Maxie Duncan Box Set

by Webb, Melissa L.

  I waited a moment. No one shouted back to me. No running. No commotion. Nothing. They weren’t coming to help me. I was alone.

  Reaching down to pat my jean’s pocket, I turned around. Great. I hadn’t even grabbed my phone on the way out of the apartment when we left. I had been too busy dying to even think of it. Frustration grew as I stared out the window. It was empty once again. “Elizabeth,” I called frantically. “Where are you?”

  The alleyway stayed empty. The child was no longer out there. Panic gripped my heart. What had they done to her? Pressing my face closer to the glass, I tried to peer along the side of the building. She had to be somewhere close by.

  A scream erupted from the end of the alley. I pressed closer to the window, my breath forgotten as I willed her to be okay. A shadow slunk through the edge of my vision and Elizabeth screamed again.

  “No!” I yelled, anger dripping from every pore. Why would they do this? Why would they take some poor little girl from Maine, just to have her scream? It didn’t make sense.

  A slam against the window startled me. I peeled myself away from it, staring at the figure outside. Disbelief flooded through me. This couldn’t be happening. “Mom?”

  My mother stood on the other side of the glass, looking even more scared than Elizabeth had. “Maxie,” she spoke in a whisper, as if she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. “Maxie, something is after Elizabeth. We have to do something.”

  A tear leaked from the corner of my eye. I had never seen my mother so scared before in my entire life. Whatever was out there was bad, and I couldn’t help them. “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

  My mother looked at me so forlornly, I thought my heart might break. “We can’t let that little girl die,” she told me, determination in her eyes. She darted away from the window and disappeared, following Elizabeth where I couldn’t see.

  “No,” I whispered, fighting back the tears. This was all wrong. None of this was my mother’s fault, or Elizabeth’s. It was mine and I had put them in danger. Was this the kind of person I was destined to be? Someone who constantly kept the people she loved in danger?

  My mother’s scream rose from the side of the building as well. My mother was out there paying for my sins.

  “Mom,” I screamed, pounding my fist against the glass. “Leave her alone! It’s me you want.”

  The screaming continued, drilling a hole right through my soul. I couldn’t just stand there and listen to this. I had to do something. I turned around, planning to run back to the front of the store. I stopped mid-stride. That wouldn’t work. By the time I got there, it would be too late. I was sure of it. If I wanted to save them, I had to get to them now.

  I had only one choice. I had to get through that window.

  Grabbing the wooden chair I had been sitting in, I spun around, flinging it into the window with all my might. Jensen would just have to forgive me. The chair left my hand, crashing into the window, where it bounced harmlessly and landed on the floor.

  I cursed under my breath as I stared at that window, adrenaline spiking the anger I was feeling. How pathetic was that? I couldn’t even break a window. Grabbing the chair again, I threw it several more times. I let all the rage I was feeling fly with the chair, still…the window did not break.

  Shoving the chair aside, I collapsed against the window, my chest heaving as the tears came hot and fast. I was going to lose her. I was going to lose them both because I couldn’t manage to do anything right.

  “No,” I shouted to the universe as I started pounding on the window again. “Why would you do this to me? Why would you bring me all the way out here and tell me I was a witch, if I can’t do anything to save them?”

  Wait…I was a witch.

  A thin piece of glass shouldn’t stop me. Maybe I couldn’t control my powers, but they were there. And they hadn’t let me down yet. I focused on the window, willing it gone. I felt the sheer force of my desire to reach them wash over me. I was like a mother lion protecting her young. Nothing was going to stop me.

  I gave a primal yell as my will ripped into the window. Closing my eyes, I prayed for the glass to shatter. Instead, the roar of traffic greeted my ears as a warm breeze fluttered through my hair. I opened my eyes, shocked at the sight in front of me. The window had completely disappeared. So had the wall around it. In its place was a door, standing wide open. I had done it. I had bent the will of the world around me. I created an opening where there had been none. I did it. I used my powers to obtain what I wanted. I was awesome!

  I stepped closer to the door, silence greeting my ears as I did. What was going on out there? Why had the screaming stopped? I would never forgive myself if I was too late.

  A shadow moved in the doorway, causing me to take a step back. The figure stepped into the doorway and looked at me, a huge grin on his movie star face. “Maxie, you did it,” he told me proudly. “You destroyed the creature and freed your mom and Elizabeth.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Ryan?” What was he doing here?

  “Yes, my love,” he said, stepping closer, eyes burning bright. “I knew you needed me. I wanted desperately to be where you were and suddenly I was. Your powers brought me here.”

  I shook my head. Could I really do that? Did that one little act of adding a door really save everyone and bring Ryan to me? I didn’t know what to think. None of it was making any sense. I was still too strung out on adrenaline to try to force it to.

  Ryan saw the look of confusion on my face and stepped in through the doorway, coming closer to me. “You did it, Maxie. You allowed me in.”

  I looked up at him, worry rolling through me. That didn’t sound good. Maybe they were right. Maybe you couldn’t trust a vampire. “What?”

  Throwing his head back, he laughed, the sound echoing through me in waves of pure malice. His face suddenly rippled, like water in a pond and Ryan was no longer standing there. Jensen was.

  “Thank you for giving me entrance,” he spoke, a smile lingering on his lips. “It will be so much easier to kill you if I’m on the inside.”

  I backed up, bumping into the large table behind me. What the heck was going on? How did Ryan change into Jensen, and why did he want to kill me? I didn’t know, and it really didn’t matter. I just had to keep him from succeeding.

  I raised my hands, trying to throw some kind of energy at him. I had seen it done in countless movies, but nothing happened and Jensen kept coming.

  “Give it up, Max,” he hissed, coming nearer. “You aren’t strong enough to stop me.”

  “No,” I whispered. Why was he doing this? I know I chose Ryan over him, but…come on. Was this anyway to win a girl back?

  “Yes,” he said as his features changed again. This time it was Van standing there in front of me. Her blue eyes sparkling with glee. “It will be my honor to take your life, witch,” she said and sprang.

  She hit me hard. Every inch of her curvy figure dragging me down beneath her. I screamed as she clawed into me. This was crazy. Was this some kind of conspiracy? All my friends were out to kill me.

  “Hold still,” Van said, pinning me down harder. “This will only take a moment.” Her finger clawing again against my skin. This time the pain went deeper than just a flesh wound. Whatever she was really doing to me went much deeper than that. It was like she had dropped hot coals into the very core of me. Somehow, some way, she was ripping at my soul.

  I screamed again as my body convulsed, too engulfed in the pain to even function properly. “No…Van,” I gasped, panting around the words. She really was going to kill me.

  “I’m not Van, sweetheart,” she whispered in my ear, voice deeper than I had ever heard before.

  I opened my eyes, trying to focus past the pain. I looked up, meeting eyes I had thought would love me forever. Eyes that had betrayed me more than anyone had before. My ex-fiancé stared down at me, amusement written all over his once handsome face. Now it only reminded me of the hate people were capable of. “St
ephen?”

  He chuckled, sinking his fingers deeper into my chest. He tugged hard, ripping something deep inside of me. “Goodbye, my love,” he said as he shredded all that I was.

  The pain was suddenly gone. I was no longer tied down by the agony he was subjecting me to. I was floating, falling, and something was pulling me away. I knew it meant he succeeded. They all had succeeded. I was getting whisked away from the world I loved, and I didn’t care.

  I heard footsteps coming up one of the aisles. The sound dragged me back, cementing me in reality. As the floating sensation left, the pain came back. Three-times what it was when it had left me. I screamed, convulsing once again.

  “What the…Fetch?” I heard someone shout from behind me. “Get off of her.” A blinding white light tore passed me in a shock wave, knocking Stephen from me, launching him into the bookshelves on the wall. He landed with a thud, books showering down around him, burying his limp form.

  I gasped, breathing a little easier. Something was still broken inside of me, but at least I was alive. I didn’t know how long it would last though. I felt warm hands on me, causing me to look up. Van and Jensen stared down at me, terror on their faces. “No,” I whispered. Were they here to finish what they started?

  “Easy,” Jensen said softly. “It’s really us.”

  “Are you okay?” Van asked me, tears in her eyes.

  I closed my eyes, weariness settling over me. “I don’t know,” I whispered, too tired to manage much more. Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes again. “What’s going on?”

  Jensen’s gaze left me, locking on to the door in the wall. “Where did that come from?” He closed his eyes, listening to something I couldn’t hear. He jerked suddenly, his eyes flying open and glanced over at Van. “My wards. They’re all gone. Someone has destroyed them all. How could someone do that?” He shook his head, disbelief in his eyes. “We’re sitting ducks without them. If there are others outside…” he let his sentence die out, not wanting to finish it. Obviously, having no wards was a bad thing. “Who’s strong enough to do that?”

  Van placed a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” And just like that, she was gone, disappearing right before our eyes. I was never going to get used to any of these things.

  Jensen looked back down at me. “Here,” he said, his arms coming around me as he helped me into a sitting position. “Better?”

  I nodded weakly. I didn’t know how much better it actually was, but at least I wasn’t lying on my back anymore. “What was that? It looked like you and Van.”

  He glanced over at the mound of books. “That was a Fetch. They take the form of others to hurt and confuse people,” he said, looking down at me. “We’re lucky we got to you in time. That thing could have killed you.”

  “I still will,” a voice rang out as the pile of books shifted, and a dark shape rose from it. Its rotten body stood there, dead eyes glaring in our direction.

  Oh, great. Zombies? Was there anything in this world that wasn’t real?

  Before either one of us could move, the zombie lurched forward, moving faster than I ever thought one could.

  Jensen reached out and pulled me to him, his arms wrapping around me like a shield. It was all he had time for. The zombie was almost on top of us.

  A scream of rage tore through the book store, shaking the walls around us. I glanced up, looking for the source and found it, swooping down at the zombie.

  The black shadow with the red eyes flew through the air colliding with the zombie, attaching itself to its body. The zombie howled in pain as its decomposing flesh dissolved from the shadow's touch. The shadow held on, wrapping around the zombie until there was nothing left of it but black smoke. The shadow slowly drew the smoke into itself, merging it with its own form.

  We stared at it in shock. All of this had happened in no more than a few seconds. He had saved us that quickly. The shadow turned towards us, taking on a more human form. He let his gaze travel to me.

  “Thank you,” I said, voice shaking.

  He bowed to me, a deep, sweeping gesture, then disappeared as if he’d never even been there.

  Jensen turned and looked at me. “You weren’t kidding when you said you summoned a shadow.”

  “I don’t know how it happens. It didn’t show up last time.”

  He stared down at me, still in his arms. “Are you okay?”

  I looked up at him. I was hurt, scared, confused, but I also felt good. Like I was where I belonged. I realized as I sat there, pressed to Jensen’s chest, even though horrible things had happened, I was at ease. It happened the moment he wrapped me in his arms. There was a connection between Jensen and I that I couldn’t deny. It wasn’t the electric burning I felt whenever Ryan and I touched. This was soothing, like a salve covering everything that was wrong. It wrapped me in a protective coating and left me with peace. And I liked it. A lot.

  Jensen was staring at me, worry seeping into his eyes as he waited for my answer.

  I opened my mouth to tell him I was fine, but exhaustion hit me like a brick wall, rolling me out of the peace he provided. I felt myself go slack in his arms as I weakened. The damage I had suffered was finally catching up to me. “I…don’t know,” I said, my head lolling to one side.

  He moved my gaze back to him, placing his hands on the sides of my face gently. He took a deep breath, staring into my eyes. I held my breath, lost in the bright green pools of his eyes. He seemed to be searching for something, but it didn’t matter, I could stay lost in those orbs forever.

  Jensen pulled his gaze back, looking at me instead of through me. “The Fetch damaged your soul,” he told me. “It’s ripped to shreds.”

  My heart hammered at that. It was what I was afraid of. There was no way this was going to end well. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you will die if we don’t do something.”

  “Die,” I squeaked. Again? Why was it I was always dying anymore? I see how it is. L.A. really will kill you. “Is there anything you can do?”

  He nodded. “There’s one thing, but it’s kind of extreme.”

  Extreme? When a person is dying, is anything really too extreme?

  He pulled me close, looking me square in the eye. “I’m willing to do it. Honestly, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” he whispered to me. Before I could respond, he pulled me to him, his lips finding mine. They moved slowly, gently giving into what was there between us.

  I sighed as I tried to wrap my arms around his neck. I couldn’t believe the sensations coursing through me. It was like the first day of summer, Christmases, and birthdays all wrapped into one. It was finding a new sacred spot and coming home at the same time. I felt his energy touch my soul. It cradled it, gently caressing it, and slowly my soul started to mend. It was growing, bigger and brighter than it had ever been before. My soul was still mending, but at the moment, it was whole. I was whole.

  Jensen’s arms loosened around me as he pulled back slightly. His lips caressed mine one last time, reluctant to stop.

  I looked up at him, slowly sitting up on my own. I felt great. Even better than before. “What did you do?”

  A smile formed on his lips as he continued to hold me. “The only thing I could think of, Max. I gave you part of my soul.”

  Thirty

  I sat on the edge of my bed, toweling my hair dry. It had been a long day. Most people didn’t come close to death twice in one day, but lucky me, I was special. Tossing the towel aside, I opted for the hairdryer. The ritual of drying my hair always relaxed me, and boy, did I need that. I was no closer to finding any of the answers I sought. In fact, I had only found more questions. Ones I was truly terrified to answer.

  At least one good thing came out of this day. I could finally control my powers.

  Van had come back from fixing Jensen’s wards, which apparently, I had knocked out when I made the door. We straightened up the bookstore, returning it to its original condition. Except for the do
or. Jensen decided to leave it there. You never know when it might come in handy.

  When everything was back to normal, Jensen gave me an impromptu magic lesson. He needed to know I could protect myself if something like that happened again.

  When something like that happened again. We all knew it was only a matter of time. There were things after me. I couldn’t deny that fact anymore. It was too stupid and too dangerous to play dumb. That’s why I had to be able to wield magic on my own terms.

  But to everyone’s amazement, I didn’t need much training after all. I got it right the first time and every time after that. I had total control of my magic. They thought it might be because the total shock of almost dying had opened me up to it. I knew the real reason.

  Jensen’s soul was infusing mine. And because of that, I knew my powers would never let me down again.

  I couldn’t believe Jensen had given me a part of his soul. Who does that? I honestly didn’t know if Ryan would have done the same thing for me, (Did vampires even have souls?) and that was what was bothering me as I dried my hair.

  I was beginning to think maybe I had been blind when I chose Ryan. I didn’t let myself see everything because of who he was. I mean, I was dating Ryan Everheart. That should be a girl’s dream come true. Yet, here I was, miserable and completely confused. Don’t get me wrong. A part of me did love Ryan. Those feelings were true, but how much of that was needing to be in love versus actually being in love?

  What I felt with Jensen was so different. It was stronger, yet purer. It was something to fear even more than dating a vampire. It was the connection that could scar you for all eternity if it was taken away. I didn’t know if I was ready for that. This was something I hadn’t even experienced with Stephen, and I was going to marry the guy. What was going on with Jensen was terrifying. Plus I had part of the man’s soul. How much more complicated could it get?