“You are taking this much better than I expected,” he murmured, and I wasn’t sure if he had meant to speak the words.
“Much better how?” I asked anyway. Now that we were finally talking, did it matter any longer to pretend to be able to keep it together? A tear slipped from my eye. “There was someone there trying to take Gran to hell.” It was the logical conclusion. If they had both been there, the Lightbringer and the Shadowbringer, then they must have bargained for Gran’s soul.
You owe me, the Shadowbringer had said to Leon before he had walked out.
Leon lifted a hand to wipe the tear away, but I cringed out of reach.
Hurt flickered across his face at my reaction, but he said nothing.
“He said you owed him before he walked out,” I prompted. “What did he mean?”
Leon gnawed his lower lip. I had never seen him do that. Not even when we had snuck out of school early to go sit by the stream and talk about all those things none of our classmates cared about. Except for Jo, maybe. But somehow, Leon never included her in those little adventures. They were only for the two of us, he had said once as if telling me a secret.
“What did he mean?” I repeated, the scenarios unfolding in my mind threatening to paralyze me. If Leon had made some kind of bargain with the Shadowbringer for Gran’s soul—
Leon’s lip was white where he had been chewing it as he opened his mouth to speak. “Your grandmother refused to die until she knew there was a chance to see you, and then she refused to leave her body until you were actually there.” His words sounded as absurd as if he were telling me that angels were real—wait, that was exactly what he had told me earlier. I swallowed hard to get my throat freed up in case I finally felt like it was right to yell at him. “He was there when I came to pick her up, and she was still fighting death. I don’t know if he had anything to do with the delay, but I checked in every hour for her and—” He stopped mid-sentence, noticing my open-mouthed stare. “I can stop, Laney, if it is too much for you to comprehend,” he offered. “I can go home and give you space to process what I shared. And we’ll meet tomorrow and talk again … if you feel like it,” he added.
Again, the offer to give me time, to wait for me to be ready. But would I ever be ready to hear the rest? Did it make a difference if he told me everything now?
I shook my head. “How much worse can it get?”
Leon’s chuckle filled the air. Not the carefree sound I grew up with but close enough that, for a moment, I could fool myself that he would tell me all this had been a joke.
“The Shadowbringer was there to bargain for your grandmother’s soul. He was ready to do it when your mother came in, and he would have, even with her there, hadn’t you walked in”—he gestured into the air as if what was following was obvious—“and saw us. Both of us.”
I remembered the expression of shock on the other boy’s face.
“I didn’t even notice you could see me in my non-corporeal form until I saw the Shadowbringer stare at you. And then—” He stopped himself, dropping his hands again. “Well, you were there for the rest.”
I had been there for the rest as he said. I had seen the two of them linger over Gran’s body and wait for her soul to peel off her body. Until the other boy had retreated and observed with amusement as if he was watching a particularly entertaining show. “Why did he stop?” I wanted to know. “Why did he leave her to you and not bargain at all?”
With all the things Leon had told me, all the events that I could hardly wrap my head around, nothing had scared me the same way as the fright that mirrored in his eyes as he said, “Because he found something much more valuable to bargain for.”
The blood froze in my veins. “And what is that?”
Leon gave me a long, measuring look, as if deciding whether or not I could take the news, before he wiped both hands over his face in exasperation. “You.”
Chapter Eleven
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Why?” Surprisingly, my question sounded dry. Not at all as panicked as I felt inside.
Leon surveilled me with concern as I paced from the window to the bed and back to the dresser.
“Why would the Shadowbringer be interested in me?”
It didn’t help that Leon didn’t jump an answer at me but seemed to be searching for the right words to say.
“Oh, just spit it out.” I finally stopped at the dresser and leaned against it, biting the nails on one hand as I waited for him to sort his thoughts.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Laney, but not everyone can see us.” He paused, letting me grasp the meaning of his words.
“Mom didn’t see you,” I followed the direction he was leading me—or thought I did, “at the nursing home. She has no clue you were there.”
He nodded, features relaxing a bit as he realized he wouldn’t need to explain every little detail.
“But your grandmother did.” His fingers drummed on his knee as he spoke. “She knew exactly what I am the day you brought me to the nursing home.”
In my mind, Gran’s face as she had told me to stay away from Leon flashed by. She had known. And she hadn’t told me. Hurt flickered in my gut.
“Your family is special, Laney. You have the blood of Lightbringers in your veins as does your mother, and as did your grandmother.”
I sucked in a breath, tempted to ask if he was certain, but what was the point in trying to deny that something was different. That I did have the ability to see souls and Lightbringers … or Shadowbringers. I shuddered.
“But Mom couldn’t see you,” I objected anyway. Maybe he was mistaken after all. Maybe this was all just one big coincidence. “Mom doesn’t know.”
“She doesn’t,” Leon verified. “She has the blood, but the ability jumps one generation or more sometimes.”
I eyed him, anxious to see how serious his face was, and was surprised to see his features had softened. There was true compassion in his eyes now that he was speaking freely, no longer keeping this secret—this burden—from me.
“Your grandmother wasn’t a Lightbringer, but the ability to see us, and to see souls, manifested in her. And you”—he gave me a look that made me feel bare—“might be the next Lightbringer. We have been anxiously waiting for one to emerge. You might be it.”
I slid down to the floor and hugged my knees for lack of anything better to do, anything to say. I couldn’t be one of them. I couldn’t. Simply couldn’t—
“It’s all right, Laney.” Leon got to his feet and joined me by the dresser, resting his arm against my shoulder. I didn’t cringe this time. “This is a lot for you to process.”
I slowly breathed in and out, remembering faces flickering before my inner eye as I went through my last years. Leon, how he had grown into the man he was today; Mom, Gran, both kind and smart and loving. Then, the gray eyes of the Shadowbringer, his pale face, bluish-black hair.
“What does he want from me?” I asked instead of succumbing to panic.
Leon understood who I meant. “There is a brief window of time when a new Lightbringer manifests, during which their sight and light can be stolen.” He eyed me from the side, gaze weighing heavily on me as he explained.
“What do you mean, steal sight and light?” I asked, not daring more than a whisper.
“Losing your sight means you can no longer find the souls who need your help. And losing your light means they take your soul right to hell as a trophy.” He paused as if unsure what he was saying was clear.
I didn’t dare move for fear his words would turn into reality if I as much as breathed.
Leon leaned away from me just enough to be able to look into my eyes, his gaze dark and serious as he said, “I can’t let that happen. I cannot let you be taken away to hell.”
For some reason, his words did little to reassure me.
“As a trophy,” I repeated, trying to suppress the surge of panic. “Does he need to kill me to do that?” I couldn’t be
lieve I was speaking the words.
To my relief, Leon shook his head. And then it settled in that what he was saying might be much, much worse than death could ever be.
Leon noted the fear in my eyes, for he reached out with one arm and wrapped it around my shoulders, pulling me toward his familiar, warm chest where I rested my cheek and let my tears flow.
A messenger angel was what he was. If Leon was telling the truth, he was the next closest thing to heaven I would meet on earth. Except for—well, me.
If that was the truth, too, I was on my way to becoming just like him. A Lightbringer. A messenger angel.
I shuddered, and Leon’s arm tucked me in more tightly.
“The Milliari family has been watching over your family for a long time,” he said into my hair as salty wet soaked from my eyes into his shirt. I let him speak, unable to respond. “My grandfather was the one to look after your grandmother. Remember how she said she knew a man who looked just like me when she was younger.” He waited for my quiet nod before he continued, “Well, that was my grandfather. Mom always says I look just like him. Down to the way my hair won’t straighten in the back. They even named me after him. Leon.”
He obviously found some humor in his words, for he chuckled to himself, the sound a low rumble in his chest.
“Dad looked after your mom … not as intensely as I am watching over you as hers is the generation that skipped the abilities. But there is a reason our families have been close all those years.”
As I listened—besides having learned that there were Lightbringers and that I might turn into one unless a Shadowbringer made me a trophy—a new kind of fear overcame me. The fear that Leon wasn’t what he had been letting me believe he was. My friend.
“So that’s why you keep putting up with me,” I whispered into his chest, and a rumbling laugh shook through his body, making me tear out of his arms and glance at the door, anxious my mother might be able to hear him and come up to check the room.
“That’s one of the many reasons,” he answered plainly, a smile still apparent in his voice.
Mom didn’t come to check on me that night, so after a long, long conversation, which left me wondering if anything I had believed was true, I headed downstairs to find Mom fast asleep on the couch, still in the same clothes from this morning. I picked up a blanket from the cupboard and wrapped it around her as she blinked her eyes open.
“Is it morning already?” she mumbled, half-asleep, mascara smudged on her lids and down her cheeks.
I shook my head. “Sleep, Mom.” I kissed the top of her head and watched her eyes slide shut once more, grief and pain wiped away by the bliss of sleep’s oblivion.
“I love you, Mom,” I whispered before I slouched back up the stairs and into the bathroom, running through the quickest routine to get ready for bed.
When I returned, Leon was standing by the open window, facing the meadow behind the house. I studied him from the threshold; his tall shape, broad shoulders, the shock of white-blond hair dancing around his head in the September breeze. His muscled back and neck was something I had rarely paid attention to. It was, for a fact, more than one would expect from a seventeen-year-old boy in high school. But his carefree nature, his jokes, Leon as I had gotten to know him during my childhood, made it easy to forget he had grown into a man. I swallowed the sensations that came with the acknowledgment of what was obvious—besides the other things like he was a freaking angel. A messenger angel, whatever that meant in the hierarchy of angels … if there even was a hierarchy.
“She is lucky not to know of this world,” he said, without turning, and closed the window.
I could see the reflection of his face in the glass now, the elegant features as he met my gaze as if through a mirror.
I nodded. If, after today, there was one thing I was sure of, it was that no one should be drawn into this world if they can help it. Mom was safer not knowing a thing about souls and Lightbringers or … Shadowbringers. My chest tightened at the thought that someone would be hunting me for my own soul. Even if it was just for a brief window of time—whatever that meant.
Leon would have to explain in more detail. Soon. But not tonight.
I caught myself yawning as he strode over, his gait slow, tired, almost as if my yawning had released him from his own tension.
“You don’t mind if I stay tonight, do you?” he asked and flopped onto the floor beside my bed, waiting for me to settle.
I did. In my clothes. Closing my eyes, I slept until the early, graying morning.
Mom didn’t wonder when Leon rang the bell before breakfast, his honest condolences on his lips as he hugged her. I, on the other hand, wondered when exactly, during the night, he had left. If he had left at all or just disappeared from my room the way he’d shown up the night before, only to reappear on our doorstep.
He left for school just in time to make it to the first class and returned in the afternoon, bringing my homework assignment as if nothing had ever happened—at least not when it came to that hidden world he had shared with me.
I didn’t ask what was to happen now. If there was anything else I should know. If he had a plan—
The weekend passed before the funeral, going by in a blur of sorrow and worry, and even if I didn’t leave the house except for grocery shopping while Mom was taking care of funeral arrangements, Leon was as devoted to keeping me company as ever. Maybe even more so now that he had shared his reasons.
He was in a black suit as he entered my bedroom, holding out a hand to beckon me into his embrace. What a contrast. His white-blond hair and the dark, elegant fabric. I let him squeeze me tightly against him, no more tears within my body to shed, before we walked down the stairs together.
“Ready?” Mom asked … herself as much as me, I supposed … and led the way to the car.
We rode in silence, neither of us able to find words for what was coming.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I noticed we weren’t the first to come pay our respects to Gran even if we were an hour early. And as the hour passed, the graveyard filled with people, friends, acquaintances of Gran’s whose faces I had never seen in my life. Mom nodded at some in silence. Some came over to shake our hands and express their condolences. It was hard to keep up the façade of the grieving granddaughter when I knew that the body in the plain, wooden coffin was no longer part of the wonderful person my grandmother had been. When I had seen her soul escape from its shell and slip into the messenger angel who had taken her to heaven. So, I laced my fingers together and tried to copy Mom’s moves as best I could while Leon stood a bit away from us with his mother, who gave me a compassionate smile when I met her gaze once. Was she one of them, too? A Lightbringer? Did she know about what her son was? What her husband had been before his timely death?
It was hard to focus on anything but how surreal the funeral had become. Not a ritual for the dead but for the living, to cope with their loss. And with Leon telling me that Gran had been able to see souls and Lightbringers who took those souls to heaven, just the way he did, the way I might one day—I swallowed at the thought—I no longer knew where that put me. Would I one day be part of that loss people felt? Would I take the people they loved so much to a better place? Would that bring me comfort? Or would it make me feel like death itself?
I tuned out the people, the voice of the pastor, the music that might have amused me under different circumstances, and mainly noticed the white roses everyone held in their hands. Mom had chosen them even if Gran would have probably loved to have hortensias on her grave. I hadn’t objected, too preoccupied with the new secret Leon and I shared. The one that was already building inside my chest as he kept not bringing it up again … as if everything that needed to be said had been said.
When eventually the coffin was lowered into the earth, I felt empty. Relieved, almost. As if a burden had been taken off my shoulders. But it wasn’t a burden that had been lifted. Leon had placed his hand on my shoulder in silent comfo
rt, his touch as familiar and alien as the new version of him I had yet to figure out.
“You know she is at peace, right?” he whispered into my ear, and I nodded, my eyes flickering over the grave faces, following the wooden box with the remains of my Gran.
There, on the other side of the grave, right where the earth opened and swallowed the coffin, stood a young man, his face pale and features unearthly beautiful. Unlike the rest of the crowd, he wasn’t watching the coffin disappear. His eyes, gray as the storm brewing above us, were staring right back at me.
Chapter Twelve
The halls of Glyndon High were as gray as the morning haze that had settled over town in the early morning. For the first time since I could think, Leon hadn’t joined me at the small table in the corner of the cafeteria where we sometimes sat before classes to avoid the masses coming in.
I flung my bag onto the empty chair and stared out the window, waiting for time to pass until the first class of the day would bind my attention and I would stop thinking about Gran’s death, the funeral, and Leon’s role in all of it. Then, there was still the mystery of that other boy—the dark one. The Shadowbringer. The way he had looked at me—
Not just when he had waited for Gran’s soul but at Santoni’s, at the funeral.
My stomach felt full of stones as I shoved the thought aside. He couldn’t have known about me. If he had known about me … if I had known about what my heritage meant, that I hadn’t been the first in my family to see souls and those creatures of light and shadows who helped souls transition into the afterlife, I might have refrained from going there. I could have protected myself, stayed away had Gran told me about what she was … what it meant … had Leon told me.
A sudden cold ran through me at the thought of how people I had trusted, who I had known my whole life, had lied to me … and protected me at the same time.
Outside, groups of students trickled through the yard, their collars pulled up against the cool moisture of early fall. Avery and her minions were wearing matching scarfs—soft red and cream that made me think of Christmas. They filed in the door to the biology building, chattering animatedly as they kept glancing back over their shoulders. I didn’t bother checking where they looked, for Jo slid into a chair beside me, a tired smile on her face and a cheery “good morning” on her lips.
Torn: A young adult paranormal romance (Breath of Fate Book 1) Page 6