Page 1 of I Am the Storm

The Festival

When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about. ~Haruki Murakami

"Adam?"My heart races as my mind tries to process what I'm seeing. My knees dig into the ground, mud from the recent rains soaking into my blue gown. Tears wet my cheeks, and I make no effort to wipe them away.

With shaking legs, I stand to face the man before me.

To stare into the eyes I thought I'd never see again.

The same blue eyes as my own.

My brother cocks his head and smiles crookedly. It's such a familiar gesture that my heart lurches and I take a step forward. Surely, I'm imagining this. Or it's a trick? There's still so much I don't know about the Otherworld. Could someone be impersonating my twin for some cruel reason?

"I know what you're thinking," he says, his long, black coat whipping in the wind as he runs a hand through his dark hair. "But it really is me. I'm sorry, Evie. Sorry about everything."

I narrow my eyes at him, pieces of the past clicking together into a troubling picture. I've seen this coat before. At Lilith's mansion. While I was shopping one day in town. He's been following me, and I never got a good enough look at his face to realize it was him. All this time I've been seeing my brother in every stranger's face I pass, but I failed to see what was right in front of my eyes.

He reaches for my hand, and as we touch a small jolt of power shoots up my arm. We both widen our eyes in surprise, but we don't let go of each other.

"How?" I ask, my eyes burning with tears. "You were dead. I have your ashes on my fireplace mantle. I mourned for you. I still mourn for you," I say through a heavy wave of emotion, my voice cracking.

He pulls me closer to him, into a hug, his arms wrapping around me, and I lay my head on his chest and hear his heart beat. He feels strong, healthy. The smell of him, of cinnamon and honey catching on the wind, brings me back to childhood memories I had forgotten. Skipping stones on the river. Playing hide and seek by the willow tree. I want to hold onto him forever. To bask in the familiarity of his arms. But then I remember the Memory Catcher.

Mary.

The baby.

And I pull back, shaking, all sense of security shattered. “You’re not my brother,” I spit, the rage at this deceit boiling up within me. “My brother would never kill anyone. Especially not a child.”

He bows his head in the way that always meant he was sorry, and my heart cracks at the familiar gesture. “I had to, Evie,” he says, voice soft and yet cold. “The child could not be allowed to grow up.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, tears stinging my eyes. “He was just an innocent baby—”

“No,” Adam cuts me off sharply. He speaks quickly, his eyes darting around as if he sees something I do not. “The boy would have killed thousands. On his twentieth birthday, his mother, Mary, is murdered for copulating with a vampire. Murdered by her own fellow humans. Dracula seeks revenge against the killers—destroying them and their families. Anyone who was part of it. But that's not enough for Mary's son. He is the most powerful vampire ever created, and he deems all humans to be treacherous, weak beings. He begins to slaughter them by the hundreds. And those he doesn’t kill, he enslaves, like sheep in a pen. His sister tries to stop him. She fails. Then…” He pauses, his voice growing pained as he meets my gaze with bloodshot eyes. “You try to stop him. You fail.”

He reaches for my hand, but I pull back, and catch a glimpse of the hurt in his eyes.

“How can you possibly know this?” I ask.

“After I died,” he says, “I came back. I don't know how. But when I woke, I was not only healed, but… different. Our father was right, Evie. We do have powers. Mine just took longer to manifest than yours.” He sounds excited, like the little boy I remember. The boy who stayed at my side as fever took me after my flashes. “Now I see things,” he continues. “Things that have yet to pass. They flow past my eyes like ghosts. Like the future and the present are layered over one another. Both for me to discover. To change for the better.”

My jaw clenches. “How could you do it? You…who used to save bees from the hot tub? Who took spiders outside of the house on a napkin?”

He cries then. And despite myself, I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and let his head rest in the crook of my neck.

“Evie,” he whimpers, his tears running down my skin. “I see horrible things…things I would not wish upon anyone. They are like nightmares, but I can never wake. The only way to stop them…is to change things.” He pulls back to look at me. “The girl, Alina, will have a better life now.”

At the mention of Liam’s baby, my voice softens. “You fool,” I say, shaking my head. “You're my best friend. My twin. I was cut in half without you. Why the fake ashes? The hiding? Why didn’t you come to me?”

“I wanted to,” he says quickly. “But you had to believe I was dead. Otherwise, you never would have gone to work for the Night Firm. It’s…important…what you’re doing. What you will do.”

“What am I going to do?” I ask.

He sighs. “If I told you, it would never happen.”

His words would sound ludicrous if I didn’t have visions of my own. If I didn’t know things I had no right knowing. I thought my brother had been spared from that fate, but it seems his powers were just biding their time.

“Whose memory was that?” I ask, holding up the Memory Catcher. “Someone watched you through the window.”

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