Eternal

by Glass, Debra

  This night was supposed to have been so perfect. By now, we would have been in each other’s arms, snuggled in my bed, talking about our future together.

  My thumbnail raked against the back of the ring he’d given me—the ring that signified our commitment.

  Jeremiah had left with Briar to protect me, to save me,-and now, without him, my body felt like a hollow shell.

  Drawing my knees up to my chest, I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears and the pain. Conquered by devastating grief, I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to think, but my mind refused to allow me that luxury. Jeremiah had resolved to leave me and I was powerless to prevent it.

  I tried to focus on the hope he’d soon be with his brothers and the people who loved him who’d long since died. But in my mind’s eye, I could see his face the day I sent that woman to the Light. He’d been surprised to see them. He’d been torn.

  But he hadn’t wanted to go to them.

  He’d wanted to stay here.

  With me.

  A sob racked my chest and I curled tighter, wishing Briar had killed me. Death would be better than this heart-wrenching anguish.

  Visions from the nightmare I’d had crashed over me and I rolled on the floor trying to drive the images out of my head. It was no use.

  Once again…

  I was in a cemetery.

  My gaze swept the moon-bathed tombstones. This time, I knew where I was.

  St. John’s. The haunted church on the highway.

  I ran toward the building, the spire as my guide. Terror gripped me and I wondered if I was too late.

  I rushed up a set of stairs and seized the big handles on the back door of the church. The door wouldn’t budge. “Let me in!” I screamed, pounding on the unyielding wood until my fists ached.

  This time, I knew Jeremiah was inside.

  I stumbled down the stairs, falling, ripping the knee of my jeans on a rock. Pain shot through my kneecap but I ignored it as I clambered to my feet and hobbled around the side of the church.

  I had to get inside. I had to stop it.

  And this time, I knew what I had to stop just like I knew I had to save Jeremiah.

  My eyes snapped open. Hard realization gripped me.

  There was still time. She hadn’t sent him yet. I could stop this if I could get there in time. By asking to go the church, Jeremiah had been doing more than protecting me. He’d been buying time.

  I clambered onto my knees and then clumsily worked my hands underneath me, kicking and struggling, ignoring the burning pain in my shoulders as I managed to get my hands in front of me. I stood, shaking so badly I feared I’d fall but sheer determination drove me. I had to get downstairs to find a knife, some scissors. Something to cut these bonds.

  “Please don’t let Ella have moved Mom’s scissors,” I prayed out loud as I stumbled down the attic steps. Ella was bad about snitching them for one of her projects and then not putting them back.

  Mom had grounded Ella time and time again for it but Ella was hard headed and the scissors continued to turn up missing. And then another dismal thought struck me. Mom had stashed them in a cabinet so high, Ella couldn’t reach them. With my hands tied, that meant I wouldn’t be able to reach them either.

  “I’ll just use a knife,” I said to myself as I started down the main staircase.

  Navigating stairs with my hands tied, while wearing a long dress was harder than I imagined it would be and, in my haste, I tripped over the hem and tumbled down the last three steps, twisting and landing with a hard thud on my side.

  Pain seared my ankle, shooting up my leg in hot, throbbing bursts, but there was no time to give in to it. I crawled to my feet again, crying out as I took the first step.

  I’d sprained it. Each step confirmed the gravity of my injury.

  Gritting my teeth against the pain, I worked fistfuls of my skirt into my tied hands and hobbled as quickly as I could to the kitchen. Every punishing step proved more agonizing than the one before it but I refused to consider that I might have broken my ankle instead.

  Scaling the three steps down into the kitchen tortured me. Tears poured down my face but I made it.

  The key to my Jag lay on the counter just where Mom had left it. I stared at it for several seconds, suddenly remembering that driving terrified me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut against the rising images of Kira, the sirens, the police and ambulance lights, the first time I looked in the mirror at my scar…

  “No!” I screamed, trying to shut out the doubtful voice in my head. Jeremiah needed me. I would not give in to the terror.

  Somehow, I forced my feet to carry me to the drawer where we kept the cooking knives. I found one with a serrated edge. Cutting the bungee cord Briar had wound around my wrists was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

  I slid down the cabinets, my bottom thudding against the cold, tile floor and clumsily set to work, dropping the knife in my lap several times before I managed to get a grip on it.

  Though I knew it was only minutes, it seemed like an hour passed before I’d sawed through the first cord. When it finally snapped, the whole bundle loosened enough for me to free my hands.

  Every muscle in my body ached as I grabbed the knob on one of the drawers and dragged myself to my feet. I snatched my keys and limped toward the kitchen door.

  One thought stopped me in my tracks.

  Provided I got there in time, how could I stop Briar? No amount of determination would matter with three against one injured girl.

  “Waylon,” I said as the thought popped into my head. My gaze swiveled to the cordless phone on the counter.

  I hadn’t memorized Waylon’s number.

  My heart soared when I recalled he’d stored it in my cell phone, but then came crashing down around me when I remembered my cell phone was in my backpack on the landing of the stairs.

  Gritting my teeth, I bore the pain of every step as I hobbled up the kitchen steps, through the cavernous house and then climbed the never-ending staircase. I dropped with exhaustion on the landing and rummaged through my backpack unsuccessfully. Exasperated, I turned the whole thing upside down and dumped it. Notebooks, pens, pencils, my calculator, books, all scattered across the carpeted floor.

  I scanned the pile and finally caught sight of my phone. Grabbing it, I unlocked the screen and with trembling fingers, managed to scroll down to Waylon’s number.

  It rang four endless times before he finally answered. “Wren?”

  “Waylon,” I said breathlessly. “I need your help. Briar…” My voice broke and all of a sudden I was sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Wren, calm down,” I heard Waylon say.

  “Briar took…Briar’s got…Jeremiah.”

  “I can’t understand you. Calm down,” he said. “Did you say Briar’s got Jeremiah?”

  “Yes. St. John’s. She took him to St. John’s to send him…to…the Light,” I said, fraught with renewed grief as I gripped the banister and struggled to pull myself up again.

  “Wren, are you hurt?”

  “Not bad,” I lied. “Waylon…I don’t know what I’ll do if she takes him away from me.”

  Clinging to the railing with one hand and the phone with the other, I worked my way down the stairs as I explained to Waylon what had happened. “I’m on my way there, now.”

  He didn’t ask questions. Instead, he said, “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Hurry,” I said, even though I knew he’d already hung up.

  Every step proved more brutal than the last as I lumbered toward the front door. Miraculously, I got there and then managed to get across the porch, down the steps and to my car.

  A bluish glow from the setting sun stretched across the trees, the house, the vast lawn. My car. It’d be dark before I could get to the church.

  After unlocking the door, I fell into the seat, grateful to be off my aching foot and ankle. As I’d done so many times before the accident without giving it any thought, I shoved the key
into the ignition.

  My gaze fixed on the steering wheel and I realized what I was doing.

  Driving.

  “I can’t do this,” I said out loud. My breaths quickened. My heart pounded. Bile rose in my throat. The last year flashed through my thoughts and I shook my head to dispel the horrific images.

  Instead, I focused on Jeremiah and willed myself to breathe. With trembling hands, I gripped the steering wheel and twisted the key in the ignition.

  The Jag’s powerful engine roared to life. I took a few breaths, steeling myself, and then, determined, I yanked on my seatbelt, shifted into gear and hit the gas.

  It had been months since I’d driven and the sensation was so foreign, so awkward, I feared I wouldn’t remember how. I didn’t have time to be afraid, though. I had to get to that church. I had to keep Briar from sending Jeremiah to the Light.

  I punched the gas. Gravel sprayed as the Jag lurched forward and down the long driveway.

  Only a few cars moved along the highway in the shadowy twilight but to me, I might as well have been on a Los Angeles freeway. “Traffic,” I muttered dismally.

  I looked down the highway, hesitating, but then the need to save Jeremiah overrode my fear and I wheeled onto the highway. In less than thirty seconds, I came up on the tailgate of a slow moving truck. I weaved, seeing a car in the oncoming lane in the distance. The Jag had the power to pass the truck in plenty of time. But did I have the resolve?

  Clutching the steering wheel, I leaned forward in my seat. It was now or never. Holding my breath, I veered into the other lane and gunned the gas. When it kicked into gear, the Jag jolted and then roared as it accelerated around the truck.

  Triumph soared. “I did it!” I yelled, glancing in the rearview as the truck faded behind me.

  But as I drove, my nerves tangled with dread.

  The church seemed much farther than it did when I was on the bus but finally, the first tombstones appeared and then the crenellated bell tower of the church. The hedges grew so high and thick, I couldn’t tell if Briar’s car was parked out front or not. I couldn’t roll right up to the church in the Jag because they’d hear the engine so I turned into the adjoining cemetery, switched off the lights and drove as far as I thought I could.

  I recognized Briar’s old blue sedan parked around the back corner of the church. I slowed to a stop before putting the car in park. My fingers shook as I switched off the engine.

  Waylon’s truck was nowhere in sight. What was taking him so long?

  The gravestones behind the church rose like obelisks, catching the last rays of sunlight. Sick horror shook me to the core. It was the same sight I’d seen in my dream.

  I got out of the car, wincing when pain fired up my leg from my swelling ankle. I had to be smart about this. In the dream, the back door of the church had been locked. I’d gained entry through the front door.

  Doubt surged when I remembered that also in the dream, I’d seen Jeremiah already surrounded by the White Light. Searing pain shot through my ankle but I quickened my pace and hurried toward the church, refusing to remember the worst part of the nightmare. Jeremiah had been swept up right before my eyes. Gone.

  I gulped.

  Yellow light beamed through a crack in the door. Briar and the others were already inside.

  My heavy legs threatened to give way as I sneaked up the steps. I had nothing to gain in trying to surprise them. With Waylon already on the way, I could at least try to distract them until he arrived.

  I threw my body against the heavy wooden door and tripped over the threshold. I sprawled into the foyer. My palms scraped the wood floor hard. Throbbing fire coursed through my arms and shoulders but I ignored it. When I recovered enough to look up, I didn’t take in the rows of old wooden pews, the ages old pulpit or delicately carved altar. I didn’t look at Briar or her two friends who stood waving smoldering sage smudge sticks in the air. My gaze fell on Jeremiah who stood bathed in a sparkling ray of Light that beamed down from the arched ceiling.

  With his gaze cast upward, he appeared so beautiful, so ethereal, his features so reverent, my heart broke to look at him. He tore his gaze from the Light and turned to look at me. His eyes widened in surprise and then in horror as Briar snatched a heavy candle holder and stalked toward me.

  I cowered against the expected blow but she stopped just sort of bashing my skull in with the candle holder. “If you don’t go into the Light, I’ll hurt her!”

  Her gaze locked on Jeremiah.

  His eyes, though, remained connected with mine. He gave me a sad smile and then he simply faded.

  Just like that.

  He was gone.

  There was no fanfare. No explosion of tiny particles of glitter and light. No grand exit.

  He merely ceased to be.

  A sob choked in my throat. I stared at the spot where he’d been, thinking I hadn’t made it in time. If only I’d gotten here sooner. If only…

  My gaze swiveled to Briar who stood staring at where Jeremiah had been. “Good,” she said. “There’s one more demon we can add to our list.”

  Violent anger lurched inside me and I lunged, grabbing her around the ankles to drag her to the floor with me.

  She struggled but she was no match for my adrenaline powered madness. I climbed on top her and wrested the candle holder from her hand. Some sensible part of me knew if I didn’t throw the makeshift weapon down, I’d beat her to death with it. I pitched it, crashing into the pews. Giving in to animalistic furor, I slammed my balled fists into her face over and over, oblivious to her pleas for me to stop.

  I cursed and hit and threatened. I swatted at the hands covering her face to deflect my punches. I was so livid, I didn’t hear the approaching sirens and when I felt two big hands on my shoulders, I fought to break their grip.

  “Wren, it’s me,” the voice said. “Stop. You’re going to kill her.”

  All the fight in me faded into heart-wrenching grief and I allowed the hands to drag me up, twisting me so that I was looking into Waylon’s worried face.

  “He’s gone,” I uttered as I slumped against him. “Oh, God,Waylon. Jeremiah’s gone.”

  Seventeen

  Waylon beat the ambulance to the hospital and by the time they’d unloaded the stretcher on which they’d strapped me, Laura was there, too.

  I’d been so hysterical in the ambulance, they’d already gouged some sort of tranquilizer into me. Now, I drifted, blissfully numb, as they shifted me from the gurney to an emergency room bed.

  I stared, floating as if I wasn’t a part of my own body. Nurses rushed around me and I heard them telling one another that I was David’s stepdaughter. Waylon and Laura looked on worriedly.

  One of the hospital employees had called my parents and they were on their way back. When they asked if I wanted to talk, I twisted my head away.

  It didn’t matter to me that Briar and her two friends had been arrested for breaking into my house and then breaking into the church. Somehow, Waylon convinced the police my clobbering Briar had been in self-defense and they’d tagged her with an assault charge in addition to the other charges. Doubtless, she and her friends would end up doing a stint in juvy but that didn’t matter to me either.

  I didn’t care when they bandaged my bruised and bloody knuckles, but I yelped when they tried to remove my ring. “No!”

  The well-meaning nurse patted me on the arm. “Calm down, honey. I don’t see any reason to take it off.”

  My gaze fixed on the shiny ruby as they stabbed an IV in my other hand and discussed treating me for shock. I didn’t say a word when they wheeled me to the X-ray room and took several views of my throbbing, swollen ankle or when they determined I’d only suffered a severe sprain and covered my foot and ankle in bone-chilling ice.

  My thoughts fixed on one thing and one thing only.

  Jeremiah was gone.

  And even though I knew he was on the Other Side, looking down on me, I would never see or hear or feel him again.
I would never know his ethereal embrace or the softness of his lips on mine. I would never again experience that all-encompassing sense of his spirit bonding with mine.

  When the nurses finally made sure I was covered and turned down the lights, Laura sidled up to the bed. “Wren?”

  My gaze swiveled to hers.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her blue eyes rimmed with tears.

  Unable to speak, I merely nodded.

  Her gaze dropped to my ring and the now ragged, dirty dress. I knew she wondered what happened but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Not now.

  I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to speak about it.

  Memories of Jeremiah’s tender caresses, of his sweet, love-filled kisses, flooded me until renewed grief twisted in my heart like a dull knife. I tried to imagine that he was happy with his family now but instinct told me that being on the Other Side was not what Jeremiah wanted.

  He’d pledged himself to me. I could have sent him over at any time. He knew that and yet, he’d never asked me to do it.

  I tried to draw a deep breath but my chest hurt so badly, I merely whimpered.

  Laura’s hand covered mine. It was meant to be a comforting gesture but at that moment I would have given my soul to feel Jeremiah’s soft energy moving over my skin.

  Whatever the nurse had put in my IV increasingly stole over my consciousness. Bliss-filled blackness washed in and out until I couldn’t tell my memories from reality. My lashes drifted opened and closed. My heavy lids fought sleep. I opened my eyes, trying to focus on something that seemed strangely familiar. A face.

  His face.

  Jeremiah.

  I heard myself moan his name. My heavy hand reached for him but Laura caught my hand in hers. “It’s the medicine, Wren. There’s no one here.”

  I blinked. She was right. I had only imagined him.

  I had only imagined him…

  And then, I slipped away.

  * * * * *

  I didn’t know where I was.

  I realized I’d been dreaming and, before I opened my eyes, I tried to reach back and grasp the details of what had been a wonderful dream.