I couldn’t hear her thoughts about him.
Could I even hear him?
Could he be a supernatural being that had become enamored with her?
So many questions, so little time.
I had to go to her. I had to see her. Now I felt as though I had abandoned her at the campus when she might have been in need of my help.
I didn’t bother to shift back to a camouflaged rodent. I simply opened the elevator car. I didn’t care who saw me. After all, it was my apartment.
I was on a mission and there was nothing that was more important than Allie, even if I had to shift in public to get to her. For the first time in months, I began to feel again.
Chapter 17
“The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.”
Lord Byron’s words stuck with me as I walked down the sidewalk cursing myself for crashing my car. Being impulsive was one of my negative attributes that reared its ugly head from time to time and that day two months ago had been one of those times.
I hailed a taxi after making sure that my wallet was still with me. Some of articles of my clothing got left behind when I shifted, and I had to find them when I turned back. That time, my wallet had landed on the floor of the bathroom. I’d been so alarmed with my surroundings, that I couldn’t recall if I’d picked it up or not.
The leather rectangle was still in my pocket so I jumped in the cab and directed him to the nearest car lot.
“Mercedes or Hummer?” the lot owner said. “They’re the nearest dealerships.”
“A Hummer?” I mused. I imagined running down the man who’d stolen my reason for living. What a fitting piece of driving equipment. And it had always been one of my favorite SUVs. “Sure. A Hummer would work.”
Allie would be safe in class for the next three hours. She never skipped and this jerk wouldn’t make her sway in that resolve, I was sure.
I got out of the cab, paid the driver, and stepped into the showroom.
I took one look at a gun smoke-gray Hummer with a two-inch lift and brush guard and told the salesman to start the paperwork. He gave me an odd look, but directed me with a nod back to the office that probably cost as much as the Hummer to decorate.
“I’ll need your place of employment, three credit references, and your social—”
“You only need my credit card number and the paperwork to fill out for a temporary tag. I’ll be paying in full,” I said.
His eyes widened, and he gladly gathered the paperwork.
“I need to be out of here as quickly as possible. If you can get me on the road in thirty minutes or less there’ll be a nice tip added to your commission.”
The man moved faster and after tossing the paperwork in my direction, he left the room and came back with a temporary tag. “Fill out the front, and I’ll call you later for the back page.” He handed me a tag form. “You got insurance?”
“Call this number and they will give you the policy number and all my info. Is that it?” I said.
He had me finished within fifteen minutes, so his tip doubled.
The showroom floor opened to the outside by two double doors. I pulled the Hummer through them and out onto the highway. I absently reached over to the radio and waved my hand over the sensor and it asked me my name.
I answered.
“What will be your listening preference today Mr. Kinsley?”
“Something with the theme of revenge in the song or in the title,” I said.
“I have 5,285 results.”
“Surprise me,” I said.
““Someone’s Going Down” by Sick Puppies,” the feminine automated voice said.
“Perfect.” I settled back into the seat.
* * * *
The trees quivered in the late summer breeze. Or it might have been the low bass sound of my very expensive stereo system. I’d never enjoyed music the way I did in the gargantuan SUV I’d purchased. It was one of the sexiest vehicles on campus and it was mine. Fascinated students stopped mid-step to see the driver. A few students almost fell off their bench onto the finely trimmed grass when they saw the smoke-gray Hummer. It sparkled in the sun as if a thousand rays of light were deflected in the windows of the campus buildings.
I’d have to work hard to keep the thing clean. I pulled the Hummer closer to a girl I knew and parked.
Lacee sat on a bench with her long blond hair lifting in the breeze.
I got out and ambled toward her.
When she saw me, her jaw dropped open. She was the first person to show shock at my return. She gathered her books and shoved them into her bag. When she got to the door of a building behind her, she guarded the door.
In a low controlled tone, I said, “Lacee, it’s good to see you again. Have you seen Allie lately?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you think you’ve harassed Allie enough? She needs a few hours to think before she sees you again.”
“It’s very important. I’m not here to harass her or try to make her feel guilty. I just need to see her. If you don’t move, I will move you myself,” I said.
She watched as my gaze shift from her to the door behind her. “That sounded a lot like a threat.”
“No. It’s a promise. Her life could be in danger. I need to see her.”
Allie appeared on the other side of the glass but came to a startled halt. She took a deep breath, clenched the strap on her shoulder bag with white knuckles, turned, and headed in the other direction.
“I told you, she said she needed some time before she could see you again,” Lacee said.
“You just passed the test. Don’t allow her to be alone with any male company. Her life could very well depend on it.”
Lacee’s expression changed from determined to confused. “I guess I can do that.”
“Until I can figure out what is going on with this guy she’s dating, not one second alone, even if you have to bring in backup. Please tell her that I am backing off, but that I won’t be too far away if she needs me. I know this all sounds extremely odd, but just trust me. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes.” Lacee nodded.
As I stalked off, I didn’t know what else to do other than wait if Allie wouldn’t see me. I wouldn’t force it on her. I could only hope that, like earlier that day, at some point she would want to see me and come to me. Then, I could hopefully talk some sense into her about this guy that she thought she was in love with.
She had to know that he didn’t care about her as much as he cared about fulfilling his own desires. Maybe when she figured it out, she would open her eyes to me again?
I walked back to the house and went into the kitchen to find something to eat. I didn’t need it, but the smell of whatever the last person who cooked had made me crave food. It had always helped me think through my problems when I was mortal and maybe it would help now. I fished around the fridge for whatever I could find. It was strange the cravings that came at you when you no longer needed sustenance the way a normal human would.
Some days I craved just walking outside and smelling the air and the certain hint of whatever season it was that was carried with the breeze. Each had a distinctly different smell now. I stepped out the back door of the house, now with a mixed craving of a certain seasonal smell and food, feeling almost human again. I had a piece of rolled up ham and cheese in one hand and a carrot in the other, one to appeal to the carnivore in me and one to the vegetarian that sometimes pushed its way through my skin.
I sat down on the back step waiting for someone to come in the back way and still yet ask me where I had been. I breathed in the air, in the absence of any life other than a squirrel scurrying through the newly fallen leaves from tree to tree. Fall always reminded me of the season before, when Allie had tried to admit her love for me. I’d shoved her away.
I’d always done that for some reason. I’d always thought my way was better.
Maybe she’d needed more th
an a text relationship.
I remembered pulling myself up out of that grave, the grave she thought part of her died in. The lovely look in her eyes that told me she never wanted to let me go back then filled me with hope now that she might want to hold me again someday. It was a small chance, but it was a chance that I was willing to take. If only we hadn’t had to wait for the word Everlasting to come out of my mouth. What I thought would make me live forever had killed me. Or at least any hope I had of having a life.
“Cole, my man. How’s it going?” A voice came from the side of the house. I thought this would be my first interview session with one of my brothers, but Grant didn’t look inquisitive.
“I’m doing as well as can be expected, I suppose,” I said.
“What you doing back here? We have a table inside.” He kicked my leg as he went by me as if I had never left.
I couldn’t understand why someone wasn’t even remotely concerned with my absence or at least nosy enough to ask what had happened to me. I took the last munch of ham and cheese and took a chomp off the carrot. Invisible.
I was invisible.
I’d gone back to our teen years when she didn’t see me, but now, it was everyone. No one cared.
* * * *
I leaned on the balcony level of the commons and watched people walk by picturing what each of them would like fifty years from now. They would age and I would remain the same.
I had never witnessed that before. In every new life, I’d come back with a slightly different look but the family resemblance was always prevalent. High cheekbones, dark skin, green eyes that flickered when I was pissed, happy, or turned on. Now that look would never change. Unless I tried to starve myself. Then I only looked dead. Which I already was. Sort of.
Was I buff enough?
Had I ever been insecure before this? It was somewhat funny, looking back. I could have worked on my tan and gained a little more muscle mass before I’d decided to sideswipe a tractor trailer.
I leaned over the banister with my elbows propped on it.
As I waited for Allie to pass, I wondered if there was something I had done to make her not want me. I scanned the archives of my memory and could think of nothing. I had actually backed way off, more than I thought I would have the energy to do. It had previously been an almost physical impossibility, but for some reason the last few weeks before I’d gone hadn’t been as trying.
The worst thing I’d had to suffer through was losing her to another idiotic guy who was even less worthy of her than me. But who would ever be worthy of her?
The universe kept sending her toward me, but also sent catastrophes in our direction to test us. I almost wanted to give up figuring out the randomness of the universe when I saw the universe as I knew it walk under the ledge I was standing on.
Her hair was pulled around to one side of her face and the waves looked so soft. Her skin seemed to glow. She was so close to having happiness, albeit with some other guy, that I couldn’t blame her for smiling with no good reason to do so.
I smiled for the first time in a while and wondered if my face cracked. It had been set in the same grimace of pain for the last few months.
Without hesitation, Allie turned and looked up at me as if she had sensed that I was there. Something lifted my hand from the railing of the banister and made it give her a weak wave.
She gave me a look I hadn’t seen in a very long time.
She was happy to see me?
Maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t chasing her. Maybe if I could finally find peace inside myself, we would still be immortal whether we were together or not, and she detected that.
The smile on her face was replaced with a thoughtful one.
“Do you miss me?” She asked me in her thoughts.
I almost lost my balance. I turned from her, afraid for her to see the answer.
I felt tugging emotions in my chest: one said to run to her, the other said to go in the opposite direction. I could do neither so I stayed there facing away from her. I thought she would leave in response to my reaction, but when I looked up to the entrance of the balcony, there she stood.
I leaned back on the banister and tightened my grip. I practiced perfect self-control.
Allie slowly walked toward me exactly as I had seen in my dreams many times. Only this time it was real. I had never wanted to take her and run away from all civilization as much as I wanted to at that moment. But I stood completely erect, not moving a muscle, afraid for her retreat.
She stopped within inches of me, and if it had been the sun standing so close, not even its millions of degrees could have moved me. I was grounded there and would only ever feel life in her gaze.
“Don’t speak.” She reached up to my face. The petal soft skin of her fingers grazed my cheek, and though I couldn’t move, the kinetic energy in me exploded a thousand times. “I know how selfish it must seem, especially knowing how hard this has to be for you, but I just wanted to feel your skin under my touch.”
Something in me gave my lips and vocal cords the energy to speak but she noted the onset of my words and covered my lips with her three fingers. Their touch stunned me into submission. She shook her head no and leaned up to kiss my cheek.
“Thank you.” She turned around and walked away.
* * * *
“He is half of a blessed man. Left to be finished by such as she; and she a fair divided excellence, whose fullness of perfection lies in him.”
William Shakespeare’s words resonated in my mind for the next few hours. What felt like endless years of living had given me too much time to read. Now I was cursed with endless quotes to fit any situation and they bombarded my brain, making me feel crazier than Allie had already driven me.
I ambled around in a daze the rest of the day wondering how I could possibly make it through another second of my life without Allie.
I went to the woods and changed into forty-seven different animals, trying to find the fit that felt the most like it would take away some of the pain. But no animal, no matter how small or large, meek or vicious helped my situation.
I stood upright from all the changing, feeling even more restless and energized. Like my body was preparing me for something my mind couldn’t foresee.
In the woods on the outskirts of town, I looked up at the night sky and noticed the dark fingers of the tree limbs reaching up to them as if to steal their glow. I realized for the first time that if Allie had wanted to touch me earlier that day, there must be something in her that still wanted me.
She still had a connection with me, and I wasn’t going to let some human monster’s fingers steal her glow or zest for life like he most certainly would do if he didn’t let her come to him in her own time.
I stood taller.
It was time to fight.
* * * *
I went to the edge of the woods and jumped back in my Hummer. With the windows open letting the crisp bite of breeze slap at me, I barreled down the road. Safely.
I felt something I hadn’t felt in months. That there was nothing wrong with being selfish sometimes and that maybe Allie would want me to fight for her. Maybe there was something inside her that needed to see I always would no matter how hard times got.
A clump of clubs sat alongside each other. Inside one of the buildings, many jubilant voices rumbled together. Gregarious bartenders spoke to clients, and through all the noise, Allie’s thoughts broke through.
I’d never forget how her voice ebbed and flowed in her mind. With the clubs so close together, I’d have to search harder to find her exact location.
I rolled by the front entrance to listen to the thoughts of all the gathered hopefuls. Each girl in the line gave me the prospective look, but she didn’t know she was being used this night without me even touching her.
I searched through every mind to find a person musing over a weird situation going on between a guy and a girl. Or to find Allie’s voice
growing closer.
This club did not hold the object of my obsession and neither did the next.
Finally, at the largest most prestigious VIP club around, already on the inside, were Allie’s thoughts. But the transmission of her musings was cut off suddenly.
At 11:30 p.m., I stopped the Hummer in the middle of the road causing a traffic block. I was not concerned about it in the least. I tossed the key to a bouncer at the door. He looked at me with surprise as I stepped in line in front of the one hundred fifty people over the fire marshal’s capacity being held outside until some of the insiders left.
He put one hand on the rope and held me back with the other.
I gazed into his eyes with a dangerous flash of green. “Lift the rope. I am going in, and you’re not going to stop me.”
“Don’t cause no trouble.” The bouncer lifted the velvet red rope.
I nodded, but didn’t make any promises.
I moved swiftly through the club, and as I worked my way around the bar, Allie bounced right into me as she ran.
She stopped and shoved me away, but lost her balance in the process.
I grasped her shoulders to right her so she wouldn’t fall over.
“If you don’t get away from me, I’ll call security! I am so sick of this yo-yo relationship. I told you an hour ago to stay away from me! You just won’t listen, so I have no choice. I’m calling Mama. She’ll lock you away, if you can’t be any more rational than you’ve been!” Gray tears streaked her face. Her make-up smudged.
I tried to restrain her as she hit at my chest with her fists.
“Allie! Allie! You haven’t told me anything! I haven’t been here!” Talking over the music was almost impossible.
As frantic as she was, it was hard to hold her. Someone had upset her terribly. And now she was so confused, she thought it was me. She seemed as though she had been running to save her very existence.
She pulled back and looked at me realization dawning on her face. At the exact same time that she made the next accusations, fear filled her eyes. “You were back there with me for the last fifteen minutes. You were wearing something different. And you wouldn’t keep your hands off me.”
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