I feel hot tears rolling down my cheeks. Or is it Corinna’s? My throat constricts, but her voice passes the knot there.
“Take me with you, Sam.”
Sam?
The darkness lifts a little and I see the shards of light drawing the image of the man who had momentarily encompassed everything I desired. My heart clenches shut when I see him; Sam Crest.
Everything in me should be revolted by his face, what he represents; my mother’s murderer and the man that took Ezra and Nate with him into that wormhole. It is just the opposite though. I feel compassion for him. His steel gray eyes search mine as his hand slowly moves around and cups the back of my head. His other hand comes up to my face and gently wipes the tears that I have shed, sending a wave of heat through my entire body. Not a heat of anger, but a heat of desire.
No, this is not right. My body is responding to what Corinna is feeling?
I feel guilt for a moment, but then it is quickly replaced with an intense desire when Sam pulls my body on top of his. I feel his heart beating against mine. How is it possible to feel his heart?
Sam’s whisper dances on my lips. “I don’t want to risk anything happening to you, Corinna.”
Holy crap! Corinna has control of me! No, no, no! This wasn’t supposed to happen. Somehow she has taken over in my head.
My mouth moves, “What if something happens to me while you are gone, Sam? What if the Dobrians…”
Sam caresses my face, hushes me, and then claims my mouth with his eagerly. I should be repulsed by the feeling, but God help me I am not. I feel my lips burn with need for him as my lips move with his.
Sam pulls back hesitantly and looks into my eyes. “I won’t be gone long, Corinna. Michael Sanderson will keep watch over you until I return.”
Reflexively, my head shakes from side to side. Sam stops me, holding my head still with his hands and places his forehead to mine. My lips part and a cry breaks free. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
I feel the burden of hesitation within me for a second. What is Corinna holding back? My mouth moves again, “I don’t trust Michael anymore, Sam. What if he is lying to you?”
Surprising me Sam rolls me over onto my back, laying his body flush against mine. I feel my insides tighten, wanting this closeness. Sam’s hand runs along my forehead, down my cheek, to my jaw, down my chest, and rests just above my heart. He looks at me like I mean the world to him. “Corinna, I have to do this.”
It is hard to explain. His face, it doesn’t make me cringe with hate. My hard hatred for him is softening. My impression of him has shifted, or rather Corinna’s perception of him has shifted within me, showing me a Sam Crest that I have never seen; never would have seen without her taking over my mind. The perception I see is that he is being honorable for someone. Who though?
His eyes search mine. I can see he wants to tell me something, but for some reason can’t. Does he want to tell me why he is wanting to be honorable?
Startlingly, his voice is in my head now. “Corinna, I know that he is using me to open the veil between our universe and another. There is something beyond the veil that I must do. I did some things a long time ago that are irreconcilable. They have haunted me for a very long time. I am hoping this is my chance to make right what I have done wrong.”
He pauses for a moment, and then continues his thought. “He wants me to take that girl, Jesca, but I have no intention of following that order.”
Holy crap! That is why he grabbed me in the forest.
My mouth moves involuntarily. “What if you can’t get back here, to Earth?”
Sam pulls my forehead to his and with a firm voice says, “You will help me find my way back, Corinna. That is why you have to stay here. You are the link that will tether me to this world.”
Sam holds my face still between his hands. “When I get there, I will find what I am looking for and come back to you. I promise.”
His hands release my face and stroke my hair. More tears roll down my cheeks, but Sam softly brushes them away, leaving me breathless and vulnerable. Fiercely, his lips claim mine, full of fire and need. My eyes flutter closed from the delirium clouding my thoughts and I fall deeper into his kiss with abandonment.
Then swiftly, I am grabbed from behind and yanked out of Sam’s embrace.
* * *
The event leaves me out of breath and blinking wildly, taking in my surroundings; I am back in the room with Corinna’s hands still enveloped by both of mine. Xander’s trembling hands are gripping my shoulders and Isabel is leaning over Corinna’s body, with her hands clasping my forearms, her nails digging in deep. I wince from the pain and she quickly pulls her hands away and sits back in her chair. “I, I’m sorry, Jes. I was trying to help.”
Isabel’s eyes travel to Xander’s behind me. Xander releases my arms and moves to kneel in front of me. “That was a bad idea, Jes! You were completely lost in there!”
I look over at Monica. She is studying me curiously. “You okay?”
I making sure I am me again before answering. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Xander rises from his knees and starts pacing around the room. I look at Isabel, sitting across from me looking at her sister. Damn it, she is in the same state she was in before I went into her mind. Getting into her head didn’t pan out. I reach my hand out and lay it across Corinna’s tenderly and whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Abruptly, Corinna’s eyes open wide like saucers and she begins to gasp for air. Shocked, I pull my hand back, but Corinna takes hold of my hand with a death grip.
“Monica!”
In a flash, Monica is by my side between Corinna and I ready to inject her with a needle full of fluid. I take hold of Monica’s arm with my free hand, keeping her from plunging the needle into Corinna’s arm.
“Hold on!”
Corinna uses my arm as an anchor, pulling her body up from the bed. Xander rushes around the other side of the bed and pushes her back down. He and Isabel are trying to pry her hands from my arm, but there is no give. I look into Corinna’s eyes and see fear, not anger or hate.
Monica pushes against my hand to make her move on Corinna. I growl at her before the needle touches her forearm. “I said hold on! She is not attacking me!”
Corinna releases me once she is seated up right, her eyes moving from me to Xander, to Monica to Isabel. Poor Isabel is standing stiff as a board, hands by her side watching her once stagnate sister sitting before her awake. A crease in Corinna’s forehead deepens as she stares at Isabel’s face. Isabel is trying without success to hold it together. Tears are falling from her eyes and her body is trembling, but she does not make any sudden moves.
Corinna releases my arm roughly, continuing to study Isabel. Her voice is like a source of light in the darkest of spaces when she realizes who she is. “Isabel?”
Chapter 7
Nate
I stalk from the gate, straight for the woods just beyond the open grove. The trees that line the sidewalk are a bright orange and yellow. An empty park bench is canopied by a crimson-leafed tree. I don’t know what makes me look at the bench. I mean, no one was sitting there. Just then shards of light slowly conjoin, producing a fractured form of a little boy sitting on the bench swinging his legs. I stop walking, stunned by what I am seeing. I blink my eyes. Maybe I’m imagining this. Nope, the boy is still there.
I should be moving away from the child, but instead I step toward the boy. The image fractures and disappears just as Ezra comes up behind me.
“Nate, did you see something?”
I breathe in deeply through my nose. The smell of something metallic burns the back of my nostrils and throat. I try to swallow past the burn, look at Ezra, and nod slowly. “Yeah, I did.”
Ezra cautiously puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me back toward the woods. Still astounded by the event, I stumble over my own feet and wrench my neck to look back at the now vacant bench. Ezra has to lead me along side of him. “We need to get out of sight, no
w.”
I clear my throat to try and sooth it and a spasm rises in it. Ezra takes notice. “You keep clearing your throat. Are you alright?”
Am I? What am I saying? Of course I am fine. I rub my nose with the sleeve of my shirt and keep walking. “Yeah, my throat is just dry.”
Ezra says nothing, he just keeps my stride and stays close. He doesn’t have to say that he is worried, I can feel that he is. I scan the park one last time to make sure no one or no thing is watching before we enter the dense woods.
Once in the woods, I feel Ezra fall behind and the space between us widen. I turn to see what is holding him up. He is standing with his arms crossed over his chest sizing me up. “What now? Why did you stop?”
Ezra rubs his throat then points to me. “Your throat, it’s the atmosphere here. It is different from our world’s atmosphere. That is why you are clearing your throat.”
I swallow hard and an ice, cold flash of fear trails through my limbs.
Ezra walks toward me. “Our bodies, they are trying to assimilate, adapt to the change in the environment.”
Perfect, we are going to die now because we can’t breathe the air here, wherever we are. And, why the hell is he using sign language.
He stands next to me, preoccupied by his surroundings. “We aren’t going to die. We would have died hours ago if we couldn’t breathe the air here.” Ezra adds, “Unless our body begins to reject the assimilation.”
Seriously? He is telling me this now when we are stuck here? “Great to know, Ezra.”
Ezra continues to survey the terrain, “Levels of Titanium must be higher here, I can feel a little irritation in my lungs, but not much.”
Ezra points at me. “Some are more sensitive to mild changes in the levels.”
Ezra reaches out and touches a nearby leaf on a shrub. He plucks it and inspects it before tossing it to the ground. “The plant life appears to be similar to ours, so the levels aren’t deadly to living organisms.”
Ignoring me now, Ezra walks deeper into the woods without me. “I wonder how much Helium is present in this atmosphere. That element silently suffocates living organisms you know. ”
He is unbelievable! I stalk after him. “No, I didn’t know that little morsel of knowledge, Ezra.”
Ezra keeps walking and turns to eye me. “All I’m saying it that this place is very similar to our world. You might be letting...the illusions of this place test your resolve a bit. You know, you are just like Jesca with all your sarcastic comments.”
Feeling the tightening in my throat again, I walk quickly behind him to catch up and challenge him. “Illusions? Testing my resolve? Oh, you mean like the creepy little boy you and I both saw?”
Ezra turns on his heels to look at me now. “An illusion meant to manipulate us and wear down our resolve.”
I consider what Ezra is saying for the second time since we have been here. “You really think we are being manipulated?”
Ezra blows out his upper lip. “I know we are. The only other time I have seen a human’s face distort like that child’s is when Jesca and I were investigating the abductions in Florida.”
Ezra’s stares down at the ground as he thinks aloud. “The features, the eyes, everything is the same, which could mean that these beings were stalking us in our own world through those abducted vessels implanted with Sondian Copulas.”
Ezra’s eyes narrow, searching the ground as he thinks. He starts to pace in front of me. “They had been there in our world the whole time, watching us through the vessels. Hell, they were telling us they were coming!”
Ezra’s babbling makes my blood turn cold. I am learning that Ezra is scary brilliant and he is usually right about his theories. Suddenly, the burning in my throat surges and my hand instinctively goes straight to my throat.
Ezra steps toward me. “Nate?”
I swallow once thinking the saliva will alleviate the pain, but it doesn’t. I muster more saliva and keep trying to rid my throat of the intense burn. It has to be the atmosphere here. We are in a different world with elements and properties different from our own Earth’s. Ezra said so himself. My body, it’s not assimilating. My throat tightens and spasms rhythmically, leaving me disoriented. I stumble away from Ezra and grab hold of a nearby tree to steady myself. When I inhale this time, I hear the faint wheeze of my airway tightening, closing. The realization that I’m definitely in trouble piques my anxiety and I start to pant. “Ezra...I think...my throat... is closing!”
Chapter 8
Jesca
As soon as Isabel heard Corinna say her name, Isabel had her arms wrapped around her. She kept repeating to us, “It’s her, it’s her,” in between tears and sobs. Corinna tried to wrap her arms around Isabel, but all the tubing from her IV kept her from doing so. Corinna didn’t fight it, she draped her free arm over her sister’s back, while making a rubbing motion. I studied every movement she made...just in case. The more I watched her interact though, my hope that this just might be “our” Corinna became stronger.
Monica yells for the staff and within seconds there are three guardians hovering over Corinna and pulling Isabel back from her. When Isabel begins to push off of them, Luke rushes into the room to calm her. I wonder for a moment, Is there something their between them? The way he knew her feelings, how to calm her… He puts his arms around her and pulls her into him. She doesn’t resist as he pulls her back into a corner of the room and out of the way. As I look at them, the way they hold onto each other, I see the mutual compassion they share. Is it a manufactured Copula link or the real thing? A bond…I can’t help but think of Nate and me in Florida. Luke catches me watching him and Isabel and he smiles at me. Embarrassed that I have been spied, I nod and turn my attention back to the guardians and Monica as they observe and monitor Corinna.
As Xander’s familiar touch rests on the small of my back, I expected his voice to be tender not clipped when he says, “We should tell the others.”
I look at him, confused by the pairing of tender touch and his harsh sounding words. His eyebrows are furrowed and his eyes resemble a storm ready to erupt.
I’m about to ask him what is wrong when Monica agrees, “Yes, let them know that she is awake and seems to be stable.”
Hesitantly, I nod at her and turn to leave with Xander, but he is already out the door. As I head for the door to catch up with him, a soft sob comes from behind me. “Wait.”
I turn to find Isabel walking over to me. As she stands before me, she gently holds my hands in hers. “Thank you for bringing her back, Jes.”
An impetuous knot tangles in my throat. I can barely squeeze out the words. “Yeah, you are welcome.”
Isabel looks beyond me and lifts her chin. “Can you tell Xander thank you for me?”
A little uncomfortable about Xander’s quick escape, I nod and smile. “I better catch up with him to tell the others.”
I squeeze her hand, and then leave the room in search of Xander. I round the corner by the nurse’s station and see Xander standing in the middle of the hallway with his back to me and his head downcast. Without even concentrating, I heard his thoughts. “He killed my parents. For God’s sake, he killed her mother! How can I feel sorry for this man? How can she feel sorry for him?”
I slow my pace and soften my steps, not wanting to startle him. I see his shoulders tense under his shirt as his hands push deeper into his pockets and he rocks back on his heels. My foot accidentally scuffs along the tile floor and Xander whips around to face me. Xander’s brief moment of vulnerability instantly fades and the indecipherable facade he has decidedly adopted around me is back in place.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to...”
Obviously irked, Xander runs a hand through his hair. “Don’t be sorry alright!”
I didn’t need his attitude right now. I roll my eyes and walk past him. “Fine. Isabel says thank you since you were in such a hurry to leave!”
I hear him groan in frustration as I continue to walk, but he s
ays nothing to redeem himself.
Xander quickly catches up to me on our way back to the cafeteria. I look out of the corner of my eye at him and wonder what he saw when I went into Corinna’s mind. Did he see my interaction, I mean Corinna’s, with Sam? Could that have him on edge with me?
Screw it, I’m asking. “When you followed me into Corinna’s mind, what did you see?”
Xander slows his pace, but does not stop. I follow in suit. He opens his mouth to say something, and then quickly shuts it. He scratches the side of his head, looks at me, and then looks down the hall. “Well, I really couldn’t see as much as I could hear and feel.”
Oh crap! Me and Sam, he felt what I was feeling. That is why he can’t look at me. I stop in the middle of the hallway and cross my arms over my chest. “And, what did you feel?”
Still walking, Xander realizes I have stopped, turns, and walks back toward me slowly. He leans against the wall across from me, rests his head against the wall, and closes his eyes. His voice is croaks, “All of it.”
I can’t imagine what he thinks about me after hearing me, I mean Corinna, talk and “interact” with Sam in the way I did. Sam was the only person he trusted for years, and then he used him, deceived him. I just twisted the knife that had already cut him deeply by having this intimate moment with him as Corinna. “It wasn’t me, Xander.”
Xander slowly pushes off of the wall and stands in front of me. His eyes search mine with compassion now. “Jes, I know it was Corinna feeling those things for him, not you. She is linked to Sam. It makes sense that you would feel Corinna’s emotions for him.”
He isn’t mad at me. A wave of relief fills me.
Then Xander’s jaw tightens and I feel the worry resurface. “It wasn’t just Sam being sadistic and evil, Jes. Michael, he orchestrated everything Sam has become.”
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