“I know you’ve tried. Keep looking. And, Vega, don’t hurt yourself anymore. I know it’s hard, love, but you must live. If you die, then I will never hold you again. Your decision will kill us both.”
Pulling her body against him, she curled until her knees touched her chest. “I’m fighting it, but it’s so hard.”
Zane hugged her tightly, and the need for words faded away. Instead, he held Vega until all her tears had been cried, and she rested under the weight of his embrace. When at last her breathing evened out and her heartbeat slowed, he kissed her salty cheek and faded back into nothingness.
Only his voice remained as it whispered, “The ring, Vega. Remember the ring, and when it comes to you, it will bring me as well.”
Always, when she felt as if she could no longer go on, he came to her. Zane sometimes came after she had nightmares about the other man. Not always. Just when things were particularly bad. But, when he did, he made things a little better.
In fact, he was the only reason she had never made that final draw of the blade. She owed him her life, but she didn’t even know if he was real. Somehow, it didn’t matter. As long as he came to her, she would love him whether he were a man, a ghost, a dream, or something else altogether.
When Zane arrived, he would talk to her and hold her. His gorgeous blue eyes, full of compassion, would glisten as he repeatedly forced her to promise to live. He’d kiss her gently and tell her to look for the ring and to hold onto their love. Then in the morning light, he’d fade away.
Vega would wake—the space where he had been feeling oddly cold and empty—and she’d use the memory of his visit to stay strong. At least until her recollections began to fade, and it seemed more and more as if it had never happened.
The first time he’d come to her, she’d recognized Zane somehow. He’d never frightened her because her heart had known they loved each other more than anyone had ever loved before. Theirs was a passion, pure and timeless, and it felt as if it had existed for centuries beyond centuries.
Though her mind often doubted his existence, her heart knew he was real and waiting for her somewhere dark and cold. The truth in it burned bright in her dark world. They were destined to be together, just as he always told her she was destined to live.
****
Vega was close to death. Zane could feel the shadow hovering around her body and soul—a black aura of despair. The closer she drifted to that edge, the closer he came to the surface of reality. With each day that plagued her into madness, his chains loosened. A cursed balance between life and death kept them apart, and only in those rare moments of terrible grief could he break through.
Twelve lifetimes she had lived and died, and he had avenged her. Over the spanning decades, on the brink of her return from death and in the aftermath of his revenge, they had been allowed to share a single evening together during the last vestiges of his freedom. At no other time had he been allowed to speak, touch, or hold the woman he loved.
However, this time, he had found a weakness. He had found a way to push through the darkness and drift with her for a few moments while the monster that kept them apart was otherwise distracted. That stolen time had kept her alive so far, but Zane wasn’t sure how much longer she could last or if he could continue to skirt the demon’s rules.
Obsessed with preventing the two from re-uniting, Eurynome had sabotaged Vega’s many lives with increasing depravity. Though, his plan had worked up until now, it had also been his one error. Vega’s soul had become more resilient to the torment the demon used to shape each of her lives, and her spirit had become harder to kill.
Through twelve past lives, Vega had been abused, neglected, and victimized to the point of breaking—only briefly knowing love and losing it greatly each time. Her soul almost immune to the physical and mental abuse, she had become hardened except while dreaming. Her subconscious lost its barriers as she slept, and Eurynome was forced to enter her dreams in order to build the layers of pain that would eventually tear down Vega’s walls.
Even a greater demon had limits, and Eurynome was no exception. Not even he could trespass in Vega’s slumber, without leaving a crack in the partition separating his domain from hers. When Zane discovered the demon’s weakness, he’d found a way to use it.
As Eurynome slipped out of Vegas nightmares, Zane used all his strength to slip off the chains holding him and sneak through the gap. Sometimes it took Eurynome hours to recover, and others it took only minutes, and Zane risked everything to make it through.
Every moment he spent with Vega he offered comfort and begged her to hold on. He always reminded her of the ring he’d given her on their last day together in her last life because, if she could find the ring, she could have him with her always.
Chapter Two
Vega slapped at the alarm clock next to her bed before sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The pain of seeing the empty place next to her in the bed stabbed at her heart and left her questioning once again.
Had she awakened to find herself wounded? Had Zane really come? She wanted to believe it was more than a dream. She told herself that it had been real, but the void after she woke always left her wanting more than just a brief and faded recollection of him. She wanted him, the real him. If there was one.
Pushing the thoughts aside, Vega stood and crossed the room to the rickety vanity in the corner. Cheap make-up, books, and general bric-à-brac littered the top, leaving barely enough room to place her elbows on the scarred wooden surface. She sat and rested her head on folded hands, staring at the large purple and blue bruise marring the flesh above her cheekbone. Tears welled up in her eyes as she forced her gaze away.
Each day, it became harder to remember Zane’s promises when her life had become more of a nightmare than even the worst of her nightly visions of death. Some days facing her mother seemed worse than fighting the man in the mask that plagued her sleep. Both were sadistic symbols for all the things trying to destroy her, and both left scars and bruises behind.
Vega pulled out her drawing pad and a pencil as she thought about the disturbing dream. She began with the hook-billed mask, shading in the creaseless ebony disguise that hid everything but two small, hate-filled eyes. With ease, she drew the straight lines of the high collar and the angular shoulders, pointed as if they were the edges of a demon’s wings.
Without looking away, her fingers found the colors she needed next. With a few agile strokes, dark fluids clung to him, matting his long white-blonde hair and glistening on his shining black rubber coat.
In a flurry of lines and shading, of graphite and color, the creature who caused her so much agony came to life on the page.
Just as she placed her pencil on the paper to darken the lines of the gnarled hand reaching out at her, s her mother’s heavy tread resounded in the hall.
“What the hell are you doing in there, girl?” angry words slurred through the door.
Vega closed the thin cover and tossed the sketchbook haphazardly amongst the mess on her vanity, trying to hide the drawing before her mother burst through the door.
“I was just getting ready, Mother. Did you need something?” she answered in a dry tone, but the fierce beating of her heart betrayed the anxiety blooming in her chest.
Diana burst into the room, stumbling until she loomed above her daughter. “You don’t look like you’re doing anything!”
Vega’s eyes unconsciously shifted toward the vanity in a guilty tell, and she prayed her mother wouldn’t notice. But neither luck or fate ever seemed to be on her side.
Diana’s mascara-matted, bloodshot eyes raked over the litter in front of the mirror, and her lips curled into an ugly smile. In a snarling rage, she grabbed up the pad.
“This is what you were doing, you lying little bitch!” she screamed, smeared, lipstick-covered mouth contorting into a gaping exit wound for words of hate. “You lazy, no-good, piece of shit. You think you can just lie around in here all day and doodle this bullshit while I kill my
self trying to put food in your mouth and a roof over your head.” The jagged and torn edges of Diana’s red press-on nails dug into the cardboard cover of the book as she shook with quick rage.
Vega’s temper flared, and she cast self-preservation to the wind. “You mean while Bill deals drugs to his loser friends and you spend all your time on your back?”
Diana’s hand raised, the backside of it aimed at Vega’s already bruised cheek, but stopped. The glare in her dull eyes warned that her drug-brain had invented a much better punishment for Vega’s supposed crime.
“Don’t forget, girl, you have nothing without me. I’ll throw you into the street, and we will see who the whore is then.” Flipping open the sketchbook, Diana cackled, madness and hatred filling her voice.
Vega grabbed for her treasured drawings, trying to tear the book away from her mother’s hands. “Don’t, Mother. Don’t do that! Give it back!”
The bony knuckles of Diana’s right hand cracked across Vega’s cheek, the sound echoing in the sparse room like a cannon.
Vega’s head snapped to the side as pain ballooned over her face and her vision sparked. Falling back into the wobbling chair, she watched as her mother tore page after page. Like a child throwing confetti, the woman tossed the pieces in the air and let them rain down.
Almost in slow motion, the remnants of her dreams floated down from the ceiling. Some landed in Vega’s hair and the others floated to the floor or fell on the vanity. The world became encased in hate-filled laughter as Diana’s destruction ripped away the last of her child’s heart.
Through teary eyes, Vega watched as the final drawings tore down the center, and half of Zane’s beautiful face fluttered to the floor.
She had drawn him shirtless and in jeans, dark tattoos tracing over the exposed skin as he sprawled over her bed. She’d spent hours shading and detailing, making his muscled torso seem solid and real. It had been her favorite picture because the image was how she pictured him the most, and now, it lay in shreds.
Eyes hazing over and rage climbing up Vega’s spine like a rabid monster escaping from its long forced dormant stage, the girl snapped. Screeching noises exploded from her twisted mouth as she leaped forward, hands balled into fists. Years of torment bubbled to the surface until the fury erupted like a volcano.
Vega struck.
“I hate you!” Her fists shot outward with the words, landing squarely in the center of Diana’s chest. “I hate you!”
Her mother’s surprised face ballooned in Vega’s vision, bloodshot eyes widening behind sticky and caked mascara as the woman fell. With a thud, she hit the ground harder than Vega had thought possible, and her head struck the corner of the bed frame.
Vega leapt back, instinct causing her to cower as she waited for the retaliation that was sure to come. A minute passed, then two, and when the frightened girl finally opened her eyes, terror struck her heart.
Diana didn’t move, curse, or threaten. She didn’t call out for Bill to come help her. Instead, her body remained still, contorted and twisted at a strange angle. Her eyes open, but unseeing, didn’t blink. Frozen in death, Vega’s mother finally ceased to spew hate.
Confusion held Vega in place, and shock muddled her thoughts as she stared down at the woman she’d loved and hated for as long as she could remember. Somehow, Diana’s face no longer looked old and haggard. In the quiet of the moment, she almost looked beautiful.
A truck outside on the road roared passed, and the noise shook Vega from the strange calm holding her motionless. “Mother?” she asked in a trembling voice. “Mom?”
When Diana didn’t respond, Vega inched closer. Still terrified her mother would wake up at any second and unleash her fury, she reached a hand out to touch her Diana’s cheek. The warm, wetness of fresh blood coated her fingers, and Vega pulled back so fast that she nearly fell.
A scream blasted from her throat and the world went black.
****
Someone, it must have been Bill, called the authorities. Vega only knew because gentle voices suddenly surrounded by and careful hands urged her to move. Strangers reassured her that everything would be okay, trying to pry Diana from her arms, but Vega held tight as tears rushed down her face.
Hands gripping the front of a strange young man’s uniform shirt as he lifted her from the floor, she pleaded. “I pushed her. I didn’t mean to. She hit me. I just wanted her to stop. I’m sorry. You have to believe I didn’t mean to. S-s-orry,” she cried .
The rest of the day came and went in a haze of blurry images, broken strings of conversations, mute acknowledgments, and shock-numbed actions. Vega moved like a zombie as people asked the same questions over and over, paramedics examined her, and strangers shuffled her from place to place. She answered in single syllables or nodded her head, unable to speak beyond the knot in her throat.
Voices blended and melded until they sounded all the same, a backdrop of murmurs drowned out by the screaming in her head.
****
Over the next three days, the litany of words she’d heard the officers, medical professionals, and bystanders whisper became a morose chant inside her head.
Accidental death. A trip and fall. The mother’s temple struck the edge of the bed and killed her instantly. Terrible she argued with the grief-stricken girl beforehand. Not the daughter’s fault. No, the mother was drunk already that morning. Her system was full of illegal drugs. Nothing anyone could have done.
No one came to the services. Diana Schwartz had no family left to mourn her. Her friends were all too high to want to look closely at the reality of their own mortality to come. Bill, had stumbled into the beat-up, old Volkswagen, reeking of whiskey and weed, but had never made it back out to cross the short distance to where the casket rested above the grave.
Alone, Vega stood beside the gaping hole and the closed casket, her eyes brimming with tears that could not fall. Death seemed something vague and foreign to her for the first time, a mystical and dark curse didn’t recognize. When she had contemplated her own end, it had been a comforting secret promise. Now, she’d taken the life of another, and what she’d once thought of as a peaceful escape had become chaos and pain.
Life had transformed into a tiny broken-winged bird, teetering on the edge of a limb above raging waters. Its cries for help attracting the predators that waited for it to take a false step and plummet, the fragile creature seemed only a breath away from its end. She couldn’t help wanting to save the little sparrow or herself.
The preacher’s words broke through the haze Vega had been drifting in, and she turned her eyes to his kind face.
“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend Diana Kay Schwartz to Almighty God. We commit her body to the ground; earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord maketh his face to shine upon her and be gracious unto her and give her peace. Amen.”
Finally, the tears came as Vega echoed, “Amen.” The casket lowered down into the seemingly endless hole, and each turn of the crank pulled more droplets from her eyes.
Oh, Mother, please forgive me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Vega sent up the silent prayer as the sun’s rays touched her face, highlighting the tears slipping down her cheeks to drip off her chin. Head lowered and eyes averted from her destination, she approached the grave. Before turning away, she tossed a single white lily down into the darkness to land silently on the casket. Her steps unsure, she walked away, hugging her grief around her in a tight embrace.
The rows of tombstones loomed on each side like threatening arms as she made her back toward Diana’s car. Her car now. Through the glare of the windshield, she watched as Bill stirred.
Great. Just flipping great. Now he wakes up.
He brought the bottle to his lips, and rage filled her.
Bastard! I hope he drinks himself to death. Violent thoughts made her shutter as guilt over her mother resurfaced in full force. Never had Ve
ga hated so much before, never had she hurt others or been violent, but she suddenly felt all those things and more.
Sliding onto the zebra print seat covers, she gripped the wheel tightly, tears running rampant down her face. She didn’t look at Bill. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d hit him, and he’d beat her. He wouldn’t care if the preacher saw. What were things like religion and morals to a man like him?
Vega drove away, speeding down the streets of the small town as she stared ahead of her. Bill swigged whiskey and grumbled incoherent words. His eyes roamed her tear-stained face and trembling body, and it brought the rage up again. The world became a thing to hate.
She despised the happy children playing on green lawns in front of cookie-cutter houses. Anger exploded in her because of the cheerful sun, the birds singing in the trees, and even the sweet melody of the song playing on the radio. All those things and more made her solitary torment all too plain.
Someone else should feel this pain, grief, and guilt. Why should I be alone?
Chapter Three
Sitting at the kitchen counter, head in her hands and raven hair cascading in tangled strands, Vega watched the sun fall through the dusty windows and onto the dirty floor. Watery light passed through the haze of smoke rolling in from the living room, and she wondered if she might be high.
With each breath, she could taste the heady flavor of weed filling the air. She didn’t care. Not really. The numbness would be welcomed. Vega only wanted to escape the world for a moment, to deny the secret voice telling her she was a murderer.
“Vega, get your ass in here.”
Bill’s grating voice scraped through her self-imposed isolation. The rickety bar stool groaned as she scooted it back to stand. On, wobbly legs, Vega took slow steps across the room and leaned against the living room doorframe.
“What?” The impatience soured her tone like grapes gone to rot.
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