“Right.” He scoffed. “Friends. I thought I asked you to stay away from him Sara?”
“And I told you, you could trust me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I was stunned and my face showed it. “Of course Scott!”
“Do you still love me Sara?”
I felt a tiny piece of my heart break at his question and how sad he looked. What was I doing? For not wanting to hurt him, I was sure doing a bad freakin job at it. Did I love him? Yes, but was I in love with him? Or a better question, had I ever been in love with him?
“Yes Scott.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie, but my hesitant answer didn’t seem to reassure him and he still looked hurt.
“He likes you Sara. You can’t tell me that you don’t see it.”
No I couldn’t.
“I guess I just need to know: do you like him or do you want to be with me?”
Turning off the car, I sat there feeling completely depleted.
My life was a mess and I didn’t have a single clue as to how to clean it up anymore. I had a choice to make and neither one of them was going to have a happily ever after outcome.
I had been thrown twice tonight: first with Adan’s goodbye and then with Scott’s parting question. A question I had left unanswered for now. Not that he really gave me a chance to answer right then and there. I had a feeling that it made him feel more in control of the situation to give me a day to think it over. If I was going to end things with him, he would rather it be on his terms and not after finding out I had spent the entire night with someone else.
After his bomb of a question, he had apologized for getting so angry and treating me the way he did. Yes, he twisted the good guy knife. I knew it wasn’t an act and that he felt genuinely sorry and that made what I had done even worse. I had hurt him and he had every right to lash out at me - anger I could handle. What I couldn’t handle was him feeling sorry for it.
He had pulled me close and kissed my forehead softly –I could still feel the gentle squeeze on the back of my neck when he had finally let me go. He told he would come see me at work the next day and to drive home safe. Once I had gotten in the car, he shut the door behind me and I watched him stand in the street until I couldn’t see him anymore.
Sitting here now, I didn’t know what I was going to do or how I was going to answer Scott’s question tomorrow. What I did know was that I still had one more fight for the night waiting for me inside and I had saved all of my pent up confusion, frustration and exhaustion over everything that had happened tonight for this one.
Until I was told otherwise, I was going to continue to blame Andres for the mess I currently called my life.
Flutter
Thirteen
Spitfire
He roared the minute I opened the door.
I had expected it and didn’t show any emotion to his furious question.
“Well, ‘hello’ to you too.” I answered sarcastically, shutting the door behind me. “But is that really anyway to greet your niece at almost one in the morning?” I made a tsking sound at him and attempted to make a quick exit for my room. He was standing in the middle of the living room and I walked fast trying to pass him.
No such-freaking-luck.
“Sara.” He warned.
Ooohh, he was using his stern voice. Bring it on.
He stopped me, mere feet from my door and I sighed, dropping my head forward. Let’s get this over with, I thought.
“I’m tired Andres, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but it’s one in the morning and I have to work in the morning. So if we can’t avoid this all together, can we at least speed this up? I want to go to bed sometime soon.”
I knew he was beyond angry and frankly I was so over the angry males tonight.
“Do you want to tell me where you’ve been tonight?”
“Hmm, I could tell you, but that would mean we would actually have to communicate with each other and that might involve telling the truth and we all know how that’s frowned upon in this house. So to answer your question, no Andres, I don’t want to tell you where I have been tonight.”
He was staring at me, he had moved on from anger to hurt. Andres didn’t know how to deal with an unruly teenager, he had been lucky in that area before now. I refused to feel anything, but my own earned anger toward him, he chose for things to be this way.
“Anything else? I should warn you now though; I’m not going to actually answer any of your questions. So if you would like to skip this portion of the argument, I’d be happy with that.”
He sighed. “I know you’re angry with me Sara, and I know you want answers from me, but I promise you, everything will work itself out.”
I wanted to scream!
“What does that even mean?! God, I am so tired of hearing your excuses and your riddles. All I want is the truth. Ever since I was pulled out of hell frozen over, I’ve been lied to and I just want it to stop.”
“I’m sorry Sara.”
“I don’t need you to be sorry! I need you to be honest.”
“I’m trying to be-”
“Yeah, right! If this is you trying, you completely suck at it.”
“I don’t enjoy this. I’m not happy that you’re so angry with me, with life, with everything that’s happened to you.”
“To us!” I corrected. “It happened to you too!”
He didn’t respond to that, he just stared at me looking completely helpless with the situation. No matter how much I screamed, cried, fought, he wasn’t going to tell me anything more then he already had. Which was nothing. I didn’t know if he was waiting for something or if he never planned on telling me anything. I could see his posture change and that only meant one thing.
He was preparing for a fight.
“I don’t want what happened tonight to happen again.”
“Yeah well I want a lot of things too, but haven’t you heard? Life’s a b-.”
“Damn it Sara!” He yelled.
I wasn’t expecting that and I jumped. He was use to me being surly for most of our conversations and he usually didn’t say anything back. Tonight was not going to be one of those times.
“You’re angry, fine. You want to avoid me, okay, but you will not be out all night like this again. Do you understand me?”
I wanted to fight him, but I was too tired to do anything, but agree. “Fine.”
“Next time you’ll be grounded.” He threatened.
“Whatever you say. Can I go now?”
“Just so you know I really wish things were different.”
“Ugh, I’m so tired of hearing you say that! This is your fault! You did this to us. So stop telling me how you wish this and want that. You can stop this at anytime, but you choose not too. I’m going to bed.” I headed for my room not bothering to stop for his last comment.
“I expect to see you for our workout in the morning.”
My slamming door was my answer.
Spitfire!
Adan had called me spitfire!
Now that I had time to stop and think about Adan’s goodbye, my mind was racing and I didn’t know how to calm it long enough for me to gather one thought at a time.
Spitfire.
The simple word was enough to send another whirlwind through my body.
I tried again to wrap my mind around this as I fell into bed feeling like a zombie. I tried to focus on the buzz I was feeling and the look on his face when he spoke the name, trying to decipher if there was something more to it then a simple coincidence. There had been that look of insurgence in his expression right before he said it.
Or I could be making this all up in my head, I thought biting my lip. The overwhelming need of wanting Adan to have been in my head that day was enough to push me into thinking there was more to the name then there was. He had made the comment about the name of my nail polish seeming fitting for me.
Lying back on my pillows, I wondered to myself how I had been able to even get
into bed with the amount of energy I was hanging onto. I had no idea why I felt this exhausted, but I could barely hold myself up by time I was ready for bed. I wondered if I could be getting sick, but other than feeling like I was one of the dead, I didn’t have any other symptoms. I just decided to chalk it up to the day’s events and I pushed it away.
I had bigger things to think about.
I knew the odds that it was by pure coincidence that Adan had called me by the nickname, was probably a zillion to one. There had been only one other time that I had been called that and that conversation had taken place far, far away from here and inside my head by someone I had made up. At least I had thought I made him up.
I was so confused and frustrated that I didn’t know what I could trust anymore. I thought the voice inside my head that day had been a coping mechanism for the torture I had been facing. He wasn’t supposed to be real, but even as I told myself that, I didn’t fully believe it. There were a lot of things that shouldn’t have been real, but that didn’t stop them from happening to me.
Here is what I knew
Adan was real. My connection to him, my feelings for him, they were all real, and more then anything in the world I wanted the voice that consumed my memories to be Adan.
I kept repeating Scott’s question inside my head over and over, but I had yet to come up with an answer I felt satisfied with. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know if that was the right choice.
Do you like him or do you still want to be with me?
Scott or Adan?
I don’t care what anyone says, having two guys to pick from, is not something every girl wants.
Lifting myself up on my elbows, I looked through the glass doors of my room searching the night for those almond shaped eyes. There was nothing. Sitting up I realized this was the first night since my wolf had shown up that he wasn’t out there stalking the woods, watching me. I couldn’t feel him. I felt something, but it wasn’t as strong as it was. I laid back down wishing he was there, wanting that comfort I felt whenever he was around. It reminded me of how I felt with Adan.
I groaned dramatically and curled onto my side. It was official; I had reached the pathetic part of my thing with Adan.
Sleep was what I needed now. Sleep would provide release from thinking, over analyzing, and hitting rock bottom.
My eyes drifted close, and only one word, one voice, one face lingered through my fading thoughts.
Spitfire.
I woke up feeling even worse then I did before going to bed.
It took all I had to finally open my eyes, but even then they continued to only stay open for seconds at a time before closing on their own again. I blamed it on my regretted four hours of awful sleep. I had tossed and turned most of the time, not able to fall into a deep enough sleep where I could finally be free of my own thoughts. I was paying for that now as I tried to pull myself into a sitting position.
It was still dark inside my room, but that was normal for this time of the year, but it sure did make it hell to keep from trying to crawl back into bed and pull the cover over my head, blocking out the world. I knew though if I didn’t get out of bed now, I would have Andres giving me ‘I told you so’ looks all through out our work out and that gave me enough energy to throw my legs over the side of the bed.
That’s when I could feel it.
The dim morning light was shining in through the windows that made up one side of my wall. I could see the marking on my leg clearly, the black handprint stood out, even against my tanned skin. I hated looking at it and I hated feeling it even more. I could feel my leg burning, not painful, but uncomfortable enough. Even though I couldn’t see it moving, I could feel it twisting around my ankle and no amount of flexing and turning that I did seemed to make it stop.
It was so quite inside the house and I was so focused on the disturbing mark, that when I heard the voice I jumped nearly choking on my own scream.
“Sara.” It came again.
The French doors leading out to the back deck were wide open and the sheer curtains were blowing softly, but I wasn’t entirely sure that there was any wind on the other side of the doors.
“Sara.”
I could hear my heart pounding, getting faster with every eerily whisper of my name being carried out by the wind. It was then when I realized that I wasn’t actually awake. I wrestled with myself, my eyes going from the small table next to my bed and back to the open doors.
The light outside wasn’t bright enough for me to make out anyone or anything past the wall of my room and I didn’t trust what I couldn’t see. The dark emptiness continued to whisper my name and I wanted to hurry up and end this nightmare. Never looking away from the open doors I fumbled around with one hand on the nightstand behind me until my fingers grasped what I was looking for. With a shaky grip I brought it around until I could look at the silver pin I had kept there.
I brought up my other hand, holding out my finger and used the pin to make a tiny prick in the middle of my finger. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but I gave enough pressure that I hoped it would wake me up. I gave another small stab and waited for something to happen, but if I was awake now I couldn’t seem to tell the difference. I waited, listening for sound of my name and hoping that I wasn’t going to hear it.
“Sara.” It came again and my heart sank.
So much for that idea, I thought.
Angry I threw the pin across the room and it was quiet enough to hear it land with a pink on the floor somewhere. I sat there chewing on my lip wondering what I was going to do next. I hadn’t thought of a plan b after coming up with plan a, I had hoped that I wasn’t going to need one, wrong.
My legs were shaky and weak when I finally stood up and I stood there for a second making sure I wasn’t going to crumble back down. I could still feel the burning grip on my ankle and the feeling only intensified when I took the first step toward the doors. I heard my name again and froze, not moving a single muscle as I waited. The sound of my name swirled around my head; it came closer this time, almost as if someone had been behind me. I held my breath waiting to see what was going to happen next.
When it didn’t come again I took another step and then another when I didn’t hear anything else. When I reached the door, I quickly glanced around, but I still couldn’t see anything past a few feet from the house, everything after that was cloaked in pure darkness. That seemed odd, but so did the wind calling my name and let’s face it, nightmares didn’t exactly make sense.
I had no intention of exploring the woods in search for who was calling my name, some things were better left unknown and I decided this was one of them. I just needed to close the doors and hope that I could lie back down and go to sleep or wake up, which ever made this go away faster.
I took a step onto the patio and silently cursed that the door opened outwards instead of inward so I didn’t have to step outside. My feet touched the hard surface of the wood deck and the cold surface only seemed to make my leg sizzle against the temperature change. I looked down at it, always expecting to see something happening on my skin, but other then the mark, nothing else seemed different. I slowly let it take the pressure of my body as I leaned further outside not wanting to have step completely outside. I figured as long as one foot stayed inside I was okay.
I reached up to grab the both door handles and stopped short when I finally lifted my head to pull them close. I sucked in a deep breath when I realized I was no longer looking at my back yard.
I wanted to ignore it, part of my mind was screaming at me to turn around and ignore what I was seeing, but I couldn’t follow the command and I lifted my other foot to take a step further outside the door. The blaring inside my head suddenly stopped as it realized it had lost the battle to keep me safe. I was only partially aware that this was probably a very bad idea, but there was only so much I could ignore and this was not it. It was like I had stepped into another world.
“Close.” The voice whispered.
I could hear it outside my head and knew that it was not someone I was making up. Its laugh was like hearing nails being pulled across a chalk board and I shivered against the piercing sound.
“I’m very much real, Sara.”
I searched the scene in front of me, but I couldn’t see anyone, but I didn’t really expect to. The voice seemed to float around me, not really coming in any particular direction.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Hmm, how should I answer that?”
“It usually helps if you give a name.”
The laugh came again and I flinched holding my hands against my ears to block out the sound.
“Please stop doing that.” I begged, and the sound was gone.
“My apologies.” It said. “What was it you asked? Oh right, who am I? I guess you could call me, what is it you refer to this as…a nightmare.” It wasn’t really asking me as it held the conversation alone. “Yes that’s it. For now we’ll just call me the nightmare reaper.”
“That’s comforting. Glad I asked.”
It snickered and the sound was only a step down more tolerable then its laugh.
“I see what they mean.”
“What who mean?”
“We’ll call them reapers too. They are who I’ve sent out to watch you.”
“Watch me? These answers only seem to be getting worse, but” I couldn’t stop myself, “why do you have reapers watching me and what exactly is a reaper?”
More snickering.
“You don’t disappoint, do you Sara.”
“I don’t know, there has been some debate about that lately and the verdict is still out.”
“You’ve got spunk, I like that.”
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” It said politely, missing my sarcasm.
I still couldn’t see anything and I took a step out further until I felt the ground beneath me shift and change. I should have been afraid and although I wasn’t exactly comfortable I was in a little state of awe. My dreams had never taken me into so much vivid detail before. Everything was crystal clear and I found myself wanting to explore. I took another step turning around to take one last glimpse of my room and I spun in a complete circle. My house was no longer there and I stood there completely surrounded now by what I could only think was a jungle.
Flutter (The Discover Series) Page 32