His voice was thick and strained; it sounded like he was on the verge of tears, himself. A hot wall of emotion surged up in Farley as she slowly lifted herself upright.
“You agreed to have a child with your friend because you were okay with dying?” she whispered. It was a frightening thought. It made her feel like there was something dangerous living inside him that she could never know. It was so far beyond the realms of her own imagination. She couldn’t picture ever feeling that way.
“Yes,” he murmured, hushed.
She pulled herself forward and brushed the tears from her eyes. He turned to look at her, a worried expression on his face. “I hate hurting you. I’m so sorry.” His words were unbearably quiet. Farley barely heard them, but the look in his eyes was enough to make her crumble. She buried her face into his shoulder and in an instant he had his arms around her.
They sat like that until Farley ran out of tears and it felt like she was back in control again. Eventually, she pulled away and hastily scrubbed at her face with her hands. She was all puffed up from crying for sure. Daniel caught her under her chin with a curled index finger and tilted her face up so that their eyes met.
“I’m sorry. I look like hell,” she groaned.
Daniel gave her a small, tired smile and gently shook his head, telling her, no, she didn’t, with his eyes. His red t-shirt was mottled with dark patches where her tears had fallen. She gave his chest a rueful prod. “I drenched you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Good. This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven, though. You should have told me you were leaving this morning. Disappearing with Cassandra after she kissed you last night was just about the worst thing you could have done.”
Daniel pursed his lips. He let his dark hair fall into his eyes. “Her name’s Cassiopeia,” he said slowly.
Perfect. Even her name is positively musical. At least Cassandra sounded ordinary.
“And I really am sorry,” he continued, missing Farley’s sour look. “I’ve just never been like this with anybody before. I was afraid. I didn’t want to mess it up by saying the wrong thing. You’re important, Farley. I’m not very good at telling people how I feel about them, and this feels… this…” He stared off into the distance, his face suddenly hardening. “Anyway. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I forgive you.”
He closed his eyes for a brief moment before resting the side of his head on his knees, looking at her properly. “Thank you.” He picked up her hand and pulled it to his face, holding it to his cheek as though relishing the sensation of her skin against his. He watched her expression to see if this was okay, before gently turning to kiss the inside of her wrist. When he pulled back, he studied the flex of her fingers, as though her knuckles held the answer to some bothersome question. “I know I have no right to ask anything of you after all this, but…”
“But?”
“I need you to promise me something,” he whispered. His words were tense, his body language altered.
“What is it?”
He finished up his scrutiny of her fingers and turned his green eyes on her. They were more solemn than she’d ever seen them. “I need you to stay away from Kayden.”
Ten
Fruit loops
His Fruit Loops were soggy, the milk a swirling pink mess. Kayden hadn’t blinked for the past four minutes. Daniel knew this because he hadn’t either. There was no way he was going to be the first to look away.
“Can you both pay attention to what you’re doing, please? You’re getting cereal all over the kitchen table,” Anna moaned, nipping at her toast the way a bird might, one crumb at a time. Daniel felt Farley sitting at the table next to him, watching him watch Kayden. There was disapproval in her eyes- he could tell without even looking at her. When he lifted the spoon to his mouth, he found that there wasn’t actually anything on it. Kayden raised his eyebrows.
“How long are you staying, Kayden?” Daniel asked, trying to keep the gravel out of his voice.
“Eager to get rid of me, bro? You rushed back here so fast, I thought you were desperate to see me.”
“I thought you were dying.”
“So it’s okay to rush to my bedside when I’m shuffling loose the mortal coil, but when I’m fighting fit, I get shown the door?”
“Exactly. History has a funny way of repeating itself.”
‘Huh.” Kayden’s smile faltered like a flickering light bulb. He lifted his spoon to his mouth and slowly chewed the contents, apparently more successful than Daniel at blind cereal fishing. “I know I don’t have to remind you that this is my home, too, right?”
Farley squirmed in her chair next to Daniel, and he knew she was desperate to ask what he meant- why he thought he belonged here. Kayden smiled that seriously annoying smile, the one that curled up at the side of his mouth. “I own a quarter of this house, same as you, Cass and Grayson. And I kinda feel like sticking around for a while.”
“Of course you do. I don’t suppose you’d consider letting me buy you out?”
Kayden just chewed his food, staring blankly at Daniel. Farley shunted her chair closer to the huge wooden table where they ate their breakfast. “If it’s his house, then why can’t he stay?”
Kayden gave her a surprised look. Daniel let a slow, smug smile curl over his lips. He knew the other boy would be the first to look away. Not that he appreciated how Kayden was now looking at his girlfriend instead. “I’m not saying he can’t. I just thought he’d have other things to do now he’s free from his responsibilities. You should do some travelling, Kay. I hear Alaska’s nice this time of year.”
“Already been,” he replied, purposefully slurping his cereal and looking up over his bowl, unashamedly antagonistic.
Anna scowled, swinging her disgusted expression from one to the other. She threw down the half-pecked-at piece of toast she’d been pinching delicately between her thumb and forefinger and blew out a loud, “Ugh!”
“Are they always like this?” Farley muttered. Daniel shot her a look he hoped portrayed how wounded he was; she was supposed to be on his side. It was bad enough she hadn’t promised to stay away from Kayden. Now she was sitting on the fence, making sharp comments about the way he was acting. She had no idea who how unbelievably selfish this creep could be.
Anna swallowed whatever was in her mouth and grimaced. “They’re usually worse. At least they’re not hitting each other. Although, a fight might fix how annoying it is having them both under the same roof. After they’ve beaten each other bloody, one of them usually leaves.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not staying long,” Farley snapped. Her tone made Daniel turn to study her out of the corner of his eye. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun on the top of her head, which was strange because she usually just let it fall free down her back. She was wearing a sweater, too, and it was seriously humid this morning. He discarded his spoon in the saccharine mulch that had been his breakfast, narrowing his eyes at her. “Are you okay?” he whispered.
When she looked at him, it was impossible to miss the dark shadows beneath her eyes. There was a faint worry line across her forehead, which had been there since he’d dragged her out of her bed.
“I’m just not feeling all that well,” she replied, chewing on her fingernail. It was then that he realized her own food was untouched.
Anna rocked back on her chair, smiling scornfully. “Ahh, precious Farley doesn’t feel well. Why don’t you go and have a little lie down, princess? Spare us the drama.”`
“Anna.” The snarl in Kayden’s voice made all three of them jump. “Is it any surprise she feels unwell? There’s only so much of your vitriol one can take before breakfast. Can you please leave?”
“Sure thing, angel. Right after you sprout your wings and fly away.”
“Can everyone please just… shut up?” Farley whispered. Her hand went to her temple and she clenched her eyes shut.
“Hey… hey, Farley? What’s going on? Are you okay?�
�� Daniel moved his hand to the knee she had tucked up underneath her. She rested her hand over his. It was trembling, and she was freezing cold. A strange, vacant looked passed over her face.
“Oh, no… Can you smell-” The consciousness slipped away from her eyes. She gripped hold of his hand tight, her face crumpling. A look of pure horror emerged.
“Daniel!”
Eleven
We Are One
It had been too long. She should have known. She should have known. It was well past due, and the hallucination- no, the vision- forced its way into her head with brutal determination. The last one she’d had was back in the hangar. That pain had been bad, but this… this was crippling. She needed to stand. Outside. She needed to get outside. She shot her hand out, but, with her eyesight gone, she ended up grasping hold of her cereal bowl instead of the wooden table. It clattered, something soft obstructing its fall, before it landed on the tiled kitchen floor. It didn’t break, just made an oscillating noise, growing louder and quicker all at once- the noise a coin makes as it spins on its edge before falling to lie flat.
“Farley? What’s going on?”
Daniel sounded worried but there was little she could do to comfort him. Her insides writhed; her head pounded; her eyes stung. It took everything she had to keep the vomit from rising up her throat. She didn’t know how, but she managed to collect herself enough to say, “I need to go outside.”
Immediately Daniel’s arms were around her, and a second later she was lifted from the ground. The sound of the back door opening rattled round the kitchen, like he’d tried yanking it free before he’d turned the handle properly, and then the stillness of the warm morning air brushed lightly against her face. But the relief she’d thought she’d feel was missing. Every molecule in her body had promised once she was outside she’d feel better. But that wasn’t the case. With her first lungful of the open air, the vision descended.
It started as a small pinprick of light. The smell hit her, too- the one she’d detected a faint hint of in the kitchen. Lilies. A whole rotting pile of them, decayed down to nothing more than slimy brown petals and shriveled, wasted stalks. It was a foul and deathly-sweet rancor. Its stench rolled over her in a wave, making her wretch.
“Oh, wow, she’s gonna blow,” Anna said somewhere far away. She made a squawking noise, and the sound of a slamming door followed. “Thank you,” Daniel murmured.
“What’s happening to her?” Kayden had followed them outside, and by the sounds of it had bodily forced Anna back indoors.
“I don’t know. She has episodes. I’ve only seen her have one, though, and it wasn’t like this.”
It was a bad sign that they were talking about her like she wasn’t there. That could only mean one thing: they didn’t think she was capable of responding. Bad. Really, really bad. A fact made more concrete by the sudden explosion of white light in her eyes. She clutched at her head, as though she might be able to hold it together with her bare hands. It was no good. The pressure exerted from the inside of her skull was well beyond her feeble attempts to contain it. She was instantly transported away from the cabin, away from Montana, away from summer and the heat and light.
Here, in this new place, there was only the cold and the dark and the stench. And a pair of eyes. They were reflective in the dark, like a cat’s eyes caught in headlights. They looked less startled than that, though. Almost expectant. Farley’s breath came fast and shallow, echoing off the walls. Bare, frigid stone met her fingertips when she fumbled behind her, trying to figure out if she could back away. She couldn’t. The room felt tiny, like a cell. No window, no external light. The cold seemed to pour out of the stone around her, frosting her breath. It wasn’t content with clawing at her skin. It forced its way down her throat, working its way into the very deepest parts of her. Her breathing grew quicker.
“What do you want?” she croaked.
The eyes dipped a few inches from where they hovered before rapidly moving forward. She couldn’t do anything but gasp. They paused in front of her, a deep, bottomless brown. Calculating. “Soul Child,” a voice hissed, inches from her skin. The words were liquid ice. They slipped out of the dark and found their way onto her skin, making every hair follicle on her body object and stand to attention.
“Sovereign Soul Child,” the voice repeated. The effect the words had were no more comforting the second time around.
“Leave me alone.”
The eyes, along with the body they were connected to, moved back a foot. Farley pressed herself back against the rough stone at her back, feeling its surface instantly freeze to her skin. It was as cold as a meat locker in the cell and much, much scarier.
“I don’t know what you want, but I want to go. Now.” Nothing had ever been normal about these visions, or hallucinations as she’d always thought of them, but this whole experience was wrong. She felt something here in this hidden place that she’d never felt at any other time: she was in danger. Real, you’re in way over your head and going to die danger.
She swallowed down the desperate urge to scream for help. Enough sense remained amongst all of the panic to know no one was going to hear her. This was the very oldest of places- she could tell. There was no one living down here in the very bowels of the earth’s forgotten basement. And she wouldn’t be if she stayed much longer. A terrified part of her demanded attention. She let it take control.
“I’m leaving,” she said firmly, feeling each word form like an icicle in the air. The eyes narrowed like regular eyes would if they were attached to a smile. Yet something about their shift in shape made them look sinister and half mad.
“For now,” the voice told her.
“For always,” she shot back. There was no way she was ever coming back here. The thought was paralyzing, if only because the cold embrace of the walls called to her. Like she belonged here. “Just stay away from me.”
A rush of cold air blasted her face, and Farley flinched away from the sudden movement in front of her. The eyes leveled with hers, so close they filled her vision. Surrounding them she made out a sick kind of sallow skin, not white but almost translucent, riddled with fibrous-looking blue veins.
“I cannot.” The breath on her face stank worse than the lilies; it smelt like death itself. “We are one.”
*******
The sunlight was a brilliant torch shining straight into her eyes. Farley coughed so hard it felt like she might never breathe again. Her whole body was numb, ice cold.
“Jeez, Farley… Farley. Look at me!” Daniel looked more afraid than she’d ever seen him before. His hands clawed at her shirt like she was made of sand and he was trying to stop her from crumbling away. She filled her lungs until they promised to burst.
“Don’t ever, ever do that again. Ever,” he said, yanking her up from the ground where she lay on her back. She felt like a limp rag doll. Daniel crushed her to him, pinning her arms to her sides. She tried to pull back so she could collect herself but she caught sight of Kayden over Daniel’s shoulder and froze.
For a second she thought he was on fire, the same way her mother had been on fire in every vision she’d ever had of her. But Kayden wasn’t on fire, he was fire. Pure white and burning, he seared at her retinas. Seeing him like that was enough to stun and scare her all over again. She somehow managed to regain her bodily functions and scrambled against Daniel, trying to pull herself away from Kayden and drag him along with her. It didn’t work. She only succeeded in making him grasp hold of her tighter, and when she overcame her panic enough to look up, Kayden wasn’t burning anymore. He was just Kayden. There was a troubled expression on his face when he gave her a worried smile.
Daniel held her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “What the hell just happened? You weren’t breathing, Farley. That’s not supposed to happen.”
She frowned at him. There was a green Fruit Loop stuck to his forearm and others crushed into his damp jeans. The bowl must have landed on him when she’d tried to stan
d up in the kitchen. “I don’t know,” she told him softly. “But I wasn’t safe. I wasn’t safe.” The last word cracked as her throat closed up and tears threatened to come. She wouldn’t let them, though. There was still something horrible lurking inside her, like a part of that bitter tomb had found its way back with her. And until that feeling was gone, she knew she couldn’t fall apart. It would sense her weakness.
Twelve
After
The sunset turned the sky bloody, a violent end to the day. It felt appropriate, somehow. Farley traced her fingertips along the rough grain of the wooden deck listening to Daniel pace around amongst the tall grass. The half light, not bright enough to see by but not dark enough to totally rob the senses, turned the world into flat browns and greys. The dusky air smelled sweet, like crushed pine needles and musk. It was balmy and warm, but Farley was still wrapped in the blanket Daniel had found for her earlier. Her bones were carved ice.
Daniel wandered in and out of the tree line, swallowed for long minutes before emerging again. She had no idea what he was doing but he seemed tense and on edge, like sitting would be an impossible task. His unease was contagious. It was a degree darker when he reappeared and made his way over to the deck. His movements were leonine and fluid, pure animal. The burning miasma of the sky backed him as he paused in front of her, twisting lengths of dry, brittle grass around his fingers.
He scuffed the step of the deck with the toe of his Converse before slowly climbing it and sinking to the floor at her feet. Tentatively reaching up, he brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Hey, beautiful.”
Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) Page 6