“I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ve always loved you.”
We rolled over, cushioned perfectly by the clouds, and I found myself laughing, snuggling into his chest. With a soft touch, I caressed his angelic face and brushed my fingers over his lips as he kissed them.
“And I love you,” I replied.
Everything seemed utterly flawless until the warmth grew into unbearable heat. I looked over the edge to find the landscape had changed into a desert, void of any greenery or life. We panicked, using our hands to paddle back towards the utopia. But our motions seemed to cause the cloud beneath us to break apart. We clung to the dissolving cottony shapes, but this time, I didn’t wake up. Once the last puff disappeared, we fell downward from the sky into the mouth of a volcano.
Anticipating we’d sizzle to our deaths, I screamed and closed my eyes. But we stopped and floated in the scalding air, barely above the smoldering aperture as the fiery smoke licked at our feet. In shock, I gaped at Nicholas, who stared back at me with shame covering his countenance, as he flew us safely away from the danger.
“You can fly?” I asked in amazement.
“I have a secret,” he said, verdigris eyes resonating something dark beneath. He reached behind his neck and pulled his hair, ripping off a mask in one fluid motion to reveal he was actually Phil underneath.
“Phil,” I mumbled in a gasp. “It’s you.”
“Forever at your service,” he said, his lips curled up on one side of his mouth. “I’m sorry, but I knew you’d never accept me for me, but now you know you do love me.”
I blinked in wonderment, but felt unfazed by his deception. He was right. And, actually I was terribly relieved and the overwhelming desire to kiss him flooded my body.
I leaned in, lips puckered when Phil let out a gasp of pain and panic filled behind his eyes.
“Never,” I heard Nicholas shout from the ground.
“No,” Phil screamed as his body started to become consumed in fire. My scream followed after his as our bodies tumbled downwards towards the ground.
“No, Phil, no!” I felt the super-heated air suck all the moisture, leaving my throat parched. My lips cracked and started to bleed. I shuddered just before hitting the ground, waking up in a ball of sweat.
“Water,” I choked out.
Within seconds, a cool glass of water appeared before me in the dark. I took it and sucked down the liquid in three large gulps. The water washed away the reprehensible feeling lining my gut for wanting Phil so badly.
“Nicholas?” I asked, in a groggy stupor.
I waited, judging the aura in front of me and realized it couldn’t possibly be him. Not only had he insisted I never invite him inside my house, he’d never exude jealousy at the mention of his name.
“No,” the silhouette washed in moonlight said. “It’s me. Phil.”
“Oh.” I looked away, embarrassed, reality and my vision coming into clearer focus. The clock beyond him read 2:20 AM. “What day is it?”
“It’s Monday, well, Tuesday actually.”
I sat back into the pillows and tried to make sense of my surroundings as visions of the dream remained at the forefront of my mind. A horrid taste laced my mouth and my stomach felt like a washer spinning a load of rocks. “You didn’t go out tonight?”
Phil got up from the corner of my bed and sat down at my desk chair, oozing disappointment. “I came back early. I was worried about you. You’ve been thrashing around, talking in your sleep.”
Soft light streamed in and frolicked across the naturally blonde streaks in his hair, illuminating his pale skin. The sight was angelic like my dream. For a brief second, the same attraction I experienced in my dream rose up again inside my chest.
“Oh,” I said, looking downward, feeling majorly embarrassed, unable to handle his radiating countenance. “What did I say?”
“Well,” he said with humor in his voice. “I think you were professing your love for me before something horrible happened.”
“Did not,” I quipped quickly, wanting to hide under my covers in utter humiliation.
“Sounded like it to me . . .” He coughed to cover his laugh, reveling in his glory. “Our secret,” he said with a wink.
I hardened my lips. “But I wasn’t . . .”
He chuckled. “Feeling better?”
“Kind of,” I said meekly, feeling rather uncomfortable from sleeping in my clothes. Slowly, I peeled my body from within my sheets and touched my feet to the ground. “You didn’t have to come back so soon.” And overhear my embarrassing dream.
“Well . . .” He melted into the playful Phil I knew well and adored. “Believe me, I wasn’t excited to go back and get the whole twenty questions thing. This was the perfect excuse.”
“Go back?” I stopped to give him a puzzled expression before stooping to get my pajamas off the floor on my way to the bathroom.
“Yeah, and give an update. It’s hard to keep secrets when you report to a mind-reader,” he said with a snort.
I swiveled around a little too fast and had to use the wall to steady myself. “Whoa, you’re supposed to be spying on me?”
“Well, yeah. Why else do you think she brought me back? I’m the mole.” Phil held up his hands quickly. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m totally on your side. Luckily she can only read what I’m thinking the moment she touches me. And actually—” he smirked “—after the last hand meld, she’s not touched me since.”
I continued on towards the bathroom and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was still dreaming. His honesty was the only thing reassuring me I could trust him, but his casual candor muddied my brain, making my head thick with gunk.
“Hand meld?” I said from behind the cracked door with a toothbrush in my mouth.
“You know, she touches you and melts into your head.”
Suddenly, I remembered all too well, flashing back to when Phil—a newly sired vampire—took me to meet her for her approval, after he’d kidnapped me.
“But how can you avoid thinking about stuff she wants to know? Especially if she asks questions point blank?” I asked and came back out, headed directly for my bed happy to be in my comfy jammies.
Phil raised his left eyebrow. “I show her where I’ve been instead. It’s a reality she really doesn’t want to face, believe me. None of us do.”
The word Hell ricocheted through my mind. I wasn’t sure if I could handle an in-depth discussion of that place, wanting to forget it existed as badly as Alora did.
“Oh,” I said, holding my temples and pressing inward with my fingertips. “This is a lot to take in.”
“It’s okay, Parker . . . Seriously. No worries.”
I slid under the covers and closed my eyes, hoping to just fall asleep again, wanting to avoid everything while Phil grew wistful. He apparently had something serious he wanted to talk about. Internally, I willed him to wait until the morning, when I knew I’d feel a little more level headed, but his courage burst like a bubble and I braced myself for the onslaught.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
My eyes flicked open to catch his gaze, the seriousness thick between us. In the blue light, I saw a glitter of a tear in Phil’s eye and felt my stubbornness dissolve. “Yeah?”
“Are my parents still . . . looking for me?”
I took in a quick breath. “No,” I said serenely. “Nicholas burned down the building you were in. They used dental records to identify you from the teeth they found—both yours and Justin’s. They held a service after—it was really nice. A whole bunch of people came. I had a hard time though, because I felt responsible.”
“Oh,” Phil said somberly. “I passed by the house. My parents have moved.”
“I—I didn’t know. I’m really sorry. Maybe it was hard, living here, knowing you’d—” I couldn’t finish.
His longing hurt exposed the pain I’d felt all these years missing my mom. I couldn’t imagine being on the other side, dealing with the kn
owledge people who loved me still mourned my death when I was very much alive. “I bet they went back to Los Angeles. I could help you find them, if you want.”
“And what would I say? ‘Hi Mom and Dad. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I’m alive. Except I’ve got this disease where I want to drink blood, I never age, and I can’t go out in the sun. It’s also made my eyes black.’ Not likely.”
“Well, even if you can’t talk to them, you could visit from a distance.”
“No. I’d rather not risk it. It’s better they think I’m dead anyway.”
My heart continued to ache alongside his and I didn’t know what to say to fix it.“I wish I knew of a cure,” I finally said.
“Me too.” Phil shook his head then suddenly stood to his feet with hardened eyes on my bedroom window. He inflated with sudden hostility. “Oh, crap.”
I glanced at the window too, sensing the animalistic loathing attached to whoever was outside. Apparently another vampire that Phil didn’t have a good relationship with had stalked us and intended to do God-knows-what.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
Phil crouched down and hid behind my bed, but not because he was afraid. His sudden feelings of protection radiated out.
“Hide,” he whispered back.
I pulled the covers up to my nose and disappeared under the pillows, only peering out of a small crack between them. The hate from the unknown predator riddled my body with nervousness, though I knew they couldn’t enter uninvited.
Someone hit the windowpane and I squealed, expecting them to crash through.
“Get out here, Parasite, before I rip this house down,” Nicholas growled through the window, his green eyes full of fire.
My breath accelerated once I recognized him and I burst out of my protective 300 thread-count barricade, scrambling to go to the window. “Nicholas?”
Phil jumped up from behind my bed and grabbed my arm to stop me. “Calm down, Nick, you need to think about what you’re doing. Julia’s family can hear you.”
“I am calm and I don’t like you around my girl.”
I pulled against Phil’s restraining hand and swooned because Nicholas called me “my girl.” Everything inside me wanted to throw my arms around his chest and hold him tightly. That would be all he needed to take the pain away.
Phil moved quickly and created a barrier in front of me, puffing out his chest with a guard-like stance. He firmly kept his hand on my arm, trapping me behind his body. “Until you can be trusted, I’m protecting her.”
Nicholas’ brutish expression tightened, his glare locking onto Phil, consumed with revenge. “That’s my job, you two-time traitor. Step. Outside. Now.”
“Dude, you’re just jonesing for a fix. Calm down and hang alone for a while,” he said ardently. “The urge will pass.”
Nicholas’ feral eyes flicked towards mine as I peered over Phil’s shoulder. “You can’t hide in there forever,” he seethed directly at me.
I knew the bad part of him was speaking; only interested in retrieving the necklace. His true suffering crushed my spirit and left me helpless as I watched the viciousness hold full control, torturing any goodness within him. From inside my being, I did the only thing I could do. From my heart I beamed out all the love I could muster, hoping he’d feel it somehow. Hoping it would help with his agony. Hoping he’d back down and think rationally.
Miraculously, for a second his carnal expression softened and behind Nicholas’ exhausted human eyes was a glimmer of hope. He roared, consumed with affliction before he vanished.
I stood, gasping for air and broke free of Phil’s hold. In desperation, I ran towards the window. Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. I turned around, concerned my family might have heard Nicholas, to find Phil stunned. The panic filled up behind his eyes.
“Dude, we need to see Scar, and quickly.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Do I really need to go?” I asked, silently refusing to put on the sweatshirt Phil had just handed me. I watched him look for my other shoe. If I was going anywhere, it would be to find and help Nicholas. Not to see Scarlett.
“Um . . . yeah.” He hesitated.
“Why don’t you go and I stay here?” I asked, tempted to crawl back under the covers, lacking any energy whatsoever to even move.
Phil sat next to me and helped me put each arm into the sleeves. “Because I don’t know where to go.”
“What?” I turned my head slowly towards him, jaw partly open. “You said you checked up on him.”
“I did, indirectly. He wasn’t with Alora, so I figured he was good,” Phil said, while finding my missing Converse under my bed and putting both shoes back on my feet.
“Good?” I clenched my hands into fists, trying to keep composure and not scream at the top of my lungs, waking my family. “I wouldn’t say what Nicholas just did was good.”
Wrestling my foot free, I kicked him away with my last bit of energy and curled into the fetal position. With closed eyes, I began cursing at myself for putting all my trust in Phil and Scarlett without even checking to see if they knew what they were doing.
Phil touched my shoulder. “Scar said she’d take him to his place, so we just need to go and get her—preferably before dawn, or else . . .”
Phil made a sound that resembled something exploding into a ball of fire—the juvenile noise boys made when playing war. I sighed, annoyed at his inappropriate humor. Dawn meant something entirely different for me, including my life being taken away. And pretending nothing bothered me while my crazed boyfriend roamed the streets, threatening to stalk me. All packaged up with a pretty little bow of another sleepless night.
“Shoot me now,” I said, my voice laced with disdain. “Oh, and Scarlett’s not coming here, so don’t even ask.”
“I don’t get why you hate her so badly.”
I opened one eye and gave him the “don’t even ask” look to which he held up his hands in disgust.
“I have school tomorrow,” I rolled my back to him and mumbled in my pillow. “I need to sleep.”
“I doubt you’ll be going.”
“Since when are you my keeper?” I barked, refusing to agree though I knew he was right. “If I’m not well enough to go to school, I’m not well enough to go now.”
“Scar’s in trouble and may need our help.”
“I hate that you keep calling her that. It sounds like you’re referring to the bad lion in The Lion King.”
“There’s a bad lion?”
“Never mind . . . geez, I can’t believe this is happening.” I tangled my hands in my hair. “You think you can just waltz in here and charm me—”
“I’m not trying to charm you. I’m trying to help. We’ve got it under control—”
“Under control?” I spit while trying to contain my unamused laughter. “Excuse me, but didn’t you just see our apparently perfectly-fine Nicholas a second ago? He’s far from being under control and is running around somewhere, angry and upset, thinking we are—” I gulped back the sudden pain emanating from the gaping hole where my heart used to be and took a deep breath. “He needs me. I should really be looking for him, not Scarlett. Why did I leave him? Why did we let him go?” I was standing now, flailing my arms at his rock-hard chest.
“Parker, if I would have left you there, with him like that, you’d be like me now—but evil or even dead. Don’t think the power of love or whatever you guys think you have would have changed that fact.”
“As if.” I turned to glower at him before collapsing on my bed and put my head back into my hands. “I’m so sick of this.” To keep from yelling, I slowly rocked back and forth. More than anything I wanted to be alone and far away from him, preferably in Nicholas’ arms. “I don’t think I have the energy to do it.”
“Look,” he said quickly “I’ll carry you there and back, wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito if you want, but you have to come.”
Suddenly, it dawned on me I didn’t have a clue where to g
o. Nicholas had never taken me to his house. I rolled over, putting my back to Phil and moaned.
“Please,” he begged. “It’s important.”
I laid there in exile trying to figure a way to avoid telling Phil the truth, assuming once he found out, he’d laugh his ass off. Every piece of me was on fire with embarrassment.
I forced my eyes shut and thought really hard. Nicholas had once told me he lived in a desolated area, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. My mind whirred, trying to figure out how I could find his exact address without alerting Phil, when the solution popped into my brain.
The cell phone receipt.
Luckily, I wore the same jeans I’d worn the night we’d purchased the phone. Of course, the contract must have required his personal details. Discreetly, I pulled it out and sure enough, Nicholas had written his address at the top.
“It’s Bear Creek Road,” I breathed in relief. “1217.”
“Where’s that?” Phil replied innocently, not paying attention to what I was doing.
Crap. “Um . . .”
Phil snickered. “I don’t have a satellite link to Google maps, you know.”
“I know,” I stammered, feeling stupider by the minute. If only I had my iPhone to look it up. The computer downstairs seemed so far away. “It’s up on the ridge.”
“What’s that in your hand?” Phil asked with amusement.
“Nothing,” I said while trying to shove the paper back into my pocket, but Phil snatched it from my hand before I could.
“What’s this, Parker?”
Phil’s shock, wonder, and slight envy played through his mind, like he’d just rapidly flipped the dial through a barrage of radio stations while my cheeks must have blazed fire-engine red. I waited for the dial to land on a smug note, but Phil felt bad instead and handed me back the paper.
The Sapphire Talisman Page 14