The Society Series Box Set 2

by Mason Sabre

  Freya hadn’t moved, but Stephen circled the gate with predatory ease. “Does it look random to you?” she asked.

  He bit down the offensive snap that leapt into his throat at the sound of another question to answer his. "It looks pointless to me. It leads to nowhere."

  "Everything leads somewhere. Why do you think it has panels on the sides?"

  He raised his eyes to look at her. “To keep the gates from falling.”

  When Freya moved, it was to run her fingers across the sleek black top of the gate. The paint had such a sheen to it, Stephen expected her fingers to come away with markings of wet paint, but they came away clean. “Do you believe everyone has another half to themselves?” She raised her gaze slowly to meet his. She was so much smaller than his six-foot-plus frame that towered over her, casting shadows to cloak her entire being. "Inside, do you think it is the truth?"

  Stunned at her question, he let his brow furrow. “You’re talking about soulmates?”

  A shrug, and the closest he felt a connection with Freya locked down and vanished. "Perhaps."

  Soulmates? Such a strange concept. He thought to Helena and what he felt for her. He thought to the way she made his heart feel like it would crack when they were close, but not out of pain. No. Out of a burning need to be closer to her, to hold her, to embrace her so well that his body could sate the craving inside. She made his tiger want to protect her for always, and he would. With every breath he had left, they would all be for her. She was his, his addiction.

  He thought to Cade and Gemma, too, and the way they took every stolen moment they could manage. Hell, they’d almost died for each other and they would without a second thought, but it was the way they looked at each other. The way they held one another in their gazes. He wondered if he had that same expression when he looked at Helena. But soulmates? He really didn’t know. “Is that what this gate is, and why there are two? Am I in the wrong place?”

  Another pause. “You are wherever you think you are. This is your perception, not mine.” With that nugget of information, Freya went around the gate and walked off, leaving Stephen with the choice to stubbornly try to stay where he was again, or just give in and follow her. He opted for the latter. It was better to save his energy for something else.

  Everything Stephen thought, everything he knew, crashed around in his head and jumped up and down for attention. He couldn’t do with any of it. “Maybe this is perdition,” he said after a while.

  “Punishment?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Are you a lost soul? This is your hell?”

  He scoffed at her. "If this were truly heaven, there would be Humans lined up for me to slaughter. If this were my heaven, I wouldn’t be here at all. I’d be back at the house, watching my family.”

  “You were,” she said, and that made him falter for a second.

  Heart lurching, Stephen tried to take in the peculiar vision of Freya smiling. If she hadn’t said what she’d just said, that smile alone would have rendered him speechless.

  "This is not your heaven," she said. "But this is all of them. This road?" She pointed down to the path beneath their feet. "This is the road between them all, and only a few may walk it. Only those who keep the gates or hold the keys can come here. You can walk this road, but you will only be able to enter the gates when you understand.” She shook her head and cast her eyes along the path. “They are not ready for you yet. So many must go through lives to get to the right place until they reach the last.”

  “And then what? Vanish?” He wasn’t fully grasping what she was getting at, but he thought he understood, maybe. Soulmates going through lives to find one another?

  “Walk with me.”

  He did this time with no hesitation. There were different gates, different doors all dotted along the way, but they didn’t stop to look at them. What they reached was a bridge. It shimmered with every colour and every shade in the spectrum, and it was so high, Stephen wondered why anyone would put so much effort into building it. Lifting a foot, he went to step onto the bridge, but the tip of his boot hit against something unseen and inflexible. “What is—”

  “You have the key for this, but until you fulfil what is meant of you, you cannot cross.”

  The mound of the bridge stretched high and wide and far into the distance beyond anything either of them could see. “This leads to the end?”

  “It leads wherever you want it to go.”

  The metal was warm under his fingers, and his touch wasn't pushed away by whatever stopped him from standing on it. It was so smooth and warm and delicately rich it belonged in an art museum. He stood in awe, and as pointless as it seemed, so much work had gone into creating it. No man could have designed anything with such beauty in one lifetime. "Why is it so long?"

  Another smile slotted across Freya’s lips. “You know the answer to that too.”

  The bridge was something to be admired, and Stephen almost lost himself in it, but Freya's lack of answer did something that made him snap up and frown. “If this is the end, why make it so difficult? Surely by the time you reach here, you’re worthy to cross? Why is there no limo to take you the last stretch after everything you’ve just gone through?”

  The way she tilted her head made her pointed chin seem even more elvish than usual. "Perhaps those who are worthy would not argue there was a problem. Perhaps those are happy to take the long bridge and climb this without question."

  Stepping back, Stephen glared at the bridge and made his vision go beyond the sheer beauty. “Maybe this is all set up by someone with an ego so fucking big that everything you’re just telling me is bullshit?” And the more those thoughts soured his mind, the more they became true to him. He stared at the bridge as if he could pull it down. “This,” he said, grabbing the rail. “It is bullshit. All of it is. Are you telling me that the two women we saw are in heaven? That that is what they deserve?” he shook his head. “It’s all crap. All of it.”

  The ground shook with his last word, and a crack echoed around him. He grabbed the edge of the rail for support, but Freya didn't move. Shadows danced across her face, and something dropped, filling the air with clangs of metal against metal.

  “What is …” He rose to his feet and put his arm in front of Freya to keep her from falling as the land around them collapsed. Everything sank down, crashing, smashing. The bridge broke in so many places it became nothing more than the shattered illusion of the broken fragments of something that had once been beautiful. “It’s not real, is it? None of it is.”

  With all logic stolen from his mind, Stephen pushed himself past Freya and stormed away from the bridge without looking back at her. She could come if she wanted to. She could follow him. It was his turn to lead and her turn to wander around in the dark.

  Dark clouds rolled along the blue sky, filling it up. Some of them were so dark, they were near black. Thunder rumbled, lightning slammed down, and the scent of a storm filled the air and wiped away anything that had been there before.

  "Where's the boy?" he said. Freya was behind him. She kept the same distance, but he wanted out. He wanted back to that tunnel, and the kid knew the way. "Why am I even asking you?"

  “Do you know why he led you here?”

  “To piss me off,” Stephen shot. He ground his jaw and turned full circle, trying to establish which way he needed to go to get back from where he had come. It was useless. “Am I dead?”

  He half expected her to ask him how he felt, but instead, she said, “You are not.” He went to speak, but she added. “But you will be.”

  With the first hint of urgency he had ever seen in her, Freya leapt over the gap between them and grabbed the front of his shirt. She met him face to face, and he didn't question how she was managing to do that with such a small frame.

  “Freya …”

  She slid a hand along his arm and over his tattoo. Heat flooded from her hand into his arm and pulsated between even the bones. He was used to the scars beating
along with his own heart, but every part ached with need, and he clenched his jaw and pushed against Freya with his other arm.

  "The witch who did this to you didn't cause this. She unlocked you."

  “She gave me pain.” He ground out, fighting the urge to scream at her, to use every piece of himself to push her back and off him.

  “You had pain. It was already inside you.” The pain eased as she slid her hand to his chest. She was more childlike now. “You have to get your ball back, Nick. I know the Humans have it, and without it, you cannot crossover, and you cannot die. You will walk between the worlds and so will all of those you'll fail. The woman, the boy?"

  He nodded, understanding.

  “Stop chasing ghosts. If you set the boy free, you can find yourself. I lied to you before. You were not ready, and I fear you aren’t now. You are not a reaper. You never were.”

  “Then what am I?”

  She leant into him, so her mouth was at his ear. “You are so much more than that. There is some reason children come to you. Find the boy, and you find all the answers."

  She pushed lightly against his chest, but it was strong enough he stumbled back. Behind him, the tunnel loomed, and Freya moved, fading into transparency. “Make a choice,” she said.

  “There is no choice. Never. Only Helena.”

  Then he turned and went back through the tunnel.

  Chapter 14

  The world was changing so fast, everything, Stephen thought as he stepped back out from the tunnel and into the dark grey reality of the yard. Freya's words were a beating echo in his mind that refused to leave him alone. If there were a way to bat them away like they were a bug, an annoying fly buzzing around his head, he would.

  Find yourself.

  Yeah … it made no sense, but then little of what Freya ever said made any sense. Not until the last moment at least, that crucial time when it was needed, and then bingo, a fucking explosion as everything locked into place. At most, Stephen had to trust in that and her process. But this … find himself. Did she mean physically? Because he knew where he was and what he was doing. Mentally?

  He had found himself. He’d found himself in Helena and in the future, she carried inside her. She’d filled his world with hope and whispered promises more than he could have ever hoped for. He had found more than himself that day he’d snuck into her place. He’d found her.

  Gravel didn’t crunch under his feet when he stepped down. He was back in the soundless world where not much of anything made any sense. Sometimes he wished he could just go home, back to the family, his parents, his sisters, but then he’d think about that too and realise he didn’t belong there. Not really.

  “God. What does it matter?” The answer would come when it was ready. He knew that much at least and trusted the process, but hell it was infuriating to wait. He’d be following the breadcrumbs of her words until whatever it was wanted to show itself.

  Time seemed to tick in Stephen’s veins like a disease. The sun had risen while he had been through the tunnel and experiencing Freya’s world of strange events. Someone had once told Stephen that time was like the ocean, but right then it felt like bugs biting his skin. Whatever time was, it was not his friend.

  The hole in the wall where the tunnel had been, was closed. Either he had come out of another place, walked too far, or it was gone, poof, like that. It didn’t matter to him, really. Another of Freya’s mind tricks, probably.

  The workday had begun in the yard, and Stephen stood, unseen, in the middle of them all. No one saw him. If they did, they'd have called for lockdown and a firing squad to sort him out. Fear would have dripped from every scream. As if he had the time or the patience to bother with them. Humans stood around with hard-hats covering their soft and fragile heads. They held clipboards and pencils to signify their importance.

  Around them, ironically with no hard hats, Others worked with ungloved hands and the sun beating down on their backs. Already, the men had beads of sweat running down their faces and into the dirt they worked on clearing.

  One Other, a skinny thing, cocked a brow and snuck a glance at the Humans closest to him, then he stood upright when he saw he wasn’t being watched, spat on his calloused hands and rubbed them together. The Human probably had perfect hands with baby-soft skin. Just as the Human turned, the Other got back to the pile of crushed cans he was sifting through.

  “The only trash you should pick up, are the Humans themselves.” Stephen shook his head and walked away. It shouldn’t be like that, anywhere. Others were dotted all around the place, picking up trash, moving it, clearing it. The Humans stood around and talked to each other, talking shit probably about things that didn't really matter in the world.

  There had been work yards like these at home. Usually, they were set up and then a month later, there’d be the start of new build houses. Not such a distance from where he had been watching the Human, there was a small trailer and a stack of metal boxes. The boy was sitting on the top of a bigger trunk.

  “Decided to come back, did you? I should thank you for our little trip.” For once, the fact the kid didn’t answer, didn’t bother him. Maybe he had crossed into that place now in his head where he just accepted things. That had been like when he was at home, and his father wanted him to do something. Most things had been a matter of being worn down until he just did it. He wasn't so sure why he was like that. Maybe he had some inbuilt opposition to everything that was different. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time he just got too tired with the drama of it and did whatever the hell he was supposed to.

  He walked past the boy this time, or at least he intended to, but then at the last second, that thing in his body, that snap of indecision, or whatever it was, lunged up and made him stop. “For God’s sake. Just once … just one time.”

  A tight knot formed in his chest.

  “Fine.” The boy had turned and was staring right at Stephen. “Are you waiting for me?” When the boy stared at him blankly, Stephen said, “You know, if you put a little more effort into your communication skills, you and I would get on so much better.”

  The boy jumped down off the box and landed soundlessly on the ground. He knew he had Stephen's attention and so he didn't look back or check if he was still there. Some challenging part of Stephen rebelled at that thought and made him want to vanish just so he could show this kid, but mostly, so he could show Freya he wasn't bending to their will.

  “My name is Nick,” he said, trying to get some kind of answer, but he shook his own head at the name. Two years he had been in Exile, and two years he had gone by that name, but it was still a thorn in his throat every time he said it. He’d not even told Helena his true identity, although he'd wanted to. Hell, he'd come so close to it sometimes that the words had almost spilt from his lips, but now the time had gone by so much, how could he tell her that the person she loved wasn't real? Sure, he was. The very fabric of Stephen was woven into this Nick person, but the name came with an identity, a voice. Someone he had been, someone he was.

  It wasn’t actually Helena who was the problem. She wasn’t some woman who’d throw a fit because he had secrets. No. She’d probably understand and listen to him. She’d probably try to ease the burden of it all. No. It was him. If he told her who he had been and what had happened, then it would make it permanent. It would make it real. All the time he kept Stephen a secret and played the role of Nick, was more time he could pretend to himself that he’d find a way home, that he’d find a way back and a way to undo it all.

  Stephen was a dream now. He had to be. He was a man with a family, parents, sisters, a best friend. A man who had died in the fields at another time, another place. He had to close that box in his mind or go insane from it.

  “Can you at least give me your name?”

  The boy had stopped, and young eyes met Stephen’s. So many times, Stephen had wished for silence when he was around his sisters and their inane chatter. So many times, he had told them to shut up, and now �
�� it somehow made him miss Gemma and Evie even more.

  “Just say something. Tell me to get lost. I don’t care.”

  Nothing.

  “Fine then. I—” He never got to finish what he wanted to say because something slammed into his chest and went through him like a hot knife through butter. He fell back and landed with a crack as the air whooshed out of him in one breath. He heaved and rolled onto his front, but pain lanced through his entire being. “Shit,” he ground out, clenching his jaw, his fists, every part of his body held tight, but he couldn’t move.

  How ironic it was that he had just walked, not ten paces from the other side and now he was about to die, there, amongst Humans and trash. He pressed his face into the dirt, trying to relieve the pain that seeped into every pore. Lee’s face flashed into his mind, but he refused it. He would not be the last thing he saw before he died. Fuck no. He forced in pictures of Helena, images of her he had locked in his memory from their time in captivity. The beating of his heart sped up to a hammering pace like he had just run a marathon.

  Touch always sent Stephen’s mind into a frenzy of colours and images. Especially if he didn’t have his mental shields up to stop it. When the witch had scarred him, she had opened something in his mind, and he was forever cursed at seeing what others had done. Yet the boy came to him as he crouched on the ground, gasping for breath, and swearing that no matter what happened, he would not end his days there. When the boy touched him, nothing. No flashes of light, no mental transportation into other places. Just warmth and peace.

  He lifted his eyes slowly to look at the boy. “What are you doing?” He had to force the words out, and even though he knew it was wasted breath and the boy wouldn’t answer, he had to ask anyway. His eyes spoke, though. They were light and brown, and there was a spark to them that was much older than he was. There was a pain in them too. Deep pain that shouldn’t have been present in one so young.