The Light of the World (The Light Series Book 1)

by Tara Brown

  He smiles and nods. “Weirdest conversation ever.”

  I laugh at him. “Hardly. Your uncle actually said the words “seed spilling” and “womb” in one sentence.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Oh my God, he was telling the story from the Bible.”

  I sneer. “Anyway, then my soul returns to Hell and I take the evil with me.”

  Their eyes dart between Wyatt and me. Neither believes what they are being told. I don’t blame them.

  “Willow was my guardian. They don’t know exactly how I'm born, but I'm born without life. I'm born dead.”

  Mona raises an eyebrow. “Like a stillborn?”

  I nod. “Sorta. I guess. I still don’t have a full explanation on it. But when I sleep, I am with the dead. I'm a vessel for death. That’s all I know.”

  Michelle nods. “I have tried waking you tons of times. It never works.”

  “You can't wake me. I'm dead every morning until I wake. I wake when the dead let me come back. Apparently, they take me somewhere. Like my dreams aren’t dreams, but something else.”

  Wyatt puts a hand on mine and squeezes. I like the feel of him. Regardless of everything else, he seems to be one of the few people I can count on. Even if his evil family has every intention of hurting me.

  Mona watches him and glares. “And him? Where does he fit into this trip down the rabbit's hole?”

  I laugh and the corners of Wyatt's mouth lift.

  He clears his throat. “I'm a Van Helsing. My family has been battling the things her family made, since the beginning of time.”

  I grin. “Yes, Van Helsing from Dracula.”

  Michelle laughs. “This is the stuff life and stories are made of. You guys need to write this down and make a novel. Maybe not for kids though. The white ladies in the water are too scary. The movie version would have them peeing their pants. Damn near peed mine.”

  “So, you are here to kill her?”

  He shrugs and looks at Mona in the rearview. “Haven't decided on that yet.”

  I watch his dark-blue eyes and wait for him to smile, but he doesn’t. I guess he isn’t kidding. Great. I pull my hand away.

  “Asshole.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three of us in a king-sized bed is too many. I'm cramped and uncomfortable. I hate being in the middle. I climb out of the bed and walk to the door.

  I turn the handle, but it's locked. I close my eyes and calm my mind.

  “Are you here?” I ask to no one. No one anyone else could see or hear. I haven’t properly talked to them in a long time. I remember being a kid and that they could do stuff like lift things and play dolls with me.

  The air whispers and sparkles with energy.

  I smile when I hear their whispers.

  “Can you unlock the door, please?”

  I hear the whispers, like children's giggles from a distance.

  “Please. I won't block you out anymore.”

  The lock clicks. I turn the handle slowly and wander out into the night.

  They touch me and beg me to wait. They don’t like the house either.

  I slip down the stairs, making no more noise than a feather would. I almost float across the floor, I am so fast and quiet. I open the buffet and turn the piece of silver.

  The latch clicks. It's the most noise I've made yet.

  I push the wall and creep down the winding stairs.

  The headlamp is the only thing I see when I reach the bottom.

  He is bent over his books and alone in the dark.

  I creep to him. He looks up as I stand next to him. He jumps and shines his headlamp in my eyes.

  “You scared me!” he whispers sharply.

  I growl. “I need answers, Fitz. Willow recently told me about you and her. The great love of her life.” I sit on the chair next to him and grin.

  He looks sad. He pulls off the headlamp and places it facing upward on the table to light up the area we are in.

  The rest of the room is dark until my eyes adjust.

  He leans in and looks at my face. “Your eyes.”

  I nod. “They can see, no matter where I am. I can see in the dark and in the ocean. When they do this, I can see really far too. Like nothing can hide from me.”

  He looks grim. “Except your heart.”

  “What?” I frown.

  He sighs. “You aren’t supposed to love, Rayne. You shouldn’t be able to love him the way you do. It isn’t natural.”

  I have guarded the secret so close I never even let myself see it. Not fully. “Please don’t tell him.”

  He frowns. “I would never. I thought at first that it was the way we attract all of the things you are. But I see that you don’t feel that way about the rest of us. Things like you can't help but want us. All of us. But you are different. Your heart belongs to him.”

  My skin shivers. “I try so hard to hate him. He has been nothing but cruel to me.”

  He nods toward the wall of swords and wooden stakes. “He was trained to despise all that you are. He dislikes all of you, naturally. It goes against his nature to even be kind to you.”

  I shake my head. “He's been kind to the others. I've seen it. There was a witch, and he never hurt her.”

  He smiles and I can see regret everywhere. “He is biding his time, my dear.”

  “But he promised her—”

  “He lied.” Panic rises in me. I have to warn her. I watch his eyes. I might not get a chance to warn her. I wish someone had warned me.

  “You hate me, don’t you?”

  He nods once as his eyes dart around the room. “I don’t mean to. I know what you are is not your fault, but I don’t have the ability to be kind to you, not without plotting your death. You shouldn’t have come back here. The nixie tried to warn you.”

  The air sparkles and my skin twitches. “You will betray me then? You will make sure they get me? That’s why the nixies came. They came to warn me about you and the rest of your family. Not him. It never was him I was in danger of. But the rest of you, you'll kill me. You'll betray Willow, even though you once found yourself in the same predicament as me?”

  His eyes fill with tears. He whispers, “I'm sorry,” just as there is a rush of hands and darkness. I feel instant pain and burning everywhere. I scream, but it's cut short as I pass out.

  I wake to pain. Writhing pain, it's everywhere. I scream. Tears immediately spring from my eyes. The air doesn’t sparkle with the dead, but I can feel them. They took me when I slept.

  I am in chains, hanging so my toes just touch the ground. I'm stripped to the bandeau and granny panties I bought in Warwick. My arms and shoulders are in pain, ridiculous amounts of pain.

  “HELP ME!” I cry out, but by the echo and the draft, I can tell I am somewhere old. The walls look like a dungeon, an ancient dungeon. My wrists burn from the shackles.

  I cry out again and again, but no one answers me.

  “Wyatt,” I sob. My dark hair is matted around my face and neck. The tears have been flowing long enough to soak my neck. They trickle down my stomach and in between my breasts.

  Fear grips me as I realize what is happening. His family wants me to be filled with the sin and evil. They want me to take it to Hell with me. They will keep me here until the five devils come and fill me up. They know far more than they have let on.

  I hang and suffer, not knowing how long it's been. I see the light of the morning moving across the stone and brick floor. It starts its journey back as it crests the house I'm in and moves toward nightfall. My hands are burning, and I'm certain one of my shoulders has dislocated. The pain almost knocked me out, but I managed to stay awake. Hanging from a dislocated shoulder is excruciating.

  Craziness lurks behind my regular thoughts.

  I hear a noise as the sun sets. A voice. A man, maybe. I try to keep my eyes open. But the problem with sleeping with the dead every night is simple—when I need to sleep, I sleep. No matter what, I sleep. Like the dead. With the dead.

&nb
sp; I wake to a stabbing pain in my stomach. My feet lift and push me up. I think both shoulders are dislocated now. The pain doesn’t register with me for a minute. When it does, a scream tries to leave my throat, but it's so dry there is nothing. Air wheezes through the wind tunnel. My feet both touch the ground now. I have stretched out my arms by sleeping with dislocated shoulders.

  My eyes clear, and I see the face of the person stabbing me. Pain and betrayal take everything away from me. Every moment of love and kindness I have ever felt are all replaced by the agony being inflicted upon me.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper harshly. My cracked lips bleed when I stretch them by speaking.

  She trembles and sobs as she pushes an old sword into my stomach. “It's crazy the amount of pain you are capable of living through. I should know this. Look at me. I went through it all to be this. To be this perfect.” She is sobbing and ranting. She looks demented.

  My cries come as wheezes, and my eyes burn as they attempt to cry. No moisture is left in me. My tears are dust, and my eyelid gets stuck on my eye. It stings.

  “Why?” I croak.

  She shakes the sword with her sobs. It wiggles in the cut. “To be this. To be what I am. I'm a real girl. Not a fake girl. When Mona guessed, I knew the doctors hadn’t done a good enough job. I went back. They couldn’t take any more off my Adam's apple. There were other issues.” She cries out and looks at the ceiling. “I WAS NEVER GOING TO BE WHOLE, RAYNE! NEVER! I WOULD ALWAYS BE FRANKENBARBIE!” She collapses on the ground and sobs. She stops crying and whispers, “A man came to me. He asked for simple things. Your location, your cell phone, where you slept, things like that. Simple things. He wasn’t going to hurt you.” Tears stream down her cheeks.

  I sob dusty tears and feel my body dying. I don’t know if I can die early. I don’t know anything about myself.

  “I just wanted to be real.”

  I shake my head and feel my legs buckling. “You were real. You were real to me.”

  She cries harder. “I wasn’t real. I was never going to be real. I was always going to be half done. I couldn’t have babies. It wasn’t fair to be born in a body that wasn’t mine. It was never right.”

  She is a sobbing mess.

  I close my eyes and smile. “You have no idea.” My voice cracks and breaks.

  She drops the sword. It makes a loud clang when it lands on the floor next to her. I can't help but think about the way I acted when I saw her transformed. I wince. No wonder she hates me. I just kept saying the wrong things. I never meant any of it. It doesn’t matter now.

  She turns and faces the stairs. “I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! I CAN'T!”

  She looks at me and shakes her blonde head. Her eyes are dead. She whispers, “My debt is paid.” She walks to the window where the cold, stormy ocean air is coming in. She stands on the ledge.

  “Noooooo!” I scream, but it is barely louder than a whisper.

  She looks back at me. The wind blows her hair. “Forgive me.” A tear slides down her cheek.

  I nod. “Anything. I forgive you. Please don’t jump.” My throat tears and I taste my own blood. It wets my throat.

  She looks down and shakes. “He's going to kill me. He wants you dead, but he can't come here himself. He wants you dead. It's you or me.”

  I look at the sword on the ground, where she was crying. “Kill me then.”

  She sits on the ledge. I feel a small measure of relief.

  “Kill me. My wrists and shoulders are dislocated. My body is completely dehydrated. I'm dying anyway. Kill me. I think my arms are broken. I know my heart is.”

  She shakes her head. “I can't. I can't hurt you anymore. I just didn’t want to die, Rayne. I tried to kill myself but I couldn’t.” She trembles in a heap. “I couldn’t.”

  I hear voices.

  “Hide. If they see you, they'll kill you. They want the opposite of whoever is trying to kill me. They want me alive.”

  She winces and climbs off the edge. She picks up the sword and takes it out of the room. I don’t know where she is hiding but the voices get closer. I hope she's safe. It's an ironic feeling.

  Wyatt's mom walks into the room. She is dressed as a schoolteacher again. Homicidal schoolteacher, maybe.

  She looks at me and snarls.

  A man is behind her. When he rounds the corner I gasp. The man in the sweater.

  His smile doesn’t reach his dull gray eyes.

  He looks exhausted and unkempt.

  She crosses her arms.

  He walks to me and runs his fingers against my arms. His touch rots my belly. I would squirm, but I have nothing left.

  He looks down on me and smirks. He leans in and kisses me. His kiss is stiff, and feels like it defiles me. He parts my lips with his and before I'm ready, wind is forced down my throat. I can't get my breath or exhale. He does it rough and violently. He forces it on me. His fingers grip into my arms. I feel them puncture my skin as they knead me. I suck him dry. Instead of his life force, I take the evil. He gives me a nibble of a kiss and steps back. He is shiny and clean and beautiful. His clothes look amazing, and his face is young and handsome.

  He smiles at me and walks from the room. He says nothing. Wyatt's mother watches me for a moment and then turns to leave. I am full but like I am gross and dirty and full in a way that makes me feel sick. Like I've swallowed a slug, and I can't imagine anything else in my belly with it. The evil sits in there. Rotting me. I can feel it. I'm instantly sick. I would throw up, but I'm dehydrated so nothing is inside of me.

  I don’t understand how I'm not dead yet.

  The pain ripping through me is new. The rot of the world is writhing inside of me. It's stretching my insides and getting cozy. I gag and heave as it slithers around in there.

  My legs buckle and a scream rips from my throat when my shoulders stretch again.

  Rayne . . . Rayne . . . Rayne . . . Voices in my head plague me.

  My eyes flutter, but I can't get my feet to stand and take the pressure and weight off my wrists and shoulders.

  “Help me,” I croak.

  Mona runs into the room. Her eyes widen and she looks back. “Up here. Hurry.”

  She runs to me. Her hands shake and tremble. “Rayne. Oh my God—what did they do? WYATT, HELP!”

  She is sobbing. Her glassy eyes are full of horror and fear.

  I can barely open my eyes. In the sliver of light, I see him. Everything moves in slow motion. He lifts me and shouts at Mona. She panics and starts shaking. She is sobbing and panicking. He's yelling. My ears are full of the sounds, but my brain doesn't comprehend them.

  She ends up holding me up while he rips the shackles from the wall. He looks savage and crazed again. When I feel the weight leave my arms and his arms close around me like a cocoon, I let myself close my eyes.

  Everything is in flashes.

  Cold water and the dead weight of my broken arms.

  Wyatt spitting out the seawater and swimming out into the black water.

  I'm shivering and convulsing.

  I am close to death.

  He kisses my cheek and swims.

  His face lights up and he steels himself against whatever he sees.

  I turn my head to see the angry face of a nixie.

  She is about to attack him when she sees me.

  Her anger fades and crystals fall from her eyes made of light. She cries the most beautiful tears. They hit the water and make something like a phosphorescent light.

  She reaches a pale hand for me.

  She cries out when she touches me.

  Other lights come to the surface.

  They are everywhere.

  Seawater slips into my mouth.

  I swallow and gag.

  My eyes close and when I open them, the ocean is lit up by the lights of the nixie. They are everywhere, bobbing in the waves. Some are crying. Others look panicked.

  The one with the red hair swims forward. She looks at me, and then lifts her face into the air.<
br />
  He shifts.

  There’s a bright glint of the steel in his hands. It’s the same small blade he used on the last one.

  He drives it into her neck. She jerks and shakes and bleeds light into the water. It spills everywhere. It's like phosphorescent dancing on the water, but it's her blood. There is the whisper of something float in the air. It's the purest light I've ever seen. He takes the blade and lifts my hand to the surface of the water. He slices my hand. I barely register the pain. My hands are black and bloated anyway. The blood that seeps out is black and gross looking, like tar.

  He puts the dagger out into the light. It coats the blade and sparkles with light and life. He stabs it into the cut on my hand, and a scream rips from me again as everything shifts. My shoulders pop back in and my wrists snap and crackle. My ribs and stomach convulse again.

  The next nixie swims up. She bares her throat.

  I am helpless still. I scream and cry out but they ignore me.

  I beg them to stop. Everyone ignores me.

  Tears well in Wyatt's eyes as he cuts the essence out of each one.

  It takes seven of them before my blood runs red again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They are now my sisters. I can feel them watching me from the water.

  I look in the backseat of the SUV at Michelle. I reach for her hand. She watches me and ignores my touch.

  I squeeze and smile. “I will forgive you anything.”

  She looks broken. “You can't. You have to stop. You need to be smarter than that. I am a terrible person.”

  Wyatt looks annoyed. “Lucifer is the king of manipulation. He is a master. He made you weak. Apparently, he does it better than anyone.” He isn’t defending what she did. No one will.

  He looks at me. I smile. He frowns. “I haven’t ever met him, but that’s what Fitz says.”

  The name is a razor blade on my skin. I shiver and wince.

  He looks at me and then down. “Sorry.”