Sanctum (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book 1) Read online

  She shrugged. “It’s a bit cluttered, and you’ve developed a weird obsession with photography. But I can live with that.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who gave me the camera.”

  She laughed. “I have never regretted anything more. I’ve created a monster.”

  I’d spent most of my life trying to forget what had happened to me. Since meeting Nadia, I had moments I wanted to relive, to hold close. When she’d given me that camera for my seventeenth birthday, it was like she’d given me permission to capture it all, like she was saying our friendship was real.

  “You weren’t complaining when your birthday came around.”

  “No. The photograph you gave me was beautiful.” I’d worked really hard to get the perfect shot of her favorite spot on the Newport shoreline and had sat on those rocks for hours, waiting for the sun to drop into place.

  Nadia grinned like she knew what I was thinking. “I just got a new frame—we can hang it in our dorm room!” She threw her arm around me, and I flinched, a reflex I could not control. A year of friendship and a touch still freaked me out—too many people had put their hands on me without permission, and now that instinctive recoil was a part of me, no matter how badly I wanted to get over it. Her arm fell away from me, and she gave me an apologetic smile, which made me feel even worse. She hadn’t really done anything wrong. It wasn’t her fault I was broken.

  A faint rattling pulled me from sleep, which was a relief because I’d been caught in yet another nightmare. After what Rick, my now-former foster father, had done to me, one would think he’d be the one haunting my dreams. And he had something to do with it—he’d revived me the night I’d tried to kill myself. In the moments before he had, I was certain I’d been standing at the gates of hell, about to be sucked in. Unfortunately, when Rick revived me, I’d brought a piece of hell back with me. That was what I dreamed about. Every night. A dark, walled city. Wandering, lost, trapped. A voice whispering to me, You’re perfect. Come back.

  Stay.

  I shuddered and sat up, shaking off the dream, listening hard. Tegan’s soft snores came from the couch across the room. And Nadia wasn’t in her bed.

  With a sick feeling in my stomach, I got up and padded over to the bathroom, staring at the strip of yellow light coming from beneath the closed door. A quiet whimper made me grit my teeth and knock. “Nadia?”

  “I’ll be right out.”

  My hand was already on the doorknob. “Coming in.”

  She was sitting on the bathroom floor, and she swiped a tear from her face with the backs of her fingers as I walked in and shut the door behind me. The bottle of pills was still clutched in her hand.

  I sank to the tiles in front of her. “What’s up?”

  She closed her eyes. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  I tugged the little brown pill bottle from her limp fingers. The label had been peeled off. I pressed the lid and twisted, then peeked inside. Little green pills, OC stamped into their round faces. Goddammit. “You told me you were done with this stuff.” She’d told me that a few times, actually. And each time, I’d hoped it was true.

  Her smile was ghostly. “I was. And I will be. It’s just been so stressful lately.”

  “I get that. But all these do is make you stupid and sleepy.” She was never herself when she was on it, and it pissed me off. Without it, she was my best friend, the girl who had poked her way through my defenses, who had made me trust her, who had made me believe things would get better. On it, she was…gone.

  She sniffled. “It’s just an escape, Lela. Don’t you ever need to escape?”

  I let out a humorless snort. “Yeah. I tried that once. It’s highly overrated.”

  “Sometimes I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.” She pulled her knees to her chest and gave me a cautious look. “And sometimes I don’t want to wake up.”

  A cold sweat prickled on my palms and the back of my neck as I drew in a sharp breath, willing my voice to stay quiet and calm. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Seriously.”

  She frowned. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the words from my mouth. “Did you know I tried to kill myself a few years ago?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. It was…a really rough time. And I wanted to escape. So I wrapped a belt around my neck and pulled it tight.”

  I heard her shift, and her hand closed over my wrist. “God, Lela. What happened?”

  I opened my eyes and stared at her pale fingers wrapped over my skin, warm and clammy. Her hand fell away. “At first I really thought I’d done it. It felt amazing. Like flying.” I looked up at her. “That was the lack of oxygen in my brain.”

  She flinched.

  “But then I was falling. And I hit the ground. Hard.” I pressed my lips together as the sensations tumbled through my head, dragging me back there, to the moment I died. My scrabbling fingers curled around cobblestone, the grit digging up under my fingernails. I raised my head, and I saw the Gates. They swung wide, like the pincers of a giant insect, their spires rising into a black-and-purple sky, their hinges shrieking, shrieking, shrieking.

  Beyond them lay a city bathed in darkness.

  My new home.

  Like a hook buried in my stomach, it reached for me. My bare feet moved automatically, slapping against rough stone. Shoulders jostled me. Someone stumbled against me and grabbed a fistful of my nightgown, and I ripped myself away. I was in the middle of an endless, faceless crowd, all of us lurching like zombies toward the Gates.

  I blinked. Nadia’s eyes were wide as she watched me. “You hit…what do you mean?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. Maybe that’s just what dying feels like. Hitting bottom.” I spoke slowly, choosing each word. I wanted to tell her so badly. If you kill yourself, you go where the monsters are. But I had enough experience to know that people who talked about stuff like this honestly usually ended up in psych wards. Sometimes I wondered if that was where I belonged. I shuddered.

  In front of the Gates stood massive creatures, like men but not men. They wore armor, like medieval knights, and curved swords hung from their belts. They shoved people through the open Gates, jeering and laughing, their eyes glowing like lanterns.

  “Welcome to the Suicide Gates!” one of them bellowed over and over again until his chant echoed in my head like a pulse.

  I shot to my feet and grabbed a cup from the side of the sink. With trembling hands, I turned on the faucet, still trapped in my memories.

  No matter which way I twisted, the Gates were in front of me, sucking me in, hungry for me.

  Rick’s voice closed around me like a net. “Wake up, you little bitch.”

  My head jerked to the side with his slap. Beneath my cheek I felt the grubby nubs of my yellow bedroom rug. The belt was no longer around my neck. It hung from the broad hand of my foster father, who was waving it in front of my face as he crouched over me.

  “What the fuck were you trying to do? Get a little attention? Don’t I give you enough?” He pinched my hip and lowered himself on top of me, crushing my body with his, huffing his beer-soaked breath into my face. I was too stunned and disoriented to even try to get away this time.

  I reached for my throat and winced as my fingers hit raw, swollen welts. My eyes darted to Rick’s face. It was twisted with rage and fear—but also lit up with a glint of excitement that turned my stomach and told me exactly what was coming next.

  The voices of those monster Guards still rang in the buzzing space between my ears as Rick tossed me onto my bed. His thick fingers closed around the back of my neck, pulling at my sweaty, tangled hair, pressing my face into the sheets. “I won’t let anything happen to you, baby.” His voice was gentler now, which filled me with dread.

  As his throaty words hit my ears, telling me how lucky I was that he’d found me in time, that he wouldn’t let me end up in the psych ward or on the streets, that he wouldn’t tell if I wouldn’t, that no one would believe me anyway, that I’d never had it so good�
��I stared at the wall. But all I saw was the Suicide Gates opening for me, calling me back. It hurt more than he did. Because now I knew death was no escape.

  I blinked as my mind finally brought me back to the now. The faucet was still running, the cup in my hands overflowing. “Trust me,” I said to Nadia as I turned off the water. “There’s no better, happy place you go to. Running away from it doesn’t fix anything. Turning yourself into a zombie doesn’t either. Deal with your shit here, Nadia. And do it sober.”

  “It’s easy for you to say, since you never drink or take anything. You’re strong. And I can’t even stand up to my own mother.” Her voice was raspy, like she was trying not to cry.

  I looked down at her. I wasn’t strong. The only reason I didn’t take drugs was because I was scared of losing control, of not being able to protect myself. And my mind was a scary enough place as it was. If I were strong, I would have been able to get over all of it and move on. It had been two years since I tried to die. My life had gotten so much better. But every night that dark city sucked me in, like it hadn’t quite let me go when I’d returned to the land of the living. Other times, too, that horrible place appeared around me, like it was waiting for me to come back. That dark, deep voice whispered to me, urging me to stay there. Perfect, the unseen monster always said, his rank breath hot on the back of my neck. You’re perfect. Each time, I gasped myself awake or rubbed my eyes until the real world appeared again, and wondered why it wouldn’t leave me alone. I had things to live for now. I was never going back.

  I put the cup back and leaned against the sink. “You’re stronger than you think. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have been able to tolerate being my friend.” I was reaching for humor, anything to chase away the memories clamoring in my skull.

  She smiled and rolled her eyes. “You don’t make it easy.” Her playful tone lowered my heart rate. She almost sounded like herself.

  It made me brave. I scooped the pill bottle from the floor and handed it to her. “And I never will. Flush them.”

  She took the bottle from me and examined it. I could tell she wanted to argue, but then she looked up at me and nodded. With slow, heavy movements that told me she’d already taken enough to make her dizzy and loose, Nadia dumped the pills into the toilet and flushed, blinking as the green tablets swirled and disappeared. I sighed with relief. “If you feel like this again, will you talk to me? Before you talk to a dealer?”

  Her cheeks got pink. “Sure. I’m fine, though. Really.” Her pale blue eyes met mine. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s just stress.” Seeing my uncertain look, she laughed. “Come on, Lela. A cheesy old movie is all the escape I need. Van Wilder is calling our names.”

  I shook my head and chuckled, my mood rising quickly as a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders. “The things I do for friendship.”

  TWO

  FOR A FEW WEEKS after our sleepover, Nadia stayed unusually busy. She seemed better, though, mostly back to her old self. But I started to wonder if she was avoiding me. I finally caught up with her after school and asked her if she wanted to hang out, but she said she had some stuff to do and needed to get home. Again.

  When I pulled into my own driveway, Diane was standing on the front porch, jiggling with excitement. “Baby, it’s here,” she hollered as soon as I opened the car door. She hurried down the cement steps, waving a thick envelope. “I’ve been waiting. Don’t make me wait any longer.”

  Diane thrust the envelope at me and bounced up and down while I ripped it open with shaking hands. I’d started to wonder if they’d just laughed and chucked my application as soon as they received it.

  A huge smile stretched my face as I read the acceptance letter. The delinquent girl had turned it around. I was university-bound.

  I read the letter quickly and then flipped to the next page, expecting an enrollment form or something. “Oh my God,” I whispered as I read a second letter tucked behind the acceptance. “They’re giving me a scholarsh—”

  Diane crushed me to her before I had a chance to duck away. My head was pressed to her breast as she jumped up and down, whooping and crying. I was suffocating and wanted to pull away, but this was her moment, too. She’d taken me in when no other foster parent was willing risk it. And her gamble had paid off.

  I let her squeeze me for a few seconds and then held up the letter to distract her. She released me and grabbed it. I stepped back, took my cell from my pocket, and hit send on Nadia’s number. She didn’t pick up.

  “I’ll make anything you want for dinner tonight, baby,” Diane said, wiping her eyes. “Anything.”

  “Can I take a rain check on that? I want to show this to Nadia.” Whatever she had going on, I knew she’d be excited.

  Diane nodded and handed me the letter. “Go ahead. Tell her thank you for me.” She wagged her finger at me. “And be nice when she says ‘I told you so’.”

  I laid the letter flat on my passenger seat and reread it at every stoplight until I turned onto Nadia’s waterfront street. I knocked at her front door a few times, but no one answered. Letter in hand, I jogged along the side of the house toward the back terrace. The cool, humid wind off the bay lifted my hair, bringing my curls to life. I pushed the strands back impatiently. “Nadia? Are you here?”

  She was in her usual spot on the rear patio, looking out at the water from her chaise lounge, knees pulled to her chest. I skipped onto the elaborate brickwork, waiting for her to turn her head. I touched her shoulder. “Hey, you didn’t answer your phone.”

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were so pale, her pupils tiny pinpoints. I muscled past a twist of anxiety and squinted, hoping it was a trick of the early-evening light. Nope.

  “I couldn’t…find it,” she said.

  She was numbed up and high once again.

  I drew a long breath through my nose. I didn’t want to get into another argument with her tonight. Not when we had so much to be happy about. “I got the letter today. It’s official. And guess what?”

  I waved the paper in front of her, wanting her to perk up and reach for it. She didn’t, so I laid it on the chaise next to her pedicured toes. She was still looking up at me, a vague smile on her face. “You’re happy. It’s good to see you happy.”

  “We did it!” I laughed. “We’re going! We can fill out that housing form now.”

  Her smile guttered and faded. “You did it,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “I’m so proud of you. You’re going to have such a good time.”

  “What?” I asked as the door to the breakfast room slid open.

  “Nadia,” sighed Mrs. Vetter, a wineglass in her heavily jeweled hand. As usual, she didn’t even acknowledge me. “John is picking me up in a few minutes.”

  For a moment I was struck by the resemblance between mother and daughter, which had grown more apparent over the last few months as we neared the finish line for graduation. Both of them were rail thin, well dressed, pale and beautiful…and had tiny pupils.

  Nadia waved her hand absently.

  “Good,” Mrs. Vetter said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” The door slid shut, and her presence was forgotten, like a raindrop hitting the surface of the ocean.

  “So,” I prompted, pushing my scholarship letter toward Nadia again. “Read it! See what your hard work and constant nagging accomplished.”

  Nadia’s eyes had returned to the choppy gray waters of the Narragansett Bay. Deep in my belly, anger coiled. This was the shining moment, the one where I proved I was worth the time she’d spent on me. I needed her to see it. I needed her to say it.

  I needed her to be all right.

  I stood up and waved my hand in front of her face. “How much did you take this time?”

  She leaned back and grinned. Her arms splayed out, open and helpless. “No idea.”

  “Do you know how fucking pathetic that sounds?” I blurted, unable to hold back my frustration any longer. I snatched the now-creased letter from the lounge, crushing
it in my fist.

  She closed her eyes. “It feels fucking good, though.”

  I had to step back to keep from kicking her chair over in a desperate attempt to snap her out of her trance, to bring back the Nadia who gave a shit. “Maybe I don’t want to room with you. I’ll actually be at URI to accomplish something, not just to hang out between fixes.”

  I wanted her to wince. To tell me what a bitch I was. To show me I meant enough to her to be able to reach her.

  Instead, she smiled again, a special smile, a devastating smile. The ultimate brush-off smile. In the time we’d been friends, I’d seen her do it to other people, this slow, fake-indulgent quirk of the lips that killed conversations, withering girls and boys alike with its confident chill. It was a smile that said No matter what you say, you can’t make me care. I’d seen her give it to her worthless ex-boyfriend Greg a thousand times. Her mom, too. I’d even seen her give it to Tegan once. And now she was aiming it at me for the first time. “Go home, Lela. You’re kind of a buzz kill.”

  “Okay,” I said, voice shaking. “You’ve turned into a real bitch, you know that?”

  Her hand rose slowly, trembling slightly as she raised her middle finger.

  In my head, the world was caving in. This was the thing I’d feared ever since I’d let myself get close to her—that like everyone else, she would turn her back on me. I felt like such an idiot having all these dreams of being away at college with my best friend. I had started to trust it. And I should have known better. No one could possibly feel that way about me.

  That cold smile hadn’t left her face, and I wanted to smack her. I wanted to shake her. Anything to get a reaction, to get some response that showed I mattered to her, that she was as afraid of losing me as I was of losing her. I stood there, waiting for the slightest change in her expression, the slightest twitch of her fingers.

  Nothing.

  Tears stung my eyes, but the heat of my anger burned them away. “You’re gonna be just like your mom, Nadia. Congratulations. Thanks for saving me from having to watch.”