Page 19

"You bastard! You piece of shit! How dare you do that to me!" The volume of her voice swelled, "You coward, hiding behind your magic, sending that thing to do your dirty work!"

Luc's face was twisted in pain, but he said nothing, just lying there, taking her abuse.

"Polly! No!" I screamed. I had to do something to stop this, make her understand; I knew that he could easily get free, simply because he was larger and bulkier, but it seemed he was unwilling to hurt Polly even if it was to protect himself.

I flung my arms around Polly and heaved, trying to separate the two. Polly thrashed against my grip, trying to throw me off, but it was enough to break her focus. Luc gave a final push and slid away, out of Polly's reach, scrambling to his feet.

"I'm sorry!" Luc shouted. "But don't you see why I had to keep her sedated? She did this before when she first woke up, and she wouldn't listen to me. I couldn't get her to stop long enough to listen! I was hoping you'd explain it to her, but—"

"I'm going to peel the skin off your bones, you asshole!" Polly interrupted with a scream. "You're not gonna get away with this, you motherfu—"

My grip on Polly tightened, pressing the air out of her. She gasped before whipping around to glare at me, but at least it got her to shut up.

I turned back to Luc. "Couldn't you have... restrained her or something? Tied her up and then tried to explain it to her?"

Luc looked aghast at the suggestion.

"Rachel!" Polly shouted at me over her shoulder. "What are you doing? We need to kill this bastard if we're ever going to be free of the curse!"

"You've got it all wrong, Polly! He's not controlling it! It was probably some kind of accident..." I protested, finally voicing the theory that I had been mulling over for the past few days.

"It was no accident."

Polly and I stopped struggling. My grip loosened, but Polly didn't return to her attack on Luc. We both just froze on the spot, looking at him.

"I mean, I didn't summon that thing. But..." his voice trailed off. He stared at the floor, searching for something unseen. "Even so, it is my fault. It..." He paused again, and his face tightened like he was struggling with some decision. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that you need to understand that I mean you no harm, and we're the only ones who can help each other now."

For once, Polly didn't say anything. She just looked at him, scouring his face with her sharp eyes. "How can we trust you?" she hissed, after a moment.

"Because you know me, Polly," Luc said. "Don't you?"

Polly's pale-grey eyes turned hard and cold like ice. "I thought I did."

Luc winced, hurt plain on his face, but it eased away into acceptance.

"I understand. I know you may hate me for what happened to Lillian, but you need to know I never meant for any of that, or any of this, to happen. But, all the same, I'm sorry it did." He managed a final pleading look at us before turning and heading into his room, once again locking us out.

A heavy silence followed his exit—if you didn't count the increased activity of the Beast next door, riled up by our shouting match—as we both worked through his last words in our heads. Polly remained curiously quiet.

Slowly I lowered my guard, half-expecting her to round on me now Luc had left the room. "Polly?" I asked tentatively, ready to bear the brunt of her displeasure for me holding her back and impeding her attack.

But Polly looked calm when she turned to me.

"What... do you... think?" I asked cautiously.

"He seems... sincere. I mean, when I knew him, he was never good at lying," Polly said glancing back at the closed door of Luc's room. "But that might be a new skill he's picked up since I last saw him."

"You don't believe him," I said, a strange disappointment leaking into my voice.

"I can't!" Polly countered angrily. "I still don't know what's going on, and neither do you! Until I'm one-hundred-and-ten percent sure that he's telling the truth, I'm going to keep my guard up. You should too."

I cringed at Polly's reprimand, but she was right. Maybe I was so desperate for help that I was willing to blindly believe that Luc was trustworthy, but I couldn't bring myself to mistrust him either. "Fine. We'll be cautious, but you can't try to murder him anymore."

"Deal," Polly said, a little grudgingly. "Unless he does something to deserve it."

I rolled my eyes but smiled despite myself, despite everything. At least Polly was back.

"How long have I been out of it, and how did we even get here?" Polly asked, suddenly interested in our surroundings now that the crisis had passed.

The Beast let out a particularly loud snarl next door, as it sometimes did.

It made Polly tense reactively, just like I used to.

"Why is that thing...?"

I took her by the hand and led her back to the couch, so I could explain all the things she had missed. It was a long story, but I hoped that, with a little insight, she would grow to trust Luc more. Polly listened carefully but—true to form—sceptically.

"So, the spell worked?" she asked after I had finished giving her a brief synopsis of what had happened. "Or so he says."

"Yeah," I said, my eyes narrowing at Polly, reminding her to keep her hostility towards Luc to a minimum.

"And he's keeping us here because the Beast—" she motioned to the shared wall between the apartments, the entity growling as if on cue, "—can't come in, and if we go out, it'll attack us. How convenient..."

"He's trapped here too," I reminded her. "He earned its ire when he used the last of his powers to save us."

"Right, right," Polly said, waving her hand to cut me off. "So he says. Now what?"

"I don't know." Luc hadn't been in much of a sharing mood since I'd woken up.

"Well, great. So, what? We're just supposed to lie about while he hides in his room? That doesn't seem suspicious at all..."

I glared at her again, but I had to admit she was right.

It didn't make sense to avoid each other just because it was awkward; this all depended on communication now. He might be under the impression that we hated him—which was half-true with Polly—but we had to put that aside if we wanted to save ourselves... And each other. That was the one thing I was one-hundred-and-ten percent sure about: working together was our only hope.

I got off the futon, leaving Polly's side, and headed towards his bedroom. Now was as good as ever.

"Where are you going?" Polly asked.

"To find some things out," I responded, looking back at her. "And to apologize."

Polly didn't protest further as I approached the door. I knocked twice, trying to stir up the courage to actually ask some of the questions that had been piling up in my head.

There was silence for a moment, and I feared he was going to just ignore me again, still too angry to face us. But then suddenly he was there, a sliver of his green eye appearing through a crack in the door.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"Can I come in?"

He paused, and then a meek whisper slipped out, "Only if the redhead stays out there."

I couldn't help but smirk. "Fine."

He opened the door wider and stepped aside to let me pass.

Luc said nothing as I entered the room, even when I turned to stare at him.

He closed the door behind me—not locking it—and we shared an intense look.

We were both worse for the wear.

Luc looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, and I was living on the bare minimums. It was worse than the day I'd first met him.

The collection of clothes he had bought for me consisted entirely of unflattering T-shirts and yoga pants from Walmart, and makeup was only a distant memory.

But there was something unnerving about being alone in his bedroom with him, something electrifying.

We watched each other for a moment before Luc broke our gaze and sat at the edge of his bed.

He looked back at me, bashful and worried—not at all like the suave and talkative stranger I'd met when I had first entered his shop. Now I knew that was an act. The real Luc was thoughtful, kind, and... more than a little damaged.

"What did you want?" he asked finally when the strained silence between us got to be too much.

"I want answers, Luc," I said. My voice sounded much braver than I thought it would; it was almost commanding. Just what I hoped for. "If we're going to work together, and trust you, you need to tell us what the hell is going on."

"I know," Luc groaned, sounding defeated. "I know I can't keep this from you. But it's not exactly easy to come out and say it."

I nodded. "I get that it's uncomfortable, but we can't be in the dark if you want our help."

He hesitated for a moment before patting the edge of the bed beside him. I joined him, but cautiously, just as Polly would have wanted.

He started as soon as I was settled. "Please suspend your disbelief, for a moment. Even in the face of all you've already seen." He motioned towards the wall our apartments shared. The low growling was still audible. "You see Rachel... I'm... I'm cursed."

Cursed. The strange woman who had given me the spellbook had said the same thing. I distractedly wondered if the book was still next door, guarded by the Beast.

"That thing is part of my curse. It attacks people around me, close to me, to keep me isolated and lonely. And through me, it's unfortunately been passed on to you, because it affects..." His voice trailed off for a moment before picking up again. "It started after I left Lillian, after she died. I think it had something to do with her death, but I was never sure. But after that... well, there were others who suffered a similar fate, which is when I finally put it together."

A chill ran down my spine. There were others?

"You see, I didn't realize it until... until..." he choked on the words, burying his face in his hands. He was quiet for a moment, his shoulders shaking as he hid his face, but eventually, he mastered himself again. When he raised his head, his eyes shining with tears. I looked away to spare him some shame.

He somehow found the strength to continue, "U-until it was too late. But I've figured out the pattern now. And now I know I have to be careful. Careful to keep my distance... because it would attack and kill anyone I... fell in love with." Luc whispered the last part so quietly that I barely heard him.

My mind ceased to function, stuck on the last thing he said.

"L-love?" I fumbled the word. I glanced over at him; his face was back in his hands, but the bit I could see through his fingers was bright red. My lips twitched. As eerie as this was, his blush was endearing.

"Yes," he mumbled into his palms. "Love."

Suddenly he lurched up, grabbing my hand, clasping it between two of his; I flinched and tried to pull away, but he was too quick, like a cat, and my resistance was futile. But while his hands gripped me in an iron grasp, his touch was soft and somehow gentle.

My tension eased as he stared at me. I couldn't help but gaze straight back into those perfect, earnest, emerald eyes.

"I just... I want to apologize for the way I treated you when you first visited my shop. I know you were in a fragile place, and I am sorry for the way I acted. I didn't want to hurt you." He sighed, his voice taking a pleading edge. "But I had to. I had to lie to you about what the cards told me, for your own sake. I tried to protect you by not revealing what they really said. I thought that if you didn't know, that if I avoided you, resisted you, that it wouldn't go after you. But I was wrong.

"Rachel, that evening... I wasn't completely honest with you. The cards didn't say that you wouldn't find love any time in the near future. In fact, they said the exact opposite; they told me that you were going to find new love very soon. The cards said that you were going to fall in love... with me."

I just stared at him, expecting him to laugh or sneer or do something that would prove that he was only joking... But he didn't. He was completely serious.

If I hadn't lived through weeks of horror, I wouldn't even have entertained the idea of the cards actually being able to prophesize the future.

But now that I had seen what I had, knowing what I did, knowing that there was more than the physical, the explainable.

.

.

I believed him, especially as I looked into those beautiful, pleading eyes.

In those eyes, I could see that he realized it too.

His defences were dissolving before me.

His eyes ignited with a fire as his gaze searched my own eager face.

He released my hands and reached for me, wrapping his fingers gently around the back of my neck, pulling me close to him.

His lips touched mine, and I knew.

The cards.

.

.

the cards could be right.

I let myself relax into his arms, winding my own fingers into his soft, dark hair... and then Polly's face emerged in my mind, her icy eyes glaring at me from inside my skull. My skin that had just felt like it was aflame suddenly cooled, and I went stiff in Luc's arms.

Luc stopped, sensing the change. He pulled back, his emerald eyes gentle with worry. "Are you okay? What's the matter?"

For a moment, I just looked at him, searching his face for... something. Then I shook my head, unable to clear the image of Polly's scowl from my mind.

"I... I can't do this. This is... I can't... I'm sorry. I just can't."

I unwound myself from him, jumped up, and ran for the door.

??

Well, now we know why the Beast is after Rachel...