Anathema (Sojourner Series Book 4) Read online

  “I know you’re scared,” he says, “but you don’t have to be. Last time you felt like you were fighting him all by yourself. You weren’t alone then, and you sure aren’t alone now. Besides, we don’t even know for sure Kane survived. Before you panic, we need to confirm as much.”

  “How?” My voice shakes, just like my body. “How can we know for sure?”

  “Evan. He can sense these things.” Lev tilts his head and kisses my temple.

  “But Evan isn’t here.” The shaking is worse, and Lev embraces me more tightly; I feel the heated light that emanates from his body, the white noise of it helping purge the panic, and a moment later, all I can think about is Lev.

  I don’t know how long we stay wrapped in each other like that, but when he finally pulls away, I feel strong enough so the fear isn’t so overwhelming and I can meet his probing blue eyes.

  “Are you sure it was Sarah? Think carefully.” One of his hands slips over mine, and I feel his fingers softly caressing my skin.

  I close my eyes and think back to the moment when I saw the blonde ambling down my street. “She was facing the opposite direction, so I can’t be positive. I just…felt it was her.”

  Lev nods. “All right. Until Evan returns, we can’t rule out that it wasn’t Sarah, so we need to be careful and watch for Kane and Colin as well, just in case. I’m not as worried about Jayzee and Sarah because without the others, they have no great source of power or strength.”

  Although he sounds so assured of that, I can still see the hard line of his shoulders and the clench of his jaw, as though he can’t relax either.

  “What will happen if they are here?”

  Lev takes a deep breath and lets it go. “Truthfully, I have no idea. I need to talk to Evan. He’ll know what to do.” He nods toward the lake. “Anyway, didn’t we come here to have a picnic?”

  I nod and open my door, and together we head for the beach wrapped in each other’s arms. Lev carries the basket, probably knowing it is safer with him because he isn’t nearly as likely to trip over his own two feet.

  “I missed you last night,” he whispers in my ear, giving me a shy smile.

  “I know the feeling.” I stare ahead, watching as the trees give way to a clearing white with sand, and I smile. I’ve always liked this spot. I mean, it’s the same lake as where we were at yesterday, just on the other side--but what I love about it today is that the birds circle overhead lazily, cooing at our arrival as the water gently laps the sandy shore.

  The minute we leave the rocky path and touch sand, my sandals are off and in my hand so I can feel the coolness beneath my feet. As I get my first glimpse of the shoreline, I propel myself from Lev’s arm toward the shore where sand and water meet. Yeah, I know the water is going to be cold, but I don’t care. I love the feel of wet sand over my feet. Nothing else in this world relaxes me the way water does.

  Although I tense when I feel the cold, I don’t back up, knowing if I just give it a moment, my body will adjust. And it does. Still, Lev stands on the shore, the basket in one hand as he stares at me, grinning at my lunacy.

  I stare at my wriggling toes, suddenly feeling very refreshed. “Come on in.” That smile is so rare. I beckon him to join me.

  He looks down at his sneakers and jeans. “I’m not exactly dressed for this….” He shakes his head ruefully. “I didn’t know that during a picnic you would want to play in the cold water. It is September….”

  “I know! Now come on!” I wave again, harder, more determined, thinking if I just keep trying, he’ll eventually come.

  “All right,” he finally agrees, setting the basket down. “Give me a minute.” He sits amid the sand and unties his shoes. He jerks them off, following by his socks before ambling toward me. For the first time I realize he’s wearing a black button-down cotton shirt that makes his skin look all the more golden and turns his eyes a brighter blue. I didn’t think that was possible.

  Lev rolls up the legs of his jeans and wanders down the shore. He reaches for me, wrapping his arms around my waist, still grinning. “Happy now?”

  “Of course. I’m at my favorite place with my favorite person.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He draws me closer and slips his hands to either side of my face, gently resting there. As usual, the nearness of him leaves my heart racing, and all I can see is my reflection in his eyes and how I swim in them.

  Lev’s lips part slightly, and I see his Adam’s apple bob with it, feeling myself drifting toward him, a slow stretch of nothing but him. The rest of the world has ceased to exist, and it seems as though I’ve been waiting forever to feel his lips upon mine; yet I’m still surprised by the feather-light caress when it comes, and my whole body stirs with anticipation.

  We seem to linger like this forever and a scattering of seconds at the same time when he pulls back, leaving me waiting for more. When I finally realize he’s moved away, I open my eyes to find him staring intently. No matter how much I might have wished for a guy to look at me the way Lev does, I know I’ll never be able to earn it. It’s like he sees something within me I can’t find but want to become for him. If he believes she’s in there, she must be, doesn’t she?

  His left hand moves from my face to stroke my hair. At that moment, I feel I can barely breathe, and I can’t stop staring into his eyes. I lick my lips. All this feels like a dream and, if it is, I never want to wake up.

  “Why me?”

  Lev blinks. “What do you mean?”

  “Why me? Of all people, why was I so lucky?”

  He laughs humorlessly. “Lucky? This is lucky, Elizabeth?”

  I nod, feeling a catch in my throat as tears prick my eyes. I never thought I would find anyone like him. “I’m with you, aren’t I?”

  He tenses and closes his eyes. When they resurface, I find myself swimming in that ocean. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and for once he seems pale and unsure. “Elizabeth.” His voice is like rough silk, and his mouth twists into a frown.

  I raise my hands to his lips, knowing what he’s trying to tell me. “Shhh. Don’t say it. I am lucky. No matter what happens, I’ll take this life with you over any other. I know it’s right. It’s what should be.”

  I try to embrace him, but he steps back, and he seems on the verge of tears. “No, this isn’t luck. If it were, I could protect you. What kind of an angel am I to stumble so much and fail you at every turn? And yet you still remain. You can’t have a normal life with me.”

  “Maybe I don’t want one.” I step closer. “This is my life, Lev. Don’t I get to pick what I want?” I reach to hold him, but he catches my wrists.

  “You’re seventeen. You haven’t had time to discover what your heart yearns for.” His fingers start to ease as he seeks to release me, but my hands quickly latch onto his.

  “Maybe you want to believe some part of me is a stupid teenage girl who had no choice in any of this, but you’re wrong. I’m here, looking at the road we’ve come down and seeing everything, every horrible dream and reality, I’d go through it again just to get to this one moment with you. I’m seventeen, Lev—one year away from being an adult, and I know what I want. You.”

  He flinches again, but at least this time he doesn’t push me away. Instead, when I seek his arms, he enfolds me in them, and those beautiful wings furl around us, closing off the rest of the world.

  Chapter Two

  By Monday morning, I’m sure of one thing: the nightmares aren’t going anywhere. For the last two weeks, I’ve dreamed of those same angelic beings, and every night I end up being attacked by them. While I used to wake Griffin up with them, I guess now I’ve convinced my subconscious they’re just dreams, so I’ve stopped talking so loudly in my sleep and Griffin usually isn’t there when I wake in a cold sweat.

  Still, no matter how “trained” my mind is to keep quiet, these dreams are wreaking havoc with my sleep patterns because after I see those angels trying to kill me, the last thing I want to do is go back to sleep. I
’ve thought about describing them to Lev to see what he says, but I know that would just lead to other questions I’m really not ready to answer. So I just try to shrug them away as best I can in the mornings. Like today.

  By the time my alarm goes off to wake me for school, I’ve already been up four hours, staring at the walls where moonlight paints a changing landscape of leaves from the tree outside my window. Still, I force myself to get ready, something I could do in my sleep and today probably am. Have I mentioned that with such an active dream life, it’s really hard to see the point in school?

  By the time I get ready, Jimmie has already left for work, and Griffin is still in his room, probably sleeping. Still uncomfortable with the hold Jayzee seems to have on him even now, I open the door a crack and peer in. For a moment, I just watch him sleep, making sure his chest is rising and falling evenly. Call me paranoid, but I like to make sure people are breathing when they sleep. There’s too much that happens when you leave things like that up to assumptions.

  Once I leave Griffin’s room, I grab my backpack and head out the door. The grass is moist from heavy dew. I almost trip over the newspaper on the porch and scoot it aside. I’m halfway to my Jeep when I spot the same blonde as yesterday—the dead ringer for Sarah. I debate letting her keep walking and chalking her striking resemblance to Sarah up as part of my overworked imagination, but there’s already so much up in the air I can’t juggle anymore. Considering how Griffin is struggling to deal with Jayzee, I have to know if it really is Sarah. If it is, maybe she can give me some answers.

  I take a deep breath and shove my backpack into the driver’s seat. In my hurry to catch the girl, I leave the driver’s door open. Half of me wants to go back and shut it, but all I can really see right now is that the woman is halfway down the street and getting father and father away each moment I waste; if she gets away, she takes all the answers with her. I run after her, feeling the wind tossing my long hair behind me.

  My heart is racing, and I feel so far behind, like I’ll never be able to catch up. She turns at a corner. It seems she’s speeding up, but really it’s the same pace, as though it really doesn’t matter whether I catch her. I squint, trying to tell if her profile also looks like Sarah, but considering I’m running and freaked out, it’s pretty hard to tell so I run faster, reminding myself I have to find out for sure.

  By the time I’ve almost caught her, my heart is slamming in my chest, and it’s hard for me to breathe. I need to run more often, I think, wondering if I’m going to be able to go the last few steps. I stretch out my arm, and when my fingers finally feel her shirt, she shrugs my hand away and keeps walking.

  I abruptly lose my balance and fall onto the concrete, taking the hide off my knees. I’m expecting her to stop, but she just keeps going, and I force myself to stand despite the ache in my legs.

  “Stop!” I yell, sprinting toward her.

  And she does. I catch my breath and force myself to step around her so I can see her face. In that moment, when Sarah’s features come into sharp focus, I gasp.

  “You.” My voice is breathless and weak as I take a stumbling step backwards.

  “Stay away from me,” she hisses, glaring. Her fingers quickly ball into fists, and she grits her teeth angrily. Her long blonde hair hangs limply down the front of her shirt and her skin seems uneven, not refined like when I last saw her. Her pale face seems more gaunt than usual, and she takes a step back despite the way her shoulders stiffen, seeming to beg for a fight.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here.” My voice is cold and calculating as I remember what has happened between us, the deception she was party to that almost destroyed so many.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter because I am.” She gives me one last scathing look before trying to walk past.

  “So how did you manage it?” I step in front of her to block her path, but even as I move I feel the warmth begin to wriggle through me, the parasitic feeling of the dagger. My stomach aches and I feel nauseated.

  “Like I’ll tell you.” She side-steps me.

  I grab her arm. “You will tell me—one way or another.”

  Sarah tries to break free, but my fingers clench tightly around her arm. “Let go.” I see the shimmer of the aura around her, and her eyes seem to turn brighter, suggesting her supernatural essence. At once, my hand burns, and I jerk it away. “Back off. Now!”

  I feel my body flying through the air, and I slam against a nearby fire hydrant. The burning from the dagger spreads through me until I can barely breathe. My vision wanes to blackness, and suddenly the burning is excruciating; all I can do is scream as loudly as I can.

  The pain in my head wakes me to a dark world illuminated only by a single street lamp and a luminous, full moon hanging in a starless sky. Wincing, I sit up, and my hand immediately drifts to the back of my head where I must have struck the hydrant. Although I scan the street in both directions, I see no pedestrians or even cars, for that matter. The only sounds that break the stillness are the rapid thud of my heart in my chest and the rasp of leaves against each other driven by the wind.

  I glance down the street to see my Jeep still sitting in the driveway—the driver’s door half-open as I left it before Sarah and I got into it. Shaking my head, I try to get rid of that stuffed feeling in my brain, the sensation that I’m not entirely awake or asleep that coats everything in a Novocain haze. Getting to my feet, I almost fall. My equilibrium is off, and I stumble like I’m drunk.

  What is going on, and where is everyone?

  I stagger; only the fact that I can grab the bus stop bench keeps me upright. For a moment I just stand there, trying to make all this go away, but it won’t leave me. What is wrong with me, anyway? I’ve never felt like this, as though every breath makes me want to double over. Is it the dagger wound, somehow?

  As I stand, I quickly realize that no matter what, this pain and disorientation aren’t going to improve, so I force myself to release the bench and walk towards my house. It seems to take forever, and only when I’m heading up the walkway does it occur to me to wonder why Jimmie’s truck isn’t sitting in the driveway. Considering how dark it is, he should have gotten here hours ago. And why is it dark already? Wasn’t it just morning?

  I fall over the second porch step and grab the railing to keep my face from smacking the concrete. On my knees, I feel I’m going to vomit, but at the last minute the clenching passes enough for me to get to my feet. My whole body shakes uncontrollably, and I’m wondering if this is what it feels like right before someone passes out; if it is, I can’t let myself do that, not considering how topsy-turvy everything is.

  Swallowing the bile I feel at the back of my throat, I force myself to keep going. I have to find Griffin. Even as I walk, I finally realize the reason for my disorientation—my vision. It’s like I’m looking through a camera’s fish-eye lens, and the distortion makes me feel like I’m stuck in a funhouse surrounded by trick mirrors.

  “Griffin!” I yell, grabbing for the front door handle and propelling myself through the doorway. I try to keep my gaze downward because that seems to downplay the visual effects that make me so miserable. The house is stifling, as though it’s been shut up on a hot summer day without the air conditioner on. Sweat beads my forehead and trickles down the sides of my face, and it seems harder to breathe than before, if that’s possible.

  “Griffin!” I yell again, hoping this time he’ll answer. I don’t know how much farther I can go like this, and I sure don’t have a clue what’s wrong with me.

  Silence.

  Taking a deep breath, I force myself to continue down the hall, heading to his room. He’s got to be there. Despite my distorted vision, I see his door is closed, probably because he’s resting, but I can’t wait for him to wake up. I won’t make it that long.

  “Griffin? Please help me.” I knock softly on the door and lean against it, pressing my face against the smooth wood. Although I’m hoping the surface will cool me, it doesn’t; it’s just a
s hot as the rest of the house. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, waiting for him to answer.

  Silence.

  “Griffin, I think there’s something wrong with me.” I wait a few seconds more to see if he says something—anything. No such luck. Gritting my teeth, I twist the door and push. As the door gives, I almost fall into the room, and I’m definitely not prepared for what I find. Instead of just Griffin standing there, I also see Jayzee. The two of them are close enough to kiss but instead look deeply into each other’s eyes. Suddenly my vision really goes haywire. Instead of having the funhouse effect, it distorts to blackness except for the heat images from Jayzee and Griffin. Jayzee’s form is a white blur, whereas Griffin’s is more of an orange-red, and I shake my head, trying to get rid of the distortions.

  “Get away from him!” I shout, stepping into the room. Immediately, I trip over something and fall headlong into the room. Even after I finally get up, the forms remain in the same position despite my entrance. I try to move forward, but something blocks me.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Jayzee!” I yell, finding the bed blocks me.

  “Griffin wants me here,” she purrs. “And what Griffin wants, Griffin gets.”

  The nausea and pain I’ve been dealing with this whole time suddenly kick into high gear, doubling me over. As I’m lying there, trying to remember how to breathe, I look down at my hands and see the hard white glow that seem to match Jayzee’s aura. I don’t understand. Seemingly of its own accord, one hand stretches out, and an even whiter flash leaps from my hand to both Jayzee and Griffin. I watch the light, suddenly fascinated, trying to understand what’s happening and why I can’t seem to control my own body when all at once I can’t shake the pain anymore. I start crying, and my hand falls as I linger in the embrace of the darkness splintering around me.

  I don’t know how long it takes before the pain finally subsides enough for me to move, but when it goes, I blink and see my vision is back to the funhouse mirror perspective. Swallowing hard, I peer at my hand. It seems unchanged as I furl my fingers to clenched fists and splay them wide. Trying to make sense of what I’ve seen, I repeat the motion once or twice, but it doesn’t give me any answers. The only way I’m going to find those is by standing so I ignore the rising feeling of nausea and roll onto my knees to get up. Even before I put my weight on unsteady knees, all I see is what appears to be an empty room. No Griffin. No Jayzee.