Daimon by DANIELLE BOLGER (e reader .txt) 📖

how you manage to deal with it, you project the blame on us. You don't own your guilt.”

“I...I...” I stammered weakly. “I didn't do anything wrong.”

“No?” Alex's voice was filled with amusement. “You murdered someone in cold blood, Jane, and you did it well. That's why you are so much like us: you kill with forethought. It's clean, and no one would have ever suspected you. You were only a teenager, but you murdered like a professional. Better than a professional. Many would not be able to stomach what you did.”

I gulped. “No, that wasn't my fault. I only did what anybody else would have...I had to do it. I had to.”

“You really are insane.”

“I didn't kill anyone.” I spat blood. “I...only finished the job.” I was breathing heavily as images flashed back in my mind. I saw a darkly filled glass fall to the floor and my own hand reach forward, looking for the pulse under a man's neck. I remembered watching the paramedics from the shadows; collecting the body, murmuring about another life wasted by drugs and alcohol. There was no investigation into the death, just a burial. A suicide, and I was in the clear. “How, do you know about that?” My voice was barely audible, even to myself.

“Please. You couldn't have turned into a daimon if you were innocent.”

“He deserved it, after what he did. My brother and I were all alone...” I pleaded towards Sam's corpse.

Then Alex came back, grasped my jaw in her soft way, and turned it toward her. Her perfect image was no more than a daze.

“You can stop this pain, Jane. Let go and join us. Become one with our family, and this hurt,” she touched between my breasts, “will be as if it never existed. You were made for this. Death—murder—it was always your calling, long before we intervened. Don't carry around that guilt anymore. Let it go, and be free with us. What do you say, Jane, won't you become a daughter to the Foxes?”

Though she appeared as no more than a blurry double silhouette, I could still tell that she smiled kindly at me. I wanted to fight it; I was so angry with the all the gangs for what they had done to the city, and for what happened to my parents. Yet, her gentility could not be circumvented. She was so sweet, so motherly. She was far younger than my mother and different in appearance, but I could not help feeling that I could trust her like a parent, or even the older sister I never had.

I whispered, “Okay.”

Chapter Thirteen

I ran; so fast that my eyes blurred, so light that I could barely detect the ground as I flitted over its surface. Background noise bounced around rapidly— high, low, high—a school science memory told me it had something to do with the Doppler Effect, though I had long forgotten its meaning. All I knew was that I appreciated when sound was absent. The moments of silence became more frequent and prolonged the further I traveled, so I kept running.

I did not want to be there anymore. I did not want to exist anymore. Abominations should never exist. I felt like a plastic bag that had once came from the earth, and just like one, could never return, except to suffocate it.

I ran away from civilization; from life and temptations; from cell phone reception, and most of all from my friends. My very existence placed them in danger. I wanted to avoid it all; run so far west that I could escape everything.

I suddenly understood my brother's sentimentality for the first time. It was not running to a new life, it was simply running away from this one. What I really wanted to do was run away from who I was and everything that happened during the past week. I wished to escape my bleak future and my terrifying past. I wished I could run away from the impossible situation placed on me the previous night, but that memory just kept catching right back up.

“Wait for us to contact you,” Alex had said after I was beaten on the Sands balcony. “Don't worry, we'll give you a target before you can even feel the first pang of hunger.”

“What if I refuse one of your targets?” I threatened, after finally regaining some strength.

“Oh? What we are offering you is not enough? Immunity from your past, future and present crimes.” Alex glanced back towards Sam's cold body lying lifeless on the floor. As she gritted her teeth, the woman’s beauty did not hit me so strongly anymore. “Then you will be persuaded by other means.”

“Go ahead, beat me up again.” I spat; blood landed next to her feet, missing her designer shoes by millimeters.

She smiled, but the corners of her mouth were tipped with poison. “No, if you continue to prove impertinent, a new approach will be employed. If spilling your blood has no effect on you, then we will just have to use a substitute's. You've got friends at that newspaper you work at, right?”

She gave me back my phone before the two left me, broken, on the balcony. I healed, but gruelingly slowly. It took me twenty minutes just to be able to pull myself back up to my feet. When I tried the door, it was locked. That meant I had to make a jump from that height. I landed, breaking yet more bones upon impact. By the time I managed to hobble home, clothes saturated from swimming across the moat, it was already sunrise. I fell asleep instantly. When I awoke, dread filled me acutely, and suddenly I was fleeing from the city.

There I was, running faster and further. I had been running non-stop for hours, all day in fact, and night approached once more. I wanted to soar down into the depths of the earth, into its moist boiling core. I ran up the hard bitumen, following the hardest track, the most enduring incline, and with dismal ease. I wandered through the bushland, brushing through spindly tree arms that snapped sharply as I soared through them. I leapt onto a sandstone rock, frustrated with the windy path, and kicked away the rubble that crumbled at my feet. I ran far out of the city, always angling higher. I could see light just a little way ahead, but as the hours passed, I found myself only becoming shrouded by greater darkness.

It was not until I reached the summit that I realized the reason for the unreachable brightness. It was the stars and the moon; I could see them, finally. My surprise caused me to stop, and I gazed into them deeply.

The night sky, the billions of stars of the universe, and even a couple of planets; I viewed for the first time in years. I was still not sure whether I was alive, dead, or more alive than ever before. I struggled to define myself.

I collapsed on a spot of grass I found, where trees gave way to the sky. I searched the stars, skimming over the ones that sparkled, and straight away sought out the ones that did not, as I always had.

I remembered, as a child, pointing to the sky and asking, “Is this one Venus?”

“Ah, but that one just twinkled, you see? That means it can't be Venus,” my father had explained.

“It only done it super quick—hardly at all!” I debated, impassioned.

Dad lay on the grass next to me. We were on top of Mount Air; the same mountain I found myself climbing, only perched in a different location. My whole family used to love this place when we, on rare occasions, would drive up and have a picnic here. It was an hour's travel from the city, but for the scenic views and fresh air it was totally worth it. One reason that made it so spectacular was that it was always just the four of us: Mom, Dad, Jack and I. Best of all, there were no work interruptions. There was a strict no-cell-phones policy up here, which I loved. This was not because of my parents' restraint. However, this was due to the fact that back then there just was no reception here. Even now my phone flicked between one and zero bars of signal strength, but back then the bricks picked up no signal at all. That meant that my parents couldn't be on call; the hospital could not reach them here, and we could finally relax without the possibility of canceling our plans or running from the house in the middle of the night. Women in labor would just have to wait a few hours before my mother could rush to help deliver the baby, and the other cardiac surgeons would just have to be able to handle emergencies themselves for a change. Trouble was, my parents were such fantastic doctors that they were always at the hospital, one way or another. So, these times were few, but cherished, and some of the happiest of my life.

“Jane, Jane...” my father sighed. “You cannot make something be what it is not by arguing.”

“You always said I should fight for what I believe in, and not to believe in things just 'cause people say so. You said, that even if someone says something is true, even you, that it still might not be. Only I can prove something as true.”

My father laughed. “I think Einstein would disagree with you. What I said, Jane, is that only you may verify a word for fact. This you have to prove to yourself.”

“Same thing,” I whined.

Again, he laughed gently. “For now, I guess so.”

“So...if this isn't Venus, then where is it?” I pointed back to the night sky.

“You can't see it. The planet is in between us and the sun, and since we are facing away from the sun, we are looking in the opposite direction. Sometimes you can see it just after sunset, or just before sunrise, which is why it is called the evening star or the morning star. It's too late, or too early, to see it now.”

“It's hide-and-seek!” I flipped around, laying on my stomach, but lifted at the elbows. I looked deeply in front of me and pointed into the dirt. “I see you, Venus.” I beamed.

He smiled. “X-ray vision? Very impressive, but I think...” he grabbed my hand and pointed just under the horizon, “it'll be about there, near the sun.”

Then I heard another body drop to the ground next to me. “You know, Edward, if you're going to be star gazing all the time when we come out here, it might be time to invest in a telescope. Christmas is coming up. I would get you one as a surprise, but I know how fussy you can be,” my mother exclaimed.

“I would love one, but it's not practical,” my father responded. “We only have a chance to get out here once or twice a year. I'd rather spend that money on my bright kids or sexy wife.”

“Well, I wouldn't mind a new necklace. I'm thinking diamonds.” My mother touched her collarbone gracefully, as she imagined it on her. “However, I would be happy to wait a little longer for that rock if you wanted to look at those rocks up there. Even if you get only a few uses out of it, if it'll make you happy then it would have been money well spent. Besides, you'll have to retire one day. I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to stargaze then.”

My father took my mother's hand and kissed it gently. He looked back up into her eyes. “I'm already star-gazing.”

My mother pushed him away playfully. “Oh, you smooth mover.” She leaned in and gave him a soft kiss.

“Ew!” Jack had just returned from his solo bush walk. “That's disgusting. Get a room.”

My parents giggled like they were children discovered doing something naughty.

I giggled too, wishing that one day I could find love like they had.

Then time moved on in my mind, where about three years had passed. The gang wars had commenced and darkness sat heavy in everyone's hearts.

I handed a glass out to my father. “You wanted me to get you a drink?”

He raised his head from his hands. Sitting on the living room sofa, he glared icily at me and snatched the beverage. He indulged in a large gulp before slamming it on the coffee table. “I asked