Copyright © 2013 by Carlyle Labuschagne
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Sensational Publications
P.O. Box 445
Geneva IL 60134
www.SensationalPublications.com
ISBN: 978-0-9888003-6-6
Library of Congress Control Number:
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Editor Sandra Valente
Cover Design by Regina Wamba
Interior Design by Morgan Media
Your touch brought my heart to life. I exist because of you. What you have given me is life, love and everything in between. You gave me, me.
So many to thank, and not enough pages. To every reader, follower, book blogger, author and friend – whoever gave me as much as one like, share, tweet – you will never know how much you have given me. I joked in a recent interview that it takes a village to raise a book. Well, it does and because of each of you, I can accomplish my dreams, dream them and not be afraid to put it out there. For that, I will forever be grateful and driven by your kindness. To my editor, Sandra Valente, oh boy, way too much to thank you for. You are not only the best editor, the most fun and the fiercest, your attention to detail is more, and you always give more. You are my fan, my mentor and my friend, my lifeline, my graphic artist – more, always more and may you be blessed for it. I will love you always! To my cover designer Regina Wamba, the amazing and beautiful woman behind the pure gorgeousness that has captured Evanescent perfectly – thank you is not enough. To my dynamic publicity team, Kathy and Allison, who believe in me, and my dreams. I look forward to a long and successful relationship. To the band, Prime Circle, for the lyrical use, for giving me the light of day, and especially for treating me like a star while I hung backstage with you guys. Mariska and Franie, thank you for making that dream come true. To my family above all else, who have just about had enough of my writing/book obsession but still lend an ear and always tell me to never give up – you being proud of me, pushed me. To the dreamers – never give up! To my parents, none of this would have been possible without you. To my loving husband, Dirk. All of this, me – it could not be possible without you. To Kelly from Exclusive Books, because of you I can see my book on the shelf of the biggest bookstore in our country. I can never thank you enough. To my street team, every bit you do for me; expecting nothing in return, keeps me grounded. My sister Dominique the inspiration behind the character Maya – I love you.
Acknowledgements
Part One: Altered
Prologue: All of me
Chapter One: Midnight
Chapter Two: Bent
Chapter Three: Misplaced
Chapter Four: Fire on Ice
Chapter Five: Cyclone
Chapter Six: Overflow
Chapter Seven: Sinking
Part Two: Haltered
Chapter Eight: Gravity
Chapter Nine: Hunger
Chapter Ten: Illusions
Chapter Eleven: Undone
Part Three: Cross to bear
Chapter Twelve: Fallen
Chapter Thirteen: Powder
Chapter Fourteen: Linger on
Part Four: Asunder
Chapter Fifteen: Design
Chapter Sixteen: Darkest Hour
Chapter Seventeen: Twilight
Chapter Eighteen: Siren
Chapter Nineteen: My Blood
Chapter Twenty: In Twain
Epilogue: Fire Side
About the Author
“Seems these days I’m terrified,
by the darker side of me.
Can hear myself when I close my eyes, can feel it breaking me.
This is my Jekyll and Hyde condition,
a different person inside to see.
Keeps on coming without permission,
why can’t it let me be?
It’s getting stronger, changing me now.
I hear it screaming out I’m behind you,
don’t try to run away I will find you.
Before I was fine, didn’t bother me.
Did things my own way.
But now it’s here and I’m changing fast.
Gets stronger every day.
This is my Jekyll and Hyde condition,
a different person inside to see.
Keeps on coming without permission,
why can’t it let me be?
It’s getting stronger, changing me now.
I hear it screaming out I’m behind you,
don’t try to run away I will find you.”
~ Jekyll & Hyde~
Prime Circle lyrics
Where you are not,
there you are bound to be found.
Be all of the not, until it is enough.
Live it all, lay yourself before it.
Taste what is not you.
Purge yourself, and let that be your altar;
your cross to bear,
find the love that becomes you in that truth.
When lost,
change all that you are.
And within those moments,
you will find who you are not.
Once you let it take you,
embrace all you do not want to be,
and never let go of who you found there.
My makers would say I was created for revenge. I say, I was born to prove them wrong. Inflicted with the dark disease, I was lost in every possible way; and they were wrong – death does not bring you your true purpose. After death, I am more misplaced than ever, but only because I am immune to guidance. I relive my darkest moments over and over again, just to remind myself of who I am. I am the destined one. The haltered. For me, there is no love and no release, only destruction, but I am on a path to be free of its burden. I do love and I will have it, absorb it and never, ever, let all its enchanting affections go. In order to be with love, there is only one path to lead me there; through this war. But nothing and no one knows what awaits on the other side, or what lies have been afflicted upon us about the after. Remorse is an infection I no longer want. I had made apocalyptic mistakes, and will probably keep on faltering forward. It has become my only direction in a reality where there is none. To him, there is no him, if there is no me. He is bound to me, and I hated it more than I will ever confess. His cross to bear is me, and to be that – to be this – prevents my release. Acceptance? I will never accept it. With him, I have found hope where the word does not exist. I want him to love me for who I am, not for what he is to me. When I say my worst enemy is me – it really is. It’s in me and it’s getting stronger, because I am without my seal. I am like a boiled-over pot of living poison, seeking somewhere to belong. Thing is, I do not belong anywhere but the in-between. Without my seal and without him, is exactly where I will stay. Everything that is, that exists, will try to keep us apart, because of what I am. If we ignite, we could either burn it all down, or alter exist
ence forever. Yes, I shifted, probably something I could have prevented, but now that I have tasted it – it moves of its own accord and it gets harder to come out of each time it happens. The blood-shift has caused a rift within me. It has torn everything I hold dear from me. Perhaps I am now damned for it, but as I’ve said, I will not accept damnation. That word no longer exists for me. I am the in-between. The one to bring the dark and the light together. When the first true blood-shift came, it tore through flesh and parted blood, threatening to bend me, break bone, shatter my mind and entrap my heart to become its will. It comes with vicious intent, moving my thoughts and touching me with a cutting effect from the inside. It has many ways of bleeding out, and when it releases, there is nothing I can do to stop it. No one is safe when it entraps me in its claws of foul lust. Corrupt, damnable, depraved, destructive, hideous, demonic; your kind would call it many things. I have a weapon against the profane that becomes me – his touch alone has the power to release the talons of a sweet darkness that clings on for dear life. It has one trigger – me. I can change it if only I can take the leap, surrender myself utterly. I am ready with all of me, for all of him. I know what I have to do, the desperation of it pulls my mind with the unfathomable determination of a ravenous predator. I let it sink in hard and true. I feel the swell of the fight fill me with a bitter sweetness, and with a glorious soothing pain that tears my mind from the disease which transforms me. In a moment’s revelation, my mind shows me a glimpse of what has transpired. It works on pure logic, showing me that perhaps I am too late. How can I stop him from igniting with the wrong one? My loss has become my fight as I watch it all wither away. But, I will never stop fighting. I am my own destiny; my destiny is to be with him. My eyes fling open. My heart pounds, searing to life. The geometric shapes I had seen before become one big silhouette. I find myself seeing where there is no light. I can hear him, feel his heart’s rhythm – so close. I will take back what is mine. Everything else becomes Evanescent.
A body is fragile; it breaks, it tears, and it bleeds. It is also tangible and real, beautiful and rare.
A soul is an ever-fighting, ever-growing entity. It has a mind of its own.
But, a mind is a curse; it can corrupt, be corrupted, thinks too much, or not enough.
When body meets soul, it’s perfect. It knows the truth, but it cannot live without a mind.
The mind activates the power from the soul to the body.
The balance is never perfect. This is the curse of being broken.
One exasperating breath at a time my haunting memories came swamping back, threatening to choke me with its horrid reality. When I opened my eyes on the day that changed me forever – my day of reckoning – one that I could never come back from, my mind was assaulted with knowledge that was not my own. Had I been pushed? Was it even real? Yet, as every flash and every thought of those false memories reeled through me, there was a message there. Sometimes I wonder, if not for the false state of existence, the knowledge I had gained in those fabricated moments… would I ever have known? What matters now is that I do know, and I wanted what was rightfully mine. I wanted it all. I wanted revenge. A dark world swirled above me, and then the fuzzy outlines of geometric shapes clawed at my eyes. You know what to do, do it! A voice came, prompting me to get up. I pulled free from the emotional chains which had bound me, bound us, for far too long, shattering the pieces of my past. I let the guilt slide away. But like a spider, it crawled its way back in, and slowly the doubt and the disappointment spun its web. I remembered what I had done, it was not a false memory, but one too real. I had shifted because of one weakening emotion. Anger turned to hate, becoming my poison. My mind slipped too soon when I saw his face held captive within those pushed memories. Perceptive as I was in those moments, I knew something was wrong. Being pushed should feel way worse. The memories came too easily, and I felt the panic-side rise up. Those memories could not be real, and so I begged for them to go away. Yet something yanked me back under, my shift threatening to take me again with anger, regret and revenge, all the things the blood-shift needs to survive. My world became black once more. I lay there, suspended in my thoughts. The present floated away like cinders of loss riding the stormy winds of the forgotten. I knew the battle of my mind and soul all too well, the familiarity nipped at my veins so that the feeling of remorse was lost on me. You know what you have to do. Get up and do it! The voice came again. It was my own, but my body would not move. I didn’t care that the girl in my memories was not me; not me laying in his arms, and that his touch and his tender kisses had not found my hands, or my lips. Even if it was entirely of my own doing that I had lost him, I would fight. It had to be a trick, one I would not fall for. I was on a lit path, a raging firestorm for him – all of him. My body ached for it. I had found the antidote to my disease, and in those forced images of false memories, I found my salvation, a cure from myself to what I would eventually become. By the time the revelation lifted me from the dark dungeon of my mind, it was too late. More memories hit, the powerful kind that break your breath, steal your mind, and eclipse your heart. And when you think you can’t take it anymore, it all slowly flutters back to the horrid truth. I had lost him. I had lost all that was me. The weight of it took me to ground. I fell, but I did not feel on what, or where I had fallen to. I refused to open my eyes and see where I had woken, or what I had woken up to. I was the only one to blame for finding myself captive again. I drew the numbness in. I had been too late and I was on the edge of yet another shift –not the good kind either. My mind fought the disease I had inflicted upon myself. I pulled back my shift. I wouldn’t let it take me, not now. I had to get out of its rotten prison, and the very real one I was slowly waking to.
“I know you are there. I can feel you,” I groaned through the darkness.
Silence filled the gloomy room, expanded through the cracks, pushed through thick, gray stone walls, and penetrated the blackness outside.
“You are wasting your time,” my words escaped in a whisper, my throat so dry it seared. I felt bruised, inside and out. I tried to lift my body, which seemed to be glued by gravity itself to a cold, hard surface. My wrist stung as I pulled against what felt like barbed wire restraints laced with a poison that left me dizzy. I lay my head back down, trying to catch my breath, sweat clinging to my entire body. A stifling heat choking my vision, my thoughts. The throbbing in my head exploded and rippled through my entire frame. I clenched my teeth, but the pain was too insane to contain. I screamed, and the aching that echoed through my bones left me icy and shivering. My back lifted and slammed back onto the surface of a metal bed as my breath hit me again. I swore.
“It gets easier with time.” His words filtered through the nothingness inside of me as my heart slowly came back to life.
I swallowed against coals trapped in my throat.
It happened again. The shift was taking me, it ripped and raked over my body, and I choked on its blackness.
“Oh, the sin of guilt is an unpleasant thing,” he said from right beside me.
I turned my head toward where his voice was coming from, a tear escaped me. My emotions confined in my esophagus.
“He is going to kill you,” is all I got out, before my eyes closed and I fell into its beckoning midnight.
I awakened with what felt like a bolt of lightning to my chest. There was nothing before that and for a moment, there was nothing after. A tingling sensation engulfed my entire body, then fazed into my brain. Slowly, I opened my eyes to darkness, dry and hot darkness crushing down on my body, into my mind. The memories came crashing back, one wave over the next, pushing my breath from my lungs. Memories become a tangled mess; I did not know what the last thing I had done was, or how I had gotten to be in a state of mental suspension. The only thing familiar was him, and the darkness exuding from his being was not a familiarity I wanted, nor needed. The Shadowing disease had come back for me. I choked on the air filling my lungs, like I was breathing for the first time. Somethin
g strange was happening to me as my life came pouring back, one cruel flash at a time. I started to remember. I had fallen in a trap, the consequences coiling around me, and I suddenly remembered how I had gotten there. His presence had me shifting dark-side; the poison that ran through my blood, ran through his, and it drew me near. He summoned me that way, and it all made sense. I was reliving it all. Enoch’s kiss, and the push of his poison had become my own. The night we were kidnapped played back in my mind, and my awareness transported all of me into the physical state of the memory. That was the mind-shift’s way of imprinting on me, its sick way of reminding me of who I was. The blow to the head that had sent me crashing into the cold, wet mud; the pain that echoed through me; my fingers clawing up the dark, muddy, river bank on that fateful night of my seventeenth birthday; fighting consciousness out of desperation to get to Troy’s sword as I watched helplessly from the wet, cold, stuck-in-the-mud ground. Fireworks in the dark, windy night echoed and ebbed out. The fight to the death between Enoch and Troy shook my insides once more, as if it was happening all over again. The moment that altered my former forever. Then, awakening with a cold, hard thrust of the canoe into my ribs, hands bound, body bleeding. Troy’s sunrise smile from across the wooden vessel as I came to – his warmth filling in around me as I sat on his lap while he slipped the dagger from my boot. His fingers working delicately and swiftly. My pulse racing like madness itself as we fell face first into the ice-cold river, attempting escape from Enoch and the Zulus. Spears rained down, piercing the water, slicing between Troy and me. I couldn’t get to him, could not swim fast enough, his blood clouding the water around me. The pure color of it violating my heart. In shock, I swallowed huge gulps of water. Enoch dragged me screaming from the river. I watched in sheer dismay as the Zulu warriors lifted Troy’s dying body from the water. The annihilating sadness breaking me, sending my world into twisted chaos. Little did I know how much that event changed us – forever. I tore my mind from the evocative memories. Catching my breath, I felt the push of the former memories, the mind-shift was real, it was brutal, and it wanted something from me. Horrified, calling Troy’s name over and over, and over again, it felt like an eternity had passed before I heard something.
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