thunderstruck | book #2 | discontinued

X I

It was not often that Annika found an attractive blue-haired boy sitting on her bed when she emerged from the shower—at least, not until very recently.

Tykon seemed not to have heard her enter her bedroom. He was glaring at his boots as though the black leather had done something to offend him, his back hunched as though he wished to curl up and disappear. Annika sighed, her expression softening. She wished she could do something to take his pain away, for he had done so much for her. He did not deserve to have been a victim in this war, never mind one that was partly her fault.

She was suddenly very aware that she was standing only in a towel—or two, if she was to count the one piled on her head. She tightened the material around her chest, feeling the cool air hit her legs, and cleared her throat.

He looked up, but his eyes were distant, as though he had barely seen her.

"I was not expecting you today, Tykon, hence the towel."

"I am sorry," he mumbled quietly, looking away. Usually he might have blushed or said something that might make Annika blush, rather, but it was clear that since he had found out about his mother's death, he was no longer that Tykon. His life, his wit, had been stolen from him. "I did not realise. I will leave, if you wish."

Even as he spoke, he made no effort to get up, instead staring at the painted flowers that decorated the wall in front of him.

"Do you wish to talk? If you give me a moment to get dress—"

"I saw Maksim," he interrupted, and then stood up to face the window. He did not stay there for long. He turned to look at Annika a few moments later. He had been doing this of late; shuffling awkwardly about as though he did not know what to do, where to go, as though he had lost his purpose and was trying to find it again. Annika had seen grief paralyse people before, but not Tykon. No, Tykon showed his sadness through the way he shook his leg constantly, or the way his fingers trembled with repressed energy, or the way he could not stop wandering about like a lost child trying to reach home. If anything, it was more devastating to see him this way.

"Okay," Annika said slowly. Her heart fluttered at the sound of Maksim's name, but she ignored it, swallowed her feelings back down to her stomach. The last thing Tykon needed was to see the effect his name had on her, particularly as his hands were now balled into fists and she realised that perhaps he was angry. "What happened?"

"I told him that it was his fault. I was cruel. I know I was, but I could not stop." He closed his eyes for a moment, his chest rising and falling. "I am so angry, Annika. With him, with his brother, his mother. They are the reason she is gone, and I hate them for it."

This was not what she had been expecting to hear, and she began to panic. If Tykon blamed Maksim for something his brother had done, what would he think of her if he found out the truth? She had not told him of how she had worked with Ackmard, only that she had made a mistake, used her magic for bad instead of good, and he had not asked any further because then his mother had died and he had no longer cared. She could not bear it if he hated her, too, even if she knew she deserved it.

"I am sure Maksim understands that you are simply upset and unable to think clearly," she said finally, her voice soft. She was beginning to feel the sympathy in her heart again, and all of the other warm emotions that had been lost when she had begun to practice dark magic. Tykon was helping her to find the old her, the witch she had been before all of the jealousy and anger, and she only hoped she could do the same for him.

She took a few steps towards him and reached for his fumbling hand, stroking his rough skin with the pad of her thumb. He pulled away with a grimace.