“Show off,” Meagan muttered shaking her head. JD could see the effort it cost Roy as his shoulder and arm bulged and strained to control the movement of the sword as he attacked Nathan head on.
The boys began jumping up and down, clapping at this show of strength. Even the baby was clapping his chubby fists together.
Roy and Nathan circled around the floor. Their struggles had brought them closer to their audience. Meagan called her children back to sit in their chairs. Nathan moved to the side, and Roy positioned himself between the children and his opponent, his back to JD. She cringed as Nathan made to lunge, but stumbled instead, surprising Roy. He caught Roy around the waist as if he meant to tackle him.
For a split second, time stood still. Nathan’s eyes darted in JD’s direction, their eyes locking. JD felt her senses wheel as their surroundings abruptly shifted and suddenly found herself outside in the heat of the desert. Instantly, she knew whatever was happening wasn’t real. It felt like a dream, but she couldn’t reason through exactly what was happening to her or why she would be dreaming at this moment. She saw Nathan on his knees in front of her, but everyone else was gone. He clutched his left side, under his arm, blood trickled through his fingers. She wanted to run to him, but couldn’t seem to move her legs. She leaned desperately toward him. As she was about to touch him, the illusion was shattered as Roy’s elbow came down on Nathan’s shoulder in a natural response when Nathan’s mass crashed into him.
Together they hit the floor−hard. Nathan rolled away, losing his sword for a second time. Roy rebounded quickly, sword still in his grasp. Nathan lay on his back, trying to catch his breath as Roy stepped over to him, his sword point resting on Nathan’s chest.
“Give?” Roy asked.
“I give,” Nathan gasped.
“I have defeated the mighty one,” Roy said triumphantly, raising his sword above his head and pumping it in the air. The children began whooping in celebration of their father’s victory.
Nathan closed his eyes, but only for a moment before he took Roy’s outstretched hand. Roy’s two older sons bounded past them to retrieve Nathan’s sword for him, clamoring excitedly about their favorite parts of the fight.
“Again, again,” the children called. JD let go of her breath. She got to her feet shakily and flexed her aching fingers. She had clenched them into fists throughout the duel, her fingernails digging into her palms. Her palms looked as if they had staples in them. Feeling shaky from the bizarre hallucination she had just experienced, JD leaned toward Meagan and whispered, “Where is the nearest bathroom?”
“The door next to the stairs,” she pointed, then, gathering her children, she led them upstairs.
Once inside the bathroom, JD splashed water on her face and took several deep, calming breaths to chase away the images that kept replaying in her mind over and over again.
What is the matter with me? It had to be some sort of freaky symptom brought on by stress and sleepless nights. Or, maybe the head injury she had suffered earlier. JD reflected on the vision, this time recalling the feelings that had overwhelmed her when she saw Nathan on the ground bleeding. She listed the feelings: fear, anguish, loss, devastation, agony. But why? she wondered. Was this a memory? It felt like it could be a memory. It felt real, in a dream-like way. It felt like a fragment of memory that had been torn from a larger piece, and if she could just grasp the tattered edges of the rest of it, she’d understand what she had seen. But where was the rest of the memory lurking? She concentrated; searching her mind furiously and only came up with memories of when she was a child growing up in Gramps’ beachside bungalow. No, this tattered memory was much older, she felt. But nothing else came to her to explain what she had just experienced. JD turned to go and as she laid her hand on the doorknob she heard Roy’s voice outside the door.
“You brought her into my house?” Roy stated in a grave voice.
“She’s not a threat,” Nathan replied.
“We don’t know that for sure.”
Are they talking about me? JD wondered. She pressed her ear against the door to catch Nathan’s answer.
“I need to find out why Matthew branded her. She might lead us to Matthew and Quabin,” was his faint reply.
JD felt her skin grow cold at the mention of Matthew's name. Did this have something to do with the box? Who, or what is Matthew? She felt fear bubble up inside. Who are these people? She wondered.
“You risk my family…” Roy said.
“No,” Nathan cut him off sharply, louder this time.
“You don’t know who or what she is. For all we know, she aided Matthew,” Roy accused.
“We don’t have proof of anything yet. She’s just a mortal. You can see that as plain as day. Matthew could have branded her against her will.” Nathan retorted.
There was a moment of silence, then Nathan continued. “Roy, I promise that your family will be safe and I will not risk them for anything. I believe JD to be an innocent victim of Matthew’s betrayal. I need to undo the damage he has caused her, find Matthew and retrieve the box and Quabin. Are you with me in this or not?” Nathan said calmly.
“As your friend and brother in arms, I’m with you in this,” Roy said solemnly, “but, I warn you not to risk my family. Don’t bring the Marked Ones into my home. It’s bad enough you’re marked. Besides, don’t get involved with her. Let her finish her work and leave. Don’t influence her life journey. We don’t need more trouble.”
“She’s already been influenced! Did you forget what happened to her at the site?” Nathan’s voice took on an edge. “She claims to not have any memory of the events, but it will come back to her eventually and she won’t know how to deal with it. I have to help her. We can’t ignore this and hope fate fixes it.”
“Nathan, I don’t have a good feeling about this. Let it go. Let JD just finish her project and then go back to where she came from. All of this will become just a memory for her and that mark will fade and go away with time and distance. Quabin won’t dare invade another False One’s territory to go after her. She’ll be safe.”
“But, Roy,” Nathan protested.
Roy cut him off, “If I have to, I’ll report you and have you transferred. I’ll do it in an instant to save my family,” Roy warned. JD didn’t hear Nathan’s mumbled response through the door.
“Look, I know this is hard for you,” Roy said in a gentler tone, but Nathan cut him off.
“No, you don’t know,” he snarled. “You have no idea how this is killing me. My brother betrayed not only me, but the Host. And he interfered with an innocent’s journey. The consequences for what he did, I can’t even begin to guess.” Something hard hit the wall next to the door she was standing behind. JD jumped, and then heard hurried footsteps ascend the staircase, followed by slower steps.
So Matthew was Nathan’s brother! And marked too? JD caught her breath. No wonder she could see so many similarities between the two. But then, why did they have different last names and who was Roy? The family ties are certainly odd in this family, she thought. Maybe Roy is a half-brother, she reasoned. Regardless, she knew without a doubt that she was not meant to have heard the exchange between Roy and Nathan. None of it made sense to her. She filed away the conversation for later examination, waited a few moments, and then went out, noticing a fist-size hole in the wall. She drew in a deep breath and went upstairs.
Chapter 5
JD found the adults standing in the kitchen eating pie as the children gathered around the table to enjoy their deserts. Roy and Nathan both gave her curious looks as she came toward them and stood next to Nathan. She gave them an innocent smile as she noticed a meaningful glance pass between Roy and Nathan. She knew they knew she had just overheard them. Roy looked grim and Nathan looked over at her with an apologetic smile. JD decided to lighten the mood.
“That was an interesting workout. What else do you two do, walk tightropes and eat fire?” she quipped.
Meagan, who also didn’t miss the e
xchanges, laughed, casting Roy a glance. He responded with a cold smile.
Nathan chuckled and said, “Something like that. Did we scare you?”
“No, not at all,” JD lied.
“You looked pretty worried there,” Nathan teased.
JD motioned toward Roy. “Well, Roy looked like he was about to murder you.” Roy snorted. Meagan offered a soft laugh, but JD caught her exchanging a knowing look with Roy.
“Ah, he was only mad because I beat him the last six times. I was going for a record seven,” Nathan said as he nudged Roy.
More like, he is mad at you for bringing me here, JD thought as Meagan handed her a plate with a huge slice of pumpkin pie on it. JD thanked her and took it to the table to sit between RJ and Raphael.
Around mouthfuls of pie, the children shared their favorite parts of the sword fight. RJ proclaimed that he’d be able to take Nathan down faster than his father had, which caused the adults to laugh. RJ frowned and insisted he could do it, once he was a bit bigger. Then the younger brothers began to proclaim their own ability to take RJ down.
JD smiled at the competitive exchange between the young brothers. For the first time since that wretched night with Matthew, she felt warm and alive. It felt good to be amongst people that had nothing to do with work, well, most of them at least. JD looked around the table and couldn’t help but smile. It had to be the children that brought such warm feelings. They made her laugh, made her feel alive again. And then, all too soon, the pie was gone, and JD reluctantly wished them all a goodnight after Nathan offered to take her home.
Nathan led her through a living room that contained a grand piano and marble-floored entry way. The front doors opened to a wide landing with several steps that led down onto the natural rock pathway that went across a rocky and untamed landscape to the driveway.
“Want to walk?” Nathan asked. They were only a couple of miles away and darkness had already descended. JD nodded. It was brisk, but not bad once they started walking.
“So what happened to victory number seven?” she asked when they had walked a few yards from the house.
Nathan looked at her sideways, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. The chill air had put color into his cheeks and nose. Her own face felt a little numb from the cold, but she didn’t mind. She tucked her chin into the collar of her coat. His booted feet kept a steady pace, crunching through the snow as she waited for his response.
“Guess I got distracted,” he said.
“By what?” she ventured.
Nathan slowed his pace, then came to a stop altogether. He looked up into the star speckled night sky and drew a deep breath, then turned his head toward her. He opened his mouth partly to speak, but no words came. A strange expression came over his face and he closed his mouth.
“What?” she said, exasperated, laughing a little to break the seriousness of his mood. She had been in such a sober mood for so long, that she didn’t want his sudden serious mood to drag her down. She didn’t want to go back there again. She wanted to hold onto the warmth she had found in the Parker’s home. Nathan shook his head and continued toward town.
“I was distracted,” he repeated as if that was all he could say.
JD decided to push the matter.
“While I was watching your duel, or whatever it was called, something weird happened.” She studied him for a reaction, but he didn’t look at her, only kept walking.
“What happened?” he asked, as if he really wasn’t interested.
“When you fell,” she began, “I knew that you would lose. It was like déjà vu.”
Nathan glanced at her with one brow raised and said, “That’s not déjà Vu. It’s called pre-cognition.”
“What?” She didn’t understand.
“If you knew it was going to happen, it’s called pre-cognition. Déjà vu happens when you think you’ve already experienced the event−during or after the event itself. Like a memory resurfacing,” Nathan explained. She thought about that for a moment.
“It was like a memory,” she said confidently and reached out, putting her hand on his arm to stop him. He turned hesitantly toward her, as she continued. “When you stumbled forward, I felt like I was reliving a memory, except in my memory, we were outside in the desert. You looked just the same as you do now, but you were injured.”
Nathan’s eyes focused on hers and she stopped talking as she began to feel silly telling him about it. Perhaps it sounded crazy to him, but then again, what he and Roy had been talking about sounded crazy to her.
“It was just a weird thing,” she said quietly and she started walking again, hoping he’d say something.
Nathan came up beside her a moment later. “What did you see, exactly?” he said in a low voice.
She stopped, turning toward him apprehensively. “You were kneeling on the ground. You were bleeding, like Roy had actually stuck a sword through you.”
“Where was the injury?” he asked calmly.
She felt uncomfortable, but Nathan unzipped his coat and held it open, waiting for her to show him. She stepped closer, sensing the heat from his body. Reaching out her right hand, she placed it on his left side, next to his heart. In doing so, their eyes locked and she felt a tremor race through her body.
Nathan looked down at her hand, and then slowly covered it with his left hand, and for a while, they stood there absorbing each other’s warmth. JD remembered Roy’s comment and she looked down at Nathan’s hand, and there, she saw the mark, a six-sided star inside a circle. Why had she not seen it before? She was about to ask about the mark, when he said, “I can’t do this,” he said suddenly and turned away from her.
“I heard you and Roy talking after the fight,” JD quickly confessed, hoping to prolong the moment so as to draw more information from him. Nathan glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression unreadable.
“Roy was upset you brought me there because I was marked,” she said and lifted her left hand to show him as a reminder, “but you are too.” Nathan reacted with surprise as he glanced down at his hand. He moved his right hand over the mark. His expression softened into uncertainly.
“Who are you?” he whispered, as if trying to coax something from her.
“Who are you?” she returned, even though that wasn’t what she wanted to say. It just came out. Nathan looked uncertain.
“Who do you think I am?” he responded. She searched his face, looking for some hint of an answer, but from the look in his eyes, he wasn’t about to reveal anything. The only thing she could get was the feeling that he simply couldn’t tell her, or wouldn’t as she had gathered from his conversation with Roy.
“I don’t know who you are, but I feel like I know you. Like I’ve known you for a very long time,” she said, watching Nathan for clues.
He lifted his chin as if the news was unexpected, but not surprising to him.
“What else?” he urged.
“You’re not what you appear to be?” She offered.
“Can you think of, or remember anything else?” he pressed.
“Remember? What am I supposed to remember? Can’t you give me a hint?” she pled.
Nathan shook his head. “Never mind, I’ve gone too far.”
“Can’t you tell me anything?”
“I can’t,” he replied shaking his head and he turned and started walking toward town. JD followed, thinking over the recent events.
“Nathan?” she called. He stopped and turned towards her, “What is going on? What is this mark on my hand even mean? How is this connected to anything?”
Nathan hesitated before slowly replying, “I don’t know.”
She shot him a frustrated look. “Can’t you tell me anything?”
Nathan shook his head and then added, “I can’t influence your journey. Roy was right. I’ve already done too much. Anymore interference, I fear would defeat the purpose of you even being here. I can’t tell you anything more, Julia.”
“Wait a second. How did you kn
ow my name is Julia? I’ve been going as JD since high school,” she said.
Nathan looked like he had gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He clamped his lips closed and proceeded on toward town.
“You can’t lie, can you? You just shut your mouth when you can’t answer without lying,” she observed. Nathan ducked his head. “How do you know my name?” she persisted.
Nathan stopped again and fixed her with an intense look that made her shrink away. “It’s on your driver’s license.”
JD narrowed her eyes. “Yes it is, but that’s not how you learned my name.”
“You told Meagan your name,” he replied, a smug smile splayed across his face. She had forgotten. She didn’t know why she had used her birth name. JD backed off and hugging herself, continued on in silence until they reached the stairs to her apartment.
“Come in?” JD asked.
Nathan shook his head. “I can’t. But I want to tell you something,” he said. She registered the seriousness of his tone.
“Yes?”
“Remember when you found that blood spot on the floor of the schoolhouse and you didn’t see the feathers?”
“Yeah?” she responded trying to follow him.
“Look for the feathers,” he said softly and touched her cheek. His fingertips felt warm and soothing on her cheek, and then abruptly he turned and hurried away into the night.
***
“Mlackhar,” a voice intruded upon the darkened quiet that filled his soul.
“Mlackhar,” the voice came again. Matthew’s eyes slowly opened. Darkness enveloped him. He vaguely remembered coming to this place of darkness, but details eluded him. Even though it was dark, he could see a darker form above him, a form he had seen many times as he drifted in and out of sleep during the time he had been there. How much time, he did not know. His mind felt strangely sluggish, only allowing him the sense that he had thoughts but he couldn’t grasp them to make sense of anything.
If I Fall...: Will You Forgive Me? (Angelore Saga Book 2) Page 3