Anathema (8 page)

Despite her attempts to lash out at me, I
keep blocking her and get to my feet. As I stand, her eyes widen,
as though this is the first time she’s really thought about things
going badly. “You’re not acting like you,” she mutters, stepping
back and holding her punches for the moment. She cocks her head to
the side and eyes me in a new light, as though trying to figure out
what’s changed.

“It’s the dagger, isn’t it?”

I hate the way my heartbeat is speeding up. I
feel like I can’t breathe. And she just stands there, watching me
as though she’s expecting me to do tricks. I only have one, and
she’s really not going to like it.

“You might want to get out of here and leave
Griffin alone, Jayzee. It’s for your own good, I promise.”

“Like hell,” she mutters. “Griffin is
mine.”

Anger simmers inside of me, and that’s when I
see the light starting to glow in my fingertips. “I’m serious,
Jayzee. Leave Griffin alone and get out of here. Now!”

“Should I pretend to be frightened of you?”
She folds her arms across her chest and shakes her head. “I haven’t
even used any supernatural force to hit you, Lizzie. Imagine what
that would feel like.”

I can’t believe she hasn’t spotted the glow
in my hands. I know it’s going to keep building. I have to get her
to leave. I reach out and shove her with both hands. “I’m dead
serious. Get out of here before I kill you, Jayzee. You don’t have
a clue what you’re messing with.”

At that moment, she finally sees the fire on
my fingertips and stumbles backwards, still staring at the bright
light glowing in my hand. “What…what’s that?” She should be
running. Instead, she’s just staring. How has she lived this long?
It’s like a stupid horror film in which one of the girls just
watches the monster, knowing it’s going to kill her but not moving
just the same.

Except this time, I’m the monster.

“Get out of here!” I scream as the glow in my
hand seems blinding even to me. But the warning has come too late.
My stomach tenses with cramps, and I feel nauseated—as though I
can’t bear the pain anymore but can’t stop it either. All I can do
is grit my teeth and ride it; I no longer control my body. The
dagger does.

Jayzee turns and starts to run, her wings
materializing even as she flees. The light dances from my hand
toward her, striking the middle of her back where the wings seam
together so flawlessly. She screams and for a few seconds, she
stands motionless, her body caught in the posture of mid-running,
one knee raised high, her arms bent at the elbows and hands curled
into loose fists.

“No!” I say, trying to unfurl my fists, but I
can’t, and the light just keeps coming. Her body starts to fall,
and the lasso of brightness holds her, charring her wings before
the light finally dies away. All my energy goes as well, and all I
can see is the blackness that washes over me. It tears at me,
trying to suck me into its nothingness, but I fight it, unwilling
to let it win again.

The pain is excruciating. I can hardly
breathe. I roll into a tight ball and close my eyes, willing away
the pain. Anything to diminish the clawing inside my gut.

It seems to take forever for my sight to
finally go from the darkness to being able to see the dead grass I
lie in, waiting for the world to make sense, yet some part of me
knows that in the darkness there is no guilt or shame. Now that I
can see, my vision focuses on Jayzee’s tennis shoe not far from my
head. Part of me wants her to jerk her foot or something—anything
but this stillness that belies the unthinkable. Part of me wants to
believe that at least now Griffin will be free, which has to be a
good thing.

But that also means I’ve killed someone.

I shudder and gasp before forcing myself to
sit upright and look over at her. Sure enough, she’s lying on her
side with both legs bent. Her face peers straight up at the heavens
with unblinking eyes, and her long, beautiful hair splayed around
her head in a wild wispy halo. The wings are visible, but are not
nearly as large as I thought they would be, and the feathers around
the edges have been charred.

Her lips are parted. Only God knows the last
sound that came out of them, and I don’t even want to try to
imagine it. She’s so still, and right now I can’t bear it. I knew
this would happen. I keep shaking my head as I force myself to go
over there and check to see if she’s breathing, even though I
pretty much already know the answer. The stillness in her body
forces me to snatch my hand away, and I scurry backwards, ignoring
the rocks nestled in the grass that bruise my legs and steal my
breath. I’d keep backing up, but when I hit the wall of a crypt,
there’s nowhere else to go and all the time in the world to get
there.

I start shaking and force myself to get up.
Unable to tear my gaze from her face, I retreat , my hand brushing
against the polished marble I walk, more for guidance than
support.

How do things get so twisted that people or
angels become corpses? I don’t understand, and I’m tired. The
nausea hits suddenly, and I force myself to turn away when I vomit.
I don’t know why. It’s not as if she could actually see me do it.
It’s not as if it matters. But I can’t feel her eyes on me like
this. It hurts too much.

When my stomach has emptied itself, I force
myself to straighten, closing my eyes as I turn away from Jayzee
this last time. Part of me wonders if Griffin felt her passing from
this world like I felt Lev’s the day Maguire shot him. Then again,
it’s not the same. Griffin didn’t willingly fall in love with her;
she forced his hand. I loved Lev with every fiber of my being, and
it almost killed me to lose him.

As I grab the side of the crypt to get away
from Jayzee, pain erupts in my hand, and I jerk it away. Through my
blurred vision, I notice the stain on the palm is much worse, just
like the pain. Of course, I’m alive, which made one of us.

I keep telling myself not to cry, but I can’t
help it. I should have run when Lev told me I would probably kill
Jayzee, that it would be the only way to free Griffin. I just
thought if I avoided her, it would somehow work out. Suddenly my
body starts shaking convulsively, and I know I have to get out of
here; I can’t take much more of this. As it is, all the days I wish
I could take back are gaining on all the days I’m glad I’m
alive.

The heated flow of tears pour down my face,
and no matter how fast and hard I try to wipe them away, I can’t
stop them. They just keep coming. So I start to hurry my steps,
trying desperately to ignore the stones beneath my feet. It’s so
hard to know where I’m walking, and the night is just this crater
of blackness around me. There’s lots of space, but I still can’t
breathe. An image of Jayzee’s face fills my head and I suddenly
break into a run, not caring how many stones I run into or how
easily I could trip. I have to put some distance between me and
this place where even the dead don’t seem to rest in peace.

The blackness blurs together, and I peer up
at the starless canopy of midnight blue overhead, lamenting the
absence of starlight. My teeth chatter, and I rub my good hand over
my arm, trying to add to the warmth. The wind picks up and flips my
hair into my eyes, making them sting.

The world is so strange around me, and I
don’t know where I’m going; I just know that anywhere has to be
better than here.

Chapter Six

One moment I’m running through the cemetery
in a blind panic, my vision smeared with tears, and the next I feel
hands gripping my arms, stopping me.

“Elizabeth? What’s going on?” The voice is
distorted, and I can see a figure in front of me, but the moonlight
isn’t bright enough for me to distinguish much else, which only
leads to me trying to pull away harder and crying. I have to get
out of here. Jayzee is dead back there.

“Are you hurt?” Hands wrap around tightly my
arms as I try to bolt again. His grasp is strong and sure. Faint
moonlight washes over his grey sweatshirt. “Stop trying to run.” He
slips his hand under my chin and forces my gaze to his.

It is then I see the moonlight trickle
through his blond hair, and I realize Lev has found me, but it is
too late to take things back—too late to stop the monster I am
becoming.

“Say something, Elizabeth!” he demands in a
frantic voice, and his gaze sweeps over me as though looking for a
physical reason I have become mute.

“You have to get away from me!” I snap,
wondering if that power will suddenly resurface. While Lev is pure
and Jayzee wasn’t, I don’t know that there is much else that is
different about them.

“Calm down. I’m not in any danger, okay? If I
were, I’d be gone. Now tell me what happened.”

“Jayzee.” I don’t have the strength to say
more and I start to pull away, bent on running until I get the hell
out of this place, but Lev isn’t releasing me.

“Where is Jayzee?” he asks, frowning as he
takes in the lay of the cemetery. “I don’t see her.”

I swallow hard and force myself to look back
so I can find the crypt and point it out. “On the side.” I try to
hedge away. No go. He isn’t easing his grip one bit.

“Okay. You need to calm down and tell me what
happened.” His jaw clenches, and I can tell this is so not what he
wants to talk about.

“How did you find me?” I ask, wishing my
heart would slow and let me breathe normally.

“It took a while. Now back to Jayzee….” he
prompts, his gaze lingering on the crypt.

“I must have sleep-walked out here because I
woke up from a nightmare and found myself on the ground. I’ve never
been here at night so I was disoriented. I thought I saw a figure
by the crypt and expected it to be you. When I got there, I
realized my mistake—that it was Jayzee. I tried to get out of
there, but she attacked me. I was afraid of the power coming out,
so I tried to stay calm and not react. I did pretty well until my
hand got hurt again. Then….” My voice trails off and it’s just as
well because I know I’m going to start crying again if I keep
talking about this.

“Let me see your hand,” he demands, reaching
for it.

“It’ll be okay,” I lie, not wanting him to
freak out about the blood seeping through the bandage.

“Let me be the judge of that.” He quickly
grabs my hand and flips my palm up to the sky so the growing stain
which is now about the size of a tennis ball faces him.

“It’ll be fine!” I insist and try to jerk my
hand away.

“No, it won’t. When Jayzee attacked you, she
pulled the stitches loose. Evan is going to have to redo them to
get the bleeding to stop.”

The thought of a needle going into my skin
forces a convulsive shudder, and I whisper, “No.”

“This isn’t a debate, Elizabeth. We have to
get the bleeding to stop.” He grabs my free hand and starts to lead
me back toward the crypt and Jayzee when I fight him, not that it
does much good.

“I don’t want to go back there!” I dig in my
heels and try to jerk back, but he keeps towing me toward Jayzee
regardless. “Lev, please. I can’t go back…there.”

My voice is filled with panic and pain, which
halts him. “Will you promise to sit here, then, and let me look
after her if I don’t force you to go?”

“Yes.” At his point, I would promise him
pretty much anything not to have to revisit what I’ve done. It
doesn’t matter that maybe she did deserve it. She was alive, and
now she isn’t, which is all my fault, and that goes against
everything I believe.

“Sit down,” he says quietly and waits for me
to sink to the ground before he turns and heads to the crypt. Once
or twice he looks back to make sure I’m staying put. Satisfied, he
rounds the corner and disappears. I draw my knees to my chest and
wrap my arms around them so I can lay my head on my legs. Once I’ve
settled, I close my eyes and wait, wondering how Lev will deal with
Jayzee and what will happen next.

As I sit there, I feel myself start to drift
to sleep, so I jerk upright. Even though the dreams haven’t begun
again, I see those angelic faces, and they frighten me, and I force
myself to sit straighter, hoping that will drive away the
exhaustion. The cold night air is definitely helping on that score.
Chewing my bottom lip, my gaze keeps shooting toward the crypt,
waiting for Lev to re-emerge.

I know I tried not to kill her. I warned her,
but she refused to listen. But knowing that doesn’t change how I
feel about what happened. I blink to see Lev return. At first, his
head is tilted to the ground, but as he walks he looks up at me, a
frown etching lines into his forehead.

As he gets closer, I stand. “What did you
do?” I shiver.

“Dealt with her human form.” His gruff voice
hints that he really doesn’t want to talk about this.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling my shoulders
sag.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, taking my
hand so he can check the bleeding. “You look like you are
freezing.”

“Yeah. It’s colder than during the day.” I
try to brush the hair from my face, but the wind keeps blowing it
back, blocking my vision.

“I should get you home.”

I try to orient myself to the parking lot,
but I’m still turned around enough so I can’t even guess where it
is. “Did you drive here?”

Lev shakes his head. “What do you think,
Elizabeth?”

“Guess not.”

“Are you ready to fly?”

I nod , and he slips in front of me and wraps
his arms around my torso. Seconds later, we rise into the air
toward the bruised sky sans stars. Once again, Lev’s hold seems so
casual, not like he’s the only thing keeping me from falling to my
death, and even as we soar across the sky, all I can see are his
blue eyes staring at me. His lips are parted, and I know he must be
thinking a million things, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know
any of them right now.