Cult of the Hexad (Afterlife saga Book 6) (11 page)

“I am sure it will come to you.”

After that the answer had been clear and was exactly what Ari had tried to tell me. I needed to let my dreams and visions guide me and pick up on the clues they were trying to tell me. I needed to recap and think back to everything that had happened in them. If only I had paid more attention to the smaller details. However, that had been hard because as soon as a certain male figure had stepped into the room all thought process had bee
n
solely focused on him. Every single thought dominated by a man whose name I didn’t even know and someone I believed evil enough to kidnap the other side of me in my dreams. The whole thing was as crazy as it got but unfortunately the reality of the matter was, it was simply all I had to go on.

So I thought back to my most recent vision and after a nervous shudder, typed in Google the only words I had to go by…

‘What is Afterlife?’

Chapter 9

The Lonely Road

How had this happened? How had I messed up so badly to find myself back here again. I couldn’t remember what it had been that I had done wrong but if I was back here then it must have been something unforgivable.

Once again I found myself walking down an empty road to nowhere feeling as though the weight of the world lay on my shoulders. Well at least this time there was no storm to soak me to the bone and I looked down to realise that they thankfully let me keep the clothes. How could I not remember? Had I upset Lucy, my new friend…
my only friend?

I looked straight ahead to see the endless road that held no answers but only more questions. Ones like ‘Where was I going?’ and ‘How would I get there?’ I knew I needed to be somewhere, I could feel it as though it was connected with my soul. As though something was calling me home. I wanted to believe I could get there, I really did, but the uncertainty was overwhelming my belief.

It was because of what Ari had said to me in the car. That haunting sentence that warned me of things I knew were to come.

A truth I knew I didn’t want to face.

‘Our whole lives Kay…it was never real…we were never real!’  

How could she say we were never real? How could she do that to me?!

“WHY?!” I screamed at the road in anger only hoping she would be there at the end of it to answer me. Because that’s what I needed, answers not more questions. But more importantly this was the time I most needed to believe in myself and how could I do that if Ari didn’t? It was infuriating and made no sense why she said any of what she did that night. I was caught between two frustrations of both wanting to grab her and hold her close when I saw her again and the other was to shake her so hard she would realise her mistake.

If only she had grabbed my hand. If only she had trusted me to take care of her. If only…

Wait, what was that?

I squinted against the fading light as night was quickly seeping in ready to take the place of the sun. It looked like a figure walking towards me in the distance and getting closer. Where all the cars were on this road I didn’t know but like me the person was mirroring me by walking dead centre at the same pace.

I wanted to run to the person, knowing somewhere deep inside they were here because of me. I wanted to run as fast as I could thinking that on some small prayer that it could have been Ari but then logic started to seep in and I started to ask myself how she would know that I was here. So I continued to walk as the other person did. It felt like some act of rebellion that neither of us wanted to back down from. Two lone people out meeting each other in this deserted part of the world. The closer we got to one another the more the light died and night was all that was left to greet us.

So with the details lost I had no choice but to wait until the bitter end to see who I would come face to face with. They walked with purpose the same as I and I wondered which one of us would break first. In the end we both did and we starting running at each other at the same time. I felt my pulse beating against my skin as I strained to make it to the figure quicker. I ran and I ran, over and over just like I had done that night but the closer we got to each other the less and less it made sense. Because just before I could stop myself and before that point where I could comprehend what I was seeing I ran straight through the mirror before me.

Glass exploded all around me just like it did that day in the car, only this time I could see my own terrified expression reflecting back at me printed on all the tiny shards. I had run straight into the mirror that divided our worlds and as I burst through to the other side I stumbled onto the floor. I looked down at myself feeling no injury but still needing to check. I was amazed to find not one scratch on me and I looked back to find the locked doorway between our worlds had finally been destroyed.

“I did it.” I said out loud speaking for the first time in my dream world but the most important question remained…had I been heard this time? I got up from the floor and looked around the room I knew well. It was the same one I had been living most of my nights locked on the other side and trying to find my way into for the last eight months. This was the room I had witnessed what loving someone could make you do.

It was the room
he
had locked her in and stolen from her soul time and time again. It was her prison and his hands had been the shackles that tied her to the bed. Her Demon jailor that…that…

“No, that doesn’t feel right.” I said aloud when my thoughts started to trip up on themselves. Suddenly thinking that way no longer felt right. Why was that? What had changed that meant bathing him in that light just felt like painting the truth with lies. I looked to the bed and saw my naked body spread out shuddering in rapture. I blinked back the vision and felt like something was crumbling away in my mind. It was as if I was stood on the edge of a canyon and had to keep walking backwards as the floor cracked beneath me.

Suddenly my small world started to open up around me and it felt as if I had finally started to open my eyes to
her world
. I turned as though that world was pulling me to do so and I walked towards the glass doors that led outside. I touched the glass not ever expecting them to push open as you would have thought. Nor was I surprised when they simply disappeared into the stone wall either side.

The cold wind testing my skin only made this world feel even more real and I sucked in a quick breath in shock. Not shock at feeling the air blowing through my hair or the even the smell of being surround by nature. Not the shock that it felt like I was actually here for the first time since the obsession began. But shock at seeing the beautiful sight before me that felt like it had been lost long ago.

“I have seen this.” I said knowing it was true. This sight that felt like I had once fell in love enough to paint it and I didn’t even know how to paint…did I? It was a stunning vista of oceans of green. Rolling mountains and sweeping valleys that looked touched by the Gods. But which Gods were those I wondered and why when thinking about them did I no longer feel any fear.

I stepped up to the railings and instead of looking down at the immense drop I knew was there I understood that’s not what I was here for. I had never known where this place was in the world or if it even really existed but none of that mattered. Because something pulled me to look to the sides and see what the building looked like and it looked like a castle. I frowned as soon as the thought entered my mind as though it knew the assumption was wrong.

“No, not a castle…
home.”
  This is where she wanted me to go. This is what Ari was desperately trying to tell me. I had to find this place, I knew that now. I had to do everything in my power to try. Because I was no longer scared. I couldn’t be because Ari couldn’t afford me to be. I didn’t know who these people were or what I might find when I finally knocked on their door but I knew one thing, if Ari believed they were the ones who could help me save her, then that was what I would do.

I just wish it had been as easy as seeing the address written down or why a vision couldn’t tell me as much?

“But you know why, don’t you?” The sound of his voice caused my breathing to hitch. I felt his presence right behind me but knowing he was there didn’t prevent me from flinching when I felt his touch for the first time.

“Easy.”
He warned softly placing his hands on my shoulders and the weight of them scared me, knowing the power he held within. The touch of his fingers when they found the bare skin beneath the sweater I wore caused me to moan and the shock of it prevented my head from falling backwards against him. All I wanted to do was sink back into him and let him finally hold me the way I had always craved. To be the one to feel his touch now was…well, this was what breathing for the first time felt like. Breathing free and safe was the only way to explain it.

“Where did you go, Vixen?” He asked hypnotising me with his commanding voice that at the moment was velvet smooth hiding the rawness that I knew lived there within him. I had seen it, the beast with wings he kept controlled and buried until the time came to release them upon the world. Was that what he needed me for, or did he believe I was
her
again?

“I know you.”
He told me, whispering his promise near my ear and I felt his lips form the words against my skin. His hands squeezed my shoulders before releasing his hold enough to caress up my neck, holding me still firmly in his control.

“You left me…
why?”
  He hissed out the accusation as his grip tightened around the column of my neck. I thought this was it, my moment in this hidden world was coming to an end and I would take my last breath in it by his hands. But his grip simply became a constant reminder that he could apply pressure at any moment and end it all.

“I…I…never left you.”
I said this knowing it was true as I knew I never could. How I knew this I didn’t know but it still didn’t take away the truth behind every word.

“Are you coming home?” He asked and this time I let my emotions win. My head fell back into his chest and I felt the tears flow up and over. Because my next words were too much for me to bear, they escaped on a whisper that broke me…

“I’m trying.”

“Good girl.” A sob escaped when he said this as it felt as though I had heard it so many times before and not once when doing so had it not felt like it came from the deepest levels of love. This was the moment. This was what it felt like to be loved. Loved so much it made you do crazy things. Incredible things. It made you do the impossible but above all…

It made you survive.

Unsurprisingly I woke up to find it had all been another dream. But boy, what a dream! Not only had I finally broken through the mirror but I had also had my first encounter with him in a way that I never knew was possible. Yes, he scared me but when he touched me the way he had done it made me yearn for that fear in ways I could barely comprehend let alone explain.

This time it had all felt different, unlike before when I had received his anger at him finding the wrong version of me in his room. It was as if the last barrier between me and that world was as simple as opening my eyes to the truth of where I truly belonged. Before,looking in was like watching a secret life of my fantasies play out like an opera
.
What once felt like a sinful act of imagining the impossible or improbable world in which she lived was now becoming a sinful act in ignoring it. Because what if Ari was right, what if she had been hit with the proof we both needed but was robbed of the time to explain it to me?

What if this was the improbable world we lived in? The world created behind the walls keeping us locked in a prison, one we didn’t even know about. What if all this time my other self had been trying to get
me
out, what if I had been the prisoner…
could that be possible?

I sat up shaking my head wondering if thinking this wasn’t just torturing myself further. I didn’t know where that place was and you would have thought that if that was my goal then I would have received more clues up until now. But other than that one word ‘Afterlife’ I had nothing to go on. 

Needless to say the genius search of putting ‘Afterlife’ in Google awarded me with thousands of theories on what happened after death. So I wasn’t all that surprised when it didn’t offer up any solutions. That night I joined Lucy and her husband for dinner and I didn’t miss Denis’ smirks when seeing how much I obviously enjoyed Lucy’s home cooking. In fact it felt like eating real food for the first time and I quickly realised one of my new favourite things in life was spicy food. I don’t ever remember feeling so full before and in the end Lucy had to cut me off before I made myself sick, besides she said, “There is dessert”.

When this turned out to contain chocolate, to my shame I actually moaned out loud. Denis burst out laughing and Lucy scowled at him but it wasn’t long before I too was laughing. I explained how it had been a long time since my chocolate days and this turned out to be a good thing as I was given the biggest piece of brownie.

“Ha, not laughing now are you!” Lucy said to Denis making us all burst out laughing again.

Having dinner with the both of them felt so at ease I was quickly getting to a point where I never wanted to leave. It gave me a taste of the good life and I envied Kelly, Lucy’s daughter, for having the upbringing I always dreamed of. If only Ari could have been here, then I think my world would have been complete. It was obvious that Lucy was in no hurry to see me out the door and kept saying I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted.

At first I had been worried that her husband might not have the same feelings as Lucy but after dinner it was clear my fears were for nothing. After I thanked him for letting me stay he leant over and whispered to me once Lucy was clearing the table,

“I learnt a long time ago, that a happy wife equals a happy life.” I gave him a beaming grin before standing to help Lucy in the kitchen. Yes, I liked Denis and I adored Lucy. To be honest I think since Kelly had left for College that Lucy didn’t know what to do with herself and me being here was offering up a nice little distraction. Well if I could help in any way, as I knew repaying them back for the kindness they had shown was something I could only wish to do one day.