Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) (28 page)

“Don’t you love me?” He pulled away from me.

My legs landed heavily against the bed.

I panicked, trying desperately to tell him I was right here, that I loved him more than anything. When nothing came, I clawed at my throat, silently screaming at him in my mind. He wasn’t there though. I was alone in my head.

Tears dripped down my face. I mouthed his name, begging him to hear me.

He crawled from the bed, his expression contorted with pain. He stopped at the bedroom door and turned to look at me. “How could you leave me?” he whispered, his voice full of grief and his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I loved you.”

“Dace,” I screamed, but it was too late.

He was already gone.

I cried out, my eyes popping open. Dace’s name echoed in the darkness around me. My heart pounded uncomfortably. My throat felt raw.

“Ari?”

Light flooded the room.

I threw my arm up over my eyes, blinking rapidly against the black spots floating in my field of vision.

“Are you okay?” Chelle asked.

Fuki yipped from somewhere below me.

Reality took shape around me, pushing my dream and confusion away. I groaned aloud. My entire body ached. “Fine,” I mumbled. I took a deep breath, rubbing the palm of my hand into my eyes. They were wet. I’d been crying in my sleep again.

When I pulled my arm away, Chelle stood beside the bed, watching me with concern. “You were crying,” she said, giving me a sympathetic smile.

“I….” I cleared my throat. “Bad dream.”

She nodded and perched on the side of the bed. “You were calling out for Dace.”

I sighed. Of course I was.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I stared up at the ceiling, thinking back over my dream. Remembering the look in Dace’s eyes, and the way my heart felt torn from my chest when he asked why I left. The way it still felt like my heart was ripped apart because I
had
left him. I walked away.

“It was just a dream,” I lied, pushing myself upright in the bed. I slapped auburn tangles out of my face and rubbed my eyes again, wiping away all evidence of my tears.

Fuki put his front paws on the edge of the bed to look up at me. Worry shone in his wolfy eyes.

I reached down and scratched his ears, grateful for his concern. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven in the evening.” Chelle gave me a tired smile. “Ronan wants to leave first thing in the morning.”

“Has he slept yet?”

She shrugged. “He was awake when I got up an hour ago.”

“Probably not then,” I sighed, remembering what he said about me not being the only one fighting nightmares every night.

God, did anyone sleep peacefully anymore?

“He traded his car in.”

“I know.” He told me he planned to do so when he dropped me off. He thought it would be a good diversionary tactic. If Sköll and Hati came looking for us, they wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to find us.

“Fuki will be more comfortable,” Chelle said, smiling over at the little wolf. “He got a Yukon.”

I couldn’t imagine Ronan driving a Yukon. Honestly, the Mustang was a bit of a stretch. He looked like he’d be more comfortable on a Harley, a pack of leather-clad, tattooed bikers riding in double lines behind him.

“Have you guys eaten?” I asked.

“No, we were waiting for you.” Chelle paused a moment. “He’s more talkative tonight.”

I looked over at her.

“It’s weird,” she said, raking her hair back from her face. “He’s never really talked to me about anything before. Now he’s chatty.”

“You never had anything in common before,” I said, trying to be helpful. I understood her confusion. I still didn’t know what to make of Ronan, or why he decided to help me. I’d kind of filed it away in the list of things to sort through later. But his motives were a little easier to figure out where Chelle was concerned. “You both loved Dani, and you both miss her. That’s a starting point.”

Chelle bit her lip, frowning as if in deep thought. And then she sighed. “He’s not as bad as I always thought.”

“He’s not,” I agreed reluctantly. “If it helps any, I’m still working through that one myself.”

She laughed a little, her relief obvious. “I feel bad for never giving him a chance before. He just… I don’t know. He always made me so uncomfortable.”

I could so relate to that one. “He doesn’t like Dace very much. You probably picked up on that. You’re pretty protective of the people you care about.”

“Maybe.” Chelle shrugged, clearly uncomfortable.

She didn’t see herself like that at all. She was a lot like me, forever questioning her own strength and where she fit into all this madness. I hoped she had better luck figuring out where she fit than I did.

“Speaking of Dace, have you talked to him yet?” she asked.

“No.” I shook my head, the guilt from my dream creeping back in to sting at me. He looked so heartbroken. Even now, the accusation in his eyes burned me. God, I missed him. But I still didn’t have any answers for him. “Does that make me a completely awful person?”

“Of course not.” She reached over and touched my hand, giving me an encouraging smile. “You two have been through a lot in a matter of months. It’s not wrong to need space to sort things out for yourself for a little while.”

“It’s not that,” I admitted softly, staring down at Fuki. He had his eyes closed, enjoying my inattentive petting.

“What’s wrong?” Chelle asked when I didn’t continue.

I sat quietly for a minute, trying to put my thoughts in order. Truth was, no matter how much leaving Dace hurt or how guilty I felt about it, I was angry with him. He practically pushed me out the door, and then made no move to stop me. Part of me wished he would have asked me to stay, but the other part knew, even if he had asked, I would have gone anyway. I knew it wasn’t fair to be angry at him for a choice I made for myself… but knowing that didn’t change how I felt.

“Ari?” Chelle prompted, reaching out to touch my shoulder as if to remind me she was still there, waiting for a response.

“We were barely speaking when I decided to leave,” I whispered. “He shut me out, so I ran.”

“I’m sorry,” Chelle said, her voice full of sympathy. “I don’t think he blames you for going though, Ari. We all knew he wasn’t handling any of this well. With you there….”

“Yeah,” I said. “With me there….”

That’s the part that made me angriest. He didn’t even try to see things from my point of view. He decided my life meant more than his, and nothing anyone said or did changed that for him. If Sköll or Hati showed up… if given a choice between me or Chelle and Beth… would he let them die? Let the world die?

The fact I even had to worry about the answer killed me. Love wasn’t supposed to be like that. And I shouldn’t have had to wonder if he’d choose my life over theirs. Dace was stronger than that nightmare vision of him, but with me there… I didn’t think he could see the truth. He didn’t want to see it.

But now that I wasn’t right there, watching him tear himself apart, I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I underestimated him. No matter how angry he became or how much he hurt, he wouldn’t sacrifice everything for me, would he?

I sighed. “I have a lot of thinking to do.”

“Are you going back to him when this is over?” Chelle whispered.

Was I?

“I want to go back, but….” I took a deep breath, dashing tears away. “I don’t know if we can fix this.”

Chelle scrutinized my expression, searching for… something. Worry clouded her dark eyes, making it apparent she didn’t find her answers written on my face. “Please don’t break his heart. I know that’s not what you want. I know you love him. Just,” she sighed, “whatever you decide, don’t forget how much good you’ve done for each other. I know you don’t see it right now, but I do, and maybe it’s not fair to ask you to remember that, but he’s my friend, and I have to ask.”

“I know,” I said quietly, unable to fault her for trying to look out for her friend. She’d known Dace a lot longer than she’d known me. I wouldn’t dream of her taking my side and leaving him high and dry. That’s not who Chelle was, and that’s not the kind of friend Dace deserved. “I’m trying to remember that. I guess I do need to put things in order and figure out what I want and what I need, and I think he needs to do the same.”

I didn’t want to believe we’d lost so much of ourselves through the ages that we weren’t capable of being together in this life. We were meant to make one another stronger, to protect one another. I just needed time to figure out what that meant for us. Time to figure out how to save Dace, and save us.

There was a way, wasn’t there?

Fuki hopped down and curled up on the floor again, his interest in sleep outweighing his desire for more petting.

“Have you talked to Gage or your sister?” I asked, unable to contemplate the question of my future and Dace’s right now.

“Yeah, Gage called a little bit ago.” Chelle rose from the bed, stretching her arms over her head. “And Beth called this morning.” She hesitated in mid-step. “Before we left, I told her and Mandy you wanted to check out the IU campus. I know I was supposed to lie about where we were going, but I couldn’t. Not to them.”

“I don’t think anyone will mind that you told them. Besides, they deserve to know where you are even if they can’t know why.” I eased myself out of bed and winced at the way my muscles protested. I felt more or less back to normal, but it would be a long while before my muscles forgot what they’d endured. Some demented, nightmare version of muscle memory, no doubt.

Chelle groaned and shook her head, locks of her dark hair falling over her face. “Am I doing the right thing not telling them what’s really going on?”

“Honestly?” I asked, scraping my own hair back into a messy ponytail.

She nodded.

“I don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or not. But if it were me, I don’t think I’d want to know.”

Ignorance wasn’t bliss, but it sure beat abject freaking terror. I was well versed in the later and it sucked. Hard. Chelle wanted her sister and Mandy to move on without dealing with the same nightmare circumstance forced on the rest of us. Maybe that wasn’t her decision to make, but who the hell was I to judge her for making it?

“Thanks,” she said, shooting me a grateful smile.

“That’s disgusting,” Ronan said an hour later, glaring across the table at me.

“What?” I looked down at my plate, a forkful of eggs dangling before my face. Everything looked fine to me.

“The yolks are running and you put ketchup on them.” He curled his lip as if I were eating monkey brains instead of eggs and hash browns from the little diner down the road.

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t put ketchup on my eggs. I put it on my hash browns.”

“Which you then mixed with your eggs,” he said.

“Says the guy eating mayo on a chili dog.” I arched a brow, looking pointedly at the massive hot dog laying half eaten in the Styrofoam container in front of him. “
That’s
disgusting.” I put my fork in my mouth and moaned.

Who knew Ronan was so picky? Or that torturing him could be so much fun?

He rolled his eyes at my display and looked away.

“I agree with Ari,” Chelle piped up, looking at his plate, her expression full of doubt. “That looks horrible.”

He snorted, giving her a disgruntled look before cutting into his hot-dog concoction again.

I snickered to myself.

Despite knowing Ronan didn’t like Dace and wanted to kill me once upon a time, the more time I spent around him, the harder I found disliking him. He was actually pretty cool underneath all those blank stares and emotionless monotones.

I doubted he’d start cracking jokes anytime soon, but I could live with that.

“Have you ever been to Indiana?” Chelle asked us, tossing a piece of sausage on the floor for Fuki.

He sniffed the morsel suspiciously and then devoured it in one bite, his tail swishing back and forth. He looked up at Chelle with a hopeful expression. She tossed him another piece, her smile indulgent. She’d already fed him all of her bacon, and the three chicken breasts we got for him.

Clearly, she was his new best friend.

“Nope.”

“No,” Ronan said, taking a long swallow from his beer bottle.

I eyed the bottle sideways, but didn’t comment. He was old enough to drink a beer with dinner if he wanted. Though what he found appealing, I couldn’t begin to guess. Beer tasted awful.

The doorbell rang.

Fuki jumped and then spun around and growled.

Ronan and Chelle both looked at me.

“It’s probably a neighbor,” I muttered and wiped my mouth before climbing to my feet. No one had come knocking since we got here, but I expected a visit sooner or later. I made my way toward the front door, my stomach fluttering. I wasn’t nervous, not exactly. It was more… wariness. I didn’t want to lie to the people I grew up around, and I knew I would have to stretch the truth as far as it would go if anyone asked about my life in Beebe.

The doorbell rang again, the chime echoing through the empty house in a demanding hum.

“Coming,” I shouted.

I unfastened the deadbolt, but didn’t slide the chain back. “Can I help you?” I asked, frowning through the crack in the door at the young guy in a polo shirt and jeans on the other side. He was my age, maybe a year or two younger. I didn’t know him.