by K. G. Reuss
I let out the breath I’d been holding. Ambrose hadn’t hurt her but then again, I already knew that since I hadn’t been pulled to her.
“Why were you afraid?” I tilted her chin up to look at me. I’d wreck Ambrose if he laid a finger on her.
“I-I learned things that confused me,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“OK.” I studied her for a moment, lost in her beauty and believing anything she wanted to tell me.
“Please, don’t leave me again,” she pleaded softly after a moment of silence. “Just tell me who you are.”
“I’m no one, beautiful.”
“Eric?” she pressed, her voice cracking. “If it’s you, tell me!”
For a fraction of a second, I considered telling her I was Eric. Then I realized how angry Eric would be. And how it might push her into his arms without a moment’s hesitation. I’d told Eric in not so many words that whatever happened, happened, but it was an ugly lie. I didn’t want her with him. I didn’t want her with anyone but me.
Deep down it was stupid and selfish to think she’d keep pining away for the man she’d never be able to have. Eventually, she’d find someone. The agony of knowing that tore through me, causing my own tears to shed.
How she knew I was crying was beyond me. I was nothing but a shadow to her, and yet, her fingers skimmed my damp cheek.
“I’m not Eric,” I choked out through my tight throat. “I wish I were.”
She nodded, her eyes giving away what she really thought. She didn’t fully believe me. Reaching down, she took my hand, tugging me forward as she moved to her back, sliding across the bed.
And like any love-struck fool, I followed her.
Eighteen
Everly
Something inside of me frayed. A jolt of static coursed through me. Whatever wire was keeping me grounded untangled to the point of release. The change was immediate as his fingers brushed my tears away. It became more pronounced when I sensed he was crying too. Something told me I’d regret my next moves, but I did them anyway.
I pulled Shadow across my bed. He followed only hesitating a moment. My night had been a night of secrets revealed. I’d been in turmoil and confusion since. And then the only thing that had ever served as my anchor, my security blanket, showed up. My Shadow. He’d make all my worries disappear, even if only for a moment. Before long, his body hovered over mine as his fingers threaded through my hair. His red eyes wavered as he gazed down at me.
“Tell me,” I murmured, staring up at him. He was holding back, keeping secrets. His red orbs told me he had so much he was fighting to keep back.
“What do you want to know?” It was the most he’d ever talked before. His voice was thick and distorted through the shadow but rich at the same time. Complete music to my ears.
“Why did you stop coming? Why don’t I see you anymore? Who are you? Where have you been? Why are you here now?” The questions kept tumbling out of me.
“Everly,” his voice was a soft whisper, his warm breath tickling my face. “I had to stop coming. Me being away is protecting you. If you and I are together, bad things will happen. I don’t want that for you. You’re here now. You’re safe. That’s how I want to keep you. Me being with you, around you, near you, your being safe won’t happen. As much as it kills me to stay away, I must. You know who I am, sweet girl. I’m Shadow. Your Shadow. I always have been. I always will be. I’ve been nearby, keeping watch. To answer your final question…” His lips skimmed my jawline, causing goosebumps to erupt along my skin and a soft whimper to escape my lips. “I missed you.”
“Are you going to leave me again?” I whispered as his lips moved to my forehead before he breathed me in.
He lifted his head and stared down at me after hesitating, his red eyes troubled and sad. He didn’t need to tell me. In fact, I’d be lucky if I ever saw him again. My heart twisted at the inherent knowledge.
“I don’t have a choice, Everly,” he confirmed, sorrow in his voice. “If something happened to you because of me, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Nothing will happen! You can save me!” I whimpered beneath him. “I need you, Shadow. More now than ever before. Things will change. I-I can’t do it alone—”
“There are things I can’t save you from. I won’t be able to save you from. And those are the things I must protect you from. Don’t think this doesn’t gut me, Everly. Because it does. It kills me inside every day that I stay away. I don’t want this. I want you. With me. Always. But we don’t always get what we want. Things will change. To keep you safe, they must.”
“So that’s it?” Tears sprang to my eyes. “This is goodbye?”
“Yes,” he whispered, his voice wavering. “You’ll be safe here. Let me go. Be happy. Make friends. Have adventures. Your happiness is my greatest wish if I cannot be with you.”
“But you can be with me—”
He shook his head, letting out a sigh of frustration. One of his tears fell onto my face, mingling with my own. All the buzzing within my body stopped at that moment as a sense of foreboding washed over me.
“I can’t, Everly. I swore I’d protect you always. This is how I’m doing it. By letting you go. Us being together would not be wise or safe. This kills me. Please understand I don’t want it… But you’re free from me now.”
I said nothing as I gazed up at him. Sadness and turmoil rolled off his body. It was the same that rolled from mine. Together, our feelings twisted into an ugly dance, both of us knowing there was nowhere to go from there.
“Stay with me tonight?” I pleaded.
He wouldn’t relent on leaving me for good, but perhaps he’d stay the night with me. Maybe I’d awake in the morning thinking this was just a dream. Or a nightmare.
“Of course,” he murmured, pressing a tender kiss to my forehead. I closed my eyes, my throat aching from trying to hold back tears.
“Don’t cry, baby,” he whispered, his own voice choked. His lips skimmed my neck. My jaw. “Don’t cry.”
“We hardly know each other,” I sniffled, my heart beating out the words I knew were true. I trusted in them. “And yet, I know that I-I love you. That I always have.”
“Oh, Everly,” he sighed against my neck. “My beautiful, sweet Everly. I love you too.”
He settled onto his back and tugged me flush against him. With gentle hands, he tucked my head in the space under his chin like a puzzle piece, positioning my ear over his heart. I snaked my arm around his waist as he wrapped both of his around me. We were a perfect fit. The realization was painful. I drifted off to the rhythm of his heart, which was oddly keeping perfect pace with mine.
When I awoke the following morning, the spot where he’d lain was cold and empty. I’d fallen asleep feeing safe and loved in his arms, knowing he would leave me. He didn’t speak anything else after telling me he loved me. It seemed like he wanted to but held back. Instead, he ran his fingers through my hair, planting a tender kiss on my head every few minutes until I’d fallen asleep.
The thought of getting out of bed and facing the day or my new friends sickened me. They’d planned a movie night in Harper’s dorm. Instead of going, I wrote another letter to my mom and Nina, pretending everything was fine and I wasn’t dying inside.
I remained in bed all weekend, crying off and on, totally not myself. Marcus telling me about my grandma attending Dementon had been a major blow. He furthered it by showing me a vision I was still trying to decode.
For one, how the hell did he do it? How did he know my grandma? How was any of it even possible?
That moment with him raised more questions than answers, answers he told me he had. But they’d come at a price. Unable to stand there and deal with it anymore, I’d left him and returned to my room. And then he’d came.
Shadow.
There was a buzzing inside of me, like the static I’d felt during the pinning ceremony. I didn’t know if it was from my stress or something else. On Sunday night, after
unsuccessfully avoiding Harper when she refused to leave until I answered my door, I lay in bed, my thoughts dark.
My family had lied to me. The idea my mom might know made me nauseous. I was sick of the questions, the secrets. It was time I got answers.
Not even Shadow was telling me the truth. There was so much more to our story, and I deserved to know it. It wasn’t only his story. It was mine too, and I had a right to it. Silently, I took an inventory of all the things he’d said. Then I thought about all the times he protected me.
I fell into a fitful sleep, no closer to understanding what was going on than I’d been before.
And that’s when the dreams came.
I was floating. The world was shades of gray and black. A dense fog hung below me as I flitted over it. The static grew. Sharp jolts of electricity made me whimper as I glided over the mist, my bare feet skimming the edge.
“Ever…” the voice was soft and breathy, feminine.
“Everly, why do you fight it, girl?” a sharp, snappy voice called out in an angry growl.
I flinched, trying to curl into myself.
“Come here, sweet child,” a hoarse whisper filled the empty air. “Not all of us wish to devour you. At least, not all at once.”
I yelped as something cold brushed against my feet. And then a squeal erupted from my lips as whatever had brushed against me latched tight onto my ankle, giving me a firm tug, pulling me closer to the thickening fog. My heart hammered in my chest as I struggled to kick it off me.
A shriek of terror left me as I looked down. Beneath me, within the fog, were hundreds of gnarled, decaying hands, reaching out to me. Some of their cold fingers tangled in my hair and tugged hard. I was drowning, only it wasn’t water and seaweed that was dragging me down. It was the dead and their desperate hands clawing at me. Scratching me. My skin burned and ached with each new wound.
“We all have stories to tell, Everly!” a voice snarled. A head covered in black, matted hair emerged from the fog. An eyeball hung from its socket. His face was decayed with small holes where I could see tiny bugs thrashing about within.
“You’re not real! You’re not real!” I screamed, trying to twist my body away from the dead. The acrid, vile stench of their corpses gagged me.
“Not anymore!” a rasping voice chuckled. “But we could be!”
I let out a terrified cry as my body fell through the fog, whatever had been floating me along now gone. The faces of the dead whizzed past me as I tumbled downward.
My eyes squeezed closed, and my arms covered my head as I waited for the impact that came with falling.
Nineteen
Everly
I woke up screaming and drenched in sweat with my bedsheets tangled around me. My breathing came in strangled gasps as I stared up at my ceiling.
Stress. That’s all it was. That was what I chose to believe, even though the burning ache from their nails across my skin still plagued me.
It ended up being a miserable, sleepless week. I was too afraid to fall asleep. Every time I did, I found myself in that fog, the dead surrounding me. Stress or not, I didn’t want to keep dreaming. Instead, I lay awake trying to find answers. It seemed the only ones with the answers who were willing to share them were two people I feared. Marcus telling me about my grandma being alive had gutted me. None of it made sense.
I was more heartbroken that I’d been lied to than anything else. Since my accident, I’d become this wallowing, sad shell of the girl I used to be. I hated this version of me. I hated everything that was happening.
Being trapped in a world that had more questions than answers was frustrating. Everything had changed in the blink of an eye. Even though I had friends, I felt alone. My family had duped me. I’d been betrayed by the people meant to protect me. In spite of my sleepless nights and loss of appetite and any semblance of happiness, I forced a smile every day.
My mom and Nina wrote me often. I’d even made it a point to talk to them once a week on the phone since I’d been here. Except this week. The energy to fake my way through a conversation that should be happy wasn’t within my power.
And none of that was the worst part. It had been a week since I’d seen Shadow. A week since the dreams started. Part of me resented him. Every time he was near, he brought some calamity with him, leaving me devastated in the fallout. Maybe him staying away wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
I wasn’t even trying to sleep anymore. In fact, I went to the store on campus, which was run by a dwarf named Waldo, and stocked up on energy drinks. I even convinced Harper into casting an awake charm on me. When she asked why, I told her I wanted to get ahead on schoolwork and be able to work on my abilities longer so visiting my mom would be an option.
When I came down from the charm two days later, I felt like a bus had hit me.
Add to all of that Nevron and Marcus kept casting me pleading looks and following me wherever I went, and I was on the brink of a freak out.
Finally, I enlisted Harper to slip a note to Marcus telling him I’d meet with him at some point, so he and Nevron needed to back off until I was ready.
“Take the night off. You’re exhausted,” Eric said at training later on, his blue eyes surveying me with worry.
I had to hand it to him, after I bailed on him at the dance then avoided him like the plague the days following it, he took it in stride, telling me he understood and had no hard feelings. Any time we’d spoken since had been brief, which was my doing. I still thought he was Shadow, and it was painful that he withheld the information from me.
I swiped my damp hair off my forehead and said, “No, I can do it.”
I willed myself to climb to my feet. I swayed as I took my stance against him again. Instead of going back into sparring, he moved forward and wrapped me in a tight hug, surprising me.
“Rest, Ever. Please. You’re worrying me.” He pulled away and looked down at me, a frown on his face. “What’s going on?”
Everyone had been asking me what was wrong since the lies and secrets had poured out. I’d been dodging Eric’s questions since everything started. I was still trying to process all the information, the dreams, and Shadow. Thinking Eric might be Shadow made me question myself. He was the same height as Shadow, and about the same size from what I remembered by touching him through the darkness. And his hair. While I never ran my fingers through it, it had to be the same. Questioning Shadow hadn’t given me answers. I needed to be brave.
Screw it.
Eric’s eyes widened as my nails raked against his scalp. My fingers trailed down to his face. My eyes ached with exhaustion as I peered at him. His rough stubble poked at my palm as I cupped his face.
“What are you doing?” His eyes searched me.
“You remind me of someone I know,” I murmured, moving closer to him.
He winced as a pained expression crossed his face.
“Do I?” his voice was thick. He reached forward and brushed a strand of hair away from my face. “Who?”
“You know who.” I crinkled my brows.
His hands landed on my waist as he tugged me forward, so our bodies touched. His nearness made my breath catch in my chest.
He spoke in a soft, breathy growl as he rested his forehead against mine, “You need to let this go. It’s killing you.”
“I know.” My lips trembled as I struggled not to cry.
Why wouldn’t he tell me? I wanted to end at least one nightmare, get the answers to one question.
If I let Shadow go, would the other nightmares go with him? When I was a kid, all the bad things left when he did. Or he left because of the bad things. I never understood which or why. When Dad left, the dead followed, then Shadow. I had normalcy after that. God, how I wanted it again! “How do I do it then? How do I let go?”
“Love someone else,” Eric’s voice was soft.
Something was happening between us. I’d felt it the moment I’d gotten in the car to go to Dementon.
What if Eric reall
y wasn’t Shadow?
Shadow said being together wasn’t a possibility, but what if he meant as Shadow? If he was in his normal form, if he was Eric, then perhaps it wouldn’t matter.
It was too many twisted mind games that left me hurt, lost and confused.
“No one will ever be able to love someone like me,” I said, my voice as wobbly as my legs. I wanted no one but Shadow to love me.
“You don’t know how wrong you are, Ever,” his voice was hard. I bit my bottom lip as I peered up at him. More questions would do no good. And I’d vowed to myself that I wouldn’t push the subject. I had to move away from these dangerous waters. In fact, I needed to move on altogether.
“I can’t sleep at night. I’m having nightmares,” I said it in a rush not knowing why I was telling him or what had come over me.
“What sort of nightmares?” He frowned at me. It hadn’t slipped my attention that his hands were still on my waist.
“It’s like when I was awake, with the dead coming for me, only now I’m sleeping. I can’t seem to focus. I try not to sleep because I’m not sure when they’ll hit me. And I’m afraid of that,” I finished.
“You need to sleep, Ever,” he murmured. He grew quiet for a moment. “Come back to my place. We’ll watch a movie, and you can unwind.”
“Raiden would love that,” I said with a snort, shaking my head.
“He’s not there right now. And when he gets back, he’ll leave soon after. He has patrols with Amara at midnight. He won’t know you’re there. We’ll go to my bedroom.”
My heart hammered in my chest. Eric was inviting me to his place?
“You know you want to,” he teased, giving my waist a gentle squeeze. “I’ll even make us some popcorn. We can watch anything you want. It’ll help you relax.”
“OK,” I agreed, blowing out a breath. “I’d like that.”
