The voices reverberated in my head, “No! She’s crashing!”
“What? Who is?” I brushed my hand against his arm without opening my eyes.
“What?” William groaned.
“Oh, I thought you said something.”
“Maybe the cabana boy spiked your drink,” he cracked in that British accent that made me melt like ice cream on asphalt.
I laughed him off, but I knew I had heard it. I can’t explain how I knew, but I had a very strong feeling that someone was dying somewhere. Or I had gone insane. Yep, that was reasonable.
“Charging! Clear!”
I froze. It hurt.
“Lex? You all right?” William asked. He sat up on the blanket and stroked my cheek. Those stunning green eyes traced me from head to toe and back again before they stopped at my face.
“I...I don’t feel so good.” The heat surge stung when it pulsated in my chest and ran through my veins to every cell in my body. My skin sizzled from the blood boiling beneath it. What started out as a little twitching in my arms and legs ended in an uncontrollable full-body thrashing session. My heart skipped a few beats and then started again with one deep, heavy thud. It tickled my ribs when it fluttered for a little while before it found its own rhythm, similar to the ticking of the metronome on my piano. My body went still.
“Lex? Lexi?”
“Oh my God, will you shut up?” I snapped at William. My head echoed with the voices that got louder and faster.
“What? I didn’t say anything!”
“Lex?”
“Stop!” I screamed.
“Adrenaline!”
I heard the word, but his lips didn’t move. It wasn’t even his voice. He stared a worrisome glare when my face lost all expression. That’s when I realized it was me. The voices were talking only to me, and only inside my head. Terror gripped me like a boa constrictor, stealing the air my lungs needed to inhale a deep, calming breath. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the same schizophrenia that stole my grandma had finally come to take a swat at me. The family had kept her illness a secret so I didn’t know that much about it, other than I could have inherited it from her, along with my trust fund. I never saw how badly the disease had destroyed her mind at the end, and it horrified me that I was about to find out firsthand.
I tried not to let William see my panic when I looked around, hoping to find the source of the voices. I didn’t want to be crazy, but I couldn’t run out of my own head either. As my bad fortune would have it, the beach was empty, except for a few surfers trying to catch a wave a few hundred yards away. It’s here, I thought. Grandma’s craziness got a grip on me and sank its long, pointy teeth into my flesh. I had to find a way to break free without leaving my brain in its jaws.
“Let’s get out of here. You don’t look so good.” William jumped to his feet and shook out our towels, sending the fine grains of sand flying in my face. The powdery, white sand wasn’t white anymore. It was black. I saw nothing but black.
Chapter 2
Dirty Little Secrets
Had I known sunscreen and sweat made the perfect glue, I would have skipped kindergarten and saved my blue-collar parents a few bucks. The goopy combination stuck my hair to my face, and when I tried to brush the flapping strands away from my nose, I ripped them off my skin instead. It hurt enough to wake me up. That’s when I heard the voices that weren’t so clear, but they were real, and were having a very hot discussion in the next room. “Sandy and I are second-guessing this. It’s getting too dangerous. We have to let her go...”
William always had a voice like a melody, but it was shaky and soaked in desperation when he interrupted my father, “No! You can’t! You don’t understand. I can’t be without her. I just need more time.”
“No, it’s done!” my dad growled. “We could be killing her! It’s over!” he huffed.
The haziness overtook my mind so I couldn’t make sense out of the conversation I obviously wasn’t supposed to hear. I wasn’t so sure it was real anyway, seeing that I heard voices no one else did. I knew the chances were pretty good that I had fainted, though. The spells had started around the time I went to England and had been getting worse ever since. I didn’t want to validate my mother’s “We shouldn’t leave Manhattan until you’re better” campaign, so I took a few deep breaths and focused on the orange and pink painted sailboat that sat on the desk. Staring at something for a few seconds usually stopped the room from spinning and snapped my brain back to reality.
“Mom?” I called.
It got very quiet. The kind of awkward quiet where everyone shuts up when you walk into the room because they were talking about you. That’s the quiet. She poked her head in the doorway and the rest of her body quickly followed after she made eye contact with me. William trailed behind her, still shirtless and wearing his Hawaiian blue swim trunks. The smell of coconut filled the room almost before he got there.
“Honey, you’re up. You okay now? You fainted again, but I guess you already knew that. Did you take your medicine today?” she fired fast while walking over to me, gripping a bottle of water. Her white linen cover-up flowed like silk behind her and a few blond curls peeked out from under the matching floppy hat. Her angelic look scared me and I blinked a few more times to prove to myself I wasn’t dead.
“Ummm, no. I think they gave it to me in the E.R. last night, or early this morning, whenever it was,” I mumbled in a crackly voice.
“How’s the hand feeling, anyway?” William asked. He slid his fingers under my bandaged hand and covered it with kisses. He blamed himself for my tripping over his scuba gear and gashing my hand on the fish hunting spears the other divers had left in a pile on the side of the boat. Not his fault, but there was no convincing him. He was almost as stubborn as me.
“Pretty good. I guess one clean slice across the knuckles was easy enough to fix.” I forced a smile in an attempt to minimize the whole thing. Guilt does nothing but make everyone feel shitty and is an emotion I almost never hold on to. The stitches didn’t hurt anyway. I shimmied myself up in the bed and William followed the back of my head with the pillows. He never broke his stare, but his eyes had lost their tranquil, mesmerizing appeal. They looked sad, almost distant. My mother distracted me before I could ask what that was all about. But even then, I should have known.
“The medicine, Lex. I called Doctor Rush and he ordered something else for you.” The little white pill she dropped in my hand was nothing like the gag-inducing cocktail I was used to. That was so foul it would have made a four hundred pound linebacker spew his protein shake. I hoped the new drug would make at least the fainting part of my life not so lousy.
“You’re kidding, that’s it? Just one?”
“Just one,” she said.
I swallowed the pill and she handed me the water, while William brushed the rest of my matted hair off my face.
“Maybe you need to rest some more?” he asked.
“No!” I snapped. “I’m fine. Just stay with me a minute, okay?” I clenched his hand so he didn’t have a choice. He smiled and gave his head a little nod. I can’t believe this happened in front of him. What normal guy would stay with a freak like me, hearing voices and passing out all the time? When he goes back to England, he’s definitely gonna hook up with the first glamour puss he meets at college.
My gloomy thoughts were cut short when my favorite Beyoncé song blared from William’s pocket. My mother, who could be a little immature at times, tried to hide her laugh with her hand as she turned her back to us. She found it amusing and, of course I did too, that I set that ring tone back in London the day he asked me to stay with him for good. He didn’t change it, probably as a tribute to me since he never did ‘put a ring on it.’ I knew his friends must have ripped him about having a chick song on his phone, but he left it like that anyway. I told you he was perfect. William smiled back at me and pulled out his phone, excusing himself to the balcony to take the call.
“I hope these don�
�t have the same side effects. My brain gets tired of working so hard all the time, you know,” I complained to my mother.
“Honey, they’re just dreams. Everyone dreams. When you were little, you loved catching fireflies and butterflies and taking care of them in your terrarium. You remember? It’s probably just your mind’s way of taking you to a place and time you were so fond of. You know, to relax. The brain is very complex and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the medicine.” I almost believed her.
“No! Mom, you don’t get it. They’re so real! And there’s not a butterfly in the bunch. They’re all dragonflies. Every single night, it’s the dragonflies! First one lands on me, and then the whole family comes to get a piece. C’mon, you know it’s freaky, to say the least.”
“Yeah, well it is a little odd—but, Lex, really, it’s nothing to worry about. Maybe if you stop agonizing over it when you’re awake, it won’t be on your mind when you go to sleep. Just think happy thoughts when you go to bed. It might help.”
“Yeah, right. Rainbows and unicorns,” I mumbled under my breath. “I tried that a few nights ago and instead of landing on me, they flew right into my mouth! I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like they were forcing me to dream of them! It was so real I woke up gagging. Can’t you just ask Doctor Rush about it? It’s starting to make me crazy.”
“I will. I’ll give him a call. Take a few more minutes before you get up.” She smiled her usual loving smile and took off into the next room.
I adored my parents. They were genuinely good people, and even though we were an average, middle class family, they always taught me to strive for greatness. My mother was a nurse and my father, a mechanic. Both had bigger dreams for me. Because of them, I was a pretty good kid, on my way to making a huge contribution to society. I never got into much trouble, had nice friends, excellent grades, aspirations of becoming an international lawyer and what I liked to call a relatively small bitch streak. We had the best parent-kid relationship of anyone I knew. But they were hiding something from me. Something big. Judging from the conversation I thought I heard, William knew an awful lot more than I did. I felt left out of my own life, if that makes any sense.
I dropped my head back onto the pillows while my mother talked on the phone with the good doctor (cough, cough). Word on the block was he was famous, apparently too famous to have a real office. It was more like a hole in the wall of a back alley in the village. To this day it still surprises me that we didn’t get murdered, or at least mugged, on the way in to see him. I thought he was an idiot and worth less than the subway fare it took to get to his office. He spoke in code to my parents and barely said ‘hello’ to me. He never found why I had the fainting spells, but he gave me some medicine to stop them. So much for the skill of the brilliant idiot.
She came back into the room at the same time William finished his call. They both sat on the bed with me, evidently waiting to see if I was back to normal.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’ll be right back. He just went to find a takeout place to get dinner. We think it’s better to stay in tonight,” my mother answered.
“Yeah, you look pale, Lexi girl. You need to rest,” William said.
It cranked me out that they were still on that babying train. I had a few minor fainting issues, not some terminal disease. Normally, I would have blasted them for overreacting, but that never happened. My tired and weak body overtook my will, and I didn’t care what we did for dinner. As long as I had William with me, all was right with my little world. He held me in his arms where I fell asleep until the morning.
Chapter 3
It’s Never Goodbye
“She’s responding to neurological testing, but only minimally.”
“Let’s leave the tube in. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
I couldn’t tell if the muffled sound of my father’s yelling was a nightmare or if I really was awake. They talked to each other as if I were already dead, not knowing or caring if I heard everything going on around me.
“You son of a bitch, you knew she wasn’t sleeping! And you didn’t tell us? How long?” he demanded. I had never heard my father go ballistic on someone like that. If I were in a normal state of mind, I would have found the humor in it.
“I don’t know. She’s been in and out since last night. I haven’t left her, except for a few hours to...” William’s voice got lower and softer. He knew he couldn’t say anything right to my parents. They would have wrapped me in bubble wrap and stood me on a pedestal in the corner of the dining room ’til I was forty—if it wasn’t considered child abuse.
“You left her alone? What if it happened when she was alone?” My father exploded in a fury. “If she didn’t love you, I’d kill you right now, I swear!” he yelled.
William didn’t say anything, or if he did, I didn’t hear it. My dad freaked on him again.
“You’re trying to change it, aren’t you? Who did you see? Damn you, it’s not your decision!” His voice got so loud I thought he was yelling in my ear. It scared me. Why can’t I react? What’s wrong with me?
“I haven’t done anything,” William said. His calmness was out of place, especially after my father had just ripped him a new one. “It was only an inquiry. I just wanted to know what the options were. I can’t... I can’t be without her. I spoke with an old-timer who retired on the island. He cut himself a pretty good deal and got out without any issues. At least none that he knows of yet. He knows someone who can help.”
My father stopped him again. “The New York Commission told you it was impossible. Did you forget that, dumb ass?” He stopped for a minute after it finally made sense to him. Of course, I was still clueless. “Oh my God! That’s why you brought us here. This guy you talked to—who is it? He’s a defector, isn’t he? And he’s hiding in the Bahamas? Are you a God-damned idiot? What the hell is wrong with you? I don’t care who you are, or who you know, I won’t let you risk her life! You selfish bastard!”
I couldn’t respond to any of it, but I heard everything they were saying and none of it made sense. What was this Commission? William was in New York before? And who’s this defector guy and why does anyone give a shit? If I could’ve moved, I would have jumped up and flipped on them for keeping secrets from me. How could they do that to me? I’d never felt so betrayed and nothing hurt me more than being betrayed by all the people I loved. I drifted off on what felt like a warm, heartfelt embrace.
˜ * ˜
“There’s some movement. She’s gotta be hurting. Let’s start a morphine drip.”
“Her pupils are constricting. It looks good. She’s looking good.”
The friggin’ voices were back. It wasn’t a dream—I wasn’t sleeping. I was somewhere else. In some other place. Some other time. Somewhere I thought I’d never been.
“Lexi, open your eyes if can you hear me.”
“Mom?” I called.
The silence hurt my ears until she started to cry. William and my father were too occupied with slamming each other to notice. Well, my father was the one doing the arguing. William never raised his voice, not even once. In fact, he was almost cocky, a part of him I wasn’t familiar with and never thought existed in him. Whatever this was about, he was determined to keep us together, and I was in full agreement, although I couldn’t say it. I hoped against hope that my parents would know that. They should have known that. Everyone knew my feelings for William were bordering on obsession and I would’ve run away and married him on some island in the South Pacific if he’d asked.
My ears tuned back into the verbal pummeling between the two men I loved.
“We all love her. My family is incredibly powerful and if anyone can do this, we can. Just let me see what I can come up with. I won’t do anything until I speak to you first. You have my word,” William said softly.
My mother shattered the silence like a bullet hitting a windshield. “James, please,” she cried, her voice loud and trembling. “I can’t. I can’t do it! I can’
t let her go, I can’t! I’m begging you. Just let him try.”
Dad answered her, but it was directed at William. He sounded so defeated and I felt so sorry for him. It killed me that I couldn’t talk to him, at least to calm him down. “You’re not leaving me much choice. I’d love to keep her here and... I don’t have the resources you do, but if you can do it without getting caught...”
“I won’t,” he interrupted again. “There are ways. I just haven’t found the right people yet. You think we are the first to do this?” he asked sarcastically. I struggled again to try to make any part of my body move so they would know I heard them. I fell back into a light sleep.
“Will you two stop? She might still be able to hear you!” my mother yelled at them. “We don’t have time for this now! James, make a decision! JAMES!”
“Go! Go ahead. I don’t know how much time is left. We thought we had a few weeks, but...” he changed gears. “Get the old-timer here and find out what we need to do,” he said.
“It’s the right decision,” William reassured him. The soft, warm kisses that I loved so much brushed my cheek as he stroked my hair and whispered, “Remember me, Lexi girl. Wait for me.”
“Sweetheart, can you hear me? Lex?” My mother’s voice sounded as angelic as she had looked the day before, each word composing a heavenly song, with harps and horns included. She was worried about me, a lot more than usual. I heard myself calling her, but my lips stayed shut. I tried to open my eyes or give her a sign that I heard her. Nothing. I talked to myself in my head. I know I’m dying now. That must be the big secret. Why didn’t they tell me so I could at least say good-bye and tell them how much I loved them? My brain is too tired to think. I just want to sleep.
“We love you more than anything in this world, honey. Always know that and keep our hearts with you. You’re going to have a long, wonderful and happy life. Don’t grieve for us. Be happy. Don’t ruin your future by having a heavy heart all your life. It’ll be okay, Lexi. You can go to sleep and...” She broke down and couldn’t catch enough breath to finish. I heard my father trying to give her a little comfort, although I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
The Dragonfly Prophecy Page 2
