The Two Kings (Afterlife Saga) (129 page)

Of course
,
I didn’t know exactly what Hilary was going to hear from her mum
,
but if it was the truth then she would have a new person to hate and I was pretty sure that someone was going to be my mother. I didn’t want to be the one to say
,
because it wasn’t my place and I was extremely angry at my Auntie for not telling her daughter sooner. I found out a few years ago when looking through some old family photos with my mum. The conversation came up and my poor, teary mother confessed to being the one to have to tell her own sister that she had seen her husband kissing a lady that worked at the local newsagents not far from our house. Of course
,
as it turned out
,
it wasn’t just a few pecks on the cheek f
or a cheaper ‘News of the world’.
It had been a full blown affair resulting in love. He soon left my Auntie for this other woman and went to live with her and her three kids.

So instead of letting Hilary be a part of her father’s life with this other family on the side she moved them both away. She only came
back when she was certain her ex-
husband didn’t live in the area anymore. The last my mum had heard they were living in Carmarthenshire in Wales.  I had no clue that Hilary didn’t know any of this and now understood why my mother always told us “Be nice to her, she’s had it hard
.
” That had been my mother
’s
excuse for everything and now I knew why...her guilt had been speaking every time.

I got out of the shower not recalling if I had even washed my hair, my mind was in a back log of childhood memories. Every nasty word, every cruel gesture and every painful thing she ever did to me now made sense. Why wouldn’t she hate me? I mea
n if it had been the other way
round then how would I have reacted? If she had succeed
ed
in getting Draven from
me, then what would I have done?
I had gone pretty far last night and that was only at the hint of it.

After getting dry and dressed I walked back into my room to find Hilary sat on my bed. Her head
was
buried in her hands and she was shaking. At that moment all hate we had felt for each other melted away just like a heat wave had swept through the room. She heard my footsteps and she looked up. The sight made my heart break. It looked as though she had been sobbing none stop since she left my room. Her face was red and blotchy, making
her blue eyes stand out like they were
dotted with broken blood vesse
ls underneath the skin around them
. Her lips were quivering and the no
ise of air being sucked in so that
she could cry louder was enough to set me off.

I ran to her on the bed and she fell into my arms which forced us both onto the floor. I was kneeling with her head cradled on my shoulder and she was slumped to the side soaking my top with an unending stream of tears. I smoothed back her hair and rubbed her back until she was spent.

“Ssshhh, It
s ok, you’re not alo
ne” I whispered making her release
one more outburst of spluttered sobs. When she found some control she pulled back to look at me in awe.

“Why are you being so nice to me, you should hate me!” Again another hitched breath and a cry came thick after her question.

“I don’t hate you, I just never understood why you hated me
,
but now I understand
.
”

“I spoke to my mum and she told me everything, I yelled at her and s
aid some pretty horrible things.
Man
,
I want to hate her for lying to me!”

“I think you have lived with hate for too long Hilary. That type of thing will destroy you if you let it...trust me on this. After what happened I really knew what it was to hate...I hated everything! I hated it for being sunny, I hated watching people smile and laugh at things I couldn’t see the glory in. I even hated
people being nice to me, their
fake talk and happy eyes. But one day I realised, it wasn’t all these things I hated...It was myself. I hated who I had become and who
he
had made me!” Ok so now we were both crying and we really hugged each other for the first in sixteen years. It felt like a friend I had lost and just stumbled across in passing, totally unexpected but utterly welcome.

We sat together for the longest time and when Libby came back from work and found us both giggling and gossiping like kids
,
with Hilary all bruised up, she nearly dropped dead from shock. It must have been the last thing she expected to get home from work to find. Well it was odd
,
to say the least
,
but it felt so right at the same time.  We both explained the past and after what happened last night, how we had come to this point. Of course Libby asked the one obvious question I hadn’t even thought of.

“But why the Hell did your mum tell you it was Keira that told her?” Man that was a good question!

“Ah, well, this is the irony. She told me it was Keira because she knew what good friends we were, she thought that if I knew it had come from her that I wouldn’t even question it. She knew I trusted you and she didn’t want me thinking bad
ly
of your mum, I guess she was protecting her sister the way you
r
mum protected her by telling on my dad
.
” She said this last part to me and I just shook my head at how one little lie had caused so many years of damage. It made no sense in my world but then again...what did? Why should I be surprised, wasn’t my life riddled with crazy, unrelenting events that change
d
ever
y
course I walk
ed
down.

Time that d
ay quickly turned into a
time for everyone else. Once I had spent some time with Hilary, Jack turned up all worried and armed with an endless amount of apologies. He told me what she had told him and no surprises, how she had played the victim. He admitted it didn’t take him long to realize the holes in her stories but by then he felt so ashamed of himself for believing it
,
he didn’t know what to say to me. He told me how every time he tried to be alone to talk to me I would avoid him. It was true, I had been avoiding him but for all the wrong reasons.

After convincing him finally that I had forgiven him, he left after pulling me in for a bear hug. By this time it was dark outside and close to eight. I had wanted to go back to Afterlife ages ago but after what had happened with my cousin and me
,
I knew I would have to wait. But now my time had come. I was going to see Draven and there was no stopping me.

That was until I got a phone call from the man himself. I hadn’t answered it but a message was waiting for me by the phone written in Libby’s hand. She hadn’t want
ed
to tell me herself and only when reading the message did I understand why.

Keira,

Please don’t come to me tonight,

I need time alone to think.

And I fear seeing you will only cloud my judgement.

I will come to you when I am ready.

Wait for me.

Dominic.

This was why he hadn’t wanted
to see me this morning....

He didn’t want to see me at all.

Chapter 57
 

Someone’s Soul is o
n Fire.

It felt as though I had a dagger protruding from my chest and Draven had been the one who put it there. I picked up the phone three times before admitting defeat and slamming it back down on the receiver before it even had chance to ring. I wanted to speak to him, to hear the words for myself but I was also afraid. What if this was the end? What if this time there was no going back. Could I really let this go, just go on without looking behind me
?
NO! I couldn’t do that and I wouldn’t!

I was in the kitchen with a large glass of some sp
irit I found
in the cupboard. It tasted like paint thinner as it burned down my throat but that was a good thing. I wanted that burn, I wanted to feel anything just so as long as it wasn’t nothing. I could deal with anything but numbness.  I heard a voice being cleared and turned my head to see Libby with a worried frown top her features.

“I don’t understand, why doesn’t he want to see me?” I asked her facing back to the sink and swirling the liquid around in my glass.

“I think when he said to give him time, I think he really meant you
.
” She answered sympathetically.

“I don’t want bloody time! What I want, is to go over there and demand him to speak to me!”

“Then why don’t you?” It sounded simple enough but Libby didn’t know the consequences of that action.

“Because last night I asked him to do something very hard...I asked him to let me go and he did. And now he asks the same of me, how can I say no, how can I do anything
but
wait?” Libby had been nodding in agreement, which hadn’t been the response I had wanted. I wanted her to tell me something, anything that would have made the excuse to go over there acceptable.

“He really scared you last night didn’t he?” Of course Frank had told her, there was nothing he wouldn’t have, so I wasn’t surprised or angry.

“Yes he did
,
but after talking to Frank
last night, I kind of understoo
d it better. I don’t condone what he did, not at all
,
but if the situation was reversed then I can’t imagine I would have taken it well either.”

“Men, eh?
” This was her answer for everything and we both laughed at how barbaric and caveman they could act. Of course for Draven this was multiplied by about a thousand because not only was he half Angel, half Demon, he was also King of the hidden world of the supernatural. So granted
,
he had a lot of pressure to deal with, so I
gathered having to deal with a
hysterical human girlfriend was something of a pain in the arse. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to see me tonight, maybe he just wanted me to take time to cool down before having to deal with it again. Some Demon /Angel quiet time...sur
e
ly I could give him that, right?
Ok
, so it didn’t have to mean that he wanted to split up with me, I could just be feeling a little paranoid.

Ok
,
so after a few more glasses of some alcohol, which I still don’t know the name of I felt better. I mean for all I knew it could have been cooking sherry but it did the job so that was all I cared for. I was feeling quite merry and looking on the brighter side of life. I had made up with my cousin after a sixteen year feud. I was friends with Jack again and me and Frank had one of the best heart to hearts that I would never forget. So life was looking good, all I needed now was to be allowed to see Draven and have wild, mad passionate makeup sex and all would be good in the world. Not too much to ask for...right?

It wasn’t surprising when I looked at the clock and saw it was cl
ose to midnight. I had been mop
ing about ever since Jack left and when Libby had started bringing me up cups of tea around ten, I knew she was worried about me being in my room, drunk, crying and listening to Celine Dion’s “All by myself”. She found, thankfully I hadn’t been doing any of those things, apart from the drinking but thanks to four mugs of tea in a row I was pretty
well
past the drunk stage. I had been painting, something I hadn’t done in a while.

It was of a pulsating heart, like the ones you find in hallmark cards, not the blood pumping
muscle. The back
ground was of the dark forest and the heart was amongst the shadowed trees looming around it. It glowed out in the night and I added light reflecting off the surfaces around it.
The most significant
part was the huge, jagged lightning bolt that came from above and struck the heart
’
s core, splitting it in two. One side gaped more than the other and I thought that this was the side that symbolised me more than Draven’s side, as he was clearl
y the stronger of us both. I kne
w I was being overly dramatic by painting this but mixed with alcohol and feeling sorry for myself this is what my mind had wanted to paint.