by Ivy Sinclair
On the surface, I understood what he had done was years ago. It wasn’t wrong of him to ask to be exempt from something like that in his past. But it told me there were probably far worse things he hadn’t shared with me, and probably never would. His black wings, which I thought were so beautiful, were nothing more than a further testament to that darkest part of him. It was a darkness that would always be there, no matter what he did. I was beginning to understand that now.
Riley wasn’t going to step aside. He never would. I brushed around him trying not to touch even a feather on his wings. I knew he wanted to pull me back behind him, but he hesitated. That was good. I didn’t want him to touch me. I couldn’t handle that because if he did, I thought I would lash out at him everything I had. Magic or otherwise. He was the target of all of the anger and guilt I held inside of myself.
“Let’s go there,” I agreed. I snapped my fingers, not really because I needed to but because the action gave the appropriate dramatic effect that I was looking for. I was an actress after all. “The last memory I have of that night is being on a boat.”
Then we were there. The boat was larger than I remembered. There were crates everywhere which told me it was probably a cargo boat of some kind bringing in freight to the towns on the shore surrounding Calamata Island. The air was chilled, and I saw that we were further out at sea than I would have expected. When I was dumped into the water, I thought for sure we were in Calamata Bay proper. I could see the faint lights of the mainland from here, but it wasn’t what I would call close.
I heard the harsh breathing of a struggle, and when I turned, I saw myself in the clutches of two ugly demons. There was a gargoyle perched on the railing behind us supervising the action along with Bruno Proctor. It seemed whenever I thought the demon official was out of my life, there was another reminder of the part he played in everything that happened to me.
Riley’s shoulders twitched. He was ready to jump into the fray.
“This is all a memory,” I reminded him. “You can’t save me here.” You can’t save me anywhere. I left those words unspoken. It was as if the childhood rhyme began to play over and over in my head.
“How are we supposed to tell what happened to you when you went into the water?” Riley’s voice carried the heavy notes of anger. “This deal supposedly happened while you were in the box.”
As if the words made it real, I saw the gargoyle push a heavy pine box forward across the deck. I tried to keep my thoughts calm as I watched the demons hoist my body upward to put me in the box. My other self struggled with all her might, and then she began to scream. The back of my throat suddenly felt raw. I was reliving the moment but separate from it at the same time, and it caused a strange, surreal sense of déjà vu. I wasn’t sure I could keep past and present straight.
“I can help with that,” Eva said.
“I’m sure you can,” Riley snorted. “Then conveniently you’ll show the events the way that you want us to see them.”
Eva held up her hands. “Fine. Paige can show you.”
“Paige can’t show us anything that isn’t a memory of hers,” Riley said.
“She can show us without taking us there.” Eva saw my questioning glance. “Instead of showing us what happened by making us present in the moment with you, project it into our minds.”
“How?” I asked. I was genuinely curious. If the goddess wasn’t on the verge of possessing my body, I would have had so many questions for her. My life had been intertwined with hers since the beginning. I did feel a strange sort of affinity for her.
“Touch here.” She placed her fingertips on her temple. She motioned at Riley. “Project it into our minds as you see it happening. I warn you though, the event was extremely traumatic for you. It might be uncomfortable.”
“Because watching demons make off with her parents wasn’t,” Riley said sarcastically.
It was as if he wrenched a knife in my gut. I spun around and grabbed the rail of the boat. I cast a look back to my right. I knew what was about to happen next. I wasn’t going to go into the box without a fight. Back then, I had been incredibly claustrophobic. There was nothing I could think of that would be worse than being closed into a small, confined space. I hadn’t quite realized yet that it was their plan to toss the box into the bay. The demons struggled with me for another few moments, and then one of them drew out a long billy club from his belt.
I noticed that Bruno had turned away from the scene to take a phone call. The other demon nodded at the first demon, and then came the blow. Watching it was one thing, but it felt as if I had been struck in the head all over again. I cried out and fell to my knees. Riley was beside me in an instant. The second and third blows should have knocked me out. As my body went limp, they easily maneuvered me inside the box.
I wasn’t even sure I knew how I was doing it, but I reached up to press my fingers against the side of his head even as I felt the dark spots grow over my mind. Riley’s gasp was the only answer I needed to know he was there in the darkness with me.
Somehow, I clung to consciousness as the nails started to pound the lid onto the box. I was being sealed into my coffin, and there was nothing I could do about it.
My heart beat so fast I thought that it might explode right out of my chest. I blacked out for another long moment, and as I came slowly back to awareness, I felt the feeling of weightlessness.
“No,” I whimpered.
I felt a hand wrap around the back of my neck. Riley pulled his forehead to mine, and my fingers fell away, but the connection remained. My eyes were closed, but I could still see and feel everything. It was happening all over again.
“It’s okay, babe. I’m here.” The words crawled across my mind. I wasn’t sure if Riley had spoken them out loud or not. I took no comfort in them though. Riley wasn’t who I thought he was. He couldn’t protect me here.
Then my body flew up toward the ceiling of the box, and I felt the careening downward sensation that told me I was no longer on the ship. It was the same feeling when a car crested a steep hill, or when a large roller coaster began its sharp descent, except this time I was plummeting to my death.
My thoughts were so groggy from the blows to my head that my fingers couldn’t find their way to the crevices of the edge of the box soon enough. I felt defeat even before I started, especially once the first cold tendril of water reached my skin.
“Oh my god,” I groaned. Here? Now? Then? It all fused together into one jumbled piece. “I’m going to die.” It was final. There was no more escape for me.
This was something no one could possibly describe as that realization sets in. This is it. I could feel the contrasting warmth of blood streaking down my face. I wasn’t sure how hard the demon hit me with his billy club, but the result was bad. The headache and blurred vision were proof enough of that. I should have gone peacefully into the afterlife, but that wasn’t the way for me. It never was.
“Please.” The tears joined the blood then. The seams of the box were letting the water in at an alarming rate. “I don’t want to die.”
Then a flash of light took me over. That was always the last thing I remembered. The light. But now I saw the light carried someone with it. A vision appeared in front of me. Damn it if it wasn’t a glowing white bridge, just like Eva told me. I knew I had seen it before, and I remembered all the other times just like I always did when the bridge appeared.
My mind’s eye ran toward it. Eva waited for me halfway across it, just as she always did. This time she looked sad, sadder than I ever remembered seeing her. Most of the time she greeted me with a smile or even a hug.
“This will be the last time we speak,” she called out to me before I even reached her. “I’m surprised that you were able to make the connection at all. The wounds to your head are fatal.”
I was surprised that she knew so much about my present circumstances, but then again, she always did. Eva was my pseudo guardian angel.
“Help me!” I said. �
��Please. You can help me. I’m going to die.”
“Yes,” she said with a short nod. “This situation requires magic to fix, Paige. You have none of that of your own. I’m sorry.”
Again, I felt the unfairness of a situation I never wanted or asked for. “There must be a way.” Even as I said the words, I spit up a burst of water. The box was filling quickly. I would soon be overcome.
“Well.” She wrung her hands and looked away.
“Tell me!” I demanded.
She sighed. “You know what you would have to do. I didn’t want to bring it up because it has to be your choice, of course. But it’s the only way.”
I had to accept her. I had to agree to let her possess me. “If I accept you, I might as well go ahead and die. It’s not any different. The result is the same.”
“It’s your decision, Paige.” She took a step backward. “The decision can’t be coerced. You know that. You know what is best for you.”
“What is best is that I live!” I wanted to shriek at her, but I began to cough. The harsh taste of salt water filled my mouth. “Three years!”
She paused her retreat. “What?”
“Give me three years!” How the words got out of my mouth and were recognizable I had no idea. My lungs burned from the water filling them.
Her eyes narrowed. “Three years, and then you will accept me fully without a fight?”
I nodded. I couldn’t answer because I could barely breathe. It was almost over.
“You have to say it,” she said. “Now. You will have your three years, and then I will have my life back.”
The blackness crept over my eyes even as I whispered the single word that sealed my fate. “Yes.”
I broke contact with Riley’s skin and let the memory slip away. There was nothing but blackness after that, but it didn’t matter. I pushed away from him and stood up. The world around me turned gray, and the objects around us slowly disappeared. It was as if we had stepped onto a dim, blank canvas in my mind.
“That’s that then,” I said.
Riley stood up next to me. He glared in Eva’s direction. “That was coercion. You know it, and I know it.”
“I told Paige it was her decision,” Eva said with a small shrug, but her eyes gleamed in the darkened space. She didn’t look like the friendly, warm person who always greeted me any longer. “She agreed. We had a deal.”
“A deal based on her living or dying,” Riley spat.
“It wasn’t a situation I put Paige in.” Eva brought her hand to her chest as if she were offended by Riley’s words. “That was all Bruno Proctor’s doing. If Paige hadn’t been struck on the head, perhaps she could have found a way to escape the box before she drowned. We’ll never know. But she had to make a decision. For three years, it was an acceptable bargain.”
“You are full of shit,” Riley said. “That was one hell of a lopsided bargain, and the only one who benefitted from it is you.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “I got to live for three more years. I was already living on borrowed time. We all know that. Sooner or later, even if I had lived, someone would have caught up with me, and we’d be right back here.”
“Paige, that’s crazy talk.” Riley grabbed my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “This has all taken a toll on you. Don’t you see that she has manipulated you to trust her since the beginning? You were going to fight all of this, and in the span of less than an hour she has you convinced that this is the only way. This isn’t what you wanted. You wanted to live. You have a future with me, remember?”
My heart shattered into a million pieces. Everything I thought I knew had been blown apart. Nothing was as it seemed. I didn’t think I had any fight left in me to go on. If I did decide to try to change my willingness to agree, there would be consequences. A situation that would require Riley to step in for me. Again. I couldn’t have that. More than that, I didn’t want it.
“No, Riley,” I said quietly. “Something changed. Who knows what other truths are out there for us to find? Don’t you think this was enough? There’s nothing about us that will end in a good situation for us. We are too similar to be good for each other. What we think we have will end badly.”
I saw the expression on his face. He was about to do something rash. I couldn’t let him do that either. Not now. I wasn’t sure how I knew to do it, but I pushed him away from me with all my might. He called out for me, and then he disappeared.
My mouth fell open. “What happened?”
“He was physically here in your mind. That is unnatural,” Eva replied. “You expelled him.”
My stomach twisted in a knot. I alternated between wanting to say goodbye, and thinking that this was the best way. No fuss. No drama. I just had to do what I was always meant to do, and then it would be over. Forever.
As I turned to Eva, I saw she had her arms open once again. She smiled at me, but it was held no warmth. “It is time, Paige.”
I hesitated for a brief moment, and then I had a flash of those last moments before my father’s body was dragged into a pit of nothingness. If they had just let me go, they’d probably still be alive today. No matter how betrayed I felt about what Riley had done, I wouldn’t let him put himself in harm’s way for me. This was what I had agreed to. It was inevitable. It was my end.
The tears streaked free flowing down my face as I stepped into Eva’s embrace. As her arms closed around me, the world faded away. I hated to admit there was a part of me that was happy about that.
CHAPTER SEVEN – RILEY
“NOOOOOOO!” I roared. The whirling shifts of colors and waves stopped, and I found myself staring into Adam’s face. I was exactly where I didn’t want to be, back at Slinky Pete’s. Adam’s expression was grim. I stared down at Paige’s pale face. Her breath was shallow. I could hear her heartbeat. It slowed even as I listened to it.
“You failed,” Adam said.
“She won’t give in.” I was grasping at straws, and I think we both knew it. “She can’t.”
“She already has,” Adam said. He stepped away from Paige’s body. “There’s nothing else we can do but wait.”
“Wait for what?” My voice was hoarse as if I had been screaming for days.
“The inevitable. Eva’s rebirth into the world.”
I wanted to hurl something at the ground. Beat someone to a bloody pulp. But I wasn’t ready to admit defeat quite yet. I put my fingertips back on Paige’s temples.
“That’s not going to work,” Adam said. “Even as powerful as you are as a dark angel, you still needed the infusion of my energy to accomplish entering her mind. Your energy isn’t enough.”
“So help me get back in there,” I growled. “I can make her listen to me.”
“Can’t you feel it?” Adam said. “Her mind is as closed up as a lockbox, and the key has been thrown away. Eva is the one running the show now, and there’s no way she’ll let you back in.”
“Paige wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t leave me without saying goodbye,” I said. I closed my eyes and feverishly tried to retrieve a spell from my mind that would work. Maybe I couldn’t get back inside her head, but perhaps I could send her a message. I couldn’t let her go like this. I had just found her. After everything we had been through, this couldn’t be the end. I wouldn’t allow it.
Then I heard Paige’s sharp intake of breath. My hands flew away from her head. Then her breathing stopped altogether. I had a momentary lapse of all logic and thought. Somehow I recalled my CPR training from high school. I pushed on her chest with my closed fist.
Adam came forward then and shoved my hands away. “Stop.”
“Fuck you,” I said. I moved toward Paige’s body again, and then I flew backward and crashed into the myriad of liquor bottles behind me. There was a mirror on the wall behind the bottles, which shattered as my body hit it. The wall was the only thing that stopped my momentum. As I slid down it, I catapulted to my feet. There was glass everywhere, but I didn’t care.
“I said, stop.” Adam straightened to his full height.
“I heard you the first time.” I clenched my fists. Even as I felt the cuts on my skin, I knew that they were healing. A nice benefit of being an angel. It looked like there was a good chance I was going to get my fight on after all.
“Son, listen to him.” It took a moment for Viho’s voice to register in my consciousness.
“Son? What gives you the right to ever call me that?” I didn’t even look at the older man until he stepped into the space between me and Adam. He had to be certifiably insane. He was still human, and Adam and I were not. I wasn’t even quite sure exactly what kind of creature Adam was, but the hulking freakshow had been around for more than a thousand years.
“I have seen ten lifetimes of violence,” Viho said. He put his hands up palms facing me. “I was young and hot-headed like you once. I couldn’t be bothered to think about if using my fists and magic weren’t the best way to resolve my conflicts. I acted first and thought about the consequences later. Your mother taught me discipline and the necessity of thinking with a clear mind.”
“Yeah, she tried to teach me that crap too,” I said sarcastically. “You know where that got me? Nowhere. In fact, because I was so anti-thinking with a clear head, I made a lot of really dumb decisions over the years, including outing Paige’s parents to the demons that killed them.” The guilt washed over me. I hadn’t meant to spill my guts like that, but I couldn’t hold the words back.
“She expelled you because of that then,” Viho said with a long sigh.
“No, she expelled me because she thought she was protecting me from a fight I couldn’t win,” I said with a mirthless laugh. Paige could read me like a book. She knew that if I couldn’t talk some sense into her, I would have gone after Eva. “You’re right. Eva is a master manipulator, and Paige played right into her hands. She agreed to become Eva’s puppet to save her life three years ago. She thought she didn’t have a choice. She agreed now because she thought she had agreed before.”