by Nichole Van
The thought that she might not ever return my affection . . . I swallowed the pain of that back.
Finally, she stirred, pushing away from me.
I let her go—I am a gentleman, despite it all—but it was reluctant.
I instantly missed the warm comfort of her.
I knew this about myself. When I did fall for a woman, I fell hard and fast. My heart pulled on its leash incessantly, insisting she was my Olivia. I needed to touch her, to have her near.
Steady man. Take a breather.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, turning her head away.
Was she blushing? Was that good or bad?
“So, uhmm, are you convinced I’m not part of this shadow world?” She did that cute hand sweep along her thighs again.
I wanted to say: Mmmm, nope. We should test it some more.
“Yeah,” I agreed instead. “You’re definitely here. Beyond that, who knows why you’re similar to Jack.”
“I’ve known absolutely nothing about this before today,” Olivia continued. “This is crazy.” She placed her hands over her face, laughing. It might have had a slightly hysterical edge.
Join the club.
Finally, she sat back down on the couch with a thump. “It’s so much information to absorb, Tennyson.”
“Like drinking water from a fire-hose, I guess.” I sat down, too.
“I was thinking more like trying to talk to a pack of sorority girls slap-fighting over the last tube of contouring bronzer at the MAC counter, but fire-hose is probably a more coherent metaphor.”
I chuckled, the wonder of her fizzing through my veins.
“No one has ever taken the fact that I can see the Wriggles seriously,” she continued.
I snorted. “I can imagine.”
“No actually, I don’t know that you can.” She shot me a decidedly melancholy smile. “My mother was so concerned about the things I would tell her as a child, she insisted I be put on anti-psychotic drugs.”
My breathing hitched.
What things had my Olivia already suffered? Who were her family? What was her past? She appeared close to my age . . . maybe in her late twenties, early thirties.
I wanted to know everything, and I wanted to know it now, now, now.
“So let’s get down to the important stuff,” I said. “You said you are dying. How can I help you not die?”
She looked at me, eyes full of some emotion I struggled to label. “You’re already helping so much. I just need more information about the Wriggles—I mean scars—”
“Information like what?” I started to ask. “What is going on—”
Out of nowhere, it slammed into me.
A vision of the future.
No warning. No tingles or sense of incoming doom.
It was always like this with my involuntary visions. They came most often when I allowed my mind to fixate too long on one thing. Like, for example, a fascinating woman in my living room.
Therefore, it was no surprise that Olivia was the central subject of the vision.
I faced a blinding white light. A spotlight or the sun or something that seared into my retinas and caused everything around it to fade into shadows.
“Tennyson. Where are you?” A voice called.
I glanced away from the light. Olivia’s face drifted out of the shadows, a halo of curls swirling around her, as if whipped by a wind.
Her hands were wrapped around her upper arms, her body language utterly closed off. Tears clung to her eyelashes.
My own throat closed off, thick and tight. I worshiped this woman.
I knew her tears were because of me. How could I have caused her sorrow? I detested myself; regret swamped me.
I turned away from the light, reaching for her. Anything to stop her leaving, to ease her pain. “Olivia, my love. Why are you here?”
She rushed into my arms, burying her face against my shoulder.
“No,” she sobbed. “How could you do this?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her hair. “So sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Anything you ask.”
She pulled back and reached for my face, cupping my cheek. Emotion swam in her magnificent eyes. “You know what I want,” she murmured, pulling my head closer to hers.
I did know what she wanted.
I had resisted because I knew the danger. We were magnetic opposites, poles that were doomed never to mingle.
If we kissed, it would be disaster. We would break some fragile equilibrium of the D’Angelo curse.
But she tugged on my neck, eyes pleading. “Please. Tennyson, please.”
My will crumbled.
I adored her. I needed her happiness.
Besides, my selfishness always won out. I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted to breathe.
I bent to meet her halfway.
The first touch of her lips jolted through me.
Honey sweet. Impossibly soft.
A universe of sensation.
“Olivia,” I breathed. “Beloved. Darling.”
I changed the angle of my head and lost myself in her.
The kiss quickly became more frantic. My hand buried in her hair. Her hands pressed into the middle of my back.
This. I needed this. I needed her. She was my lifeline. My sanity.
Without her—
CRACK!
Our touch splintered something. We were both too intertwined with the D’Angelo curse, like water and oil.
Doomed to be kept apart.
Something tore Olivia from my arms, pulling her away.
I opened my eyes just in time to see a slice in reality flapping open, black oily tentacles pouring through the opening, looping around Olivia, tugging her toward the scar.
She screamed in terror.
Was this darkness the Chucky-slime then? Was this what it looked like?
“Olivia!” I yelled her name, lunging for her.
I desperately tried to reach her, but the thing tugging her away was too strong.
She disappeared through the scar in reality.
“OLIVIA!” I reached the gaping rift and froze. The scene inside was one of horror.
Olivia battled a fearsome monster in a twilight landscape, robes swirling around her. Dark and writhing, the nightmarish shape rose and undulated, changing form from snake to dragon to monster and back again.
Was this really the Chucky-slime then? Nothing had indicated it was a sentient being like this.
Olivia dodged and taunted it. Blood clung to her clothing, her dark hair hung down her back in wild curls.
As I watched, the monster reared upward and, forming a sword out of its amorphous body, lunged downward, stabbing Olivia straight through her chest.
“NOOO!!” I screamed.
The black sword gleamed out of her back before the monster ripped it free. Olivia collapsed in a pile of limbs and bright, red blood.
But before I could react, before I could do anything, the scar snapped shut, disappearing entirely.
Despair and grief short-circuited my brain.
I collapsed, gasping and sobbing. “No! No, no, no, no! Olivia, NO!”
Panic flooded in behind my pain, a lucid part of me freaking out over this vision. What was this scene?
My visions were not dreams. They were not allegories or symbols.
They were concrete projections of possible future events. This was a scene that would likely happen at some point—Olivia fighting a demony thing in the shadow world.
What. The. Hell?!
I gulped, beating back a panic attack.
The vision was still going, dragging me deeper and deeper.
The world tumbled and shifted, morphing in time.
Suddenly, I was enveloped in a white fog that slowly faded to the edges to reveal Olivia. She was standing beside a white, marble wall. Alone. Isolated.
Relief flooded me. She was okay. There was no blood, no gore.
Instead, she was dressed in a gauzy white dres
s that set off the golden tan of her skin and blended into the fog still hovering on the floor.
However, Olivia was crying. She held a handkerchief—white, of course—to her cheeks, trying to stem the tears, but they kept coming.
Love pounded through me, violent in its force. I adored this woman. I would do anything for her. She was the other half of my soul.
Her sorrow shredded my heart. What had happened? Why was she so sad?
The fog continued to recede and another person joined Olivia. A man dressed in a light gray suit. About my height with dark hair cut short. For a moment, I thought it might even be me, but the man turned in profile, dabbing at Olivia’s face with his own handkerchief. I recognized his profile instantly.
Dante.
Why was my brother comforting Olivia?
No. Something was off. He was too short and lean to be Dante.
The man shifted, murmuring something to her.
The realization hit me.
No.
The man wasn’t Dante. Nor me. Nor Branwell.
My heart stuttered, pain clogging my throat.
Cesare.
The man was Cesare.
My father comforted Olivia.
My dead father.
I watched as Cesare finished wiping Olivia’s cheeks, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. I couldn’t hear what he said, but she nodded her head.
I eagerly drank in the sight of him. The quiet strength of his presence. The patient expression on his face.
I hadn’t seen my father in over sixteen years—neither in the flesh nor in a vision. Not since his death.
I had photos and my memories of him, but this was different, seeing Cesare in motion, adding new memories to the ones I already had.
Loss slammed through me, ripping away the scab of my grief, leaving the wound bare and raw.
Damn. I missed my dad.
Though . . . missed? It was too tame a word.
I beyond missed him. I ached. Yearned.
Some losses are like that. The pain never subsides, never leaves . . . you simply learn to co-exist with the wound.
Cesare’s death would never heal.
Olivia offered Cesare a wobbly, sad smile. He opened his arms and she readily walked into his embrace. His arms wrapped around her, and he kissed her head, tenderly, like father to daughter.
I wanted his arms around me. I wanted to hug him, just as he held Olivia. Memory flooded me. Dad’s cologne and peppermint. The deep timbre of his voice. His rumbling laugh.
What was I seeing here? Why this odd sequence of visions? Why was Cesare with Olivia? Why was everything white?
The answer was obvious. I simply refused to believe it.
I had just watched Olivia die.
My father was unequivocally dead.
So I had to be seeing Heaven or some form of afterlife.
Which left only one further conclusion . . .
I was going to kiss Olivia.
And, because of that kiss, Olivia would die.
TEN
Olivia
Tennyson instantly went rigid. His head snapped to attention and his spine lurched upright.
His eyes were focused on something past my shoulder, unseeing.
“Tennyson?” I waved a hand in his line of sight.
He didn’t acknowledge me. He continued to stare straight ahead, like in a trance.
Or, I supposed . . . a vision.
So this was how his Sight manifested itself? What had set him off?
This was new territory for me.
Instinct warned not to interrupt someone in the middle of a psychic episode, but what did I know?
Carefully, I crawled off my end of the couch and walked over to sit beside him. He was oblivious to my presence, gasping, eyes tracking things I couldn’t see.
“Tennyson?” I gently placed my hand over his resting on the couch.
No reaction.
Hmmm, now what?
I sat back beside him, angling my body to study his profile.
The revelations of the past hour had me hopeful maybe he could help me. But there was so much still to discuss.
Something flickered out of the corner of my eye. I whipped around, staring as the edges of the large Wriggle . . . ehr, scar in the corner glowed and fluttered.
Hadn’t Tennyson said something about that? The Wriggles glowing when he used his powers? Why was that? What was their connection with Tennyson’s gifts?
I swallowed, my heart speeding up.
“Tennyson?” I shook his arm, trying to get his attention without removing my gaze from the Wriggle.
Would the Wriggle just glow and flutter? Or would . . . worse . . . things happen?
I tensed, edging back on the couch, unsure what to do.
I knew what often followed the Wriggle fluttering. We just hadn’t gotten around to talking about it yet.
The edges glowed brighter. It wasn’t a pleasant glow, not the gold of a soothing sunset or soft lightbulb.
No. The light was fire, lava. Hungry flames.
The rip in reality blazed to life. Its edges flared wide.
Terror clutched my throat.
I knew what happened next.
“No!”
Please not now. Please not here.
“Tennyson!” I shook him.
He remained unmoving.
It poured out of the rift. Malevolent. Roiling. A black, slimy flow. Oily tar swarming over the floor and furniture. Headed straight for me.
“NO! Tennyson!” I scrambled backward, climbing up the back of the couch.
The blackness haunted my nightmares. It turned my waking hours into a living Hell.
It was destroying me.
There was no way to stop it. No way to hold it back.
It had no name. I didn’t know what it was.
I had researched for years trying to understand it, with little luck.
I just knew that it wanted me dead.
I called it a daemon—Latin for demon—because that seemed the best way to describe it. But I didn’t know what it was.
I huddled into a ball on the back of the couch, instinctively protecting myself.
But the daemon didn’t rush over me like it usually did.
Puzzled, I lifted my head.
“NO!!” But my exclamation was different this time. “Tennyson, NO!”
Instead of gunning for me, the sinister daemon had wrapped its shadowy self around Tennyson, engulfing him. Tennyson remained in the middle of it—stock still, eyes unseeing straight ahead. A frozen statue.
I acted on instinct, without thinking.
I liked this man. He was funny and charming and had gone to lengths to make sure I felt secure.
I knew how awful the daemon was, how it cut and hurt from the inside out, wreaking destruction deep within.
I couldn’t allow the daemon to hurt him.
I lunged forward, grabbing handfuls of the black sludge. It felt like seaweed, slimy, slippery and cold. It flowed through my hands, clinging to me like molasses. I pushed and pulled, ripping the oily slick from his body.
Of course, the daemon retaliated. It peeled off of Tennyson and launched itself, pouring over me, pushing, writhing.
“Tennyson!” I cried out.
He hadn’t mentioned the daemon. Did he know about it? Could he see it, too? Or was my ability to interact with it tied to whatever allowed me to see the Wriggles?
The daemon crawled over my skin, constricting my breathing. It looked liquid and malleable, but it wrapped around me like steel bands.
What did it want? Why did it do this? What was it?
“HELP!” I gasped, trying to force air into my lungs. Black spots dimmed my sight.
Tennyson finally broke out of his trance, sagging forward, shaking his head, shoulders trembling.
The daemon slacked its hold, instantly retreating, sucking away and slithering back through the rift, like bathwater down a drain. The jaws of Hell swallowing it down.
I lifted my eyes and locked gazes with Tennyson.
“It’s all gone now,” I whispered.
Exhaustion flooded me; my head pounded. It had been too much. It always was.
“What? What’s gone?” Tennyson lurched to his feet, swaying on his feet, scanning the room for a threat.
“The daemon. It left.” Dizziness had me listing to the right.
“Daemon?” His brow puckered.
“The black slimy thing that comes out of the Wriggle.” Darkness edged into my vision.
“Slime?! You saw the Chucky-slime?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“What? Olivia!” Tennyson lunged for me.
But I was already pitching sideways, the world going black.
Tennyson
I caught Olivia before she hit the floor, cushioning her body with my own.
Her eyes were closed, her body listless and unresponsive.
She was, however, breathing.
She was alive.
Hallelujah. My vision hadn’t become reality. Not yet, at least.
My own lungs constricted, my body shaking with the aftermath of the vision. Nausea clawed up my throat, my hands trembling.
I tucked her against my chest, wrapping my arms around her, trying to pull myself together enough to act, both of us shivering uncontrollably.
I was fracturing. Rupturing from the inside out. And it was getting worse. Each vision increased my internal brokenness.
It was only a matter of time before I shattered completely. Before a final vision breached something within me and pushed me over the edge into utter, never ending madness.
Quivering, I pulled myself into a sitting position, using my good right leg as leverage, cradling Olivia on my lap.
Questions pounded me, panic coming along as an accomplice.
Why was she unconscious?
Why was she dying? How sick was she?
She had seen the Chucky-slime? Had it attacked her?
Was that what had killed her in my vision?
What. The. Hell?!
I wiped a trembling hand over my face, swallowing convulsively, taking deep, fortifying breaths.
Olivia needed me. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart. I would worry about the disturbing vision and Chucky-slime and my own fracturing later.
“Olivia. Cara.” I shook her shoulder. Her eyes remained closed, her skin pale. “Wake up, bella.”