Page 15 of Fanged Secrets
When the tracker stopped moving abruptly I signaled for the cabbie to halt. I paid the driver with some cash I had swiped from Dylan’s bedstand and he dropped me off a little way down the road from where Dylan had parked… beside a graveyard?
With my curiosity heightened, I hurried to catch up. The graveyard was a small plot of earth dotted with shabby tombstones and boxed in by dingy, bedraggled apartment blocks. I paused behind a bus shelter and watched from a distance as Dylan stepped out of her car, holding a bouquet of flowers. That was unexpected. She pushed the rusted gate open and walked through the graveyard, clutching the cluster of violets to her chest.
I watched as she navigated the overgrown pathway, and trailed after her at a safe distance, coming to crouch behind an oak tree near the entrance. The graveyard was neglected, riddled with weeds and mottled with patches of yellow grass. The setting sun cast long shadows behind the tombstones, looking like large teeth rising from the graves.
Eventually, Dylan stopped in front of a crumbling headstone and stared for a while. Standing in her dark coat, unnaturally still, it was hard to tell where she ended and her shadow began. I watched the back of her head as she knelt down, laying the flowers gently on the ground. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she sat there, head bowed. Her dark hair was loose and tumbled down her back and over her shoulders in waves. A mourning veil.
After a few minutes, Dylan laboriously got to her feet and headed back to her car. I held my breath as she passed the oak tree, pressing myself to the knotted bark and hoping she didn’t look my way. But Dylan was staring straight ahead, a faraway look in her eyes like she was wading through memories.
I waited until she got back in her car and drove off before tentatively approaching the grave where she’d laid the flowers. The area around the headstone was neat and tidy, cleared of weeds and debris. The inscription on the stone broke my heart.
Damian Wood – Beloved Brother and Best Friend
I swallowed to dislodge the lump in my throat, a wave of guilt crashing over me. This was Dylan’s brother. Her brother’s grave.
Drawing my knees to my chin, I sat in silence for a moment, absorbing the significance of what I had discovered. I felt a sharp pain for the other woman; this was a grief that mirrored my own. It was the kind of grief that lay dormant during day-to-day life, locked away in the quiet confines of my mind, to be carefully retrieved and examined when no one was there to watch.
Only when my legs grew stiff did I rise again, brushing dirt from my skirt. I left the grave undisturbed and picked my way back through the graveyard in the waning light. I had just made it back to the sidewalk and hauled the rusting gate closed behind me when something moved in the corner of my eye.
Whirling around, I froze on the spot and found Dylan standing right behind me.
Chapter 9
Dylan
You can’t be here. You were never supposed to see this.That was all I could think as I stood before Amara in the dwindling evening light. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t put a pin in the million emotions that writhed in my chest at the sight of her standing there. This grave was my most closely guarded secret, a piece of my past that was mine and mine alone.
“Amara.” I forced the words out, my voice barely more than a whisper. “What are you doing here?”
My hands shook at my sides, curling into fists and unfurling again as one raging emotion was replaced by the next. Anger. Horror. Fury. Shame. Unrelenting, soul-crushing grief. Seeing Amara here, seeing her eyes widen with shock and guilt, felt like a violation of the one place where I still felt close to Damian.
My brother and I had been inseparable, two halves of a whole. The dual product of a human mother and Leyore father, we carved out a life together in the shadows of our broken home. Damian had shielded me from our father before our small familysplintered and fell apart. He had shielded me from the harsh realities of life outside a coven when our father cast us out – castmeout. Damian had followed of his own volition. I should have known then the lengths my brother would go to protect me, even if it cost him his life. Which it did.
I clenched my teeth, an ache spiking along my jaw at the force.
Amara’s face was pale, her hands trembling as she reached for her cell phone. I could hear her heartbeat, fast and erratic, her fear palpable. She was terrified, and that made me pause. I took a deep breath, pushing down the swirling emotions threatening to overwhelm me. I couldn’t afford to let her see how much this affected me. I needed to maintain control, to keep my mask firmly in place.
Amara typed frantically on her cell, the automated, monotone voice a stark contrast to her petrified expression. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
I forced a casual tone, speaking slowly and deliberately, though my insides were churning. “Upgraded from snooping to spying now, have we?”
Amara’s lips trembled, oscillating between a wary smile and a grimace. I considered simply going home, what I had planned to do until I spotted Amara in the graveyard. But I also had a mission, and the quiet voice of reason in the back of my mind whispered that it was time to act. If ever there was a time to test Amara’s loyalty, it was now. Gain her trust, by giving her some of my own. Let her off the hook and see where her allegiance lay.
It made me sick to use my own trauma as a tool to break down her defenses, but it couldn’t be helped. And in that moment I was willing to do anything –anything– to make her stop looking at me with those wide, empathetic eyes.
“Well, you’re here now.” I plastered a smile across my face and saw Amara wince at the insincerity of the expression. “We may as well make the most of it.”
The arcade, to my surprise, was still standing. Leading Amara through the streets of my childhood, I half expected to turn the corner and find it torn down – maybe replaced by a concrete parking lot or a swanky office block – but there it was. Damian had called it our second home. Squeezed between a Korean grocery store and a laundromat, it had been our sanctuary during our desperate struggle for survival.
Stepping inside felt like cracking open a time capsule.
The rows of colorful arcade cabinets were exactly as we’d left them, if a little dulled by time and sticky fingers. The screens flickered with pixelated characters, and the constant beeping and jerky electronic music created a chaotic cacophony that was as disorientating as it was comforting. The carpet, a psychedelic swirl of colors, was worn thin in places, showing the concrete floor beneath.
Taking it all in, it occurred to me that I may have made a grave mistake bringing Amara here. The rundown arcade was more than just old games and flickering lights; it held memories, deeply buried, now suddenly brought to the surface.
Damian and I used to come here whenever we could scrape together enough money. I could almost see him in front of me, his usually drawn face lighting up with excitement when he beat his own high score.
I stiffened, caught in a stupor as the memories flooded back. Grappling for the best seat in the bumper car, trying and failing to grip a bowling ball with child-sized fingers. The bowling alley section had been alive back then, filled with the sound of rolling balls and crashing pins. Now it was a graveyard of stacked chairs and broken games…
