by Amity Green
One more peek around the wall revealed Peter had gone. I crouched down, gathering my bearings after the punch to my emotions. I would get to the garage, find the keys, locate my best, and apparently only, friend, and leave, not wasting a second thought.
I put Peter in the back recesses of my thoughts alongside Ben Thomlinson and Robbie. They stayed locked in my mind’s closet, and Peter had just won himself a membership to the “Things-Tessa-doesn’t-want-to-think-about-ever Club.” Friend card revoked.
Friend was one of those words with different levels of meaning. It ranged from low-level friends, like acquaintances. The next step up could be friends from school, the ones kept at a distance and generally lost over the summer. Then there were true, good friends, besties, like Brea and me. Finally, there was the kind of friend I believed I’d had in Peter. I’d developed feelings for him that belonged in a new place in my heart, a place turned hollow, echoing with emptiness, but shriveling as my anger grew.
Screw it. I’m out of here as soon as I get Brea into a car. Bye-bye, bad guys.
Determination renewed with good, old-fashioned pissiness, I shouldered my bag and took a step toward the garage, face-first into a waiting, chemical-laced towel.
I pulled at the hand over my face, scratching deep into the skin there, thrashing against a thick, wall of a man I couldn’t see. I tried to scream but the harsh fumes choked me up. The minute bit of distorted light peeking through the cloth left me. I tried to break free, to run. The vice-like grip around my head was relentless. A weight developed in my chest, pulling me toward the ground like a heavy chain was anchored through my sternum, each link ratcheting me lower and lower. Dizziness met nausea, dancing from the top of my head to my stomach and back up.
I hope Peter can’t see me now. I hope I never see him again ….
I fell onto the grass as my mind dimmed out, thinking of how truly deep green it was in the shrouded sunshine.
Chapter 20
Two years ago I lived my life on a mission to remain alone while I accepted the system, and rolled with the punches until I could spread my wings. I wanted to be freed into the wild like a feathering hawk. We’d taken a field trip to a bird sanctuary where a young golden eagle was brought in with an injured wing. It was nursed along and eventually released. That would be me.
I remember the feeling of being forced to wait. Not forced by some evil captor who cackled and poked at me from outside my cage, but held in place merely by the fear of being alone in society. Fairly natural in a child of 17.
That was a lifetime ago. Memories were vague on a new level. Did I even remember what it felt like to trust that good remained, veiled and hidden, waiting for the day when I was rewarded for putting up with the crappy hand I’d been dealt? Was that youthful blunder at its finest or what? There was no good. I could think of none. Except Brea, but she was a lifetime away from me.
Consciousness courted me, but I pushed it away, content to listen to thoughts swim through the crashing waves in my mind, beckoning me to fade back to oblivion. I took the easy road and slept.
A stream splashed over rocks nearby. A breeze mixed with the scents of honeysuckle and warm amber. I was the most detached from my body I’d ever been. But I was warm and felt oddly comfortable and at ease.
I opened my eyes to see the greenest canopy of leaves above my head. Multicolored birds flitted from branches, singing in long coos and tweets. Sunshine peeked through, streaming onto thick grass beside me. I moved my fingers in the light. They were slender, peachy and polished with my favorite shade of pink. My body rested flat. I crossed my ankles, staring at the beautiful trees.
I didn’t wonder where I was. Nor did I worry about when I would leave. I smiled when the breeze urged the trees into motion and sunlight caressed my face. I closed my eyes and just breathed, belonging.
Footsteps approached, swishing in the grass, and rather than becoming alarmed, I welcomed whoever came to join me. It was a man, gold and silver from time, deeply etched with knowledge and kindness. He wore a long wrap of light cloth which hung from his frame nearly to the ground. When he came to his knees beside me, his tarnished-copper beard grazed the grass, flowing with bronze and silver. A talisman of amethyst and shining grey and white feathers was shaped into the likeness of an owl and hung to his chest, holding his beard flat against him. Brilliant green eyes watched me knowingly with kindred regard. He smiled easily at me, bowing his head when I turned his way. He was entirely familiar, somehow. I’d spent a lifetime knowing him.
“Bandia na Tessa,” he said. His smile radiated warmth. His voice was low and soothing. I didn’t care that I didn’t understand what he told me. At least he knew my name. He inclined his face to the sky, chin tilted high. He breathed deeply, feathered talisman rising and falling gently, tumbled amethyst glinting in eager sunshine.
His act was serene, utterly pleasing, when he knelt beside me. I sat up in the grass, looking to see what held his attention, but finding only the beautiful canopy of trees and birds.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, but inhaled shakily instead. He lowered his chin to glance at me with blackened eyes. Even the whites were solid and dark. He began to weep. I slid back on the grass when a tuft of white smoke appeared above him. His face grew reddened, and more smoke billowed around his long robe as it turned charred and brown. His jaw opened impossibly wide, giving me a view of flame licking the back of his throat. He screamed, high and loud, crying. Mourning.
I covered my ears and stumbled to my feet.
The skin of his face and hands began to blacken and stretch, melting away in places to reveal bone that gleamed white as heat consumed him. The feculent smell of burning hair and flesh impregnated every breath I took. His mouth worked with no other sound as his hands clawed at his face, pulling away more charred, bloodied flesh. His entire body huffed into flame like he’d been soaked in accelerant.
Screaming, backing away across the turf, I fell backward and my body submerged in cool water. I stilled with the sound of the rushing stream, floating and crying, watching black and grey smoke twist into the air, smudging the beauty of the canopy. Birds fell from the branches and sky, drowning beside me without struggling for life. Paralyzed, I watched one after the other plummet, listening to them die. I continued to cry for days.
* * *
Pain stomped around in my head. My mind struggled to clear, fighting the urge to fall back into painless sleep. I focused on trying wake up. One of my eyes was submerged. I lay on my side in a slow eddy of water that had no temperature.
I opened my eyes to near darkness, and distant, throbbing music. Everything was made of water, the walls, the ceiling, it all moved with streaming currents. A woman looked into my face, brushing hair from my eye with a gentle touch. Her entire being was a transparency of moving fluid with silver flashes refracting through it. We lay on our sides, staring at each other. Her smile injected light deep within my soul, making me want to cry in the face of tranquility. I’d never known such profound peace before. She was beautiful and unreal, like a fairy, or a sprite molded in prismic shades of silver.
“Breathe now, old one,” she said.
I smiled back at her. Or I think I did. “All this has been a dream, hasn’t it?” I was relieved, ready to wake up in my bed back at the Home.
“Life is a mere, endless dream, sweet. We all remain trapped, in one way or another.” Her light, musical voice rang in my mind, urging me on. At once she leaned close, becoming liquid, rushing over me as if I stood under a gentle waterfall.
I gasped from the feeling of being submerged and instantly wished I hadn’t.
Breath caught in my throat as I curled up, coughing up river water. A trickle ran from my nose. Spitting hurt, but I expelled more, even after I thought I was done. My nose was raw inside. The metallic taste of old pennies coated my mouth.
I rolled to my knees in about three inches of clear water. Blood dripped from my chin, churning in the current. The
water was crystalline, showing pebbles of varied hues beside my hands where blood swirled crimson before being washed away. When I shifted my weight, my muscles retaliated with pain. My body protested movement, unresponsive to my urges at first. Hysterical, I was overjoyed that parts of me lacked feeling altogether.
The concept of time lay beyond my grasp. I felt like I’d inhabited the same place for days, but that couldn’t have been right. My fingertips were pruned to the point of deep crevasses, devoid of sensation when I tried to touch my throbbing temple. My forehead lacked no gusto in the lightning strike of pain that shot through my skull when I probed a wound there.
Blood-laced water continued to build up in my mouth so I kept spitting. My throat ached all the way to my lungs. When I exhaled, a sick gurgling noise rumbled deep in my chest. My hair was stuck in my mouth and twisted across my brow. I sat back on my heels, taking my time with the feeling of being upright. Feeble balance escaped me and I splashed onto my bottom in the water, sending another shock through a puffy, bruised wrist. Every part of my body alit with pain and stiffness. I wiped my mouth on my jean-clad knee. The stench of unwashed, dirty clothes filled my nostrils. I’d taken a horrible beating. I should have cried, but it wouldn’t happen.
The water lady was gone, along with the liquid walls and ceiling. All ethereal beauty was replaced with darkened limestone that was streaked with furry looking black, brown, and puke-green moss.
Light grew brighter beyond the small stone cut-out where I huddled in the shallow pool. The groggy feeling began to clear and in its absence, nerve endings burst to life, sending pulses of electric pain to awakening extremities. I came around quickly, like painkillers wore off after a severe injury.
Footsteps sounded in the near distance. I was hidden directly behind a winding, stone stairwell carved into the rock ahead. Kai came into view. I snorted softly and refused to look at him.
“I told you to stay in your room.”
I glared through puffy eyelids. “You lied to me about everything. You didn’t take me to see Brea.” Words cracked past my swollen tongue. I needed something to drink badly and I examined the glistening pool, wondering if the water was safe.
He studied me in the puddle at his feet, keeping a safe distance so he didn’t ruin an expensive looking set of glossy leather shoes.
I’m sure I was quite the beat-up sight to behold. My lips were thick, like they were swollen. One of my eyes wasn’t open all the way. Blood had dried in my hairline somewhere and since it was wet again, it dripped watered-down crimson onto my forearm.
“I’m jealous of your ability to love so deeply. You sacrifice your own safety so willingly.”
“Spare me.”
“Why should I when you’re so careless with your fragile mortality? You walk around this world taunting Fate as if she wants what’s best for you.”
Touché. That hit home. “You got me there.”
“Seems we need to talk.” He extended a hand.
I looked at it, frowning.
He smiled, obviously knowing his help might be the only way I could stand on my own.
I took his offer and he pulled me roughly to my feet, dragging me clear of the water. I couldn’t straighten all the way at first. I cried out, nearly falling.
Kai scooped me up, one arm under my shoulders and other beneath my knees. I was grateful, although being helpless in the arms of the bad guy wasn’t a good thing. He didn’t carry me to be kind and spare me pain. He did it to speed me along because we both knew I couldn’t walk.
Kai paced through the place on a gleaming path of shiny tiles, taking me into a great cavern within the limestone walls, marked and carved out from years of water rushing within. There was a horseshoe-shaped bar, bigger than my bedroom at the Home, against a darkened, far wall, adding the look of a club to the area. The stream gushed from a cut in the stone ahead. Underwater lighting had been installed, and deep blue hues tinted the water from behind stones in the small river bed. Several pools eddied quietly along the water’s course, all lit in a similar fashion in different colors.
The forms of two people, maybe more, bobbed in one of the distant pools. Voices carried on low echoes. A girl laughed and stood, a nude silhouette from the waist up. I looked away, continuing to scan the rest of the area. She hadn’t seemed to mind being naked, although I felt embarrassed seeing her. No one seemed to notice Kai toting me across the expanse of the cavern and I was grateful for that, considering I probably looked like water-logged road kill.
When we stepped close to any of the pools, the air warmed with damp heat radiating from hot springs. Stone created natural bridges over flowing water as it emerged from the floor in several places across the yawning cavern, only to disappear below the floor.
Rhythmic, low music resonated through the rock. Ambient lighting flooded a small area of the room, casting rays from above through a grate-covered hole in the ceiling. The illuminated area below was smooth, likely a dance floor. Electric sconces lit the dark corners of the place to perfection. Overstuffed leather furniture created an air of leisure, arranged in separate areas of the large, open room for places of intimate semi-privacy or open conversation.
“Do you like my grotto, Tessa?” Kai asked.
His voice resonated into my ear from deep within his chest, jarring me. I pulled my head from where it rested against his body, suddenly too aware of my ability to relax any part of my body touching him.
“No,” I rasped. I needed water, not a grand tour of an egotist’s wadey pool. Even though, it was a really great wadey pool. I coughed, which hurt like crazy from spewing inhaled water.
We passed the curving staircase carved into the wall. Jagged stairs were measured perfectly and knapped into stone. I felt the lump on my head with shaking fingertips. Dried blood clumped in my hair there. My elbow hurt when I straightened it and my right knee felt like it had bent in the wrong direction as it dangled from Kai’s arm. I pictured my unconscious body being flung down those stairs, tumbling over step after rocky step. I shivered, glancing up at Kai. It was the only explanation I had for the injuries that spanned my body. Someone had tossed me down the stairs like I was a ragdoll.
There were dark corners in Kai’s grotto I couldn’t see into. I had no idea who else was down there with us. Or what else. If there was one thing I’d learned in my short time in the UK, it was how strange things happened when the sun went down. The Unknown could be as powerful as Hindsight. Even more so, in a case like that.
Kai dropped my feet to the ground with a heavy clomp. I wasn’t ready for him to release half my body so I landed awkwardly. It hurt. He pushed me backward onto a large armchair and I glared up at him.
“Maybe you’ll use your pretty head and stay put this time.”
I nodded. He walked toward the bar we’d passed. Darkened figures frolicked in the heated pools around me.
I inventoried my situation quickly. My body was poisoned and injured to the point I couldn’t run away. Someone had thrown me down a deadly set of stairs, I assumed, with no other rational excuse for my condition. Kai could’ve been the one who tossed me into the cavern, but something about that didn’t make sense. The trip down the stairs could have easily killed me. Kai might be mean to me and hurt me, but he’d made it clear he had a use for me somehow, which meant I would be kept alive. I still had not seen Brea, which was the only reason I got in Kai’s car in the first place. Although I had been forced not to involve Peter, he was my one “ally” in the mix and had turned out to be one of the bad guys. I was pretty much screwed.
The events didn’t bode well for me finding Brea, escaping, and saving the day.
But I still had tenacity. I rolled with things. This was easily the worst situation I’d been in so far, but I’d be damned if I was going to give up on finding Brea.
Weighing my choices for an ally was a quick process. Petra was out for two reasons, the first and biggest being she’d had it in for me since the first time we’d met. The other reason was that
I was sure she was looking for the right time to get back at me. I couldn’t blame her. If someone had busted my lip, I’d swing back at the first given opportunity.
My second choice was Peter, but the thought of him seared my heart like a bloody steak on a grill. He was a special breed. I would never understand how someone could be so tender but so quick to deceive. The day we rode the subway, kissing and holding each other while we traveled for miles beneath the city was one of the best of my life, and it hadn’t meant a thing to him. He wouldn’t get the chance to betray me again.
As much as I loathed the thought, I would need to rely on Kai. The idea gave me the creeps. There were many dark things I didn’t know about him. I was certain he could pull off things that would undo me. The emotional battering I’d endured over the last couple of months had been excruciatingly painful, much worse than the pain in my body.
I couldn’t remember how young I was when I made the connection that emotional pain could actually make my chest ache, deep inside. It was a familiar sensation that made me feel weak, victimized, in a way. Tears welled in my eyes and sweat beaded on my fevered skin as fire ignited around my heart. A small, waning bit of confusion tagged along every time I heated up that way, but given my circumstances, that time it made a little sense.
Life’s events had created a monster in me long ago. The “fevers” were my monster raging. I’d been angry as long as I’d been alive. I must have been a complete trip to the nuns at the Home. They probably thought I was possessed by a demon. Maybe they were onto something. A hysterical laugh barked from my chest, echoing. A few “swimmers” glanced my way briefly.
The heat inside me became invigorating. I sat up on the chair, ignoring the hurt in my body, feeling oddly empowered at being able to shelve such pain. I knew myself better at that one moment than I ever had before, which wasn’t saying a lot. Given my circumstances though, I’d take the perks when they came my way. When I’d heated up at other times in the past, I’d always felt a little frightened. Out of control. It was the Unknown. I greeted it with open arms for the first time ever.