Fall (Roam Series, Book Two)

by Stedronsky, Kimberly

  My foot slipped in the blood and I fell backward, West catching me in midair. “Oh my God, I can’t believe… Jesus fucking Christ,” he reached for the screwdriver, yanking it out of Troy’s throat. Blood pumped from his neck, and he dropped, hanging from the ropes at his wrists.

  “Where’s your hero?” I shrieked at him, slipping through the blood in my bare feet to claw at his face. I felt my fingernails bend backward as I dug at his skin. “Where is your hero? I hate you! I hate you!”

  “Roam!” West dragged me away from him, kicking. I finally went limp, sitting on the concrete floor, covered in blood.

  I stared at my hands, watching blood seep under my broken fingernails. He scooped me into his arms, taking two stairs at once. By the time we made it to his bathroom, I leaned against his bare, bloodied chest, exhausted.

  “I didn’t think you’d do it,” he turned the water on, and then the shower, gently stripping my stained clothes away. I watched the blood mix with the water, swirling down the drain. “Can you hear me? Baby, don’t do this…,”

  “I’m not crazy,” I lifted my eyes to meet his. He soaked a washcloth, wiping Troy’s blood away from my face. “I’m not. I know who I am.” My voice was barely there; I’d have no voice tomorrow for sure.

  West stopped wiping, cupping my chin in his hand. “Maybe I didn’t know… what you were capable of,” he searched my eyes.

  I winced, wrapping my arms around my body.

  “Will I feel guilty?”

  “Yes,” he lathered my hair with shampoo, kneeling next to the tub as he fought with each strand. “You’ve never done anything like this.”

  “How do I stop?”

  “You have to forgive yourself.”

  “How do I stop hating him?”

  His hand stilled, and he looked down at me. “You have to forgive him.”

  “Do you? Forgive him?”

  West rinsed more blood from my hair. “I will never forgive him.”

  I leaned against the claw-footed tub as he cleaned the blood from my body. I thought of my mother, of Eva, and of heaven and hell. Good, Catholic girls like Morgan and I believed our mother went to heaven.

  But where was Eva?

  I sat in silence beneath the hot water, thinking about the tips of her tiny fingers. West pulled me to a standing position, wrapping me in a thick, white towel.

  “I’m going to try to clean the basement. Your carry-on, the one you packed before we left, is in the bedroom. Put some clothes on, and then I’m going to drive you home.”

  “I’ll help you clean-…,”

  “You are never going in that basement again,” he pressed his lips against my forehead, gripping my wet hair as he crushed me against him. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, clinging to him. He held me, quietly, untangling knots in my hair with his fingers.

  “Saturday, I want you to come with me,” he kissed my head again softly. “I’ll make sure Logan covers for you. We have something that we have to do.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll just show you on Saturday.” He pulled my face away from his chest to look into my eyes. “Do you feel like you can fight like that... in your dreams?”

  I narrowed my eyes, confused.

  “Isa had a nightmare about Troy, but she forced weapons into her nightmare, and somehow conjured ways to escape. It’s your mind, Roam. The nightmares are magic, but it’s still your mind.”

  Considering his words, I thought about the way I took control in my dream of Isa and West, teasing him, and showing him my arm as we walked up the stairs of the pub. “I have changed things,” I realized, thinking of the seventies motel room with the dirty bedspread. “You’re right… I have said things… changed things… that I was in control of.”

  “You’re in control.” He touched his lips to mine, and I deepened our kiss, grasping his strong shoulders. “Call me and I’ll come to you. Any time, any place.” He promised.

  I convinced West that I could drive home myself; the last thing I wanted to do was call Logan and ask him to drive West back to his home. In the darkness, I listened to the rain lap at the tires on the road and thought of the way the screwdriver went into Troy’s neck.

  No guilt yet. Maybe I am going crazy.

  Morgan watched me walk in from the living room. I stood in the entryway, dropping her keys to the table just inside the door.

  “Wow. Freshly showered, fresh clothes.” She stood up, walking to me slowly. “And Logan stopped over. He assured me you were just fine, probably out for a drive to clear your mind.”

  I stiffened, backing against the door.

  “Who is it? Is it the teacher?”

  The center of my stomach turned inside out.

  “Morgan…,” My voice was strained, and I was losing the ability to speak.

  “If that teacher is screwing my baby sister, I’m going to kill him- and then send him to prison.”

  “It’s not like that Morgan!” I glanced nervously around the house, but she waved her hand in dismissal.

  “Dad’s at the bar, if that’s what you’re worried about!”

  “You don’t know anything,” I summed my feelings up in one immature outburst, running for the stairs. She caught my arm, holding it tightly.

  “I know you spent a week in the hospital, screaming in your sleep about your baby, and West- and I know that’s his name!”

  I wrenched my arm away from her, backing to the stairs. Sitting on the third step, I tucked my legs beneath me, staring at her. “If I tell you, you have to let me go- when I have to go. This isn’t about you, Morgan. This is about something bigger than both of us.”

  “Talk.”

  I began with the first day of school. She sat down on the rug in front of me, listening, getting up only to get me a bottle of water from the kitchen. I told her about Paine Falls, and the nightmares.

  “The one where you woke up bleeding,” she murmured, remembering.

  I nodded. “They’re like hallucinations… with real, physical effects.” When I told her about the pool, she gasped, her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Oh God… Reed? And you… died?”

  When I spoke of North Carolina, describing how I fell in love with West, she let a tear slip down her cheek before brushing it away. “It was like my entire being… remembered him.”

  “Oh, Roam.”

  I described Russia, and Logan’s anger, and eventually the fountain. By the time I got to the explosions, she was in hysterics. “It’s true… the fountains, the bombing…,”

  I pulled at the carpet fibers, taking deep breaths. “When West… was gone…,”

  “You were so broken,” she moved next to me on the stairs, gathering me into her arms. I’d made it so far without crying, but remembering the pain of losing West brought fresh tears to my eyes.

  I described Logan’s nightmares, and the Cleveland fountain. When I got to Thanksgiving night with Troy, her grip was crushing. I knew the hardest part was still to come for me, so I held on to her, my head in her lap as she smoothed my hair lovingly.

  Describing Eva’s birth, I lost my voice. Whispering through the rest of our days in North Carolina, I recalled the moment I passed through the fountain and realized Eva was gone.

  “They were both gone,” Morgan hushed as I broke into silent, wracking sobs. She cried with me, continuously running her hand over my damp hair. “I’m so sorry,” she bent over me, her tears meeting mine as they slid to the carpeted stairs.

  She held me as I cried. Slowly, I sat up, taking deep, calming breaths. “West agreed to keep his distance, but tonight, I… I needed him.” I felt the flush rise to my cheeks. “He wanted me to stay.”

  I twisted my hands in my lap, my chin quivering as Annie’s did before she’d cry. “I did a disgusting thing in the basement,” I sobbed, the story coming out in broken, half-words.

  Morgan pieced what I was saying together. “Roam, you have every right to hate him… I can’t believe y
ou wanted to help him in North Carolina.”

  “Am I going crazy?” I cried in a strangled whisper, praying my voice would be back by morning.

  “How could you not be?” She stood, grasping my elbow to pull me next to her. “Come on. You should have told me this a long time ago.” I followed her to my bedroom. “Get what you need, I’ll take you back to him.”

  “What?” I widened my eyes, staring at her in disbelief. “Morgan, dad will-…,”

  “…believe the story I tell him, so that’s all that matters.” She opened my closet to retrieve my suitcase, but found it empty. “Where…,”

  “It’s already at his house.”

  “Great. Let’s go,” she began shoving books in my book bag. “Have him bring you to Logan’s in the morning, ride to school with Logan.”

  I walked to her, wrapping my arms around her. “I love you,” I managed, and she hugged me in return, patting my back softly.

  “I love you. You’re right… this is bigger than us. You’re going to need help with… wherever these inclined planes might take you. I’m coming.”

  “Morgan-…,”

  “And I’m telling Jason,” she arched her eyebrow, stepping back to look at me. “He will help. You may have Troy, but you don’t know what’s waiting on the other side.”

  I tried to think of a reason to argue, but exhaustion set in. “Thank you.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Morgan followed my directions to West’s house, and walked with me to the front door. I shifted my book bag over my shoulder, ringing the doorbell.

  When West opened the door, he wore a fresh pair of gray pajama pants, and nothing else. His hair was wet, and I guessed he’d showered after cleaning the retched basement.

  “Okay, um,” Morgan was shaken, her eyes wide as she followed his chest down to his cut abdomen. “Right. Well, Roam told me all about what’s going on, and I’ve brought her to you. I expect you to protect her.”

  He turned to me. I didn’t know what to say.

  Finally, he opened his arms, and I dropped my book bag, folding into them. “Morgan, thank you for bringing her to me. You did the right thing.”

  I watched her tilt her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here.” She reached for my book bag, but West beat her to it, shifting it into his arms. “Logan will have to drive her to school.”

  “I’ll work that out.”

  She stared at him, as if considering. Finally, she jangled the keys in her hand. “Tell Troy that I said… to go to hell, you know, if you see him,” she said to West.

  He tensed, and I could tell he was holding back a smirk. “I think your sister did that for you.”

  She turned on her heel, glancing back once more. “Oh, and I need that recommendation letter for her applications, like, yesterday. And it’d better be freaking amazing.”

  He nodded, hugging me tightly. “I’ll have it finished by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  Morgan nodded, winking at me. “’Night, Socrates.” Her eyes swept over West once more, and she sighed wistfully. “Have fun.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The wind picked up over the night as I lay folded in West’s arms. Trying hard to sleep, my mind refused to shut off. I stared at the window, his warm body behind me, and played with his hands at my waist until he sighed uncomfortably. “If this is what you do to your own fingers, I have no idea how they’re still attached.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered quickly, dropping his hand. He slid his arm further around me and hugged.

  “I’m right here. I’m feel you tense if you’re having a nightmare, and I’ll wake you up. I’ve done it for years,” he promised, tucking his face against my hair.

  “It’s not that,” I held his hand gently. “Well, it is that, but… West, why would Asher use magic to save us, but not himself? If he possessed magic, I would assume self-preservation would be his first instinct.”

  He was quiet for a few moments, probably thinking about the story I’d told him from Troy. “Maybe he couldn’t? Maybe whatever… spell… he cast required self-sacrifice.”

  “Do you remember him?”

  “Not from any world but this one.”

  I turned to face him in the darkness. “He must have been extremely powerful, to split the world in two. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have created some way to save himself.”

  He blinked in the moonlight. “Are you suggesting that he didn’t die in the fire?”

  “You didn’t know what immortality meant to you on the night of the fire. Maybe Asher did, and he used that opportunity to leave… to hide.”

  “For all of these centuries?”

  “You said he was in your dream. Of the ice castle. What if he, like Laurel… is there?”

  “I don’t know, Roam.”

  “If he still possesses magic, maybe he could... bring Eva back.”

  His hand slid into my hair, and I turned into his palm.

  “Those are a lot of ‘maybe’s.’”

  I drew a line with my finger over the arch of his ear. “You never told me your favorite movie. I want one. Commit.”

  He laughed tiredly. “Okay. Ghost. Patrick Swayze, 1990.”

  “Great movie. Why?”

  “Because he doesn’t give up. Trying to save her,” he added.

  Sighing, I took his hand. “Thank you for the water lily.” I kissed his palm. “It let me know you were… with me.”

  He pulled me to his chest. “Water calms you.”

  “What calms you?” I asked, finally relaxing.

  He tightened the sheet around me, smoothing my hair over his pillow. “Hearing you breathe.”

  “You are going to fall.”

  I am in a room of mirrors. My reflection reveals my own face, my mahogany hair done in elaborate curls entwined with gold, pinned to my head and spilling down to the middle of my back. My gown is a dark wine color, matching almost exactly what I hold in my goblet.

  Troy slaps the glass out of my hand, reaching for my neck. I block him, but he grabs my hands, slamming me against the mirror so violently that I expect to see broken glass at my feet.

  “Fall?” I collect myself, evening my gaze. “You are the one trapped in a basement.”

  Confusion masks his eyes. I struggle, but he holds me firmly in his grasp.

  “You have this one chance to redeem yourself. When our child is born, the kingdom will have their heir, and you will be respected again.”

  I glare at him. “If there is a child in my belly, I guarantee it isn’t yours.”

  Fire rages in his gaze. He crushes my wrists in his hands, and I endure the pain.

  I welcome it.

  “You will be the one to fall,” I breathe between clenched teeth, unable to feel the tips of my fingers. “And I will be the one to push you.”

  “A star chart? This is… this is art. I have never seen…,”

  “You’re cheating!” I cried sleepily, my voice finally rising beyond a whisper. Stretching, I sat up, letting my hair tangle in wild waves over my face. I puffed a breath of air to move a strand out of my vision. “Put the map on the ground slowly, and put your hands in the air.”

  He grinned, gently laying the map on his dresser and taking a running leap for the bed. I giggled as he tackled me, fully dressed in black pants and a gray dress shirt. His freshly-shaven chin burrowed in my neck, forcing me to double up with laughter.

  “I couldn’t decide which part of you is my favorite… until today,” he caught my lips open in a kiss. “Your mind amazes me.”

  “I like waking up to you,” I said softly, smiling up at him. He turned me suddenly, so I was sitting over him, and he tucked my hair behind my ear.

  “The feeling is mutual.” He repeated my words from last night, and I raised my eyebrows in my best attempt to be suggestive.

  “What if we… didn’t go anywhere today?”

  He groaned, giving my behind a gentle smack before picking
me up and setting me down to the bed. “School, and then back to your house tonight. What did I tell you about… what obscene thing did you call it?”

  “Booty calls?”

  “Right. None of those. I want a diploma in your hand and a ring on your finger. So do you.”

  “Who cares about a ring if the world is ending?”

  “The world is not ending, because we’re saving it.”

  I sighed, glancing at the clock. “Yeah… we’re doing a great job.”

  “Roam.” He reached for a sport jacket, black like his pants, and I lay back to better enjoy the full view of him. “Don’t do that. Right now, I want you to focus on graduating- with honors. I want you here as much as possible, with me, but we have to be careful.”

  “We should be on our way to the inclined planes, trying to figure out a way to save everything.”

  “And when we do?” He looked at me sternly. “If you want Yale, you have to earn it.”

  “I’m doing well in History.”

  “I will fail you. I am impartial.”

  I bit my bottom lip, moving to my knees to face him. “Impartial?” Wearing only a thin cami and underwear, I slid my hair to the side, scratching my shoulder softly. “I don’t think you’d ever fail me.”

  His breath hitched as he watched my fingers dance over the cross-shaped birthmark on my shoulder blade. “I’ve failed you six times. I won’t do it again.”

  I dropped my hands to his waist, linking my fingers through is belt loops. “Maybe it’s my turn to save you.”

  His phone began to buzz on the dresser next to my map. He reached for it, his eyes still fixed on mine. “Perry.” He listened, and then raised his eyes to the window. “Thanks.”

  “Were those the bad guys who work for you?” I teased, slowly removing a button on his shirt from its hole.

  “That was Logan. He’s on his way to pick you up.”

  I shoved the button back in the eyelet, running for the bathroom. “When?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay,” I called, hastily washing my face and brushing my teeth. In the time it took me to throw on jeans and a dark blue sweater, West had toasted me a bagel and poured a large glass of orange juice.