Falling From Eternity (A Paranormal Love Story) (8 page)

I backed away hoping to be concealed
in the group, but Maryann spotted me immediately. “Will!” I winced
at the sound of my name and stopped mid-step. “I’d like to talk to
you.”

“
What do you want to talk
about?” I asked, crossing my fingers behind my back, hoping that
she wasn’t onto the fact that I’d been avoiding her special
guest.

“
Actually…” she stared out
the glass at the girl sitting in the freezing cold. “I want you to
keep an eye on her for me.”

“
Why?” I asked with alarm.
It blurted out of me before I had a chance to think.

“
Because you’re the only
one who hasn’t pestered me about her story, and you’re the only one
who isn’t throwing money into a pool like she’s some prize race
horse to bet on. That’s why!” Her brows furrowed at me, as her eyes
glared with clear frustration.

“
Maryann, I’m only going
to be here for a few more days. Why don’t you have Dawn or Lisa
look after her?”

“
Because I asked
you
, and I don’t care
how many more days you’re working here. Until those days are up
you’re still an employee.” At that, she stormed off with a huff of
annoyance, leaving me standing there completely
speechless.

I turned back to the window, and
stared blankly at this mysterious girl. What was I supposed to do?
I didn’t want to look after her. I had been successfully avoiding
her, and hadn’t had a single speck of anger since the first night
I’d seen her. What if I lost my control the second I made eye
contact with her? I continued my internal debate as I watched her
for what felt like hours. My eyes focused on the skin of her arms;
that, though covered in goose bumps, didn’t shiver in the
slightest. I watched as her hair caught slivers of sunlight that
broke through the cloudy sky, making it look like spun
gold.

Fine. Maryann wanted me to keep an eye
on her, but that didn’t mean I had to talk to her. I could watch
over her from a distance. I would watch her wrap herself in my dead
friend’s blanket, watch her laze around like she didn’t have a care
in the world, and watch her live in the room and use the things
that didn’t belong to her! I clenched my fists in my pockets, and
closed my eyes as I counted backward from ten. My anger slowly
dissipated.

Snow began to fall in delicate
flurries, and the girl simply tilted her head, looking up toward
the heavens. She raised her arms out of the blanket reaching out to
touch the flakes as they fell. I watched as they landed on her
ivory skin, melting almost instantly and then traveling across her
flesh like a raindrop. What was it about this girl that made me so
incredibly heated, yet so completely fascinated?

As much as I wanted to leave her out
there, and hope that she would freeze into an icy statue, I
couldn’t. I rounded the corner and opened the doors to the patio,
but stopped just short of crossing over the threshold. Could I
really do this? Could I control my anger and get this girl inside
without killing her? I’d managed not to go completely fang crazy
yet, so maybe that was a sign? Maybe I had finally overcome my
grief from losing Hazel?

I stepped out, the snow spiraling
around the patio in white gusts as the wind whipped the snowflakes
in every direction. The girl was sitting motionless, her legs
pulled up against her chest and her head resting on her knees as
she just stared off into the distant forest of trees. My eyes
focused on hers as her lashes batted closed and open again, but
never flicking over to my direction. Had she even noticed me come
outside?

I was a mere ten feet from
her when the most beautiful sound I ever heard stopped me dead in
my tracks. “I was wondering when I’d see you again,” she said in a
soft voice that was filled with sadness. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
She turned her face toward me.
Those
eyes
. I’d never seen eyes like hers
before. They were impossibly green and large amongst her other
petite features. Her cheeks and nose were as pink as a rose, and
her thin lips were pursed together as she waited for my answer. But
I couldn’t speak. My mouth had gone completely dry, and all I could
do was stare at her.

Her fingers wrapped around her hair,
pulling it over her shoulder and clinging to it like it comforted
her. “You’re looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost.” For the first
time she took her eyes off mine, and focused on twirling her curls
in her fingers.

I stepped forward and swallowed hard.
“Sorry,” I said, still staring at her, hoping she’d look at me
again. I wanted to see her eyes. Those eyes that seemed so pure,
like all the good in the world I had ever hoped to find lay within
them. “I just thought you should come inside…” I took another step
closer and offered my hand, “Before you catch a cold.”

A small laugh escaped her, and her
gaze tilted back up to mine. There was such innocence in her
expression, yet behind her emerald eyes I could see a sorrow that
she was fighting to hide. “What’s your name?” she asked, showing no
sign that she intended to go inside anytime soon.

“
William,” I answered,
fidgeting in place. Despite her beauty, or maybe be because of it,
I was completely uncomfortable in her presence. As much as a demon
would be in the presence of an angel.

“
I’m Autumn,” she said,
offering her hand in greeting but I didn’t take it. I wanted to,
but I didn’t trust myself to touch her. I didn’t know what I’d do.
She looked a little disappointed at my rebuff, but hid it hastily.
“So…” she turned her eyes back toward the tree line, still twirling
her hair in her fingers.

“
So, why are you here?” I
crossed my arms across my chest, and clenched my teeth. “Why are
you in Hazel’s room?” My mouth pulled the words from my mind of
their own accord.

“
Oh.” The corner of her
lip pulled up ever so slightly, but fell back down just as
fleetingly. “Maryann told me you and Hazel were
friends.”

My irritation rose at her tone, like
she knew some secret I didn’t. Just because she was pretty didn’t
mean I’d think it was okay what she was doing. She couldn’t charm
me into being her friend. “You didn’t answer my
question.”

“
Hazel is my grandmother,”
she answered softly.

I took another step forward a growl
rumbling in my chest. So she was a con-artist. A beautiful, little,
con-artist. “Hazel didn’t have any family,” my tone was
challenging.

“
No…she didn’t, but she
was the closest thing to a grandmother that I’ve ever had,” she
admitted, wrapping herself tighter in the quilt.

“
Is that so?” The muscles
in my jaw began to flex as I clenched them together. “What did you
hope to find by coming here? Hoping you could play the part of the
grieving granddaughter so you could look for anything of value?”
the venom in my voice made her lip quiver as my words hit
her.

“
Why would you say
something like that?” Her eyes began to glisten as tears grew
strength within her; ready to pour as freely as a waterfall. “You
think I’m here to steal from her? Seriously?” she sounded offended,
but I didn’t buy it.

Her little act didn’t work on me, and
I stood firm.

“
It’s true, isn’t it? You
might have Maryann fooled but not me. I’ve met people like you
before.” I snarled at her, disgusted that someone so beautiful on
the outside was so ugly on the inside.

“
No, it
isn’t
true.” She flung
her feet to the ground, dropping the quilt to the floor as she
marched forward to meet me face to face. “I cared about her, and
she cared about me. She was the only one…” she sputtered as her
emotions exploded within her. Tears streamed down her pink cheeks,
but she didn’t wipe them away. “She was the
only
one who cared about me, and now
she’s gone,” her words came out as a whisper. Her eyes burned
brighter, boring into mine, yet looking somewhere far
beyond.

“
If she was so important
to you then why didn’t you go to her service?” I knew I’d found the
hole in her story. I’d seen everyone that day, and
she
wasn’t one of
them.

“
I
was
there,” she growled at me,
frowning in a way that contradicted her angelic features. “And so
were you!” Without another word she stormed past me, bumping
harshly into my shoulder as she passed by. The door slammed in her
wake and I was left standing out in the cold, completely
stunned.

I didn’t see Autumn the rest of the
day. She locked herself in her room, only letting Maryann enter.
Had she really been telling the truth? Even if she was, that didn’t
explain what she was doing here. Did she come to stay here because
she missed her so much? And if she really was as close to Hazel as
she said, then why had I never heard of her before?

My shift ended early when
Maryann asked me to pick up the night shift for Lisa who had called
in sick. I was more than happy for a reason to leave, and
practically flew out the front doors. I needed to escape; to get
away from
her.
My
every thought was consumed by her, and that only maddened me. Why
did I care so much? So she was staying in the same room, using my
dear friend’s things…it’s not like Hazel needed them
anymore.

I’d somehow managed to
drive home without any recollection of the entire drive. I sat idly
in my SUV staring at my hands as they gripped the steering wheel.
Maybe something was wrong with me. Perhaps Ming
had
really given me live blood and
it was messing with me, disrupting my balance, causing the monster
inside to slowly claw its way back in. There was an enormous
difference between sterile blood drained from a donor using needles
and tubes; and blood cut straight from a live victim like they were
a pig being slaughtered. I wouldn’t be able to taste the
difference, but I was almost certain I was starting to feel
it.

I strode inside and fell onto my
couch, balancing my elbows on my knees as I rubbed my temples. Her
eyes were burned into my memory. I would have remembered them if I
had seen them before. If she had been at the funeral, I would
definitely have remembered her. A face like hers couldn’t be
forgotten.

I played the scenes of that day
through my mind like a movie. I could remember every detail down to
the smell of the freshly dug earth mixing with the sweet aroma of
flowers. I was about to give up, when it suddenly hit me. The one
face I ignored because it was covered in a lacy, dark veil. I’d
ignored her before, but I replayed the brief moment in my memory of
when I’d first observed the small crowd as I exited my
car.

My feet were crunching against the
snow, and I walked with my head low; my hands buried in my pockets
until I reached the curb to take my first step off the pathway and
truly enter the cemetery. None of the mourners turned in my
direction except one. A woman sitting in the back row, slightly
shadowed by a husky man standing beside her, stared at me. I tried
to freeze that moment in time in my mind, zeroing in on her face.
All I could make out was the tiniest glimmer of emerald before
disappearing as she turned away.

I gasped, falling away from the memory
and back into reality. Had that really been Autumn? Had she really
been there? If she was telling the truth then…then I guessed I owed
her an apology.

With the realization that Autumn might
very well be telling the truth, another emotion hit me that I
wasn’t expecting. The lingering anger that I had felt for days was
replaced with fascination. I wanted to know everything there was to
know about her. I wanted to know what it felt like to touch her
hair, and to have her look at me the way she had when she thought
of her feelings for Hazel. I wanted her to feel that way about me.
To care for me. But…was that even possible, considering what I
was?

~

6

Don’t Go

Ten o’clock couldn’t come quickly
enough. For the first time in ages, I was eager to return to work.
I was almost giddy, and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt
like this. Had her beauty awoken something inside me that I thought
had died long ago?

I parked in Dr. Conner’s spot knowing
he wouldn’t be using it until late the next day. I just wanted to
get inside that much quicker, and apologize and…just see her. I had
been an asshole. I should have been more welcoming to someone who
was so close to the one person I had admired so dearly. Hazel had
been a friend; and a mentor, and I had nothing but anger to show
toward the first person I’d ever met who considered her
family.

The hallways were as quiet as they
were on New Year’s Eve. I pushed my way through the door of the
employee break room and nodded my greeting to the nurses who were
on break. Their attention was fixated on some late night talk show,
as I shrugged off my jacket. I hung it on the hook inside the
locker and pushed off my snow boots before slipping on my Adidas.
The show host, Jay Leno to be exact, was talking with some ditsy
celebrity about their resolutions for the new year, which I guessed
she would probably never accomplish.

“
You really leaving us,
Willy?” one of the younger nurses, Amy, who was at the end of her
internship, asked me, pushing her bottom lip out in a pouty face as
she walked toward me.