by Su Williams
“We were hoping you could tell us that.” Sabre spoke, again.
I could feel Nick’s hands tremble around mine. I gave him a little squeeze and rubbed his wrist with my thumb, tried to console him. Nick’s dark eyes eclipsed with a pain deeper than any I had encountered there before; a pain more grievous than the memories of his former life that ruptured his heart. I squeezed his hand, again.
“Nick…”
He shook his head and turned his eyes away, no longer able to meet my gaze. I still saw the truth he was hiding. I wasn’t so muddle-headed that I couldn’t see reality, couldn’t grasp the facts that stood staring me in the face, even when he would not. I wasn’t stupid. I could see he was leaving me. He hadn’t gone far—yet.
“You promised.” I tore my hand from Sabre’s grip, clutched Nick’s arm, and sat up to face him. I pushed back the pain that sliced through my ribs, my brain. “Nick. Please.”
Finally, he turned and looked into my eyes, and scorched me with his personal hell. He fervently scanned my face as if to commit each line and curve to his memory. He cupped my face in his hand and rested his forehead on mine. “Emi,” his voice, barely a whisper, faltered with emotion.
I whimpered as images overflowed him and spilled into me…
It was like falling out of me, seeing myself through Nick’s eyes. My body lay still and pale on my bed. Nick leaned on one elbow, and hovered over me as he gently stroked my hair. His warm cheek pressed to mine, so cold and numb. I could feel him in my head, but the images bubbled and roiled like churning water. He was searching for something that wouldn’t be found. The deeper he delved into my mind, the more frustrated he became. He fought to anchor the turbulent mess of images, struggled to make some sense out of chaos. His mind probed and kneaded mine, ardent attempts to make sense of the images that careened out of control in my head. But the memories slipped away from him before he could capture them, and he retreated from my mind in defeat.
The sound of tearing thoughts resounded throughout my soul as his mind separated from mine. I heard his low gasp, felt him examine his own mind for the source of perforation but found nothing out of place. Cavernous lines etched so cruelly in his brow that my heart ached to console him. He stroked my pale listless face over and over as though to impart some of his own life into me.
His heart bolted in horror as my face contorted, my jaw locked with a snap, and every muscle in my body hardened into a rigid pose. My back arched off the mattress like a patient under electro-shock therapy. My fingers gnarled like twisted branches, my wrists bowed at such a dangerous angle that he feared the bulging tendons would snap. Violent seizures possessed my body, and my breaths hissed rabidly through my clenched teeth. Frantic and useless, his hands fluttered over me.
“Emi…oh God…please…make it stop, please make it stop.”
As if in answer to his panicked prayer, my body collapsed onto the bed—a mound of pale, powdery ash susceptible to the slightest breeze. I lay motionless, limp and unmoving, except for the slow shallow breaths that, almost imperceptibly, lifted my chest. I looked half-dead, even to my own eyes.
Nick scooped me into his arms and buried his face in my hair with a horrified sob. His quaking body a radiant furnace. His chest heaved against me in silent grief as he held me to his chest and rocked me; my sleeping lullaby a catatonic hum from his lips.
Several moments passed as Nick held my wilted body. His fingers trembled through my hair. Finally, he froze and blinked away the images of my comatose body. Still cradling me in one arm, he stuffed his hand into his jeans pocket and retrieved his cell phone. He pushed and held one button.
After two rings, Sabre answered in a groggy voice, “What!”
“This is Nick,” he whispered, barely audible.
“I know, you idiot. No one else would call me at dark o’clock in the freakin’ morning. What do you want? Did you break your new toy?”
“Yes,” Nick’s voice shattered. Silence bulged with tension.
“Dude, I was only kidding. What happened?”
“I…I don’t know. Something was wrong. Her head was a mess. I tried to fix it, to figure it out, but—as I pulled away, something snapped—I think, inside her. She went into convulsions, and now she’s just—she’s just laying here. Sabre—I can’t do this again.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.” Nick was silent. “Nick! I’ll be right there.”
“’kay.” Nick flipped the phone shut and buried his face in my hair.
The memory faded and my shoulders collapsed with exhaustion. “What was that?” I gasped out. Neither answered. I looked up into Nick’s startled eyes. “What?” I shot a glance at Sabre, who had the same utterly dumbfounded look on his face. “What? What just happened?”
“She’s a Weaver,” and it was in stereo this time.
“You’re sure you didn’t do that?” Sabre prodded Nick, and ignored me completely.
“I didn’t do anything!” swore Nick. Then a hopeful smile stole across his face, the light flickered back on in his eyes, and the part of him that had retreated returned.
“Nick?” I was desperate for answers. “Please. What just happened?”
“That’s happened before, hasn’t it, Emari?” asked Sabre, sounding more like a kid in a candy store than a doctor this time.
“What? The memory…thing? It just happens. Like Nick overflows or something,” I informed him.
“When?” asked Nick, his hands gripping my arms.
“Um, ow…” I nodded toward his hands.
His hands glided down my arms, lapping fire on my cool skin. “I’m sorry, honey.” He gently squeezed my hands. “This is very important. When did this happen before?” Now Nick spoke to me as if I was a child.
I couldn’t meet his gaze, not his or Sabre’s. I felt like I did when I was a child and had to face one of my parents after I’d done something wrong. A lie would be safer, detour their anger, but it would still be a lie. As well, like the proverbial band-aid, it was easier just to get it over with all at once. “I saw what Sabre did to him. To Rico.” Nick groaned and closed his eyes. “I saw the memories and what you did to them.” I looked into Sabre’s eyes, finally. It felt easier to chastise him. “How you twisted them and used them to torture him.”
“I’m so sorry, Em. I tried to keep those things away from you,” Nick’s voice bled with remorse.
“Okay. But, what did you mean, ‘She’s a Weaver?’ I thought you said you could spot others like you. If I were—a Weaver, why wouldn’t you have known before now?”
Nick turned to Sabre, who answered. “You are manifesting some of the initial abilities of a Dream Weaver. This ‘catching Nick’s overflow’, as you put it, is one of the early manifestations of pre-Caphar capabilities. How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I told him.
“I was twenty, Nick was nineteen. It stands to reason. Most Dream Weavers age reduction manifests between seventeen and twenty-five years old. As well, girls mature faster than boys.” Sabre paced the room in a quick, tight loop. His eyes flashed manically like a scientist on the verge of a monumental breakthrough and one small piece of the puzzle eluded him. He stopped and snapped his fingers at me. “Do you ever get caught in a memory loop? Like insignificant words, phrases, sentences that repeat over and over again in your head and you can’t get rid of them?” His words tumbled out in a heap.
“Sure. I thought everybody did that,” I argued.
“To a degree, but not to the extent that a pre-Caphar does. It’s like an endless replay loop of the irrelevant, a hormonal occurrence in the brain when Caphar reach puberty.”
“Okay, but why wouldn’t you be able to tell before now, if I was one?”
“Most of us can’t see pre-Caphar, only fully developed Caphar,” Sabre explained.
I huddled on the bed, my head cradled in my hands. “Okay, this is all just a bit too much for me to deal with right now.”
Again, it was Sabre who came to me. He gently took my h
ands in his, caressed them consolingly, a tenderness I had a hard time reconciling to the brashness that was Sabre. He lifted me to my feet. “Emari, honey? Something happened to you today. Do you remember what it was?”
“No. I was here all day. I took a nap. And Nick came.” My heart battered my ribcage, my thoughts shattered like glass on marble, the chaos returned. Something red. The sensations from Nick’s memory of me returned; a frenetic jumble of images and emotions that scattered like sunlight through rain. The chaos left me feeling agitated, dissociated. I closed my eyes, but the turmoil only heightened, became dizzying. My muscles tensed, my stomach twisted into a knot.
“Emari?” Nick was closer now. I was safe. Nick and Sabre were there to protect me. They wouldn’t let anything happen to me. My breath trembled and panted from my chest, but Nick pressed his body behind me, his hands at my waist. Sabre stood in front of me, still holding my hands. Nick continued. “Honey, your clothes were soaked.”
“I didn’t go anywhere,” I whispered, and leaned my head back on Nick’s shoulder. I whimpered and shook my head as the agitation amplified.
“Emari. Where is Eddyson?” Nick’s voice was quiet, apprehensive.
My eyes shot open and panic coursed through me. “Eddyson?! Where is…he’s here…somewhere.”
“No, Em. I can’t find him.”
Why was Nick saying this? Of course, Eddy was here. He had to be here. Maybe under the bed or out in the yard. “He’s here…” My fear conjured images of Eddyson’s tiny body, broken and bleeding on the shoulder of Highway 2 so close to the house. I crammed the images away.
Nick wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’ve looked, Em. He’s not here. Your clothes were soaked, like you went out in the snow.”
“No. It was warm today. The snow melted.” Now, I was trying to convince myself as much as him.
Sabre, still holding my hands, stepped closer. “Emari. The snow is not gone.” I thrashed away from both of them and ran to the deck doors. Shoving the curtains aside, I peered hopefully out into the night. Sure enough, snow still covered the deck in a thick, sparkling blanket.
“No. Eddyson.” I quashed a shuddering scream. Nick drifted behind me and I turned into his arms, sobs heaved my chest against his. “Nick, please, where’s Eddyson?”
“Emi, I think only you know that,” he said softly in my ear.
“I don’t. I don’t.” My mind spiraled precariously, utterly petrified of losing yet one more being that I loved so desperately. I had known when I got him that loving Eddyson was a risk, but I hadn’t anticipated such a short time with him. I thought he would get to grow up and become a grizzle-haired old hound before I had to let him go. I thought I had a few years, at the least.
Sabre closed in again, his warm, gentle hand rested between my shoulder blades. “Emari, where did you go, today?” he asked brusquely.
“I don’t know,” I sobbed into Nick’s chest, and caught a glimpse of something red in my mind’s eye.
“Where is the dog, Emari? Where is Eddyson?” Sabre pressed and I felt Nick’s arms harden in defense around me.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t…I didn’t…” A cyclone of hysteria spun through me. “Maybe the man took him!”
Nick’s body became a rigid cage around me. “What man, Emari?” His soothing tone belied the tension in his body. He knew I hovered on the brink, ready to plunge back into the whirling darkness, the mire from which he had already rescued me—twice.
“The man—in the red coat. At the creek.”
They exchanged a meaningful glance, and Nick reluctantly bowed his head to Sabre in some silent consent. “Emari? Sabre and I are going to help you remember what happened today. Okay?”
I nodded dumbly. Anything to help find Eddyson and bring him home.
Nick engulfed me in the safety of his arms. Sabre rested one hand on Nick’s shoulder with a reassuring squeeze, and then placed the other hand at the base of my skull. His fingers caressed my hair.
“Okay, sweetie, here we go,” whispered Nick.
I closed my eyes to escape the world, but the sudden memories of the day poured back into my mind, brought cognizance that the world of my memories was no safer than the physical world within my sight. A torrent of images gushed from me to Nick and Sabre. I relived the glorious warmth of the sun, allowed the pleasant sensations of nature to wash through me, and contentedly beheld old memories of Dead Man’s Creek. Then, as before, I felt the icy fright as the man in the red jacket grabbed me and shook me like a rag doll, and delved violently into my mind. Nick’s chest rumbled savagely against me at the Wraith’s lascivious regard of me. I relived the press of hands against my throat. My vision eclipsed and danced with stars.
Chapter 22 Sweet Sacrifice
I crumpled into Nick’s arms. He scooped me up, and carried me back to the bed. “This is what happens when you screw with someone’s head too much,” Nick growled at Sabre.
I felt—snapped, like they say when someone has been pushed or pulled beyond what they can endure. They snap. That was me. I was snapped. I heard the word Nick wanted to use, instead of ‘screw with someone’s head’, but he didn’t use it. He knew I was snapped, too.
I could hear them planning, but my eyes refused to find the light. I knew I needed to open them, but part of me hoped if only I kept my eyes shut a few moments longer, it would all just go away. I wanted to bury my head under my pillow, avoid the inevitable, put off facing the news head-on that was assured to impact my heart and my life in a horrendous and significant way.
“How is she?” Sabre’s voice was uncharacteristically soft and filled with concern.
“She’s conscious; her mind won’t let her come out of it all the way.”
I felt Sabre’s cool fingers brush my forehead. “Come on back, darlin’.”
My soul cowered within me and my eyes refused to comply. A war raged in me, two parts of the whole battling for control. Self-preservation conquered.
“I can’t pick up anything,” Nick grumbled as he gently and carefully swept his charged fingers across my body. I heard the rustle of my wet clothes in his hands, as he caressed the fabric with his fingertips. He hoped to find them saturated with memories, but only found melted snow. “Not even a trace of a print left on her or her clothes. This one’s very strong. I don’t know that we’ve run up against one quite like him before.”
“Or, it’s an old friend with newly-acquired abilities.” I could hear the snarl in Sabre’s voice, the anger and frustration. He was not accustomed to being the weaker opponent, on the defensive.
“Somehow, he’s wiped every print from her skin and her clothes. And it seems like he’s wiped her brain, but not totally, like he wants us to know some, but not all of it,” Nick interjected.
“I don’t think so. I think she blacked out and he kept her that way until he returned her here. I get the impression he is winging it. He hasn’t decided what he’s going to do,” Sabre argued.
“Yeah, but how did he get her back here without being seen? Not that there’s a lot of people to see anything, but still, there’s the highway between here and the creek, and even if he was phased, she’s still corporeal, he couldn’t have moved her,” Nick protested.
“She may not have even left the grounds. It may all be an elaborate weave of her memories. You know we’ve been running into some extreme evolutions lately with some of the Wraith, as well as some of the Weavers. There is no telling what this guy’s capabilities are. They’re getting stronger, faster, developing new talents—or stealing them,” the growl rumbled in Sabre’s throat. “That Wraith we put down in Cle Elum didn’t even have to be in physical contact with someone, let alone be in the same building, to receive or transmit a memory.”
Even through my Cimmerian haze, I could hear Sabre’s wheels as they ground and squealed out his strategy.
Nick groaned. I felt him shift beside me as he turned to stroke my hair and kiss my face to try to draw me back. My heart responded
to his touch and I unwillingly opened my eyes. “Nick.” It was barely a whisper.
“It’s okay, honey. We’re here.”
“Eddyson?”
“No, sweetie. We haven’t found him yet.” Nick helped me to sit up. “We’re working on something, though.” I pushed myself to my feet and Nick hovered close by my side, his arm wrapped snuggly around my waist. He watched my every move; in case I fainted again or a memory returned, or maybe a hint that I’d had enough of him and his Dream Weaver world.
“He was one of them. A Wraith,” I clarified.
Nick nodded with downcast eyes, unable to meet my gaze for shame that he had brought this dark being to my doorstep. “I’m so sorry, Em. I should have never told you…”
“On the contrary,” Sabre growled, “you should have told her everything.”
Nick rounded on Sabre and retorted, “Are you insane?” Protective and tense, he positioned himself against his mentor.
How quickly things changed with these two. It was enough to give me whiplash.
“Of course, you are,” Nick continued. “The notorious Sabre James, walking that fine line between darkness and light, straddling that precarious fence separating Caphar and Rephaim.” This was a hostility and a past about Sabre that was new to me. “The less she knows the less they care about her,” Nick went on.
Sabre stepped up to Nick, face to face, his frozen granite eyes dared Nick to challenge him. Then, like lightning, his hand flashed out, and he clasped my wrist. He dragged me to the kitchen. Nick followed fuming, but he recoiled from the cold glare in Sabre’s eyes.
Sabre threw my hand away and grabbed my shoulders. The shock from the sudden change between them left me mute. “Nick should have told you the truth to begin with!” Sabre’s voice rumbled, like the meeting of two glaciers, low, icy and hard. “Nick shouldn’t have continued to shelter you once you knew the truth of what we are. He should have told you everything so you could have made an informed choice for yourself. Now, there is no choice. They,” he raged, jabbing a finger toward the darkness outside, “already know you exist and no doubt have deduced what you are. And they are ruthless. They will come for you.