Forsaken (25 page)

“
What are you doing?” I
asked as I watched him, my voice sounding like it was being dragged
over gravel. “Aren’t we heading straight there?”

“
You need to sleep,” Alex
said without looking at me as he pulled his cell phone out and
dialed a number. “I think it would be good for you to get some
rest.”

“
I can sleep in the car,”
I started to argue, but Alex was already making a
reservation.

Not three minutes later Alex had two
rooms booked, though Cormack had tried to argue it was pointless to
book him a room when he didn’t sleep. Ignoring him, Alex backed out
and pulled out of the parking garage and onto the
street.

“
Hey! Hey!” Cormack yelled
from the back seat. “Don forget, you’re not in America anymore!
You’re drivin’ on the wrong side ‘o the road!”

“
Oh, right,” Alex chuckled
as he shook his head. “You would think this wouldn’t be so hard
since I lived here for a few years.”

Cormack swore quietly under his breath
and shook his head. “I’m drivin’ tomorra’. There’s no need for all
‘o us to be dead.”

I chuckled tiredly and watched the
road ahead of us, silently grateful we were going to stop for a few
hours so I could get some much needed sleep.

The high-end lobby was
empty as we checked in and got our room keys. Again Cormack
insisted he didn’t need a room but Alex just ignored him, paid for
the room, then handed him the key. I had to agree with Cormack,
getting him a room
was
a waste of money but I wasn’t going to complain. I was always
happy to be alone with Alex.

The room was just as nice as the lobby
had been but I noticed little other than the bed. I dropped my bag
on the floor and collapsed into it. I didn’t even bother changing
into pajamas, brushing my teeth, or climbing under the
covers.

I didn’t hear him move across the room
or climb into the bed but Alex was suddenly beside me, his strong
arm wrapped around my waist. I breathed in a sigh of relaxation,
his scent flooding my senses.

“
Good-night, Jessica,” he
whispered into my ear. “I love you.”

“
I love you too,” I
breathed and smiled as he pressed a soft kiss into my temple. Not
ten seconds later I was asleep.

ALEX

It didn’t take long for
Jessica to fall asleep. I laid there for a while, just watching her
face as she slept. I could watch her sleep for hours and did
sometimes. I wished I could keep away the nightmares she had
though. I knew she still had them even if she tried to pretend she
didn’t. She didn’t like to tell me when she had them. I sensed she
felt guilty whenever she did. She was right though, it wasn’t fair
that she should still have nightmares, even if they were a
different kind. She had
lived
a nightmare for nearly sixteen years. That should
have been enough.

Curiosity got the best of me after a
while and I forced myself to leave Jessica’s side and find our new
companion. He wasn’t in his room but as I extended my senses, I
realized he was no longer in the building. I went to his open
window, climbed out, and scaled the building to the
roof.

Cormack was sitting on the far end of
the building at the very peak of the roof. He sat with his arms
resting on his knees, staring up into the star-peppered sky. He
didn’t turn to look at me as I walked the roofline toward him but I
knew he heard me as I approached. When I reached him, I sat as
well, turning my gaze heavenward.

“
I forgot how beautiful
they were,” Cormack said as he continued to observe the
stars.

I didn’t say anything as we sat, side
by side, two angels on the rooftop.

“
I don think ya realize
jus how lucky ya really are to be allowed to still be here,” he
said. I thought I detected a hint of emotion in his voice. If he
had been capable, I suspected he might have had tears in his eyes.
“You must a made one hell ‘o a plea to them, or one hell ‘o a
sacrifice.”

“
She’s sleeping down below
us,” I said simply. “And you’re wrong. I do realize how lucky I am
to be here, to still be able to be with her. I almost lost her,
twice. But we’re still together.”

“
She’s the reason you’re
still here?” Cormack asked in shock as he looked me in the
face.

“
She was dying,” I
explained. “I traded my life for hers and the council allowed me to
come back to her.”

Cormack continued to stare wide-eyed
and mouthed at me for a moment before he shook his head and looked
back up to the stars. “It’s really not fair ya know,” he said. “I
would give anythin’ to come back. Do ya know what et’s like, to
have someone take your life away like that? To be killed en cold
blood?”

“
Yeah, actually I do,” I
chuckled. I was surprised at how little Cormack seemed to know.
“The one that escaped is the one who killed me. He snapped my neck
after he nearly
beat
the life out of me. Over Jessica. Don’t you know all
this?”

“
You never went through a
trial,” he said as he shook his head. “I just knew they allowed
someone to return.”

He was quiet for a little after that.
I sensed some emotional turmoil going on inside of him. “I envy
you, ya know. What you and Jessica have together. I never found
that. Always looked for it but never found it.”

“
I’m sorry,” I said
sincerely. Truly I was. I couldn’t imagine what life would be like
without Jessica. It wouldn’t be whole. It would feel pretty empty
and pointless.

“
Tell me what’s happened
since I wus taken outa this world,” he said after a few minutes of
silence. “The world looks so different now.”

“
When did you die?” I
asked. I could tell the following conversation was going to be
really strange.

“
Et’s been eighteen
years,” he replied with a chuckle. “I can’t believe I missed the
changing of a millennium. Ya have no idea how strange it es to hear
what year it es.”

“
You’re right there,” I
chuckled. “I can’t even imagine.”

“
So what have I been
missin’ these last eighteen years?”

I suddenly wished I kept up on current
events more and had paid better attention to the news.

JESSICA

Lights flashed and sparkled around us
and the music tinkled throughout the carnival. People crowded into
the park and vendors shouted from all around us. Garbage lay
underfoot, carelessly thrown by people who obviously didn’t worry
what it was going to do to the environment.

I watched with a smile as
he picked up the oversized hammer and drew it up above his head. A
moment later it came crashing down, nearly breaking the booth game.
I suppressed a chuckle, knowing it had taken restraint for
him
not
to break
it. The vendor looked at him in surprise, furrowed his brow and
handed him an oversized stuffed rabbit.

“
I don’t understand why
women like these things,” he said as he draped an arm across my
shoulders and led us down an aisle crowded with people.

“
Yeah,” I said as I looked
at the fuzzy animal that filled my arms. “It is kinda’ stupid I
guess.”

He just chuckled as he flashed his
brilliant smile. “Hey, why don’t you have him paint your
picture?”

There was a young man at the end of
the aisle with an easel set up, his brushes on a table beside him,
just waiting for customers.

“
You don’t want to be in
it too?” I asked as I looked at his beautifully captivating
face.

“
I wouldn’t want to taint
it,” he joked. “I would love to have a picture of you I can look at
forever.”

I gave Cole a smile as I handed my
purse and the rabbit to him and took a seat to pose for the
painting.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

JESSICA

My gums became raw as I brushed my
teeth frantically. I probably hadn’t even gotten all the shampoo
out of my hair before I had flown out of the shower. How could I
worry about how I looked, with so much on the line?

I felt frustrated as I
spit into the sink. Emily knew what Cole was. Like
she
had said, he had
branded her too, hundreds of times. How could she be so stupid? How
could she run straight into the arms of the leader of the
condemned?

Yet I already knew the answer. Emily
had already explained it to me. Who else would want her, when she
had already damned herself? Who better to be with than the leader
of the condemned?

“
Let’s go,” I said as I
threw my toothbrush into my bag. Alex and Cormack had already
gotten all of the other bags loaded into the car.

Alex checked us out of the hotel then
joined us outside. Cormack had insisted on driving, true to his
threat the night before. Alex didn’t seem to mind and to be honest,
I didn’t mind either. As Cormack had said, there was no need for
all of us to be dead.

“
So ya jus put an address
in this little thing an’ it will tell ya how ta get there?” Cormack
marveled as we got onto the road and Alex started punching in where
we were headed.

“
Um, hum,” Alex nodded as
he entered the information in.

“
Amazing,” Cormack shook
his head and stared out at the road that stretched before
us.

Under normal circumstances I would
have enjoyed the scenery around me. I had never traveled outside
the country before but had always wanted to. Now that I was getting
my chance I felt distracted and sick. The nightmare I’d had
petrified me. Seeing and feeling the things that were happening to
Emily unnerved me more than I could ever explain. I didn’t want to
be feeling those things for Cole again, even if it was just in a
dream. It made my skin crawl.

And I didn’t for one second, forget
what had happened after Cole had the woman’s portrait painted in
the other dreams. I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

“
So what’s the plan of
action here?” Cormack asked as the road fell away beneath the
tires. I glanced at the clock, surprised we had already been
driving for two hours. “How do ya plan on gettin’ close enough to
grab him an’ make him go back?”

“
We
weren’t planning on anything of the sorts,” Alex said as he
stared out the window. “Don’t forget, you’re the one who’s supposed
to make him go back. We’re just here to get Emily back before
something happens to her.”

“
I know I’m the one to
make him go back,” Cormack said, irritation evident in his voice.
“I jus wondered if you had thought of anythin’. Et’s not like
gettin’ that girl back es going to be an easy thing if she’s with
him.”

Cormack was right. Cole most likely
was going to put up a fight. The thought terrified me, the last
fight I had seen Cole get in over a woman resulted in Alex’s
death.

“
We’ll just have to see
how things pan out,” Alex said. “We don’t know what’s going on or
what to expect.”

“
That’s et?” Cormack
asked. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“
Yeah, that’s all I’ve
got!” Alex barked. I was surprised at Alex. He didn’t seem to like
Cormack too much. Cole was the only other person I had seen that
Alex didn’t like. Maybe that was all it was. Cormack was an angel
too.

“
I could talk to him,” I
chimed in, wanting to calm the tension that suddenly filled the
car. “Distract him while you grab him, Cormack.”

“
Absolutely not!” Alex
shouted at the same time Cormack nodded in agreement with my plan.
“You can’t be serious about going around that monster again? After
everything he did to you?”

“
I’m the reason he came
out of the world of the dead in the first place. I’ve got to help
make him go back.”

Alex shook his head. “No way. We’ll
figure something else out. The two of us can handle it. There’s two
of us and only one of him. We’ll make him go back.”

I detected another emotion brewing
under the surface of Alex’s skin. Fear. I could imagine how the
thought of Cole and I in the same room again terrified him. While
this made my heart flutter, I also wanted to say that perhaps they
had more to worry about than they realized. I had a feeling being a
council member came with a little more than being just any angel,
especially an un-judged angel as they both were.

The tension didn’t leave the car and I
felt on edge. I hated contention. I supposed that came after
listening to my parents fight about me for years. I wanted to do
anything to avoid it but at the moment I couldn’t
escape.

The GPS chirped that we were 150
kilometers from our destination.

We drove for another good half hour
before the thick silence was broken by Alex’s cell phone ringing.
Puzzlement filled his face as he looked at the caller
ID.

“
It’s Emily,” he said
quietly as he looked back at me for a brief moment.

“
What?!” I nearly
screamed, fighting the instant reaction to snatch the phone from
Alex.