Forsaken

by Keary Taylor

  I couldn’t say anything to his reasoning. I didn’t know what to say.

  As if looking at her portrait was too much for him, Cole turned from it and walked out the door and into the hallway. I followed him as he walked out into the grand but crumbled entrance and walked outside.

  He said nothing as he made his way through the overgrown grass, across a lawn area. His pants clung to his legs as the dampened earth tried to entrap him. The air was heavy with moisture, the rain recently ended. He slowed as we got to a stone wall and ducked through a doorway, the wooden door decayed and rotted away.

  “Of course that was my first thought when I saw you during the trial. You looked too similar; you could have been Jane’s twin. My emotions were so confused. On the one hand when I looked at you I saw her and the feelings I had for Jane surfaced. Yet on the other I had to be rational and think it through. You looked so similar, you had to be related. Jane had no other children, just William. If you were related to Jane, you were related to me.”

  The garden we entered into was a jungle by now, after centuries of being neglected. Trees sprouted up in random places, the grass grew long and wild. The only evidence that this had once been a tame piece of land was the crumbling stones that surrounded us.

  “I cannot explain to you the relief I felt when I discovered that you were not related to my son. Nor can I explain the hope, the irrational desire that surged in me. I had hoped that I could make you fall for me. You should have. Any normal woman would have, just look at me.”

  I did. While Cole was terrifying now, he was still beautiful in a morbid, unworldly way. Yes, any woman should have fallen in love with him. At least in lust.

  “I had already fallen for Alex,” I said quietly, still not looking at Cole fully.

  A terrifying hiss came up Cole’s throat. I backed away two steps before I even thought about it.

  “And yet again, I couldn’t have the woman I wanted. Lost to me to another man,” Cole said, his voice filled with venom. He paced the perimeter of the garden, his fists balled angrily. “Furious does not even begin to explain how I felt when Alex did what he did, when he stole you from me in the moment you were about to become mine.

  “I wanted revenge but couldn’t do a thing to you. I couldn’t touch you. Your family and disturbed friend were protected.

  “I watched you. I couldn’t make myself stay away. I craved being around you like nothing I had ever felt before. It hurt to see you in so much pain. I wanted to take it away, to make you feel the things I knew I could make you feel.

  “And yet I wanted you to hurt. The pain Alex was causing you. I wanted you to feel the pain I have felt for the last two and a half centuries. I wanted you to feel pain. I wanted to rip your throat out, to strangle you, to hurt you in every way I could imagine possible.”

  Cole paced the perimeter of the garden wall like a caged, rabid animal. I swallowed hard, my eyes unable to meet his. If I had ever questioned what terror felt like I understood exactly what it felt like right then.

  “Then I came here I realized it wasn’t you exactly I wanted revenge upon. It was the woman who would not take me as I was. I was and am Cole Emerson and she still wouldn’t have me!”

  It was sick and wrong but I realized why Cole did what he did to those women. He was taking his revenge out on them. He wanted to kill Jane for what she did to him but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He loved her too much. So he took it out on the other women. The ones who meant nothing to him. And Emily had run straight to him just after Cole had yet again had a woman taken from him.

  “Where you planning to kill Emily? Like you did with those other women?” I asked quietly, my voice slightly shaky.

  “Yes,” Cole answered coldly. “She would have met the same end as the others.”

  I felt sick. The walls around us started to spin a little. “What is wrong with you? How can you have no remorse for what you have done? For what you were going to do?”

  “Unlike you, Jessica, I lack much of a conscience. You could say I am the most selfish man you will ever meet. I get what I want. There will be consequences if not.”

  “No wonder Jane wouldn’t have you,” I spat back.

  Cole’s eyes flashed with anger and he was across the garden in a movement that was faster than I could see. I barely even saw it as he raised his hand and struck at me. A sound like the crack of thunder reverberated off the stone walls and Cole was thrown back. I jumped back, not because Cole had actually touched me, but for the shock that blasted between us.

  Cole lay on the ground a good fifteen feet from me, his eyes burning but a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “How could Emily have been so stupid,” I said, my tone low but harsh. “How could she not see you for what you are?”

  Cole didn’t make a move to stand up, just propped his bare back against the wall. His wings folded at his side. “I couldn’t believe it at first either. I’ve seen her brand. I know she went through the same thing you did, for different reasons. I was the one who burned the mark into her skin. Yet there she was, standing before me, begging me to take her as my own.

  “She wanted the offer I gave to you. She would give herself to me. She wanted me; she also wanted that position on the council. She claimed affection for me.”

  My skin crawled again, as it had hardly stopped doing since I had seen Cole again. I couldn’t even imagine wanting to do what Emily was willing to do with a creature that looked like Cole.

  “She of course didn’t see me as I truly am,” Cole said with a smirk on his face.

  “You’re despicable,” I hissed as I turned and walked out of the garden.

  I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t care. I just needed to be moving. I needed out of the enclosed space that had brought forth so many wretched truths.

  A demented chuckle sounded in the back of my mind, my brand prickling.

  The sun was dropping dangerously low in the horizon as I walked across an open field. I didn’t care that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to the decaying mansion once the light was gone. I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Even if I did feel tired, there was no way I was going to sleep in that vestige of a home or with a deranged angel loose to do as he pleased while I slept.

  I found an old wagon, sitting lonely out in the middle of a field. I crawled up onto the front driver’s seat and just sat and watched as the sun set, the stars flickered into view, and the moon phased into the sky. A warm breeze picked up, ruffling my unruly hair. The air smelled sweet, like grass and wheat. It helped to calm my senses just a bit.

  The events of the last few hours replayed in my mind and I wondered what had happened to everyone. We had set out as a group of three, on this insane mission to make the leader of the condemned return to hell. And now here the remnants were, only myself left to make Cole go somewhere he obviously didn’t want to go.

  Thoughts of Alex dominated my mind. I missed him already, felt pained with how badly I wanted him here with me again. I hoped he had found his mother in time though. He needed to know her. I only hoped she had cleaned up her life since the last time she had seen her son, when he was only a few weeks old.

  As I recalled seeing Emily standing at the window, blood dripping to the floor from her wrists, I felt sick. I still couldn’t understand her actions, the ones that were actually her own. I still hoped she would be okay though. I didn’t want to lose my best friend. She was the only one who understood my twisted past. I had to trust that Cormack had gotten her to help before it was too late.

  The conversation Cole and I had about Jane came back to me. He had said how Jane had forsaken him. Now he had forsaken Emily. That was all Emily wanted, was a man who would love her as intensely as Alex loved me. Cole had wanted a woman who was now long dead and would never have him. I wanted Alex to marry me but he refused. And Alex was being pulled into the world of the dead. We were all forsaken.

  I suddenly felt very alone and in despair.


  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ALEX

  My insides were a knotted mess as I ran up to the deserted building. I wanted to throw up, thinking maybe that would help clear out the sick feeling that was seeping into every corner of my body. If only my stomach hadn’t been empty for the last six months.

  The building was falling apart and looked like it was infested with all kinds of disgusting rodents and diseases. A section of the roof was caved in and I could see mold growing inside one of the windows. It looked exactly like the kind of building drugs would have been made in.

  I checked the front door and found it bolted shut. Checking to make sure no one was around to see, I punched a clean hole through the metal surface and unlocked it from the inside. It couldn’t have squealed louder as I pushed it open. If there was anyone else in the building I had given them plenty of warning to clear out if they didn’t want to be found.

  The smell hit me like a punch in the gut when I walked in and would have been enough to make a normal person puke right then and there. A mix of mold, human waste and what I assumed was drugs. I couldn’t be sure. Somehow I had managed to stay away from that stuff so I couldn’t tell.

  The room I walked into was devoid of life other than the mouse I saw scamper under a mildewed blanket. I could hear the sound of water dripping inside a wall. Extending my senses, I heard what I was looking for.

  Less than two seconds later I was up the stairs and into what at one point had probably been a bedroom. Lying sprawled on the floor was a woman and next to her was a crusty looking syringe.

  “Caroline!” I shouted as I gathered her up in my arms and shook her. Her eyes opened slightly but wouldn’t focus on anything. They just rolled around in her head.

  “Caroline, you stay with me!” I shouted as I picked her tiny frame up in my arms. I was afraid she would snap at just the movement of being picked up. She was all skin and bones.

  She smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and faintly of vomit. She looked like she hadn’t bathed in a few weeks. Her clothes were torn and crusted.

  “Caroline you’ve got to stay with me!” I screamed. Panic surged through me as her breathing became more and more faint. The sound of her heart beating started coming more infrequently. She was dying, fast.

  I didn’t even care if anyone saw me moving the way I did. While I managed to keep the wings contained, I was moving faster than it should have been possible. I didn’t care, I had to get this woman to the hospital or she was going to be dead in just a few minutes. The deserted parts of town gave way into habitation as my feet barely pounded the pavement.

  “Someone help me!” I yelled as I burst through the doors of the emergency room. A male nurse jumped two feet in the air at my shouts. A lot of the stares I was getting used to, and one hundred twenty-four seconds later, Caroline was being wheeled into a room.

  I collapsed into a chair in the waiting room and hung my head. My entire frame trembled slightly, my nerves trying to go a million directions all at once. I was going to crack any second.

  I didn’t know what I expected to find when I went to save Caroline. Cole had only indicated that if I didn’t get to her within an hour she would be joining our world and coming to his side. As evil as Cole was, I knew he hadn’t done this to her. She’s done this to herself. My grandparents had hinted at an addiction, had never had anything good to say about her. So why had I had any hopes of finding a woman who would be fit to be my mother? I should have known better than to hope. I’d gone my whole life without a mother, why would I hope to gain one now?

  A war raged within me as I watched the sun go down outside. Jessica and Cormack would have reached Cole and Emily by this point. What was happening? Was Jessica safe? Was Emily? It was driving me mad that I had no way of reaching anyone. I’d buy Jessica a cell phone first thing when we got home.

  I wouldn’t let the thoughts of if we got home surface.

  The thought of Jessica in the same room as Cole again made my blood boil. I didn’t even realize I crushed the arm of the chair I was sitting in.

  “Mr. Wright?” a woman asked as she came into the waiting room. Who else would I be? I thought to myself. There’s no one else in here. Instead of snapping at the woman, I just nodded.

  “You can go back and see your mother now,” she said as she indicated for me to follow her.

  My emotions twisted all the more, having someone else call that woman my mother. No one had ever talked about my mother in reference of going to see her.

  The nurse took me to a room and left me alone there. I paused in the door. I could just leave right now. She was under medical supervision and she should survive. Letting myself hope further that she would become a woman I would be proud to call my mother was obviously stupid. I could spare myself a lot of heartache if I just left right now and didn’t let this mess of a human into my life. I was already dealing with enough right now.

  I took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. I closed the door behind me.

  She seemed to be asleep but I wasn’t positive as I walked to her side and just stared at her face. She was still filthy, her eyes looking like they were sinking into her head. Her skin looked leathered and pocked. Her hair seemed to be thinning and looked brittle.

  Looking in this woman’s face, I felt ashamed. I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted her to wake up and find me here. I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet her. What good was it going to do? She hadn’t wanted to be a part of my life for these past twenty-three years, why should I force her to be a part of it now?

  My stomach jumped into my throat as her eyes fluttered open, piercing blue orbs looking up at me that confirmed who she was. They were exactly like mine had been.

  Her brow furrowed as she stared at my face, her eyes probing and searching. “Alex?” she whispered finally.

  I couldn’t say anything, only nodded. I wasn’t surprised she recognized who I was. I’d been told hundreds of times how much I looked like my father.

  Her face hardened, the furrows in her face no longer confused but angry looking. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  I was taken aback at her abruptness. I hadn’t expected harsh words to come from the woman who I had just saved from crossing into the land of the dead. “I…” I stammered. “You were nearly dead. I brought you to the hospital.”

  “How did you find me?” she said again, her voice a little less harsh this time.

  “Um, I can’t really say how,” I struggled to answer. “What does it matter?”

  Surprisingly this seemed to be a good enough answer for her. I supposed to a drug addict it was. “Yeah, well, maybe you should have just left me there.”

  “I couldn’t just let you die,” I said quietly as I backed up two steps and took a seat in a chair. “You’re not getting off that easily.”

  We both just sat there, glaring at each other through the dim light. Neither of us knew what words to say. What did you say to the son you never wanted but who had just saved your life, even if you didn’t care about it? What do you say to the woman who gave birth to you and then abandoned you and your father for more than twenty years?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  JESSICA

  I did not leave the wagon all night and by the time the sun started to work its way back into the sky I felt stiff but determined. I wasn’t going to let Cole bully me or scare me away. One way or another, he was going to go back to the world of the dead.

  The grass in the fields came up above my waist as I walked back toward the house. The sun shone brightly and danced off Cole’s wings as he walked toward me. They looked more metallic than white in the light, distorted versions of what they should have been. They looked broken and twisted. Yet still menacing. As Cole stopped just five feet from me, a feather floated softly to the ground.

  “I want to make a deal,” I said, my tone confident, reflective of how I actually felt inside for once. “I will listen to whatever you have to say, go with you wherever you want me to go. But
you have to make me a promise.”

  “And what might that be?” he asked, his voice surprisingly not mocking as I expected it to be.

  “That you’ll go back to where you belong.”

  Cole just stared at me with those black orbs for several long moments. I tried to interpret the emotions I saw running through them. Resignation, despair, understanding, frustration. I couldn’t quite tell.

  “We’ll see how things play out,” Cole answered, not promising anything.

  “Fine,” I agreed. At least he hadn’t said no.

  “Come with me,” he said as he turned and started walking.

  Silence fell on us as we walked through the swaying grasses. I trailed behind Cole, watching him as he moved. How was it possible for a creature to be so beautiful and terrifying at the same time? Even though I had watched Alex almost nonstop for the last few months, I still stared in wonder as I watched Cole move. But the wings were wretched to look at. There were wide gaps between many of the feathers, evidence of how many of them he had lost. Even as we walked through the fields, another fell softly to the ground. I bent briefly to pick it up.

  We approached a barn, its walls tilting and part of the roof rotted away. Cole walked up to an ancient looking tree just ten feet from it. Many of its branches were touching the roof of the barn, threatening to push it over.

  Cole looked up at the tree as he laid a hand on its rough surface. He walked around it once, looking closely at its surface. He finally stopped at a certain spot. He traced his fingers over it tenderly.

  I walked to his side to see what he was looking at. At about Cole’s eye level there was something carved into the bark.

  C & J

  Forever

  “Cole and Jane,” I said softly as I looked at the cruel letters.

  “Forever,” Cole said so quietly I could barely even hear it. “I could never have Jane, even in the afterlife. She’d done enough to be granted blue eyes, despite all the transgressions she’s committed with me. Forever indeed.”