Reborn

Reborn

S. L. Stacy

Reborn

Amazon Kindle Edition

Copyright 2013 S. L. Stacy

All rights reserved.

Cover design by H. N. Sieverding

For the Hello Kitty/Superhero family

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my earliest readers who read the first
crappy
version of
Reborn
on my blog. Also thanks to the Pittsburgh Writers
Meetup Group for their encouragement and helpful hints. A big thank you to my
family, friends and everyone who liked my Facebook page. Your support means the
world to me. Shout-outs to my beta readers and editors Heather, Heidi (also my
book cover artist), Lynn (my mom) and Leila.

Table of Contents

Part One: Resistance

Part Two: Surrender

Part Three: Withdrawal

Sources

About the Author

About the Cover Artist

Part One

Resistance

“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for
their sport.”–William Shakespeare,
King Lear

Chapter 1

Six
years earlier…

“We
are Laurel High!” Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

“We
are Laurel High!” Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

“WE
ARE —” I shouted it at the top of my lungs one last time as I braced myself on
the shoulders of my two bases, placing my right foot into their waiting hands.
We bounced, and I felt like I was flying as they popped me straight into a full
extension. At five feet two inches, I was the smallest flyer on the squad, so
they thrust me into the air with relative ease.

“LAUREL
HIGH!” My arms hit a perfect high “V” as I screamed the last word.

I
beamed at the restless, lively crowd crammed into the bleachers. Above the
thunderous rumble of voices I picked out an occasional “Go Ravens!” Sometimes I
even caught a “Get ‘em goddammit!” from an overzealous football dad. Nestled in
the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, my hometown ran on Jesus and
football, and back then I lived for Friday nights: The adrenaline, the streak
of black and silver jerseys up and down the field, the roll of drums and
whistle of wind instruments from the marching band.

“One!
Two! Three!” My spotter and best friend Anna Wallace had to shout above the
blare of the buzzer signaling half-time to guide my dismount. Together she and
the bases cradled me and popped me back onto my feet. The score was seven to
three, Ravens. We cleared the field to take a break while the band assembled to
perform.

Anna
elbowed me as I was taking a swig from my water bottle and pointed at an inky
black patch of sky away from the field.

“Look!
A shooting star!” she exclaimed. The stadium lights washed out most of the sky,
but sure enough I could pick out the bright pinprick of light streaking across
it.

“Make
a wish,” I told her. Even as I said it, a wish of my own drifted into my mind:

I
wish I knew where I belonged.

Now
where did that come from?

Seconds
later, the thought vanished along with the shooting star.

Anna
tucked a lock of brown hair behind her ear. “There’s another one!”

This
one was followed by yet another falling star—then another, and another. Anna
and I watched the meteor shower with awe. I looked around, but no other heads
were titled up to the sky. Their attention was on the visiting team’s band,
which marched through formations playing “Eye of the Tiger.” And with the
blinding stadium lights, they couldn’t have seen it even if they wanted to.

Just
as quickly as it started, the meteor shower subsided as one last shooting star
faded into the night. The sky was still again. Anna and I joined a few of the
other squad members on the bench to watch the rest of the marching band
performances. I forgot all about the strange light show we just witnessed
except for a lingering feeling something extraordinary was about to happen.

The
feeling stayed with me through the rest of the game. It poked at the back of my
mind even as we watched the Ravens score the winning touchdown. In the ensuing
excitement I managed to push it back, but it sprang up again in the car ride
over to the post-game bonfire. Even the boys’ tipsy, out-of-tune rendition of
Queen’s “We are the Champions” wasn’t enough to drown out my festering
restlessness. I watched the celebration from afar as Anna and I sipped beers
and chatted quietly at the fringes of the party.

“Let’s
go Ray-vens!” a falsetto voice erupted from behind me. Anna’s brother Jimmy
jumped in between us, facing me, the tassels of his band uniform swaying as he
clapped his hands and shook his hips. “Let’s go Ray-vens!”

“You’re
an ass,” I told him, but I giggled as I said it. His answer was a shriek from
his trumpet that sounded like a dying elephant. He danced past us, but
something stopped him as he approached the edge of the property.

“Hey,
look at that!” He pointed into the woods.

Anna
joined him and peered into the thick, dark trees. “I don’t see anything, Jim.”

“No,
look! Something’s glowing!” He turned and gave me a lopsided grin. “Let’s go
see what it is, kids!” He swung his arm in a sideways punch as if it were the
1950s and something was really swell.

“Ugh,
come on, Jim,” Anna groaned. “Just stay here. Dad’s picking us up soon,
anyway.”

I
came up on Jimmy’s other side, the distant flicker of a white flame catching my
eye. “I see it.” I didn’t know what it was, but there was something mesmerizing
about it. I took an involuntarily step forward and looked over at Jimmy.

“Let’s
go.” I smiled. Jimmy grinned back, his eyes alight with mischief. Anna sighed,
and I sensed a frustrated inner eye roll.

“Fine.”
She looked back at our drunken peers. “No one’s even going to notice we’re
gone. If something happens to us —”

“If
we realize it’s too far, we’ll turn around,” Jimmy assured her. Sometimes it
was hard for me to believe that cautious Anna and impulsive Jimmy were even
related, let alone twins.

We
crept into the woods, our feet crunching over fallen twigs and leaves. Even
though it was late and dark, I wasn’t afraid—maybe because I was with Anna and
Jimmy, or maybe that one beer I drank instilled me with false confidence. The
white glow really wasn’t as far away as it seemed from the yard, and it grew
steadily larger and more luminous. A cool autumn breeze caressed my face,
bringing a blend of sweet scents to my nose, like someone was burning a honey
vanilla candle.

“It’s
a fire,” Jimmy whispered. We stopped a few yards away from it. But it wasn’t
like any fire I’d ever seen—it was yellow-white and lapped at the ground
without burning it. It stayed inside an almost perfect circle a few feet wide,
only the curling tendrils of sweet-smelling smoke escaping it.

“You
came.”

All
of us went completely still at the sound of the weak, hoarse voice. I looked
wildly around but didn’t see anything.

“You
saw my signal, and you came to help me.”

Then,
I saw him, sprawled against a maple tree beyond the strange fire.

I
looked away quickly, my face flushing in embarrassment. I got enough of a
glimpse to realize he was mostly naked, muscles rippling down his marble-white
chest and abdomen before disappearing underneath a black loin-cloth.

“Siobhan.”

My
head snapped up again when he whispered my name. This time I couldn’t look
away, my eyes drinking him in. Even in as vulnerable a position as he was, his
presence permeated the forest, seeping into every crevice of every tree trunk,
saturating every pore in the dirt floor. And he was the most beautiful man I
had ever seen. Tousled dark hair brushed his shoulders framing high cheekbones
and a sensuous mouth. A pair of magnificent, black feathered wings protruded
from his back, crushed against the unforgiving ground. He reminded me of a
fallen angel, but if angels existed, I didn’t think they had his kind of
sinister, carnal magnetism. But what shocked me the most wasn’t his perfect
body, his handsome face or even the wings.

He
was the man from my dreams.

“Siobhan.”
This time it was Anna saying my name as she fearfully watched me tiptoe around
the fire to go to him.

His
thick eyelashes fluttered open, and underneath his eyes were a deep blue
whirlpool sucking me in even further. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him,
so I leaned down closer.

“Psyche.
You came back to me.”

What
was Psyche? And what did he mean, “You came back to me?” With the exception of
my dreams, I’d never met him before in my life.

I
didn’t pull away or snap at him. In his final moments of life, he was feverish
and confused. “I don’t know you,” I reminded him gently, “but I will help you
if I can.”

His
eyes pleaded with me as he raised his hand into the air, palm facing me. In a
trance-like state I extended my own and brushed my palm and fingers against
his, which were warm and slick with sweat. I almost jerked away, but I took a
deep breath and maintained the contact, all the while staring into the dark
pools of his eyes.

“Siobhan,
you’re it.” At least I thought that was what he said—his voice was so small and
weak.

“Let’s
go back to the house.” Anna’s insistent voice was shrill with anxiety. She
pulled on my arm while Jimmy pried this strange man’s hand away from mine.
Jimmy didn’t let go of my hand immediately, instead clasping it firmly in his.

“Anna’s
right,” he said, although I barely heard him as a flood of nausea suddenly
seized me, waves of it coursing through my stomach and back.

Wait—my
back?

I
slipped my fingers out of Jimmy’s and brought both hands to my stomach.

“What’s
wrong?” Anna asked and took a step toward me, but I staggered away from her. I
didn’t know what was happening to me. All I knew was the urgency crashing down
on me. I had to get away from them before it happened.

“Wait!
Siobhan!”

Their
panicked voices followed me as I took off deeper into the woods. Frenzied
footsteps picked up behind me, but a burst of adrenaline pushed me forward so I
outran them even in my delirious state. I made it to the muddy bank of a stream
before tossing the orange sports drink I’d drained at the game all over the
matted grass.

I
felt better after throwing up, my stomach settling, but the unfamiliar rolling
underneath my jacket persisted. Bone and muscle liquefied as two jagged edges
knifed through my skin. I tore my jacket off to the sound of splitting seams as
they exploded out of my back, leaving the vest of my cheerleading uniform in
strips of sweaty polyester.

Panting,
hands still at my stomach, I sat unmoving for a few beats to calm myself. Once
the hammer of my heart in my chest dwindled to a patter and my breathing
steadied, I crawled to the bank and looked through bleary eyes at my reflection
in the roiling dark silver surface on the creek. My violet eyes glanced at my
face, white with shock, and the blonde hair sticking to my cheeks and neck before
coming to rest on the butterfly-like wings looming behind me, shimmering
midnight blue and indigo in the dark.

“Siobhan!”

I
lifted my eyes at the sound of Jimmy and Anna calling my name—closer this time.
Just as quickly as they emerged, I felt my back reabsorb the wings. I shrugged
on my jacket and turned around to see my friends stumble into view.

“There
you are!” Anna rushed over to me, helping me to my feet and brushing off my
jacket. “What happened to you?”

“I—I
got sick. What about that angel guy?” I asked quickly to change the subject.

“What
about him?”

“You
guys just left him back there?”

“We
were worried about you.” Jimmy’s tone reminded me this should be obvious.

“But
he was hurt! We need to get help,” I insisted.

Anna
looked like she wasn’t so sure about that, but all she said was, “She’s right.”
I stalked ahead of them back the way we came, Anna and Jimmy trailing along
reluctantly behind me.

“It
was here, wasn’t it? He was here.”

I
stopped at the tree where I knew he lay minutes earlier, but now there were
only rough, old tree roots jutting out of the forest floor. Kneeling, I
desperately searched the ground, feeling around with my hands, but there wasn’t
even a dent in the black earth or a scrap of cloth to tell us he had been there
at all. His signal fire had been snuffed out, too, but no ash, smoke nor stench
of burning lingered behind. I got to my feet and faced Jimmy and Anna
expectantly, but both sets of hazel eyes darted around the woods in confusion.

Anna
shook herself as if coming out of a dream. “It must be really late. We should
get back.” She and her brother turned to go, but my feet remained glued to the
ground.

“But
where did he go? We need to get help!” I shouted after them, this time jogging
to catch up with them.

Jimmy
ran a hand through his longish hair and rubbed the back of his neck. “We need
some sleep. And possibly some antipsychotics.”

“I
think we must have had more to drink than we thought,” Anna added. “That’s why
you threw up.”

I
opened my mouth to speak, but only a strangled croak came out at first. No, I
wanted to scream, I threw up because a pair of butterfly wings tore through my
back—wings that angel guy gave me somehow. Like the wings nudging my back, I
got a similar stabbing feeling when I realized my own friends probably wouldn’t
want to hear it—would probably tell me I was just too tired or drunk or
something.

So
instead of protesting, I mumbled, “Oh. Right,” and followed Anna and Jimmy out
of the woods, looking back over my shoulder the entire time.