“I’m starting to believe they weren’t hallucinations. Maybe they are apparitions. I only saw Laine until I grazed your hand. But the second I broke away from you, he was Laine again.”
“Hmm. That’s odd.” Am I using her ability or feeding off it—consuming what it’s robbing from her? Scratching the back of my head, I squeeze my eyes shut at the river of thoughts drowning me. “Let’s head home, Sparks. Grab a shower, get some sleep.”
“Fine.” She yawns. “You know your father’s going to come back to get him, right? We can’t let that happen.”
“You won’t like what I’m about to say, but just hear me out.” She throws her weight on her left foot and looks up at me, already angered by the words I’ve yet to release. “Lunis is the very least of my concerns right now. It’s him who should be afraid of me. And by the sounds of it, he and my father know what’s good for them. We’ve got other stuff we need to figure out. If my father gets him out of there, we’ll take care of that when it happens. For now, let’s grab a shower and rest our brains.” My Burdened isn’t up for any fights. That bit against my father took a lot from him.
“We?”
I shrug. “What about it?”
“You’ve always been a ‘me, myself, and I’ kinda guy. Thanks for seeing me.”
I huff once and drop my arm on Tracey’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
Tear in My Heart
Nathan
We make it home and drag our feet to the bedroom. I drag my feet. A bed has never looked so inviting. My taking in Tracey’s ability might’ve drained me. My Burdened can’t even take over and give us power to push onward. I stare at the bed a second longer before snatching the heavy comforter from it and grabbing a pillow. Throwing them on the floor, I decide against grabbing a shower. Hearing the water cut on, I sit on the floor with my back to the bed.
The name . . . our name. Our title. The All-Seeing of Death. If I’m supposed to be death, and Tracey’s this All Seeing, it would require the two of us to create this being. But are we good or evil? We aren’t evil people, but Lunis is right, with the darkness that’s living inside the both of us, we can easily be converted. I have many times. So, what’s our purpose?
“Dammit. I have to visit Amelia again.”
Tracey gets out of the shower, and I jump in. It doesn’t give me an ounce of energy, and I’m even more worn out after it. I want to go back out and find the answers to my millions of questions, but I can’t force myself to stay awake any longer. I drag on a pair of shorts and stand in the doorway of the closet to the room. The bed’s empty. “Sparks?”
“Yes?” comes from the other side of the room.
I cross the floor and find Tracey laying on my pallet, snuggled under the covers.
“I don’t want to argue about this,” she says. “Take the bed this one time. I demand it.”
Chuckling, I sit on the side of the bed, near her. “You’ll just wake up next to me anyway.” I nudge her with my foot.
She slaps my ankle and turns onto her back. “Hate me for loving you, Nate.”
“Okay. If you insist.” I lay back on the bed, stuffing both remaining pillows under my head, then throwing my arm over my eyes. “I hate you.”
She shoots up, poking her head over the edge of the bed. “Shut up. You do not.”
I scoot over and pat the side I moved from.
“You sure you’re comfortable with that? I don’t want you to feel weird.”
“We’re not arguing about this. I demand it.”
On her feet in an instant, she lurches forward and lays on the bed next to me. “Whoa . . .” she mutters, looking herself over. “I haven’t felt that in a long time.”
I didn’t mean to force her in the bed with me. Being her mate, and her being bound to me, I control her, and I forgot. “Sorry. I didn’t do that on purpose.”
“Don’t be. I know. Goodnight.”
Instinctively, I grab her to me, pressing her back to my chest, and wrap my arm around her middle while resting my face in her hair. “Goodnight, Sparky,” I breathe.
Best damn sleep of my life.
“You sure about these cousins, Nate? It’s really creepy out here.” Tracey climbs over a moss-covered log and jumps out of the path of a dragonfly.
“No. But we’re limited for answers and don’t have anyone else to turn to who can tell us more about this All-Seeing of Death. Yesterday, with my father, that was crazy. I could feel his pain, the loss he suffered from losing his family, the hate that grew with him as he watched each of them die and he lived. The loathing he felt for species like me. It’s like I was living through him and that shit was too weird. I don’t remember you doing that. Your visions and the ability were centered around only you. Not others.”
She chews on the corner of her lip. After a thought I can’t catch, she points to the door and says, “Okay. So, you’re going to knock?”
Sucking in a breath, I grunt it out. “Yeah.” I knock twice.
“Why ya back here, boy?” Jucenta asks on the other side of the closed door.
“I need some more help.” Regrettably, I use Tracey as leverage. It’s why she’s with me. “My mate’s with me, like you all asked.”
Tracey slaps my arm.
The door swings open before I can react, and we’re greeted by two big smiles and four wide eyes. “Her she be?” Amelia asks.
Tracey slips a bit behind me, and through her eyes I see her peeking past my shoulder. In my eyes, they’re old and brittle, yellow and brown stains in their old eyes, wooden teeth, and wrinkled skin. Through Tracey’s, they’re young and beautiful, with tight, emerald skin, long salt and pepper hair, and enchanting mauve colored eyes.
I smirk. “You ugly broads aren’t all that ugly at all.”
Amelia throws her hands on her curvy hips. “How you see us, boy?”
“Don’t worry yourself with that,” I say. “Will you help us?”
“Ya come back here for our help and ya still keepin’ secrets?”
Alright, Nate, give a little get a little, I tell myself. Throwing my arms out at my sides, I admit, “My mate can see things that aren’t present.”
That’s not true, Nate. They are ugly. I see old wrinkled, Freddy Kruger looking ladies with eyes so dark they can seize my soul. Tracey’s grip around my waist tightens. You sure you trust these people?
I look them over again. Why are we seeing three different images? If it’s not Tracey’s eyes I’m looking through, then whose? “Can we come in or are you going to make us stand outside?” My confusion grows troublesome, but I keep my focus so they can’t see through my insecurities.
Amelia and Jucenta step aside, and Tracey and I enter the dark home lit by candles. The sun’s high and shining light on everything but beyond their front door. “Why don’t you all open a window? All that sunlight outside and you’re shuffling around by candlelight.”
“Boy, don’t come hea tellin’ us how ta live.” Amelia extends her hand to Tracey. “Come hea, gul. Let me have a look at ya.” Tracey stays out of reach. Amelia looks to me for encouragement. I shake my head. “What y’all want?” She crosses her arms in front of her large tits.
The wall is cleaner than the couch Chris invites Tracey and me to sit on. I lean my back against it, and Tracey stays stuck to me like a magnet. Her sight of the three is far worse than what I see; and though she’s trembling, she holds herself with confidence. “Have you found anything else about what I brought up?”
“I have assumptions,” Amelia mentions. “But I been givin’ ya much fa nothin’, Nathan. Ya tab runnin’ ova, and I want payment!” she shouts, index finger extended.
I throw up my hands. “Okay. Fine. She can see.” Correcting, I add, “We can see, and I’m it.” I pull my shirt over my head and turn around. The markings burn present on my back, covering the entire top half.
They gasp and stumble across the floor. Tracey yanks me back around, and I gaze on the shocked faces of the three sisters. Thei
r awed expressions cause Tracey to recoil beside me, but they fuel me with pleasantry. I regret the feeling of power that sends my Burdened thrashing with excitement for their fear he can feed on. And the gratification of feeding on a witch, the deep darkness resting in their hearts would make their souls a pleasant treat. My mouth waters and the trickle of my beast’s plea pinches the back of my neck.
Tracey pulls me back, and I recover the few steps I’d unconsciously taken. I ease the heavy breaths charging past my lips and calm the beast riling to life inside me. He’s begging for it, for the fuel in need of energy.
Whoa, Nate. You okay? Tracey asks.
I squeeze my eyes shut and shout, “What’d you do to me?”
Amelia straightens and says, “It ain’t us. Ya beast want somethin’. And ya tell it ta calm down. No bustin’ up my home.” She rests her hand on my shoulder. “So, ya see. That prophecy be true. The real seeing is that ya see that now, and ya must know ya have decisions that need be made. Ya memory was washed clean, be what we discovered. Fa ya heart.” She beats her fist against my chest twice. “It be in there but dying away from ya two bein’ apart, now confused ya back together. Ya power growin’ stronger. Ya,” she points to Tracey and back at me, “Ya been cursed.” Throwing the words over her shoulder, she calls, “Chris, how that prophecy goes?”
“Don’t,” Tracey stops them. “We know how it goes.”
“Naw, dear gul. You know what that hourglass made ya see.”
Tracey gasps, as a sudden realization hits her. “What I wanted to see?”
Amelia nods. “Ya brought it, didn’t ya, Nathan?”
From the bag slung across Tracey’s shoulder, I grab the heavy hourglass. My Burdened keeps me from handing it to Amelia. And I keep it out of her grasp. “Tell me what you know about it, Amelia.”
Chris steps to her side and recites, “He who bears the mark of death, encamped by the sight who steals his last breath. Upon the stone, his life comes undone. The earth will shake, trouble souls will roam. It is they, as one, destruction will win. It is he, alone, minds fall into sin. Though if she may know, the hands of time will fall short, and it is he who will hold death’s will in his court. Should time not part, a light will spark, and what’s gone will replace in death’s heart through giving of the start.” She nods at her sister. “As this blessing, you can sway the minds and will of man, animal, angels, and demons. There be dragons in them bones, Nathan. I see it mustering in ya, boy. The monster dare you be. How it feel? The strength it fuel you wit. How it feel to have ya eyes open to a world beyond ya own? How it feel to see the desires of another? Tell me, Nathan!” She grabs my shirt in her hands, falling to her knees. “Show me how ya see, share ya power, just a taste I plead.”
I shove her back. “Amelia, get Chris under control.”
Behind me, Tracey screams.
I whip around, seeing Jucenta pinning Tracey’s arms behind her back and her free hand over Tracey’s mouth.
I dig my teeth into my bottom lip. Glaring at Amelia, I juggle my options. I can’t kill these old hags.
“We want answers too,” Amelia says sorrowfully. “Let us in so we know.”
Jucenta whispers in Tracey’s ear, and I charge for her. Amelia jumps in path and puts all her weight in holding me back.
There’s a crackle followed by a pop. In the middle of the floor, broken free from Jucenta’s grasp, Tracey levitates, hair strands of flames, eyes covered in blackness, accommodating the sinister expression on her face. She looks over the three sisters and speaks in a language I’m not familiar with. Her voice is a raspy whisper, and an edge of warning darkens her tone.
Amelia orders, “Ya under our power, ya give us relay of where we lie, what’s to come of us.” Their eyes gloss over, hungry for the information neither Tracey nor I know how to access.
“We’re not at that point yet, Amelia,” I tell her. “We wouldn’t know how to start doing the things you’re asking.”
“You lie, boy.”
“Swear it.”
I’m snatched from my reality, arriving in a haze. Twisting around, I’m still in the house, but it’s empty. Though I don’t see her, I can hear Tracey and the agonizing cries from the sisters.
“How do I get back?” I shout. I try blinking, slapping my cheeks, opening doors . . . “Wait, Nate. Slow down. Focus.” I breathe and will an exit. I hear the opening before I see it like wind rushing through a small opening. Before me, space slowly waves like water. I test it with a touch. Something wraps around my hand and pulls me through.
“Make her stop,” Chris cries, pointing to the cringing bodies of Jucenta and Amelia. “She be doing somethin’ to them.”
Tracey, still a levitating, black-eyed she-devil, speaks, repeating herself. A fiery glow has formed around her. The closer I get, the hotter she burns. “Sparks!” I try to tap into her, but I’m snapped into another different existence. Here, Tracey stands stagnate, looking her hands over.
“Did we just break through reality?” she asks.
I survey our surroundings, the same house, but windows let in the daylight. “We’re doing something. Would you mind going back into yourself to stop, uh . . . you?” We look up, seeing her and the sisters, none of them in control. “Where’s the ceiling? How are we seeing this? Where are we?”
“Look at me,” she says with a point. “I’m pure evil.”
“You’re hexed. That’s not the true you.”
“Isn’t it, Nate? That’s in me, to do what they want, to be what anyone wants. If a hex is all it takes to take over me, to overpower us. This will happen again, Nate, and we’re sitting ducks, waiting for it. That, right there, is our future. I am the evil Chislon warned about that your dad and Lunis warned us we’d become. It’s—”
I grab her by her shoulders and force her to face me. “No one can determine who you are or what you will become? You call those shots. You remember telling me that?”
Her sad eyes look away from me, but she nods.
“So, if you don’t want to be some wicked-looking Seerer, then get your ass back up there and you stop it. Don’t give anything or anyone the opportunity to control you, babe. Not even me. Get ahead of it, and we’ll make it.”
She nods and steps backward through waving space that she’s able to conjure easily.
I try to walk through, but no dice. It closes right after her. “Okay . . .”
With another round of practice, I do the same.
I Don’t Care
Nathan
Tracey falls from her levitation, and I catch her before she hits the ground. She shuffles out of my arms and charges for the door, bursting into darkness. I follow after her as I steal a glance at my watch. It’s nowhere near night, not even close to mid-afternoon.
Out of one enemy’s grasp, we run into another. I stop in the doorway, unable to keep my Burdened from crawling into control. The Qualms crowd Tracey, keeping her from passing. She’s drained, swaying, seconds away from falling into their arms.
“Don’t touch her,” I growl.
They step aside, and I grab Tracey and tuck her behind me.
A Qualm that looks the same as the rest of them takes the front of their line. “The time we’ve granted has run short. You can come willingly or forcefully. You’ve had enough time to make that choice.”
Hourglass clutched in my hand, I look from it to him. “I work off my own schedule.”
Their steps retract, seeming afraid of the device in my grasp. I use it as leverage. “Don’t make me use this,” I threaten, lifting it higher, adding a bit of a shake to it, having no idea what it does.
The leader of their pack lifts his arms. A dark mist moves around the hand that’s both bone and flesh at the sleeve’s edge. “We only desire to converse with you. We mean neither you nor your mate any harm. Meet with us tonight. We will go.” They disperse into dust and quickly drift away with the breeze. As they do, day takes its rightful place at one in the afternoon.
Tracey and I hurry f
or the truck, and I throw a quick glance over my shoulder, catching Amelia eyeing us from the dirty window of their cottage. She disperses from view when our eyes meet. I didn’t mean for things to go sideways. Just by the flick of a switch, they’re attacking us, and I’m just trying to make it out alive.
Whatever we are—this All-Seeing of Death—we’ve got the darkest of darkness spooked.
I shift the truck in drive and speed away, tires kicking up mud and grass in our departure. We jerk around as I race over rocks, fallen trees, and holes in the ground. I slow when we’re back on dry land, a mile from the interstate.
Tracey pants. Her folded hands sit, shaking, in her lap. My Burdened causes a pinch in the back of my neck, edging me to tap into Tracey’s feelings and thoughts. He’s used to this and seems to get fueled from her overflow. He drives a stab in my spine, telling me I’m wrong. That, instead, he cares. I will not invade her privacy as long as I can control it. Sometimes, it’s overpowering and comes to me without my wanting it to, but for the most part, I’m in silence, unlike our past. I think she appreciates that.
A tear splashes onto her leg. I drag the side of my hand across the left side of her jaw, catching another tear before it falls. “You can take five minutes,” I tell her. “But that’s it.”
Tracey scrapes the heel of her hand from her eye to her chin. “Sorry.”
“Four minutes and fifteen seconds.”
She coughs. More so, sobs, and covers it with another cough.
I pull off to the side of the road and exit the truck. On the passenger’s side, I open the door and say, “Get out.”
“Why?”
“Just get out of the truck, Tracey.”
Slowly, she retracts her seatbelt and jumps out, hiding her face with a humble bow. I push my arms around her shoulder. “Two minutes and twenty-two seconds to go.”
Tracey throws her arms around me and squeezes tightly. “My last one for the rest of the year, swear.”
Finite: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Sephlem Trials Book 4) Page 31