Book of Revenge (2 page)

With my other hand, I pulled the cloth out from under the rock, tumbling it onto my palm. The tingle grew intense and shot up my arm, like a surge of electricity. I gasped as a sense of falling caused my whole body to tense.

The room around me went dark, my lips pressed shut as my breathing ceased.

: : :

I felt soft hands grip my shoulders from behind. I heaved, thrown forward as I tumbled over the forest floor. I felt the girls legs wrap around my middle, her lips against my ear. I landed face first, but my typical instinct to attack didn’t take over. Where the need to be defensive should have been, happiness lived instead. A surprising laugh escaped my own lips, ignoring the uncomfortable position I found myself in. Turning over, the girl that had attacked me shifted until she sat straddled on my stomach.

The beauty of her eyes knocked the breath from my lungs. She was about eighteen, her face alive—her life alive within me. She tucked a long strand of dark brown hair behind her ear. “I found you,” she breathed hard, her smile never fading.

I was speechless as I stared at her, my senses drinking her in, wanting to be near her. She wore tattered jean shorts and a white top, a bit of mud smeared across one cheek. She wrapped her fingers into my hair, leaning down until her lips grazed my forehead. I breathed deep, smelling rose and tea leaf, riding on air that was warm and refreshing.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

Her words were so enticing that it caused me to shudder. I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t move, the desire to kiss this beautiful being was all I could think of. I clasped her around the waist, my fingers sensing the reality of her within my grasp. This was my future, and she was as real as the fabric of her shirt in my hands.

: : :

Everything was black, the tingling in my arms receding. Slowly, the room around me came back into focus, my head tight and pounding. Patrick grinned as he sat across the desk from me.

“Well?”

I found that though my body was taxed and tired beyond reason, I was still smiling. The sweet smell of the girl was lingering in my senses, a smell I would hold close until I found her again.

“It worked, didn’t it? I haven’t seen you smile like that since you came back from the dead.” Patrick was being dramatic.

I nodded, still at a loss for words. “It did work. I—I just…” There were so many new questions. “When? How do I know when this truth will take place?” I gushed.

Patrick smiled, lifting the cloth from the desk and plucking the rock from my hand, careful not to touch it to his skin. He dropped it back into the drawer and locked it away. “That’s the beauty, isn’t it? You don’t know when, you just know that someday, it will.”

I nodded, finding the act of pretending to be cheerful now worthless—she was not my destiny. Though I would destroy her light, I had no choice. I refused to live a false existence.

“Don’t you like it?” Her face sank, her comment meaning so much more than she could understand in this moment.

I shrugged, turning my attention toward the shelf. Drawn to a particular vial, I lifted it and read the label. It was perfect. Rotating it in my hand, the anticipation of the smell that was contained behind its glass walls became palpable. I had to smell it once more. Uncorking the top and placing a balsa stick through the neck, my body shook as I brought it to my nose—tea leaf. I exhaled slowly, allowing the scent to sweep over my senses and roll across my tongue. I could almost taste her. Ferociously driven, I reached for another vial, not bothering to smell, already knowing it was exactly what I wanted.

I looked into her beautiful, powdery blue eyes, round and innocent like a doe. The light of her soul was still there, wavering and afraid, though not for long. “Sorry, Avery.” I paused, looking down at the bottles in my hand. “But this one’s for me.”

The light in her eyes leaked away like ink draining from a bottle. The shadows descended in its place.

The game had begun.

1993:

“Daddy!”

I heard a girl’s scream through the thick pines of the woods, her voice cutting through the silence. I was tracking Greg, and I knew that at the source of this scream, I’d find him. He’d left a trail of death and blood for the last few months, angry with my return to Glenwood Springs and determined to make things as uncomfortable as possible for me here. Though I’d left Winter Wood for good, I couldn’t leave the area. I couldn’t risk missing my chance to find her.

“Daddy! No!”

I heard smashing glass echo through the trees, chilling me to the bone. I took to the sky, my wings forcing me closer to the sound of imminent death. There was a break in the trees up ahead—a road. I flew faster, a rush of urgency washing over me like never before. I carelessly dove down toward the road in my hurry, my wing clipping a branch and sending it crashing to the ground beside me as I landed. It skidded to a stop only once it hit the ditch, leaving a trail of debris the width of the highway. Stepping toward Greg, the pavement under my feet crackled from my weight, causing the fresh wreckage of a car to shift and moan. My fingers were clenched and my wings tightly secured behind me in a battle pose. Greg stood triumphantly over the remains of a Subaru Outback. The tires were still spinning, the bittersweet smell of gas polluting the air.

“
Gregory…”
My voice was thick and low, traveling over the pavement toward him.

His torso twisted and he faced me, already laughing.
“Brother!
I see you’ve finally caught up with me.” He threw his hands in the air, spattered with blood. “Took you long enough.” He stepped down from the wreckage as metal bent, revealing two bodies that had been lying behind him. They were half sprawled on the pavement, half still within the car. My chest felt tight as an unexplainable pain pulsed through me. It was a feeling like never before, a feeling that made my gut wrench.

I was too late. There was too much blood.

I approached the wreck, shoving Greg to the side and sending him stumbling into the ditch beside the branch. His cockiness faltered, surprised by my unexpected strength in this moment.

Struggling to regain his composure, he righted and brushed himself off, pleading his side of things. “Come on, Max. You know this is the right thing to do.”

It wasn’t the right thing, though; it was murder. I leaned over the man’s body, his face down against the pavement. I touched him, feeling a faint flicker of life seep up my arm. Leaning back, I glanced, almost nervously, at the other body that was balled under a nearby hunk of the hood. It was unmoving and small—just a child. Unable to stare for too long, I turned my attention back to the man before me. Many of his limbs were visibly broken, blood flowing freely, his life draining. I grasped him under his shoulder and carefully rolled him on his back, surprised to find he was still conscious. Seeing his face, the reason for my pain was affirmed. I knew him. He’d been a member of the Priory. His eyes fluttered hopelessly as he gasped shallowly. I quelled my pain.

“John,” I whispered.

“
Maximus.”
John’s words were forced.

“You’ve got to hold on.”

He grabbed my arm. “Maximus,
please…
save my daughter.”

I was confused. He had never mentioned a daughter before. “You’re
daugh
—”

My words stopped when I once again forced myself to look at the small body beside us, heart racing uncontrollably. My body was alive in a way I hadn’t felt for years, and something about it made me wish I’d been here sooner. She was wearing a pink jacket, her blue jeans stained with so much blood that I felt my throat tighten. She moved then, slowly twisting her head to face me. Her dark brown hair tumbled from the hood that had been covering it. Long, brown, soft ringlets soaked with blood on the road. My heart stopped as my eyes met hers. A wind tickled through the forest and over us, blowing her scent toward me like a melody. Breathing deep, the tight pain in my chest threatened to crush me. The scent of tea leaf and rose overwhelmed my senses.

“Please,” John coughed.

I found it hard to take my eyes off the girl, but I had to look at John.

His breathing was further taxed, blood oozing from his lips. “I won’t make it… but
sh
—she has to.”

I slid my arm out of John’s grasp and looked ever continually back at the girl. Her eyes were beginning to flicker with death, igniting my anxiety. Dark clouds descended over the brown of her eyes, the color in her cheeks almost gone. I’d waited for her for so long that my hopes had sunk as the years passed with no sign, only to be ignited in their full fury now. Never did I think I’d meet her like this. Never did I consider she’d be so young. Rain began to drizzle from the sky, slicking across the cold pavement. John reached his hand out, reaching for the girl.

“I love you, Jane.” His words were fading fast, but all I could think of was his daughter’s name—
her
name.

Jane.

Jane’s eyes fluttered closed and my body surged to life. I left John, rushing to her side. Hooking my hands under her tiny, broken body, I handled her as though she were my whole life.

She was.

I looked back at John in time to see his spirit leave him—his life here was already gone. I pulled the girl to my chest, at last looking at Greg.

Greg appeared amused by the whole thing, humored in a way that told me he’d known who she was to me, knew what it meant to kill her—killing me.

“What?” he played. “Are you going to
save
her?” His mocking tone was so vindictive and premeditated that it made me feel like I didn’t know who he was anymore. “Surely you won’t save her.”

But that was exactly what I was going to do. I pulled her head beside mine, whispering in her ear. “Stay with me. Don’t cross. Don’t go.” Though she was no more than a child, she was still mine. Someday, she would mean everything to me in love—she meant everything already.

Greg’s eyes became wide as he saw the determination on my face. “I was joking. You can’t seriously be thinking of—”

I didn’t bother to let him finish.
“Leave.”
My voice was like death itself. The sound of far away sirens filtered over the cement. I couldn’t let them see me, but I had to save Jane.

Greg, too, was lingering. This was not something he was about to miss.

“
Leave,”
I hissed again. “Leave me alone!” But before I could finish the statement, he disappeared, a black cloud of smoke dissipated in the air where he once stood. Squeezing my brows together in internal agony, I looked down at Jane. Her life was fighting to leave her body as her breathing became shallow.

“Stay, Jane. Stay with me, Jane.” I wanted to say her name a hundred times, hoping it would keep her here. I touched my finger to her brow, feeling her life pulse through my touch. I winced, the warmth of it something I’d long forgotten, but also something stronger than I’d ever felt.

The sirens were about to crest the hill. I had to be quick. Pressing back my trepidation, I begged for her soul to stay locked with her life, in this body. I bundled her as best I could, allowing her warmth to dwell inside us both. Stoking the flame, I felt our lives twine together like a vine. Her damaged soul welded with what was left of mine. Two feeble halves became a whole. It was perfection. An overwhelming shiver trickled from my head to my toe, threatening to knock me to the ground. Her pain had become my own, and I would heal it. I swallowed it down, promising to hold it there as long as she was alive, promising to allow her happiness, love and life. In exchange for her pain, I’d given her my strength. Together we were a full circle, sharing a patchwork soul for the rest of eternity.

I steadied myself and opened my eyes, looking down at her. Jane began to stir, the rose returning to her cheeks. Quickly, I laid her back onto the cement where the paramedics would find her. The sirens were so close now, pressing me away. Though no single part of me wanted to leave her, when I let go I found I didn’t have to. Her life continued to pulse through me, telling me all I needed to know about every breath and every heartbeat we would forever share. She would survive, and I would see her again…