Endless (50 page)

‘Phoenix didn’t think so. I’ve earned my right to try!’

He considered
me for another long moment. ‘Then this one will not be for me to decide.’

‘Then who? Who the hell do I have to convince?’ I yelled, desperate.

He held his arm out beyond me. ‘The other one who is now entitled a role in your guidance.’

I spun around and gasped.

He looked so strong, so healthy. His hair was sparkling in the night-light. He was in black pants and a white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. He looked the same but different … Something fundamental about him had changed. His eyes. Still chocolate brown and beautiful but no longer so deeply haunted.

Phoenix was an angel.

CHAPTER FORTY

‘The windows of my soul I throw

Wide open to the sun.’

John Greenleaf Whittier

M
y legs wouldn’t stop shaking. I tried to take
a step towards him but fell to my knees.

I looked to the ground, waiting for the tears. But I couldn’t cry. Even in this most tremendous moment I was still numb. Still cold.

‘We were wrong. I see that now,’ Phoenix said, his voice heavy with regret.

I knew what he meant, but I just couldn’t go there. I looked up at him, my eyes begging him to stop.

‘You’re …’

‘Angel once more,’ he said. He didn’t sound ecstatic about it.

I half smiled. Still Phoenix. ‘Is this what you want?’

‘Better than eternity in the pits of Hell,’ he answered.

‘But?’

He was silent. He glanced around as if only now noticing the darkness that surrounded us. When he looked back at me tenderly, so much more emotion showed on his face than ever before and … I understood.

Hell is in the eye of the beholder.

‘I have no reason to be
anywhere else, I suppose,’ but his words were edged with a longing that I could not ignore.

His eyebrows furrowed and he took a tentative step towards me. ‘I’m so …’ He swallowed the words. ‘I know you were attacked when you were younger.’

I froze. ‘How?’ I’d never willingly told anyone other than Lincoln.

‘I’m an angel. Knowing just comes with the territory.’ When I didn’t respond, he added quietly, ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me?’

The memories washed through me – a wave that was now part of a much greater ocean of agony. ‘I didn’t see any point. It doesn’t define me.’

‘No, but I wish I’d known. I’d never have pushed the way I … It explains a lot.’

I bit my lip, fighting to control my emotions. ‘I’m sorry, Phoenix, I …’

‘Don’t apologise. It’s me who loved you beyond reason,’ he said, shaking his head and I was sure his eyes were glistening in the starlight.

I looked to the sky, noticing there was no moon, and that my angel maker had disappeared.

‘So you want to be here?’ I asked, still unsure.

‘I want to be where I am needed. For now, it is here but …’

The strength of his gaze – full of promise – drew mine back to him.

‘If the day should come, for any reason, that you would prefer me … elsewhere, it will be so.’

I shook my
head. ‘I shouldn’t have that kind of power, Phoenix. Those aren’t my choices. I don’t want them to be.’

He nodded sadly. ‘Until I decide otherwise, then, I will be here. For you.’

We were silent. Phoenix standing, me still kneeling.

‘I’m faster,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t feel things the way you can. At least, I don’t think I can, but …’

‘You can shut down your emotions.’

I swallowed. ‘Yes.’

He took a tentative step towards me. ‘Power takes many forms and mutates as it is passed on. It is the way of evolution. This is no different, but treat this power carefully. Emotion is raw. Meddling with it rarely works as we intend. Often by the time we see our error, it’s too late to turn back,’ his voice caught at the end.

There was another stretch of silence.

‘It hurts too much,’ I finally confessed.

‘I know,’ he said. And he did.

‘You’ll need to empty yourself of everything. It’s not easy and the way you are at the moment – I don’t know this is the best time.’

I took a few deep breaths and absorbed this information along with all that Phoenix had been explaining to me for the past … I wasn’t sure how long. Time moved differently here.

‘It’s now or never,’ I said, determinedly.

He sighed,
resigned. ‘Okay. When you go to them, they will all want you. You represent life and everything they long for. Whatever it was that led them to this place, to this in-between, they crave what you have. They will suffocate you with their desires. You won’t have long to find him.’

I nodded, looking out into the infinity of the universe and the countless reflections, floating and diving through the air.

‘What do I do once I find him?’

‘Can you feel your power inside you?’ he asked.

I pressed a hand over my abdomen. ‘Yes, it’s like a deep well.’

‘Exactly. If you want to bring him back, you’ll have to find a way to bring him into you. He must be absorbed
into
your power, otherwise when you leave this place he won’t be able to hold onto you.’

‘How will I do that?’

‘His soul will be confused. You’ll have to show him what he wants most.’

I knew what Lincoln wanted most. ‘My soul,’ I said, nodding.

Phoenix reached forwards, surprising me by placing a warm, soft hand against the side of my face. His gentle eyes bored into mine. ‘Oh, Violet.’ His lips pressed together and I could see his utter sadness for me. ‘It’s much harder than that. It’s your heart.’

I cast my eyes to the side. I couldn’t think about what he had just said, couldn’t think about what that would do to me.

I gulped. ‘Okay. I’m ready.’

Phoenix stood from where he’d been crouched beside me and nodded. ‘I can’t go with you. When you have him, I’ll know and I’ll send you back.’

There was a part
of me that didn’t want to have to walk away from him. ‘Will I see you again?’

‘That’ll be up to you. When you’re ready, call for me in your dreams. I’ll be there.’

I walked into the unknown and the reflections that glowed ahead. They seemed to respond to my presence and started moving towards me, slowly at first and then faster and faster. I could sense their eagerness.

I kept moving, knowing that I needed to go as far as possible. They swirled around me, vibrating with anticipation. I was what they craved, what they remembered in some far recesses of their minds. It was both haunting and distressing and I wanted to stop, to fall back into the nothingness and weep for them, but I did not.

Instead, I ran into their midst.

They whipped around me, becoming frenzied as more of them became aware of my presence. I felt them fighting and pushing to get closer to me until eventually I could no longer move, their combined pressure creating a prison that trapped me.

I threw my head back, stared at the stars above and started the process of emptying myself. Just as Phoenix had told me, I pushed away my family, my friends. I cleared my mind of my joys, my passions, my sorrows, my hopes and my many regrets. I pushed away the exiles, the scars I carried from the wars I’d fought and those that were yet to come. I pushed away the angel guides, my maker. And finally I pushed away Phoenix so that
all that was left was Lincoln.

I felt my body start to shudder under the sheer pressure of the lost souls as they tried to break me or, more accurately, to
take
my life force, as if they could somehow absorb it and claim back some of their own. I wanted to panic, but I pushed that away too.

Then I saw it.

It didn’t come from the sides, or push through the masses. It came hesitantly from above, almost as if it had been hiding up there, behind a star. A small cry fell from my lips.

I knew it was Lincoln’s reflection – his soul. My body ached to reach out to him.

It shone brightly as it floated down to me from above. I waited patiently, concentrating on keeping my focus on him and nothing else, making sure I continued to act as a homing beacon for him. And he came for me, sure and straight.

My falling star.

Eventually, he hovered right above me. My face tilted up towards his reflection – a mere disturbance in the air – and I closed my eyes briefly to draw in his presence. I felt it … the sun. Even in the darkness, the nothingness, he was still the sun.

He waited, moving around the edges of my face as if trying to caress me, as if worried for me.

I could barely take it. I had to bring him into me. I let go of everything that held me together. I cut the last thin ties that guarded what was left of my heart and I gave it to him.

As I screamed in agony, Lincoln’s soul poured into me.

The moment I had him, I was falling again.

The next thing
I knew, I was in Spence’s arms. He was carrying me through the woods.

‘You okay?’ he asked as I blinked.

No. I wasn’t.

‘Vi?’

He shifted me in his hold and I heard a beep. We were at the car.

I swallowed through a dry throat. ‘How long?’

‘You’ve been out of it for about twenty minutes. I made it down the mountain and you were already there, where you told me to go. Fell with a thump, too.’

He opened the passenger door and sat me in the car, then grabbed a bottle of water from the back seat and twisted the top, passing it to me.

I took a sip. ‘We need to go,’ I said.

‘Where?’ Spence was looking around, no idea what to expect.

‘Back to Lincoln’s.’ I turned to the front and dropped my face in my hands. Gradually, all the things I’d pushed aside were coming back and it hurt. Overwhelmed, I let out a moan.

‘Jesus, Vi, what the hell happened to you out there?’

I shook my
head, bracing a hand on the dashboard. ‘We have to go,’ I gritted out.

But Spence wasn’t having it. ‘Come on, Vi, you gotta give me more than that. Griff’s gonna have my ass on a platter for this. What happened?’

I shook my head again. ‘Please,
Spence
,’ I begged, because every word –
every
second – hurt, and would for the rest of my life, but I had to put this one thing right. And having Lincoln’s soul so close to me –
in me
– where it had once belonged … I could barely hold myself together.