Pure Requiem - Aja James Page 0,48

the wherewithal to fill up with my spunk. Now tell me I’m loyal, protective and brave. You have no fucking clue who I am.”

“Is the child Benji?”

I stumble a step back in shock. How did she know?!

“W-What?”

“It’s obvious to anyone who sees you together. He has a lot of the same expressions you have, and his blue eyes are the same shape, with the same thicket of long, enviable lashes. His mouth too, looks like yours, and his nose. When he grows up into a man, I bet his jawline will match yours too. Sometimes, when you sit or stand together, you have the same posture and reactions.”

“You-you—”

I want to say she’s stupid. Dreaming. Imagining things. But the words get stuck in my throat. I can’t deny the only untainted truth in my existence.

I can’t.

And I don’t want to.

I’m indescribably relieved that someone else knows my secret. That I can finally share this terrifying, exhilarating, unfathomable love I have for that precocious boy.

“Sophia knows too,” she lobs another bomb at my feet. “We figured it out together.”

Since when are Liv and Sophia BFFs? What hell am I living in now? That the only two friends I had across my entire existence should find each other and band against me? (I don’t count Dalair. He’s my brother. He’s more than just a friend).

“We didn’t know the hows,” Liv continues, “but we could see the connection when we looked at you two together. You have an affinity to Benji, and vice versa, that neither of you have with anyone else. He doesn’t even have that with Inanna and Gabriel. It’s like you share the same soul.”

Gods forbid!

“That’s complete rubbish,” I immediately declare. “That boy has the most sainted, innocent, beautiful soul of anyone in the world. I have the exact opposite. My soul is as black as shit-filled tar.”

She scrunches up her nose unattractively.

“Thanks for that lovely image. Shit-filled tar is less than black, you know. Brown and black make dark brown.”

I roll my eyes toward the ceiling in a silent prayer for sanity.

“Anyway, Sophia says that your soul has many colors, endlessly fascinating. Changing. That is her Gift, after all, the ability to see Pure souls. I take her word for it. She says she’s seen your Pure soul from the very beginning, even when you were Ere, her teaching assistant. Even when you were the Creature and Binu.”

“That’s just…that’s…”

I flail for words as my knees give out from the shock of these revelations, and I park my ass back down on the bench.

“You do have darkness and shadows in your soul, she says,” Liv goes on, unrelenting. “And Benji’s is entirely light. Blindingly bright. But don’t you think that light in darkness is even more beautiful? Like the Aurora Borealis. That’s why you’re An-Nisi to me. I see it too, this gorgeous darkness and light inside you. Even though I can’t see souls, I see it in your blue-green eyes.”

“I don’t appreciate you two gossiping about me behind my back,” I mutter, just for the sake of bitching.

“Okay. Next time we’ll do it to your face,” she concedes.

I lash out a hand suddenly to grab her by the upper arm.

“You can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret. I don’t want Benjamin to know. Or his parents. His real family.”

“But why—”

“Promise!”

I clutch her arm tightly, hard enough to make her wince. There will be bruises for days in her skin.

“I promise,” she states solemnly. “It’s your secret to share or keep.”

We both sit back on the bench, against the wall, soaking in the steam of the sauna to calm ourselves down.

At least, that’s what I’m doing. My heart is galloping like wild horses. My chest heaves up and down as if I’ve run a marathon.

“So… do you still hate me?” she asks tentatively.

“Yes,” I say unequivocally.

“But we’re still friends?”

“Yes.”

“So… frenemies then?”

“Let’s not label it.”

“You’re a lot meaner than you were before,” she notes without judgment. It almost sounds like a compliment, actually.

“And you’re still strange-looking with owlish eyes.”

“But I have a gorgeous girlfriend at home,” she brags.

“Bring her around. I’m sure when she takes a gander at me, I’ll cure her of her infatuation with you,” I bait.

“That’s probably true,” she surprises me by readily admitting. “You have the kind of beauty that attracts every sex and every Kind.”

“Yes, I’m the world’s foremost fuck magnet. Yet another winning quality I can own.”

“You’re wrong about that, An-Nisi. It’s not just your outer beauty that attracts people. It’s you,” she insists.

“If you say so.”

I