Forsaken (20 page)

The part that worried me, that made me
think the nightmares might be real where the surroundings. I wasn’t
dreaming of any time period I had ever lived in, was never dressed
in the current trends of today. Everything looked very
mid-eighteenth century, exactly when Cole had been
alive.

I had never known all the deeds Cole
had committed that led to his branding but I saw this could be a
strong possibility. He had a reason to hate women.

I climbed into the shower, feeling
desperate to get my skin clean, even though I knew Cole had not in
fact touched me in any way. I still felt dirty and
defiled.

The bathroom was filled with steam
when I got out. Maybe I had tried too hard to scald off the
feelings of filth that weren’t real. I wrapped a thick white towel
around myself and opened the door to my bedroom to get dressed. I
was halfway to my closet when I heard him move and felt his arms
wrap around my waist as he came out from his hiding place behind
the door.

Alex’s lips traced a path from my
shoulder, up my neck, to my ear. He did that to get a rise out of
me and it worked. He knew I didn’t like him playing with my ears, I
thought it was just weird, not sexy. I turned in his arms, a smile
playing on my face, a blinding one plastered on his.

“
Good morning, Sleeping
Beauty,” he said quietly as he pressed a soft kiss to my
lips.

“
Morning,” I said as I
touched my forehead to his, biting my lower lip as the smile spread
on my face.

Alex’s hands traced my skin upwards,
leaving tingling trails, up to the raised wings that spanned my
back. I saw the way his eyes danced as he looked into mine, making
my blood surge and rise in my veins. I didn’t know any other way to
respond when Alex looked at me like that.

My hands fisted in his hair as our
lips met again and Alex crushed me into his chest. I wondered about
the restraint he must have had to use to not totally crush my every
bone but for some reason this excited me all the more. Even though
the fact that Alex was an angel struck terror into my heart at
times, at others it made me want him in a nearly painful
way.

Things ended the way they always did
for us, in the bed but with neither of us completely satisfied and
both our consciences clean.

“
One of these times…” Alex
trailed off as he lay on his back, looking up at the
ceiling.

I smiled slightly but my mind was in
other places by now. Back to a few months before, to a scene very
much like this one. It had led to a trip to Seattle, a decision
made by Alex, a ring bought somewhere in the middle, and ended with
a kidnapping.

I couldn’t seem to think of anything
other than the fact that Alex was never going to ask me to marry
him. It was going to consume me until it drove me totally
insane.

“
Let’s go for a ride,” I
said as I stood up and made my way to the closet. “But I want to
drive today.”

“
Okay,” Alex said, a
slightly surprised look crossing his face. I never drove the
motorcycle on our rides.

“
Now get out for a minute
so I can change,” I said with a small smile when Alex just sat
there and stared at me with an almost drugged looking smile on his
face.

He just shook his head with that smile
as he stood and left, closing the door behind him.

“
I think maybe you should
slow down!” I heard Alex yell from behind me. “You’re going to get
pulled over!”

I ignored Alex as I gunned the bike
faster, the towering trees whipping past us. I wasn’t too worried
about any cops out here. I still had yet to see any signs of life
on these rural roads.

I knew I was being stupid and
reckless, but the speed seemed to have a way of releasing some of
the pent up emotions that threatened to explode from me. Maybe it
was the tight leather I wore, a gift I’d received from Alex a few
months previous, maybe it was the way I knew I looked in it, maybe
it was just the way something under my skin knew something was
wrong. But I needed to get out and do something stupid.

“
Jessica!” I heard him
yell. “Seriously, slow down!”

I still ignored him and a small,
satisfied smile spread on my lips when I saw that the speedometer
indicated I was pushing ninety-five miles an hour.

And just like that, it felt like my
stomach had leapt out of my throat as iron bands gripped my waist
and the motorcycle threatened to buck out of my hands. We came to a
screeching, smoking halt.

As I killed the gas, the wheels
spinning and skidding against the road, I turned around to see that
Alex had slipped off the back of the bike. His hands gripped my
sides hard enough there should be bruises later, if I still
bruised. A trail of chewed up pavement made paths to his feet that
were buried into the ground. Alex had pulled us to a grinding,
halting stop.

“
What the crap are you
trying to do?” he demanded as he let go and pulled his totally
unnecessary helmet off. His eyes were wide, angry, and confused at
the same time. “Are you trying to kill yourself?!”

I was still in shock over what Alex
had done and I didn’t have anything to say in response. My body was
confused. I wanted to be angry but my brain seemed to still be
waiting to catch up with me. I pulled my helmet off without even
thinking about it.

“
What’s going on,
Jessica?” he asked, his voice exasperated. “You’re all over the
place lately. You’re normal one moment, then you’re depressed or
angry the next. And now you’re acting like you think you’re
invincible. Is this about Rod proposing to Amber last night? About
how I haven’t?”

“
Everything is about how
you haven’t!” I suddenly shouted. All the anger, frustration, and
sadness finally seemed to have caught up with me. “You know that! I
can’t get over it Alex! I can’t keep going about day-to-day life
like you don’t have a ring for me, like things can never be the way
they’re supposed to be. And the most frustrating thing is that I
know that things will never change. It is just going to keep going
on like this!”

Alex’s face was stunned for a long
moment. “What are you saying?” he said quietly. “Do you want me to
leave? That you can’t keep doing this? Us?”

It felt like Alex had
slapped me across the face. I could only glare at him for a moment.
“You’re
insane
if
you think I could ever live without you,” I said, still feeling
frustrated and angry but horrified that this was how Alex had taken
what I had said. But thinking back on what I had said, how could he
have taken it any other way? “Forget I said anything. Let’s just go
home.”

“
Jessica, I…” he trailed
off. He let out a frustrated sigh. I knew how he felt. We just kept
arguing in the same circle, without being able to find a solution.
There wasn’t anything to be said that hadn’t already been said. But
we both knew there was no way we could live without each other. The
very thought was a nightmare too horrible for us to comprehend.
“I’m driving. You’re just going to get yourself killed.”

I then remembered what Alex had said
about thinking I was invincible. Maybe I was. After everything that
had happened lately it kind of looked that way.

I couldn’t help but think as I climbed
on the bike behind Alex that maybe that would solve our problems.
We couldn’t seem to find a way to be together as we should be as
human and angel. Perhaps the only way to solve this was to fully
become an angel myself.

Neither of us said anything as Alex
drove us home at a legal speed. I felt ashamed for what I thought
about becoming an angel. The fact that I had even had the thought
scared me. I was ashamed for behaving so horribly the last few
weeks. I didn’t want to feel like this and I hated that Alex and I
were fighting.

I still didn’t know how to get over
this though.

Alex eased the bike into the garage
and shut the engine off. I slid off and pulled my helmet off. Alex
swung his other leg over but remained sitting on the bike as he
took his helmet off as well and just stared at me. I had a hard
time looking at him, with those piercing gray eyes that looked so
sad, knowing I was the reason they looked that way.

“
I’m sorry,” I said
quietly. “I just… I’m going to go check on Sal.”

Alex didn’t say anything but I felt
his eyes on my back as I walked out the garage and up to the
road.

As soon as I knew he couldn’t see me,
I doubled over and threw up on the side of the road. I walked to
Sal’s front door with shaking legs.

I knocked on the door twice before
letting myself in. I could tell from the mounting mess that filled
her house that the house cleaner hadn’t been by in a few days. They
must have been coming by tonight or tomorrow.

“
Sal?” I called as I
closed the front door behind me.

“
Down here!” I heard her
call from the floor below.

I found Sal in her office, sitting at
the huge desk, gluing something in a book. I realized it was a
scrapbook and she was adhering a picture of Alex and I into it.
There were stacks of pictures Alex had taken and printed out for
her spread out on the desk.

I didn’t say anything as I sat down
and watched Sal get the photo positioned just right. Sal seemed
better lately, since Cole had left and she had been discharged from
the institution. She had more lucid times and a lot of the time she
seemed nearly normal. But when she had her bad moments, they were
usually worse.

“
What is wrong, Jessica?”
I hadn’t even realized Sal had finished and was looking into my
face with a concerned expression.

I wanted to reassure her that nothing
was wrong but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength and I didn’t
have the willpower to try and deny the feelings that were raging
and storming within me.

“
I yelled at Alex,” I said
honestly.

“
Alex is a nice man,” Sal
said, a slightly sharp tone to her voice. “You shouldn’t yell at
him.”

“
I know,” I said softly,
my voice sounding hoarse. “I didn’t want to and I’m sorry I did but
I was mad at him.”

“
Why?” she asked, absolute
interest in her face.

“
Because he won’t do
something I want him to,” I answered. As I said the words I
realized how childish and selfish I sounded and was
being.

“
There must be a reason,”
Sal said as she looked at the pile of pictures, picking one out.
“Alex would do anything for you. He loves you. I wish Roger had
loved me like Alex loves you.”

The fact that Sal had said her
ex-husbands name surprised me. I couldn’t recall her ever saying it
out loud before, other than when she screamed it out in her
sleep.

“
I know,” I said with a
sigh.

“
Maybe he knows something
you don’t. Maybe that’s part of the reason,” she said as she cut
off a portion of the picture and then glued it to a page. It was a
picture of me and my father, from my birthday party.

I made an agreeing noise, not thinking
too much about what she said. I could sense one of Sal’s more
out-of-it moments coming on. “Do you need anything?” I asked as I
stood up.

“
More glue,” she said
without looking up at me. “And four mangos. Oh, and a jar of peanut
butter.”

I chuckled internally at her request.
Sal was severely allergic to peanuts. She had probably forgotten. I
would keep the peanut butter off my shopping list. “All right, I’ll
get them next time I go to the store.”

Sal reached into a drawer, drew out a
wad of money and threw it in my direction. It was more than fifty
dollars but I knew better than to try and give some back to her.
She would be offended and would likely scream at me.

“
I will see you later,” I
called as I walked out the door and up the stairs.

I was feeling slightly better as I
started the short walk back home, but as I thought back over Sal
and I’s conversation, something she said struck me.

Maybe he knows something
you don’t. Maybe that’s part of the reason.

Some horrible things started to click
together in my head as I thought about Sal’s words. Alex had
repeatedly said that he didn’t know what was going to happen to him
anymore. That he didn’t have any control over his time. I recalled
the scene Alex showed me, of his own unfinished trial.

The council members had been telling
him something as Alex closed the vision or whatever it was. What
they had started to say seemed important and it now felt very
deliberate that Alex didn’t let me hear the rest.

Even though I kept walking, I felt my
body freeze up. What did Alex know that he wasn’t telling
me?

My every nerve seemed about to shatter
as I got to the front door and opened it. This new thought
terrified me and made me feel immature and stupid for behaving the
way I had been lately. This was Alex. What Sal said about Alex
doing anything for me was true. He’d already proven that. If he
wouldn’t marry me when I had told him I didn’t care what happened
afterward, he must have had a pretty powerful reason
why.