Unseen (The Heights, Vol. 1) (13 page)

“Yeah, sorry. It’s a shock, that’s all.”

“You must leave now.”

“What? No!” she cried. “Can’t you give me
more time? I need a chance to think of the right question.”

“Soon it will be your time, Vitae. Prepare
yourself for what is to come.”

“What’s to come?”

“The Rising.”

“Can you
please
say something that
makes sense?” She paced around the room, ranting, and turned to—no
one. Where did the old cow go? “Wait! I didn’t— I don’t know how to
prepare myself. You can’t leave without—”

Useless. Nobody cared. Nobody made sense.

“Here’s a question for you,” she screamed,
spinning in a circle. “How am I supposed to get out of this goddamn
place?”

Turned out, all she had to do was find the
right wall to walk through. Yep, she walked through a fucking wall
with her eyes closed, as if this was a trust exercise or
something.

Addison opened her eyes down a dark tunnel
with a light at the end of it. Seriously? As if the last hour
hadn’t been fun enough. With her feet dragging along like they
were, she kept one hand on the wall for balance. If there was even
a small bump, she was going down. And she wasn’t sure she’d be able
to get back up anytime soon.

She wiped her eyes to check if she was
crying. Thankfully, her emotions were still stuck at a ‘numb and
angry’ level. Rhyse would demand to know what she’d seen and
everything she and the fortune teller had discussed after he left.
And Addison’s answer would be: Nothing and too much.

The old bat only spoke in riddles,
vaguities
, and oxymorons, but Addison had gotten the gist. A
really fucking bad gist that left her in a really fucking bad mood.
Probably a common reaction to someone telling you that every memory
you have is a big joke that you didn’t get. Left everybody else
laughing, but certainly not
you
. Because all the things you
thought you’d experienced weren’t real, and the person you’d always
believed was your mom was actually somebody else’s. The somebody
else whose body you’d inhabited since their death.

There wasn’t a curse word strong enough for
what she wanted to scream. She’d taken a dead little girl’s body. A
four-year-old. It didn’t matter if the girl had just passed away
when Addison was somehow shoved into it—it was still…nauseatingly
horrible. Her mom raised someone she thought was hers.

Addison remembered waking up, little bits
anyway. Her mom sitting next to the hospital bed looking dead
herself. Addison was almost smothered by that first hug, lifted off
the bed and tucked into the safe arms of a sobbing woman. She’d
touched her face and asked why mommy was so sad and told her she
didn’t feel good and wanted to go home.

To a home she’d never seen before, with a
woman she’d never met before. A few days later, the angel came to
her, explaining that she should never tell anyone about the
creatures she saw or else bad things would happen to her and her
mommy. It didn’t seem like a threat at the time, probably because
it was spoken by an angel, but it
had
been. The first threat
of the Heights.

She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t
feel guilty about her father’s death—he’d died saving her life.
Because of Addison, her mom had lost her husband. Turned out she’d
lost her daughter at the same time. Maybe that was Addison’s fault,
too.

The pain she felt and the grieving she’d done
for her father had never been hers to feel. She’d stolen sacred
emotions from someone who had truly loved him, who’d been a part of
him. The memories
since
then were hers, but they were all
built on someone else’s truth.

If she’d known what the right questions were,
she would’ve asked them. The oracle had dismissed her before she
understood a single goddamn thing. Great, she was a combo platter
of supers. Thanks for the intel. But what did it actually
get
her? A little light sensitivity, maybe a bit more
strength than other people who never worked out, but it wasn’t as
if she got hairy once a month. Bitchy, yes. Grumpy, hell yes. But
hairy? Nothing a sharp razor or some wax couldn’t take care of.

And what the fuck did ‘Soon it will be your
time’ and something about a Rising mean? A rising of what? And was
this
‘her time’? A crappy day filled with confusion,
exhaustion, terror, a weird blind woman, and a murderous vamp?

Yeah, it sure as shit felt like this was ‘her
time.’

Maybe ‘her time’ was what she’d seen in a
stupid hallucination of her fucking the murderous vamp. Or was ‘her
time’ the other vision she’d seen? She shivered as the image
appeared in her mind again. Horrific.

An endless line of bodies at her feet and a
raging fire behind her. So many bodies.
So many.
And somehow
she was responsible for them. Maybe not directly, not all of them
at least. Logan was standing nearby with a few others she didn’t
recognize.

And Rhyse. She never imagined it was possible
for any being, let alone for a vampire, to express that much pain
with just their eyes.

It had to be a faulty vision—she wasn’t a
killer. She couldn’t even kill Rhyse when he was half-dead and
strapped down.

“It’s not going to happen.” Her desire to get
out of this cold, miserable place was the only thing keeping her
standing, trudging along. Her mind was doing loop-di-loops and her
body wasn’t going to hold out much longer. She slowed even more as
she neared the light, giving her eyes a chance to adjust, giving
her brain a chance to come up with something to tell Rhyse.

Then the lights went out. No, that wasn’t
quite right. The darkness was in the shape of a man, light
surrounding him. He was no angel, though—he was all vamp.

“Move,” she yelled. “I can’t see as it is.”
No way was she going to follow the old lady’s advice regarding him.
Thank the powers for free will.

“You are weak.” He appeared in front of her,
his arms already around her waist. “I will carry you.” Why was he
helping her? Being nice wasn’t part of his kingly duties. Vamps
didn’t take care of seers. But she wasn’t a seer anymore, was she?
She’d never really been one.

So who the hell am I?
She pulled away
from him. “I’m fine.” He didn’t say anything else, staying behind
her until she stopped. “You’re hovering, Vamp. Back off.” She had
too much to process before she told him anything,
if
she
could tell him anything. “Can you take me home now?”

He circled her and lifted her chin, holding
her up. If she could see better, she knew she’d see a question in
his eyes and on his lips. But he didn’t ask. Maybe he thought he
was still in front of the oracle.

“Please, Rhyse.” Her voice shook. “I just
want to go home.”

“I cannot take you there.”

Crap. She was going to lose it any second.
“Why not?”

“It will be daylight soon, and I know you
will try to leave me.”

“You said you were going to let me go.”

“I cannot.” His tone was hard, cold, even
more than usual.

“You promised! Please. I’m begging you—take
me home.”

“Am I complicit in your death?”

“What?” Was
that
what he was worried
about? The method he used to murder her? “I don’t know. That’s not
what I saw.”

“What
did
you see?”

“You mean besides us screwing?” she spat. “As
if that wasn’t traumatic enough?”

“I cannot take you to your home.” When he
slipped his arms around her waist, she put her hands on his chest
and pushed, which did absolutely nothing productive. The only
movement it created was a tightening of his arms.

“Get off me!” Then the tunnel faded and she
needed to throw up again. She kind of wished she had—all over
him.

“Damn you, Rhyse!”

His grip loosened and she stumbled, her arms
shooting out to the sides for balance. He grabbed one, but as soon
as she knew she wasn’t going to fall over, she yanked it away. And
he allowed her to.

“Where are we?” Obviously not her apartment
or anywhere else she’d ever been. She looked around and shivered. A
comically-enormous bed didn’t even take up a quarter of the
gigantic room. A bunch of white sheets in the shape of a couple of
chairs, a small couch, and a dresser gave the space all the glamour
of an old horror movie. Couldn’t supers show any originality at
all? The place was probably haunted.

“You need warmth.” He crossed to the
fireplace, and moments later it glowed, flames flicking up like
tongues. “Come closer. I will not harm you.” He stood back, his
hands in his pockets.

The flames drew her in, reminding her of what
she’d seen. They frightened and warmed her equally. Opposing
emotions seemed to be the new thing for her. For the fire in front
of her and the vampire behind her. Even her tears seemed
confused—pushing right up to the edge of her eyes but not making
that last tiny effort to escape.

“Why didn’t you take me home?” she asked, her
voice flat.

“It will be dawn soon. I cannot phase during
daylight hours and we have much to discuss before dusk.”

Bottom line: she was trapped. Why not check
out the cage? “What is this place?”

“One of my mountain homes. I have not been
here in a very long time. The closest town is ten miles away, so
you will be safe.”

“Safe?” At the word, something in her gave,
unleashing her exhaustion, frustration, and rage. She spun towards
him, daring him to kill her, to end this before it had a chance to
begin, before anyone other than her was damaged.

“You mean like a prisoner is safe? Or like
you pretend a toy is? Is that why I’m here?” She threw her arms
out. “You know what? We both know it’s going to happen, so why not
just get it out of the way?” She shook off his jacket and
unbuttoned her jeans.

He covered her hands with his, stopping her.
“Do you think I would have you like this? Out of grief or spite?
No, Addison. Not like this.” He picked up the jacket, put it over
her shoulders, and buttoned it. “We will remain here until I have
made the city safe for you. I will keep you from harm. So—”

“It’s not your job to keep me from harm,
Rhyse. I’ll be fine. I’m golden.” She spoke quickly, loudly,
jarringly. “At least until somebody makes a decision that they
weren’t going to make and it screws up the timeline. Hell, maybe
you bringing me here is actually the thing that kills me. Or maybe
we’re supposed to be fucking right now and the fact that we’re
not
is what guarantees my death. What a bummer that would be
for both of us, right? You don’t get laid and I get dead.”

His head dropped forward. “This has nothing
to do with sex, Addison. The oracle said we should remain together
for as long as we can. If I brought you to your home, we would be
separated.”

“That woman was insane! We don’t know what
will happen, whether we’re stuck with each other or not.
She
didn’t even know.” When Addison took a breath, her stomach decided
to give its opinion in the form of a long, loud growl. “Shut up!”
It didn’t. When was the last time she’d eaten? Or slept? Or felt
safe?

She wasn’t hungry, but some serious emotional
eating might help.
Even hell is probably easier to deal with if
you have chocolate.

And since Rhyse didn’t eat, one of them would
have to go somewhere for food. Obviously not her, because she
wasn’t allowed to leave her cage. At least it meant she’d be alone
and have a chance to cry without him seeing. Maybe she could run
for it, if she found the door.

Oh, who was she kidding? She wasn’t up for a
ten-mile run on a
good
day.

“I will get you food.” As soon as he
disappeared, she knew there was no way to escape. If there was, he
wouldn’t have let her out of his sight.

She went to a window and looked outside.
Totally not the city. Wherever they were was covered with snow, but
not much else. Lots of trees, but no people. Ten miles to the
closest town. He wouldn’t have a house outside the zone, so they
were definitely still in North America.

Great. That narrows it down.
She
slumped onto a chair, not bothering to remove the sheet. Stuck in a
vamp’s bedroom ten miles from civilization almost topped finding
out she wasn’t who or what she’d always thought she was. Coming in
only slightly before hearing she was supposed to be part of
something she knew nothing about and didn’t want to be involved
in.

Awesome. Life couldn’t
possibly
get
any better than this. No wait, it could! She’d almost forgotten she
was going to fuck the vamp who was holding her captive. Then they’d
get to hang out for a while because some lady with gross eyes told
them to. Did Rhyse really expect Addison to somehow ignore all
logic and buy into ‘visions’ that were obviously delusions?

Her chest tightened until she couldn’t quite
expand her lungs to get enough air.
I need to get out of this
place. I’m going to die here.
She didn’t want to die here.
Get somewhere I can breathe.
She yanked the blanket off the
bed and the sheets off the other furniture and went in search of a
door. As she moved, she straightened the sheets in her arms and
wrapped them around herself, grabbing more from each room she
passed. She was still going to freeze her ass off, unless being a
super-vitae gave her some kind of anti-freeze magic.

From the top of an enormous stairway, she saw
the door. Of course the place was enormous—for someone who lived
forever and could control people’s minds, it probably qualified as
a little getaway cabin.

As soon as the door opened, the cold struck.
Dry, icy air going right through her makeshift parka, seeping into
every cell. What a stupid superpower—her only defense was if
someone took a bite out of her. Otherwise, she was as weak and
powerless as she’d always known she was.