Fall (Roam Series, Book Two)

by Kimberly Adams

  West, where are you?

  After thirty minutes, I began to rationalize going in.

  You’re stupid, like the idiots in every horror movie you’ve ever seen. I had no idea what I was walking into, but I knew with absolute certainty that I couldn’t lose West again.

  If Logan wasn’t working with Troy, then his life was at stake, as well as Violet’s.

  Could I live without them, knowing that I did nothing to try to help them?

  I needed some kind of weapon. My dad’s truck was empty except for some coffee cups and paperwork. I turned around to peer into the bed of the truck, finding it covered in snow, but empty as well. I wasn’t confident in my aptitude for self-defense against a loaded gun, and I needed something that would put me on equal ground.

  Think. What does Troy want the most?

  I sucked in my breath as the pulling sensation pulsed again deep inside my abdomen. I held the child beneath my sweater, steadying my breath.

  He wants my baby.

  He wants me.

  I unlocked the door. I could see my breath in the cold air as my boots met the snowy ground. I guessed that more than an inch had fallen since we arrived, and West’s footprints were almost completely covered.

  Tucking the keys into the wide pockets on the front of my dress, I slowly moved toward the house.

  Keys… weapon.

  The moonlight sliced through an oversized icicle that hung from the gutter on the porch. I stared at the sharp point on the ice, thinking about my dream and the ice-chandelier.

  You think these are dreams of another world? One that we were both in?

  Logan’s voice came back to me, lingering in my thoughts as I reached for the thick icicle. My fingers were cold enough to stick to the frosted ice without melting it. I moved to the front door, deciding that there was no reason to walk around the house.

  I could feel him waiting for me.

  My heart slammed against my ribcage, skipping beats randomly, leaving me struggling for air. I gripped the broad end of the icicle, turning the doorknob with my other hand.

  Unlocked.

  Stepping inside the doorway, I swallowed hard and tucked the icicle behind my back.

  Where is he?

  “And she just walks right in.”

  I jolted, almost dropping the ice. Troy stood across the living room near the kitchen, casually leaning against the countertop.

  All oxygen left the space between us.

  He already has the upper hand if you can’t breathe.

  My eyes scanned the space. West, Logan, and Violet were nowhere to be seen, and the entire house was deadly silent. The single lamp in the corner partially illuminated the room in a sickening yellow way, casting shadows over the perimeter of the house.

  Troy stared at me. He was so tall, like West, and had obviously taken the time that he was trapped to prepare himself to fight. His arms and chest were muscled, making his shoulder appear even broader.

  I drew a shaking breath, trying not to drop the icicle.

  “Are we… going to talk first? I have some questions.” My voice shook uncontrollably, and I cursed myself for not having the nerve to sound braver.

  He smiled.

  That sickening, wolfish smile.

  “Whatever you want, Roam.”

  I stared him down, fear clawing at my veins.

  He murdered you. He will do it again.

  Run!

  Every rational thought I that had was held at bay by the answers that I needed. “Where is West?”

  He nodded toward the back of the kitchen. “In the basement, with the other one.”

  I nodded, furious with myself. I had no idea how to get to the basement, or that West’s house even had a basement.

  The ice was melting.

  “Are they alive?”

  I could barely understand myself. My throat constricted as I waited for his answer.

  His eyes were the lightest blue I’d ever seen, cutting through the darkness like eerie lights. Dark hair, straight and short, defined jaw, cleft chin.

  Menacing.

  No sign of a gun.

  He lowered his eyes as though peering through the hard wood floor. “West, as you know, is immortal.” He ticked his fingers in the air mockingly. “And the blond… choked her about an hour ago.”

  I exhaled, my stomach turning.

  No… Violet is dead? “Where’s Logan?”

  “Right here.”

  His warm voice caught me by surprise, and I shook hysterically as he moved in from behind me, pulling the icicle from my fingers.

  “Logan?” I breathed.

  He shook his head, holding the icicle up at Troy. Troy scoffed, rolling his eyes. “What were you going to do with this, Cam?” Logan asked, dropping my pathetic weapon to the floor. “Your hand would slide right down the ice.”

  I felt his grip on my wrists, moaning pitifully.

  No…

  My nightmares.

  Logan held me tightly by the wrists, his fingers digging into my skin. “Logan, please, help me,” I whispered, knowing that my words were wasted.

  He turned me around quickly to face him. I trembled violently, barely able to stand.

  Remember what you learned! Fight!

  Their voices were muted, and terror reigned over my senses. Ringing settled in my ears.

  “Wait, did I say that I choked her?” Troy chuckled from behind me. I stared into Logan’s eyes, into the deep brown depths that were suddenly hollow well of nothingness. “Logan, how did it feel? When you squeezed her neck, she didn’t die right away, she just sort of gasped… after a few minutes. And then-”

  “No, stop,” I cried, tears racing down my cheeks. Logan reached for my face, and I smacked his hand away, my fingers still numb from the ice.

  “Let’s bring him up.” Troy’s voice seemed to reverberate from every corner of the room, amplified in my ears. Logan turned me around again so that my back was to his chest. Troy disappeared into what I thought was a pantry in the kitchen.

  The basement door.

  “Logan please tell me that you’re faking this,” I hushed, my pleading words barely audible over my frantic breaths.

  “I killed her, Roam.” Logan’s voice was unrecognizable, and I fought back the sudden surge of nausea. “I killed her in front of her father. I-”

  Troy returned at that moment with West.

  I dropped to my knees, but Logan caught me before I fell.

  West’s face was bloodied as though he’d been beaten, but not with a fist. His eyes rolled in his head as he struggled to focus. His handsome face was cut and marred, his beard matted with clotted blood.

  His hands were bound with duct tape.

  “No!” I screamed, the horrific scene stealing my ability to breathe. I gasped painfully, as Troy dropped West to the carpet.

  He turned my way.

  I backed against Logan, but Troy rushed at me.

  My back slammed against Logan’s chest as Troy delivered a powerful slap to my left cheek before I could wince.

  Stars. Lightning.

  My eye felt lost in the socket, and Logan’s grip on my waist held me on my feet. His arms covered my stomach, and my head fell back against his throat.

  “No fainting. Not for this.” Troy grinned, his eyes raking over me. “Both you and your hero. Awake.”

  My hero.

  Somewhere between consciousness and lucidity, I thought of my mother. She would hum during her chemotherapy treatments, smiling at Morgan and me. Later, after sores plagued her mouth and the vomiting began, she’d still hum when we went into her room, comforting, assuring us that she was alright.

  Even at the end… when she knew it was over.

  Be brave.

  Straightening, I lifted my chin. The path from my eye down the bridge of my nose throbbed, and I could taste blood in my mouth. A warm trail dripped from my nose to my lip.

  I focused on West, and I could see that he was pulling himself out of the thic
k oblivion the beating had left him in. “Did you do that to him, Logan?” I asked, stronger, my fear turning cold.

  Troy began duct-taping West’s ankles, and Logan’s palms flattened over my stomach.

  “No, Roam.” His breathing intensified, I recognized something in his voice.

  Anger?

  Troy stood, his eyes falling on me again. “I knew your hero would walk right in. He’d do anything to protect his daughter.” He grinned my way. “After all these lives, he was still surprised that Logan was working with me.”

  I blew at a piece of hair stuck to my bloodied lip, focused on my steady breaths. “Since this is it, and you’re going to kill me, will you answer some questions?” I burst, struggling with the last remnants of courage that I could muster.

  Troy closed the distance between us, and I backed against Logan, flattened so tightly to his chest that I could feel his heart pounding through my back.

  Troy was too close, his mouth hovering over mine. “What’s that, princess?”

  I searched his eyes in the shadows, trembling between the two of them. His eyes, something about his gaze, tugged at my subconsciousness.

  I held my brave stare.

  “I was yours, in some other life, in some other world,” I murmured, gasping as Logan’s arms tightened over the baby.

  Troy’s eyebrows snapped together, his fists clenching at his sides. “What did you say?” he demanded. His breath was hot on my mouth, and I tried not to inhale.

  “In this other world, I was yours.” I took a steadying breath through my mouth, keeping my eyes at his neck. “But I… think that I must have hurt you. How did I hurt you? What could I have done for you to kill me… over and over again? Why do you hate me so much?”

  He sneered, lowering his hands to my waist. Logan let go of my stomach and clamped his hands over my wrists.

  I gasped as Troy’s fingers slid over my stomach, his touch through my sweater beyond disgusting.

  Logan’s grasp on my wrists tightened and I felt his body tense against mine.

  Troy’s touching me… Logan is disturbed by him touching me…

  “You want to know?” he demanded, pulling his hands away as his eyes impaled mine. “We ruled. Together. You and my brother conspired to take the throne from me. But you betrayed him as well,” he snarled, lifting his eyes to Logan’s.

  “Logan was your brother?” I pushed, trembling against Logan.

  Troy’s eyes blazed with fury. “And you whored yourself to him, as well as my knight.”

  His knight?

  West.

  My eyes shifted to West, and I stiffened. A slight movement from the open basement door caught my eye.

  Violet’s blond head appeared in the bottom of the doorway as she crawled toward West with a knife.

  I jerked my gaze back at Troy’s quickly.

  She is alive… Logan will see her any minute! Engage him!

  “So, what happens when you move through these doors?” I asked. “Are you still a king?” I urged, cringing as he leaned impossibly close to my face.

  “The doors take me to a prison. A wasteland of what my kingdom used to be.” Troy slid his fingers through my hair and around the back of my neck. I cried out pitifully, turning my face so that his mouth wouldn’t touch mine. “You look like her.” His fingers tightened on my neck, and I shuddered. “So young, same hair, same face… this last life is unforgiving.”

  “Take me there,” I breathed, my eyes beseeching his unnatural gaze. “Where are the doors?”

  “When I kill you, it won’t matter. There won’t be any doors. There will be one world.”

  Violet sliced through the duct tape at West’s feet. I knew Logan had to be seeing her at that point, but he remained silent.

  “Were we good… together?” I asked him, lowered my voice and breathing slowly. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I had no way to brush them off. “Were we in love?”

  My tone seduced him, and I could tell by the faraway look in his eyes that he was entranced. My voice lulled him, and his words dropped to a whisper.

  “I can’t answer that for you,” he replied, his fingers snaking through my thick hair. “You’re were… are… so beautiful. So fucking beautiful.”

  I pulled at Logan’s hold with my right arm. He gave my wrist a squeeze before releasing me.

  I knew, at that moment, that Logan wouldn’t hurt me.

  Slowly, I flattened my palm against Troy’s chest, the slight pressure in my fingertips supple against his skin. Bile filled my throat, and I let him brush the tears away from my cheeks with his thumbs. “Do you think that maybe I lived after the pool... because I’m supposed kill you?”

  West was on his feet.

  The moment my eyes flickered from Troy’s face, he hissed, his hand circling my throat before I could move. His fingers crushed my neck and I gagged, the explosive pain melting bones in my legs as cartilage mashed beneath his grasp.

  Logan’s fist met Troy’s face with a powerful blow, and he lost his grip, staggering. I fell to the floor, panting, my eyes on the horrifying scene before me.

  “I watched you die,” Troy growled at Violet. His nose was contorted at a nauseating angle, and blood gushed down his chin. “You were fucking dead.”

  West, fully conscious and healing, delivered a punch potent enough to send Troy across the living room and into an end table. Troy managed to climb to his feet once more, and I watched in revulsion as West towered over him, turning his neck with a sickening crack.

  His eyes rolled in his head, and he began to choke.

  Logan grabbed Violet before she could attack Troy.

  “Get your hands off me!” she screamed, swinging at Logan.

  “Violet, you’re immortal.” Logan grabbed her and crushed her to his chest. When she stopped struggling, he locked her face in his hands. “You can’t die. West knew.”

  She stared at him, her face ashen as West drug Troy out into the front yard.

  “He told me that he suspected,” Logan continued to explain, and I could hear the raw emotion in his voice. “I’m so sorry… I had to convince Troy…”

  I grabbed the back of the couch, trying to pull myself up. A terrible wheezing sound escaped my throat every time I took a strangled breath. Coughing, I cried out at the pain and pressed my hand to my mouth.

  When I pulled my hand away, it was splattered with frothy blood.

  Panting, I lifted my desperate eyes to Logan. He had already hurried to me, bending to gather me into his arms.

  “I have to get you to a hospital,” he said, holding me tightly against him. Violet glanced at us before running from the house.

  I tried to speak, my voice harsh and failing. “I can’t… breathe....”

  “He’s out.” West appeared in the doorway, taking one look at Logan holding me before running to my side. “Get her upstairs and give me your phone. I’m calling a doctor who will come here, won’t ask questions, and will be discreet.” He flipped Logan’s phone open, dialing from memory. “I need you to handle her father-”

  “I won’t leave her,” Logan snapped. “What about Troy?” he asked, gesturing to the front yard.

  West’s eyes fell on mine, and I pleaded with him silently.

  Finally, his jaw tightened, and his fists clenched. “I’m taking him through the fountain.”

  “You’re going to blow up another fountain?” Logan demanded, narrowing his eyes. He gripped me tighter against his chest. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “No. I’m taking him to 1955,” West explained evenly. His cool tone sent chills over my body. “And I’m going to cut off his goddamn numbers.”

  Chapter Nine

  I cringed at a sudden cramp, trying not to picture what West was describing. “You’re not leaving me,” I told him painfully. I was losing my voice with every word, and the second half of my sentence was a whisper.

  My vocal cords are damaged.

  West hardened his gaze. “Violet is coming with
me. You have to go with Logan. When you wake up, I’ll be here, baby, I promise you-”

  “No,” I argued in a whisper, shaking my head emphatically. “No. I’m coming.”

  Logan held me in his arms, glancing nervously out the door. “Are you sure he’s out?”

  West nodded, and I could tell that he was fighting back his irritation with my resistance. “He’s dead, for now.” He lowered his mouth to my forehead, smoothing my hair away from my eyes. “I’ll meet you here by morning.”

  “West-”

  “Oh… God. Roam.”

  Logan’s serious tone commanded both of our attentions. I watched as he held his fingers out from beneath the back of my dress and stared at them in revulsion.

  They were covered in blood.

  I watched West’s self-control fade as he stared at Logan’s hands.

  Their faces moved in and out of focus, like the contacts in my eyes that would shift around, blurring my vision. Suddenly too tired to argue anymore, I turned into Logan’s arms, letting their voices grow distant.

  “Fuck- West, she needs a hospital!”

  “I’ll take her. Go with Violet. See this through.”

  “Don’t let her die.”

  Blackness.

  . . .

  Music. I am floating on my slippered feet, naturally moving in unison on a floor filled with dancers; I do not recognize the melody. Lavish costumes adorn each of us, and my gown is the color of fresh snow. The heavy material falls in waves down by body and is ornamented with diamonds. A warm hand fills mine.

  “You dance,” West says, a playful grin tugging at his lips, “like you kiss.”

  I gaze at him, my body tingling with excitement. “And how do I kiss?” I asked him as innocently as possible.

  He steps forward and back to the stringed music, his fingers closing to entwine with mine.

  “Like you have kissed forever.”

  I stop dancing and turn to him. “I would kiss you forever,” I say boldly, reaching for him on tiptoes. He backs away quickly.

  “He’ll have my head,” West warns, nodding toward the throne. I lift my eyes and see that Troy staring at us intently. I look back at West to see that his rebuke is half-hearted; his mouth remains upturned in a smirk. He leans forward ever so slightly. “But, my princess… you shall have the rest.”