Skaydal - Demon's Forever

Thorns Beneath Skin

✦Dolly✦

Mila and I stared at the dead seedling for too long. Neither of us spoke. The greenhouse was still warm. The rest of the plants around us looked green, healthy, and alive. Water clung to the leaves. Soil smelled rich and damp. Everything seemed normal. Except for the one tiny basil plant lying black and curled in the tray.

“Dolly,” Mila whispered.

“I didn’t mean to,” I hurriedly whispered.

“I know,”

“I mean, I barely touched it,” I added helplessly.

“I know,” she repeated, and it made my chest hurt. Not because she didn’t believe me. But because she did. I reached toward the tray again, but then I stopped myself before my fingers could touch anything else. Mila noticed. Because of course she did. “Don’t,” she said softly. I pulled my hand back and curled it against my chest.

“What if it spreads?”

“It won’t,”

“You don’t know that,” I snapped.

“No. But panicking won’t help either,” I gave her a look, and she winced. “Sorry, that sounded like something Aria would say,”

“Yeah, it did,” I agreed as I sighed softly.

“We should tell Amani,” my gaze shot to the office. Through the greenhouse wall, I could see my mother talking to one of the farm workers near the storage shed. Riven was behind them, stacking feed bags like he had no idea my world had just cracked open over a dead plant.

“No,” I said. Mila turned to me.

“No?”

“Not yet,”

“Dolly,”

“It was one seedling,” I argued.

“It turned black,” she reminded me, and I let out a soft growl of annoyance.

“I know what it did,”

“Then why are you acting like we can hide it under the table and move on?” she asked.

“Because I don’t want everyone staring at me like I’m about to destroy Skaydal before lunch,” Mila’s expression softened, and that was worse than if she had argued.

“I don’t stare at you like that,” she murmured.

“No. But other people might,”

“They won’t,” I knew she was just trying to reassure me, but she wasn’t helping.

“You can’t promise that,” I said. Mila didn’t answer. Probably because we both knew she couldn’t. Mila couldn’t promise that people wouldn’t stare. I took the dead seedling out of the tray using a small gardening tool instead of my fingers. Mila found a plastic bag, and we wrapped it like evidence from a crime scene. Which, in a way, it was. A tiny, leafy crime scene. It was almost funny. Almost. We worked quietly after that. Mila stayed close, maybe too close, but I didn’t tell her to move. My hands felt strange, even after I washed them twice. My hands weren’t dirty. They weren’t sore. I didn’t feel any different. But it was wrong. Near midday, my father arrived. Because, of course, he did. I saw him before he saw me, walking across the yard toward my mother with that smooth, silent danger he carried without trying. His dark hair was tied back, and his golden eyes moved over the workers, the trucks, the sheds. Then they landed on Riven. And I saw him stop dead in his tracks. Mila noticed it too.

“Oh, this should be fun,” she murmured, and I shot her a look.

“That is my father,”

“Yes. And he currently looks like he is deciding whether murder would ruin Amani’s work schedule,”

“It would,” I said, and she huffed in response.

“Barely,” it was then that my mother spotted my father. We watched as she joined him. Even while they spoke softly, my father’s gaze never moved from Riven. My mother looked calm, as always. But my father looked annoyed. And suspicious. Suddenly, my mother gestured toward Riven. He turned, and we watched as Riven approached them. For the first time since he had arrived, Riven’s calm shifted.

“What?”

“I know, it’s weird,” Mila agreed as we continued to watch them. Riven’s calm wasn’t gone, and it wasn’t as if he was suddenly afraid. But it was as if he was more aware. More cautious. It was interesting to see. Why did my father have that effect on him? Mila and I inched closer to get a better view and so that we could hear them more clearly.

“Josiah Black,” my father introduced himself as he held out his hand. Riven shook his hand before he stepped back.

“Riven Crowe,”

“Your dad is doing that thing,” Mila whispered as she leaned closer.

“What thing?”

“That ‘I’m being polite, but this is actually a threat’ thing,”

“He does have a talent for it,” I admitted. Riven didn’t look away from him. Most people did. Most people felt my father’s power and remembered they had somewhere else to be. Riven only stood there. Human. Supposedly.

“You are new to Skaydal,” my father said, and Riven nodded.

“Yes,”

“Passing through?”

“For now,”

“Interesting,”

“Is it?” Riven asked. Mila grabbed my arm, and admittedly, even I felt like I was on edge listening to their exchange. My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t going to put up with my father’s antics.

“Josiah,” she hissed as she grabbed his arm. When my father turned to look at her, the love in his eyes shone brightly.

“Not to worry, my love,”

“Riven,” my mother ignored my father and turned her attention back to Riven. “The irrigation pipes are near the shed,” he nodded and left without a word. My mother whispered something to my father before she hurried back inside. Before I could say or do anything, my father turned toward us.

“Dolly, Mila,”

“Dad,” I greeted carefully.

“Hello, terrifying parental figure,” my father smiled.

“Hello, miniature Zack,” Mila pretended to be offended, but then she shrugged.

“Fair,”

“How are you?” my father asked me as he stepped closer.

“Fine,”

“No,” he said, and I sighed.

“Can everyone stop hearing that word as a confession?”

“No,” he and Mila answered together.

Traitors.

My mother joined us then, wiping her hands on her jeans.

“Riven is human. I checked. Twice,” she said. But it was the look on my father’s face that told me he wasn’t convinced.

“Human doesn’t always mean harmless,” he reminded us all.

“That’s what Mila said,” I muttered. Mila pointed at herself.

“Because I am wise,” she said with a big smile. My father ignored us as he turned to my mother.

“I don’t like him here,”

“You don’t like anyone here,” she said, and I hid my smile.

“I don’t like the way he looks at Dolly,” my father then said, and I straightened. Even Mila stopped fidgeting.

“You don’t like the way anyone looks at her,” my mother argued.

“True,” Mila whispered.

“No, that’s not true,” my father shook his head.

“It’s a little true,” my mother and I said at the same time. “I can handle a human,” I added, but the words came out sharper than I intended. My parents and Mila stared at me.

“Oh, honey, we know you can,” my mother said, and I groaned. Loudly.

“I’m not a child,”

“No,” my father agreed. “You are not,”

“And I’m not helpless,”

“No one said you were,” Mila said softly.

“And yet, you all act like I am,” I snapped. Mila suddenly found the tomato plants to be very interesting as she carefully removed herself from the inevitable.

“Dolly, we protect each other in this family. That doesn’t mean we think you are weak,” my mother said. The truth was that I wanted to believe her. I mean, mostly, I did. But the dead seedling sat hidden in a plastic bag beneath the worktable, and I wasn’t sure whether I needed protection from Riven. Or from myself.

“Human doesn’t always mean harmless, Dolly,” my father repeated, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my father knew something I didn’t.

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