Restoration

by Randi Cooley Wilson

  Restoration

  The Revelation Series: Volume Five

  Randi Cooley Wilson

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by Randi Cooley Wilson

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Vernal

  Dialect Translations

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2015 by Randi Cooley Wilson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Please contact the author directly for usage opportunities.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Published by Randi Cooley Wilson

  Edited by Kris Kendall at Final-Edits

  Proofreading by KD Phillips with Indie Solutions By Murphy Rae

  Cover Design by Bravebird Publishing

  Cover Photo by ©Mayer George

  Book Formatting by Indie Formatting Services – Jeff Senter

  * * *

  Restoration (The Revelation Series, Book #5)/ Randi Cooley Wilson

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition November 2015

  ISBN-13: 978-1511847445

  ISBN-10: 1511847441

  Also by Randi Cooley Wilson

  THE REVELATION SERIES

  Revelation

  Restraint

  Redemption

  Revolution

  Restoration

  ROYAL PROTECTOR ACADEMY

  Vernal - Spring 2016

  Aequus - Fall 2016

  Nox - Spring 2017

  For The Readers,

  Thank you for taking this journey with me.

  “The world shall burn; and from her ashes spring New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell.”

  ― John Milton, Paradise Lost

  Author’s Note

  Goodbyes are never easy. They are often painful and full of sadness. Stepping away from these characters, and this story, is no exception. A few years ago, the voices of Asher and Eve infiltrated my head in a spellbinding way. I was captivated by their demand to be heard and moved by the story they asked me to tell. Never did I imagine, in all my wildest dreams, that they would enthrall your hearts and souls in the same way as they mesmerize mine. For that, I’m so grateful. In writing this series I have found my literary voice. My love. My passion.

  So, here we are, at the final chapter on Eve and Asher’s journey. And what a journey it has been. I hope you have enjoyed each and every moment, as I have. May this story live forever on these pages and inside each of your hearts! I dedicate this one to you.

  Thank you, for embracing this series.

  Thank you, for loving these characters.

  Thank you, for taking this journey with me.

  * * *

  Randi Cooley Wilson

  Prologue

  Life is an unwritten book, full of empty pages, waiting to be filled with our story. Each moment is a poignant chapter. Some we’d like to revisit. Others we would rather skim over. Yet every instant has a purpose, a reason for our being. I don’t know if I believe all of the written words defining my journey but I will say this: every beginning has an ending, and every ending, a beginning. — Eve Collins, The Revelation Series

  Chapter 1

  The End Begins

  The mist is breathtaking as it creeps hauntingly onto the property, bathing the lush landscaping in bluish-gray hues. I allow myself to succumb to its magical allure, as I take in a deep cleansing breath, filling my lungs with the damp, cool air.

  My gaze drops to the pad of paper sitting on my lap. With my index finger I trace the numerous sketches of a circular, barbed-wire dragon I’ve drawn over and over again, in shades of black and gray. I know it means something. What . . . I don’t know.

  With a rough exhale, I place the notebook and pen next to me on my favorite bench under the old oak tree and brush my bare feet across the dewy blades of emerald grass. The world is still. Silent. Embodying a sense of calm and peace. Somehow, in this moment, I know my mind needs the tranquility.

  Vaguely, I hear a voice in the back of my head. It speaks to me in a soft murmur. Whispering words of protection and love. My memories sit locked in a jar, inside my mind. It’s painful to try to release them.

  I knit my brows and allow my gaze to roam over the landscape. I don’t recall how I got here. Or why my feet are bare. I’m not even sure where here is.

  The warm breeze picks up and my hair lifts and twirls in the wind. As I attempt to get control of the wild strands, my hand brushes over the wound on my head, beneath my hairline. My fingers linger on the bandage. Something else I don’t remember.

  Curling my feet under my legs, I cover them with my long, white, cotton dress and study the quiet grounds. I’m unsure how I know this, but there was a heaviness that used to inhabit my chest. Now, it’s gone. I think it pleases me to feel numb.

  I think . . .

  Unlike the other days when I’ve sat in this very spot, today, a strange loneliness begins to seep into my soul, a revelation that produces an eerie emptiness deep within me.

  My heart feels vacant.

  Something isn’t right.

  I’m not right.

  Confusion sets in again, causing me to shake my head slowly, trying to remove the cobwebs that have wrapped their intricately woven, tangled maze around my memories and thoughts, holding them hostage.

  The balmy breeze picks up once again, carrying with it the familiar and comforting scent of bubble gum. Odd. With curiosity, my gaze lifts and focuses on a shadow beginning to form within the mist. I watch in awe as an outline of a person emerges from within the darkness. I keep my eyes glued to the unknown figure.

  I’m not afraid. The petite silhouette comes closer and I reach my hand out awkwardly to touch it, but at the last minute show restraint and pull away.

  “Are you okay?” the shadow asks, with concern laced in its recognizable voice.

  My heart stops when I hear the words. There’s silence, as the figure waits for an answer. I open and close my mouth, trying to form intelligent words, but am stunned into silence by what I’m witnessing.

  The being sighs in disappointment at my temperament and begins to slowly edge closer to me. I think it believes I’m scared of it, so it’s treading lightly, so as not to startle me.

  The dark shadow breaks through the heavy mist and comes into focus. For a moment, I can only stare in disbelief. My body is frozen in place. I can’t pull my gaze away from her.

  Memories float through me like a movie. Snapsh
ots of cherished moments. The locked jar releases just enough to help me understand who and what I’m seeing. I swallow hard when recollection hits me. My eyes blink unhurriedly.

  “I think I’m having an outlandish dream,” I whisper, trying to find my voice.

  “No shit.” The dark outline says with sarcasm dripping from her lips. “Same one?”

  My gaze lifts, locking onto a pair of chocolate orbs, staring warmly at me.

  “Oh God,” I exhale on a weak breath.

  “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before,” the amused voice quips.

  The ghost kneels in front of me, enfolding my hands in one of her own and using the other to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. The apparition smiles and it makes me want to cry.

  “I’m here to help you find your way back, Eve Collins.” She speaks in a low, lulling tone.

  “I’m lost?” I question her in a soft voice.

  “Yes. It would seem that you are in need of redemption,” she confirms.

  I pause for a moment. “I don’t . . . I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” I offer, mystified.

  “You are supposed to,” the spirit assures. “Everything happened the way it was meant to.”

  Her words trigger something inside of me and for the first time in days, I feel. Emotion floats through my veins almost painfully. My heart and soul fill with a surge of grief and my eyes begin to sting with a rush of tears.

  “Aria?” I choke out.

  “Hi, Eve,” my deceased friend and college roommate utters quietly.

  “I-I d-don’t understand,” I stumble. “How are you here?”

  Aria tilts her head, squeezing my hand in reassurance, while I stare at her pink pixie hair.

  “I promised you that I would see you on the other side,” she explains. “I guess Kingsley College is your version of the other side.” Aria crinkles her nose and stands, looking around.

  After a moment, she sighs dramatically and plops down next to me on the bench, fidgeting with her frilly pink dress. Once she’s content with her appearance, she crosses her black fishnet-stocking-covered legs and swings her pink combat boots across the top of the grass without a care in the world.

  “The other side?” I repeat, trying to work through what she’s talking about.

  Aria turns to me, smiling with mischief, and my chest tightens. I’ve missed her. Her small hand lifts and with a gentle touch she brushes the hair away from my wound. Warmth soars through me as I feel the cut heal itself under the bandage. Freaked out, I flinch away.

  “There, all better,” she murmurs.

  My forehead creases. “It’s gone?” I cry out, touching the bandage. Holy shit.

  She nods and bites her bottom lip. “Killer superpower, right?”

  “Totally,” I agree, exhaling. What the hell is going on? I have to be dreaming.

  “You know, Eve, you could have healed that yourself,” she suggests.

  My eyes slide to hers. “That’s crazy. I’m pretty sure I can’t heal myself, Aria.”

  Amusement crosses over her features as she leans back, blowing a pink bubble with her gum, then popping it dramatically. “Yes, you can. You have some amazing gifts, Eve.” Her voice trails off while she looks in the distance at nothing in particular.

  “Gifts?” The word is full of incredulity.

  “You hit your head. It’s why you can’t remember anything.” Her tone is flat.

  “How?” I inquire. “I don’t remember.” The statement hangs in the air. A head injury would explain why I’m talking to my dead friend and sitting barefoot in a campus quad.

  “I’d like to say it was because you were drunk and face-planted at a frat party,” she counters, with an underlying sadness in her statement.

  “That doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like you,” I shoot back.

  We both smirk at the same time, knowing that Aria face-planted more than once at a few frat parties during our first semester together due to her alcohol-induced state.

  “Fun times,” she answers.

  I tilt my head back and close my eyes. “If that’s not how it happened, then how?”

  Aria releases a pained sound from her throat. “You fell, from a pretty high place.”

  I drop my chin, open my eyes, and follow her line of sight to the empty parking lot near Lexington Hall, curious as to what has caused her face to pinch like a beautiful, angry fairy.

  “I fell?” I repeat, attempting to get her attention.

  She clears her throat. “Hotness with the really cool car was supposed to catch you. That was the plan anyway. But with your stubbornness, down the toilet everything went.”

  I shift my gaze back to hers. “I’m not following. Hotness was supposed to catch me?”

  “Gage Gallagher,” she states slowly, as if I should know who that is.

  I shake my head, letting her know that I have no idea what, or whom, she’s talking about.

  Aria frowns. “I guess falling from a cliff and hitting your head on rocks will do that.”

  My jaw drops. “I fell off a cliff?”

  She blows and pops another pink bubble. “More like you were dropped.”

  “Oh. My. God. What dumbass would throw me off a cliff?” I exclaim.

  Aria laughs and my gut rolls. It’s been so long since I’ve heard it.

  “I’ve missed you, Eve,” she expresses with a tinge of sorrow.

  “Me too.” I watch her for a few bewildered moments. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember what happened to you. I just know that you’re no longer with me and that I miss you like crazy.”

  “It’s for the best.” Aria begins to pick at the black, chipped polish on her nails. “Someday, the memory will return. When it does, just know I would do it again, without thought.”

  “Well, that’s not cryptic or anything,” I tease.

  Aria laughs. “Obscurity is my middle name.”

  “I thought it was Gertrude?” I bump her shoulder.

  She tosses me an annoyed glance. “You can’t remember anything, at all, and yet somehow you can recall my god-awful middle name? You suck, Eve Marie Collins.”

  I shrug. “Maybe I have selective memory?”

  “Clearly,” she banters in the easy way we used to.

  We sit in silence for a bit, while I scan the campus, trying to recall pieces of my life.

  “Being here, with you, does that mean I’m dead?” I ask with caution.

  Aria shifts on the bench in reflection and chomps on her gum in an irritating cow-like manner that used to make me want to strangle her. After a few quiet moments she grabs my notepad and traces the dragon I’ve been sketching obsessively for hours on end.

  “From darkness, comes light. Does that mean anything to you?” Aria asks.

  I let the weight of the words embrace me but I have no connection to them. “Should it?”

  Aria sighs. “Yeah. It should.” Her voice sounds deflated.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.” I bite at the inside of my cheek in a nervous manner.

  “You’re not dead. We’re in a realm that you’ve created. To heal,” she whispers.

  I pull in my brows and stare at her in doubt. “That’s absurd. People can’t create realms.”

  “No, Eve, people can’t. You can,” Aria states. “Sometimes, when a being realm jumps, or dream walks, they lose themselves within the safety of the world they’ve created.” Her gaze slides over the lush landscape. “Maybe that’s why you’ve chosen Kingsley’s campus as your healing realm. You went back to the beginning. Before—” she stops abruptly.

  “Before what?” I encourage.

  Her finger taps on my sketch. “This.”

  My eyes shift downward to the dragon. “Aria, I don’t even know what that is.”

  “It’s home,” she states matter-of-factly.

  “Home?” I reiterate on a whisper.

  “Home, Eve,” she confirms in a slow drawl.

  I inhale and study her face. Memori
zing every piece of it. I don’t want to forget her again.

  “How are you here?” I ask again, with tears filling my eyes. “Don’t misunderstand, I love and miss you but how the hell are you here? I know you’re dead. Is this a dream?”

  Placing the sketch pad back down, Aria throws a sly smirk at me. “I’m your guardian.”

  “My what?” I ask, puzzled.

  “Guardian angel. I’ve been assigned to you by Michael, since inception,” she says guiltily.

  I nod once, buying time because dead Aria sounds crazy and I’m not interested in pissing off spirits. “So if you’re my guardian angel,” I clarify slowly to appease her, “Who is Michael?”

  She arches a dark eyebrow at me. “Don’t be condescending, Eve, it’s true. Michael is my boss. The warrior of Heaven, archangel Michael,” she describes with a dip of her chin.

  “I don’t think I know him,” I play along. Crap. Ghost Aria is batshit crazy.

  Her lips tilt. “Believe me, you two have met before. One might even say you two are so close you share DNA.”

  I throw her a stunned glance. “I know an archangel?”

  Aria laughs. “Holy shit, this is fun. Yeah, you do, Eve. And stop whispering to yourself in your head about my sanity levels. I hate when you do that and it’s starting to freak me out.”

  “By the grace,” I murmur and she stills. “You’re crazier now than when you were alive.”

  “Repeat what you just said,” Aria demands.

  I lift my brows at her odd expression. “You’re crazier—” I begin but she cuts me off.

  “No. Before that, what did you say?” She pins me with an insistent stare.

  “By the grace?” I wave her off. “I have no idea where that came from. Just like I don’t know how I got here.” I motion to the campus. “Or why I feel the need to draw two hundred pages of dragons. Or why I’m talking to my deceased best friend.” I hold her gaze.