Eternal Hope (The Hope Series) (26 page)

Great. I get myself stuck with the brooding Reaver. Maybe that’s a blessing. Tobin was a chatty Cathy.

The two of them sat there on the beach for a long time before she grew tired of waiting for him to say something. She stood up, brushing the sand from her legs and hands. “If you didn’t bring me here, then I’m going to leave.”

“Peace be with you.” Simeon gave her a curious look from where he sat and then turned away. What the hell was this guy’s deal? He yanked her out of consciousness and pushed her into weird, hot and heavy visions. Broke into her sleep only to refuse to talk to her. Not really what she expected from an eternal being trying to hunt her down and kidnap her. Maybe he was trying to gaslight her into giving over her body to Aria.

She set off marching up the beach, away from Simeon and his silent buddy Saxon, trying to figure out a way to wake herself up. Screaming and shouting hadn’t worked the last few times. Maybe pain would. She pinched herself as hard as possible, but no- no jolting return to the real world. Only an angry red welt on her arm that stung like a bitch.

She staggered over the shifting sand, straining her ears. It took a moment to understand what for. Her body was concentrating, listening for sound, any sound; it was unnatural to see the rush and tug of the ocean, to see the movement across the sand created by wind, and to hear absolutely nothing. Her brain couldn’t piece the moment together properly, and everything ended up feeling altered and disjointed. Even the texture of the sand under her feet was off.

“You’re a fan of empty threats, I see.”

Farley’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice, of Simeon sitting in front of her at the water’s edge. She staggered backwards. “Leave me alone,” she hissed.

He gave her a tired look. “You leave
me
alone.”

“I know what you’re doing, Simeon. You’re trying to make me go crazy so I’ll agree to anything you suggest. I’m telling you now, it’s not going to work. I have a foot planted very firmly within the realms of sanity

“I
see. And where’s the other foot planted?”

Farley threw him a dirty look and marched off towards the far end of the shore, only to be thwarted by him looking up at her blankly fifty feet further along. ”Stop doing that!”

“I’m not doing anything. This is my
memory you’re stomping through. I think if I were violating someone else’s head, they’d be part and parcel of the experience.”

“This is
my
head you’re wandering around in.
You
came to
me
. I just fell asleep. I can’t push into your mind. Only Reavers can do that.”

Simeon considered this for a moment, his eyes searching into the darkness. “There was this night,” he said quietly, “when the moon was so full. Round and fat like a huge silver coin in the sky.” He pointed upwards, gesturing to the moon, which truly was the biggest Farley had ever seen, otherworldly in its beauty. “Aria said she had to bathe under it. She made me bring her here to this beach. We lay out on the sand on our backs until the dawn stepped over the rim of the ocean and she made me chase her through the surf.”

As he spoke, the deep void of the night sky slowly brightened and cleared of all its clouds, wisping away like teased-out
cotton wool. The burnished copper head of the sun breached the distance, lighting the world a deep blue and then a soft yellow and then to brilliant gold. Simeon closed his eyes, the light washing over his face, turning his hair a deep caramel. Two figures raced through the white foam where it met the shore.

The slim, pretty woman with long, flowing blond hair, held up the soaked hem of her dress as the spray erupted around her ankles. Simeon was smiling, the skin on the backs of his arms and legs marbled with dried-on sand. He darted towards Aria and her smile spread wide, flashing her teeth. Their mouths moved quickly as they laughed and shouted to one another, but the sounds of their joy were lost to the annals of another time. Saxon paced towards the couple with his hands in his pockets, watching the scene, too. With the burning morning sunlight at his back, Farley could make out that his hair was fair, curling around his ears.

She was still studying the melancholic air about Saxon when, as quick as it had come, the sun dipped out of sight again, stealing back the light. Simeon opened his eyes. “Tell me, what is your remembrance of this beach?”

Farley opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t. The sight of Simeon and Aria running giddy and excited across the most beautiful dawn she’d ever seen had robbed her of all words. So this
was
his memory. She sank down into the sand beside him.

“Why isn’t she here with you now?”

He turned away, his face falling into shadow. “She’s never with me now. I see her sometimes in the distance, usually with another version of me, but I can’t hold her.” He shook his head, staring down at his hands. “I can’t touch her.”

“Then why are you here?” she whispered.

Simeon’s gaze flickered to her, picking her over. “I’m here always, in one way or another. I can’t seem to recall a time when I woke up and was part of a new day. It just seems to be one long memory that bleeds into the next. Occasionally, I get to be with her.” He smiled regretfully. “Mostly I don’t. I feel anxious, like something bad is happening, but I can’t seem to unravel anything. It all gets so confused.”

Farley glared at him, trying to pick apart the lie. But she couldn’t. He really seemed to believe everything he was saying. “If what you’re saying is true, then how am I here? I definitely didn’t come here of my own free will. And I’m not a Reaver.”

“A part of you is,” he said. “Some part of you
must
be. I’ve read about you. They said you would come. Tell me your name.”

“I’m Farley. We’ve already met. Don’t you remember?”

He frowned, each of his hands clamped around the top of the other arm as he thought. “Yes, I do. I think. You didn’t look like this, though. You looked like Aria. You were inside Aria.”

She nodded. “You didn’t make me do that either?”

“Of course not.”

It was mystifying. How did she keep ending up inside Simeon’s memories, especially when they were supposed to be visions or her dreams? She cracked her knuckles, frustrated. The fact that she found this problem so irritating was laughable- like she expected the abnormalities that plagued her life to behave in a particular way, working within the confines of rational parameters. Her understanding of what happened to her was vague at best. None of this should be coming as a surprise. She bit down on her lip until it felt like it might pop. “We’re from different times. Why do you look normal to me? Why are you wearing regular clothes and speaking normally?”

Simeon raised his eyebrows. “We’re not physically communicating, only mentally. Your brain is very good at filling in gaps, making sense of things. You’re picturing me how it would make sense to picture me, hearing me the same way. No doubt I’m not seeing or hearing you exactly as you are, either.”

Weird. Simeon was probably wearing lederhosen or a Dracula cape and all she was seeing was a dress shirt and black pants. The intricacies of the whole thing were intriguing. “Simeon, can you take me to another memory?”

His eyes, soft until now, frosted over. “This isn’t a game.”

“I know.”

“Then what is it? Tell me what it is.”

The beach started shifting, the sand vibrating underneath Farley until it felt like it might separate around her and swallow her whole. When she looked up, the waves crashing along the shore slowed until they stopped entirely for one stretched out heartbeat, and then they slipped backwards, flowing in reverse. Wave after wave sucked back in on itself, churned foam sliding away and turning to inky black swell, pushing out to sea. Farley’s head started to spin. She turned from the peculiar spectacle to find Simeon holding out his hand towards her. As he did so, grains of sand rose up from the beach, cascading skywards, working their way back between his fingers until his fist clenched around them tight.

“When you figure this out, Farley, when you realize what I’ve realized, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Until then, you
really
have to leave.”

The hotel was a sleek black obelisk thrusting out of the ground. No name lit up against the side of the building like the other hotels in the area, and that in itself said something: it was too select to advertise. If you didn’t know its name, you probably weren’t ever going to find out. Daniel said it was simply called Indigo. He parked the Viper in the underground car park, and before she knew it they were standing in an elevator that looked like it came from the set of Star Trek. The only thing missing was some lens flare and a hissing sweep when the doors closed.

When they made it to the ground floor, Daniel slung her bag onto his back, carrying his own identical duffel in his hand. For the first time Farley felt self-conscious about her scruffy jeans and cotton shirt. All around her, people in business attire and designer clothes moved in and out of the hotel, pausing for the concierge to open the door because, heaven forbid, they should have to open it for themselves. This wasn’t her world. She didn’t care for this world, not one bit.

The polished marble floor of the foyer was slick. Her sneakers squeaked as she followed the self-confident figure that was Daniel as he bee-lined for the receptionist. The noise drew a few mildly displeased glares from people sitting on the leather couches, reading newspapers and working at laptops. They were all equally as polished as the floor.

Daniel dropped the bags with a loud
thump
and smiled briefly at the skinny blond behind the desk. Farley ducked behind the foliage of a Ficus, trying her damnedest to blend in and avoid the hot stares of the LA elite. They were obviously asking themselves the same question she was: what the hell was she doing here?

Daniel didn’t seem fazed by the fact that he was in a five star hotel wearing a faded black t-shirt and worn jeans, or that it looked like they’d slept in their car the night before. Which, technically,
she
had. Or at least she had some of the night. Mostly, she’d rolled around on the passenger seat, unable to get comfortable while attempting to work out Simeon’s riddle. Daniel had just driven. He slipped his hand into his back pocket, procuring his wallet, from which he drew a plain black card with silver embossing on the front. It made a snapping noise when he placed it on the desk.

“I’m checking in. I’ll be using my rooms.”

The blond didn’t even look up, just palmed the card and keyed some information into the computer. She stared at the screen for a moment then blinked at him. “Very good, Mr. Montisauri. Welcome back. I’ll have them opened up immediately. You can leave your bags and a porter will bring them up. Would you like to wait, or would you like a contact call when everything is arranged as per your requirements?”

“The requirements on record are no longer necessary. We’ll just go straight up by ourselves. Thank you.” Daniel took back the card and collected the bags, heading for the elevator. Farley extricated herself from the plant and shadowed him to the door. She couldn’t help but think it: what on earth was he doing with an actual account at a place like this? And what were his ‘special requirements’? There was only one kind of requirement a hotel such as this organized for its guests, and that was the dodgy kind. Usually along the lines of prostitutes and class A drugs.

The elevator
ding
ed and the doors rolled back. Daniel stepped inside and slotted his card into a key reader. He stood there looking at her with a shy smile on his face until the doors began to close and he had to stick his foot out to block them. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you coming?”

“I guess.” She stepped forward and the doors closed behind her, trapping them inside. She barely felt the moment when they began to ascend. Daniel was studying her out of the corner of his eye; he looked like he was trying not to smile.

“You’re thinking that I bring hookers here, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are.”

Farley rocked back on her heels, looking up at the display as it trawled through the floor numbers. They’d reached the twenty-second floor when she said casually, “Well, do you?”

The elevator ground to a halt, and the doors slid open. Daniel paced out, throwing her an amused glance over his shoulder. He raised his eyebrows in an infuriating way that wasn’t an answer at all.

“Ugh!” She stomped out after him and froze before she’d taken five steps. They weren’t in a hallway. They’d exited directly into a suite, and a freaking big one at that. The far side of the room was walled glass from ceiling to floor, and Los Angeles sparked and spat out light like a dysfunctional circuit board beyond. There was a sunken circular leather sofa at the far side of the room, which sat before a ridiculously big flat-screen television. In the center of the room was a full-length pool table with blue felt, the cues resting up against it like a game had been abandoned half finished. Daniel tossed the bags on the sofa and strode back to the entrance, holding his hands out to her.