Velocity: The Gravity Series #2

by A. B. Bloom

  Celeste refused to tell me any of the history Nick and I shared, nor why he was doomed to find me over and over again. Surely that was a curse, right? He’d told me on the moor, just before he’d made the final play and kissed me that he wasn’t allowed to keep me. I just didn’t know why.

  Why couldn’t he keep me? It was wrong. Kale had said it was his punishment, but punishment for what?

  After I'd collapsed on the moor, seemingly dead, Aaron had made a grab for Eleanor.

  My step father of sixteen years had left me on the floor for dead and fled with my secret twin sister.

  I hated him. But it still cut deep.

  The others had grabbed me and my best friend Lauren.

  Lauren. Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes. It was the one action that my group of protectors had taken that I couldn’t resign myself to. The lies, the altering of reality, I could understand. Wiping my best friend and mother’s memories of my existence. How could I ever live with that?

  My mum and Lauren didn’t know who I was. Surely that wasn’t possible? The slow leaking tears picked up pace and splattered onto the pillow, creating wet circles as they absorbed into the cotton.

  Celeste had explained that if mum and Lauren didn’t know who I was then they couldn’t leverage them against me. I’d argued that this didn’t sound right. Surely even if they couldn’t remember me, I still knew who they were, but she’d assured me that it had been discussed in great detail. And here was the killer. Lauren herself had agreed.

  Sobs wracked my chest. I heard the door open but I couldn’t quite bring the huge heaves under control.

  I knew it was him. The chain that connected us told me so. He sank silently on the bed and picked my fingers up in his own. He held my hand as I cried my heart out, until I felt like breathing was no longer going to be a possibility.

  “I’m sorry.” His words were quiet but I knew he meant them. His soul, his brilliant violet light, reached towards me, flickering and twisting as it tried to connect with my own.

  My words evaporated into silence so I nodded.

  “I didn’t know,” he said.

  I nodded again.

  Silence lapped between us and I fought to pull myself under control. “Did you,” I stammered the words and I wasn’t sure he could even understand what I was saying. “Did you know you could kill yourself by taking my energy?”

  The thought of him dying did something terrible to me. It ripped through my insides, pulling me down, stamping on my heart. Is that how it felt when he watched me die, how could he go through that, time and time again?

  Shifting forward he leaned in closer, his eyes holding mine, steady and firm. “I would do anything for you.” I sucked in a breath. “Anything.”

  “And is it true we can’t kiss without you holding yourself back?” I don’t know why this seemed important when I’d just found out my own mother had no recollection of her daughter, but it did.

  Nick sighed. “Celeste has been blabbing again, I presume.”

  “Yep.”

  “May I?” He gestured at the bed and my heart stopped beating. How he didn’t poof back into the sky there and then I will never know because I must have died of shock.

  “Sure.”

  He sent me a crooked grin as he pulled back the duvet and slid into the bed next to me with all his clothes on. This was an entirely new development, and the pulse in the base of my throat raced like I was attempting to survive completing a marathon. His body spread against me, arms touching, hips resting, the tip of his nose nudging the tip mine.

  “Calm down, Bronte.” His voice vibrated along my bones, melting them into jelly. His nose skimmed my jaw and I held my breath. “It’s not so much about holding back, it’s about maintaining control.” A kiss landed on the corner of my lips.

  There was little chance of me attempting any control. My pulse thudded and my skin was firing with an electrical storm.

  The kiss tickled along to the centre of my mouth where it teased my lips open. I relaxed and wound my arms around his neck, feeling him move alongside me. The lean length of his body pressed against me tight. We’d kissed before, but only for snatched moments. This was different, it no longer felt like he was fighting me or his feelings for me. It was like he’d submitted to the connection we had. The chain jangled in acknowledgement and I relaxed into his touch, allowing it to run over me like a soothing balm.

  When he pulled away he stayed close, his breath fanning my face. “Control will take practice; I hope you don’t mind.”

  I pretended to think but ended up giggling. Five minutes before, I would never have thought I’d giggle again, but somehow he enticed the sound from deep within me. “Practice sounds good.”

  He pecked another kiss on my lips. “I’m glad that’s not a problem.”

  “What’s changed?” I shouldn’t have asked. I should have just enjoyed this unexpected side of Nick for what it was. Enjoyed the moment. Thing was, I was still in the dark and I needed to know where I stood.

  He pulled away a fraction, his fingers lingering by the skin of my throat, pausing the fiery journey they’d been making along the surface of my skin. “Things were complicated before.”

  “Because of Connor?”

  Nick’s body stiffened, just the smallest fraction, next to mine and he sighed. “Yes. Along with other factors.”

  “And now?”

  “Well before, I’d made a promise I couldn’t break.”

  An uneasiness washed through me. “What sort of promise?” I wished I had the nerve to lean forward and kiss him. But part of me was worried this was all a dream. That if I started something, he would back away just like he always had before.

  He murmured under his breath and kissed me again on the lips. This time he didn't pull away. He moved himself closer and closer into my space until our bodies were flush and no space existed between us. “I’m not going anywhere, Bronte. I’m fighting for us, forever.” My heart somersaulted an aerial display of acrobatics. With shaking hands, I traced my fingertips along the smooth curve of his forehead and along the high arch of his eyebrow. I trailed my touch to the olive skin of his cheek, and he closed his eyes, his dark lashes fluttering shut.

  “Why don’t you have to keep the promise anymore?” I asked.

  A lazy smile tilted his lips. “Because I’ve made a new promise. It supersedes all the others.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t sure I was learning anything but I couldn’t bring myself to be phased by it. He was here. With me. We were together. Did anything else matter?

  My throat pinched and dried, and my words struggled to make their escape. “Have we been like this before?”

  His eyes snapped open, the violets pools dark in the dim light of the room. “Rarely.” The skin around his lips pinched tight, a straight line forming across his beautiful face.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged and rolled away from me, settling himself on the mattress, his arms linked under his head. I wish I’d never spoken. The break of contact between us seared through my skin. The chain rattled in frustration, it’s tugging incessant. To reprieve the ache in my stomach, I swallowed my nerves and moved myself alongside him, sliding my body until I fit into the contour of his. He released a hand and wound it around my body tight, snuggling it into the groove of my waist. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this was possible. “Sometimes I get to be with you, most of the times I don’t.”

  “You told me on the moor it was a punishment you had to bear, what did you mean?”

  Nick studied the ceiling for a long moment. “Remember at the market in Marrakesh?” His words were low and brushed against my earlobe. “When I told you I was greedy and selfish.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why.”

  This wasn’t an answer at all but I could tell from the set of his mouth he would not reveal more, not tonight.

  “Are you allowed to stay here tonight?”

  “I don’t plan to ever lea
ve.” His arms tightened around me, holding me in a vice like grip. I allowed my head to believe his words even if my heart wasn’t sure what they meant.

  My disappointment upon waking and finding a sprig of heather in Nick’s place knew no bounds. My stomach dove, anchoring down at my feet and I paused for a breath, waiting for the chain to jingle and jangle. But it didn’t. It lay there curled like a sleeping snake, dormant in the pit of my stomach.

  My feet scrambled against the mattress as I struggled to sit up. Something was wrong. I could feel it. My entire body felt odd, off, like it was about to crumble around me.

  I rolled off the bed and grabbed my robe before slipping down the stairs, my feet moving too fast to grip the treads properly. Celeste was examining the underneath of a coffee pot like she wasn't sure where to fill it with water.

  “Where is he?” I didn’t have time for pleasantries. In fact, I didn’t want to partake in pleasantries. I wanted to know where my Nick was.

  My Nick.

  He was my Nick. During the night as his arms had held me tight, I’d dreamed of us again, in a different time. This time when I’d dreamt, they hadn’t exhausted me, they’d rejuvenated me. Well, that was until I’d woken and realised he wasn’t where he said he would be.

  Celeste’s eyes flicked over my hair with a frown. Sweat was building along my hairline and top lip. I rubbed at it absently with the back of my hand. “He’s gone, Bron.”

  A burst of rage spiked through me. “What do you mean gone?”

  She sighed and put the pot down, still no coffee in sight. “He’s gone, you must have known he would.” She tutted and sighed. “He should have told you. He’s such a scaredy cat, that boy.”

  “What?” I threw my hands up in the air. "Yesterday you told me he’d risked his life for me, how can he now be a scaredy cat?”

  She grinned. “It’s you he’s scared of. He would do anything to protect you, even lie to you.”

  Her words rang in my ears. Would he lie? I shook my head. He wouldn’t.

  The ache of him being gone numbed my body. I didn’t know how we were supposed to fight this connection we shared. Was it even possible to fight it? It hurt so much I knew I didn’t want to.

  “Who sent him away?” I demanded.

  Celeste’s eyes flickered. “Kesh.”

  “Kesh!” I exploded. “Kesh!” I stormed for the door, slamming into Connor who was mooching in as I banged my way back out the kitchen.”

  “Whoah, what’s got her on fire?”

  “Get lost, jerk.” I flung my retort in his direction as I slammed my way through the house, looking for someone in charge.

  I found them, Kesh and Kale together, in what I’d thought was my dad’s office. Now I no longer knew what it was. A battle command centre perhaps?

  “Why’ve you done this?” I demanded as the door sprung back off the wall from the force of my entry.

  Kesh looked up from papers he was scrutinising and offered me a small smile. I glared at him.

  “It’s for both of your safety, not just yours," he said, his voice deep. I fought off the waves of calmness he sent in my direction. Deep within me I found my energy and I clung onto it much like I had the previous day when I blocked him. This time I wrapped it around myself like a cloak, visualising it covering me from top to toe. He smiled. “You are stronger than we even thought. Your skill is remarkable with such little training.”

  “Little training? I think you mean no training. Nick could have helped me if you’d let him stay.” I sounded like a petulant child. Much like that day when I hadn’t been able to get my hands on the violet coloured My Little Pony.

  Kesh shook his head. “You two are far too powerful together.”

  “But—” I went to interrupt but he held up his hand.

  His tone lowered and soothed. “This is unprecedented and unexpected, you aren't meant to be in that body. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Rolls of nausea washed through me. The thought of not being with him made me feel physically sick. It wasn’t right. “I don’t think we can be apart.” I tried to express the way I was feeling, the terrible pull and ache I’d known since he’d arrived. But how could I even put that into words? “I don’t think I can survive without him,” I muttered, when all other words failed.

  “What if you can’t survive with him? What if he can’t survive? We need to know more. To protect you is paramount.”

  My eyes darted to Kale. His face was perfectly smooth. Too smooth. “This is mighty convenient, Dad.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t fight with me, we just need to find out what’s happening.”

  My hands trembled, my legs wobbled. “I’ll tell you what’s happening.” I took a deep breath but my lungs couldn’t find any air. I clawed and clawed at the atmosphere around me but there was no oxygen to be found. “I don’t feel . . .” Black dots swum in my vision. A dark mist, descending like it had in the days when Nick was hidden from me but I could still sense him.

  My legs folded as Kale stepped forward and caught me, lifting me in his arms. A dark heavy pull dragged my body down. It wanted to roll me in the depths of my dreams, holding me there; I couldn’t fight it.

  “This is worse than we thought.” Kale’s voice cut through the buzzing in my ears.

  Kesh returned with a low mumble but I could no longer hear the words.

  Darkness twisted my body. It held me aloft like I was flying high in the sky. I wasn’t scared. I knew I was safe. To my right was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. It glowed with an iridescence I would never have known existed. It reached for me, but I shied away. It wasn’t allowed. I wanted to, oh god did I want to, like I wanted to live and breathe. “You’re mine,” it said. It reached for me again and again, until I could no longer resist the magnetic pull that joined us together, and finally, we became one.

  My eyes fluttered open. My clothes stuck to damp skin that tingled in the dark. What was that? The dream. It had been worse than when I’d been chasing Nick and never able to reach him. It had felt like I would suffocate in need and want and never know what it was to breathe again.

  ‘Shh.” A hand swept across my brow and lips skittered across my mouth. Just the slightest of kisses.

  “Nick?” My heart pounded. Please tell me it was him.

  “It’s me.” I felt the bed rock as he settled himself alongside me, one hand sliding against my stomach as he tucked me in tight.

  “Oh god, I thought they’d made you leave. I don’t remember anything.”

  I didn’t. Everything was black. All I could remember was the ache of wanting echoing in my bones until it felt like they were melting in a vat of need. I breathed through the ache. Every part of me hurt.

  “Sleep, Bron. No one can make me leave. Not anymore.”

  Nick was gone when I opened my eyes. I groaned, I’d known he would be. My sleep had been a patchwork of deep dreams. They'd been riddled with dark memories, interspersed with waking moments of clarity. During these times, Nick had kissed me, causing my heart to sing and my body to hum. He’d whispered, telling me I’d been sick, that they hadn’t known what to do, so they’d brought him back. No one knew anything, not anymore.

  I felt fine when I woke. The memory of collapsing was hazy, like it might not have happened at all. I had no idea what today would bring.

  What happened when one's life no longer existed?

  Lauren.

  It hurt me more than I could express that my best friend had her memories of me wiped. It meant not only did she not remember all the time we'd spent to together but also, the time we'd spent surviving the scorn of Eleanor. My sister.

  I still couldn’t bring myself to think of her as my sister. After my sixteenth birthday when I’d been weak, my bones breaking, my body wasting away, she’d been strong and beautiful. Nick had told me in the night that he figured that we’d both been born with shared natural abilities. For example, as a child, Nick had always felt that I’d had an intuitiv
e sixth sense that was linked to my star energy. Yet, once my sixteenth birthday had come and gone, the energy that had been mine, had absorbed into her. Kale had planned for me to have enough energy to survive until he could come back and find me, giving me what was rightfully mine. What he didn’t plan on was for there to be a twin and that the energy would go to her instead, nor that I would be hidden and he’d be unable to find me. That's why Eleanor had got stronger and more beautiful, while I’d grown weaker. Once I'd found my moonstone abandoned in the corner of my mother's wardrobe, the power had come back to me, draining out of her.

  It was a dilemma of gigantic proportions. Eleanor and I were sisters. I had the power now and I knew I was leaving her weak and unprotected. Would she care though, if the roles were reversed?

  No, I don’t think she would.

  I rolled slightly onto my side and found a note on the spare pillow. Outside. Sleepyhead.xx

  My heart raced and the chain jangled. Scrambling out of bed, I searched for clothes before thinking a shower may not go amiss. As much as I wanted to find Nick, I knew hygiene was still of some importance. I allowed myself a full thirty seconds in the shower. In the process of plugging in my hairdryer, I remembered the lesson Celeste had taught me about manipulating my energy, and transforming myself. It was my energy now, what the hell.

  I stood in front of the mirror and visualised how I wanted to look. I didn’t know what the day would hold, I guessed I wouldn’t be going to school—not something I was upset about. I closed my eyes and concentrated harder than I’d probably ever applied to my schoolwork. When I opened them again, I was taken aback by the reflection staring at me from the depths of the mirror. Dark jeans tucked into sheepskin boots and a soft Merino wool sweater clung to curves I was sure I hadn’t owned a couple of weeks before. My weight loss after my birthday had been dramatic, yet it seemed the energy running through me was fixing the damage that had been wrecked. My straight pale hair was thicker than I ever remembered it being.