by Kimbra Swain
“We just have to get her through each dark point. She thinks having a relationship would make her more unstable. I think, and Ichiro agrees, it will settle her mind. No pressure. She will come out of it and be stand-offish. It’s best just to go with it, and she will be back to herself before you know it,” she said.
“Oh, hell no! I'm sorry, but she's got to face this. I'm not backing down,” I said. I was mad at her now. In my heart, I knew she was stronger than this. All this talk about being truthful and being an open book. I guess, I forgot to ask if she had tried to kill herself before. Every time she told me that there were things that I didn't know, and it would take time, she meant this. Ashley implied that if I pushed a relationship with her, it might make her better. But how could I have a relationship with someone who couldn’t be truthful about the most important things?
I scolded myself for thinking that she meant less to me than she does. She meant everything to me.
Tony stepped out on the porch. “I talked to Tavaris. I believe he's innocent in the situation. What do you want me to do with him?”
“Get him whatever he needs, but he's on lockdown until I get a chance to have a good, long talk with Abigail,” I said.
“Sure. And Ichiro said she's awake,” he said and ducked back into the house.
Ashley got up. “You coming?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“If you leave her,” she started to say.
“I'm not leaving. But Ashley, outside of this, is there anything else I should know?” I said firmly.
“Tadeas, is there anything in your life that is important that you haven't gotten around to telling her?” she asked. Ashley knew how to make a point. When you live as long as we do, there are many things. I hadn’t told Abigail everything about me because we hadn’t had time. Things that were equally important to this.
She went into the house to see her friend. I knew Abigail wouldn’t want to talk about it, and would just shove it off. “Not this time,” I said, stomping to the master bedroom.
When I opened the doors, she stood in the center of the room. Her blonde hair was back in place. Her dress looked perfect, and her eyes were bright green. It was like nothing had happened. She was giving Ashley instructions about how we were going to proceed since our plans got detoured by the explosion. When her eyes met mine, she went silent. Ashley stood up and left the room. I focused on her. Sitting down in a chair, I watched as she turned her back on me and went to the window. Suddenly, the familiar rhythm of her heartbeat stopped. I was so used to the sound of it, as if it were my own. It was like the night she died on the dining room table on the island. A surge of pain ran through me, and I clutched my chest. I fell to my knees in the floor and gasped. I choked out her name, “Abby!”
She turned and looked at me with dark violet eyes, which were cold and devoid of emotion. She waved her hand, and I saw a golden shimmer around her body. The sound of her heart racing rushed over me, and I could breathe again. The anger inside of me welled up, and I exploded on her.
“What the fuck was that?”
She winced, turning away from me.
“No, you talk to me now, damn it! Why did you do that to me?”
She turned back around looking me in the eye, and I saw the pain and grief. I felt it pulse over me. “I'm sorry. That's the only way I could show you what it feels like. The darkness takes over. I can't control it, and it consumes me.”
“No, what you don't understand is what you just did to me, on purpose, is what happens to me if you die. You've got to figure out another way to deal with all of this. My life depends upon it. You recruited me, Abby! You dragged me into this, and it doesn't matter if I stay or go. If you die, I die. And that's not acceptable!” I yelled at her. “They wanted me to come in here and have sympathy for you. To baby you. I’m not going to do that. You are strong. I have felt that strength. I know you are in pain, but you can’t give in. You have to fight the shadow. I will not accept anything else from you!”
“It’s a part of me. I brought the darkness on myself when I killed a man! It’s there, and sometimes it takes over. I told you about this in Paris. Don’t act like I didn’t warn you,” her anger started to rise. Good. Even if she fought me, it meant she was fighting.
“No, you said I would have to put you down. That was very different from this, whatever this was!”
“It’s the same thing. I should have never come back. Jay would be alive if I had just stayed on my island. I can’t go home, and I’m stuck here,” she said as she started to give in.
Rushing over to her, I placed my hands on her shoulders. “You listen to me. They would have brought that whole compound down with everyone in it had you not had the instinct to get everyone out days before it happened. Jay had the opportunity to leave. He chose to join us in the basement. I chose to go back down there and get you. That is not on you. It’s not your job to save everyone! I’m sorry you can’t go home, but you have got to keep fighting.” I started to tone it down some. With my hands on her, I didn’t want her to feel like she needed to lash out.
“Please forgive me,” her voice cracked in my head. Something inside of me broke. I took her face in my hands. Her cheeks were cool and soft. She closed her eyes, and the first tear rolled down over my hand.
“I just want you to fight. That’s all. There is nothing to forgive. When you feel it about to take over you, you come to me. It’s my job now. We will go wherever we need to go. We will do whatever we need to do. I will not let you give up,” I said touching my forehead to hers. Her tears continued to roll over my hands. And in that moment, Gabriel's words in Paris rushed over me as if he had just spoken them in my ear. I put my arms around her, and she tensed.
“Please don't. This is part of the problem,” she said trying to push away.
“Listen to me,” I said trying to quell my frustration. I held tighter. “You have lost faith. Faith in your team. Faith in me. But most of all, faith in yourself. In Paris, Gabriel said to me, ‘Man is flawed. We make mistakes. We do bad things, but faith allows us to not only forgive, but to strive for redemption.’ He was right. I thought he was just talking about me, but he meant you too. He said, he had faith in us both. Abby, you told me that you believed in me. Now, I'm telling you the same thing. I believe in you and what we can do. This darkness is nothing compared to what we can do. It's not going to be easy, but I swear I won't give up until we are both redeemed.” She stood there still and unmoving.
“I don't deserve redemption. I’m a murderer, and people die because of me,” she said.
“Neither do I. I killed the only woman who ever truly loved me,” I said. “Gabriel said, I just needed faith. If you can’t believe an Archangel, who can you believe? We will do it together.”
“It's not possible for me. I’ve tried for many years to make up for it, but people keep dying,” she said.
“You calling Gabriel a liar?” I said with a touch of humor.
She shook her head, and then it hit me. Ashley told me what to do on the back porch. For all of her pushing, her wisdom surprised me. I released the embrace, but continued to hold her hand.
“Sit for a minute, please,” I said.
“Tadeas,” she started to protest.
“No, damn it, Abby, please,” I implored her. She conceded to my request. The look on her face said that I better get to it quickly. “After I left Father Sergio, in Guatemala, I hitched rides to the coast. I found a small fishing town, and I intended to take a boat and leave the country. However, I’m terrified of boats.”
“Boats?”
“Not small boats, more like being out on the ocean and not being able to see land. Maybe it’s the jaguar, I’m not sure, but I never could buy the ticket to get on the boat. I continued to work on the docks. I went one day into town to buy a few things in the market, and there was a particular booth that had the best fruit. The gentleman who ran the booth was a kind man. He had never charged me full price. One day, I approached the b
ooth, and the man wasn’t there. She was.”
“Tadeas, no, you don’t have to tell me this story,” she said, realizing what I was doing, and started to stand up.
“Sit down. Please. You are the most infuriating woman on the face of the earth. I swear. Just sit,” I said firmly. I had already started the story. All this time, I was telling her that I trusted her and believed in her, but I had never shown her. She told me her darkest moment. I had offered her nothing. I did not think I had anything to give, but I did. She eased back in the chair and watched me gather my thoughts.
“Isabel had long ebony hair. Dark, expressive eyes. They lit up like polished dress shoes. Sounds stupid, but they glowed. Her smile made me melt the first time I saw her. I lost every bit of cool I had around her. Which, mind you, isn’t a lot, but I was tongue-tied. I saved my money every week to visit the fruit stand. She told me that her father was ill, and I wanted to help her. I came as often as I could because she needed the money. I got sick of fruit, but every time I had a little to spend, I went to Isabel. One day I went, and the booth was closed. There was no food. I started asking around, and I found out that her father had died, and that she was left alone. I knew what that felt like. I stalked her to find out if she was okay. I went to the church for the funeral wake. She was so sad. Her eyes had lost that sparkle. I waited around hoping to get a chance to speak to her. There was a moment when she looked up at me and recognized me. She broke away from the people talking to her, and she came to thank me for coming to honor her father. I asked if there was anything I could do. She said that she would be leaving town. She had family up the coast, and she would move with them. Abby, I don’t know what possessed me, but I begged her not to leave. I asked about the fruit stand. She said that she was going to sell it to someone, plus all the contracts for the fruit with the local farmers. I told her I would buy it if she would just stay and help me run it. I worked double shifts at the docks, and I gave her all the money that I had. We started spending a lot of time together. One day in the fall, it was cool when she finished working at the booth. I met up with her, gave her my jacket and walked her home. I wasn’t sure if she was interested. She was pretty shy at first, but I kissed her anyway. It was like someone breathed life into me that I never knew I had. After a short while, we got engaged. I’d never been so happy in my entire life.” I paused and thought about those days. How innocent we both were. How we had no clue what evil lurked in the world. How she didn’t know I was that evil.
I looked at Abby sitting in the chair watching me patiently. Finally, I saw the woman I knew was behind all the fear and confusion. She was coming back to me. I continued, “Isabel was a good Catholic girl. I may or may not have tried to get her to do more than kiss me from time to time, but she was always so gentle and sweet. I could not wait until she was my wife. We were saving up money. We had decided to marry in the spring. In the winter, I worked the booth for her. After closing the booth one day, a dark man approached me. He gave me chills. He grabbed at my money pouch, and when I slapped his hand away, he grabbed my crucifix. The chain broke, but I held on to the cross and ran for my life. By the time I reached her home, I was pretty shaken up. She was comforting and made soup. It was raining and cold, so she asked me to stay. I had already decided not to push her anymore, but after dinner she came to me. I’m embarrassed to talk about it, but it was my first time. Hers too. It was pretty awkward, but it was amazing. I loved falling asleep next to her.” I stopped again. This was the hardest part. “I woke up during the night. My ‘claws’ were covered in blood. I could see myself in the mirror across the room. A huge black jaguar stared back at me. I looked at her and the life had left her eyes. My beautiful Isabel was gone. I wanted to wail, but I couldn’t. That’s when I heard Lincoln come in. I started to pounce on him because I thought he had killed her. He spoke his spell, and I passed out. Waking up in a room across town, he had cleaned me up and told me we were waiting on a transport to take us out of the country. I cried like a child, and Lincoln was patient. He didn’t tell me his name, just made sure I had everything I needed. I killed her, and I couldn’t remember any of it. But I will never forget her eyes. Dead.” I clenched my fists as I fought back a wave of pain, grief and tears. The same things Abby has been feeling. I knew that dark place she was in because I’d been there before myself.
Tears ran down Abby’s face as she approached me, “There are two very important things you need to know, Tadeas.” She put her cool hands over my fists, and I relaxed them. Her touch sent tingles though my body. “First of all, I need to know something. Have you ever dreamed of killing her? Did the memory of it ever come back? Images of fury or blood? Smells? Sounds? Anything?”
“No, thankfully I don’t remember. The aftermath was bad enough.”
She took a deep breath and touched my cheek. “The first thing you need to know is that you did not kill Isabel.”
“Right, the jaguar killed her,” I said.
“No, neither of you did,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Never in all of my days have I ever met a shifter that wasn’t fully aware of their first kill or didn’t eventually remember it. It happens more often that you would imagine. A shifter changes for the first time, and there is no one there to guide them. The animal inside of them is afraid and lashes out. It’s been one hundred and seven years, and you still do not remember,” she explained.
“No, I killed her,” I muttered.
“Why are you determined to believe something isn’t true? I wish I had known the story before now. I understand, you didn’t want to speak about it. Without a doubt in my mind, Tadeas, someone wanted you to think you killed her. Someone else killed her, and you shifted to protect her. I don’t know who the creepy man was in the market, but I’m willing to bet it was him,” she said.
I backed up to the bed and leaned on it. All these years, I believed that I killed her. “If you looked in my memories, could you tell if it was there, and I’m just repressing it?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Do it,” I said. “Unless you don’t have the strength or hate me, because I’ve not exactly been friendly in the last few moments.”
She smiled, “To say the least, but I can do it.” She climbed up on the bed, and I sat further back so she could get to my temples. I knew what she was going to do, and I wasn’t afraid to have her in my head. “Memento.” She sat still for several agonizing moments. She finally opened in her eyes and looked at me.
“There is nothing there, but darkness. No memory. He either drugged you or put a spell on you. I went back far enough to see him. It was Nalusa Chito,” she said softly. I bolted out of the bed and paced the room.
“I didn’t kill Isabel,” I said.
“No, Nalusa did,” she said. “That’s probably why Lincoln was there. He was probably chasing Nalusa. They were old foes.”
“I did not kill her,” I repeated.
“Tadeas, you are free from that burden. I wish I could have given you that so long ago. I can’t imagine the pain,” she said. “Over the years, your name has come up more than once. Lincoln was adamant that I meet you, especially after Lukas and I parted ways the first time. Lincoln and I didn’t immediately get back together, but he always pressed the idea that you were special. It’s possible that he knew you didn’t kill Isabel.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell me that? It has plagued me,” I asked.
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes again. “He was a damn fool. Maybe he wasn’t sure. Maybe he didn’t tell you so that I could.”
“How is that possible?”
“He could see things. He knew, he would die and leave me. There have been other things along the way. For example, Lukas showed up less than an hour after Lincoln died. He knew exactly where to find me because Lincoln had told him years before where to look. I’m sorry that he made you suffer. Damn that man. He was utterly infuriating sometimes,” she said.
I smirked at the irony. �
��Huh? Imagine that.”
“Shut it, Duarte,” she said, and the atmosphere in the room lightened. I understood now why she deflects. She's trying to control the darkness by deflecting.
“What’s the other thing?” I said.
“What other thing?” she looked like she had lost confidence in whatever she was going to say.
“Oh, no, don’t play dumb with me. I remember. You said there were two things I needed to know. What was the other thing?” I walked back over to the bed where she was still sitting.
I heard her swallow, and she sighed, “You are just as aggravating as he was.”
“That’s not the thing,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” she said.
“I’m waiting,” I said. “You aren’t leaving this room until you tell me.”
“Today in the car, the thing that pushed me over the edge was you. I looked behind me, and I saw the two blasts from the gun. I could feel you, but it was like everything inside of me panicked. The thought of you leaving me overwhelmed me, and I lost control,” she admitted.
“You felt me the whole time, right?”
“Yes, but even just the thought of it triggered a flood of things that's happened over the past few weeks. I’m not saying it’s not your fault. It’s just you are that important to me,” she said.
“We will figure it out together, okay?” I said. She raised up on her knees while still sitting on the bed and hugged me.
“Okay,” she whispered in my ear. She leaned back looking into my eyes. I felt the tension between us grow, but it wasn’t anger this time. I leaned forward to her lips. A million thoughts went through my mind about what a kiss would mean at this point, but I pushed those thoughts away with the lingering desire to feel her lips on mine. She didn’t pull away. Maybe Ashley was right again, but Tony burst through the doors before I could find out.
