Haunted (25 page)

“Don't go, Ruby,” my dad said softly. “Don't leave me.”

“I can't stop it, Daddy. It's pulling me away. Don't let it take me away!”

“Ruby!” he shouted, his voice altered by the sense of urgency that increased as I gravitated farther and farther away from him. “Don't you leave me! I won't let you! Come back to me.”

“I'm sorry,” I whispered as my parents slowly disappeared in the distant glow, my voice suddenly weak and hoarse again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” a voice growled deeply in my ear. “Now don't you fucking leave me!”

The light was gone. The pain returned. I was once again lying on the floor of my workroom.

I hadn't died.

“Come back to me, Ruby, goddammit. I will not lose you!” Sean yelled, cradling my head in his lap. I cracked my eyes open the tiniest amount to see his face hovering over me closely as he looked across the room at something.

“Did you find anything to cut it off with?” Sean asked. “We've got to get it off. Now!”

“This should work!” Cooper shouted, running towards us.

I opened my eyes more and the movement caught Sean's attention.

“Jesus, Ruby, don't move,” he ordered as his grip on me tightened. “Just cut it off, Cooper.”

I felt some tugging on my right arm as Cooper fiddled with my ring.

“It's too tight, I don't think I can without taking the whole finger off.”

“Then take her fucking finger off if you have to! We'll deal with that later, when she's still alive!” Sean roared.

“I'm sorry, Ruby,” Cooper said softly. “This may hurt a bit.”

* * *

“Cooper,” Scarlet growled, holding her hand. “You and I need to have a chat about how to treat a lady.”

“Not now, Scarlet,” Sean barked. “I need to know how Ruby is doing. Can you hear her?”

“No, for once I don't have her annoying voice yapping at me incessantly, but she's there. I can feel her.”

I didn't have the strength to talk, but I could see through Scarlet’s eyes. Sean still knelt with her head in his lap, while Cooper hovered over top of her looking grim. They were both extremely tense and on edge and I knew that something was terribly wrong; Scarlet did too.

“Why am I not healing as I should?” she asked Sean, sounding bewildered.

His face tensed, mouth taught and drawn.

“I've told you before, you're not invincible. There's too much damage and too little blood left. At best, you'll remain like this indefinitely, at worst….”

A thunderous crash erupted from the far side of the room. Scarlet tipped her head to see what had happened. Cooper had thrown my solid wood, several hundred pound work table into the wall in objection to what Sean was about to say.

“Do what you did last time,” Cooper snarled at Sean. “You helped her heal in Utah. Do it again.”

Sean's chest rumbled a threatening sound.

“I have already done all I can. This is far beyond my abilities.”

“So get Sophie's ass over here. Make her fix it.”

“Oh, but Cooper, he can't make me fix anything,” Sophie said, voice entering the room before her. “He got himself into quite a pickle the last time he tried something outside of the box, didn't you darling?”

Scarlet turned her attention to the door adjoining the retail space. She watched motionless as Sophie sauntered into the room looking like she was entering a dinner party rather than a crime scene. She was pleased as punch to see Scarlet lying on the floor, mangled and likely dying.

“I came to see if I could be of service in the search for Peyta. I heard the crash from outside and came to see what the problem was. Turns out that there's no problem at all,” she said mockingly as her smile widened.

“Come closer and say that. I'll give you a problem or two,” Scarlet chimed sweetly, sounding every bit the opposite of how she felt.

“Oh no, puppy, I think I'm enjoying the view from over here. Why don't you come and join me, Sean?”

Cooper charged her from across the room, cupping her throat in his hand and slamming her against the wall.

“Fix her, bitch,” he growled. “If she dies, you die.”

“And so will you,” Sean added. “Put her down, now.”

It was a veritable Mexican standoff. Everyone had their metaphorical guns drawn, pointing at one another, inhibiting our ability to actually accomplish anything. In all the chest thumping, we'd forgotten the most important issue of all – Peyta. I pushed her name into Scarlet's thoughts and she growled so loudly it drowned out the bickering that had continued.

“Shut up!” she yelled. “You need to go and find Peyta. Gregory took her.”

Cooper's eyes glowed yellow in the dim light.

“It turns out that I'd already had the pleasure of meeting Gregory before, a few months ago to be exact. You know him quite well, Cooper. He was your Alpha.”

He went pale, jaw slack, mouth open, but said nothing.

“It seems that you've taken over his position, and with that dubious honor you also took over his connection to the Watchers. They are what have been haunting you. Your inability to control them is what led to your near undoing, and now he's somehow harnessing Peyta's power over the dead to reanimate himself. He's going to sacrifice her to complete the job.”

“Impossible,” Sophie said, dismissing the entire thing with a wave of her hand.

“Not entirely,” Sean whispered. “It has been attempted before, unsuccessfully, but I've never met a Healer with Peyta's abilities. Her connection to the dead is far stronger than even yours, Sophie.”

“He mentioned a name in his sociopathic ramblings – Asclepius. He said she must be directly descended from his line.”

“Then we're in trouble,” Sean said tightly, still holding Scarlet's head in his lap. “Where did he take her?”

“I'm working on that one...he was rather vague.”

“We must go find her,” Sophie announced. “Let's go. Leave her behind. Her fate has been sealed.”

“I will not leave her behind,” Sean barked out through gritted teeth. “I cannot make you help her, I cannot even ask, but we need her, Sophie. Peyta will die without Ruby's help. That will be on your head.”

“Sean, you won't manipulate me again. I know you too well,” she warned. “We don't need her at all...you do.” Her demeanor changed quickly as she made her power play. “I can, however, manipulate you. If you want me to spare her I will make you a deal. I will heal her for you, but if I do, your obsession ends. You forfeit any claim you have on her, as unfathomable as it may be, and you pursue her no longer. Refuse my terms and she dies. Renege on our agreement and I report you to the Elders. I think you remember how well your insubordination was received last time. They would not suffer it again.”

His body tensed beneath Scarlet as Sophie backed him into a corner. She trapped him into making a choice that really wasn't one. She knew he wouldn't let me die, and used his feelings for me to ensure he'd never enjoy them. It was well played. Her plan was both as ruthless and desperate as she was.

I saw his eyes go dark as he stared Sophie down, his rage only furthering Scarlet's blood lust. He leaned down to put his mouth by her ear, his breathing forced but controlled.

“Ruby,” he whispered. “I'm sorry, but I have to.”

He laid her head down gingerly on the floor and stepped back, relinquishing his contact.

“Deal,” he told Sophie with a rage so harnessed it was unnerving. She stepped towards us, taking her clothes off on the way. He grabbed her arm violently as she went to bend down beside us and yanked her body towards him.

“And you'd better succeed. Your fate is now linked to hers. Fail and it will be the last thing you do to hurt me,” he warned.

“You wouldn't dare. They'd kill you,” she said, going pale.

“They would never know,” he said, shooting a glance over to Cooper. “I don't think he'll have a problem backing whatever lie I tell.”

She, too, shot a glance Cooper's way before losing color altogether. His face was more business-like than ever and it made me wonder if Sean was becoming a bad influence on him, though it didn't seem so bad in that moment.

Sophie visibly swallowed, and once released from Sean's grasp, continued to undress until wearing only her underwear that was barely underwear at all. I'd seen string cover more skin than it did.

She knelt beside Scarlet, then closed her eyes, inhaling deeply through her nose in an exaggerated fashion. She slowly extended her arms out towards Scarlet’s mangled body and was met with a low, gurgling growl.

“Touch me and die, bitch,” Scarlet threatened. I tried to calm her, to talk her down from her rage and see reason. If I die, we both do. Just let her in. She couldn't hear me. I tried forcing those sentiments on her as I had Peyta's name, but again I was unsuccessful. Scarlet's pride would cut our collective nose off to spite our face.

Sophie looked frightened, hesitating as she looked to Sean for reassurance. She received none.

Refocusing her attention on the fading lives in front of her, she continued to extend her arms towards Scarlet. I felt her place her hands deep in the abdominal wound before pulling her body closer into it. Neither Scarlet nor I could see her as she was out of our visual field and Scarlet had weakened enough that she could no longer lift her head very far.

I remembered Cooper saying that he felt like Sophie had been inside him when she healed his wounds from the showdown with Eric a few months earlier. I thought about that as the pressure and burning increased in my gut until there was a flash of pain so blinding that everything around me darkened. No glorious light followed.

Everything around me stopped.

There were no voices, no Scarlet, and worst of all, no parents to greet me when I died.

32

And then I was back. Sort of.

Scarlet still had a firm hold of the proverbial wheel, as well as Sophie's throat, and commotion was all around us. Sean yelled, Cooper cheered and Sophie just blankly stared back at Scarlet with disbelieving eyes. She looked ill with shock, and I wondered exactly what had happened while I was out. I felt like I had passed out at the party before the real festivities began.

What the fuck, Scarlet? What happened?

“You wouldn't have the stomach for it, Ruby. Probably best that you don't know,” she said aloud, to everyone's confusion.

Sophie looks like she's seen a ghost...well, you know what I mean.

“Oh, she's seen something,” she replied with a little chuckle in her voice. “The end of her life as she knows it.”

Sean grabbed the hand around Sophie's throat and pried it off, throwing Scarlet across the room. I guess he was no longer concerned with our bodily well-being. He checked Sophie over until he was satisfied that she was physically unharmed, then told her to put her clothes on. She was caked in blood and other unmentionables.

“Are you sure you're fine?” he asked for what must have been the second time. She nodded erratically as she pulled her pants back on. He then turned his attention back on us.

“She's never looked like this after a healing,” he said accusingly. “What did you do?”

Scarlet laughed a deep, throaty laugh that echoed off of the walls. “Nothing she didn't deserve, my friend.”

He charged her, slamming her against the wall with his forearm across her throat. His eyes were nearly black and his heart raced with adrenaline so loudly that I could hear it. Scarlet didn't seem to care.

“I don't have time for this now, but you will tell me when this is all over. For Ruby's sake, you better not have fucked up,” he threatened. “Cooper, bring me what's left of the ring. Bend it back into shape as best you can. It's time for this bitch to disappear.”

With that I felt a sharp and jagged ring thrust onto my left pinky finger. My body fell to the ground, and as I took it over again, the pain returned. The healing had clearly worked, but hadn't left me without ailments. I was weak, groggy, and sore in a post-surgical kind of way, which oddly made sense. Trying to stand without aid, I collapsed back to the floor, furthering the pain in my gut as I landed on it.

Sean went to help me up, only to be reminded of his deal with the devil as she cleared her throat in warning from the other side of the room. Cooper came over and scooped me up delicately in his arms, pulling me close to his body. He kissed me on my forehead before resting his cheek against it.

“Glad to have you back, Rubes,” he said softly. “For a minute there, I thought you were going to leave without saying goodbye.”

I snickered lightly before realizing that laughing was not going to be on the menu for a while.

“Ouch,” I gasped. “You're going to have to stop being you for a while, Coop. Can you go back to being that crazy person I've been living with? He didn't make me laugh.”

“Anything you want,” he said, lifting his cheek from my face to look at me. “Just don't scare me like that again.”

“Deal,” I said, putting a small smile on my face. I wiped it off quickly thereafter. “Peyta! We have to find her! Now, or it'll be too late.”

“You need to put some clothes on first,” Sean told me, looking at the blood-encrusted fabric that covered my body. The gaping hole ventilating my shirt wasn't helping my state of undress. “Cooper, run upstairs and grab something she can put on. Something loose.”