The Blood and Light Series (Six Books Boxed Set)

by Rue Volley

  Jonah stopped and looked at him.

  “Completely unnecessary,” Jonah said.

  Theodore stopped and looked back at the broken mirror.

  Jonah looked at him and grinned.

  “I would ask one thing of you, Theodore… since I have mortally wounded myself on your behalf it seems… Why did you stand in the mirror’s path?”

  Theodore shook his head.

  “I could have sworn that right before the blades entered it, I saw Rue.”

  ***

  I let Blake hold my hand. We walked out into the most beautiful day that I had ever seen. We walked down the long path leading from the asylum and I never even considered asking him if he had a car. I wanted to walk… walk without… I stopped and held my head for a moment. Blake stopped and looked at me. He leaned down and tried to see my face.

  “Rue… are we okay?”’ he asked me.

  I took my hand from my face and nodded. Did he just say ‘we’? I mean don’t get me wrong, we were a ‘we’, walking our way to normal. I just didn’t know if ‘we’ worked for me. I sighed as I tried to quiet my internal conversation. I really needed to stop doing that anyway. I should just open my mouth and say it. That’s what I wanted to do anyway. Blake just doesn’t pull that out of me like… well, you know, the hot boy who isn’t real. Crap. He isn’t is he? That so sucks!

  I continued to walk with Blake until we made it to the gate. I stopped and looked at the little box that had a boy in it. He sat there with his feet up on the counter, reading a magazine. Blake looked at me and squeezed my hand before he let it go. He walked up to the box and the boy opened the small glass window. Blake leaned in and pulled out a paper. The boy took it and looked at him and then stared at me. Awesome… yep, Blake was taking the crazy girl for a walk.

  The boy said something to Blake and then laughed. Blake didn’t. I don’t know what he said, but Blake looked irritated. He placed the paper back in his pocket and looked at me. He walked back to me and held out his hand to me. I took it, wanting to know what the boy said. I mean, just imagine the possibilities. I can think of ten right now… awful, nasty jokes about me. Starting with this hideous outfit that Blake got for me.

  The boy pressed a button and I heard the gate click, it started to move. I couldn’t believe it. The gate was opening up, letting me leave. Yes… this rocks. Blake held my hand and started to walk towards the gate. I glanced at the boy in the box and he puckered and blew a kiss at me. I crinkled my eyebrows at him and he laughed. Screw you! I mean you work in a box at the gate of an asylum. At least I get to go inside, you ass. God!

  My temporary hate rant for the boy in the box ended as soon I realized that I had just taken a step outside of the gate. It started to move as I looked back at it. There it went, closing all those poor souls in. Minus one... me, well two… and Blake. I guess he didn’t really count though, right? I mean he got to do that every day, unlike me. I looked over at him and he looked like he was in deep thought. I decided to stop talking in my head and give him something.

  “Thank you, this is amazing,” I said as I looked up and watched the birds fly over…

  Free birds, not asylum birds. Well, they don’t know they are living at the asylum. I was sure that they just think that big creepy building is the best to nest on. Well, they can have it.

  “It wasn’t me, Rue… You made this happen,” he said.

  I looked at him. He pulled me out of thought.

  “You told Holly that I was getting better,” I said.

  He grinned. “Well, I’m not a doctor,” he said to me.

  I stopped and looked at him. He turned and shook his head.

  “What?” he said.

  I looked down at the outfit that he had bought for me… you know, the one that looked like someone threw up pink all over it, and I grinned.

  “What?” he asked me.

  I looked back up at him and had a bad look on my face.

  “Can I be honest with you, without you getting a girl on me?” I asked.

  He raised his eyebrows and paused.

  “Sure, I guess,” he said.

  “I hate this,” I said as I touched the skirt.

  There now he knows, one less secret.

  He paused. I thought for sure that he was going to have a bad reaction, but then he did the thing that I hoped for… he laughed. I started to laugh too. I mean… I couldn’t believe those clothes. I really couldn’t.

  “Okay then… we shop,” he said.

  I lit up, why I couldn’t tell you. I mean, I had no memory for shopping. I must have liked it though, because my heart started to race in my chest, like a little kid about everything.

  I looked at him and he held his hand out to me again. I took it; he had to lead me to something better than what I had on. I looked down the road and it looked empty. No one walked around. There had to be people there, right?

  We walked down the sidewalk, sun shining… wind barely moving, but just enough to cool the sun beating down on us. We rounded a corner and I looked at a car… the only one on the street. It was black. I tilted my head and then Blake pulled out his keys and jingled them. Awesome… we were actually leaving. I was afraid that the walk meant that he lived super close to the asylum. I so wanted to get as far away from that place as possible. Run… or in this case drive, as quickly as possible.

  He walked to the car and I followed him. He opened up my door and stopped for a minute and I looked at him. I shrugged off the weird deja vu feeling that I had and got in. The seat was so soft; I leaned back in it. It felt like a big chair, wrapping its arms around me. I sighed and watched him walk around the front of the car. He stopped and looked at me, before he opened his door up. I waited. I mean, come on, Blake… get in… let’s go.

  He stood there clutching the keys in his hand, staring at them. He looked back at the asylum, up on the hill. I started to get worried, that he may have realized that this was not the plan he had. Maybe he was not allowed to actually drive me around. I opened my door up and stepped out slowly. Go ahead… get to the punch line Blake. Tell me that we can’t go anywhere. He looked up at me and then he tossed the keys to me.

  “Go,” he whispered.

  I caught the keys in my hand and shook my head at him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Take my car and run, Rue,” he said.

  I blinked and felt a rush of adrenaline in my blood. My stomach growled and I looked at him.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “Take my car and run. Drive as fast as you can out of town and don’t look back,” Blake said.

  I looked at him and crinkled my eyebrows.

  “You are kidding me,” I said.

  “I couldn’t be more serious, Rue… run. You have to leave now,” he said.

  “I can’t just ‘run’, Blake. I mean, they will find me… and what about you...? Are you having a break down on me?” I asked him.

  I felt a vibration in the ground and I looked up at the asylum. The building started to shift; I swear I could see stone falling from it. Blake looked too and then looked back at me. “Get in the car and go… now. She is coming,”’ he whispered to me.

  “She who?” I asked him.

  “You don’t want to know, just go… I’m begging you,” Blake said.

  I looked up and the sky started to turn black above the asylum. I watched the clouds churn and the wind picked up. Smoke started to billow from the windows of the asylum. I was in shock, watching it all happen. Blake ran around to me and grabbed my arm. He pulled me towards the driver’s side as I kept looking at the asylum. He stopped and touched my face.

  “What did you do?” I asked him.

  The wind blew his hair around and he grinned at me.

  “The only thing that could be done,” he said.

  I shook my head and gripped the keys in my hand.

  “I don’t even know if I can drive!” I yelled at him.

  “Well, not very well, but
good enough… Just head that way!” he yelled at me.

  I hugged him hard and buried my face in his chest. He held onto me and I could hear his heart beating. I wanted to say so much to him… so many things. I couldn’t put it all into one coherent sentence. He what? Set the asylum on fire so that I could have freedom? OMG.

  “What about you, Blake? “ I asked him as I pulled back and looked at his face.

  He smiled like I didn’t need to worry about him.

  “I am a color of a different light,” he said to me.

  I felt my mind, my body, and soul tilting.

  “You are everything I wanted,” I said to him.

  He grinned and touched my face.

  “I’m not what you need.”

  “Then tell me… what is it then?” I asked him.

  The ground shook and he steadied me.

  “You need colors that bleed into one,” he said.

  I felt myself for the first time. My breath felt cold in my lungs; my eyes blurred. I wanted those words to make sense to me, and I believe that somewhere… deep inside of me they did. I stared at his face, wanting to remember, wanting so badly for this moment to be what it should be. I felt a longing in my heart… so painful and lingering. Colors that bled into one… into one.

  He started to fade right in front of me. I tried to hold onto the moment; I tried to make sense of it all. I wanted normal. I did. I wanted it so badly I could taste it in my mouth. Perhaps it was that, that held me at a stalemate… trapping me in that way. What was that? Where was I? How did I get here… so far away from what I am?

  I took a deep breath as I held onto his arms and watched his face glitch in front of me. I watched as the asylum burned behind us in the distance. He grinned; I tried to. I wanted him to come with me… to make me feel safe. I needed that… the warmth of someone, the touch of sanity that would make me whole again. I watched him continue to glitch and fade. My fingers gripped at nothing. His body was becoming just another reminder of who I was… the crazy girl that probably just set the asylum on fire and ran for it.

  I stood there staring at the keys in my hand, wondering if they were even real. I heard laughter and I looked up. Great… just perfect. Now I was hell bent on freakin’ out big time. I stared at myself, all dressed up in some awesome outfit, unlike the one I had on. God, if I was going to die, please don’t let it be in this pink outfit. Let me go out looking good. I shook my head and looked at my double; she was staring me down… She tilted her head and grinned at me.

  “What the hell are you smiling about?” I asked her.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Listen, if this is it… then just kill me. I am so over this crap,” I muttered.

  She took one step towards me, looking all scary with fire looming behind her. I guess I would have been scared, but hey… I was in a meltdown mode. I was probably lying on a bed, just dreaming all the crap up.

  She laughed again.

  “You are not dreaming,” she said.

  “Oh… sure…what…? I didn’t say that out loud,” I said as I let my hands fall to my sides.

  The keys slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground. She looked at them and crinkled her eyebrows. Awesome, at least it looks like me, I thought to myself. She looked back at the asylum and then turned to me.

  “I want to thank you… I grew weary of that place,” she said.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Well, we are probably still there,” I said to her.

  God, am I really talking to myself?

  I mean, I did it all the time, but not with me standing in front of me. It was beyond ridiculous.

  She clinched her fists and then lowered her head.

  “What are you doing now?” I asked her.

  She took a big breath and relaxed her hands.

  “I am trying to figure out a way that I can kill you, without harming myself,” she said.

  I snorted. “Oh… perfect,” I said to her.

  She looked at me, a little confused.

  “You should be thinking of ways to survive,” she muttered.

  I threw my hands up in the air.

  “Oh come on… you have got to be kidding me, right? I swear to god… just get back in my head so I can wake up.”

  She placed her hands to her head and screamed. I watched her and then laughed.

  “Cut the drama… I am so not in the mood,” I said to her.

  “In the mood?” she asked me.

  “Yea… you know what,” I said as I reached down and picked up the keys off the ground.

  “As long as I am knee-deep in crazy… I’m gonna drive around, tour the town,” I said.

  She took a step towards me.

  “You stay right where you are. I am in control here,” she said.

  “Screw you,” I said as I opened the car door.

  She screamed out at me and pulled her blades from her back. I guess any rational person would have been like ‘holy crap’ or ‘oh my god’, but not me. I rolled my eyes and got in the car. I started it up and she pointed the blades at me. I stuck my head out the window.

  “You just hang out here and keep thinking up ways to kill me, okay?” I said.

  She lowered her blades and looked at her hands. They started to become transparent.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled out to me as she started to panic.

  “’I am not taking your shit,” I said to her.

  She cried out and I gunned the engine of the car. I pressed on the gas and drove right through her. She misted all over the car like fog. I blinked and shook my head as I drove down the road in a crazy pattern.

  “Well, at least imaginary Blake got one thing right…I drive like shit,” I said out loud as I sighed.

  I drove for what seemed like an hour before my stomach told me to find food. Problem was… there were no places to eat. Since I hauled butt out of town I had seen nothing. Not one house, not one other car. It was like I was the only person alive. You know it would just be too ironic if this was real… which I do not believe… but if so, of course there would have been some apocalyptic disaster to leave me as the only survivor… left to talk myself into a coma. Oh, and I would do just that, I was sure.

  The sun had left me, and the road just looked black, deep black with bright white down the center. My stomach growled again and I looked down, pressing on it. I looked back up and almost had a heart attack when I saw myself in the back seat.

  “What...! Holy crap!” I screamed as I swerved on the road.

  Evil me… you know the one that obviously wants me dead… grinned.

  “Try to not kill us,” she said to me.

  I shook my head and looked at her as I tried to steady my breathing.

  “What the crap?” I asked her.

  “Well, the crap seems to be that you cannot just abandon me,” she said.

  I laughed and swerved as I tried to ignore her. She tilted in the seat and her reflection was gone. I sighed as I glanced at the rear-view mirror. She popped back up and I jumped, hitting the gas too hard. The engine revved and I was thrown against the back of my seat. She leaned up and I could actually feel her breath on my ear.

  “I will not warn you again,” she whispered.

  “First of all… there is no warning here and secondly do not breath on me… Gross,” I said to her. She leaned back and I could see her reflection again.

  “Get out of the car now,” I said.

  She leaned over and looked at the road going by us.

  “How rude… Do you expect me to jump?”

  I laughed and shrugged my shoulders.

  “Yea, I actually do… so do it already,” I said.

  She flashed up behind my seat and placed her hand on my chin. I fought her as she lifted my head up. I tried to keep my eyes on the road, but I was losing sight of what I was doing. I reached back and tried to grab her face… I just wanted to return the favor to her. She leaned back and put her foot on the back of my seat and I
groaned as I started to feel dizzy. I fumbled with the gas pedal and the car jerked on me. She almost lost her grip on me. I suddenly realized what I had to do. I had to wreck the car. Hey… I might not make it, but the point was… she wouldn’t either.

  I kicked my other foot around trying to find the brake; she had me pulled so far back I didn’t even know if I could find it. I decided to take a stab at it and slammed my foot down; it was the brake thank god. The car came to an abrupt stop and she slammed into the back of my seat. I heard her grunt and then fall back onto the backseat. I reached for the door handle; I may have to make a break for it. I opened it and fell out of the car, not exactly the smooth exit I was looking for… but it would have to do. I scrambled to my feet and looked up. I had stopped the car in front of a long lane… leading back to a dark house. How lucky?

  I started to run… as hard as I could. I actually ran faster and easier than I thought that I could. I kept turning to see if she was following me, but she wasn’t in sight. I caught my breath as I approached the house and looked up at it. Holy crap it was big.

  I stood there and decided to set my paranoia aside and ran onto the steps. I started to bang on the door. I waited and shook my hands out at my sides. I took a breath and considered running right when the door opened up. I looked up and saw a pretty girl, pale skin. She was small, looked like a doll. She smiled at me.

  “I am so glad that you could make it,” she said to me.

  I blinked and realized that this might have been a good opportunity to just act like I knew what the hell was going on. I looked into the house and other kids were talking in circles. I looked back down the lane and didn’t see anything… but that doesn’t mean crap. I looked back at the girl and smiled at her.

  “Yea, I wouldn’t have missed it,” I said…

  Whatever ‘it’ was. I had no clue.

  She opened the door wide and I stepped into a large entryway, with people chatting. Some of them looked at me and then back to each other. They can’t possibly know me, right? I stood there in my awesome crappy outfit and looked at my hands. I leaned in when I thought a saw something shimmer in my palm. I looked up and the pretty girl was staring at me. I lowered my hand and took a breath. I had no idea what to say, but I guessed I had to wing it.