“No!” I sprang to my feet and raced to them, now knowing I had the ability to take him down.
This freak had to be crazy if he thought I would to sit around while he killed both of my friends. He was the one who’d cost me Ethan. That thought angered me even more. I concentrated on pulling in every ounce of energy in the room.
The energy rotated around me, swirling, twirling, like I was running through a spinning wheel in a fun house. Heat rushed into my body, exploding into a ball of fire that plunged through my veins.
I lunged at Tobias, pushing everything I had into the palms of my hands as I grabbed his arm. The power I unleashed sent him sailing across the room in a multitude of visible sparks.
Kiera dropped to the floor, eyes wide. She gasped for breath as Tobias hit the wall. The sheer force of the blow was so powerful that it shook the floorboards under my feet.
Tobias’s body jerked a few times, but then his eyes flashed open.
He jumped to his feet, dark eyes furious, and used his energy to throw me across the room. I slid over the floor, the wood burning the bare skin on my legs and arms. Before I had a chance to recover, he took a few steps toward me. With narrowed eyes and creased forehead, he glanced briefly at the ceiling over my head before returning his eyes back to me.
I used every ounce of strength I had left to lift my legs, then kicked him away. He lost his balance and fell backward onto the floor.
Glass tingled above my head like a wind chime blowing in the breeze. I lifted my gaze, looking above me as the crystal chandelier swayed clockwise. Colors flashed inside the glass as it moved through the light. Pinkish purples, icy blues, greenish yellows, all twinkled from the ceiling.
I was too late.
The plaster securing the structure ripped. With my breath catching in my throat, my hands instinctively rose to protect my face from the teardrop prisms that rained down. The chandelier smashed into the back of my hands, cracks echoing through my ears. Pain lit up my insides like a hundred cases of dynamite detonating at once. Then everything went numb. Glass broke and shattered on and around me as I slipped into darkness.
“Allie!” The high-pitched wail of Kiera’s voice brought me back to the edge of consciousness. “Don’t you dare touch her…leave her alone!”
My face tingled and a warm wetness covered my skin, seeping in between my lips, adding to the bitterness already filling my mouth. The air gurgled as it entered my nose and mouth, the sickening moisture bubbling up like champagne in my throat. I struggled to breathe.
Footsteps crunched in the glass beside me, a presence lingered in front of my face, but I was unable to fully open my eyes.
“Tag, you’re it,” Tobias whispered in my ear. A hand rested over my chest, then my body suddenly felt weak, weaker than it already was. The little amount of air that I’d had disappeared. My life, my energy, was being drained from my body.
“Don’t fight it, Allie. It’ll be over before you know it,” he continued to whisper. “Just remember, this was never about you. If you had walked away from Ethan in the beginning, you would be safe right now.”
“No,” Kiera pleaded in between sobs. “You’re killing her!”
My mind completely shut down to the outside world, doing everything it could to survive.
“Please don’t hurt Jeremy,” I mumbled my last request, hoping it wasn’t too late for Tobias to hear me. I knew it was a waste of breath, but I had to try to save him.
“Don’t worry about—”
A gush of air whooshed past us, cutting off his voice and lifting the pressure from my chest.
I knew then that I was dead.
Chapter 20
Warm hands landed across my cheek. They brushed away the stiff, sticky strands of hair cemented to my face. “Oh, God, Allie, please be okay,” Kiera’s voice pleaded over the scuffling and grunting and banging and distant shouts. I couldn’t make out any of the other voices, only hers.
Why was she here? She should be protecting Jeremy. Didn’t she know it was too late for me? My time had run out, my thread cut short. Jeremy was our top priority. She had to do everything she could to save him.
Kiera, please let me go, I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t feel my lips.
Her hand slid down the length of my arm, stopping at my wrist. “Come on, Allie. You can pull through this.” She sounded strained, tired. I didn’t blame her one bit; I felt the same way. I wanted all this to end, wanted the light to appear in front of me. Why was it taking so long for me to die?
“Ethan, I need you! Now!” The pressure lifted from the inside of my wrist. “I can’t do this!”
“Ethan,” I mumbled, my lips frozen, my voice unrecognizable. Ethan was here? He did it. He managed to open the portal. I knew he would find a way to make it back to me.
“Yes, Allie. Ethan made it. He’s here.”
“You need to try!” His voice was music to my ears, my unseen angel. But it was okay. I didn’t need to see him to know it was unfair for me to slip away.
The noises, the voices, became clearer. They were fighting. Didn’t he know how strong Tobias was, how much more experienced? He would be hurt, maybe even killed. Ethan didn’t deserve that. He needed to live. He had to survive.
Something smashed against the wall in the hallway, more glass shattered, and there was laughter. Not the kind you wanted to join in on. The kind that would have made me shudder if movement were possible.
“You are so weak and pathetic. Don’t you realize you have nothing on me?” Tobias’s voice echoed out from the hall near the front door.
“You pick on one powerless mortal and two girls…who’s the pathetic one?” Ethan’s tone was furious, sounding angrier than the night at the drive-in.
I started slipping, unable to hold onto the air. The warm liquid seeped into my throat, bubbling up around my tonsils and flooding my insides.
“No, no, no!” Kiera cried. “Oh, Allie! Allie, please hold on! Please, Allie!”
“Save Jeremy,” I choked, hoping she was able to hear my words as the darkness forced me back under. I floated.
And floated.
And floated.
The energy changed around me, the heaviness lifted, and warmth caressed me, lifting me out of the dark tunnel.
“How bad is she?” I heard Ethan breath, his voice cracking and unstable.
Why was Ethan no longer fighting Tobias? Had Ethan killed him? Was Jeremy safe? Was I safe? Or was I dying?
“She’s alive—her heart’s still beating. But her pulse is slowing and she’s barely breathing. She’s losing a lot of blood. I don’t know if she has any internal injuries or brain trauma,” Kiera answered, her voice far away and drifting. “I’m not sure how much longer she can hold on, Ethan. He was sucking her energy out of her, and she’s not responding to me.”
Light seeped in through the edges of blackness. “Ethan,” I called out to him as I struggled for breath. “Tobias?”
“Shh, don’t speak. Tobias is gone. You’re safe.” I felt his fingers brush a strand of hair away from my eyes. “Allie, baby, I’m so sorry,” I heard him whisper, felt him holding my face in his hands. “Please hold on.”
“Get over to Jeremy while I take care of her.” Ethan’s voice was strained.
“I can’t help him by myself,” Kiera said, her voice rushed. “I need your help.”
His soft lips broke through my numbness as he gently kissed my forehead.
I pushed hard through the heavy blanket of darkness to reach the light. I had to see Ethan. When I found him, he was right in front of me. His eyes, just as dark and mysterious as the first day we met, were drowning in an ocean of sadness as he looked at Kiera. I attempted to reach up and touch the side of his face to comfort him, but I couldn’t lift my arm.
“You have to try,” he said to her. “I know you can do it. I can’t leave her right now. She needs me.”
Kiera took a deep breath as she bit her lower lip, pushed herself up from the floor, and disappear
ed from my view.
Ethan turned to me, moisture brimming in his eyes. “How could he do this to you?” Then he placed his hands back on my face and inhaled deeply, locking his eyes onto mine. He drew me in, like he had so many times before, but this time the energy was more intense, it ripped through my veins, seeking mine.
I needed to help him bring me back. I knew I could do it now. I pushed my remaining energy forward as I faded into the depth of his eyes.
I refused to let him lose me.
Chapter 21
In my dream, I was falling through darkness. The only lights visible were the visions—glowing portraits of my friends and family as I went screaming by.
Down,
down,
down.
It was like I was reliving my life over again: my father swirling me around and around and around in my new pink tutu as we danced across the kitchen floor to Eric Clapton’s Wonderful; my mother’s soft kisses after I fell off my bike and got a serious case of road rash; the time Jeremy, Erica, and I got banned from the local diner after we used our spoons to plaster mashed potatoes on the ceiling; the day Ethan walked into the store—all the things that had been perfect in my life; the things I somehow forgot as time went by.
I woke up gasping. The beep beep bop, beep beep bop of my cell phone pushed the visions away and pulled me from the black bottomless tunnel, then placed me in a room I didn’t want to be in. Four walls and a bed that held so many wonderful memories…It pained me to be here. Why was I here? How did I get here?
My phone vibrated off the end table next to me, but I managed to catch it before it hit the floor. I squinted into the bright light that filtered through the window, focusing on the blue sky barely visible between the trees, trying to recall anything at all, as I opened my phone and answered it.
“Hey, you,” Erica greeted me from the other end.
My mind continued to scan for clues as to why it felt like I had hurdled over yesterday and landed on today. The only thing I could remember was practicing outside with Kiera. Had something happened and I’d been carried up here by Jeremy? That thought made me furious. Jeremy knew this room was off limits—even for me. I hadn’t even been able to step foot in it since the night Ethan was taken away from me. Groggy, I focused on the phone in my hand. “What’s up?” I asked.
“I’m back from vacation with my mom. Ben and I are heading out to my dad’s beach house with him for a couple of weeks. I was wondering if you and Ethan wanted to come with us and have a little vacation. My dad said it would be fine.”
I still couldn’t make sense of what had happened. It was if someone had scooped out a chunk of my memory. I struggled to understand what Erica was saying. Her dad’s beach house. A vacation. Not where I wanted to be right now. “Um…I kinda have to stay here with Jeremy, and he’s not really a big fan of the ocean,” I said, thinking of a way to let her down easy so my refusal wouldn’t hurt her feelings.
“Oh.” Her voice fell. “If you change your mind, hit me up on my cell. Oh, by the way, I dropped something off for you this morning. It arrived at my house, but it was meant for you.”
“Dropped what off?” I shook my head, having no idea what she was talking about. My senses sharpened and I sat up in bed.
“You’ll see.” Her voice picked up a bit and I could tell she was smiling. “Jeremy knows.”
“Okay. Have fun at the beach,” I said, then snapping the phone shut before she could get in another word. The mere mention of Jeremy’s name brought my anger back. No way should he have brought me up to this room. To where I’d fallen in love with Ethan. I couldn’t bear it. I tossed the blanket aside and started sliding out of bed, my blood boiling. But before my toes had a chance to graze the floor, two hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me back to the bed.
My breath caught in my throat. I was too stunned to scream. My body fell back onto the mattress and Ethan’s face peered down at me. “And where do you think you’re going?” A smile played at the corner of his lips.
My heart nearly burst from my chest. “Oh, my god! Oh, my god! You’re here!” I reached my hands up to touch his face to make sure this wasn’t a dream. His soft, smooth skin. His deep dark eyes. His shiny, dark hair. I wasn’t imagining it. He was here.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me. The sweetness of his breath, the charge coming off his skin—his energy—all of it barreled into me at once as I closed in on him.
Ethan never gave me the chance to catch my breath. He pressed his mouth and his body to me, kissing me fiercely, embracing his lips with mine. The bulbs in the room shattered, sending shards of glass showering down onto the hardwood floor next to us.
Ethan broke away, leaving me gasping for air, his eyes amused. “So I see things haven’t changed,” he said, chuckling lightly.
“No…I guess not.” My cheeks blushed while I struggled to breathe. “But what happened? How did you get here?”
His mood shifted as he gazed at me. The glow in his eyes diminished, and they appeared sad.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, confused about the sudden change.
“Don’t you remember anything about last night?”
“No…should I?” I knew earlier I was trying to recall the night before. But as soon as my eyes landed on Ethan, it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that he was here. He’d made it through the portal and had come home to me.
“You really don’t know how I got here?”
“I just figured you found a way to open the portal. And that you’re the one who brought me upstairs. You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
“You’re right about bringing you upstairs, but I’m not the one who opened the portal.”
I looked at him. I mean, really looked at him. If he hadn’t open it, who had?
“You did,” he said.
* * *
I pondered the thought, willing my brain to remember. I’d opened the portal? I’d been strong enough to bring Ethan back? “But how?”
“You embraced your powers, Allie,” Ethan said. “You stopped fighting who you are.”
It was more than that. Yeah, I’d stopped fighting who I was. But I’d also opened myself up to love. To Ethan.
Then, out of nowhere, all the memories flooded back into my head. “Jeremy.” I placed my hands to Ethan’s chest, attempting to push him away from me. But he refused to budge.
“Jeremy’s fine…I promise.”
“You don’t understand,” I cried. “He was dying—I saw it with my own eyes. Kiera couldn’t save him.” I shook my head back and forth as the hysteria set in. “She was too weak. She doesn’t have powers like you have. She told me herself.”
He lifted his hand and traced his index finger along my jaw line. “She did save him. I was there.”
Then I recalled catching a glimpse of his face before the darkness pulled me under. My hysteria increased. “Oh, god, Ethan. You were there. You saw me. You know what Tobias did to me.” I turned my head.
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered, gently pulling my face back to his.
“It is my fault,” I argued. “If I’m supposedly so strong and powerful, I should have been able to feel Tobias coming. I should have known Becca and Aaron weren’t capable of doing the things they did. Yeah, they’re bad people, but they aren’t that bad.”
He watched me, his dark eyes confused. “Tobias was responsible for all that?”
“Yes—he followed you around. He was looking for something that would make you weak. He found me.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened, his confusion twisted into a raging anger.
“The Darkness doesn’t exist,” I said. “At least, the threat that the evil in the mortal world had taken shape and was close to coming over to Asteria attached to an immortal didn’t exist.”
Ethan shook his head. “But Marcus—”
I shook my head and tried to explain. “Tobias conjured up that story so Marcus would close off the portals t
o this world. Tobias said mortals are heartless and worthless, and they’d ruined his life. One of them had broken his heart.”
Ethan’s pale face reddened.
After a moment, I continued. "Also, apparently Marcus seemed to favor you over his own son. And that infuriated Tobias more. So when the portals were supposed to be closed to Asterians, but you chose instead to stay outside Asteria and then Marcus became desperate to find you, Tobias focused his energy on figuring out a way to kill you. So he used me. He knew that if something happened to me it would devastate you. Make you weaker. Then he would have a chance to overpower you.”
Ethan inhaled deeply through his nose, then exhaled. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this,” he said.
“He didn’t want Kiera back in Asteria, or for any other half breeds, as he called them, to exist there, either. He probably didn’t trust Marcus to keep any known half breeds out, and he was afraid Kiera would turn Jeremy and me into half breeds. So after Marcus found you and brought you back to Asteria, Tobias came back to kill us. But none of that matters now.” I attempted to smile as I placed my hand on the side of his face to calm him, but it came out all wrong. It was more of a straightening of my lips. “He’s gone, right?”
“Yes.” His dark eyes assured me. “But he’s still in this world for now. I just don’t know where.” Ethan rolled off me, landing on his back, eyes focused at the ceiling. “I nearly had him…started draining the energy out of his worthless soul. I could tell he was fading. All I needed were a few more seconds.”
“But what happened?” I asked.
“Kiera called out to me. Said she was losing you.” He placed his hands over his face, shielding his eyes. “I let go of my focus and Tobias pulled back enough energy to slip out the door and into the woods. I wanted to follow him, to hunt him down for what he did to you, but if I did, I would’ve risked losing you.”
Other Side Of Forever (Other Side Of Forever Series Book 1) Page 19