“The first time we met, you let the door slam me in the elbow,” I remind him, lowering my voice as Mrs. Bakerly glares at me from behind the counter. Shit. The last thing I need is to lose my job. I fold my arms on top of the table, lean my weight on them, and incline my body forward. “And, you got mad at me because I…”
The smile that breaks through his face is so radiant that his eyes sparkle under the lights. “Because you touched me.”
I roll my tongue in my mouth trying to contain my aggravation. “It still didn’t mean you had to be rude to me.”
“I know.” He appears genuinely sincere. “And, I’m sorry about that. I was having a rough morning.”
I evaluate him. Can he feel the electricity, too? Because I sure as hell can. He seems content, calm, and perfectly in control with his shoulders relaxed and his eyes soft. “It hurt when the door hit my elbow.”
“And again, I’m sorry.” He looks around the room again, paying extra attention to the door where a few people are wandering in.
“Are you expecting someone?” I ask, craning my neck to look around at the door and the shelves. “Or are you looking for an escape route.”
“That depends on if you’re planning to try and attack me again,” he quips, his lips teasing upward. “Like when we first met.”
“I didn’t try to attack you,” I protest, narrowing my eyes at him. “I just put my hands on you.”
“Without permission,” he points out with that damn cocky smirk on his face. “Tell me, do you always do that with people you don’t know?”
“Do you always let doors slam on people that you don’t know?” It’s like we’re running around in circles, bantering and bickering like an old couple. I need to leave and put a stop to it, but it’s the most interaction I’ve had with another human being and, despite the negativity, I’m kind of enjoying myself.
“Again, you touched me without permission,” he says. “What did you expect to happen?”
“You know what, you’re so right.” I hold up my hand, showing him my palm. “You see this scar right here.” I trace my finger along a faint white scar and let sarcasm drip through my voice. “I put my hand on this guy once and he cut my hand open, but I guess it was okay because I put my hands on him without permission.” A total bullshit lie, but I’m trying to make a point.
He leans back in his chair, positioning his fist in front of his mouth to conceal a smile. “Sounds like the perfect punishment.” He reads through my bullshit lie like an open book.
I roll my eyes and let my hand fall onto the table. “Look, I’m sorry for touching you. I just… I don’t know why I did it.”
“Because you’re attracted to me,” he states with overconfidence. “But, don’t worry, you aren’t the first.”
I shake my head and melodramatically move my hand toward my bag as if what he said is the most absurd thing ever. I decide then that I will leave and prove a point; that despite the fact that he is telling the truth, I don’t have to listen to him.
Quickly rising from the chair, he reaches over the table and seizes my wrist. Bringing my hand to the table, he traps it there beneath his. “Listen, I’m not much of a people person, so sometimes I say things that come off as…”
“As you being an asshole.” I’m angry, irritated, as well as extremely hot and bothered by his touch.
“That’s one way to put it.” He smiles, but then it fades into a frown. “But, if you’ll let me, I swear to God, I’ll be nice. In fact, I promise I will.”
I stare at his hand on my arm and his fingers cup around my wrist. “People make empty promises all the time.”
“I never promise anything unless I mean it.” He loosens his grip and shifts the position of his hand so it’s extended over the table. “So, I’m promising you that I’ll be nice.”
I mull it over and then put my hand in his, feeling as though I’m betraying my self-worth, but it’s worth it just to get some peace for the rest of my time here. As soon as our skin comes into contact, it’s like my mind has been sucked into a pressurized bottle and my brain torrents with vivid images.
Alex presses his hand to mine and there is a river of blood streaming down his forearm. “I promise I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
“Forever?” I ask, my hand trembling against his as warm blood spills down my arm.
He smiles. “I promise.” He leans over the small box situated between us and the candles burn luminously from inside the dirt cave. “And I never promise anything unless I mean it.”
As I look into his eyes, I only see truth and when he kisses me, pressing his lips to mine, devouring me, tasting me and feeling me with his free hand; I know that he’s all I want.
I gasp, jerking my hand away as my heart squeezes inside my chest. “Shit.”
He calmly draws his hand away and rests it on the table. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah…” I take a deep breath, my pulse frantically pounding against the outpouring of adrenaline in my body. I search his eyes, looking for a sign that he experienced the same thing. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He reaches toward a stack of books on the table. “Maybe we should get to work.”
What is happening to me? These things… these images… what are they? I press down everything I’m feeling, the perplexity, fear, the longing, and I nod.
“Can I ask you one more question?” he asks as I flick the cap off my pen.
I nod, distracted by my thoughts. “Sure.”
“Where did you really get the scar?”
I stare down at the thin line running across my palm. “I have no idea… I can’t remember.”
He doesn’t seem alarmed by my answer, instead, he appears satisfied. He begins highlighting notes with a bright yellow marker and I do the same. Finally, after searching through an entire stack of books and finding nothing, I decide to go look for more in the Astronomy Section and see if I can find anything on Gamma-ray burst. Alex doesn’t ask where I’m going because he’s caught up in flirting with Blondie.
I’m squatting down searching the slim selection of books on the bottom row, when someone walks up behind me. Electricity gyrates through me and I know its Alex.
“Finding anything useful?” Alex asks, flopping down on the floor next to me with his back up against the shelf. “Because the stack on the table Aislin dug up is practically useless.”
I slide a book out from the shelf and shake my head. “The selection here’s crap. We might have to go to the library across town.” I turn around and sit down on the floor. “They have a better selection.”
“Or we could just bail on the project all together.”
“Why are you even in the class?” I open the book, turn around, and sit down on the floor. “If you don’t like the subject. It’s not even required.”
His grins. “An easy A.”
“It’s not that easy,” I assure him as I skim through the chapter titles. “Take this project, which is turning out to be a pain in the ass.”
“Then why are you taking the class?”
“I just love the stars, I guess.”
“Are you sure that’s it?” he questions with assumption in his tone.
I try to stay calm, but the fact that he’s assuming stuff about me makes me uneasy. What if he knows about my weird connection with the stars—how would he know? “No, that’s it. Just a love for them.”
His lips part and there's a strange look on his face as he leans in. “I think I need to…” The blond-haired girl comes strutting up the aisle, swinging her hips, and he trails.
“Well, looks like you have a stalker,” I mutter.
A smile takes over his face. “Jealous?”
My fingers drift to the back of my neck, which is free from the prickle and any new emotions. “I can one-hundred percent assure you that I’m not jealous.”
He finds me perplexing as he studies me, but then the blond girl stops in front of us, and all his attention goes to her and her cle
avage bursting from her top.
“I forgot to give you my number,” she says and holds out a torn piece of notebook paper with a number scribbled on it.
Alex reads it over and the girl waits with her bottom lip in her teeth and her arms crossed. When he doesn’t say anything, she asks, “So you’re going to call me, right?”
Alex’s eyes scale up her body to her face. “Absolutely.”
She smiles and then shoots me a dirty look before walking away. When she disappears around the corner of the aisle, Alex balls up the paper and chucks it into the shelves across from us. I give him a funny look and he simply shrugs.
“What?” he asks. “I’m not interested.”
“But you just told her you would call.”
He shrugs again and then absorbs himself in a book. “Don’t pretend you’re not glad I just threw that away,” he says without looking up.
I run my finger down the page, trying to act uninterested, but there’s no use trying to deny it. He laughs softly under his breath and then silence settles between us as we read through pages and pages of book after book. Somehow Alex begins to shift toward me and I don’t notice until there’s only a whisper of air between our bodies. I should ask him to scoot over, but I don’t really want to.
He scoots over more until his shoulder magnetizes to mine. I freeze as my skin ignites and combusts like a flare, sending my body into a shuddering fit. Alex stiffens, but doesn’t move. I slant my head toward him our eyes locked.
“Once upon a time there was a princess,” a small boy smiles as he walks through the grass with a little girl. “And she was the most beautiful princess in the world.”
“Was she smart?” the girl asks, spinning in circles with her hands out to the side.
“She was the smartest girl in the world,” the boy says and grabs her hand to stop her from spinning. “And the strongest, but she didn’t think so.”
I blink the image of the children away, move back from Alex, and inhale sharply. What is that? And why has it only ever happened with Alex?
“Are you okay?” Alex’s eyes examine me over like he’s hunting for broken pieces hidden inside me. “You look pale.”
I allow my hair to create a veil between us as my head tips forward. “I’m fine. I just have a headache.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod, turn the page, and lean to the side to get away from the sweltering heat.
Alex releases out a slow breath, then tosses the book on the shelf and gets to his feet. “I think I’m going to bail out early.”
I don’t look at him. “Okay.” Yes, gorgeous, beautiful guy, bail out. Bail out now. Run away from me before you find out just how crazy I am.
He starts to walk away, but dithers at the end of the aisle. “You’re absolutely sure you’re okay?”
I nod. “I’m fine.”
He leaves me alone with a stack of books. I sit there reading through them, trying to pretend like I’m fine. That nothing is wrong. That I’m completely normal. But I’m only lying to myself. Things are far from normal—they aren’t even close.
Chapter 4
Lofty trees enclose around me. It’s dark. The moon is an orb that makes the mountains look like rolling shadows and the snow is a sheet of crystal. A light radiates brightly in the distance as I hike through the forest, heading deeper into the trees, moving for it, my mind begging me to get closer.
As I step through the last of the bushes and out into the open, the light glows resolutely, like the stars above my head. I want to touch it–need to touch it.
“Don’t touch it,” a deep voice that I know very well rises over my shoulder.
I turn around to face it. “Why not?”
He’s resting against a tree with his arms folded and he’s dressed in dark jeans and a long-sleeve, black shirt. The radiance of the moon illuminates his face, making his eyes sparkle. “Because you don’t want to. Trust me.”
“You’re standing out in the middle of the woods at night,” I reply. “That doesn’t scream trustworthy.”
An amused smile tugs at his lips as he stands up straight. “I followed you out here.” He walks toward me, narrowing the gap between us. “I thought I told you to wait inside the house.”
I glance behind me at the light in the center of the snow, which has faded into a weak glimmer. “What is that?” Right as I say it, the light suffocates out.
Alex stops inches away from me and the warmth of his breath brushes my chilled cheeks. “Gemma, you shouldn’t be wandering around out in the woods by yourself. It’s dangerous.” He leans in a little as he says it and our lips almost touch.
“It’s just a forest,” I say, breathless, and then joke, “I’m pretty sure all the bears are in hibernation.”
He lets out a soft laugh. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” He places a hand on my upper arm and lets out a sigh. “We should go back to the house.”
I move forward and graze my lips across his. “What if I don’t want to?”
The connection of our mouths causes a zap of static to erupt and I let out a soft moan. His body tenses, but his warm tongue willingly enters my mouth. He tastes like mint and it melts me on the inside as his hands slip up the sides of my neck to my cheeks and then up to my hair. He pulls at the roots, tipping my head back so he can search my mouth more thoroughly.
“You feel so good,” he murmurs against my lips as his hands slide around to my back and he pulls me closer. “So fucking good.”
His words make me want to rip his clothes off. I feel around until I find the bottom of his shirt and then I sneak my hand underneath it, feeling his cold, but soft, skin, and his sculpted muscles.
“Fuck! Your hands are cold.” He inhales a sharp breath, his muscles tensing, and then he lets out a low laugh that sounds very close to a growl. Suddenly he jerks back and his eyes dart over my shoulder. “Run.”
“What?’ I say, but he’s shoving me forward, back toward the house that’s on the other side of the trees.
I stumble backwards as groups and groups of soaring figures ascend from the trees. They’re everywhere, their eyes reflecting against the snow and the ice like fireflies.
Alex’s arm snakes around me and he guides me behind him. “No matter what happens, make sure you run.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a knife and poises it out in front of him.
“What are you going to do—”
Before I can finish, he runs at them with the knife out. One steps forward, while the others open their mouths. The pale glow of the moon lights up the swirls and lines of their breaths as it fogs and laces around us like smoke. I duck to the ground as a cloud of it heads toward my face and envelops my body. An arctic chill sucks the breath from my lungs as I sink into the snow, no longer in control of my body.
I’m so cold and I can’t breathe.
The last thing I see is Alex’s body sinking lifelessly into the snow, then screeches envelop around me as a blanket of ice encircles my body, crushing my skin into my bones.
I’m dying, being smothered by the cold, and Alex is already dead.
I open my mouth and with every ounce of pain I’m feeling, I force out a scream that cuts through the night like a jagged blade.
I bolt upright in my bed, screaming at the top of my lungs and clutching at my blanket. Sweat drips from my forehead and trickles down my neck as my heart threatens to leap out of my chest. My gaze zips forward at a barrage of blinking eyes surrounding my room. They’re everywhere, so blinding I can’t tell where they’re coming from. The air is cold and I can feel a breeze engulfing my body.
I jump up, flailing my arms as I trip toward the door, but by the time I reach it, the yellow eyes are gone. All that’s there is the emptiness of my room and the darkness outside. I hurry over to the window, daring a peek at the parking lot outside. Most of the parking spots are filled and the lights on the carports are on. I can’t see anything; no yellow eyes… no monsters...
I flip the lights on and
press my hand to my heart as I slide to the floor. I feel defeated and alone as I take in my limited surroundings; the single nightstand with a simple lamp and my empty bed where no one else has ever been.
Empty. It’s the one word that sums up my life.
Gripping on to the last of my will, I push myself to my feet. I need to try and get some answers; maybe then things will be a little easier. Heading out to the kitchen, I turn on the coffeemaker and then drop down at the computer desk in the corner of the dining room and open my laptop. I type in ‘realistic, reoccurring dreams.’ Links about physics pop up.
Even though it seems crazy, I click on a link and begin to read the article. “Reoccurring and very vivid dreams may be the window into future events that are going to happen. Or, some people believe that it may be a surfacing memory that a person has repressed as a coping mechanism.”
Are my dreams either of these things? Have they happened and I just can’t remember? Or are they going to happen? Sighing, I shut down the computer and get dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. I pull on a coat, slip on my boots and then pour coffee into a stainless steel mug before heading out the door; feeling exhausted and emotionally drained.
I’ve been dreaming about the monsters for two months and I’m worn out. I just want a break from the images, and the feelings they manifest. It would be nice to maybe get an explanation, too.
***
I feel hung over and it’s my busy day, too; three classes and work. I’m sitting in Astronomy, half-alive with my eyes shut, an elbow propped against the table with my head resting against my palm. I’m just about to fall asleep when someone drops down in the chair beside me. The zap of electricity hits me at almost the same time the person sits and I jump in my seat as my eyes fly open.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Alex sets his book on top of the desk and smiles. “I thought I’d sit by you today, if that’s okay?”
I check over my shoulder, making sure there is no one behind me that he might be talking to. “Are you being serious?”
His eyebrows dip together as he shoves up the sleeves of his black shirt. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
Shattered Promises 1 Page 4
