I dismissed his comment and continued my search, which he tolerated for a few more minutes.
“Sarah, we need to go. I already checked out downstairs,” he said nonchalantly. “We’ll ask them to contact me if it turns up.”
“Why are you in such a rush?”
He only rolled his eyes and picked up his suitcase, forcing me to hurriedly throw my things together and join him.
Once we were on the road, neither of us said a word. My concern for him had turned to complete rage. I was done trying to understand what was wrong with him. I would just wait for him to confide in me and apologize. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, willing myself not to yell and scream or provoke him with my questions. Hopefully he would relax and be back to normal once we were home.
It didn’t take long for the wine to catch up with me and make me tired, and I fell asleep for a while. After I woke, I looked over to him, but his eyes stayed focused on the road. I looked around me, and it didn’t take long to realize that we were heading in the wrong direction. He was driving us north instead of south to San Francisco.
“Dylan, what are you doing? You’re going the wrong way.”
“We’re not going home yet. We’re still on our honeymoon, remember?” he asked with a smile.
“Our honeymoon already ended. Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace where we can really be alone and talk.”
“I agree we need to talk, but tell me where we’re going right now!”
“My cabin.”
“Your cabin?”
“Yeah, outside of Willows. That’s where we met…and fell in love. So, what better place?”
“Not all of our memories there were good. Remember? That’s why we never went back.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
“I don’t want to go there.”
He kept driving, as if he didn’t hear me.
“Dylan, I don’t want to go! I want to go home!”
He continued to ignore me.
“Get off at the next exit.”
He smiled and kept driving.
“I said pull over!”
When he still ignored me, I threw off my seat belt and grabbed the wheel, turning it hard to the right. The car swerved all over the road as Dylan struggled to control it in a panic. Once he was going straight again, he began screaming at me.
“Are you crazy? Do you have a death wish or something?” he yelled.
I only glared at him. “If you don’t take me home right now, I swear I’ll…”
This made him laugh. “Just be quiet, Sarah. It’s a beautiful day,” he said, suddenly smiling again. “Let’s just enjoy our excursion.”
I laughed sarcastically and rolled my eyes. I loved Dylan with all my heart, but at this moment, I really disliked him. For the next couple of hours, we didn’t say a word as I struggled to keep my tears from falling.
Dylan parked us right by the spot that was the scene of my accident so many years ago. It was the first time I had been there since 1988. Whenever I did drive through the country, I always made sure to take a different road. Even now, it felt eerie. All the memories of my crash, believing I was dead, and the fear I had came rushing back.
“Come on,” he said enthusiastically, after he quickly packed his duffel bag with a few items.
I reluctantly followed him on the trail, trying to keep up. Finally, I had to speak up again.
“Dylan…what’s your plan here? I mean, do you even know if your old parents own this cabin anymore?”
“They do. They mentioned it at the wedding.”
“We’d be trespassing. How long to you plan to hang out here?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, Sarah?”
He kept walking quickly, not even caring that I didn’t answer. I noticed that the sun was no longer shining, and there were several dark clouds overhead. I didn’t want to be rained on, or be stuck in the cabin. Luckily, it held off until we arrived, but I began to feel the sprinkles. Dylan was excited to see the cabin, but I still had a bad feeling. I noticed that it had more security than in the past. Another lock had been added above the old one, and the windows were boarded up. We really shouldn’t have been trying to enter, but that didn’t stop Dylan. He walked around the back and returned with an axe.
“What are you doing?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
He didn’t respond, but began hitting the axe against the door.
“Dylan! Stop! What the hell’s wrong with you?”
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. “Some things were easier when I wasn’t in this body,” he laughed. He hit it again until he had opened up a hole to stick his arm through and undo the locks. He opened the door and motioned for me to enter.
I glared at him. “Have you gone insane?”
He laughed and followed me inside. Surprisingly, the place hadn’t changed much. I even noticed Ethan’s ashes still on the mantel. I walked up to the vase and rubbed my hand over it. For a moment, I forgot about everything but Ethan; the sorrow I still felt and the love I had for him. Dylan was not acting like Ethan now.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, not seeming to notice what I was doing.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to check on some things. You stay here.”
“What things?”
“Just stay here. I’ll be right back,” he said, still carrying the axe in his hand.
Before I could protest further, he was out the door. I sat down on the bed, not able to move. I was so confused and even scared. I wanted to run away, but that seemed silly. I felt nauseous, and I put my hand around my stomach. My instincts kept telling me that something terrible was pending, and my instincts were almost always right.
I wished so badly that I had my cell phone. I looked in Dylan’s bag, hoping his might be in there, but it wasn’t. I remembered that there used to be a phone in the cabin, only it wasn’t in the spot I remembered. I found the phone jack, but there was nothing plugged into it. I continued to search the contents of the cabin, not even sure what I was looking for. I looked in the cabinets, the drawers, the storage chest, and then under the bed. That’s when I noticed a rifle way back against the wall.
“What are you looking for?” asked Dylan, making me jump.
“You scared me!” I exclaimed, faking a laugh. “I…thought I lost a piece of jewelry here years ago.”
He didn’t even question my lie.
“Everything OK out there?” I asked.
“Yes, it is. Everything’s in place,” he answered, smiling with satisfaction. He threw the axe down hard so that it stuck into the floor. “Now we can talk.”
“Now we can talk. You didn’t say a word to me the whole way here!”
“I told you, I wanted to bring you here.”
“Well then you better start talking, because I’m confused as hell,” I said with anger. I sat down on the chair and crossed my arms.
“You’re confused?” he yelled and then started laughing. “That’s…I’m the one who’s confused, Sarah!” he said angrily as he leaned over me with his hands on the arms of my chair. I didn’t recognize a look like that from Dylan. He looked as if he hated me. I wanted to get away from him, but I sat there scared and paralyzed.
Suddenly he smiled at me for a second, but he was still right in my face. “I’m confused,” he continued, “about why Ethan got a second chance.”
“What?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He stood up and began pacing the room as he spoke. “I mean, Ethan was always such a damn do-gooder, so I get that, but…” He shook his head. “It’s kind of funny, though, because he always expected pearly gates and a life in the clouds,” he laughed. Then he was more serious. “But what he got was a second chance. He got a new life, and he got to be with you again,” he said sadly. “He refused to go into the light before he met you. Why, Sarah?”
I didn’t respond, so he continued, “He wanted love. I chose to be a spirit
because I wanted the same thing, only Ethan made my love leave, and I never got her back. How is that fair?”
My heart raced with fear, and I gripped the arms of my chair, trying to decide whether to fight or flight while I said his name. “Sawyer,” I said with a low voice.
He chuckled. “Light bulb!”
My breathing got heavier. Sawyer. I tried for so long to put him out of my mind and not believe that he would ever threaten me again. Now here he was, right in front of me. This is it, I thought. He kept his promise…and now he was going to kill me.
He smirked and then spoke with a voice that chilled me. “I told you I’d come back when you least expected it. Remember?”
I remembered every word he ever said to me. His words haunted me for over 20 years. He said I would let down my defenses, and I would let him in. He was right. Once I found Ethan again, and once our wedding went through without a hitch, all my worries had disappeared, and I did let Sawyer in. I wanted to vomit as I thought about undressing in front of him and kissing him. I tried to get up from my chair, but he forced me back down.
“Where’s Dylan?” I cried. “What have you done to him?”
“Don’t you remember what it was like? I wasn’t there of course, but I heard all about it. Too bad I missed all the fun. Carlos sure enjoyed himself with your friend, even though he had to use your body.”
I couldn’t speak as the tears rolled down my cheeks.
He continued, “Isn’t it great that Ethan can still see and hear everything that’s going on here, but he can’t do shit about it? I’m sure it’s killing him, watching me be in complete control. He gets to see your fear, and he has no idea what I’ll do to you next.” He laughed again. “I can just imagine his rage when I lusted for you this morning, and you kissed me back.”
He ran his hand up my thigh, but I surprised him by standing up too fast for him to stop me. I raised my knee and pounded him where it hurt the most.
He leaned over in pain as he yelled at me. “You bitch!”
I ran toward the door, but then I stopped to look around as I realized that I had no phone, car keys, or anything else I could use. I had to get the keys out of his pocket. I remembered the rifle under the bed, but he was lying in the way, and I didn’t want to risk getting near him. Suddenly, I noticed the axe still stuck in the floor, and I pulled it out and walked over to him.
He laughed at me. “What are you going to do, chop up Dylan’s body?”
He was right. I couldn’t attack him, so I had to escape.
“You can’t escape!” he yelled at me, with pain still in his voice.
I opened the door and ran out. It was pouring down rain, but I kept running as fast as I could with the axe still in my hand.
“Stop her!” I heard Sawyer scream.
I continued running down the path, so fast that I tripped over a stump and fell onto the ground, feeling a sharp pain in my shoulder when I tried to use my arm to break my fall. I jumped back onto my feet and kept running. I had dropped and lost the axe during my fall, but I continued on pure adrenaline. I couldn’t be stopped, until a dark figure came flying down on me, knocking the wind out of my lungs and crashing me to the ground again. I tried to get up, but I was pinned down by a strength that I couldn’t match.
“I got her!” yelled a female voice.
I watched her reveal herself to me, the darkness fading away as her image came into view. She was an attractive young woman with long, dark hair. She smiled at me as she pulled me up, without releasing her grip. Four men walked out of the trees and surrounded us. I recognized a couple of them immediately as Sawyer’s friends, but I didn’t see the one who possessed me years ago, Carlos.
“Well done, Angela,” said the tallest one. He had brown hair that fell into his eyes and a prominent nose. He smiled at me in a way that made my skin crawl. “Take her back to Sawyer,” he instructed firmly.
They led me back to the cabin. Angela’s grip was surely giving me bruises, and I could barely keep up the pace as I kept tripping along the way. She glared at me every time I did.
Sawyer was standing outside when we returned, gradually able to move normally again. “She’s a feisty one,” he said, laughing a little.
Angela jerked me forward until I was standing in front of him.
“You may release her now,” Sawyer told her, believing that I wouldn’t attempt to run again.
Angela reluctantly released her hold, and I stood there helpless, shivering in the cold rain.
I watched Sawyer smile at Angela and pull her to him, and then he kissed her passionately on the lips. “Nice job,” he said.
“Thank you,” she answered, smiling widely.
“Let’s all go inside,” he said abruptly and then motioned for me to take the lead.
50. Circle of Enemies
“Have a seat,” Sawyer told me after we entered the cabin.
I sat down on the chair while Sawyer’s friends pulled out the other chairs and took a seat, except for Angela, who sat close to Sawyer on the bed.
“You’re being awfully quiet,” Sawyer said to me. “First of all, let me say that if you pull a stunt like that again, we’ll torture you so much that you’ll wish you were dead,” he warned me, his eyes again full of hate. Angela smiled at his threat. “Now that we’re clear on that, I’m sure you have some questions, so speak,” he said with a smirk.
What the hell was I supposed to say? I sat there shaking and shivering, afraid to open my mouth, afraid to move. However, Sawyer looked irritated by my silence.
“May I have a blanket?” I asked through my chattering teeth.
Sawyer laughed as he took a blanket off the bed and threw it to me. “Of course. Where are my manners?”
I wrapped the blanket around me to warm my body, but I was still shaking with fear. Everyone’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to speak, and I knew that Sawyer would be angry if I didn’t.
“What do you want from me?” I asked with a low voice. Sawyer and his friends just smiled, but they didn’t respond. “Or do you just want to punish Ethan?”
Sawyer laughed again. I wanted to kill him.
“Ethan’s suffering is certainly a beautiful benefit,” he said. “But I also wanted to get us all together, so we could have a meeting of the minds…and spirits,” he said. “You see, Sarah, you really have no idea what we’re all about? Who do you think we are, really?”
“Evil,” I answered, looking him in the eyes.
“Ooh, evil,” he said, mocking me and smiling at Angela. “Devil worshipers perhaps?”
I didn’t answer.
He continued to joke as he looked at his friends. “We’re going to burn in hell for eternity my friends! I told you not to commit those sins!” he said, laughing. “Oh, but wait a minute! All you have to do is ask for forgiveness!”
I glared at him as they all laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sarah. We’ve had this conversation before. We’re not ‘evil’. If anyone sold their soul to the devil, then it must have been Ethan. Otherwise, how did he get so lucky?”
I didn’t answer what I believed was an idiotic and rhetorical question.
“Answer me, Sarah. Why do you think that the two of you got a second chance?”
“I don’t know.”
“What would you guess?”
“Ethan was always a good person.”
“And I’m bad? What have I done that’s bad? You know nothing about me.”
“You ended your own life for one thing.”
“For love.”
I could feel my fear diminishing somewhat as we debated. I was no match for them physically, but I could battle with my words, as long as I didn’t take it too far and provoke him to attack me.
“You don’t believe you could ever find Carla again?” I asked.
Angela’s smiled faded, and she looked very uncomfortable. I wondered how much she knew, and if she could see Sawyer with me all morning.
“This isn’t about Carla
,” he said, extremely bothered my mention of her name.
“I didn’t believe I would ever see Ethan again, but we found each other. In the meantime, for over 20 years, I wasn’t bitter. I stayed strong, and I didn’t punish others for my loss.”
He didn’t speak for a moment, and I knew that I was getting to him. His followers didn’t look him in the eyes. I had a feeling that none of them had ever spoken to Sawyer in such a way. I was on a roll, and so I decided to continue the momentum.
“Why wouldn’t you ever go into the light, Sawyer?”
I could feel the tension in the room when I asked this question. His friends feared him and stared at him with anticipation about how he would react.
“We all have our reasons, Sarah,” he answered calmly. “Ethan resisted the light many times before he met you.” He looked at me with a grin. “Your sister has her reasons too.”
Anger shot through my body. “You’re such a liar,” I said with hatred.
“You’ve never believed that I know Alexis, but I’ve known her very well. She’s here right now actually,” he said, looking behind me.
I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want him to think that I believed him for one second. “You didn’t answer my question, Sawyer.” I knew that he was just trying to push my buttons because I was pushing his. I reminded myself that Dylan could still see me and hear every word I was saying. If he could make himself be heard, then he would probably be warning me, yelling at me to stop provoking Sawyer, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care if Sawyer or his friends attacked me again. He had already taken Dylan away from me, which was worse than anything.
Sawyer only stared at me, keeping a smirk on his face, but I could see his anger and look of warning in his eyes. Suddenly it hit me. I wasn’t sure if I was right, but I would pretend like I was.
“You’re scared,” I told him.
His smile quickly faded, and the deadly look in his eyes returned, but I wasn’t frightened. I was feeling incredibly brave.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re scared to go into the light,” I repeated, satisfied with myself, because I could tell by his reaction that it was the truth.
Sarah's Solace Page 39
