Forgotten (13 page)

“
Your knight in shining
armor?”

A headache began to set in, which I
couldn’t mark up to Jace being around. Unless he was hiding
somewhere in the building, but I would’ve seen his brilliant white
silhouette, wouldn’t I? Perhaps it was just men in general that
made my brain hurt. Gritting my teeth, I rubbed my
temples.

“
Jace said you’re pulling
this amnesia act, but he wasn’t kidding about your tolerance. It’s
a little better than non-existent. Even after a couple months of
following you around like a lost pup, you
still
wouldn’t be able to handle more
than one of us right now.”

Excuse me?
A couple months? It’d only been a couple
weeks
since Bree drug me
to the bowling alley.

“
Especially not Analee,
she’d never make it easy for you,” he grunted and slipped the book
on the third shelf, closest to the end. He kept his finger on the
book, tapping it lightly before tucking his arms across his chest.
“Well, at least we know he wasn’t jerking us around saying that
your tolerance wasn’t up to par. And here I was thinking he just
wanted more time to bait you.”

“
Bait me?”

“
To become an Addict,” he
said like it made perfect sense. “Not really his style, but time
changes people, ya know?”

Dismissing the thought about Jace
trying to make me an addict, I tried to place this man’s scent. I’d
smelled it once, long ago. I was about to ask him when images of
the future stole my attention.

The sun shined through a
charred knot hole, no bigger than my slender finger. It was the
only light in the enclosed, narrow box holding me captive. My hands
were smooth and polished, not gnarled or wrinkled; I had years of
life ahead of me so why was I buried alive in a coffin? Sweat
formed beads on my brow. They dripped down my face. A pungent
stench choked my lungs as the heat rose inside my
coffin.

Death and decay grew
stronger as a set of shuffling feet skimmed the top of the wood. A
spicy aroma, his fragrance, intertwined with the rot, took over my
senses. I heard two feminine screams. One echoed in my mind while
the other cursed out loud. I peered out the tiny hole and caught a
glimpse of my captor in her white dress – the girl who looked like
a fallen angel. Her unforgettable golden-colored eyes flickered
black, as she smiled down at me. Her beautiful voice beckoned,
enticing me out of my personal cell if I’d only swear to bow down
to her.

“
You’ll regret this,
Chronicler. This is positively unnecessary. You’ll give me my wish
if I have to kill you for it to be granted, and you know I will.”
she said and brushed back her silky blond hair.

“
My death is insignificant
compared to what you’re asking.” My voice as innocent as
hers.

A massive man with deep
red hair appeared behind her, when nothing but empty space was
there a second before. He kissed her lightly-tanned cheek before
paying any attention to me. His green eyes deepened in color until
they were just as black as the woman’s eyes. While his eyes shifted
colors, his rotting stench grew stronger. He smelled like
death.

“
If you don’t, I’ll kill
your sisters,” she said. “Or do you so easily forget their humanity
grows when you are separated? You’re not just putting your life on
the line. You’ll sacrifice your sisters as well by denying my
request.”

“
Only when I can’t hear
their screams will they be far enough away to die a human’s death,”
I said. “It’ll take days to accomplish.”

She laughed. “Oh, but you
haven’t met my latest consort, Chronicler. Show her your
talent.”

The massive man
disappeared from behind her. A moment later, the girls’ screams
were silent. Frantically, I searched out my peep hole to look for
them when his face instantly appeared. His blackened eyes sent
chills down my spine. His head jerked slightly as his smirk
grew.

“
Reaper,” I stated. “We’ve
met.”

“
Your Healer will never
get here in time. I’ll kill them before he can get here to save you
all. If you don’t give the Master what she wants, I’ll see to it
that your Scavengers will die with you.”

“
She only pays attention
to you because you have something she wants right now,
Reaper.”

“
Lies,” he said and spat
in my face. The putrid acid burned my face. I wanted to cry out but
refused to give them the satisfaction. “Do it now, or you’ll bathe
in their blood.”

“
Remember what happened
last time you played with fate?” I called out to the fallen angel.
“My sisters and I foresee humanity’s fate as well as deities’. The
string of our life is tied to theirs, thus, when they started to
age, so will the Fates. When my sisters and I parted ways, our
bodies aged. Together we became immortal again and stopped aging.
But it had a nasty little side-effect to the rest of the deities,
didn’t it? It made immortals killable, even if you didn’t start to
age like my sisters and I.”

“
Your point?” she asked,
trying to sound bored.

“
My point is, when the
hunters found out they could live longer, and grow young, if they
killed a deity, it made you not only killable, but your wish gave
our half-breed offspring a reason to hunt us down,” I
said.

“
The past is the past.
There’s nothing I can do to change it. Break the bond completely
with the humans or break the bond with the Scavengers,” she
demanded. “It’s up to you.”

“
You seek humanity’s
chaos, destruction, and fatality if that bond is broken. Without
purpose they will become no better than animals.”

“
Your choice, Chronicler,”
she hissed. “Humans or Scavengers.”

I chose. A tear trickled
down my cheek. She laughed; to weep was a sign of weakness while I
saw it as a beautiful truth… no matter how agonizing. A moment
later, my soul unraveled. While I beat against the burnt wood, the
essence composing my very being separated itself. The coffin’s top
popped off. I rolled out of the wooden box and onto the ground. I
scratched at the soil, needing to apologize for not being strong. A
white, transparent hand, scratched at the earth below me, as if it
was furiously trying to come to my aid. I gripped his hand, wishing
for the strength to hold onto her soul. She embodied the other part
of my soul. She gripped my soft hands in her hard, calloused ones.
There wasn’t enough time – I felt myself tearing in half. The two
parts of my soul, the creation of life and death, which were never
meant to divide, did. Images of hundreds of mouthless corpses were
torn from my heart; they no longer answered to me in a matter of
seconds. My Scavengers, howled out with hopelessness.

Not a squeal left my mouth
as the dirt engulfed her, locking it away from me. My torn soul
silenced me. Tears bled from my eyes as I gave the Master my
Scavengers – the world’s unspeakable past, or death as humans
perceived it. Analee’s muffled laugh ripped through my damaged soul
when I felt them bow to her.

Tears formed in my eyes when the
vision flickered away. Swallowing hard, I willed myself to forget
the misery that frayed my soul. My body trembled. My eyes stung
like I’d spent years mourning this loss even though I’d not yet
lived this moment. I wanted to cry until I realized I was in the
library – standing in front of a stranger.

I suppressed my tears and promised to
give myself time to grieve in private. Forcing myself back into the
conversation with Jace’s friend, I took a deep breath. That’s when
I recalled his scent – it was from the vision. I studied his
general shape and size. Considering his unforgettable scent and
nervous twitch, he had to be the man in my vision – a mammoth of a
man, dark green eyes, and deep red hair.

“
What did you say your name
was?”

“
Didn’t,” he answered, and
leaned against the bookshelf he just slipped the book into. “Name’s
Marco, sweetness, but you can call me whatever you
want.”

Wiping the sweat glazing my forehead,
I leaned against the bookshelf. Its rough surface felt entirely too
similar to the scalded coffin I couldn’t forget and the hand of the
corpse I never wanted to let go of. Standing upright, I bit into my
tongue, forcing myself to think clearly.

“
Do your green eyes always
bleed black?” I asked.

He advanced soundlessly toward me. “I
Muted myself for you, missy.”

The simple, impractical answer
confirmed my suspicion that Marco was the man I’d just seen in my
vision. His scent became more pronounced when he came closer.
Marco’s voice calmed me in a similar manner that Jace’s had, but I
didn’t understand a word. When I did not react, his shadow
lightened. It was in perfect coloration to the pounding headache.
It wasn’t nearly as excruciating as what Jace put me through last
week but still wasn’t pleasant. He stopped a few feet from me. His
light shadow became dark once more. My head stopped throbbing
immediately.

“
I just wanted to make sure
Jace’s opinion of your tolerance threshold matched mine,” Marco
muttered like it explained his change in appearance. “It’s not my
place to build you up. Leave that up to the Healer. With my dumb
luck, I’d give you a stroke or an equally fatal injury. You chalk
that up to another human Analee can add to her collection of
death.”

“
What are you
people?”

“
You really don’t know, do
you? Or you’re playing dumb, but it’s not my duty to test that
theory either,” he said, having a conversation with
himself.

I closed my eyes to test another
theory. He didn’t have a smoky haze like Jace, but a silver outline
wavered in his place. Instead of reflecting light, the silver
seemed to absorb light. No wonder I had trouble seeing him from a
distance with my eyes closed. Ironic that a giant like Marco would
be nearly invisible.

“
You don’t look like
Jace.”

“
You don’t look like the
Chronicler I remember either, but here you are and here I am, both
not looking like we should.”

“
How many of you people are
there?” I said, wondering if Jace and Marco were the ones spying on
me from my yard.

“
Enough.”

“
Can you answer one
question without me wanting to bang my head against the
wall?”

“
Probably not.”

That Jace was friends with
someone like Marco, who could respond to a question without
actually answering it, wasn’t difficult to believe. They
had
to be longtime
friends to have developed the exasperating knack.

“
Who’s Analee?” I hissed,
startling myself at the vindictive manner in which I uttered her
name.

“
I knew you were playing
with me! You do remember her.”

“
Answer the
question.”

“
Oh, that’s right. We’re
playing this game where you pretend not to know who and what I am.
Are you trying to make me slip and order that the dirt crawlers
drag me to Hades?”

“
Remembering people I’ve
never met is not one of my abilities,” I said, annoyed for merely
playing this ridiculous game.

“
So you admit you have
them, abilities that is?” Marco asked.

“
Who’s Analee,” I repeated,
failing to control the anger in my voice.

“
A person you don’t want on
your bad side. The Chronicler thrived making her life miserable.
Analee is running the search and rescue for the three sisters,
which screams ironic. Oh, and my ex,” he added as an afterthought –
like I’d care.

“
Whoever you are, you’re
completely nuts.”

“
Not denying that, sugar,
but you’ve got Jace convinced you’re the one we need. And if anyone
truly understood you or what happened, it was him.”

Stepping around the shelf, I turned my
back to him and walked away. If he was here to hurt me, this was
his chance. No one was around; it was quiet as a crypt. He and Jace
were engrossed with me for whatever reason but apparently not
enough to kidnap me, not yet.

“
You weren’t always a
runaway,” Marco called out as the library door slammed shut. “You
didn’t always walk away from those who needed you.”

The moment the fall breeze hit my
face, I dug out my cell and turned it off. My suspicions were
probably getting the best of me. Jace and his friend were gunning
for me, for whatever reason, so I couldn’t be more careful. If my
phone was bugged, I refused to turn it on.. If that mattered for
tracers, I wasn’t sure.

Unfolding Stella, I walked aimlessly
around the neighborhood. My visions had officially reached an
unreliable state. That I could feel my soul rip apart was not
possible, much less think I was a creator and a death bringer.
Nothing made any sense. Whatever the future held, it scared the
living daylights out of me. Needing to turn my mind off, I
continued my course for KnockOuts.

“
Hector had an emergency
and couldn’t make it, Winnie,” Charlie said when I pushed through
the glass doors.

“
Explains why he wasn’t at
the library.”

Changing in the deserted girls’ locker
room, I felt more in sync with my life. This is what normal girls
my age did in their free time. Work out, prolong homework, and meet
up with friends after a Friday night football game. Normal
teenagers didn’t worry about the uncontrollable future and
potential kidnappers or stalkers.