Ever Bound (10 page)

“Say it.” Annabeth clutched her nightgown in a fist and approached me.

“I can explain if you’ll give me the chance.” I reached for her.

“Yes or no?” Trembling, she stepped away.

“It’s true,” I muttered, defeated. I closed my eyes, waiting for the explosion.

When her hand connected with my face, the sting dug into my soul like a million wasps had landed on me at once.

I opened my eyes in time to see her turn to Grace. Before I could grab her arms, Annabeth’s fist connected with Grace’s cheek.

Grace landed flat on her back and reached up to cover her jaw. For a second, she was addled, but a smile spread over her face. She giggled maliciously.

“You defile everything you touch. You should have never been born.” Annabeth’s spit landed in her sister’s face. She picked up the center of her nightgown, found the most level path up the embankment, and disappeared into the night.

Grace wiped her face and looked over at me with the devil’s grin exposed. “Well, here we are. It’s just us, again.”

“I never thought I could hate someone, but you’re right. Here we are.”

Grace’s smile fell away. She jerked up my lantern and followed Annabeth up the embankment.

Grace wasn’t the only person I hated. The night sounds kept me company while I basked in my own self-loathing. I flopped back on the grass. The starry night went on forever until a thick fog loomed over the land and covered my view. Great. Everything beautiful about the Rollins Plantation was somehow blemished when Grace was near.

Wait.

The thickness wasn’t right. I coughed and jumped to a sprint up the hill.

At the barn, blue flames had exploded across the floor, down the steps, and found the hay behind Grace. The unprejudiced blaze licked around her. She screamed for me.

I couldn’t move. Murderous thoughts filled me and for a second, leaving her there was a great idea. I wanted her to burn in hell.

“Colby, please! Help me!” she cried.

I ran through the flames and scooped her into my arms. No matter how much I hated her, I wouldn’t let a human die.

I delivered her to safety and turned back to the barn. Horses’ whinnies and rafters creaking under already overwhelming flames sent my heart into an erratic beat. The flames had already engulfed the loft. With oxygen under them from the first level of the barn, they would spread faster.

Can’t save the barn.

Save the animals.

I turned back to Grace who was now on her feet with a panicked look on her face. “Can you help me with the horses?”

She nodded and followed me back into the smoky stalls where burned hay and horse excrement stifled me.

Covering my face with my shirt, I kept moving. The dense smoke burned my eyes so bad tears streamed my face.

We took the horses out of the barn and let them loose in the backyard as I yelled for help. Wood creaked above me. The heat over my head was hot enough to burn the hair off my scalp. A loud creak came from the side of the barn where the fire started, and the first rafter fell. In seconds, a whole section of the loft on the backside of the barn fell to the ground. Under the heat, the roof crackled and groaned.

I took the last horse to safety and turned to look for Grace.

She was nowhere in sight.

Inside the burning barn, I screamed, “Grace! Grace! Where are you?”

Nothing.

Under part of the loft that had fallen, Grace was unconscious.

I grabbed her limp body and dragged her toward safety.

Through the smoke and over Grace’s unconscious body, I could see Mama and Pop running from the cottage toward the north opening of the barn.

Grace and I headed out the south end. Flames rolled on the ceiling above that exit, but it was more accessible than the north end. Rafters had just fallen, blocking the whole door in front of Mama and Pop’s faces. They disappeared.

Just as I cleared the barn door, the rest of the loft fell.

“Colby!” My mother and father screamed in unison as they rounded the corner of the barn where Grace and I had just made it out.

I put Grace on the ground and wiped her hair away from her face.

Black smudges of soot dusted her cheeks. No burns.

Around the back of the barn, people rushed us from all sides. Some with buckets in their hands and some with blankets.

Annabeth’s face was the only one that stood out. She saw me with Grace in my arms. Hate blazed hotter than the fire in her eyes.

“What the hell happened, Colby?” Mr. Rollins yelled at me as he rushed toward us.

I wanted to say, your daughter started a fire is what happened, but I kept quiet.

Through the smoke, it was impossible to make out the sooty faces.

Mrs. Rollins took Grace from my arms. She rocked her daughter in her arms as tears fell over Grace’s soot smudged cheeks.

Mr. Rollins worked with the other people surrounding the barn to get the flames out.

My mother came to my side. She fell to her knees beside me using a wet cloth to wipe Grace’s face.

“Mama.” Grace opened her eyes.

“Thank God!” Mrs. Rollins and my mother said at the same time.

Mr. Rollins stood and started away. At first, I thought he spoke to me, but his eyes were on his daughter. “The both of you could have been killed!”

“You came home drunk again, Daddy. So I came to the barn to get away for a few minutes, to collect my thoughts. Colby must have seen the light and wondered who was messing in the barn at such a late hour. He startled me, and I dropped the lantern. I don’t remember much from there,” Grace said.

Mr. Rollins cowered at Grace’s words. “Well, it’s no matter. What’s done is done. You’re safe. Colby’s safe.”

I shook my head. How could they believe her after all she’d done? She could have told them the barn had burst into flames by itself and they would have taken it as gospel.

Grace looked at her mother and gripped her arms. “All I remember is helping Colby save the horses, then pain I can’t describe in my left shoulder. How did I get out here?”

“Colby saved you,” Annabeth said from behind me.

Grace gave Annabeth a weak, innocent smile. “Since he cared enough about me to save my life, I’ll dedicate the rest of mine trying to find ways to repay him.”

The heat from the flames couldn’t warm the chill in my blood. I got up from my knees. “You’ve done quite enough already.”

Mrs. Rollins stared at the three of us and her gaze finally stayed on me. “Are you okay, Colby?”

“I’m fine.” I looked past Annabeth, Mr. Rollins, and my parents to the fire in the barn. This is what my life would be until I was rid of Grace. Hell.

Grace tried to stand.

“You shouldn’t move in case something’s broken.” Mrs. Rollins stood with Grace as she turned to Annabeth.

Annabeth didn’t give her time to torture her more. She disappeared into the black smoke covering the rear grounds of the property.

As the men and women added water to the flames, sooty steam thickened the smoke, making it difficult to see more than five feet in front of me. I coughed as I stared into foggy nothingness where Annabeth had disappeared.

Mr. Rollins told Grace, “The barn can be rebuilt, but it would have been a tragedy to lose you in the flames. You must be more careful.”

The fatherly emotion that should have been there was vacant in his voice. It was sad that he couldn’t love his daughter. I wouldn’t let Grace bury me in a dark state the way she had him.

Through the smoke and people running with buckets, I went to the patio toward the rear entrance of Rollins Manor.

Annabeth stood at the wall near the doors. She collapsed against them, tears streaking her soot-covered face.

Reaching out, I touched her shoulder.

She flinched and shoved my hand away. “Don’t.”

Losing her smothered me more than the smoke could ever have. “Please. Hear me out?”

“More lies? I don’t think so.” Her voice broke with tears.

“I was another of her victims. The day you asked me, I couldn’t bring myself to say that she’d taken advantage of me. It was bad. You don’t understand. There’s something wrong with her. Something worse than insanity. I wouldn’t have allowed her in my life at all if I ever thought you and I would have had a chance. I love—”

Annabeth spun around. “If you say it, I’ll spit in your face too. I don’t ever want to see you again, hear your voice, or hear your name. I’m going to forget you exist. I can’t be with someone who’s been with her. I’ll only ever be able to picture all the lives she ruined when I look at you.”

“You don’t mean that.” My voice broke, partly from the smoke inhalation and partly because her words knocked the rest of the breath from my lungs.

“You’re right. You’re no better than Drew Cobb. You didn’t even love her, yet you—” She clipped her sentence and turned to go into the house.

My words caught her before she could make it to the door. “I do love you. Without you, I’m only half a person.”

She slammed the door behind her.

“Did I just hear correctly?” Mrs. Rollins said from behind me.

I wiped my face with my hand and sighed. I turned to face her. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her brown eyes were wiser versions of her daughter’s. She shook her head. As if it had all come together, she nodded. “And Grace is in love with you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I believe so.”

“This is a mess.” She lifted her skirts enough to make the stairs.

“Could you please not tell Mr. Rollins? He’ll kill me.” I held onto the railing for support. My knees turned to mush.

Mrs. Rollins turned to me and set her jaw. “I see no reason that it’s any of his business. We’ll talk tomorrow. Right now, I have to take care of my heart broken daughter.”

Odd. She seemed more concerned with the one affected by me than the one affected by the flames of a burning barn.

There was no reason to add to the night’s drama by telling her that I thought her older daughter was possessed or a witch or something I couldn’t explain. I’d seek her out later and tell her everything. For now, I just needed rest.

My mother stood like a statue watching the scene near the back landing of the house.

My father stood beside her with his arm around her shoulder.

The barn was almost in ruins, and there was nothing more any of them could do but watch what was left of it smolder as the water created curling, smoky ghosts in the air.

I passed them without a word.

“Son, we need to talk. Colby? Colby! Don’t walk away from me when I address you,” Pop said.

Passing Grace and Mr. Rollins, who stood staring at the glossy black, sizzling embers, I continued to the cottage. The side closest to the barn had been watered down, so no flying embers could spark a flame.

I went to my room and shut away the chaos outside the door.

The front door opened and heavy footfalls through the cottage mirrored my heartbeat. My father’s voice was accusing as he stepped into my room, filling the doorway. “So you went to check on the light you saw in the barn and startled Grace? Is that the way of it?”

“That’s not the way of it, Pop, but I wasn’t responsible for the fire. I think that…” I hated to accuse, but I could think of no other explanation.

“You think what, Son?” He towered over the bed.

“Grace is in love with me. And she’ll stop at nothing to have me. Even killing chickens, burning a barn, and other atrocities I can’t begin to tell you about.” I put my forehead in my hand. “I promise I tried to free myself from her, but I don’t know what to do anymore.”

He shook his head and looked out the window at the orange flames licking the sky. “I’m old, but I’m not blind. You have eyes for the younger one.”

“It’s a little more serious than that.”

“You love her?” he said.

“I do. I know I shouldn’t, and I know I should be focusing on work and school.”

Pop’s weight shifted the bed. As we sat together, I felt the closest to him I ever had.

“Seems we can’t get away from this curse. I ran from it and now it’s found you.” He sounded different. He’d dropped the slang he normally used, and his shoulders seemed more squared. “Mr. Rollins is under the impression that we’re here out of need, and in ways we are, but I chose this life. I forfeited a large amount of wealth and comfort to be with your mother. To this day, she doesn’t understand how very little those things mean to me. Many of our few quarrels have been over what I left behind but not because she wants me to provide her with more but because of the hard work that followed upon leaving my father’s prosperity behind. I try to assure her that I would rather have her and work myself to the bone for the rest of my days than meaningless paper. That’s all money is to me.”

“What exactly was wrong with the other woman that made you so against marrying her?” I said.

“She confessed to me one day while we were talking that she didn’t believe in God the way Christians do. Eliza believed the earth was its own energy source, and that we were all different forms of energy that are recycled with each life. She had this crazy notion that she could conjure up dark forces that could take a soul and put it into another human body after the first body died. Essentially, she claimed to be able to make a person come back in a different body in a future life.” My father chuckled openly. “That was just one of her claims. So, needless to say, your God-fearing mother was a breath of fresh air.”

“Didn’t they have witch trials for people like her?”

“She would have been tried convicted and hung twice or three times to ensure they’d killed her, but that was a few hundred years ago. The sixteen hundreds I do believe,” Pop said with a mischievous grin.

I never knew he was educated.

“Don’t be sorry for how you feel, Son. The people in that big house are no better than you. And don’t let that spoiled rotten little winch ruin you. I’ve seen the likes of her before, and they don’t stop until they get what they want. You’re just going to have to beat her at her own game. Don’t run like I did.”

With my eyes trained on Pop, admiration welled in my chest.

He’d never spoken so openly to me.

I couldn’t believe my mother and I were so much alike. We’d fallen in love with someone who appeared out of reach. And if Annabeth had anywhere near the endurance Pop demonstrated, then I knew she would beat Grace, and that we could be together one day.