by Scott, Amber
“Known what?” she demanded, swiping an angry tear away.
“Known that you would eventually believe yourself in love with me. Known that I was taking advantage.”
“No, you don’t get to say that,” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest. “I’m not some naïve girl that you took advantage of. You warned me, you tried to stay away. Don’t you dare treat me like I’m helpless.”
“I know you aren’t helpless.”
Just say it, she wanted to shout, say it now. Say you don’t love me. Her and her big mouth. “But you can’t love me.”
“It isn’t that I can’t. It’s that what I feel is attraction. Intense attraction does not equate to love. Immortals love forever. It isn’t the fickle, in and out of infatuation that mortals all live in.” Elijah got up and jerked his pants on. What did he have to be so angry about? “I care about you, Sadie, but love is not what you are feeling for me. I’m sorry. This is my fault. I shouldn’t have given in to my attraction. I knew it would be temporary.”
“No. I said don’t.” She stood as well and donned her panties. “I’m not a victim in this. I’ve seduced you at every turn. I knew what I was doing. Like I know now. You’re so caught up in blaming yourself that you can’t see what is right in front of you.” The tears she’d held in check threatened. Her eyes stung. Elijah didn’t respond, making her hurt all the worse. “I’m not another fickle mortal.”
“I know you are not a victim or fickle, Sadie. I’ve seen your courage and your heart. One day, you’ll understand.”
Understand? Some stupid part of her thought he’d fallen for her. Thought certainly he knew how she felt, and something had triggered in him. Some sort of realization.
A part of her had been prepared for disappointment, too, though. Now, self-respect in hand, she would leave. Sadie strode for the bathroom. She would get dressed and go. Holly would take her. Holly’d help her pack, if two changes of clothes and a barely charged cell phone could be considered packing. Holly wanted Elijah for herself. Was that love, then? One-sided blind and stupid love?
“Sadie, stop,” Elijah called out, a warning in his tone.
She tugged on her jeans, snapped on her bra and began stuffing her backpack, “No. You don’t love me, you don’t believe me, and why wait. Why prolong the agony.”
“You don’t understand.” He took her by the shoulders and slowly turned her.
“I don’t need to understand. It’s over. All of it. Once the change is complete,” she said, fighting his turn. “I’ll come back. I’ll help you if I can. I will still help you. But right now, I want to go home.”
He came around the bed. His hands turned her and pressed her shoulders. “They’re just scars,” she snapped and tried again to face him, but he stopped her. “Don’t worry. They don’t hurt anymore.”
“Sadie, you have every right to fight me right now, but please give me ten more minutes and I swear, if you still want to leave, I’ll get you safely home. I can’t let you leave like this.”
“What do you care? You should want me gone. If you’re right, once I change, I won’t want you anymore.” A tear slid down her cheek. She swiped at it angrily. “Isn’t that what you want?”
He let go. She spun around, eyeing him. The strange expression contorting his face gave her an upside-down belly quiver. “What is it?”
“Please, just don’t move. Alright?”
“Two minutes,” she said.
Elijah fled from the room. A moment later, he returned with Astrid. “I thought you left.” The woman’s dispassionate face actually made Sadie feel better. Detached, she could use right now.
Holly and Lyric soon arrived. Did none of them sleep? Sadie took two steps backward, her throat went flame hot. None of them spoke. “What is it?” she demanded.
Elijah wouldn’t meet her eyes. Astrid approached her first. Slowly, Astrid turned her around. In one of those surreal, exaggerated moments of good drugs and bad theater, someone said, “Sadie. You have wings.”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty-two
Wings? Comprehension stung Sadie.
No. She reached her back, felt around. Her shoulder blades…skin…no cuts, no blood. Wetness? Something, though, something there. Something different. She rushed to the bathroom and faced her back to the oval mirror.
Sadie gasped. There in the yellowy light, two small golden shapes jutted out of her scars. They were no longer than a foot each and lay limp and narrow like a butterfly, fresh from its cocoon. She tried to reach them, to feel texture, but her back muscles protested. The ache she’d lived with for so long was gone but a faint soreness replaced it.
She had wings.
“When did you first notice them?” Holly said. But she wasn’t addressing Sadie. She asked Elijah.
“A few moments ago.”
Astrid touched her shoulders and, for once, she looked sympathetic. “May I?”
Sadie nodded and turned her back. The coldness of her fingers soothed Sadie’s skin and muscle. She could feel the wings, she realized, like any other part of her. Fingers or ears or the tip of her nose. She was afraid to try to move them, though, and held very still. Astrid moved her hands in circles, sending icy waves through her muscles. Sadie could feel the cold healing her.
Astrid could not soothe her heart. Or her mind, which raced with conclusion after conclusion. She had wings. Astrid had suspected as much, Sadie saw now. All the attention on her scars, all the questions.
Messengers did not have wings.
Seekers had wings.
Only seekers.
She had transformed into a seeker? Silence pressed in on her. She didn’t want to turn back around and see her worst fear revealed in their eyes, in his eyes. She had no reading powers because she was not a messenger. All the more for Elijah to blame their physical attraction on. Magnetism to her. Not love at all.
Her stomach cinched. And what if he was right?
“Holly,” Elijah said quietly. “You said she would become a messenger. Why?”
“It was my best guess. I’m sorry. Had I known….”
Sadie’d been ready to walk out the door but it was an empty threat, an act of pride. Now, knowing she would have to go, she’d give anything to stay. But how? If she wasn’t what Elijah hoped for, had counted on all this time, why stay?
He didn’t love her.
Astrid’s hands stopped their probe, leaving her to face them. All but Elijah wore the same stunned expression. Now what? Elijah kept his face averted but she saw the tight set of his jaw, the tension in his wings. Where was Monica? Would she become their new hope?
She wouldn’t let them see her heartache. “Holly, can you give me a ride home tonight?”
“If that’s what you want,” Holly said.
“You don’t have to leave us, Sadie,” Lyric said.
Her heart ached. She couldn’t imagine their disappointment. Sadie straightened, watching Astrid quietly exit. Holly’s gaze remained guarded, Lyric’s sympathetic.
“I do, actually.” She reached for her shirt. “My sister is worried, I have a life to get back to.”
Lyric gave her a long searching look, then perhaps seeing her determination, perhaps seeing the futility of pushing, departed as well.
“How long do you need?” Holly asked.
“I can go now.” She grabbed her backpack, took a glance around, being sure to ignore the rumpled sheets, and nodded. “I’m ready.”
Her eyes felt like sand. Her chest ached but she wouldn’t cry. There was too much to take in, too many things to absorb and take care of to cry right now. Holly’s silent presence helped.
The drive went by fast thanks to Holly’s driving and the shock blanketing Sadie’s brain. Lampposts lit the street. Jen’s house loomed ahead.
“If you need anything at all,” Holly said, as Sadie reached for the door handle. She handed Sadie a card with numbers scribbled on the back. “Call.”
“Thank you,” Sadie replied, but the shock ba
rred room for many emotions. Particularly, gratitude.
The dark street sat silent once Holly pulled away. The night bore down on her. Sadie let herself in the front door and went directly to her bedroom. It all felt like a bad dream and for the first time, she wished it was. How wonderful to wake from this nightmare, to take the right pill and make it all go away.
Sleep. She needed sleep. Her body needed to heal. In her room, in her bed, Sadie curled into the blankets and shut her eyes. Her heart tried to replay the night’s events but her mind pushed them out. She focused on her breathing, on how much better her back felt, on the idea that it was all no more than a very vivid, very emotional dream.
It was good to be home.
Sunday afternoon…
Jen peeked her head in. “You’re back?” she whispered.
Sadie nodded, rolled over. The box Heather had dug through to find their mother’s journal stared at her. Damn it. She’d left her own behind. Would Elijah find them? Read them. It mattered little now. She closed her eyes against the pain and hugged her warm wings around her.
Jen left.
Monday….
Text inbox full. Ben called. Sadie let it go to voicemail.
Tuesday…..
She did not cry.
Wednesday.
She slept.
Thursday.
Heather left another message. Was it five now?
Her stomach hurt. She ate. She went back to sleep. She didn’t dream.
Sunday?
Jen sat on her bed and almost smacked onto her left wing. “Sadie?”
“Mmmm,” Sadie said, without opening her eyes, curling one growing, velvety appendage around her.
“Cynthia is wondering if you’ll be back in to work this week.”
She still had a job? How was that possible? She cracked her eyes open. “What time is it?” Carefully, she stretched out one wing. Instead of laying atop Jen’s leg, her wing went through her cousin and came to rest on the bed. Freaky.
“Three or so.” Jen’s worry showed in her eyes. But if she’d felt Sadie’s brand new, fuzzy wing pass through her hip, she didn’t register it. “Want to grab some Pita Jungle with me? Split a chicken platter?”
She wanted to hide under the covers. “I have a job still?”
Jen frowned. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Because she hadn’t been there in two weeks and hadn’t called a soul to warn them? Had she? Had someone covered her ass somewhere? “What did you tell Cynthia?”
Jen cleared her throat. “I said I’d have you call her.” She wrung her hands. “So, Pita Jungle?”
“Um, okay. Can I shower first?”
“Definitely,” Jen said, emphatically.
Sheesh. She must look like death on roller skates.
Watching Jen scurry out, guilt panged at Sadie. She shoved up from the mattress and dragged herself into the shower.
Her heart ached for Elijah but she was alive. Still breathing. Still had golden wings and they’d grown. Their soft feel surprised her almost as much as how familiar they felt. As familiar as her own skin or hair or hands. Her lungs filled with sweet air as she took deep breaths, watching them expand and flutter.
She mentally rallied and, ten minutes later, stepped out of the bathroom feeling vaguely normal. What a wonder that everything could end up being alright. When she rounded the corner, though, her world fell flat. There, on Jen’s solitary sofa, sat Dr. Meyers. And Heather and Remy. And Jen. And Ben.
Ben? What was Ben doing here? What were any of them doing here?
No, wait, before the questions finished bashing through her consciousness, she knew the answer.
Intervention.
Sadie paused, considered running, then sat down cross-legged on the floor. “Et tu, Jen?” she said but didn’t mean it. Jen could only protect her so much. Sadie always knew it might come to this.
Jen winced. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, Jen. I knew what I was getting into,” Sadie said. Her heart numbed. Her mind stayed frozen on a moment in time that wouldn’t go away. Elijah walking away. Compared to that, this would be a breeze. “Alright. Who goes first?”
*
Elijah wiped the sweat from his neck with a towel. Sparring with Monica got harder every day. She was progressing nicely. They were lucky to have her.
Holly handed him a bottle of water. “Being a little aggressive today, aren’t you?”
Elijah drank the water, catching his breath. “She can take it.”
“She wouldn’t tell you if she couldn’t, you know. Not that you’d ask.”
“Ask her yourself when she gets back,” he said. Holly’d been hovering for days. As though waiting for something. Maybe for him to snap.
Everything had fallen apart when he saw Sadie’s wings. He’d let Sadie walk away. How could he not? He never should have brought her here. He’d destroyed her life.
“Elijah, who are you punishing here?” Holly pressed, placing her hand on his arm.
He didn’t need her concern and shook her off. “Not now, Holly.” If she pressed him today, he’d say something he’d regret. He wanted to blame her for Sadie becoming something else. Why had Holly pointed them in Sadie’s direction in the first place? What gave her the gall to claim messenger? In truth, though, it wasn’t Holly’s fault.
Elijah had interfered that night at the club. He’d never regret doing so either.
“When, then?” She stepped closer and placed a hand on his chest. “Elijah, I can’t lose you, too. If you continue like this, you’ll implode.”
Elijah snorted. “Let’s not be dramatic.”
“I’m not. Look at you. Ever since Sadie left, you’ve been here, sparring. With Lyric, with Monica.”
“Jealous? Want a round with me, too?”
Holly shook her head. “Will anything ever matter to you as much as finding him does?” Holly asked.
Elijah drank again, wondering where her question had come from. Her quiet tone didn’t fool him. Something was up. “It’s not that nothing matters more,” he said, between gulps. Lots of things mattered more. Things he couldn’t entertain. “It’s that until I know what happened to him, I can’t give what else matters the focus it deserves.”
“Why?” She sounded hurt.
“It’s like an enigma, nagging me, constantly, and if I don’t solve it, I’ll go crazy. How can I give anything the kind of attention it deserves when I’m this distracted?”
“In all this time, you’ve never said what it is, Elijah, that makes you more at fault than any of us.”
He’d thought he was protecting them. Maybe she and Lyric should know. Maybe then they would stop acting as though it was over. “I called Crusoe a fool if he thought you loved him. I told him he was the last one of us you could ever love.”
Holly’s honey eyes sparked gold. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I was angry. Because he’d lied to us. Because the thought of what equated to my brother and my sister being in love sickened me.”
“But you said the last one of us. If not him, who would I love?”
Elijah scowled. “No one. I was trying to hurt him, like he’d hurt me.”
“Elijah, do you believe in love?”
He laughed humorlessly. Belief wasn’t the battle. “I believe too many adulterate the word. I believe love is more than the petty and obsessive and betraying thing Crusoe claimed to feel for you.”
“But you do believe in love?”
Of course he did. “Crusoe and I were children together. We became men together.” Now, he realized Crusoe had loved Holly. But that day Elijah had unwittingly forced him to choose. And that choice led to Crusoe leaving, then disappearing altogether. “Crusoe may be involved in the most dangerous faction known to both realms. If I didn’t believe in love, would I still be trying to save him?”
Holly looked at him for a long moment. Something about his answer must have pleased her. “Oh, goody,” she said at last.
Elijah watched her go. Not for the first time, he felt alone in his convictions. Where had their fight gone?
He missed Sadie. More than missed her. Sadie’s departure left a chasm inside him that he couldn’t comprehend. He found himself wondering how he could have so misjudged Crusoe’s unrequited feelings for Holly. Was this what drove his brother to the Illeautians? This emptiness? This weight of impossible hope? How Elijah had found the strength to let Sadie go at all, he’d never know. Every moment became a new test of will. He didn’t know how much more resolve he had left before he would selfishly seek her out.
Every day he thought of a new argument to bring her back. She wasn’t a messenger. Still, she was one of them. He could still help her adjust to the immortal realm. But he wanted her. And he didn’t trust himself to not seduce her again and again. Remembering, every minute, how much more it would torture her, helped. He’d hurt her enough. Sadie deserved more than uncontrollable lust.
Monica materialized in front of him and smacked him on both cheeks. “Boosh!”
Elijah grinned half-heartedly. Monica was a good distraction.
“What’s got fire crotch in such a tizzy?” she said before disappearing.
Not that she truly disappeared. She became the window, the floor, the wall. Camouflaged. Her movements over the floor were harder to track each day. And she’d learned to silence her vibration. Elijah concentrated. “I have no idea. I think we all feel a bit lost is all.” Empty without her near.
A movement of air made him turn. He punched, not hard, and made a direct hit. Monica grunted and materialized again. “No way is Holly lost. She left here on a mission.”
An eerie sensation prickled over his scalp. He shook off the disturbing feeling and focused on Monica. Sending Elijah an image of him walking down the hall, Lyric warned him he was coming, his vibration cloaked. What was with those two today? Holly pushing at him with her cryptic questions, now Lyric thought he needed notice to enter a room?
