Something still feels off, the foreboding within her will not fade away and as the hours pass she becomes more and more anxious. With the laundry running and the groceries put away she tackles the floors as well, but nothing makes her feel better. Turning on the radio, she hopes the music will ease her mind. She uses the back of the couch to stretch, her legs feeling tight and stiff. She realizes how badly she had been neglecting her body with all the changes that have been keeping her so busy.
Amber changes into a pair of shorts and a crop top, the rhythm of the music getting into the frayed ends of her nerves. The calming effect is instantaneous, her body reacts with skilled responsiveness that could only have come from many years of practice. The living room floor is not forgiving of her movement and she severely rug burns her toes and knees in the time it takes to reduce her anxiety. She’s covered with sweat and shaking when she finally concedes she needs to take a break.
Amber unlocks the front door in case James comes by before she’s done, a tiny warning rings in her head, but she ignores it. She rinses off in the shower putting on her bathing suit. The warmth of the hot tub is calling her. Stepping into the soothing embrace of the waters she lets out a deep breath. The steam clears her senses and the jets massage the newly formed knots out of every muscle. Amber's mind begins to wander, and she leans her head back on the side of the tub, allowing as much of her body to sink into the warmth as possible. She thinks of James and the warmth rises from inside her as well, she finds her inner peace. He is her light in the darkness.
He grabs her hair and pushes her under the water, before she even has a chance to react. His grip is firm on her shoulder, bruising her deeply, nails breaking flesh. He can only think of releasing her soul, returning her to the darkness that created her. She struggles under his grip and he looks at the swirling tendrils of her hair wrapping around his wrist. Such beauty gone to waste. Why can she not see that she belongs to him, she was born to serve him, to touch him, she should not have tried to run away, and she should not have let another man touch her. His anger rises and he slams her head against the edge of the tub, she manages to get a bit of breath in the struggle and wraps her hands around his wrist. He has always been stronger than her, and she feels the darkness pressing in on the edges of her vision, her head filling with a heavy thick numbness. He has finally won, he has found a way to take everything from her. She does not want to die!
She feels life's tenuous grasp and thinks hard of her desire to hold onto it. The pressure in her head and in her lungs begins to subside, she sees colors swirling through the darkness. She knows she can't stop fighting and she dares not let go of his wrists as he continues to struggle with her. She feels her heartbeat rapid and panicked and then it begins to slow to calm, she feels her father's heart, knows it is her only hope, the strength inside of her growing as she tugs at the oxygen, the blood within him, taking back what he is trying to take from her. In the beginning she has to work at holding each life-giving beat, as she grows stronger, he weakens and the beating of his heart feels like it belongs to her. She only has to reach toward it and it becomes a part of her.
She feels herself inside him, bathing in his blood, taking the oxygen into her lungs, his last breath surprises her and she feels him completely release his hold on her. He collapses backwards and she surfaces with a gasp. She does not feel the pain of holding her breath for so long, she is no longer dizzy or scared. The calm overtakes her as the power does with no knowledge or warning, and somehow she just knows what she is. In that moment she sees the rivers of blood and knows that she still swims in them. She knows no one will ever hurt her again, she owns their strength she can drink of them and drain them as surely as any storybook vampire. The blood is life, and she has become the bringer of death. She shakes off the accusation and the morbidity of the moment. She has such a wild imagination. She has no idea what actually caused him let go, but it couldn't have been what it seemed. She's all jacked up by the near death experience and the understandable hallucinations of her panic filled, oxygen starved brain.
This man who had forced her to run away, made her escape his cruelty, chased her into a life of sex, abuse and poverty that somehow was better than what she had endured at his hands. This man who caused her thousands of sleepless nights in terror of being found, who stole her innocence and left her bleeding and bruised...now he is dead on her sidewalk, looking peaceful and harmless against the cold grey stone of the pathway. She knows she should call an ambulance, but she does not know what to say. She determines she can tell them the truth when she walks past the mirror in her house; the bruises on the side of her neck and shoulder are already prominent and the attack is obvious.
She makes the 911 call, and immediately dials James directly. He is already on his way to her house when he hears the dispatch. His phone ringing a few seconds after the radio call sends him scrambling to retrieve it, He hopes it is her, he needs to know she is ok.
"Are you all right?" he asks her, panic rising in his voice. He knows she has been running most of her life, and he begins to punish himself for not being there when she needs him. He should have been there to protect her. He is unclear what happened, to her only that a male attacked her and they need an ambulance. He does not know how hurt she is. The phone loses signal and his heart is racing when he pulls up in front of her house. He is there first and runs to the door. She is waiting for him and falls into his arms, unable to speak.
James realizes he should check on her attacker as the sirens bring his attention off of her for a moment. She takes him out back and he instantly knows there is not going to be any need for the ambulance. The man is clearly dead, there is no breath, no pulse, no sign of life and his eyes are completely bloodshot, more red than white, very creepy. She can't tell him what happened, only that the man – her step-father - tried to drown her and would have succeeded if he had not collapsed. She only saw him after the fact, he’d attacked her when she was daydreaming. She thought she was going to die. Even now she is trembling and crying almost inconsolably.
The coroner says it looks like a stroke, and that Amber was very lucky. The stress of the attack caused a vessel in his head to rupture and he bled out in seconds. Though it will take an autopsy to confirm, it looks pretty clear how he died. There will be no need for an investigation and the report will be read he died of natural causes, Joanna is sure of it. She puts a hand of Amber's shoulder and apologizes that they did not get to meet under more pleasant circumstances.
When everyone has what they need they leave Amber and James to deal with the aftermath in privacy. The medics have seen to her injuries and assure her she will have some pain, but won't have any long term effects from the incident. Amber has some ugly bruising, but she is alive. She doesn't really know the details of what happened, but she knows her life is changing. She killed him, she feels the truth of it. His death saved her. She doesn't feel guilty, she feels free, she no longer has to run. She has nothing left to be afraid of. Her life belongs to her now. The realization washes over her like a breeze. Not only does she feel free for the first time in years, she also feels strong, vibrant and alive. Somehow the experience has given her a sense of power and control. She wants to fly, to shout from the rooftops, to feel.
James is stressing, his feelings for her overwhelming him and his tears running freely at the mere realization that he nearly lost her. Her bruises giving him physical pain and his heart aching for her experience. She is so fragile in his arms, her body trembling. He only wants to protect her. His guilt and fear taking hold and he can do nothing but hold her against him. She can't say anything to ease his mind, or make him understand. She looks deep into his eyes and gives him a warm smile and a gentle kiss to ease the tension.
He holds her until she falls asleep in his arms. He sits up in her bed running his fingers through her hair, watching. It’s his duty to keep her safe, to protect her from the bogey man, to make sure there are no other dark monsters able to touch her. He will never leave he
r to be a victim again. He will be her Prince Charming.
She sleeps the sleep of the free, the confident and the powerful, she no longer fears the darkness, she sees the monsters behind the veil, and knows they fear her. She is a part of it, she is a master of it, she is hungry to taste of it again. Her dreams are of chasing down a fiery dragon flying after it with vengeance on her mind, she dreams of drinking the blood from its still beating heart as it stares at her with fear in its sad dying eyes, the eyes of her step-father. She is the slayer of evil and nothing can touch her now. She feels the strength and strangeness of the blood contact fading as light touches the horizon and the last vestiges of anger and blood lust have gone completely by the time the sun appears with a rosy glow.
He falls asleep still sitting up, body tense and muscles knotting up with the effort. He wakes with a start, realizing she is no longer there. His immediate reaction is panic. She brings him a steaming cup of coffee and a slice of fresh baked coffee cake, as he shakes sleep off slowly. She is bright and smiling, but also very worried about his reaction to the entire evening. His overwhelming guilt is difficult for her to understand. She does not blame him for anything, he could not have known, and he has a very important job to do out there saving people. "You are not responsible for me and everything that happens to me, James, you have other responsibilities that are very important. Let it go, it will all work out the way it is supposed to in the end. I'm still here and not going anywhere." Amber explains how long she has been running from her step-father, describing how every move she’s made has been to escape from him in some way, how now for the first time she is actually and completely safe.
He tries to relax for her and agrees what happened was not his fault, mostly to make her feel better. He tries to understand her happiness, but something is feeling out of place. There is a shift in her demeanor he is having a hard time putting his finger on. She seems less innocent, somehow. She has an inner strength, a surety giving her a bit harder edge. There is something she is not telling him about last night, he knows she isn't telling him the whole truth.
Surprise in the Coroner's Office
Joanna goes through the motions of the autopsy, feeling sure exactly what she will find. She is astonishingly wrong; as she makes the Y incision she sees just how off she is. This man suffered a complete system meltdown. His heart is twisted and crushed as if it were put into a vise, his lungs collapsed impossibly. When she gets to his head, where she expects to find a ruptured vessel, she finds that much of his brain and optical veins have completely exploded. There is blood everywhere it should not be, this man suffocated and bled out internally with no apparent exterior cause. This is an impossible death, the closest she has ever seen was a tremendous automobile accident but the body was as mangled on the outside and the internals had only been half as bad as this. She doesn’t even know what to put down as the cause of death. "Shit, this is a disaster" she says.
Calling James in to see the body, she knows it will be a conflict of interest if there is ever any type of investigation. This has already been reported as a natural death. although it is highly unnatural, It still doesn't bear any resemblance to any murder she has ever seen. It’s just one of those cases one needs to see to believe. James walks in and his immediate response is a surprised and overwhelmed "what the fuck?"
She looks at him simply shrugging her shoulders; "I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it. He’s so mangled I’m not sure whether to list it as a stroke or a heart attack; it seems they occurred simultaneously to what you can plainly see is an impossible degree. This guy practically imploded! Can I just write it up as spontaneous implosion?"
Giving him a morbid smile she giggles. Only those working in an environment such as this can find humor in a corpse full of mystery and mess. She has sent his blood-work off to see if there’s some kind of answer there, but it’s hopeless. Nothing other than the typical drugs and alcohol will be found. Nothing can explain the wicked destruction of his organs, nothing natural that is.
She finally decides to go with unknown as the final result, despite this verdict being an unwelcome jab to her pride. She is confident in her spectacular sensitivity which often allows her to see the minutest clues and help her team with any case where forensic pathology is involved, but this one admittedly has her stumped. She is convinced the answer is not something anyone wants to read in her report, even if she dares to fathom a guess.
Feeling frustrated due to the combination of her failure on this case and the slow progression of the Sisters case, Joanna gets a cup of coffee and takes a break to clear her head. She is not getting any closer to finding a cause for the elevated hormone levels, no trace of any substance is registering in her database. She doesn't like being stumped and knows the rest of the team is feeling the same discomfort. What is happening to their quiet and peaceful town?
She’s only thankful they have not found three more tiny bodies to add to the mysteries piling up. She hopes that eventually at least some of the missing in this case will be found alive. That will at least give some purpose to all this mess. Sometimes her work is very difficult for her to handle, she knows she’s tough but there’s only so much death anyone can take. The last few weeks are wearing on her she feels tired.
James still intends to meet with all of the missing girls’ families, but today he is reviewing what he already has. He still has the nagging suspicion he’s missing something important. Spreading the files out on his desk he begins the immense task of reading each one in detail. Starting with the crime scene work-up he slowly and methodically reads every line. He manages to get a really good sense of who each of these girls were in life and the circumstances surrounding their disappearances and deaths.
Feeling a need to find just a single grain of direction in this pile of information, James goes through his interviews, and the photos of the girls he has collected. There’s something in these pictures, he’s sure of it. He spreads them all out on the desk, each one just a moment in their lives, but each one capturing so much more than a moment. Their smiles, their mischievous eyes, their love for nature, animals, their families, life. These girls were truly beautiful, and now they’re dead. Someone has to be punished for this wrong.
Feeling the throbbing of guilt and anger, he wants nothing more than to see and understand what it is he’s looking at. He analyzes them smiling at the camera, or staring off into nothing. He studies them playing and memorizes the quiet repose of their final photos. He understands their father is the missing connection, but who fathers their children? is it still the same man, and if so how is he going to find him? And then it is there right in front of him. He finally sees it, another small commonality. Each of the girls has a small teardrop shaped mark on her shoulder. Bright red and perfectly shaped; a tattoo maybe?
Going back to the coroners report, to see if there is any indication of it there, he thinks he would have noticed a mention like that. Nothing, there are no notations describing the marks. He knows Joanna is thorough, so he is surprised by the omission of what would normally be standard procedure. The girls have no other marks mentioned in the report either, which is unlikely. No one has a body free of scars or identifiable markings. No one is perfect. He’ll have to take the photos down and check this out with Joanna.
When he compares his photos with the photos Joanna has taken, the tears are gone. Each of the girls has perfectly smooth and pristine skin. Even the typical stretch marks of growth and pregnancy are absent. These girls are somehow stripped of their imperfections. James takes a deep breath and lets it out in frustration. Here we go, another impossibility, another mystery… What in the world is going on?
Wanting to see if the photos of the missing girls include a similar mark, James checks his files, but the pictures he has don't reveal the shoulders of any of the girls. He’s anxious to see the families as soon as possible. Somehow it seems important; this tiny mark means something.
James knows he has the pieces, they only need to b
e put into the right order. He will find what he’s looking for, no matter what it takes. No puzzle is impossible to solve and persistence will put the pieces in place. These girls will find peace and only when they have theirs will he allow himself to fully rest.
Everyone Cares
Knowing people will have heard about what happened, Amber is afraid to go to work. this is a small town, and she fears many of them will think she has done something horrible. Amber loves it here and wants to live a normal life. She doesn't want to leave again especially now that she is safe. She gets ready for work in a nervous state of anticipation. Today will dictate her next move: Will she stay or will she have to run again?
Rissa welcomes Amber with open arms relieved she is not more severely hurt. Everyone seems to be really concerned for Amber, and whether she’s okay. Amber is set on forgetting about it all, she wants to put things back to normal. Amber feels good working, seeing the smiling faces coming in and bringing her sympathy and kindness. She feels welcome and at home. This is where she belongs.
A moment of darkness overtakes her, the thought surfaces slowly but clearly, she sees ripples on black water, droplets falling, unsettling the still surface. She hears him cry out, his tiny arms and legs reaching for a mother he will never meet. His captor holding him high above his head, letting the glistening life spill down his arms. His cries fading, his body twitching, darkness coming. The waters taking him, cradling him in warmth and returning his soul to the universe.
Awakening - Book of Fire (Blood Heritage #1) Page 11