The Phoenix (The Prophecy #1)

by Jessica McCrory

  She pushed the anger at losing them down and looked at him now. His sweats were low on a hard waist and he was shirtless. A light coating of hair ran over a muscled chest. He had the body of a Fighter, she thought to herself. How had he become one? Had he not gone through and became a doctor like he had always dreamt of? Tattoos climbed up his left arm starting at his bicep and spanned over part of his chest. He had a short beard and his dark hair was messy from sleep. He was so handsome, just as he had always been and Anastasia’s heart began to ache. She had missed him so much, would have given anything to see him again, and now that she was, he had his gun pointed at her.

  “Fine. We will talk first, but not here. I don’t want to be ambushed.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Wait here.” Dakota said as they entered his apartment and walked to his bedroom to get dressed. He left the door partially open so he could hear if she tried to leave. Dakota stood for a moment staring at his closet. What in the hell had he just seen? What was going on? Was it him? Was he finally losing the mind he had worked so hard to hold onto after Anastasia disappeared? And what in the hell was she doing running through a blue light in the middle of a dead end alleyway anyways? And with a sword? Who carries a sword? Where had she gotten it?

  “It’s official, I’m losing it.” He said quietly to himself as he pulled his shoes on. He had half a mind to go and wake his mother up just to verify she could see Ana too. But he knew if he did that and she wasn’t there, then she would never leave him alone. And if she were in fact standing in his living room, well then his mother would still never leave him alone.

  When he stepped back into the living room he was actually surprised to see she was still standing there. She stood facing away from him staring at the television that sat on its stand in the corner.

  Damn, she was beautiful. It should have been the last thing on his mind but he couldn’t help thinking it. Her hair was much longer then it had been and she had it braided down her back. Her boots made her legs look as if they were a mile high and they had never needed the help.

  She had a sword sheathed at her back and her waistband held more knives then he had thought at the beginning. He should have had her remove them but he had been too distracted. She had a small satchel tied to her belt, and she had the stance of a warrior. Where had she been all these years and why was she back now of all times?

  “Where have you been?” He voiced his thoughts. Even to him his voice sounded small.

  She turned slowly to face him and when she looked into his eyes, he felt a piece of his heart slip back into place.

  “It’s a long story.” Anastasia answered regarding him wearily.

  What had he been doing in the alley? She wondered. Did he have something to do with all of this? Was it possible he was working with Vincent? She pushed that though aside immediately. Dakota was the purest of heart person she had ever known. There was absolutely no way he had been working with Vincent. Besides, he had been just as surprised to see her as she had been to see him. Surely Vincent would have told him she was alive if they had been working together.

  “I’ve got time.” He moved into the kitchen to pour himself some coffee. “Want some?”

  “Yes, please.” She greedily accepted. It had been a long time since she had tasted coffee.

  “So?” He asked again as he poured the hot liquid into the mugs. “Start talking.”

  His voice was rough she noted, his eyes harder than they had been. What had Dakota seen to cause him pain? She feared it was her fault.

  “I don’t know that you would believe me if I told you.”

  “You’re kidding right?” He set a cup in front of her and then took a drink out of his own. “I literally just saw a blue light appear in the alley by my house, the same blue light I might add that I saw a few weeks back. Only this time, giant beasty men were coming out of it with a man you and I have both known since we were kids.” He held his hand up when she started to speak. “I would also like to add that my best friend who went missing ten years ago without a trace just so happened to come stumbling out of that same light and crashed directly into me right before it disappeared. I think you would be surprised at how much I might actually believe at this point.”

  She nodded. He had a point, and honestly what did she have to lose? If he thought she was insane she would just force her way out, and if by some crazy turn of events he actually believed her, then he might have some information as to what was going on in this world.

  “Fine. I have been in a place called Terrenia, another dimension that runs parallel to this one for the last ten years where I learned that I was kidnapped as a baby from my biological parents, one of which is a sorcerer, then sent here to live with Mitch because I was prophesized to be the one who would bring down the Dark Sorcerer, who is my Uncle by the way.” She stood staring at him. She knew she shouldn’t have been rude about it, but the way he was regarding her as if she were a criminal was beginning to irritate her.

  Dakota took another drink of his coffee and then very nearly spit it back out at the knock on the door. “Shit.” He said noting the time. Five-thirty. He was supposed to have picked his mother up already. “Quiet and stay over there.”

  Anastasia moved to the side of the living room where she wouldn’t be seen from the door.

  “Hey, mom.” Dakota opened the door slightly and Anastasia smiled widely when she heard the familiar voice on the other side.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “I can’t this morning mom, I’m not feeling well.” He regretted it the moment he said it. If he was looking for any reason for her to force her way into his apartment, he had just found it. “I mean I’m tired.”

  “Dakota George Parker. You open this door all the way this instant.” She shoved at the door and he gently moved aside knowing it would do no good to fight with her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry honey you could have just said you had company. I can drive mys-” Elizabeth stopped and stared at the woman on the other side of her sons door. “It can’t be.” She whispered and walked closer. She turned to look back at Dakota who nodded. “Anastasia?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Parker.” Elizabeth pulled Anastasia in for a hug and she wrapped her arms around her. When she pulled away they both had unshed tears in their eyes. “Oh honey, are you alright? Where have you been? Did Mitch hurt you?”

  “Mom.” Dakota’s voice was gentle and he handed her his cell phone. “Call in sick today please, I know you never do but I’m begging you to make an exception for today. And then stay in this apartment, don’t go into yours.” He added remembering what he had just seen come out of the alleyway.

  “Okay.” Elizabeth agreed halfheartedly. She still couldn’t believe that Anastasia was standing before her. She backed away without taking her eyes off of her as if she were afraid she would disappear if she did. Dakota knew the feeling.

  “We are going to be in here. We have a few things to talk about, don’t leave mom.” He reminded her.

  “I won’t.” She dialed up the hospital.

  Anastasia followed Dakota into his bedroom. His scent was everywhere and it filled Anastasias mind with memories of their teenage years. His bed was unmade as if he had just rolled out of it and she remembered how he had looked in that alley, and knew that he must have. The room was neat, just as his room had always been. She took a closer look at the photos on his dresser and saw one of he and his dad, one of the two of them up at the Parker cabin and then one of him in a police uniform accepting a certificate.

  “You became a cop.”

  “Yes.” He replied shortly.

  She turned to him and saw that he was staring out his window.

  “What happened that night?” He asked her.

  “What night?” She asked already knowing the answer.

  “The night you disappeared Anastasia.”

  She winced a little. He very rarely had ever called her by her full name.

  Anastasia swallowed hard. She had tri
ed so hard over the years to block that night out, but it seemed she was doomed to relive it yet again. He deserved to know the truth, she reminded herself.

  “After you and your family left, Mitch was angry. He told me that I was a nuisance from the day they got me, and that he should have known better. He pulled out his belt and he beat me. Is that what you want to hear? ‘You were right Dakota, I should have gone with you’?”

  “Ana, I-”

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to think about. I’ve worked really hard to move past that night.” She held up her hand and began to pace. “Just let me finish.” She knew she was being harsh again and tried to pull it back. “It was the worst it had ever been. I thought he was going to kill me and I honestly wished he would have in that moment. I felt stupid for turning you away and felt I deserved what I had coming to me. When he was done, Monica put a bandage on my forehead and told me that she hoped I had learned my lesson this time.” She folded her arms over her chest. She could see the anger on his face and it reminded her so much of when they had been kids and he would find her with a new bruise. “I managed to stand and I tried to get to the window. I was going to climb over to your house, or at least die trying.” She smiled lightly although there was no humor in what she was relaying. “A man came into my room; a man I had never seen before. He was kind,” she added quickly at the change on his face. It softened and she continued, “He offered me a sanctuary, a place where Mitch would never be able to get to me again. He told me that he was sorry he was late, and that they were all doomed without me- that they needed me, I think that was the first time anyone had ever said that to me.”

  She didn’t see the change in his face at the last statement and she continued. “I looked to your window again, unsure if I could have made it. I could hardly walk. Then I heard Mitch outside my bedroom. He was talking on the phone and told them that ‘he would take care of her’ and ‘she will never get the chance’. He started to open my door and I agreed to go with the man, Gregory. He opened a portal, one of those blue lights, and I followed him through.”

  She stood silently regarding him, waiting for him to say anything.

  “I needed you.” He said it so quietly she almost missed it.

  “Dakota I didn’t mean-”

  “You left willingly then. You weren’t kidnapped and you were obviously not murdered. You left of your own free will and you couldn’t have been so kind as to leave me a fucking note! Something that said ‘hey Dakota, I’m not dead see ya around’? Something that would have let me know you were okay!”

  “Dakota, I didn’t have time, Mitch was going to kill me!”

  “My father died for you.”

  Her heart dropped to the floor. So that was why George wasn’t here with Elizabeth. “What?” She felt the tears begin to fall. George had been the closest thing she had had to a father as a child. She had always viewed him as invincible.

  “He died because he caught a lead on your so called ‘disappearance’. He cared enough to keep digging so that we would know what happened to you and he died for it!” He yelled his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Dakota, I’m so sorry I-”

  “Save it, Anastasia.” He grabbed his jacket off of the bed and marched past her. “Don’t even think about leaving or so help me God I will hunt you to the ends of the earth, and even on into whatever world it is you try to escape too.” He slammed the door behind him.

  Anastasia sat on the edge of the bed her head in her hands. She had always been trying to save he and his family from any harm at the hands of Mitch, and thought she would have been doing that by leaving with Gregory. Instead, she had gotten George killed and caused Dakota and Elizabeth a lifetime of pain.

  Regardless of what he said, she needed to get as far away from he and Elizabeth as she could before any more harm came to them. People around her had a tendency to die.

  She slowly stood and took a deep breath before opening the door.

  “Your coffee got cold, would you like some more?” Elizabeth asked as Anastasia emerged from the bedroom.

  “No, thank you.” Anastasia glanced towards the door.

  “He will you know.” When Anastasia looked at her she shrugged. “Hunt you down. That boy has been searching for you for ten years, now that he knows you are in the same city as him he won’t ever stop. Don’t make him have to start again.” The warning was implied and Elizabeth came around to sit at the small table in the kitchen, motioning to the chair next to her.

  Anastasia gave in and sat down.

  “So, another dimension, huh?” She asked sipping her coffee.

  Had she not been bordering on exhaustion her chin might have hit the floor at the nonchalant way Elizabeth had just said ‘another dimension’. “How much did you hear?”

  “All of it. I'm a mother honey, an excellent eavesdropper by trade.”

  Anastasia smiled but it was empty.

  “If you’re worried I’m going to blame you about George, your wrong.” She lightly touched her hand. “What happened to him wasn’t your fault. Just as what happened to you that night wasn’t. Mitch is an evil man, and evil men will do anything they choose to regardless of the consequences and how it affects other people.”

  “How can you not blame me? If I had left a note-”

  “Then George would have still gone looking for you and things would have ended up exactly the way they are now anyways. Anastasia, George and Dakota are my world. It got a little smaller after George passed, but my husband was a determined man and he would have continued looking for you until he found you.”

  “Dakota hates me.”

  “That boy couldn’t hate you if he tried. He’s just a little mixed up right now. Give him some time, he will come around.”

  “I'm pretty sure I hate myself.”

  “Anastasia. You can’t focus on things that are in the past, they are already out of your control. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about this place you’ve been living? Terrenia, right?”

  “You are a wonderful eavesdropper.” Anastasia laughed.

  “One of the best, I’m sure.”

  Anastasia had forgotten how easy it was to talk to Elizabeth. Sometimes when Dakota had been at football practice and George working, Anastasia would sneak over to their house just so she could sit with Elizabeth before she went in for her shift at the hospital. She had always been so wonderful to Anastasia and she had always been grateful for it.

  Anastasia told her of Gregory and Annabelle, and about how wonderful they had been to her. She told her of how beautiful Terrenia was and how the animals were a bit different there than they were here. Elizabeth loved hearing about how everyone would sit around at night and visit with each other and then she told Anastasia how the lack of social interaction face to face had only gotten worse since she had been gone.

  “It’s great to be able to keep up with family and friends who live far away, but there are so many kids who aren’t getting outside now. They are too busy playing video games or surfing on the Internet.” Anastasia laughed at the face she made.

  “There’s not even any power in Terrenia, everything is lit by lanterns. It’s quite a beautiful place.” Or was, she added silently, until the Brutes tore through it. It would be beautiful again though she assured herself.

  “So tell me more about this Gregory, he trained you?”

  “Yes, he taught me how to fight and how to defend myself. I learned how to use a sword and knives as well.”

  “That’s so wonderful. He and Annabelle sound like wonderful people.”

  “They were.” She said sadly.

  “Were?”

  “They were both killed. Annabelle nine years ago and Gregory two days.”

  “Oh Anastasia, I’m so sorry. I know they must have been so important to you.”

  “They were my parents. Biological that is.”

  Elizabeth looked at her shocked. “I wondered.”

  “Wondered what?”

  “
Well, being that I’m a Doctor I know a thing or two about genetics, and you and Mitch and Monica didn’t seem like a matchup. I assumed she had either had an affair or you had been adopted. So, you were adopted then?”

  “No, not really anyways. Gregory’s brother kidnapped me and sent me to live with Mitch and Monica when I was a baby.”

  “He would be your uncle then? Why would he do such a thing?”

  Anastasia laughed. “I fear there will be an end to your belief in me.”

  “Try me.” Elizabeth smiled. “You know I love to read, the paranormal stuff always gets me. I'm not very surprised that some of its real. How else would the authors be able to come up with such fantastical stories?”

  She smiled and continued. “A seer told my parents that I would be the one to bring down the Dark Sorcerer, as she called him. She said that he would bring destruction to not only their world, but to all of them. He had already been determined to get Gregory on his side and had believed that I was the reason he refused to turn dark and when he heard this it sealed his beliefs. He thought that by removing me from my parents, it would force Gregory to explore his magic, in which case he would turn dark as well and then problem solved for everyone.”

  “So, Gregory had magic as well?” Elizabeth’s hand was rested on her chin and she was so engulfed in the story that she was on the edge of her seat, literally.

  “Yes. It’s not as simple as having magic though, you have to be able to use it without letting it consume you. When you start trying to use more difficult magic, or begin using it often enough it can easily take you over and turn you dark. Once you turn there is no coming back.”

  “But Gregory never turned.”

  “He didn’t. He almost did, but my mother Annabelle brought him back. He started using it, only doing small spells at first and eventually worked his way up to creating portals which is how he traveled to the different worlds searching for me.”

  “I cannot even begin to imagine what they went through looking for you all those years. I don’t know what I would have done had someone taken Dakota from me.”