Chapter 41
There are many names for the face of creation: God, Yahweh, Brahma.... I believe this energy formed not only the universe and our earth, but also inspires stunning pieces of art, books, and songs that make you weep.
I think this same force gave birth to two souls who were meant to be together, no matter what the year or circumstances they were born into: Samuel and Madeline. We were destiny’s lovers.
I knew we could be with other people. Date them, care for them, and even make a life with them. But there would always be something slightly off. Something that didn’t quite fit.
The party rocked, the music jammed, people danced, laughed, posed, flirted, and had a great time. But I wasn’t one of them. I missed Samuel so much I felt like I lost a part of myself. “I’m going home,” I yelled at Chaka over the music.
“I’ll go with you.” She pushed back her chair and jumped up. “Let me tell Aaron.”
Aaron was still dancing with the cute boy.
“No. Don’t. He’s having a blast.” I grabbed my cane that hung from the side of my chair and made my way to standing. “Besides you need to stay. It’s your dad’s party.”
“You shouldn’t be out alone,” Chaka shouted over the club noise.
“Because I’ll turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of…” I looked at my watch. “Ten p.m.?”
“No. You’re just not healed, yet.”
“I’m healed enough to walk outside the front door and ask the doorman to hail me a cab.”
“Fine. Call when you get home.” Chaka threw me a kiss. “Love you.”
“You, too.”
* * *
I walked out the club’s front door and shivered as a blast of chilly Lake Michigan air hit me. The doorman noticed my cane. “You need a ride, miss?” He lifted his arm toward the line of cabs.
“No, thanks,” I said. “My P.T. says I need to walk more.”
“You sure?” He glanced up at storm clouds bumping up against each other in the night sky. “It looks like rain.”
I smiled at him. “Who’s scared of a little water?” I limped off and left the pulsing beat of the club, and its bright, flashing lights behind.
* * *
I walked through Chicago’s deserted urban streets on this chilly, windy, autumn evening that soon would turn into winter. I limped past mom and pop businesses closed for the evening, as well as the occasional trendy store with a cool window display, trying to grab a little attention in a changing neighborhood.
All featured thick, metal, accordion-style, ground-to-ceiling, security gates. You lived in a tough town and you learned, sometimes the hard way, how to protect yourself.
Most practical people would argue that a girl my age shouldn’t venture out on her own in a big city at night. That my behavior would be tempting to thieves, bad guys, and other opportunists who preyed on people they thought were weak, or vulnerable.
Normally, I would agree with them. But, after everything I’d been through during King Philip’s War, I thought: Go ahead. Mess with the weak girl. Bring it flippin’ on.
I passed concrete and brick walls, separating stores from houses, streets and alleys. Many were tagged with gang graffiti. Seemed like someone was always calling someone else out. Were the results of these bitchy, turf disputes good for anybody involved? I wondered if even an experienced Messenger could get that message across.
The fog was thick, rain sprinkled, and a few snowflakes wafted through the air. My sides ached where my broken ribs were knitting, and my ankle throbbed. I stopped for a moment, bent down and tried to rub it, but couldn’t do much with the walking boot still on. The lights that hung over my destination glowed yellow. They were high above my head, next to the L platform in the near distance. I willed my aching, body parts to keep moving toward them.
The rain tumbled down harder, soaking my hair. I attempted to walk around all the shallow puddles on the concrete. I no longer trusted pools of water.
I would never be with Samuel during this lifetime. There would be no looking up into his beautiful, proud face. No feeling his strong arms wrapped around my waist, hearing his laughter, or seeing the joy in his eyes when he gave me that necklace. Never in this lifetime would I feel his lips kissing my neck, my lips.
That hurt far worse than any fall I would ever take, any bone I would break. That knowledge ripped my heart into a thousand pieces. But in order for me to get on with living in my current lifetime, I had to come to terms with the fact that the love of my life existed over three hundred years in the past. Samuel wasn’t the kind of guy who would want me to be unhappy.
I needed to let us go. That was the only way I’d perhaps find a smidge of happiness, let alone a little peace. Maybe, wherever Samuel was, he’d feel that way too.
* * *
I paid my token at the CTA’s automated booth, and pushed through the turnstile. In front of me was a steep staircase. I sighed but climbed it. Clunk. I put my cane on each step above me before I hoisted my healing leg up. Clunk, another step.
I reached the top, walked a few steps, and paused under a thin, ugly, metal overhang to escape the rain for a bit. I took a few moments to regain my breath and glanced around the platform.
Gosh, it looked so different from that day six weeks ago, when I fell off and hit the ground. There were only a few people waiting on the train on this side of the tracks. An older lady read a book. A guy yapped non-stop on his cell telling someone about the importance of estate planning.
Two trains approached the station from opposite directions. They screeched and sparks flew off the rails in the near distance. On the opposite side of the tracks, the train was headed north. The southbound train was further away from the station: that was my ride, and would drop me close to home.
Time to get this over with. I limped out from under the weather shelter into the pouring rain and faced the L tracks, just feet away. I pictured Samuel and me on that rocky cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at sunrise. I concentrated and spoke my words to him silently, in my head.
Samuel. I am honored that I fell in love with you, a gifted healer, a Wampanoag man, a Child of the Morning Light.
My hands started shaking. Dear God, I was doing it; I was letting him go.
Chapter 42
The trains screeched, but I closed my eyes, and concentrated.
Samuel. You gave me more love and respect than anyone I’ve ever met. But, I would be a rotten love, as well as a terrible friend, to keep you to myself.
If your bones are dead in the earth, Samuel. If your spirit is in a strange land, feeling lost. If your heart wavers because you want to love again? Know that I want you to go, and live another day. ’Cause I will love you, always.
I dropped my head in my hands, and sobbed.
As destiny would have it, the train heading north arrived first. A few people exited. The commuters huddled under the metal overhang on the opposite side of the tracks, covered their heads with briefcases, newspapers, or their hands, and hustled onto the train.
Its doors were closing, when a tall, lean, young man burst out of the stairwell and raced toward the train. He wore jeans, a dark coat, and had a backpack slung around one shoulder. His wet, longish, black hair obscured his face.
He slammed his hand in between the train’s doors, squeezed into the compartment, and took a seat on the side of the train closest to my side of the tracks.
I couldn’t help myself. I stared at him through the train’s faded, bleary windows. He set his backpack on the empty seat next to him, reached one hand up and smoothed back his wet, black hair. My gaze was drawn to the back of his hand. It had some kind of marking on it.
I squinted. It looked like a tattoo of a rising sun. My heart pounded. I limped closer to the platform’s edge, and squinted at him.
An older, female, grizzled voice behind me said, “Honey, don’t get too close to that edge. I heard on the news, a girl got pushed off this very platform, just weeks ago.”
T
he southbound train whistled as it approached the station. Soon, I’d be on board; quickly and safely transported to just blocks from my home, and my family.
The northbound train headed out of the station. I felt the weight of someone’s eyes on me. I turned. It was the boy with the dark hair and the tattoo. He’d pushed his wet hair back from his face and he gazed at me, mesmerized, through the window.
It was Samuel. I blinked. It was Samuel. I froze.
It was Samuel. And he was alive—right here and now.
“Samuel!” I screamed. He jumped out of his seat and pounded on the inside of the L train doors trying to open them, never breaking eye contact with me. “Samuel!”
But his train only picked up speed and carried him away from me, somewhere north of Chicago’s downtown.
My mind raced, my skin tingled, and my head whirled. I had to find him. If I worked really hard, I could find him. And we could be together, in this lifetime.
My train was pulling up to the station. Should I get on it and go home? Should I cross to the opposite side of the tracks, and wait on the next train going north?
“Messenger!” A man yelled. He stepped out of the shadows on the platform across the tracks from me. He was tall, lean, older man with a full head of black hair. He wore a leather, bomber jacket. His chunky, silver ring glinted in the yellow, station lights.
It was the same guy who approached me that day in the garage. It was the man who rammed our car over the edge of the tall parking garage and made my mama leave me. It was Malachi, the hunter who vowed to kill me.
“I think I’d recognize you anywhere, Madeline.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a knife.
And I realized—this journey was far from over.
THE END
THE ASSASSIN (Mortal Beloved, #2) is available now.
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Pamela DuMond
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Acknowledgments
Many giving loving people helped me create this book.
Thanks to my author friends and early readers/editors: Rita Kempley, Deborah Riley-Magnus. Thanks to my editors, Ramona DeFelice Long and Arianne Cruz. Thanks to Regina Wamba at Mae I Design for her amazing photography featuring model Jenessa CE Andrea and re-branding this book series. Thanks to my beta readers: Cheree Plank, Mary Jo Schultz, Terri Dunn, and An’gel Molpus. Thanks to the book clubs that have been so kind to me, especially Sassy Girls, you’re the best! Thank you to my family. Thanks Melissa Black Ford, Celia Boyle, Carrie Hartney, D.C., Ed Schneider and Debra Sanderson for keeping me sane. Thanks Monica Mason, Cheyenne Mason, Michael James Canales, Adrienne Kramer, Shelly Fredman, Julie Dolcemaschio, Joe Wilson, Sadie Gilliam, Andrew Goldstein, Kristin Warren, Robert Bernstein, Ed Schneider, Dave Thome, Jacqueline Carey, and Kim Goddard Kuskin. Thanks Jamie Duneier for reading my ms and encouraging me to write the screenplay.
I spent hours researching King Philip’s War. But the book King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict by Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tobias helped tremendously.
Thanks to my readers. I am grateful we are on this journey.
THE ASSASSIN (Mortal Beloved, #2) is available now.
Continue reading Madeline and Samuel's romantic saga in…
THE SEEKER, (#3) publishing in 2016.
Xo,
Pamela DuMond
About the Author
USA TODAY Bestselling Author Pamela DuMond discovered Erin Brockovich's life story, thought it would make a great movie, and pitched it to 'Hollywood'. Her book THE MESSENGER was optioned for film/TV.
She writes Cozy Mysteries, YA, Romance, and Self-Help.
She's addicted to the TV shows The Voice, and The Black List. She likes her cabernet hearty, her chocolate dark, her foods non-GMO, and she lives for a good giggle. When she's not writing Pamela's also a chiropractor and cat wrangler. She loves reading, the beach, working out, movies, TV, animals, her family and friends. She lives in Venice, California with her fur-babies.
She loves hearing from her readers! Sign up for her newsletter on Pamela DuMond’s website and look her up on Facebook!
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Also by Pamela DuMond
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The Annie Graceland Cozy Mystery Box Set: Books 1 - 4
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The Messenger (Mortal Beloved Time Travel Romance, #1)
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The Story of You and Me (Driven, #1)
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The Messenger: Mortal Beloved Time Travel Romance, #1 Page 20
