Never Let You Fall (The Prophecy of Tyalbrook) (2 page)

Feeling somewhat better on that front, I sank back into the comfy blankets and closed my eyes again. As exhausted as I was, I couldn’t fall back asleep. My mind kept playing one thing from the previous night back to me, much like a scratched CD that skipped over and over.

“I promise you, I am safe.” I contemplated those six words as a tear slid down my cheek.

At seventeen years old, I couldn’t remember a time when I did feel safe. As I lay snuggled up in bed, I allowed the thoughts that I usually tucked away to invade my head.

Sometime right before my eighth birthday, my family was killed and I was placed into protective care. When the police found me hiding in the bushes at a park a few streets away from my childhood home, I had no memory of the event. Although I had been almost eight when it happened, I couldn’t recall my relationship with my parents, or even what they looked like. The psychiatrists I met with chalked it up to post traumatic stress disorder. As the years went on, still nothing came back to me, and I had no one around to remind me of what I had lost. There were no pictures, no friends; it was as if they had never existed. As if I had come from nowhere.

Through the years I was told that nobody wanted to adopt me because the events of my parents’ deaths had been so gruesome. It was as if everyone was scared of me, as if I were cursed. . So I ended up living in group homes and the occasional psych ward for the next eight years. These homes ranged from somewhat pleasant to downright horrifying depending on who was running it, and I learned quickly to keep my head down and do what I was told.

As a young child I never understood why other kids were adopted out and nobody wanted me. The police who found me the night of my parent's deaths would visit me occasionally and tell me to stay strong and that one day I would live a normal life. They were sweet to check up on me so often but they would never give me any information about that night. So I was a good girl and did what I was told to do. I stayed strong and waited for the day when I would have a new life.

I made very few friends throughout the years in my group homes, because most kids who came in were either quickly picked up for fostering or were claimed by unknown relatives eager to raise their loved one’s child. I met Janelle two years ago when her single mother had died of an OD, and she had been placed into care because nobody wanted to claim her. Janelle said that she had relatives who lived across the country, but that her mother had run away as a teen and cut ties with them. She told me that she was all too happy to spend the next year in a group home, because it was a much cleaner environment than what she had been used to growing up.

Janelle was good at being tough. With her stick straight, dirty blonde hair and waifish-thin figure she already looked like a street urchin, and at seventeen she was the only other teen in the home. We were put on yard duty together when she had first arrived, and after raking leaves together in silence for an hour she finally started to ask me questions about myself and the home. We raked and bagged leaves the entire afternoon and discussed school and boys, friends and enemies and plans for our futures. She was the first friend I could ever recall having, and I was in awe of her. Although only a little more than a year older than me, she was worlds ahead of me in street knowledge. Before Janelle, I had always kept myself wrapped in a tight ball, never speaking to others and only coming and going from the home to school and back.

Janelle snuck me out to my first party, gave me my first drink, and introduced me to her friends - most of whom were several years older and wiser than she was. If she was sad about losing her mom, she never really mentioned it. She did stay away from drugs, and was very angry the one time I took a hit off of some stoner’s weed. That night was the first time I had seen the red glowing eyes, so I was all too happy to steer clear of drugs after that little episode.

When Janelle turned 18 a year ago, she was released into the “free” world to live her life. She started shacking up with Rex, her much older and somewhat-sketchy boyfriend. She stopped by a couple times a week to visit me, and kept asking me to come live with them…so one day a few weeks after my 17
th
birthday, I walked out of the group home and didn’t go back. Nobody even looked for me. I’m pretty sure that if I were to be picked up by the police they would run a check and send me back, but typically the cops ignored me. That was six months ago.

When I first left I tried to keep up with school, but late nights of partying with Janelle quickly led to indisposed mornings leaned over a toilet or sleeping off a hangover.

Lying in that hotel room, shame began to wash over me with thoughts of what I had become: a virtually homeless, high school dropout who had a pretty severe addiction to drinking.

That was the reality of my life.

I rolled onto my stomach and pulled a soft plump pillow over my head, as more tears began to stream down my face.

Xander

I was amazed that I could actually hear her crying before I made it back to the room. The night before, after she had collapsed into my arms in the shower, I had held her until the water turned too cold to bear. She had been pretty much unaware of anything by that point, so I wrapped her in a towel and carried her to the bed.

It took all of my self-discipline to strip the sexy jeans from her body and put her under the covers. She had grown up to be so beautiful – a porcelain doll, with flowing locks of chestnut hair and pale skin just like her parents. She had been a beautiful child too.

I could remember her sweet laugh on the days when we would run around and play tag, and she would yell at me to give her piggy back rides. I had been watching her for almost two years from afar. It was all I was allowed to do; watch from afar. No speaking, no touching… nothing but just watching. She wasn’t allowed to know about me until it was time.

I watched silently as she found herself tumbling deeper and deeper into the party scene that her friends so enjoyed. At first it seemed like typical teen fun, but more and more she seemed to be on a mission to see how quickly she could find oblivion.

When she first left the group home to live with her friend I was concerned, and tried to talk Rioden into picking her up and bringing her home. He wouldn’t hear of it. He said she would be safer away from us until her eighteenth birthday, when any magic that covered her would be washed away. He refused to see the danger she was to herself, so I stepped up my surveillance of her; sometimes only sleeping a few hours during the day so I wouldn’t miss her movements.

Several times in the last few months I had been forced to step in and save her from an unknown threat. At one party, some weasel with his shaggy hair and leather jacket had started to make the moves on her, and she had been wasted enough so that she couldn’t fend him off. What had started out as a drunken make-out session had quickly turned into him trying to get in her pants, and she had only been able to offer mild resistance. The weasel had been pretty messed up himself, so I was able to quickly knock him over the head and thwart his attempt. I left them both laying there and watched as Skye’s friend Janelle found her; calling to Rex to pick Skye up and carry her to the car.

I had to give Janelle credit - she took care of Skye - when she wasn’t completely wasted herself. Last night though, was a
bad
night. I had watched from afar as Skye did shot after shot of some purple-looking drink. The same shaggy-haired weasel was there again, with his arm slung over her shoulders, handing her a new drink each time she downed the one before it.

As I watched her through the large crowd, I saw her suddenly stiffen and lower the drink from her lips. The weasel was whispering in her ear and trying to raise her hand to get her to drink, but Skye’s eyes were wide as saucers; she seemed to be staring at something out across the eastern corner of the back yard. Fear was etched all over her lovely face, and it was that terror which made my own senses heighten to the point where I became aware of a menacing presence.
Something
was lurking in the shadows and it was coming from the east, where Skye was staring.

Bound by oath, I stalked the predator that seemed to be watching Skye, all the while worried about what she would do once I was no longer keeping an eye on her. When I returned to the party an hour later, Skye was nowhere to be found. Panic gripped me until I saw the same weasel working on a different unsuspecting female. However, as quickly as the fear had eased once I realized Skye was not the object of his attentions, it boiled back to life when I saw that Janelle was still there.

I worked my way around the house, quickly expanding the perimeter as I went, searching for any clues as to where she had gone off to. I was relieved when I found a plastic shot cup like the one she had been drinking out of, about 100 feet into the woods to the west of the house. I scanned the area, using my enhanced hearing and eyesight to look for her, and hoped that she had just wandered off into the woods before passing out.

It took about 30 minutes before I finally found her. Skye had passed out completely; she lay face down on the ground, close to a creek. She had obviously run through the creek, as her shoes and the lower portion of her pants were soaked. Her body shook from the cold, early November air, and she wore only wet jeans and a small shirt.

Watching her lying on the ground, curled in a ball and shaking, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I decided that I had to help her. There was no way Janelle would search this far in the dark woods to find her, and there were definitely worse things in these parts than the shaggy-haired weasel.

I took her back to my hotel room, got her cleaned up and in bed, and then sat in the chair next to her and watched her sleep. I came to terms with the fact that by going against Rioden’s plans, the anger that he’d unleash on me would be awful. He would tell me that I’d put her at an unnecessary risk, but I could finally argue against that. The monster that I’d had chased and killed the night before proved that. She was already at risk and without immediate Guardian help, would probably be gone within a week.

Sliding the key card into the door, I quietly stepped into the room to see that she was still lying on the bed, crying under her pillow. Her sobs were so loud that she didn’t even hear me enter. I let the door close with a bang and she stiffened at the sound, then bolted up; terror filling her eyes as she looked at me.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” I held up the coffee carrier and box of donuts I had picked up that morning in an attempt to ease her fear. “I figured you would be hungry, so I ran out. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke.”

My eyes took in her messy locks and tear-stained face, and then scrolled down to the bra that she had obviously forgotten was exposed. I saw something like confusion flicker in her eyes, but it was gone in an instant. She took note of my stare and glanced down at herself. Once she realized she had no shirt on, she grabbed the sheet and pulled it up to her chest.

“Hi,” she responded timidly with a half-smile. “Can I ask what I’m doing here?” She shrugged and motioned around the room.

“First things first,” I told her as I walked into the bathroom and grabbed her now mostly dry and rinsed out shirt from the towel rack. “Here’s your shirt and some coffee.”

I stepped towards her, holding the items out like a peace offering, and after a moment she took them both. She slipped on her shirt, which made it easier for me to concentrate, and then wrapped her small hands around the warm coffee cup.

“Um, thanks.”

“Skye,” I began, but she immediately interrupted me.

“How do you know my name? Am I supposed to know you?” Her face was once again a mask of confusion, but I was pleased to see that she wasn’t afraid of me.

I placed the donut box on the bed and slowly lowered myself to take a seat, raising my eyebrows to silently get her permission to sit. She nodded assent, and I watched as her hair fell over her eyes. My hand itched to tuck it behind her ear as I watched her push it up and off her face.

“Skye,” I began again. “There are a lot of things I think I should tell you, but many that I just can’t right now.” I swallowed hard as I looked into her warm, chocolaty brown eyes.

I wondered
how
and
what
to tell her, and knew it would have been easier with Rioden around. I mentally kicked myself for not just dropping her off at home last night.

“Um, honestly I don’t even know where to begin to try to explain myself to you.” I stuttered like a boy on his first date, but I could see that I had piqued her interest with my cryptic explanation.

She opened up the donut box, took a deep breath and inhaled the sweet sugary smell.

“Do you have a favorite?” she asked, pointing to the box, and suddenly I was caught up in a memory from 12 years ago…

“Xander! Xander! Look at them making the donuts!” Skye yelled, as she waved me over to the glass window to watch as fresh donuts were being made by a machine. “Do you think we could buy one of these?” she asked me prettily when I walked up beside her.

“Sure, whatever Princess Skye wants, she shall get,” I mocked, and bowed to her.

Her giggles filled the store as she curtsied to me and
then turned back to the donuts.