Fall (Roam Series, Book Two)

by Stedronsky, Kimberly

  “Take me through… the doors,” I breathed, my eyes beseeching his unnatural gaze. “Where are they?”

  “When I kill you, it won’t matter. There won’t be any doors. There will be one universe.”

  Violet sliced through the duct tape at West’s feet. I knew Logan had to be seeing her at this point; still, he was silent.

  “Were we… good together?” I lowered my voice, breathing slowly. Tears streamed down my cheeks; I had no way to brush them off. “Were we in love?”

  He was entranced. My voice lulled him. “I can’t answer that for you.”

  I pulled at Logan’s hold with my right arm. He gave my wrist a squeeze before releasing me.

  I knew, at that moment, that Logan wouldn’t hurt me.

  Slowly, I flattened my palm against Troy’s chest, the slight pressure in my fingertips supple against his skin. Bile filled my throat and nose. “Do you think that maybe… I lived after the pool... because I’m supposed kill you?”

  West was on his feet. The moment my eyes flickered from Troy’s face, he hissed, his hand circling my throat before I could move. His fingers crushed my neck and I gagged, the explosive pain melting bones in my legs as cartilage mashed beneath his grasp.

  Logan’s fist met Troy’s face with a powerful blow, and he lost his grip, staggering. I fell to the floor, panting, my eyes on the horrifying scene before me.

  “I watched you die,” Troy growled at Violet. His nose was contorted at a nauseating angle, and blood gushed down his chin. “You were dead.”

  West, fully conscious and already healing, delivered a punch potent enough to send him across the living room and into an end table. Troy managed to climb to his feet once more, and I watched in revulsion as West towered over him, turning his neck with a sickening crack.

  His eyes rolled in his head, and he began to choke.

  Logan grabbed Violet before she could attack Troy. “Get your hands off me!” She screamed, swinging at Logan.

  “You’re immortal,” Logan held her forearms, preventing her from hitting him. West drug Troy to the front yard. “Violet… you can’t die. West knew.”

  She stared at him, her face ashen.

  “He told me,” he shook his head, his eyes watery. “I’m so sorry… I had to convince Troy…,”

  I grabbed the back of the couch, pulling myself up. A terrible wheezing sound escaped my throat every time I took a strangled breath. Coughing, I cried at the pain, holding my hand over my mouth. When I pulled my hand away, it was splattered with frothy blood. Panting, I lifted my eyes to Logan. He had already knelt to me, gathering me into his arms.

  “I have to get you to the hospital,” he held me tightly against him. Violet glanced at us before rushing from the house.

  I tried to speak, my voice harsh and missing in sentence segments. “I can’t breathe.”

  “He’s out,” West appeared in the doorway, looking at Logan. “Get her upstairs and give me your phone; I’m calling a doctor who will come for her,” he flipped Logan’s phone open, dialing from memory. “He will be discreet- but I need you to handle her dad.”

  “I will. I won’t leave her. What about him?” Logan gestured to the front yard, where West had dragged Troy only minutes before.

  “I’m taking him through the fountain.”

  “You’re going to blow up another fountain?” Logan asked, narrowing his eyes. He held me tightly against his chest. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

  “No. I’m taking him to 1955. And I’m going to cut the fucking numbers off.”

  Chapter Nine

  I cringed at a sudden cramp. “I’m not- leaving you,” I was losing my voice with every word; the second half of my sentence was a whisper. My vocal chords are damaged.

  “Violet is coming with me. You have to go with Logan. When you wake up, I’ll be here, baby. I promise you.”

  “No,” I whispered, shaking my head emphatically. “No. I’m coming.”

  Logan held me in his arms, glancing nervously out the door. “Are you sure he’s out?”

  “Yes. He’s dead- for now. And Violet is still beating on him…,” West lowered his mouth to my forehead. “I’ll meet you here by morning.”

  “West-…,”

  “Oh God,” Logan held his fingers out from beneath the back of my dress, staring at them in revulsion.

  They were covered in blood.

  I watched West’s self-control fade as he stared at Logan’s hands. Their faces moved in and out of focus, like the contacts in my eyes that would shift around, blurring my vision. Suddenly too tired to argue any more, I turned into Logan’s arms, their voices growing distant.

  “She needs a hospital!”

  “I’ll take her- go with Violet. See this through.”

  “West, don’t let her die.”

  Blackness.

  Music. I am floating on my slippered feet, naturally moving on a floor filled with dancers to a melody in unison. Lavish costumes adorn each of us; my gown is the color of fresh snow, falling in waves down by body and ornamented with diamonds. A warm hand fills mine.

  “You dance,” West says, a playful grin tugging at his lips, “like you kiss.”

  I gaze at him, my body tingling with excitement. “And how do I kiss?”

  He steps forward and back to the stringed music, his fingers closing to entwine mine.

  “Like you have kissed forever.”

  I stop dancing, turning to him. “I would kiss you forever,” I say boldly, reaching for him on tip-toes. He backs away quickly.

  “He’ll have my head,” as he nods toward the throne, I lift my eyes and see Troy staring intently at us. I look back at West to see that his rebuke is half-hearted; his mouth remains upturned in a smirk. He leans forward ever so slightly. “But, little one… you may have the rest.”

  I exhale with laughter, spinning so that my white gown catches the air and twists above my ankles. “Well, you are nothing without your mind.”

  West pulls my hand to his lips. “The mind is a strange place.”

  I woke up in West’s Pilot, lying across the back seat. The SUV was moving, and lights flickered in and out of the dark windows in a rhythmic pattern. Moaning, I turned on my side as a cramping pain began in my lower back and crept around to my abdomen.

  “Hold on, baby,” West’s voice came from the driver’s seat. My head ached, my throat felt somehow smaller, and the left side of my face throbbed.

  Moving slightly, I realized that the underside of my leg was sticky. I touched my inner thigh, coughing painfully. “I’m bleeding,” I choked, my throat hoarse.

  “I know,” He reached for me with one arm, his voice pained. He found my bloodied hand, grasping it tightly. “Hold on… stay awake,” he begged.

  “Logan,” I whispered, straining to see if he was in the vehicle with us.

  “He’s in his car with Violet and Troy. We’re going through the fountain,” he explained gently, yielding to the right. “Roam!”

  I lifted my eyes, realizing the last of his sentence was lost somewhere in my unconsciousness.

  “Am I losing the baby?” I watched the bright lights of the highway against the charcoal sky, counting them as we passed.

  “No. It’s never happened, I can’t believe it would now,” he said firmly as the SUV accelerated.

  “A lot of things have never happened,” I murmured, my thoughts falling over themselves in a confused hodgepodge of book passages from What to Expect When You’re Expecting. “It could be a blood clot… or infection,” my throat was sunken; my voice unfamiliar. “Twenty… to… to thirty percent of women…,” I drifted back to the dance floor with West.

  The music floated through my memory, and I watched my mother doing dishes at the kitchen sink, humming the melody from the castle.

  “… in 1955. Roam! Wake up!” He was carrying me through the darkness. The fountain was illuminated by bright, white spotlights. I focused on the basin. “Logan wait- her numbers disappear when you pass thr
ough. Yours don’t.”

  I focused on Logan’s face in the spotlight. He stepped back, staring at me intently. How did I not realize that? Why do his numbers remain when I go?

  “You could carry her through-…,”

  “Snow… no water. West, there’s no water,” I cried, tears burning my eyes.

  He held me steadily, threading the fingers of his left hand through my own. His lips covered mine. “Just wait,” he whispered against my lips, lowering our intertwined arms into the freezing snow.

  The cold set an alarm through body, instantly sobering. Slowly, my skin thawed the snow, my body dissolving each cell at a time, until my thoughts became balmy. Moving through the fountain in Russia had been instantaneous, but as the snow melted and turned to liquid, I processed every millisecond of time as it happened. Blood from my fingertips pooled in deep, red cyclones, corroding the snow crystal by crystal. West’s hand detached from mine.

  And we were gone.

  We came out near the edge of the Hanna Fountains. West was pulling me out of the fountain, lifting me up and over the stone edge. I instantly registered that I was no longer in pain; my face felt normal, and the constant taste of blood was gone from my mouth. My stomach, however, began just under my breasts and protruded inches from my waist, stretching my bloody dress to the limit.

  The snow was gone, replaced by arctic cold. The area was deserted; I guessed it was the middle of the night. I gasped, my warm breath billowing in front of me. “What’s the date?”

  “December sixteenth… 1955.” West held me tightly, lowering me to my feet as he examined my face. “You didn’t carry your injuries through,” he said, cupping my face in his palms. “Can you stand? Are you strong enough?”

  “I feel fine- just-…,”

  I turned at a shout behind me. Violet appeared, sharing the burden of Troy’s limp body with a tall, dark-haired stranger. Troy’s neck hung backward at a hideous angle, lolling on his shoulders as they moved. West took over for Violet, his eyes darting around the dark Cleveland Mall.

  “There’s a van,” the stranger gestured across the fountain to a building. Parked along the curb was an old Volkswagon bus.

  “Who is that?” My heart pounded, confusion gripping me. The stranger met my eyes, sighing.

  “Cam, it’s me.” He muttered, straining beneath Troy’s weight. His mature voice was an octave lower. “Violet, she’s freezing- give her your jacket- I’ll give her mine in a second once I put him down…,”

  Violet’s eyes threw blades at the broad-shouldered man. I gaped at him.

  “You’re grown up,” I said, in awe. He rolled his eyes.

  “So are you.”

  “I can bust it open and wire it, but it has to be fast- and silent. I’m going to need to break his neck again- soon. It’s already healing.”

  “I’ll help,” Violet spat, tossing her jacket at me. I accepted it gratefully, shrugging it over my shoulders. She produced the pocket knife she’d used to cut West’s feet free, tossing it to him. “Let’s go.”

  We hurried across the crunchy, frosted grass. The incredible pressure in my pelvis had me falling behind them all, even Logan and West as they shared Troy’s dead weight. “Violet, don’t leave her alone,” West ordered.

  “Great.” More eye rolling.

  I stopped and held my stomach, shrieking as an actual appendage pushed my tightened skin outward, sliding across the inside of my body and settling on the opposite side.

  Violet saw the massive shift in my stomach, stopping dead in her tracks. “Holy shit- it’s like Alien in there.”

  “You’re thirty-eight weeks,” West propped Troy against the bus, working on the door handle.

  “Thirty-eight… I could have this baby any minute?”

  “Please don’t do that,” Violet cringed, her eyes fixed on Logan. “You kind of look like… who’s that hot Scottish actor, with the blue eyes… you know, he was in… shit what was that movie… you know…,”

  West, Logan, and I stared at her, speechless. Logan had his fingers aside Troy’s neck, checking for a pulse.

  “Gerard Butler?” He offered.

  “Yes! Yes, you look like him.”

  “Get in,” West snapped at her, glowering.

  He had the bus running in minutes. I realized that the vehicle was old, even for 1955. Where are we going? He answered my silent question as he dumped Troy in the back. “It’ll take hours to get to North Carolina. This tank is almost empty. I need you to understand that we’re a little desperate here,” he lifted me into the passenger’s seat, leaving the back open for Violet and Logan. I reached for the seatbelt, quickly realizing the vehicle had none. “I have to do some things that are… wrong,” he gripped me to him, and I curled into his hug, trembling with the combination of temperature and fear.

  “I understand,” I whispered.

  “Look away,” he hushed against my ear. I watched him move into the back with Troy, realizing he was about to snap his neck. Slapping my hands over my ears, I squeezed my eyes closed as quickly as I could.

  We were on the road before I opened my eyes again. Questions burst into my mind, one by one, and I tried to hold them back until we were safely out of Cleveland. The city downtown appeared abandoned; even in the middle of the night in 2012, someone would be out for one reason or another.

  Several cars were parked along the street like the bus was, and it took a while before I realized that they were parked at residences. We pulled onto Euclid Avenue, and I gasped at the chain of stores and restaurants. Windows were dark, but the elaborate holiday displays inside beckoned customers without needing illumination. Higbees, May Company, and the Halle Store, though closed, stood out in the darkness. Public square was lit brilliantly with fat Christmas bulbs, wreaths, trees, and garland.

  “I don’t even recognize this place,” I said, my hands resting on my too-tight sweater dress. “I…,”

  My eyes caught the mirror just outside the window. “Oh my God! I’m… I forgot I’m different,” I ran my fingers over the creamy, white skin in the reflection, marveling at the dark contrast of blonde hair and black eyebrows and lashes. My eyes, still green, framed a more rounded face, my chin not as long and now more petite. My nose perched between my cheeks like a button, rosy from the air outside. “I’m… cute,” I realized, raising my eyebrows. I tried an angry expression, and then pouted my lips. “How old am I?”

  “Twenty-one.” West reached for my hand. “And yes, you’re cute.” He replied with an amused smirk.

  “Gerard Butler, like 300? Or Gerard Butler, like Phantom of the Opera?” Logan’s unfamiliar voice sounded from behind me, and I turned to him and Violet in the back seat.

  “I don’t know. Take off your shirt and sing something.” Violet ordered, delivering an abusive kick to Troy’s stomach with her booted foot.

  I shuddered. North Carolina? Back to the cottage? I spread my hands over my rounded belly. Where we wait…

  “We’re going to wait for the baby,” I realized out loud, panic settling in the pit of my stomach. “Where is my baby? The one from 2012? How much time is passing there? What happened to my body there? When we go back will I be all beat up again? Violet is immortal? How long have you known that, Logan? I can’t have a baby yet! I’m not ready-…,”

  “Whoa,” West shook his head. “I knew the questions were coming, but not all at once.”

  “Where’s my baby?” I demanded. “This isn’t my baby!”

  “This is our baby, Roam. That’s what matters.”

  I considered him, taking a steadying breath. “What is my name?”

  “Roam Eva Camden.”

  I gave him a look. “In 1955?”

  He offered a sideways glance. “Anastasia. I called you Annie.”

  “How much time passed while you were in 1977? I need to calculate the relationship between time passed here and time passed in 2012-…,”

  “One year.”

  “One year to three months?” My mind jumped to
the intense movement that was beginning again in my stomach. “I- I can’t have a baby, yet, I’m not ready!”

  “My ears are bleeding. I didn’t think it was possible for you to shriek that high.”

  “Logan!”

  “Can we address the topic of me being immortal, please?” Violet shifted forward, kneeling between West and me.

  West turned to her. I watched an emotion I’d never seen pass over his face, and tried to discern it. “I will talk to you about that later- privately.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You told Logan so he would kill me? To gain Troy’s trust?”

  “I told Logan so he would know that you were… ultimately… safe.” He looked in the rearview mirror, his voice lowering to a growl. “Not to kill you.”

  “But it worked. Otherwise, I’d be in body bag, and so would Roam.” Logan said, defensive.

  “Is our baby… immortal?”

  My question sent the van into utter silence. After a long pause, West turned to me. “I think so. Once she’s born.”

  “How could you know that I was immortal… unless,” Violet lowered her eyes, focusing on the dashboard.

  Unless she died. I wanted to comfort her, to answer her questions, but West was already turning to her.

  “I will talk to you,” he said gently.

  “So, we get to this cottage you own by the beach, we tie this asshole up in some chains, slice his arm off, and wait for Roam to deliver the baby. Is that the plan?”

  Logan’s- or the stranger’s- voice cut through the emotional silence in the van.

  Violet tousled her curls, narrowing her eyes. “Won’t it grow back? The arm?”

  “I can’t get an epidural,” I thought out-loud, frantically holding my stomach. “I need to know more about the history of medicine- specifically births in the fifties- I need a book-…,”

  “Calm down,” West’s authoritative tone eased my nerves. His eyes constantly lowered to the gas gauge. “Logan- yes, that’s the best I’ve got right now. Violet- yes, it will, but it’ll take time- how much, I don’t know. Roam,” he spread his fingers over my stomach lovingly. “I’ll be with you through it all. I promise.”