Falling

by Amber Jaeger

  “Oh, I know,” Kyle said cheerfully. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed.

  “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies on Friday.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” I said quickly, a little too quickly.

  “Oh,” he said with a fallen face.

  “‘Cause I don’t think Lincoln would like that,” I rushed to amend.

  “I already asked him!” he told me, smile back in place.

  I groaned inwardly and cursed Lincoln for not warning me, which of course brought back the tidal wave of guilt. I had potentially unleashed some type of non-human on him and I was pissed he didn’t warn me some guy was going to ask me to a movie?

  “Right. Well, I still think it’s kind of not a good idea right now. I’m … I’m grounded.”

  Jimmy frowned. “Oh. Lincoln didn’t mention that when I asked him.”

  “Well, you know, probably just respecting my privacy or something.”

  “Okay,” he said glumly. “Let me know when you’re free?”

  “Sure,” I lied. He actually looked kind of dejected as he walked away and I managed to feel a little amazed. And annoyed. I had known Kyle since I had started school, he and Lincoln had been friends that long. And that was how long he had been ignoring me. Until now, now that I had some freakish super beauty thing going on. My list of things to be pissed about seemed to be growing exponentially.

  Walking in the door at home, I could see Grandma had been up to more than the usual while we were gone. All the food I had left her for breakfast was neatly stacked on one side of the sink and all the dishes on the other. In between, the sink had overflowed with water and bubbles.

  Linc didn’t offer to help me clean up, but then again, he never did.

  Grandma slept through dinner and Linc and I ate in silence.

  “I’m going to a bonfire tonight,” he said when he finished eating. He left his dishes on the table and slammed out the door. I slammed around cleaning the dishes until I broke one on accident. With a sigh I cleaned that up too and resumed cleaning the dishes with a little less anger. But I refused to answer the phone when my dad called that night.

  I had pretty much dealt with my feelings of anger and resentment towards him over the last few years but that didn’t mean I liked him. And I didn’t. He could read his mail his own damn self when he got home.

  I expected and got into a fight with Grandma when she finally woke up. But I wasn’t angry with her, just worried. Getting her to sit at the table to eat a meal reduced her to tears and her shower had her in hysterics. I finally resorted to something I hadn’t before—Ativan. The doctor had given her the prescription when she was first diagnosed and acting out. It had been filled and then the little bottle tucked way up high in the kitchen cupboard. I hadn’t needed to give her one—until tonight.

  I carefully read the instructions on the bottle, split a pill in half, ground it between two spoons and sprinkled it into a cup of tea. I felt bad watching her drink it so happily but I didn’t know what else to do. She had taken everything out of the drawers in her room and arranged them in piles on every surface. Her hands had been totally covered in ink from relentless copying and behind the downstairs toilet I had found a phonebook with every single page ripped out.

  I set Dr. Webber’s business card next to the phone, not that I would need a reminder to call him first thing in the morning.

  The medicine kicked in suddenly at nine o’clock. One minute Grandma was un-knotting a crocheted lap blanket and the next she was slumped over on the couch. I settled in to wait for Linc to get home to help me get her upstairs.

  I worried as I waited. He had hardly spoken to me or anyone since realizing someone had died in his place and had been buried in his grave. I couldn’t blame him for being upset or scared. Guilt washed over me again.

  Fifteen minutes later Lincoln slammed back in the house. I could hear him sniffling and swearing under his breath. Scared, I jumped out of my chair and ran into the kitchen.

  “Linc, you okay?” I asked, alarmed by his pale face and red eyes.

  “No, I’m not.” He leaned against the counter and put his head in his hands.

  “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” I asked, searching him over.

  Lincoln jerked away from me. “Nothing happened, there was nothing out there, there was nothing to be scared of and I still ran away like a scared little kid.”

  “Ran away from where?” I asked.

  “The woods, Bixby!” he shouted in my face. “Look at me, I’m a grown man, I’m strong, I’m the best at everything and I can’t even sit around a fire at night with twenty of my friends.” His face slumped. “This is crazy. I’m crazy.” He put his head back in his hands.

  I put a shaking hand on his shoulder and tried to swallow down the dry lump in my throat. I had to tell him.

  “Linc, you’re not crazy. But I have to tell you something that does sound crazy …” I didn’t know how to continue.

  He looked up at me, his eyes shining from tears.

  “Oh God, Linc,” I said, my eyes tearing up as well. “The man, or person, or whatever, that you’ve been dreaming about … his name is Jordan.”

  Understanding lit his eyes. “I remember him telling me that.”

  “He’s not really a human, but he’s not a demon either. And he wasn’t trying to hurt you.” I had to force out the next words. “He was trying to get closer to me.”

  Lincoln shook his head slowly. “Bixby, how do you know this? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I thought I was crazy at first! I mean, I really thought I was losing my mind.” I wiped my tears off my cheeks and pushed my hair off my face. “And then, I got to know him but I didn’t know he had purposely held on to you, I didn’t know that until today.”

  “Purposely held onto me?” he repeated bitterly. “You mean kidnapped me, kept me a prisoner for almost two weeks.”

  “I didn’t know,” I whispered.

  Lincoln shoved off the counter and turned towards me. “What do you know, Bixby? Cause you seem to know an awful lot about something I thought was just a bad dream.”

  “I know what he is. I know why he did that to you.” I could see the anger building in my brother’s face.

  “Why?”

  “Because of me. He wanted to get closer to me,” I repeated.

  Linc stepped closer, forcing me back along the counter. “And how close did you two get?”

  I couldn’t say anything.

  “I asked you if you were secretly seeing someone. It was him? You’ve been dating the guy that held me prisoner for two weeks?” His voice went up a decibel with each word. Both his cheeks and eyes flamed. “How could you do that to me, Bixby?” he roared.

  I cowered back. “I didn’t know,” I tried to tell him. But deep down I knew some part of me had known. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t,” he cut me off. “I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

  He stormed back through the garage and out to his truck. I heard him gun it and peel out as I stood in the kitchen crying quietly. I wanted him to come back so I could explain, but what could I possibly say to him? And I knew Lincoln, he wouldn’t be back until the next day.

  Grandma hadn’t woken up during our argument and there was no way I could bring her upstairs by myself so I just brought her pillow and quilt down and made her bed up on the couch. She was so deeply snoring I didn’t worry about her waking up before I got up in the morning.

  Scared and angry, I got myself ready for bed. I knew a bigger confrontation was awaiting me in my dreams and I was ready to finally see Jordan again.

  My mind finally let me fall asleep sometime after midnight and I woke up with dread in the fortress.

  Chapter 19

  ASH LOOKED UP HAPPILY FROM her embroidery but her face quickly fell. “What’s wrong?”

  “Bad day,” I said, refusing to elaborate.

/>   I agreed to the first dress she pulled out of the closet and let her fix my hair. I let my anger build with that, being treated like an oversized doll. Is that all I was to him, something pretty to be manipulated?

  Ash led me down to a room I had never been to before. It was set up like an office, minus any technology. Jordan sat at the oversized desk, shuffling through reams of yellowed paper, a little book and his fancy pen set to the side to make notes in. He smiled hugely when I walked in and I just stood there until it melted off.

  His eyes were questioning but all he said was, “I missed you last night.”

  I ignored that. “How did you know where to find my brother?”

  If he was surprised by my question it didn’t show. “I’m djinn. I know a lot of things.”

  That gave me a little pause but didn’t deter me. “Okay. Where did you find him?”

  He cocked his head to the side and held out a hand to invite me to sit in the chair across the desk from his. I walked over to hang onto the back of it but didn’t sit.

  “What is this about, Bixby?” he asked, seeing I wasn’t going to comply.

  “I want to know how it is my brother got from a fatal car accident in Hemlock Bay to alive in a men’s shelter in Grand Rapids eight days later. I want to know what happened in between.”

  Jordan’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back in his chair. “What makes you think I would know that?”

  “You’re djinn, aren’t you?” I threw back in his face. His evasiveness was only confirming my fears. “And dream Lincoln said you did.”

  “Did he?” Jordan mused. “I suppose I do. But let me explain it to you, okay?”

  His last sentence stuck a chord of dread deep in me.

  He came around the desk and sat on the edge of it. He pulled me down onto the chair and held my one hand in both of his. “We, djinn I mean, sometimes know things before they happen. It’s usually not very accurate, but sometimes, if we help it along, we can determine how they turn out.” He looked at me cautiously, and then continued.

  “You know how very curious I was about you. How I … observed you. Of course I knew how close to your brother you felt and so when I saw the accident happening in the future I just had to intervene.”

  That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. “Okay,” I said in a tiny voice. “So what exactly did you do?”

  “I made sure he didn’t die in the accident, as I had seen.”

  Questions bubbled up in my throat but I just gestured for him to continue.

  He looked at me, surprised. “Well? Isn’t that enough? I kept him from dying.”

  “Yes, but what about the other two boys? You couldn’t help them? And that still doesn’t explain where Linc was for those eight days.”

  “I love you, Bixby, but I couldn’t just reorder the entire universe for you,” Jordan snapped, still not answering my actual question.

  “Whoa! What?” I yanked my hand out of his. “I never asked you to, I never asked for anything. You showed up out of nowhere offering to bring my dead brother back and I just want to know where he was and how you knew to find him there!”

  Jordan visibly reined his temper in and responded after a long moment. “I kept him safe for you, for a few days, just until I knew for sure how you would respond.”

  “Respond?” I felt like vomiting. I couldn’t even move away from him like I so desperately wanted to because I was shaking so badly. “So instead of just not letting the car accident happen, you took advantage of it? You knew me, you knew Linc was the only person I could count on and you hid him for eight days?” He opened his mouth but I rushed on in a quieter voice. “You held him hostage until you could be sure I would agree to you putting these manacles on me and making me your slave.”

  The full truth of that hit me so hard I had to sit down. Jordan looked at me sympathetically. “That’s not quite how it played out,” he said gently.

  “Really? Then explain it.”

  “The car accident was going to happen, I couldn’t have stopped that. But I wanted to stop your brother from dying in it. And when that other boy came along, it was perfect.” He shrugged as everything tumbled into place in my head.

  “You didn’t,” I whispered, my hands flying up in front of my face. “Did you steal the new guy’s backpack? So no one would know he had been in the car?”

  Jordan shrugged defensively.

  “That is so sick! People have been looking for him, everybody thought he ran away!”

  “Be realistic,” Jordan snapped. “Nobody was looking for him except the police. He didn’t have a person in the world that cared about him.”

  “That is so sick,” I whispered. “What kind of person does that?”

  Jordan’s face turned hard. “You forget, Bixby, I’m not a person.”

  The full knowledge of that settled on me like wet concrete. I got out of the chair and tried to stumble away from him but he grabbed my hand. “You’re making too big a deal out of this,” he said.

  I shook my head, tears starting to flow. “So this whole time I thought I was falling for you I was really just falling for your lies. You took the only person in the world that I love and loves me and hid him so you could blackmail me.”

  He pulled me in closer. “You love me too, I know you do. This isn’t going to change that.”

  My sensible self wanted to argue but my heart knew better. “Maybe not,” I agreed. “But I don’t want anything to do with you anymore just the same.”

  He turned my face up towards his and murmured, “I have forever to change your mind.” When he bent his face to mine I tried to turn my head but he just chased my mouth with his, stealing a kiss. Tears pouring down my face, I let myself have that one last kiss then shoved away from him.

  “It’s over, Jordan. I can’t be with you.”

  He laughed in my face and shook my arm, causing the bracelet to jiggle on my wrist. “Well, our agreement says you can. And you can’t go back on that, not without losing your brother again.”

  Bile rose up in my stomach. I hated this side of him but it made it easier to back away. Mentally, I took all the love I felt for him, packed it in a tiny box and locked it away in dark corner of my heart. Seeing the resolve on my face seemed to weaken his power.

  “Bixby?” he said, suddenly concerned. “I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. How can you not know that? I only did these things so we could be together.”

  I shook my head, the last of my tears dripping from my chin. “You could have just asked.”

  “I’m sure that would have gone over well,” he said sarcastically.

  “It would have gone over better than things are going now,” I told him quietly.

  He stared defiantly into my eyes. “You won’t get away from me. I won’t take those bracelets off.” More gently he said, “You’ll forgive me in time.”

  “I forgive you now,” I said.

  He gave a tiny smile, thinking my admission might somehow mean he could change my mind. “I have every night of the rest of your life to make it up to you.”

  I shook my head sadly. “I’ll cut my hands off if I have to, but I am not coming back here.”

  Jordan stared at me for a full minute, his eyes searching mine. I stared back blankly. I could see his anger rising as he realized how serious I was. His rage completely overtook him and he lunged at me. Terrified, I tried to leap back but ran into the chair and fell to the floor. Jordan pounced on top of me and grabbed my wrists. A white heat flashed against my skin and I almost screamed out with pain.

  Instead he was the one to scream. “Then get out!” he shrieked in my face, tears dripping from the end of his nose. Before one could fall onto my face, I woke up.

  I didn’t know if I had screamed in my sleep but I was sitting up before I fully woke up. My throat was raw and my wrists burned. Shakily, I turned on my lamp and in the weak light examined them. Thin, blistered burns rimmed each wrist but the bracelets were gone. I sat looking f
or a long time, trying not to think.

  I wouldn’t see Jordan again; he had made sure of that. I grabbed a box of Kleenex from the nightstand and waited for the tears to come but I was too numb. My wrists kept burning, reminding me I should probably wash and wrap them. Getting up, I glanced out the window and was surprised to see it was storming. I suddenly noticed the noise from it and wondered how long I had been sitting in bed, oblivious to everything.

  Outside, tiny pieces of hail were tearing from the sky, shredding the multi-color leaves still clinging to the trees. The ground was an icy, dirty mush of hail pummeled into mud and torn leaves. Dully I realized there would probably be no more fantastic autumns in West Michigan.

  As I watched my beautiful yard being destroyed by the storm, the noise suddenly ceased. I pressed my nose against the window to see the black storm clouds still blotting out the stars.

  My heart stilled when I heard a voice calling in the yard.

  “Grandma?”

  My breath fogged up the window as I gasped. The voice was coming from a low dark bush furthest away from the streetlights.

  And it sounded remarkably like mine.

  “Grandma?” it called again, as the rain ticked eerily off the eaves of the house. Below me the front door opened. I was horrified to see Grandma poking her head out.

  I raised my hand to bang on the window and the sky opened up again. Thunder cracked over the house and hail smashed into everything, drowning out my knocking.

  “Grandma,” I screamed, knowing she couldn’t hear me. I watched her long enough to see she was out of the house and slowly creeping towards the bush then tore out of my room and down the stairs. I took them two at time and slammed into the wall at the bottom. “Grandma,” I cried again, rounding the empty couch.

  The door was swinging wildly open and I raced out it, not bothering to put on any shoes. The hail pricked my feet and stung my face but I ignored it as I ran for Grandma.

  “Stop,” I tried to scream over the noise of the storm but she kept creeping towards the bush. “Grandma, stop!”