All Fall Down

Chapter One—

“It’ll just be for a couple weeks! I promise! Come on, Helki…”

I knew I was whining but didn’t care. Those gold eyes would shoot me daggers even was I some knight in shining armor, offering a helping hand. The love of my life looked at everyone that way.

These particular daggers were special, reserved just for me. There was a certain glint to them like a private amusement. That special glint is what originally attracted me to Helki Eagle while I was new to Royce High School last year. We ran into each other very literally, ending with me fracturing her forearm. I became her bodyguard for a month and the midwinter holidays, which I spent trying to win over my dearest’s icy heart.

“You’ve been shutting out the whole world for God-only-knows how long, Helki. Don’t you think it’s about time you start mingling with other life forms?”

The way she watched me now made me think of an ancient goddess, looking down on her world and finding something in it vaguely entertaining. Though she wouldn’t know it, that’s how most people thought of her. She was an untouchable, inconceivable, distrustful goddess with golden eyes and the mixed blood of two opposing cultures.

“I’ve already met your family and Clan,” she replied.

Her voice might have once been musical but had grown harsh over time. The world had wronged my love thrice too often. She hid her emotions very carefully now. She never cried, and rarely smiled—and only for me. I had yet to hear Helki laugh with any humor.

“And I mingle with you,” Helki finished. “That’s what, forty-six life forms?”

“They don’t count. You were required to meet and mingle with them, now that we’re married—”

“We are not married,” she spat, honey eyes narrowing to slits. Not once since the powwow last December had Helki let me get away with saying as much. She was still convinced that our relationship was a fluke. Her tone held the steady trill of an old argument that the jury was still out on. “I’m barely seventeen, and you’re going on nineteen. Firstly, we’re too young to be married. Secondly, you tricked me into saying those vows. Even then they’re not legit. We didn’t even go before a justice of the peace or whatever. And it’s not like I would marry you, if I was old enough or actually knew what I was saying next time around.”

Something akin to hurt must have flickered through my expression because Helki’s normally stoic face went arctic. That happened most often when she was upset. Helki didn’t let much of anything get to her anymore, but she didn’t like to see me upset, which upset her.

I grinned suddenly. “If there’s a next time, there must be a first time,” I started, “Which in this case means—”

“Drop it, Kai,” she interrupted, looking away.

There was something about the way I smiled that always got her. Helki almost always bent to my will if I smiled big enough.

“I don’t want to mingle with your friends, okay?” Her tanned hands dipped into the back pockets of her blue jeans. She studied the cement at our feet while she spoke, through what little space was left between us. When I offered no further argument, she muttered, “You’re my boyfriend. Isn’t that enough?”

Studying Helki, I was reminded again of why I loved her. It wasn’t because of her dark skin, long black hair, that slender ballerina’s body drowning in my red zip-up hoodie, or those honey eyes outlined in charcoal. It was all of that, but something else, too, something more. I couldn’t put a name to what it was that I loved so deeply, but I felt it most strongly when Helki looked away and spoke so softly, giving me a brief glimpse of the innocent child she used to be.

“Sometimes you are really, really irritating, Malachi,” she snarled, looking up at me.

I kept smiling, which only served to piss her off more.

“I don’t see why my meeting your friends should be suddenly so important to you, anyway. You could have given me some warning, and maybe, maybe we could have worked something out. But this came out of nowhere, and you know how I feel about… about…” Helki trailed off as she realized she was giving up a secret.

Too bad she wasn’t that great a secret-keeper to begin with.

I stepped close, closing the space between us, and wrapped my arms around her. “About mortals, my goddess?” I asked.

I nuzzled her cheek with my nose.

A noise like an angry cat’s snarl came from somewhere deep in my girlfriend’s throat.

“You must learn to trust we blasphemous mortals again, Milady,” I whispered into her ear, letting my lips catch on the lobe and tugging gently. Helki continued to make the angry cat sound, but it dropped in volume when she gasped. A shiver ran through her body as an electric current charged through mine. I dropped my mouth to her neck and spoke without thinking, “Not all of us are so bad as my… as… as bad people.”

Silently, I cursed myself.

Her body involuntarily stiffened at the mention of Jamal.

Once upon a time that wasn’t actually too long ago, in a small city up north, a boy raped a girl. She was pretty and naïve, but not in an obvious way, because she always looked so sad, forlorn, foreign, and she didn’t talk to many people. The boy was one of her few friends. He was clearly handsome and strong, and psychotic.

The boy was my cousin.

Now Helki wasn’t so naïve.

“Nice save,” she told me, resigned. “Perhaps you should try a career in digging yourself such holes. At least then you would get paid for it.”

It was a waste of breath to try apologizing. Helki didn’t believe in them.

Instead I kissed her mouth. She accepted it, tilting her head back, parting her lips.

When I broke away a couple minutes later, I managed to gasp breathlessly, “Please meet them.”

Helki shoved me away. I took a step back to humor her, otherwise I wouldn’t have budged. We were approaching the finale. Her gaze was unforgiving, cold, hateful; but I was used to all of that.

“Since when do you even have friends outside your Clan?”

“Since forever,” I reminded her for the billionth time. “There’s Skylar and Alan, and probably Delia if Eddie is coming. They’re coming down from the north. Then there’s Deron from the south, and probably his girlfriend…”

The love of my life looked at me like she was considering the slowest way to kill me.

“And probably his girlfriend Michelle,” finished Helki, “And his best friend, Cindy.” Of course, we had discussed all of this yesterday when the argument first began. Helki continued to mimic me in her bland voice, “You guys have met up every summer for six years. Last year it was you and Deron, heading up north to visit Skylar and Alan, and probably Delia if Eddie was going to be around. The year before that it was all the boys from up north going south to visit Deron, and you joined them along the way. So this year it’s your home’s turn. They’ll be arriving a week from yesterday. And you want to introduce me to them.”

Her eyes narrowed when I opened my mouth to restart my campaign. She stopped me before I could take a breath.

“And I’m saying no. I don’t care if you’re with your friends the rest of the summer. I’ll stay out of your guys’ way. But leave me out of—”

“But that’s the whole reason I want you to meet them! I want to spend my summer with you, Helki.”

“We’ll make time on the side—”

My skepticism must have showed on my face, but I voiced it anyway because I’m a bumbling idiot. “Time on the side?” I echoed. “With six or seven of my friends from out of town around? Do you really expect there to be any time leftover for just me and you…?” I trailed off, realizing as Helki looked away that I had dug myself into yet another hole. “That came out wrong.”

She eyed me almost comically. Keyword: almost. But the comic was tainted by a tragic irony, too akin to pain. Her expression was only funny if I was a sadist.

“Lots of things come out wrong,” Helki murmured, “Doesn’t mean they’re not honest.”

She turned from me to start strolling away down the lane.

Helki left. I didn’t try stopping her again. She would want to cool off on her own.

There was a time I would have chased after Helki and refused to let her alone until I had talked her around. At the time, I had been her self-proclaimed bodyguard and wouldn’t have voluntarily let her out of my sight anyhow. But I’d learned a lot since then. For one thing, Helki liked being solitary. She could stand being around me for only so long before her patience wore out and she got snappish.

I already knew Helki was headed home for the day, so I shouldn’t have to worry about her. Unless she didn’t show up for our date at eight tonight...

-x.o.x.o.-

Soulbird’s note: I wrote this 5 years ago. It’s the sequel to “You Can Be My Bodyguard” – for anyone masochistic enough to have subjected themselves to the torture of reading that trash. I thought I’d lost this old manuscript forever when I spilled water on the computer the only original draft was stored on. Now, with my own personal geek Shane having fixed that computer (I love you, Shane, darling), I have access to a lot of old stories I thought were forever lost, so I’m going to fix them up and post them here for your reading pleasure. Since I’m also a beta-reader for a couple other FP authors, updates are going to be slow. All 20 chapters for “All Fall Down” are typed-up and completed, so it’s just a matter of getting enough feedback from you to motivate me to post them. Is that a hint, you ask? Why yes, yes it is. Reviews are appreciated and always responded to (eventually).