Forever - 02

by Lauren Burd

  “The door.” He smiled at me.

  The bell rang again. “I’ll get it. You should go shower.” I wrinkled my nose in fake disgust. He didn’t really smell bad. It just smelled like he’d used too much cologne or body spray.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I went to answer the door while Samuel ran to the shower. Checking the peephole, I made sure it was really an employee of the hotel. A dark-haired young man dressed in the mandatory uniform stood on the other side with a fully laden cart. I opened the door just as he was about to ring the bell a third time.

  “Good morning,” he said with a thick French accent.

  “Good morning.”

  He wheeled the cart into the room. “Would you like me to set the table for you?”

  “Thank you. That would be nice.”

  The young man set to work placing the silver serving trays on the table and setting out the plates and silverware. “Would you like me to open the wine to let it breathe?”

  “Sure.” I had no clue what he was talking about.

  “Is there anything else I can get for you?” he asked after placing the newly opened bottle of wine in the ice-filled decanter.

  “No, but thank you for asking.” He stood there for a moment before I realized why he was waiting. “Oh.” I blushed as I ran to my bag and grabbed ten dollars. I wasn’t exactly sure how much that was in Euros, but I didn’t have anything else. I handed him the money.

  He smiled. “Thank you. My name is Michele. If you need anything else, please let me know.” He gathered the cart and quietly exited the room.

  Finding the remote, I tried to figure out how to operate the television while I waited for Samuel to finish showering. When I finally figured it out, all I could find were foreign films, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn on English subtitles. I let out a huff of frustration and turned off the whole thing.

  “Having a little trouble?” Samuel asked, sneaking up on me and placing a soft kiss against my cheek.

  Heat flooded my cheeks. “You scared me.” I turned around and gave him a light punch in the arm.

  He chuckled lightly. “I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  I pretended to consider his offer. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Is there anything I can do to convince you?” He caught me around my waist and pulled me close to him.

  “What do you have in mind?” I breathed in his intoxicating scent, savoring it.

  “I’m sure I can figure something out.” His voice was a whisper in my ear.

  I looked up into the clear blue of his eyes. He leaned down, and my eyes fluttered closed in anticipation. Just before our lips met, his stomach growled.

  I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t hold in my amusement. “Maybe we should eat first.” I pulled back a little so I could see his face.

  He appeared reluctant, but then his stomach growled again. “I guess I can let you off this time.”

  We walked over to the table, and Samuel pulled out a chair for me to sit on. I hesitated at his chivalry but figured my pulling out another chair might cause more of an issue than me accepting his courtesy. He removed the silver covers from the trays, revealing an assortment of dishes. Some of them appeared pretty safe, while some looked dangerously close to the mystery foods served at my high school cafeteria. Without asking me what I wanted, Samuel placed a small amount of each entrée on a plate and put it in front of me. He served himself a similar selection of foods before pouring two glasses of wine.

  I looked at him in confusion when he tried to hand me one of the drinks. “I’m too young to drink.”

  He smiled. “In France, you’re perfectly legal. Besides, after the day you’ve had, I think you could use it.”

  I took the glass and smelled the contents. It smelled like a rich grape juice and made my mouth water. I took a small sip and was surprised by the dryness, but the taste wasn’t unpleasant.

  “Well?” he asked, anxious for my assessment.

  “It’s good.”

  We were quiet during the first part of the meal, both of us too hungry to really focus on having a conversation. I tried all of the foods on my plate and was surprised by how good they tasted. Finally, I broke the silence after polishing off my last bite of some sort of potato dish.

  “How did we meet?” I asked, feeling foolish. It felt like I’d known him forever, but the memories were just out of my reach, and every time I would search for them, they would get farther away.

  The corner of Samuel’s mouth pulled up in a crooked smile. “Well, the first time I saw you was on the plane from Atlanta to Gainesville. You were coming back from your father’s house. I can’t really say we met. I wasn’t exactly friendly.”

  I thought about the flight back from Dad’s at the beginning of the semester. It was a little fuzzy but still clearer than more recent memories. “You sat next to me on the plane.” I wasn’t sure if I was correct, but it felt right.

  He smiled again. “Yes.”

  “Why weren’t you friendly?” I sipped from my second glass of wine.

  “I was having a hard enough time not sinking my teeth into you, so having a civil conversation wasn’t high on my list of priorities. In two hundred years, I’ve never smelled anything like you. Even Ethan and Emma were shocked when they caught your scent at the theater.

  “Then I walked into creative writing a few weeks later, and you were sitting there reading a book. I should have walked out and dropped the class. Instead, I walked over and sat next to you. I thought that just seeing you wouldn’t be so bad. Every time I saw you, though, it got harder watching you walk away.

  “Finally, I gave in and decided to try to make it work. I knew I wouldn’t have forever with you, but the thought of not even having one day... well, then Lucina came, and everything went wrong.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Reaching across the table, I caressed the back of his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I guess… I just wish I could remember everything. I can feel the memories, but every time I try to see the images in my head, they disintegrate.”

  “Give it time.” He stroked the side of my face, letting his hand linger for a moment on my cheek. He held my gaze for a moment before releasing me. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for the cheesecake.”

  I smiled, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. We ate our cheesecake and finished off the rest of the wine. It wasn’t until I stood up that I felt the effects of the alcohol.

  “Whoa.” Samuel reached out to steady me. “Do you think you can walk?” He sounded skeptical.

  “Of course I can.” After I took a few stumbling steps, though, Samuel came to my rescue.

  Scooping me up in his arms, he carried me back toward the bedroom. My head spun from the wine and being so close to him. I leaned against his chest, listening to him breathe. The sound comforted me.

  When we got to the bedroom, he set me down next to the bed and turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to clean up.”

  “Did you want some help? I know you have to be tired after everything.”

  He smiled. “I’ll manage.”

  “Where are you going to sleep?” I asked, looking down at my feet.

  He paused before answering. “I was going to sleep in the office. There’s a pull-out bed that’s pretty comfortable.”

  “Oh… okay.” I felt blood flooding into my cheeks.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be here in the morning,” he said, misinterpreting my reaction to his sleeping in another room. Putting his hand under my chin, he lifted my head, forcing me to look at him. He leaned down and placed a light kiss on my forehead. “Try to get some rest. We have to leave in a few hours.”

  “Sure. Goodnight.” I did the best I could to keep the emotion from my voice.

  “Goodnight,” he whispered, turning to leave.

 
I sat on the bed and waited, hoping he would come back. He never did.

  Betrayal

  “What time are they supposed to be here?” I stared at the clock on the wall of the little café.

  “Ethan said eleven, but they may have been held up in port, or the ferry might be running late,” Samuel answered.

  I sighed. It was only ten after but I was anxious to get moving again. I couldn’t explain it, but it felt as if someone was watching every step we took. I knew I was probably being paranoid, but I would feel a whole lot safer once we were on the road. I also tried not to dwell on thoughts of my dad, Tabby, and everyone else I cared about and how vulnerable they were. Despite how Samuel felt, I didn’t think Duncan would allow anything to happen to my friends or family.

  “There they are.” Samuel stood, breaking into my gloomy thoughts. We walked outside so that his friends didn’t miss us.

  I searched the crowd for Ethan and Emma, though I didn’t know what they looked like. Most of the faces were unfamiliar, but a tall, thin blonde with a guy who looked like he could bench press a small car seemed strangely familiar. I tried to remember them, but their faces appeared to be lost in the black chasm that had opened in my memory.

  The woman smiled when she caught sight of us. She covered the distance in a few long strides and threw her arms around Samuel. “Samuel. Alina. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Emma,” Samuel returned.

  Emma then turned her attention to me. Without waiting for permission, she captured me in her arms. I gingerly returned her hug.

  “You had me so worried,” she said, holding me at arm’s length.

  “Sorry.” I gave her an awkward smile. Even if I didn’t remember her, she apparently remembered me.

  “Hello again, Alina.” Ethan extended his hand to me. “It seems like every time we meet you’re in some kind of trouble.”

  I smiled bashfully. “Sorry,” I repeated shaking his hand.

  “I’m glad to see you’re in one piece,” Ethan remarked to Samuel. “We should probably find a shady spot to talk.”

  “We were just waiting here for you.” Samuel led the way to a table at the back of the café.

  “I want you to tell me exactly how you escaped,” Ethan began after we settled.

  Samuel glanced around as if he were trying to find his place. “One of the guards would stand too close to the pass-through when handing me my meal. When he came to bring my dinner, I grabbed his wrist and forced him to punch in the code to my door. I knocked him out, tied him up, gagged him, and put him in my cell. After that, I just used his key card and code to make it to the main floor. Then I made my way to the servants’ closet and used the old dumbwaiter shaft to get up to the second floor, and from there, to the attic. I made it to Alina’s room…”

  He looked pointedly at me, causing blood to flood into my cheeks in embarrassment as I remembered our first encounter. He finished telling the events of our escape from the chateau while Ethan and Emma listened attentively.

  Ethan’s features darkened the more he learned about our escape. “You didn’t run into anyone the entire time?”

  Samuel shook his head. “Not until we made it to the garage. Why?”

  Ethan looked down and appeared to be studying the pattern in the table cloth. “I don’t think you escaped. I think Thanos let you go.”

  “What?” Samuel scoffed. “Why would you think that?”

  “I didn’t want to say anything until I knew all the details. Thanos let you go so he could hunt you. It’s a game.”

  “What are you talking about?” Samuel asked.

  “I haven’t told you some of the things about my past.” Ethan glanced at Emma as if asking for permission. She nodded, apparently giving her consent for him to continue.

  “You know that Thanos infected me.” Both Samuel and I nodded. “I still don’t know if he expected me to survive the infection, but when I did, he was ecstatic. I guess he thought that he would have someone to share all of his secrets with.

  “The first few hunts I accompanied him on were fairly straightforward. A Cast Out was discovered in some small village or estate, and we were sent to dispose of the creature before it could expose us. Some were clearly insane. They were wild, unkempt, and would attack without provocation. Some were harder to detect unless they were forced into a confrontation.

  “One day, Thanos invited me on a hunt. I believed it was nothing special, simply a task that required our attention. We traveled to a small village outside of where Bologna is now. I was surprised by how ordered everything was. The villagers didn’t run over asking for help or to warn us from the place as it was cursed by the gods. He said our prey was still several miles away but would be there in the evening. So, we waited.

  “It was late at night when the screams woke me. Thanos was gone, and I searched through the chaos that had engulfed the village but couldn’t find him anywhere within its borders. It wasn’t until I reached the hill outside the village that I discovered him. He was seated on the ground entranced by the chaos below. When I turned back to the village to help he grabbed me. I watched with him as the village was destroyed.

  “Only when the last human lay dead did we return. We found the Cast Out responsible for the disaster feeding on a man. Thanos caught the girl from behind, holding her by her hair so I could finish her off. I was shocked when I saw her face. It was a young servant I’d befriended at Thanos’s estate.”

  “You didn’t… kill her?” I asked in a broken whisper, hoping to hear a different ending to his tale.

  “I had no choice. She was infected, a Cast Out driven completely insane. It was better for everyone, including her. We spent the rest of the night throwing the bodies into houses and setting fire to their little huts.

  “I discovered upon our return that the village had been destroyed because they refused to submit to the control of Angelus, another Archon. The servant had been chosen by Thanos to teach me a lesson on befriending humans. Several centuries later, I discovered that he was the one who had infected the girl.

  “During my time with Thanos, I witnessed him infect humans, knowing they wouldn’t convert. When bored, he created Cast Outs for sport. If a human or another Immortal stood in the way of something he wanted, he would kill them without a second thought. He and all the Archons are absolutely ruthless.”

  I had trouble picturing Thanos as the ruthless hunter Ethan had described. “I thought they helped to keep us secret and policed Immortals who brought too much attention to us or threatened to expose us.”

  “They do protect us from exposure, but it can be at a heavy price. You must also remember they only do it to keep themselves safe.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do?” Samuel’s question hung in the air.

  “Thanos enjoys playing the game,” Ethan answered. “He’ll usually draw it out as long as possible. It might be years before he comes searching for you, maybe decades.”

  Something in his story nagged at me. “Why hasn’t Thanos come after you?” I asked in a harsher tone than I intended.

  Ethan smiled. “You don’t miss much, do you?” A look of shock was plastered on Samuel’s face.

  “After I met Emma, I couldn’t stay with Thanos any longer. I didn’t want her exposed to everything that Thanos was involved in. So, I made a deal with him.” Ethan looked at Emma with an apologetic expression.

  “What deal?” I asked.

  “I set the players in motion at the beginning of a hunt. It’s a game the Archons play. Whoever catches the prey first gets the prize.”

  “What prize?” Samuel asked through clenched teeth.

  “I don’t know. They only give the information needed to coordinate the hunt. I’m supposed to contact each Archon in a cyclical order, but I always contact Thanos first.”

  “What would happen if the other Archons found out you were feeding information to Thanos?” Samuel’s voice was cold.

  A look of terror pass
ed through Ethan’s eyes for one brief moment. “They would kill Emma and me,” he answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Have you contacted Thanos or any of the other Archons since we spoke with you?” I asked.

  “No. Usually when Thanos has a personal hunt, he contacts me to set up the details. I’m not sure if it’s because of our relationship or if something else happened, but he hasn’t contacted me about you.”

  “What do you plan on telling him when he does call?” Samuel asked.

  Ethan appeared hurt by the accusation in Samuel’s voice. “The truth. That I spoke with you and we met up here, but that I couldn’t help you.”

  Samuel shook his head. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you myself and save Thanos the trouble.” His fists clenched into tight balls, and it seemed as if he might spring over the table at any moment and attack Ethan. The smile on Ethan’s face said he would like to see Samuel try.

  “Why don’t you go for a walk,” Emma interjected before the two men could come to blows.

  Ethan appeared wary about leaving her alone. I felt hurt by his mistrust. We’d done nothing to earn it. After a few seconds, though, he got up and left the café.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” Emma began once Ethan was gone.

  “Did you know about this?” Samuel asked. He tried to soften his voice, but I knew he was having a hard time.

  Emma nodded. “Ethan told me right before Alina arrived from Florida. If she hadn’t contacted Lucina when she did, we were supposed to hand her over to Duncan for delivery to Thanos. I’m so sorry. I should have told you, but they would have killed Ethan if I had.” Her eyes pleaded for us to understand.

  Samuel sat in shocked silence. The hurt of their betrayal was written all over his face.

  “I had Ethan leave so I could give you this.” Emma took a manila envelope out of her bag and handed it to Samuel. “Ethan doesn’t really know I’m giving you this. He wants to help you, but if Thanos asks him, he can’t have direct knowledge or Thanos may find out. This way, we’re all kept safe.”

  Samuel opened the envelope and glanced inside. “Why should I believe anything you say? You could just as easily tell Thanos where we are as soon as you leave.”