It was the only way to stay with him and to know that Ray would be all right.
Besides, what was keeping me here? I was parentless. After learning what I had done, Granny would disown me just as she had my mother. Ray was dead, and my best friend had betrayed me.
I had nothing to lose by dying.
If there was such thing as rock bottom, surely I had hit it. The fall was fast and the impact was brutal. I was in the abyss. I had followed my mother’s footsteps faithfully down her pre-destined path of self-destructive craziness. There was no coming out of this. I had dug my devastation too deep to come out of it. I was either going to be stuck in a loony bin for the rest of my life or sit on death row awaiting the same fate Adrian was leading me to follow tonight and forever.
He was right, this was hell. I had spent my entire life searching for a happiness this earth could never provide. We were put here for the sins of our people, so it only made sense that we lived every day as miserable as the previous one. We were all prisoners here, only a few people here on earth ever realize it.
Adrian had helped me see the truth.
Every last human being has been miserable on this planet. If they believed they were happy at the moment, something would inevitably rip away the shallow facade and leave them to wallow in self-pity as they screamed to the skies begging their version of God to help them, when really it was He who’d done it to them in the first place.
If I’d learned anything from my time with Adrian, it was the hopeless promise of joy.
As he promised, Adrian arrived that evening. He’d managed to sneak me out of this imprisonment tonight with a court order from his legal firm requesting to move me to another part of the facility. I knew that Scott and Albright insisted that Adrian was not real and that there was no legal firm representing me, but if that was the case, then how was he present and accounted for now?
It made me smirk seeing him in his fancy lawyer clothes as he arrived at my cell. The Adrian I knew was most comfortable in his denim jeans and Iron Maiden t-shirt. Here, he stood on the other side of the bars that encaged me as if I were a wild beast. He looked handsome yet somehow out of place in his white button-down shirt starched to a crisp as the collar folded down into the black wool vest with his silk, burgundy tie poking out under his vest. His hair looked a little shorter than usual; perhaps it was all the gel holding it captive. I didn’t realize how much I had missed him and all I wanted to do was grip that hopeless hair and bring his mouth to mine. But before I had the chance, he entered my cell and placed a set of handcuffs around my wrists.
“We must play the part, Ms. Sinclair,” he whispered, flashing me that half smile as he spun me around and led me out into the hallway.
I was now his prisoner and I would gladly accept that role over the one I had become accustomed to. Once out of sight from the guards, we hurried out an emergency exit, which led us down a dark corridor and into the underground parking lot.
I guessed high security wasn’t a top priority at the county jail.
“Where are we going?” I asked in a hushed voice as I quickened my pace to keep up with him as we strode across the parking lot, the handcuffs clanking with every step I took.
He opened the door to his old Firebird and I climbed inside. As I was getting comfortable in my seat he hurried around to the other side and slid behind the wheel. The 455 engine roared to life as he turned the ignition.
“You couldn’t have gotten a more discreet car?”
He gave me that self-assured smile of his and leaned over to buckle my seatbelt, his fingers slowly brushed against my stomach, making the butterflies flutter. Reluctantly bringing his hand over to his side of the car, he manually shifted the transmission and the tires squealed loudly on the polished floor of the parking garage.
He laughed. “What does it matter? They’re not going to be able to find us in an hour anyway. We’ll be long gone by then.”
“According to you, we’ll be in another world.”
He took my handcuffed hands and intertwined his fingers in mine. “I love you, Sidney.”
I smiled as my heart warmed. I couldn’t believe I had almost let him get away from me. He had searched for me for lifetimes, and I was ready to throw that away. I was so happy the dreams had finally shown me who I really was. Where I really belonged, back in the Garden, with Samael by my side.
I had spent too many sleepless nights pondering over this quest and I knew now I was making the right decision. I was finally focusing on my own happiness instead of worrying about pleasing everyone else.
The drive was quick. He parked on the dark sleepy road under the eucalyptus trees. It seemed like light years had passed since the last time we sat together in this very spot. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small key, unlocking the steel bracelets on my wrists. He rubbed the deep red lines the cuffs had left in its place. That was my Adrian, always so attentive.
“It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few months since we first came up here,” I said, nodding toward the entrance of the cemetery. “So much has happened since then. This place used to be our haven.”
Then, it had become my nightmare.
Once again, I shivered at the memory of Ray’s horrific ending.
Adrian brought my sore wrists up to his mouth and softly placed his lips on them as if kissing away all of the harsh mistreatment of the past days; maybe the past months. I closed my eyes and silently believed that Adrian’s kisses were in vain. One thousand kisses would never be enough to wash away the heinous events that were forever embedded in my mind.
My only hope for redemption and a new life was the escape to the Garden.
“None of this matters, Sidney. All this world was for us was time spent apart. Are you ready?” he asked, those green eyes flickering with the excitement of a six year old boy on his way to Disneyland.
We exited the old car and slowly headed toward the cemetery.
“The dagger’s back in the crypt,” Adrian explained. “We’ll have to go down there and get it.”
I clutched his hand tightly as he led the way and I tried desperately to shove the thoughts of Ray out of my mind. But as the cement building that housed the prior generations of McAllister family members came into view, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Ray and all we had shared together.
The memorial that surrounded the cement block was huge with candles burning. Flowers and stuffed teddy bears lined the walls all around the mausoleum. It was impossible to look at it and not be overwhelmed with sadness. This was where everything had ended for Ray.
I stopped and dropped my arms to my waist. As much as I fought it, the force was too strong. It was like a giant magnet pulling me to it. No matter how desperately I begged my feet to stop moving they inexplicably disobeyed and led me to the makeshift memorial.
I knelt down in front of a giant handmade poster. A colleague of Ray’s photographs spread brilliantly throughout the board had covered every square inch of it. I placed my hand on the glossy finish of Ray’s face, remembering him as he was in life. He was always so hopeful and passionate about the future. Our future. The same future that was stolen away far too soon.
“You would have turned out exactly like Daisy Buchanan. If you married him, her life would have become yours. You’d be young, rich, and gorgeous.” Adrian paused for effect. “And incredibly alone. You would be trapped behind the walls of your mansion desperately wanting to be freed. Be thankful I changed that course of your life.”
Then, he gripped my arm a little too roughly as he lifted me back to my feet and tore me away from my memories of Ray. We turned in the direction of the mausoleum, but my body would not allow me to go any further.
“What’s the matter now?” Adrian asked, with impatience in his voice.
I shook my head as my body trembled. “I can’t go down there,” I pleaded.
The images began flashing before my mind as I envisioned the bloody scene I was sure awaited me below.
; Adrian wrapped himself around me in an attempt to steady my shaking body. His familiar aroma engulfed me as I breathed in his courage I admired so greatly. It felt so good to be in his arms again. It was where I belonged; I just had to remind myself of that. “You’re so close, Sidney. You have to be strong. For me. For us.”
I took a deep breath and gathered every ounce of strength I had left in my tired body. I reached up and kissed him.
“For us,” I repeated.
We crossed the oxidized door and I realized that I had left one prison to enter another one. Again, I clutched Adrian’s hand as we slowly headed down the marble stairs that led to what was once our underground sanctuary. Secluded and hidden from the everyday pressures of life, this used to provide something so much more than what it did now; imminent death.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I noticed a glimmer of light in the opening below.
“Is someone down here?” I whispered to Adrian, my body tensing as I prepared to make a mad dash out of there.
I didn’t come this far just to be wrangled away by an angry mob of Ray’s bloodthirsty fans seeking revenge. I didn’t want to think of what would become of me if they actually caught me. I had seen the masses of people standing together outside of the corrections building. Holding their hateful signs and shouting their hurtful words, verbally expressing their abhorrence of me.
Adrian shook his head and squeezed my hand as he continued toward the clearing. We both stopped dead in our tracks as we stood in disbelief, staring into the angelic face of an intruder.
But this was no stranger. I had seen that face a thousand times in the photograph resting on Granny’s piano.
This was my mother.
“Mama?” I heard the tiny voice escape my lips.
She was just as beautiful in real life as she was in the picture, with her long, chestnut hair flowing gracefully down her back and her soft brown eyes welcoming and full of love. I wanted to run into her arms and allow her to shelter me from all of the cruel mishaps of this world, but Adrian gripped my hand like a steel vise and I was reminded that I was his prisoner now.
I had agreed to that.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Adrian growled through clenched teeth in a voice almost unrecognizable.
My mom’s voice was desperate as she turned to me. “I’ve come to save you, Sidney. You can’t listen to him. Don’t believe anything he tells you.”
I felt the chill of terror shoot through me as I was reminded of the last time I had spoken to my mother. It was in a dream, in this very mausoleum, she had given me the same warning.
Taking me with him, Adrian strode across the cold room and reached into a dark, empty hole which contained the deadly dagger. He let go of my hand and replaced it with the cold object.
His eyes never leaving mine, he instructed, “Remember what we discussed, Sidney? We don’t have much time. I’m sure they’ve already noticed that you’ve escaped.”
“He appeals to your lowest point, Sidney,” my mother shouted, begging me to acknowledge her. I looked at her and then at Adrian, and back at my mother again. I was so confused. Who was telling the truth here?
“Don’t look at her, Sidney. Look at me. Focus on us,” Adrian demanded.
“When you think the world can’t get any worse…” she continued.
I ignored Adrian’s directive and looked directly into her eyes. I wanted to hear her out. Adrian gripped my face and turned it away from her.
“Shut up!” he yelled at her.
“Then he’ll flash that majestic smile, taking form in what your mind defines as pure beauty, masking his true ugliness.” She spit in his direction.
“I said shut up!” Adrian fired, his eyes blazing with that same look he wore just days before, on that last day we had been in this crypt with Ray.
“He portrays himself to be your savior but it’s a trick, Sidney. He exists only to collect souls and bring them to an even darker being. It’s the battle between good and evil. You chose right, my darling girl, when you chose Ray. This demon took that from you.”
My head shot up at the sound of Ray’s name. I slapped Adrian’s hands away from my face and looked at my mother. “How’d you know I chose Ray?” I asked, my eyes filling with tears.
My mother was begging me now. “Don’t allow what he’s created here to fool you, Sidney. You are here because it’s where he wants you to be. Everything terrible that’s happened in your life has been because of him. You’ve given him your heart and he controls what you see. You have to fight him. Take back your heart, here and now, or you will die.”
I looked at my beautiful, angelic mother, and then at Adrian. The two contrasted so differently at that moment.
My mother, so pure and bright, and Adrian, overcome with his burning rage, was calloused and dark. So unlike the Adrian I had come to love.
Still clutching the dagger, I didn’t know what to do.
I loved Adrian and he was offering me an escape out of this chaos. But if what my mother was saying was right, then it meant Adrian was ultimately the cause of all of this confusion.
I wasn’t crazy after all. He somehow made it look that way. But even if she’s right, how can I be redeemed now?
It was far too late for me. I pressed the knife to my chest. Adrian was staring desperately at me, nodding his head, giving me the approval I needed.
“He’s a liar and a beast!” my mother shouted.
“And you’re a no good whore!” Adrian fired back at my mother, unleashing all of his fury onto the small, cowering woman.
“Adrian,” I exclaimed in disbelief. “She’s my mother.”
He frantically tried to regain his composure as he ran his fingers through his long, black hair in frustration. He turned and grabbed my arms. Staring deep into my eyes, he pleaded with me. “I can’t lose you, Sidney.”
“You will not take my daughter’s soul!” my mother shouted.
Adrian spun around and lurched toward my mother, taking her throat in his hand and squeezing it as tightly as he could. I screamed for him to stop as I was being reminded of the last time he’d lost control in this very same place.
He looked at her with such hatred, leaving me to wonder how a man who loves me so deeply and passionately could feel so much hatred toward the one who breathed life into me. If what my mother was saying was true then that meant she was once in love with him and he with her. But the way he felt about my mother now was crystal clear. He showed nothing but disdain toward her.
Suddenly an epiphany came to me; would I take her place if I didn’t do what Adrian asked?
Perhaps everything had worked for us thus far because I had been subservient. But what would happen if I told him no?
I vividly remembered Ray’s fate when I had disobeyed Adrian’s request to leave him. What would happen now if I didn’t use the dagger to end my own life?
Would he kill my mother in order to teach me a lesson?
Would he kill me?
As if my mother was reading my exact thoughts, she spat at Adrian through gasps of breath.
“You can’t kill me, Samael. I made sure of that when I jumped in front of the train.”
It was true after all. My mother did know him. Was it his fault she committed suicide all those years before?
“What is she talking about?” I asked Adrian, desperate to learn the truth.
“Don’t listen to her, Sidney, she’s a liar. She’s a crazy, old liar. She jumped in front of that train because she couldn’t handle the burden of motherhood. She was a coward, just like your father. They all abandoned you.”
He let go of my mother’s throat and came back to me, those pleading eyes boring into me. “But I’ve stayed, Sidney. No matter how hard things have gotten, I’m still here. I’ll never leave you. I love you.”
My mother cut off his promises. “Just as he asks you now to plunge the dagger into your body, Samael requested the same thing of me twenty years ago.”
H
er voice took on a deeper sense of urgency. “I told you, Sidney. He takes away what you love most to make you feel empty and alone. I couldn’t find the courage to use the dagger on myself but he knew what would make me beg for death.”
The tears flowed down her face and the words spilled freely out of her mouth as Adrian glared at her with abject hatred.
She continued. “The loss of a child would send any mother to extreme measures. When he threatened your life—the life of an innocent baby—I saw his real soul. He was pure evil. I knew then why he insisted on me using the dagger. It was a talisman of darkness; an anchor that trapped countless numbers of souls inside. I would never give him what he wanted and so I jumped in front of that train so he could no longer use you as leverage against me. Keeping you safe was all I cared about. You have to believe me when I tell you this.”
She took a step toward me but Adrian stepped in between us, once again acting as the barrier standing in the way of what I needed most.
The pure heart of my beloved mother.
He spewed venom at her. “Liar! Even in death she’s a bloody liar. Don’t listen to her, Sidney. She just wants you to continue suffering here in this hell. She never cared about you.”
He grabbed my hand and gently turned the blade so that the pointed end was pressing against my chest. “I care about you, Sidney.”
I stared into those emerald eyes once again, looking for the approval on his face to validate that what I was doing was the right thing. “Nobody’s loved me as deeply as you, Adrian.” I said, as a tear slid down my cheek.
He gently cupped my face in his hands and kissed my forehead.
“I’d do anything for you, Eve.” Those beautiful green pendant eyes blazed into mine.
I smiled a wistful smile, remembering our short bit of happiness together on this earth and replied, “I know you will. Goodbye, Samael.”
I watched as his face went from confusion into pain and finally into rage as I turned the dagger around and plunged it as deeply as I could into Samael’s heart.
I called him Samael because that’s who he truly was, in all of his present darkness.
Adrian was fictional, a figment of my imagination made up by Samael. He was the perfect man who never existed in reality.
Between Worlds (Pendant Series Book 3) Page 13