.
“No!” I shout, launching myself backward with such force that I fall, the back of my head cracking against the floor, my eyes shut tight against the spell of his gaze. I cannot let him envelop me in that dark embrace again. I cannot let myself fall into that oblivion.
After a few breathless moments, when he does not reach out to me, does not whisper poisoned words in my ear, I pause. Straining to hear even the tiniest creak of a floorboard, I am greeted with nothing but silence.
I must stay like that for minutes, or maybe hours, my ears aching for the slightest noise. Exhausted from the effort of listening, I finally venture to peek my eyes open. I see an empty room, illuminated by soft moonlight. He is gone.
I look around my small apartment, not believing my eyes. Then I feel it: that growing, gnawing ache in my chest, directly over my heart. A gasp escapes my lips when I realize what has happened.
He is gone.
But so is my key.
If I woke up anyone in the building with my scream, I will never know.
I’m running before the echoes die. The sun is beginning to rise as I make my way toward the train station.
My hands are digging tight into the straps of my backpack, holding it like a lifeline, the only thing keeping me afloat.
In reality, I’m just trying to stop them from shaking.
“Where to?” the ticket clerk asks as I make my way to the front of the line.
“East,” I answer, pulling my backpack open and searching for a stack of bills.
The clerk laughs, jokingly saying, “Any particular place east?” He leans forward, casting his gaze down at me, expecting a laugh in return. I watch the color drain from his face as the amusement dies in his eyes. He leans as far away from me as his chair will allow.
I know what he is feeling: that oppressive, seductive fog that has drawn me in and drowned me. He is smart enough to listen to his senses and fear me, fear the call of that darkness. I wish I had been like him.
“Just east. I’ll know when I get there,” I answer, sliding the bills toward him.
He gapes at the stack, pushing his chair back. At first I think it’s another visceral reaction to me, to what I am, to what I become when I am away from my key for too long. But one glance down at the stack of bills has me freezing in place. A thin sheen of dark crimson liquid has spread over them.
With jerky, unsteady movements, I turn my hand over. That old wound on my palm is open and bleeding.
I pull my hand back, shoving it into my jacket pocket.
Luckily, the clerk seems eager to be done with me, so he doesn’t ask me any more questions.
Bouncing back and forth on the balls of my feet, I watch in panicked anticipation as he mashes his fingers into the keyboard, I assume choosing a location somewhere east at random.
It doesn’t matter where I’m going, not really.
No matter how far I run, the House will call me home.
He needs to scoot closer to his computer, closer to me, to get the printed ticket, and I can smell the fear wafting off him.
With a screeching sound, the printer shoots out a piece of paper, and he snatches it up.
“Here, take it,” he mutters, slamming the ticket down on the counter and turning hurriedly away.
I don’t wait for him to tell me any other information about my train; I know he is done talking to me.
Just like I know he will spend the rest of the day reliving the moment in his mind, going over the details of the dark girl with the bloody money.
By the time lunch rolls around, the blood will have changed in his mind to a spilled beverage, and the dark girl will be nothing more than a shadowy figment.
By dinner, I will be gone from his mind entirely.
He will find himself shying away from his work for a few weeks, never quite understanding why, but I will be nothing but a forgotten memory. A nightmare he can’t remember.
“Ticket, please,” the conductor says as I climb onto the train. I hand him my ticket with my uninjured hand, my hood already pulled tight over my head. No amount of fabric can hide the aura that leaches off me, the dark fog of energy growing deeper the longer I go without my key.
The conductor’s hands are trembling as he rips my ticket, handing me the stub.
He refuses to look at me, and I like that just fine.
Shoving the stub in my pocket, I begin making my way toward the back of the train.
Although the morning started out with a bright sunrise, dark clouds are rolling in, strangling any remnants of light that try in vain to survive.
Out Of Commission is printed in bright red words on a sign taped to the door of a cabin in the back of the train. Peeking over my shoulder, checking that I’m alone, I slide open the door to the compartment, making sure to keep the sign in place as I gently tug the door closed behind me.
Flipping the light switch up and down, I discover the lights are broken, but the meager sun provides enough light for me to see the torn and tattered leather seats on either side of a broken table.
Slinging my bag off my shoulders, I toss it onto the seat and scoot in next to it.
I sigh, leaning my head against the window.
A single raindrop hits the pane of glass as the pressure in the atmosphere breaks.
The light in the cabin begins to wane in the gathering storm.
I tap on the glass, tracing the line of the first raindrop sliding down the pane.
“East,” I whisper to myself, my breath fogging the window in front of me.
I shouldn’t be shocked, I certainly shouldn’t shout, but I do both as a ghost’s finger draws in the fog, etching two words across the window.
The cut on my hand sears, but I barely feel it as I clench my fist, digging my nails into my palm.
Marking my hand with tiny crescents, like the smiling moon that haunts me.
The train begins to move, and the fog of my breath fades from the window, but my eyes remain locked on the ghostly hint of two words traced on the glass:
COME HOME