Page 2 of Beneath My Skin

She’d turned up when the vehicle suddenly spun into a ditch and my mother died.

If Cer hadn’t been there to urge me out of the car and away from the scene, I would have died too when gasoline from a ruptured fuel line came in contact with the hot engine.

I trusted Cer the way I’d trust a chained dog not to bite me. Which is to say, more than I should, given the circumstances.

I took a final look in the rearview mirror before backing down the driveway into traffic. There was only one reason I was out under those heavy gray skies with snow threatening to fall. As a rule, I didn’t drive in foul weather, pushing against the unrelenting terror that caught me whenever I thought about it. I might be out for a little holiday shopping, but the second those skies opened up my rear end was going home.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Let’s get our presents on.”

No answer.

The first time I showed up at the house after the accident, the demon writing which only I could read burned into my skin, I thought Aunt Lynn would have a heart attack. But Cer had kept me from burning to a crisp, and that was what kept Lynn from shoving me into the nearest foster home.

It made family functions awkward, knowing my aunt hadn’t really wanted to take me in and keep me. Maybe this year I’d get the hug I’d been waiting for since I was seven.

I pulled the Honda around through a crowded superstore parking lot and made my way toward an empty spot near the end. Throwing the car into park, a sharp pain cut through my chest and down my arm. I managed to keep my head from smacking into the steering wheel when I jerked forward in surprise. Doubling over, right arm out and the other wrapped around my torso, my vision dimmed. For several seconds it was all I could do to breathe.

“Okay, Cer, I got it,” I whispered. “Please tell me and get on with it.”

The pain wasn’t always this bad. Sometimes it was worse.

Within seconds, she acknowledged my plea and the agony subsided to a dull roar. Words appeared on my skin in bright-pink lines.

Be careful out there.

I tilted my head and sighed, blinking until the fuzz disappeared. “Are you serious? You try to kill me with the pain and all you can tell me is to be careful?” My voice felt raw. “You’re ridiculous. Do me a favor and don’t talk to me for a while.”

I leaned back in the seat. She did this sometimes. Gave me hardly any information and little to go on, then expected me to jump. Occasionally her words came to something, and I could forget about the agony for a time, knowing she’d done whatever she was meant to do to keep me alive.

Occasionally, she did it just to torture me.

It was one hell of a curse I carried, confined to the shadows because of a guardian demon I hadn’t asked for and couldn’t get rid of, subjected to her whims and flights of fancy until the end of my days, or until she tired of me. I fully intended to break my curse one day. I’d tried—so many times I’d tried—and failed.

Whatever I’d done to deserve Cer, thank you, but I was ready to face life on my own.

I scratched my arm and pushed out of the car into the biting winter wind. This would be a rush job if I’d ever done one. Sparing another glance skyward, I urged my feet to hurry the hell up. The store’s mechanical doors opened in unison and I burst through them like a woman on the edge. I was a woman on the edge.

Under the glaring fluorescent light, the skin visible on my wrist was a sickly, pale shade of yellow. I hastily tugged my shirt down to cover it and hurried down the nearest aisle.

Why would Cer urge me to buy presents for my family, anyway? Christmas was two weeks away. It wasn’t like the three of us cared enough about each other to celebrate for more than an hour on the actual day.

Lynn, my father’s only sister, and her son, my cousin Luke, didn’t care about me much. It wasn’t a drastic kind of loathing, not like the Dursleys felt for Harry Potter. I hadn’t been banished to the tiny space beneath the stairs when I lived with them. But their dislike—their mistrust—was palpable until I turned eighteen and left, after a birthday card with a not-so-gentle reminder to get my stuff packed, along with a wish for the best.

I was never alone, not with the demon nestled inside of me.

Scanning the aisles, I thought about what they might want. Luke was still young enough to appreciate a good video game without thinking it was mundane. I hustled to the entertainment section. What did teenagers find stimulating?

No, I didn’t want to know the answer to that.

I grabbed two games for good measure, one of motorcycle racing and the other a shooter filled with blood and violence. Let my aunt be the judge of which to give him. With those thrown into the cart and another glance out the door—there were too many holiday shoppers to see much of the weather—I flew up the next aisle.

My heart raced with anxiety, and a numbness crept through my fingers and hands up my arms. The report on the television mentioned afternoon flurries. I didn’t do well with snow. Not since my mom died.

With no time to search for a discerning gift for my aunt, I threw several items, whatever I could immediately get my hands on, in the cart and promised myself if I didn’t get anything good I would come back later, when the weather cooperated. For now, a sense of doom hung heavy over me and even though I knew it was the beginning of a panic attack, it didn’t help me feel like I was in control.

I rushed to join the rest of the horde of shoppers at the checkout counter. You’d think with the holidays approaching a major chain store would have more than two registers open at the same time. At least here I had an unimpeded view of outside. Waiting for the snow to drop at any moment.

The chain store was an orgy of anxiety and frustration, and my heart pounded in my chest as I waited. It took another fifteen minutes of nervous nail-biting and frantic glances out the window before it was my turn.

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