Copyright © 2025 by Brittany Noelle
CASSIDY
MY HEART GALLOPS, BREATHS shorten, lungs ache—the familiar drop of a panic attack. Maybe I’ll pass out before he has a chance to hurt me. A small hope.
“Whoa, whoa,” Kane coaxes. He kneels beside the bed and takes my icy hands, steals my gaze in the dark. “It’s okay. Stay right here. Look at me.”
Those eyes. Intent and unblinking. Thin gold line wrapping around the irises. He’s reading me, and I’m reading him. I don’t know what I’m feeling, yet a dozen words fill my writer mind. Dangerous truths. Villainous heroes. Dark-eyed angels. Not quite right until the phrase forges through the heat: Warrior of the Sun.
“Okay, now we’re going to breathe.” His grip tightens and heat gathers like a protective hold around my curled body. “In…” He fills his own lungs, intent on my reaction. “Out…” He exhales hard, silently urging me to join.
But the mind plays tricks, searches for patterns like those in novels or TV shows. Excuses his sneaking entrance. Justifies the heart-tugging trust thrumming between us. He’s not a hero. Not here to save me.
I try to pull away from his hot hands, but he holds firm.
“Look at me,” he says. “In… Out…”
“I don’t… know… who… you are.”
His concerned brow eases. “I’m here to help you.”
Help. Sure. Stepping on my toes, more like. The dark English voice clicks an invisible tongue next to my ear. Don’t fall for some white knight act.
I twitch away from the cold puff of breath, but Kane holds me in place. Ergh, I hate to admit it, but this Englishman is right. I can’t trust this not-pizza-guy. I can’t let down my guard. Mental walls crumbling, pills malfunctioning, abandoned by my best friend—this is not the time to fall for a mysterious stranger’s seemingly earnest promise. I’ve trusted before, opened my darkness up, and every time I’ve lost more than the last. This isn’t real. It’s my tired, twisted mind searching for anything to hold onto in this riptide of emotion. I’m drowning—blood surging, thoughts dizzying, and of course I want nothing more than for someone to care and hold my hand and tell me—
Kane dips his head, trying to keep eye contact. “It’s okay,” he assures. “You’re not crazy.”
Then the storm in my head breaks.
Calm drizzles over me like soft rain.
I hold his gaze longer than I’ve ever held anyone else’s. Those deep, sincere hazel eyes, heavy along the edges, yet fierce against fatigue. It takes a moment to process his words, their simplicity, their inherent validity. Tingling numbness replaces all the tension in my muscles. My shoulders suddenly drop. Breath fills my lungs. My heart eases its battle through my veins.
I’m floating, locked onto the golden circles in Kane’s stare.
Slowly, watching my every reaction, he releases my hands. The invisible heat-hug dissipates. He tries a soft smile—utter calm, no hint of a lie.
I can’t blink. Afraid he’ll vanish. Shivering, I whisper, “Who are you?”
Instead of answering, he pulls off his jacket, a different one than the bright red pizza uniform. This jacket fits him better. It’s the worn and stained costume of some rugged bad boy with a heart. Again, storybook words filter through my mind: chaotic goodness, heroic trickster, road-worn fighter. Fictional patterns, my filters to make sense of the world. But… they’re right. I can’t remember why, but I know it’s true.
The bonfire-like Scottish voice from before steam-hisses her disapproval. This isnae a good idea, hero. Time’s of the essence.
Kane opens his mouth to speak, and his stare suddenly goes sheepish. He shuts his mouth, and his brow flinches from some internal thought.
A balloon of emotion wells in my throat. He’s trying to hide that he’s hearing a voice. Just like I do.
In the dark, Kane lowers one bare arm toward me. Golden-glinting, curving lines run from his wrist to the inside of his elbow. Most would see an unnatural burn mark. Maybe a tattoo gone wrong. But it is a language I can read without ever having to learn how. In the moonlight, it shimmers.
Warrior of the Sun.
“I’m Kane,” he introduces.
I don’t know if this soft bond is true. But I grip this fragile confidence tight. Wiping at the sweat on my face, I sit up, push my hair back, and pull my ear forward out of the way. Showing him my own mysterious brand. His warm finger hesitates, waits for my consenting nod, then traces it, sending a shiver through me. No one else knows it exists. Not even Chloe.
When he pulls away, I reply, “Cassidy.”
“You’re one of us,” he reveals, keeping his voice even. Rational. I search for any crack in his mask but find only earnest truth.
“One of what?”
“We’re called the Golden.”
I feel too light, confused and dizzy. A piece of me yearns to ask, to interrogate, to glean every answer I can from this stranger. He is the shard of my being that I’ve kept under lock and key for as long as I can remember. Hesitating, I touch a finger to his arm and start with, “So… what does Warrior of the Sun mean?”
He squints. “You can read it?”
I nod. “You can’t?”
“What’s yours say?”
“Lady of Winter.”
“A Lady?” His brow knots. A thought steals him away, but not far. He believes me. Says the mental voices are real. So calm, as if it is rational.
Because it is. I know it is.
Shaking my head, I hide in my hands.
“Whoa, hey, what’s going on?”
“I’m not crazy,” I echo his earlier words, letting them sit on my tongue, my lips. “I’m… not crazy.”
He flashes a glistening hero smile. The most genuine expression I’ve ever seen in a person. My heart calms once again, at peace in his warming presence. “Not at all, Cassidy.”
My name seems more solid when he says it. More real. I’m so confused and light-headed. How am I so calm?
Kane joins me on the bed, sitting on the edge and talking with his hands. “Golden all have these marks—and each means something different. I’ve never met someone who can read runes—must be your gift.”
“Runes?”
“That’s what Lorelei calls them. A friend. Ish.”
The hissing female voice burns like coals into my ears. Enough chit-chat.
Both Kane and I rub our ears at her sharpness.
Kane presses on, “There’s a lot to all this. I’m still learning, too. And I can download everything later. First,” Kane glances around the room, “I need to find a vessel. It’s like a cursed object. Supposed to be a spirit board.” He claps his hands together and points them at me. “Can you help?”
Music boils up through the floor, louder than before. The hard rhythm shrouds us in our own bubble. I feel like I can read the code behind his functions. We talk like we’re old friends. I’m always a stuttering mess when meeting new people. But not with him. I’m still nervous, but somehow calm, encased in the unnatural heat rolling off his shoulders. And it’s so freaky.
But this isn’t the only time I’ve felt this way about a person, a strong connection based on no other logic than a feeling. I remember the young girl two grades below me who sat in the corner of the school cafeteria with her manga books and spoke of auras and cleansings. I remember the school janitor in my elementary school ensuring me the spirits on the playground only wished to play, too. I remember my old neighbor collecting cats and bags of herbs, wishing me well every time my family insisted on going to a church she warned was built on a gate to hell.
Random encounters, random people. All had the same… halo to them. Invisible, but there. An energy. Perhaps they were Golden, too.
But it’s different this time. Kane’s energy is so much stronger, sinking under my skin. The heat rolling off him. The familiarity behind his gaze. It’s almost like I’ve always kept a radio signal open, waiting for the other side to break through. For years and years. And finally his voice has come crackling through the speaker.
You’re going to believe this joker? Icy words replace the bonfire ones, freezing the tips of my ears. Mess of clay, like I said. Falling for anything…
I rub away the cold and focus as much as I can on Kane. “The spirit board’s cursed?”
Kane glances around. Searching. Like when we first met downstairs. “Not cursed, I guess. More like primed to contain a soul.”
The word feels strange. Soul. Frozen twin boys flash in my mind, but I squeeze my eyes shut, shake them away. “Like… a human soul?”
“Or animal. Maybe even a plant? Do plants have souls?”
“How does… that happen?”
Satisfied the room doesn’t hold the vessel he’s looking for, Kane faces me again. “Again, I can explain,” he promises, dipping his head close to mine. “After we find it. Okay?”
I bite my lip. “I’m not sure where it is, but… I think it’s talking to me,” I whisper, testing his reaction.
Kane’s eyes go wide. “You… can hear it?” He considers me again, urgency still there, but a perplexed pause possessing him. His brow crinkles as he thinks. “So, you can… hear souls and read runes?”
“I guess so. Is that… bad?”
Throwing a glance at me, he acknowledges my ignorance. “I mean, it’s different for all of us. How we interact with them. The souls.” He waves his hands a bit, searching for words. “I don’t fully understand it, but Golden seem connected to the afterlife. Or a different plane. I’m not really sure, actually. But our theory is that’s where our abilities come from. Some sort of soul-boosted metabolism or mental state—complicated, honestly pretty boring.”
I eye his Golden marks down his arms. “What can you do?”
Kane snorts, crosses his arms to hide them. “I am cursed with strength beyond my body’s means. Uh, faster skin regeneration. And the inability to hold onto every relationship I’ve ever had.” He gives a humorless chuckle. “Which, by the looks of how I found you, you have some experience with.”
I curl my knees to my chest, shoulders pressing into my ears. My voice goes small. “And you can hear them. The voices.”
“Uh, well. Not all of them. Just one annoying gnat inside my head.” He gestures at his temples. “Wait.” He blinks several times. “Can you hear Adrienne, too?”
I nod at once. “If that’s the woman talking to you, then yeah.”
Oh, hold on now, the Scottish voice purrs, ye can hear me?
It’s strange, hearing another voice coming from Kane, but even stranger trying to reply to it. I search beyond Kane’s eyes, around his head and shoulders, to nod at the woman. I send her a vague nod, hoping it lands.
How strange indeed. Ye mighta found our jackpot, hero.
“Okay, let’s get back on task,” Kane cuts her off.
I’d rather talk to someone other than yer sorry soul for a change, Kane. And a woman, too? I’m drowning in testosterone—save me, chicky.
I stifle a confused laugh.
Kane ignores her, thumbing his chin before asking, “What’s the vessel saying?”
A glittering cold breezes past my ear again. You can’t trust him, the Englishman warns.
I shiver, hiding my reaction to the dark voice as much as I can. “It doesn’t like you very much.”
“Ghosts rarely do.” Kane pushes his hair back and dons his jacket again. “The spirit board. The one downstairs isn’t the vessel. Do you have another?”
He’s about to leave, glancing at the bedroom door. I stand, unsure how to stop him. I don’t want to lose this moment. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, here’s the plan: I’ll get the board. I can’t quite sense it. But that’s okay. I’ll handle it. You head outside.”
“Outside? Why?”
Kane starts toward the bedroom door, uncaring that a horde of teens is below. He’s on a mission. “Until we know it’s contained, I need to make sure you’re safe. Okay?”
“Is it… really that dangerous?” My fingers twist together so tight I lose feeling.
“You wouldn’t be asking if you didn’t believe it.”
A flash of memory, of dead twin boys in a darkness so cold, pinches my heart. Then the dark voice’s frost leading me through the kitchen, to the basement. My eyes water and I gasp. “The basement! It’s down there. He was trying to lead me there.”
Kane’s grin is like a star, a brilliant lighthouse beam in the confusing sea of my mind. “There we go.” He pulls out his phone. “Our luck has changed.”
My heart is weightless. Fictions can allow me an escape, but never a release, never this freedom of mind.
Ghosts are real. I’m not crazy.
“It’s primed, so we have to be fast. Don’t want a room full of drunken hands on it, for example.” He presses his phone to his ear. “Wes, bring the truck around.”
Despite the danger, I can’t stifle a sudden, dazed smile.
Forget the party. Forget Chloe. Hiding these voices has colored my life in too many ways to count. I convinced my parents I was sick. I pretended the voices were an illness. But I knew that was a lie. No pills or therapy will ever drive the voices of the dead away. I’m different, connected to something dark, and now… I’m no longer alone.
I don’t want to lose this elation. I want to hug Kane. I want to scream at the dark voice haunting me. I am not afraid.
Not afraid? the Englishman chides. Oh really? Is that a challenge?
I grip this new anchor, this truth. Wrapped in black waves of hair, searching gold-rimmed eyes, and a battle-worn leather jacket. Breathless, I ask, “Can I come with you? After you get the board. Like…” I can’t believe the words spilling out. “Away from here?”
Kane’s smile widens. “Of course. We freaks have to stick together.”
At once, I start collecting my things. Kane gets on the phone with someone, explaining the situation. I only pause when grabbing my laptop, remembering Chloe’s birthday present saved inside. Our adventure. Our perfect duo. The Punk and the Pin-Up…
I stuff it in the bag, revising the leader and sidekick characters into a singular main lead in my head. Less dialogue, yes, but more control, more purpose. And maybe the solo heroine finds her own partner organically. Someone who at first seems dangerous but proves familiar in all the right ways.
Bag slung over my shoulder, I nod—ready to escape. When have I ever felt so sure about anything?
Kane holds up a finger, arguing with the person on the other side of the call about the vessel retrieval. I start out of the room, toward the stairs. Out of the past, out of the lies. For once, I feel control over every movement.
One more step, and I lose my breath. Downstairs, the hall lights are off, the glow of candles spills out from the living room into the foyer. My control slips away.
Below me, Chloe exits the basement, unwrapping a small present and dropping the paper behind her as she skips to the living room.
The seance.
“Everyone has to touch it. It’s totally authentic. Got it from a psychic in town.” Chloe says.
Viking-boy snorts out a laugh. “You really believe this stuff?”
“No, it was for Cass, but… well, someone’s gotta use this thing,” Chloe urges. “Open hearts everyone!” She mocks my earlier words to her friends’ laughter. “C’mon, hands in.”
Oh, look at this, the Englishman muses. Cold breaths shift my hair into my eyes. An invitation? Don’t mind if I do.
All the air leaves me as I launch down the stairs.