Marked

by A.N. Meade

stopping him as he got up to leave. “No, whatever it is, we’re here to find her together. Tell me, Elsie.”

  She had given him fair warning, so Elsie continued, “The life that you shared, it was not her first birth. She lived once before. She was a child bride, taken from her home by force. Her husband, “she stumbled over her words for a moment, “he was very cruel to her. She took her own life to escape him. She wanted to be free. He was a very evil man, you understand.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know who she is. I need to find her. Where is she?” Marc’s shoulders and chest were tight with tension.

  Elsie nodded. She would have to accept Marc’s decision. He was not ready to face it. She couldn’t blame him. She looked deep into his eyes, looking through and past him. She was using his connection to Aimee to see. “She’s at a diner one the corner. Something is not right though, she’s afraid. Someone’s there with her. She wants them to leave, but he won’t go.”

  Marc and Liam jumped up from the table and ran down the dark deserted street. As they passed the diner window, Marc saw her. She was crying, sitting there in a booth with a man sitting beside her. He couldn’t see the man’s face. He was leaned over, almost in front of her. Marc and Liam raced for the door, bursting in. Marc went straight to Aimee. Liam pursued the man who had been seated beside her. He vanished so quickly.

  “Aimee, are you okay?” Marc held her in his arms, and tried to look her over for bruises or cuts.

  She was crying. “Marc, I’m so sorry.”

  He held her tightly. Tears fell quietly from his eyes. He loved her so much. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here. You’re safe now.”

  “I just want to go home,” Aimee whispered.

  “Okay.” Marc answered back. He could think of nothing he wanted more.

 

  Friends in High Places

  Needless to say, Liam never caught the man. Aimee never told who he was. Marc didn’t ask her. It was so good to be back at their home again. It did make her feel some measure of safety. Its walls felt protective, and Marc’s presence by her meant everything. She avoided speaking to Liam. Part of her knew that he knew what was going on. She felt ashamed. She was ashamed of her history, and ashamed that she ran away to New Orleans. It was her fault. She had caused it.

  She wanted to sink into herself. Maybe in time, she could forget about it all. It was good to see Natasha and Enric again, though in a way they felt like strangers. It was like this had all happened to someone else instead. So many bad things had happened since she was last at home. She had no idea how to go back, how to even be here again. She was haunted by her memories, the old and the new.

  Marc thought that she hadn’t fed since they left France. He wanted to believe that she had kept her fast. He needed to see her like he did in his own mind. Hunting, and killing, well that would shatter his image of her as this untouchable thing. He had placed her on a pedestal in his memory. To him, she was perfection, and she struggled with many of the issues of her immortality. Almost immediately after the got home, he sent her in to Enric.

  Enric was understanding, as always. “Go ahead, I know you’re starving. We’ll talk in a little while when you have more energy.”

  Lack of food was not what drained her, it was the guilt. She should not have run off like that. She brought pain on herself, and on Marc. Some of what Damian had said was true. She hated herself for it. She wasn’t worthy of Marc’s love. He had idealized her. She couldn’t be who he thought that she was. The pressure of it crushed her. He had to know that she wasn’t starving. If she was, she surely would be far too ravenous not to kill Enric outright. He had to know, he had just chosen not to believe it. This made her feel even more ashamed, like there was something horribly wrong with her for following her instincts. She began to believe that something was wrong within her that needed to be hidden. She had always believed that there was fundamentally something wrong within her, maybe there was. She wasn’t sure if she had morals anymore, if there were any ideals or values left. She wondered if there ever were.

  Enric could see the storm brewing in her eyes. He walked over to the bed and sat down. “It’s good to have you back, Aimee. Come and sit by me.”

  She walked over and sat down, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Enric.”

  He stroked her hair. “Why? What do you have to be sorry for?”

  “I shouldn’t have left. I wanted to know… It doesn’t even matter now.” She was silent for a moment. She wanted to tell him, but she wasn’t sure how. She decided to just be honest. “I’m not hungry.” She kept lying on his chest. She was afraid to meet his eyes.

  “I know. It’s okay now.” His voice was calm and comforting.

  “That’s just the thing, Enric. I don’t think it is okay. I feel so much stirring within me. I can’t relax.”

  “Don’t feel guilty for feeding, Aimee. You are what you are. It’s just nature. You’re not a bad person.”

  Just the sound of those words brought her back to tears. It was nice of him to say it, to try to ease her troubled mind, but it wasn’t true for her. “Yes, I am. I am, Enric.”

  Enric kept holding her, “What are you so afraid of?”

  “That if he knew me, he wouldn’t love me,” there it was, and it was her deepest fear.

  “He does know you, Aimee. How could you even think that he didn’t?”

  Aimee didn’t know how to explain the depth of what she had come to learn in a way that he would understand, but she was grateful that he was listening, and she wanted to try. “There is more to my history than my marriage to him. There was a life before mine with him. I was married to a very evil man. In some ways, he still has a hold on me.”

  “No, Aimee. No one has that kind of power, to reach across so many centuries. It would have been better for you not to know. Don’t do this to yourself. You’re giving power to this person in dwelling on thoughts of it. “

  She couldn’t speak freely of it, not even to Enric. If he only understood, then he would see how lost she was. She curled around him. She had missed him. He always listened to her. In many ways, she had more freedom in speaking with Enric than she did with Marc. There was this dark thing between them now. Enric held her in his arms until she felt ready to go downstairs and face Marc again. His friendship meant more to her than he would ever know. He nurtured her soul.

  Marc was sitting in the living room talking to Liam. Aimee walked up behind him, running her hands along the couch and across his shoulders. “Are you feeling better now?”

  She hugged him tightly. “I am better when I am near you.”

  He smiled. He knew the pain that she felt inside, but he was glad to hear her words. They reassured him of her love. He never tired of hearing her say it. He kissed her softly. It was a gentle and peaceful moment, but it wouldn’t last.

  It wasn’t long before things began to catch up with Aimee. It had been foolish to think that just being back home would magically bring an end to her torment. In truth, what was happening was much more deeply rooted. France, or New Orleans, it made no difference. She could not escape herself. She needed to face her demons. She just didn’t realize how literal that it would become.

  The first couple of days drug on slowly. There was tension in the house like she hadn’t felt before. She hated secrets. It was hard to enjoy the morning glories or the garden like she did before. Everything seemed tainted. She knew that Marc must feel the change in her. She was sorry to put him through it. Still, ifs she had known a way to make it all disappear she would have done so.

  Not only did she deal with the memories of what happened over the last few weeks, but she hadn’t been able to sleep lately. She felt restless, and woke up constantly with her heart racing and sweat pouring. The anxiety was overwhelming. She felt like anything could drive her into a panic attack. To make matters worse, the nightmares were becoming more and more frequent and more and more vivid.

  She was too afraid to talk to Marc about
it. The dreams were so strange and unlike her and how she felt. She didn’t want him to misunderstand, or to blame her. She couldn’t bare it if he were to blame her. She decided instead to just try and deal with it on her own. She felt so alone. She didn’t want to take away the happiness that everyone felt at being back at home. So, she spoke to no one about her nightmares, not even to Enric. They increased over time, in frequency, clarity, and in violence.

  “What’s wrong?” Marc had woken up as they slept. He could see that something was on her mind. He had hoped that in getting her back home that she would start to improve in mood and in behavior. She hadn’t she had only gotten worse.

  “I just couldn’t sleep.” She stared out blankly. She was damp with sweat. Her body trembled, and her breathing was quick. More startling to him than her appearance was the look in her eyes. She was afraid of something.

  He held her close. “It’s okay now. It was just a bad dream.”

  She wanted to tell him. She wanted so much to tell him what was happening. She couldn’t. It didn’t make sense anyway. What a horrible trick that her mind was playing. She knew that it was just a dream, but it felt real. It was always the same dream, over and over again. She was in the forest in France. It was dark, and she was alone. A wind followed her. She could feel something watching her. She kept looking back, but no one was there. It felt