Awakening (The Magic of the Black Forest Book 2) (16 page)

I mulled over what to do next when I heard the chimes. Excitedly, I ran to the window thinking it was Bradley. When Cheryl came walking up my drive, I felt my stomach drop before the spinning started. She hurried up the steps. My cell phone rang and I answered it as I opened the door just before she knocked.

“Hey, Cheryl, how are you? Come on in and have a seat. I’ll be right with you.”

She appeared agitated, her eyes skimming the area and checking out her surroundings.

“Hello.” Typically I would look to see who it is before I answered but my mind was slightly preoccupied.

“Hello Natalia…” At first I didn’t recognize his voice. A heavenly, tingling sensation washed over me and I knew it was my beloved.

“Bradley, are you okay?”

“I’ll be there soon. Don’t let anyone in.” His heavy breathing and gasping sounded like whatever he’s experiencing was painful.

“Please rest, my love. No worries Cheryl is here to keep me company. Jesse and Colleen will be here within the hour.” I heard a thud and the phone fell to the floor. “Bradley?” Panic stricken I waited for him, for anyone, to reply.

“Natalia, it’s Dave. He’s okay. He’s just finishing up,” he laughed. “He couldn’t wait another ten minutes to call you. Listen don’t let anyone in. Brad seems to think you’re in immediate danger. Right before he called you he said she was going to hurt you. I’m not sure what he means by that. Just be careful. We’ll be over in less than… Well it looks like soon.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then. Take care of my Bradley, Dave.” I hung up the phone before giving him a chance to say goodbye. Immediately I told Cheryl what they said so that we could be on the lookout for my uninvited guest.

As we waited, Cheryl kept her glaring eyes on me. Nervously, I wondered if Dave had told her Anthony was dead.

Clear as a day without a cloud in the sky, I heard Bradley’s voice,
“Would she be appreciative or want revenge?”

I decided there was only one way to find out. This is one of those times when I felt the need to listen to other people’s thoughts. My instincts were telling me something was off with her. The second I peeked into her mind I knew my instincts had been correct.

She had a lot of hate inside and it all seemed to be aimed at me.

Images of her and Anthony raced through her mind. A female human image appeared, with features that weren’t as smooth or skin as pale as it is now that she’s a vampire. From what I could see, Anthony had been with her when she was human. Oooh, she really did love him.

I quickly read through her memories to try and find something in there about Dave. My vision told me she belonged with Dave not Anthony. I found him deep in her thoughts buried under the hurt and pain she felt about Anthony. Dave definitely made her happy and with him she was becoming the person she’d always wanted to be. However, even in his death Anthony still had a hold on her.

The sound of Seager scratching at the bedroom door caught my attention. Having been deep in her thoughts I wasn’t quite sure how he got locked in there. I went to let him out when everything went black.

A raging pain woke me. My head and the side of my face felt like they were hit repeatedly by a wooden baseball bat. I tried to reach up to touch my face but couldn’t move my hands. With the realization that my wrists and ankles were bound to a chair the hair on my arms and nape of my neck lifted. Shifting back and forth, struggling to escape, I couldn’t free my hands or feet from their restraints. A quiver in my stomach warned me on the pending danger.

To make things worse, my mind felt mushy and cloudy, like I was drugged. Shaking my head, I tried to remember where I was and how I got here. The room was dark and quiet, too quiet. Afraid, my body trembled. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and upper lip.

“Is anybody there?”

Silence.

The last thing I recalled before waking up here was talking to Bradley and Cheryl. Seager was locked in the bedroom. No, the last thing I remembered was going to let Seager out.

Oh no
, I thought,
Where was Cheryl? What happened to Cheryl?

I tried to do magic to unbind my hands but my clouded mind couldn’t focus or even think of a spell.

Hearing the sound of the door opening behind me, panic returned with a vengeance and swept through my body. Struggling, I tried to escape my prison.

For a few moments I sat quietly, holding my breath. Footsteps, light not heavy, approached me from behind.

Whipping my head to the side, “Who’s there,” I asked in a low shaky voice.

“It’s me, Natty.”

The lights flickered on. The bright light blinded me momentarily. After blinking my eyes a few times, the bright light faded. The muscles in my shoulders relaxed a bit when I saw Cheryl standing before me.

“Oh, thank God you’re okay, Cheryl!” After blowing out a long breath of relief, my words came rushing out. “Hurry up, untie me. We have to get out of here before he gets back.”

Cheryl shook her head slowly, making no attempt to move, to undo my restraints.

Making strong eye contact, I knew immediately that she was the one that had brought me here. She did this to me. My mind began to race, searching for answers.

“Why?”

“You took Anthony away from me,” she said through a clenched jaw and with an intense glare filled with anger and hatred.

“He didn’t love you, Cheryl. He used you.”  

One moment I was sitting in front of her, trying to reason with her, and the next I was sailing across the room still bound to the wooden chair.

Curling my shoulders forward, caving my chest in, and bowing my head, I braced myself. The chair shattered on impact when it slammed into the wall. Freed from the chair, my wrists and legs remained manacled.

The pain was excruciating. My body felt like the broken chair that lay in pieces all around me, shattered. 

With her right hand she grabbed a fistful of my hair in her hand. “Cheryl no…” She lifted me up off the ground. “I thought we were friends?” 

Her dark malevolent laughter sent a chill up my spine. Not wanting to see what she was going to do next, I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew it was going to hurt worse than hitting a wall.

With her free hand, she wrapped her fingers around my lower forearm and squeezed. A loud snap followed by my blood-curdling scream filled the room. At first, it was like I wasn’t even there, like I was looking down on myself. But the crippling pain brought me back.

“Cheryl. Please. Stop!” Cradling my arm against my chest, I tried again to cast a spell to throw her through a wall but nothing happened. Reasoning, trying to remind her of Dave was all I had. “What about Dave? I thought you were happy with him?”

Cheryl screamed at the top of her lungs. The walls shook while she tossed me across the room again.

Pacing manically, Cheryl agonized over the things I said about her and Dave.

My fingers dug into the dirt, clawing at the ground to drag my body to the wall. Every part of my body hurt except my foot. It felt like it wasn’t even there. After positioning myself in an upright position I looked down at it. My ankle was twisted and facing in the opposite direction. Unable to look at the violent, gory sight, I averted my gaze. Pressing my hands against my stomach seemed to ease my need to vomit. Staring down at my ankle again my mind replayed Cheryl’s attack.

“
Bradley. Can you hear me?
”

Cheryl screamed, “You Bitch,” at the top of her lungs.

I lunged backwards, pressing my back against the wall, and jerked my foot. I felt the throbbing and pounding in my ears. Nauseated and dizzy, the room started the spin. The light started fading, and finally, darkness surrounded me.

Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw Bradley. “Bradley, I had the worst dream ever!” My eyes locked on him, I reached out for his embrace, for comfort. But, instead of my arms wrapping around his body, they went through it. “Bradley?”

“It’s not a dream, Natalia. You’re in real danger. I need to you to tell me where you are.”

“I don’t know.” Terrified, I started crying. “Bradley, please, I’m scared and it hurts. I hurt.” Feeling myself being pulled away from him, Bradley’s image started fading. “BRADLEY! DON’T GO! I NEED YOU! Please…”

The last thing I heard before he disappeared was Bradley telling Seager to find the compass.

Slowly, my eyes opened. Someone was yelling, and he sounded really angry. My vision blurred, my mind foggy, it took me a moment to recognize the voice. Every muscle in my body went rigid, stiffening with fear realizing that it was Andrew yelling.

From what I could see, Andrew towered over Cheryl, while he beat her unmercifully. Pounding and jabbing her repeatedly with his fists, she lay motionless, her body limp on the ground. She didn’t make a sound.

“P-please stop hitting her,” I stuttered, my voice low, whispering.

Without letting her go, Andrew turned to look at me.

After binding her down with heavy chains he walked over and stood in front of me with a puzzled look on his face.

“I only did to her, what she did to you,” he said, the one side of his mouth curled upward. “I will let Anthony finish her off when he returns. He can have his way with her one more time before he ends her pathetic life.” He gazed into my eyes as if we were lovers. Quickly, I turned away. Weak and unable to protect myself with magic, I feared that he would use his eyes to lure me to my death.

“Anthony’s not coming, he’s dead.” Struggling to focus on untying my hands, the words rushed out unintentionally.

The shocked expression on his face told me he had no idea that we had defeated and killed Anthony. Andrew turned slightly and stared at Cheryl for a few seconds before turning back with the puzzled look still on his face. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he had no idea why Cheryl was here.

With magic failing and needing to find answers, my attention was concentrated solely on reading his mind. Thankfully, that part of my craft worked.

Arriving moments before I awoke, he was expecting to see Anthony here with me, not Cheryl. Andrew had no idea why she was here, so when he walked in and saw her standing over me, kicking me, he went ballistic.

The image of Cheryl beating down on my motionless body made me wince and my stomach spun. Before I could find anything useful, trauma and mental exhaustion broke the connection to Andrew’s.

“I do apologize for what she has done to you. I promise you that her punishment has been tenfold.” Carefully lifting my pained broken body from the ground, he placed me onto a bed in the corner of the room.

“Please let me go.” My voice was feeble, pleading to be released.

“Ah, Natalia…” The closeness of his face to mine made me nauseated. Andrew ran his nose along the side of my cheek and down my neck. “You smell beautiful.” His eyes grabbed hold of mine. “So Anthony is dead. Are you going to tell me how?” Frozen with fear I just stared at him. “Well it doesn’t matter. I only created him to get to you.

“You see, Natalia,” he started to say while rubbing his finger down my arms affectionately, “I created Anthony to keep a close eye on my son. I knew eventually you would find each other and when you did, Anthony would tell me. Anthony was a little more trouble than he was worth but he got the job done. Over there…” nodding towards Cheryl, “…lays an example of the trouble he got into. It’s a shame how he used her. He used to say she was his last resort.” Throwing his head back, he laughed loudly at the memory. “If he was in the mood and no one else was available, he’d go and see her. She was his puppet on a string.

“Anthony wasn’t my first choice, but the right one nonetheless. He was never fond of my son and I knew that they would never be good friends. My first choice was Dave. I changed him long before I changed Anthony. Unfortunately, Dave is a good friend to Brad. Their bond only grew stronger after I changed him. I was going to kill him, but Brad was younger and, being a father, I still wanted my boy to have someone he could lean on.” During his ramble his eyes kept hold of mine while his fingers grazed slowly down along the side of my trembling body.

My first instinct, after hearing the extreme lengths the man went to stalk his son so he could get to me, was to jump up and run. With a broken arm and ankle, any escape that required my physically doing anything was impossible.  The terror of my situation had me wanting to shut down mentally.

“Being a father is quite confusing. Bradley is my one and only son. I am torn by my love for you and my love for him. Of course, as in every one of your past lives, I have chosen you, Natalia. We have spent many of your lives together, the two of us.”

Every attempt made to turn away failed. Trapped unwillingly by his eyes I yelled, “NO!” right before he kissed my cheek. “Don’t,” was the only word spoken before his lips were on mine. I shook my head violently back and forth until he removed his grotesque mouth from mine. “Don’t touch me!” I demanded before spitting in his face.

Forcefully grabbing my chin, he dug his fingernails into my skin and covered my mouth with his, spearing my lips apart with his tongue. The aggressive dominating kiss choked me and left me gasping for air. Andrew pulled his face a few inches away, giving me a contemptuous smile before reaching his right hand up past his left shoulder and swinging it down to backhand me. I literally saw stars.