Other Side of Forever
Shannon Eckrich
Other Side of Forever © copyright 2017 Shannon Eckrich
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons, living or dead are entirely coincidental.
Edited by Elizabeth A. Lance
Cover by Rue Volley
All rights reserved.
Other Side of Forever
Forever is only a portal away.
Cursed. That's how Allie Anderson feels about the weird supernatural powers that have branded her a freak in high school. Whenever her emotions run high, strange things happen to the energy surrounding her. Lights flash, appliances come to life, and unnatural things just seem to happen. The worst part is she has no way of controlling it—until she meets Ethan Bradley.
Ethan is mysterious, hot, and not only does he have the ability to calm the energy around her, but he also possess a power of his own. Falling in love with him comes easy, but there's only one downfall. He's not from her world. He's not even human. Ethan is an immortal. And his kind will do anything to keep them apart, even if it means stopping her beating heart. If that happens, not even the power of an immortal can bring her back.
Prologue
“There’s always a beginning and an end, Allie,” my mother told me, the poison slurring her words as it wrapped around her tongue. “Nothing lasts forever; not life, not even love.” She slammed her glass of vodka down on the table, venom sloshing up and raining down, beading into small puddles on the linoleum floor. “It all fades away in the end. That perfect little world everyone always dreams about—it never happens.”
Mom spooned this crap to me all the time after Dad left. Big heaping mounds of it. I never knew what it meant because at ten years old, everything seemed to go on forever. The ocean, rainbows, the sky—they never ended to me. They always went on and on with no end in sight.
I mean, really, has anyone ever found that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I think not. And I already had my perfect world I’d made with my best friend Jeremy, a world constructed out of branches, logs, leaves, and anything else we could forage from the forest floor.
But as I grew older, I found meaning in her words. Mom wasn’t talking about what goes on inside a child’s head, inside that world they create where fire-breathing dragons are around every corner and fairy princesses wave their wands to tuck you into bed each night. She was referring to what it was we blossomed into when we reached adulthood. The stuff I would have to prepare myself for, even though some of them would never pertain to me. Marriage (which would never happen), divorce (can’t get ditched if you don’t get hitched), bills (well, yeah), the repo man (her problem, not mine). That kind of stuff.
But more than that, Mom was talking about love (yeah, okay, not a chance). An emotion that turned to dust and got sucked up into our vacuum cleaner a long time ago.
I hated my life. I hated Dad for abandoning me, hated Mom for drinking all the time, hated the fact Jeremy had to move away and leave me.
But most of all, I hated the fact that God had cursed me.
Chapter 1
The heat rose to my face as I clumped down the steps, teeth clenched together and hands balled into fists, crinkling the paper Mr. Carson, my substitute English teacher, had handed me. He’d called me out of PE to meet him in his office just before lunch, where he’d proceeded to give me my paper back. His words still echoed in my ears: “It’s sloppy and inconsistent. Mr. Brinkley will be back tomorrow. See if he’ll take it, because I won’t.”
How could he not accept my paper? I’d spent two weeks on it, but this moron couldn’t accept it? This was a load of crap. My face got hotter, and I wanted to scream as I rounded the corner.
The stairwell went pitch black.
Any other time I would’ve freaked, but it didn’t matter now because I was alone. Everyone else was either in class or in the cafeteria. I pushed forward through the darkness to make it to the cafeteria before the last bell rang out.
Then all of a sudden, I smacked up against something hard. I reached out to find the railing to catch myself, but it was too late. My body was already coasting through the air, falling down the last few steps in the stairwell. I threw my hands out in front of me, preparing to hit the concrete. But instead, I hit something soft.
“What the—” a familiar voice yelled.
Becca Wallace.
Heat drained from my body as I scrambled to my feet. I had to get out of there before she saw me. Dead wasn’t on my agenda today. I slammed through the double doors just before the lights popped back on, then raced down the hall and around the corner, heart beating superfast, until I came to a stumbling halt in front of the cafeteria doors.
Just breathe. In and out. You can do this. The tips of my shoes froze at the invisible line at my feet. This is so stupid. It’s a school cafeteria. Everyone is busy doing their own thing; they’re not going to find out about what you can do. Besides, if you turn around now, you’ll take the chance of running into Becca.
I pushed the doors open and stepped into the room, opting for a cafeteria full of students over a death sentence, and took a deep breath.
You can control this.
But if I was so confident I had escaped before anyone could find out about the secret I’d been hiding for the past seven years, why did it feel as if everyone in the room was staring at me?
Oh, that’s right, because I’m a freak.
I wasn’t always a freak. I was normal up until the night my father bailed on Mom and me. After that, things just got weird.
Focus on the floor, Allie. Pretend they’re not here. All you have to do is make it to the table.
I repeated those words over and over again in my head as my feet scuffed across the laminate floor. The fluorescent lighting above me buzzed and dimmed when I crossed under its path. But I couldn’t think about that now. Not with the sparks of anger and nervousness exploding all around me.
Sometimes I wished I could acquire a magic cloak and sneak down the halls—completely invisible from everyone—but then I would have to amp it up with some sort of force field to repel the whirlwind of emotions that threatened to strike me down with the strength of a baseball bat whenever I came close to anyone.
I didn’t think of myself as being psychic, even though the best way to explain my powers was that I’m telekinetic. The word psychic…let’s just say it was way too close to the word psychotic for me.
“Allie, you’re late! What happened?” My friend Erica tossed me an apple.
I sat down and dropped my book bag to the floor. This was great, since I’d missed the first ten minutes of lunch getting bawled out by a sub.
I caught it and shrugged. “I fell down the steps and took someone out with me.”
“Omigosh—are you okay?” Her almond-shaped eyes got all wide and buggy looking, like someone had just swiped the last bottle of body glitter off the store shelf. She practically bathed in the stuff.
I knew she would react this way. Ever since Jeremy, my best friend, had moved away, Erica has felt the need to protect me. She didn’t think the lack of interaction
I had with other students at school was normal. She thought I was being bullied or something. She had no idea that this wasn’t the case. That it was my choice to stay away from everyone. Nobody could know what I was capable of. She didn’t even know. About my powers, that is. Or the fact I had sworn a silent oath never to allow myself to fall in love.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I only tripped down the last three.”
Marie giggled from Erica’s other side. Erica sliced her eyes over at Marie, immediately silencing her laughter. Erica and I were total opposites. But that never stopped us from being friends. She’d moved to Middletown, Delaware, from Sacramento, California, five years ago, and we’d met through Jeremy. Even though he’s always been a year ahead of us in school, they’d dated on and off for a little while until they called it quits and decided to be friends.
While Erica was a true Cali girl, keeping up with the latest fashion trends featured on the cover of Glamour and Vogue, Marie was a true wannabe. She wanted to be just like Erica. I couldn’t blame her. Who wouldn’t want to be blonde, bronze, and created from the same mold used to make Barbie? Okay, so maybe I was exaggerating just a tad. But Marie couldn’t quite pull off Erica’s look—no one could.
“Who did you manage to knock down today?” Marie pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, acting as if this was something I did every day. She picked up a fry and swirled it in the glob of ketchup in the corner of her tray before popping it in her mouth.
I lowered my eyes to the apple. “Becca.” My voice came out so low that I wasn’t sure if they had heard me or not until Erica gasped.
“Allie Anderson, you knocked over Becca Wallace?” Marie nearly choked on her fry.
Erica was still unable to speak—her energy fluctuated between fear and anger.
I continued to stare at my apple, refusing to look at either one of them. “Yeah,” I whispered, wishing Marie didn’t have to be so dramatic all the time
“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Erica asked, finally finding her voice.
Of course I knew how much trouble I was in. Did she think I was that stupid? In our school, not only was it against the rules for a junior to talk to a senior—unless you’re related or something—but touching them without permission takes a lot of balls. Besides, how could I not forget my last encounter with Becca, back in our freshman year? That one had ended with me receiving ten stitches in my elbow because she pushed me into the side of the school to get to Lanie Prickett. Lanie was notorious for spreading lies about people so she could ride the social elevator to the top floor of Middletown High. I just happened to be in the way that day.
“Well…I’m kind of hoping she didn’t see me.” I nervously spun the apple around in my hands.
“What do you mean, you hope she didn’t see you?” Erica snapped at me like a snarling dog pushed to its limit. “Allie, you knocked the girl down the steps. How could she possibly have missed you?”
I glanced up from underneath my lashes. “Because the lights went out in the stairwell before she had a chance to turn around and see me running out the door.”
“You’re so lucky.” Marie laughed. She had no idea that luck had nothing to do with it.
Erica closed her eyes and shook her head, frustrated. “You better hope she didn’t see you,” she warned, opening her eyes back up.
“I’m pretty sure she didn’t.” I reached over and chucked the core of my apple onto her tray.
The plop of the fruit on the hard plastic ended the conversation and started another. One that I would’ve rather not heard. It was about Erica’s new love interest, Ben Vansant. He was okay looking, but he was also Aaron Johnson’s best friend. I went to every extent to avoid Aaron in gym. His energy had this sort of heaviness to it, and I’d convinced myself it was just better to stay away from him. I was hoping Erica’s fascination with Ben would only be a fling, because the last thing I needed was for Aaron to be hanging out around our table. He might get the impression I wanted to be friends or something.
Lunch ended, and we headed off to our remaining classes. After school let out, I hurried through the parking lot to my car. Not only was it freezing out, but I also wasn’t one hundred percent sure that Becca hadn’t seen me in the stairwell. I opened the door of my beat-up old cruiser, tossed my bag onto the passenger’s seat, and slid in behind the steering wheel. I scrabbled under the seat for the keys I always kept there—no one would ever think to steal my car—then slammed the door behind me.
The engine failed to turn over. “Oh, come on!” I huffed, smacking my hand on the steering wheel. On the third try, my car finally roared to life. “Thank you.” The words came out in one big sigh of relief.
The metal clothes hanger—which wrapped around my exhaust to keep it attached to the car’s body—vibrated wildly underneath my car; a sound I’d learned to ignore months ago. I turned up the heat and placed my hands on the vent to warm up.
The air was cold. “Go figure,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes and shaking my head. Forget the heat—I had to get to work. I made my way out of the parking lot and headed in the direction of Hauntingly Cool Possessions, or the “ghost shop” as the locals called it, a store that not only sold a variety of ghost hunting supplies and nonfiction ghost and supernatural books, but also carried numerous items thought to be possessed by actual spirits.
I’d started working at the ghost shop last summer. What began out of curiosity to understand my powers, had landed me a part-time job. I’d had no intention of working at a paranormal shop. The thought of that was weird. But after weeks and weeks of visiting the store to see what new supernatural books they had, Angie, the owner, offered me a job.
A couple of weeks later, I found out I really enjoyed the atmosphere. Surrounded by books and crazy weird antiques thought to be haunted instead of a loud, overly obnoxious mother poisoning herself with alcohol gave me time to myself. Something I didn’t have at home. I never blamed my mom for any of this. It wasn’t her fault. But working at Hauntingly Cool Possessions gave me the break I needed from caring for her and taking on all her responsibilities. I mean, come on, I was only seventeen. I needed some sort of life. I had worked at the ghost shop for almost a year now, and I had no intention of giving it up. It was my refuge.
When I walked through the door, Angie was on her way out.
“Here,” she said, shoving a piece of paper in my hand.
It was a list of things for me to do. I studied the paper as she bent down and picked up a big, black bag off the floor.
“I’m not going to be able to make it back tonight. Got a possible haunted typewriter over in Odessa.” Angie brushed her black bangs away from her eyes. “Could be a big money maker.” She grinned and winked.
“Cool,” I said, placing the list on the counter. The door slammed shut, causing the little bell over the frame to chime.
The store remained quiet throughout my entire shift, leaving me plenty of time to complete everything on the list. When I finished, I grabbed a book about ghosts off the shelf and settled in behind the counter. The book wasn’t going to help me figure out what was wrong with me or how to make my problem go away, but it did make for an interesting read.
A couple of chapters in, the bell over the door dinged. When I looked up, I was staring into the eyes of my worst nightmare. Becca Wallace.
And she wasn’t alone.
“Hey, freak,” Becca said.
Her friend Cassie stood behind her, grinning. It wasn’t a friendly how-are-you grin; it was more like a you-are-in-so-much-trouble grin. I didn’t like it.
“What do you need?” I shut the book and pushed it aside. I knew she wasn’t interested in anything in the store. Except me.
“Hmm…let’s see. Cassie, why don’t you look around and see if anything catches your eye, and I’ll stay here,”—she flashed a smile—“and have a little chat with the disaster queen.”
Oh, crap, she’d seen me in the stairwell.
Cassie disappeared into
the adjoining room, the one containing the antiques and supposedly haunted items. Although I worried about the merchandise, my eyes focused solely on Becca. She stood across from me, glaring. She pushed her lips together into a thin, tight line. At any minute I was expecting her head to spin completely around and green goo to ooze from her mouth like the girl from that horror movie. Yeah, she looked that scary. No joke.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t have known who pushed me down the stairs?”
“Look, about that…I’m really sorry.” My voice stumbled along the bottom of my throat while my stomach flipped and flopped like a fish in a dried up lake. The apple from earlier began hiking its way back up my esophagus. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she didn’t tower over me like a freaking giant.
She narrowed her eyes into tiny slits, stretched her lips into a grin, and walked over to the heavily stocked bookshelf. With one quick swipe of her hand, every single book dropped to the floor, along with my stomach. “Oh, you’re going to be sorry alright.” Her words whistled through her teeth.
As Cassie ran back into the room, I lowered my face to my hands. A hummingbird of panic flapped through me as a million thoughts swirled around in my head.
They were going to destroy the store. I was going to lose my job. My income. And possibly my life.
More stuff crashed to the floor, but I couldn’t look up. I didn’t want to look up. This was bad. Really, really, bad. I didn’t know what to do. Veins pulsated in my head, nausea overflowed the banks of my stomach, and I felt like I was on a carousel amped up on crack.
“What the heck?” Becca yelled.
I forced myself to pick my head up. The lights above us flickered on and off, the hands on the clock spun erratically, and the electromagnetic field detectors beeped and squealed in their cases, the EFD needles nearly busting the glass.
“Oh, no,” I mumbled. This can’t be happening. “No, no, no.” I placed my head back in my hands, concentrating on trying to make whatever I was doing stop. But it only got worse. There was nothing I could blame this on.
Other Side Of Forever (Other Side Of Forever Series Book 1) Page 1
