Forsaken (25 page)

Dom
had flown back to Utah early in the day yesterday. Apparently James
had been in some kind of big dustup. Rachel had been the one to call
and tell her that things weren't looking very good for James. Dom had
made me promise not to wander the city by myself and then she'd left
for the airport.

Ben
still hadn't called Dom's guy in Wyoming. I'd gone to sleep each
night half-worried that some vampire mafia type guys were going to
come find me, and now I was spending the next few days all by myself.

I
considered texting Albert, but that would have just been cruel. I
couldn't do that to him. I considered my options for a few minutes
and then bundled up, grabbed my tablet, and headed downstairs. Dom's
place was bigger and emptier than my place, but it had the benefit of
not being a place where my mom was
supposed
to be. I was going
to order an entire pizza just for myself and see if Dom had stocked
the fridge with any ice cream. She had a sweet tooth so there was a
pretty good chance there'd be something in the house that would make
me feel better.

The
journey over to Dom's building was thankfully uneventful. I wished
the doorman and the desk clerk both a merry Christmas, and a couple
of minutes later, I was curled up in a blanket on one of the huge
leather couches in the living room dialing a pizza place.

It
took me a while to find something to watch on the gigantic TV, but I
finally narrowed it down to two options. One option was a movie that
was ironically about werewolves and vampires. The other was a
romantic comedy that included a bunch of actors I'd never heard of.
My own life had plenty of potential for sudden violence, so as I ran
back downstairs to get the pizza, I decided on the romantic comedy.

I
made it through almost the entire three-hour movie before I broke
down and started crying. I might have even made it all day if the
movie hadn't included a heart-wrenching subplot. By the time the
movie ended, I couldn't even see the screen. I just closed my eyes
and let the tears wash over me. At some point the crying ran its
course and I dropped off to sleep.

It
had been so long since I'd visited this particular dreamscape that
for a second I almost couldn't believe I was back. It simultaneously
made up for the crappiness of my day so far and made it worse.

I
couldn't remember whether I'd had one of these vivid,
perfect dreams without Alec being present, but it was kind of
irrelevant either way. When I thought of landscapes where trees were
softly glowing tendrils reaching up to the sky, I thought of Alec.

The
ten thousand scents the air was carrying past me just made me
remember how divine he'd smelled here. I did a slow turn, taking in
my surroundings, and saw him almost immediately behind me. He was
kneeling down, a few steps away from a large, flat rock that had some
kind of rosebush planted on the other side of it.

He
looked up as I walked hesitantly towards him, and it took me a couple
of seconds to realize that he'd been crying. My vision suddenly
switched and the soft, golden light coming from the living things
around us dimmed slightly so that I could see Alec's features better.

"It's
been a long time since I shared a dream with you, Adri."

"I
know. I'd almost forgotten what it was like, just how much beauty you
see on a daily basis. Is this a real dream? Are we really both here,
or are you just a dream?"

He
shrugged. "I don't know. I thought about
asking you the same thing, but ultimately it doesn't matter.
We're probably not going to get a chance to compare notes in real
life later on."

It
was like being doused in ice water. I'd entered the dream unhappy
because I'd known it was going to bring back memories of Alec, but
once I'd seen him that had all vanished. For a second there
everything had felt almost exactly like it had before I'd left. It
was like a part of me had been missing, and for a brief few moments
that part had been reunited with the rest of me.

His
words reminded me once again of just what I'd walked away from. It
hurt more than I'd expected. Maybe time had done more to dull the
pain than I'd realized.

"No,
I guess you're right; we probably aren't going to see each other
again. I may not even remember this when I wake up."

Alec
took a deep breath and nodded. "There is that. Is it sad that
I'm hoping that's the case? It just seems easier that way. I've even
started sleeping at odd times to try and make sure we wouldn't
overlap and have a chance to share dreams again."

"No,
I understand. I guess I feel the same way."

I
looked back at him and saw that the tears had disappeared, but there
was still evidence that they'd been there. It hadn't just been my
imagination. I walked to almost within arm's reach of him and knelt
down beside him.

"Where
are we?"

Alec
gestured with his hand, taking in the low rise we were kneeling on.
"This is the pack's cemetery. All of the people who just
disappear as far as the normal world is concerned are buried out
here. Brandon, Vincent, Alison, Jack, they are all buried over there.
This is where my dad is buried. We couldn't risk a real headstone, so
Donovan put that rock there. We planted the rosebush a little while
after you left."

I
looked back at the rose bush and realized it wasn't just any regular
flower, it was Lagrimas. It was fitting. It was one of the few things
that connected Alec and the father he'd never really known. A shared
passion that had finally come to fruition nearly two decades after
his father's death.

"It's
beautiful. I'm sorry; I wish I could have been there to help you
plant it."

Alec
shrugged, but I knew him too well for the motion to fully conceal the
pain he was feeling.

"I'd
planned on having you come out here with Donovan, Rachel and me.
After you left there didn't seem to be much point in making a big
production out of it. I slipped out here and planted it myself one
evening."

He
looked around again, seemingly searching for something. After a
couple of seconds he nodded, stood, and walked over to a low mound of
dirt.

"I
was wondering whether or not this would be here. I added another
grave yest...actually I don't know when it was that I killed
him. What is today?"

"It's
Christmas, Alec."

"It
was a couple of days ago then. We had another challenger show up. He
almost killed James. I guess maybe that is why I came here. I was
checking to see whether or not they'd buried James, too. Hopefully
this means he survived."

"It
sounds like things are getting bad. Dom doesn't say much; she knows
how much it hurts me to think about you, but I can tell that the pack
is struggling."

Alec's
laugh had more bitterness to it than I remembered. He smiled, but it
didn't reach his eyes. "I've told each and every member of the
pack that I'll kill them if they say your name out loud where I can
hear it. I should hear absolutely nothing about what's going on with
your life, but they've just come up with a bunch of circumlocutions
to get around the rule. It was working okay right up until I sent
Isaac out to play bodyguard. With all of the craziness you've been
experiencing lately, there wasn't any way to avoid learning at
least a little bit about what's happening in your life."

There
was a crude stone bench facing the cemetery. Alec walked over, sat
down and then patted the stone next to him.

"It
was harder than I expected to hear that you'd started dating. I
wanted to hunt Albert down and kill him, but I was also glad in a way
that it was him. Albert is a good guy. I really hope things work out
between the two of you."

I
nodded. "You're right; Albert is a good guy, but nothing
can happen between us. What about you? I hear some new girl in town
has caught your eye."

Alec
shook his head. "It's more like a political alliance. Tasha and
her mom have a solution that would save the pack. It's perfect in
almost every way, but I can't bring myself to throw my lot in with
them."

"How
come?"

This
was like it had been before I'd left. I missed being able to talk to
him. He'd spent so much time worried that I was becoming addicted to
his touch, and it had turned out that it was talking I missed the
most.

"I...well,
I guess there are two reasons. Tasha is more practical than I am. You
could say she's what you were worried I'd become. It's possible I
might be able to get around that. I've already set my foot on a path
that will make me like her eventually. Even so, I always thought that
when I married it would be for love, not for political expediency."

There
were things there that he wasn't telling me, but I didn't have the
right to pry anymore. We sat in silence for several seconds before
Alec chuckled again. It still didn't have any joy in it.

"We
have a new girl in the pack. She can see the future, or at least a
version of it. Sometimes I think that you could see the future too.
That's why you left me; you saw what I'd become, and you knew it
wasn't worth staying around for."

I
opened my mouth to protest, but he stood and pointed to his father's
grave. "I've spent my entire life trying to figure out where he
went wrong. It seemed so easy. He could have just let Agony kill
Donovan. Maybe a few other people would have been sacrificed before
it was all said and done, but he could have kept his pack together,
he could have preserved the greatest number and lived to challenge
the Coun'hij later on."

He
looked up at me with a kind of naked need for me to understand that
made me reach out to him.

"I
couldn't sit by and let the same thing happen to Jasmin and Isaac and
the rest. It wasn't about me; it was never about me. I wanted to save
the people who were most important to me."

I
took his hand and nodded. "I can understand why you did what you
did. I've thought back to what I said a dozen times. I...I know
I can't go back, that those things can't be unsaid, but I'm not
convinced anymore that I was right."

Alec
shook his head and the look of sadness on his face tore at my heart.
"No, Adri. You were right, you and my father both. The pack is
falling apart, and all that I'm sure of anymore is that it would have
been better if I'd died rather than being forced to watch the pack
slowly disintegrate around me."

Adriana Paige
Upper East Side
Manhattan, New York

Dom
had been acting oddly ever since she'd returned from Utah. At first,
I'd been worried that Alec had punished her, but that turned out not
to be the case.

When
you got right down to it, I didn't have much room to be pointing
fingers though. I'd been acting a little strange myself ever since
I'd woken up from my Christmas nap with a roaring headache and the
sense that I'd dreamed about something important, but I had no
recollection of what it might have been.

Rather
than focusing on the crazy bits of my life, I decided to worry about
Dominic. It took me a while to tease all of the information out of
her, but I was relentless—in a nice, subtle way. The real
breakthrough came when we were shopping for the stuff we'd need to
help my mom make dinner.

I
turned to ask her where she thought the ricotta would be, and
suddenly realized that her scar was missing. I steadied myself
against the cart for a second and then grabbed her arm.

"Dom,
your scar is healed! I can't believe I didn't notice it before now. I
guess your face just looks so right the way it is now that I didn't
think anything of it."

Dom
put a hand up to her cheek as if remembering what the scar had felt
like and then nodded. "It...well, it was gone before I went
back to Utah."

"How
is that even possible? You told me it wouldn't ever heal, that the
guy that had done it to you was like Agony."

That
last part had been said in a quiet hiss, but Dom still looked around
like she was worried someone would overhear us. I checked too, but
there wasn't anyone around.

"I
can't explain it all. Someone told me that I had it within me to heal
the scar, that I could become a powerful healer and that A...the
pack would need me. The next day, the scar was gone. That is part of
why I went back to Utah. I thought maybe I could heal James."

"Is
that why James was okay?"

Dom
shook her head. "I don't think so. He was really hurt, but
Donovan had stabilized him by the time I got there. I tried to relax
and tap into whatever it was that had allowed me to heal myself, but
I couldn't seem to do it. Right there at the first it felt like I was
close, but the longer I was in Sanctuary, the more tired I got. It
was really odd. I went from feeling fine to wanting to curl up under
a blanket and never move again in the space of maybe an hour."

It
was one of the most amazing things I'd heard yet, but in other ways
it didn't surprise me at all. Dom had been helping Donovan patch the
pack up for years now. Her disposition was perfect for helping people
get better.

"I
thought that wasn't possible, Dom. You said that cats don't gain
abilities like hybrids can."

"You're
right. There hasn't ever been any kind of record of a cat being able
to do anything like this. I can't explain it."

We
both sat there in silence for a few seconds, she because she was
uncomfortable, me because I was shocked. Dom finally shook herself
and pointed down the aisle.

"We
need to get moving or we're not going to be done shopping in time to
get the food ready."

I
grimaced. I'd agreed to a second, no, a third attempt at dinner with
Russ, but that didn't necessarily mean I was excited about it. The
shopping trip had served as a distraction from the thought of meeting
someone who was currently auditioning to replace my dad, but the
distraction had run its course. I was going to have to start mentally
preparing myself for dinner.