Roam (Roam Series, Book One)

by Stedronsky, Kimberly

  The difference between Logan and West, though, is in their very soul. Logan had it within himself to kill me; West did not. Because of that, though I’d always love Logan, I could never fully trust him again.

  The numbers on my arm were silhouetted in the early morning light. I fought back the tears that threatened again; West would know if I was crying. Logan was alone, and dealing with these nightmares all by himself. I needed to get to him, to help him through all of this.

  “Don’t be afraid to sleep,” West’s voice startled me; I thought he had been sleeping.

  “I don’t want to deal with any more nightmares.”

  “You don’t dream when you’re pregnant,” he whispered into my ear.

  “What?” I sat up, turning around to look at him. He pulled me closer, so that I was facing him.

  “You have never dreamt when pregnant. The dreams- and the nightmares- go away near the beginning.”

  Staring out the window, I focused on the sun stealing away from the ocean. It appeared to grow out of the sea like a fiery globe. I may be pregnant, I realized, my fingers knotting into the sheets. It may be happening right now.

  Our child will save the world.

  “I wish that I would have known that a long time ago,” I said softly. His open hand slid across my stomach, urging me against the pillow. Lying back, I felt him as he bent to kiss where his hand cradled lovingly.

  “Good-morning, baby,” he whispered against my skin.

  I threaded my fingers through his thick hair, closing my eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sleep existed on and off throughout the day as we made love again, and then again, in a languid pool of non-reality. The sun was high above the ocean as he held me after the third time, my body exhausted and sated.

  “I can’t get lost in you again. It happens every time, and I forget that we are in a war,” he said as he stared out the window, sobered.

  “You’re right,” I nestled into the crook of his arm, tucking my leg over his legs. “We need to eat, and I need to learn to fight.”

  “You fought pretty well last night,” he quipped, raising an eyebrow and reaching for the quickly-healing scratches on his back. “I didn’t think that you had it in you.”

  “I probably could have fought Troy more if I hadn’t been in the water.”

  My voice was thin, breaking on the word “water.” He gathered me into his arms, pressing kisses to my face.

  “You’re right. But the first thing we’re going to do is go swimming.”

  My eyes darting to the window, I shook my head emphatically. “No way. I’m not going in the ocean…,”

  “You’ve got to get back in the water, Roam. I know you’re afraid, but you are a talented swimmer and you can’t carry fear like that around with you for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m not ready.” I said firmly, tightening my grip on his legs with mine.

  “We’ll work on that,” he nudged my legs apart, turning to lay over me. I giggled as he dove, planting wet, silly kisses on my neck and chest.

  “Stop! West stop!” I laughed, tossing and turning beneath his tickling mouth.

  “Stop what?” he teased.

  “I- OhmyGod!” I sat up so suddenly, my forehead butted his, making a sickening crack. He narrowed his eyes.

  “What?”

  “My numbers!” Cold fear drained the color from my face as I rubbed my throbbing forehead. “Where are they? What…,”

  West grabbed my arm and turned it over, but it was blank, the same familiar arm I’d seen all of my life. He burst to his feet, reaching for his clothes. “We have to go.”

  “What does this mean? Is Logan… is he…,” My limbs went heavy with grief, my breath catching in my throat. I imagined a life without Logan and my stomach lurched. “Is he still here?”

  “No.” West shoved his feet into his jeans before noticing my panic-stricken face. “Roam, I don’t think he’s dead, I think he traveled through the fountain. He didn’t wait. Goddamnit!”

  I stood up as well, searching for my clothes. “Why would he do that?”

  “Hurry- I’ll buy plane tickets while you get cleaned up.”

  I almost tripped as I ran to the bathroom, fighting with the nozzle in the shower. “What will happen to him?” I cried, nearly unable to stand.

  “I don’t know- which is exactly why I told him to wait,” West growled, tossing items into his bag.

  “West!” The tingling sensation crept down my arm. I fell to my knees in the bathroom, feeling him sweeping me into his arms in seconds. He rushed me back to the bed. “They’re coming back…,”

  “Look at my face,” he ordered, dropping me to the bed and holding me beneath him. “Just focus.”

  I writhed, biting my lip to keep from screaming as I locked his gaze. Fire shot through my arm. I whimpered, holding my breath, watching the pupils of his eyes dilate. In seconds, the pain began to subside. He released me and studied the numbers. “Where?” I gasped, panting.

  “Russia. He traveled- and he came back.”

  West’s cell phone rang. He jumped to his feet and grabbed it from the dresser, flipping it open quickly. “I told you to wait!” Logan must have said something that infuriated him. He looked at me, shaking his head. “No way in hell you’re speaking to her…,”

  “Let me talk to him!” I stormed to him, reaching for the phone. “Now!” He pulled the phone away from his ear and hit speaker before tossing it at the bed. “Logan?”

  “Roam, it’s true, the fountain is a door,” Logan’s voice filled the bedroom. I longed for him, guilt coursing through me. “I spent a day in 1977, but only minutes passed here,” he explained.

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” I asked, watching West’s face. He listened intently but looked ready to break the phone in half in seconds.

  “I’m okay. But Roam, you need to get here with me, now.”

  That was enough for West. He grabbed the phone and snapped it shut. Tears had filled my eyes when Logan was speaking, and now they poured over my cheeks. “He wasn’t finished! He…,”

  “He doesn’t need to tell us what we’re doing. I’ll call him back later. Right now, I want you to get showered and not worry. I’m getting the tickets- we’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll make sure Logan knows he made you go through the numbers unnecessarily.”

  “Don’t make him feel guilty.”

  “We know it’s true then… and it’s 1977,” he murmured, turning to look out the window. The phone was already ringing again; he stepped out the back door to the deck before answering it.

  I showered and put on the thin, yellow dress that I’d brought. As I combed through my tangled hair, West slipped in the bathroom behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. Sighing, I dropped the comb and relaxed in his arms.

  “I’m sorry that I was so angry. If Logan had been killed, you’d be devastated, and I don’t want your love by default.”

  I watched him through the bathroom mirror. My head reached his bare chest, and his arm muscles contracted as he held me. He hadn’t shaved in days, and his dark blonde facial hair was prickly against my neck as he bent to kiss me.

  Turning around to face him, I lifted my eyes. “As much as I will always love Logan, I just don’t… I don’t trust him,” I cringed at the realization. “He has it within him- deep in his soul- to hurt me. It may surface someday. Not knowing if it will… is frightening.”

  “And you trust me,” he added. I nodded, pressing my cheek to his chest.

  “Yes.”

  “Then listen to me, Roam. Whatever Logan tells you, whatever he does to try to make you trust him- don’t. He may tell you terrible things, things that will hurt you and scare you, just to manipulate you. He has already been exposed to the dreams; he already has formed ideas about you and me and what we are.”

  I exhaled quickly. Would he guess that I slept with West? Would he know when he saw me? “I need you to tell me now… about 1977. Tell me everything. I need
to know what I’m walking in to.”

  He searched my eyes, thinking. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. First we eat. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

  Twenty minutes later, in cargo shorts and a printed, white tee-shirt, he was freshly showered and shaved. He met me in the kitchen where I waited, nervously arranging and rearranging the items on the countertops. When I saw him, a wide smile escaped before I had time to appear flirtatious. “You look so cute and…datish.”

  “Datish?” he grinned, kissing me softly. “Please don’t use that word in your application to Yale.” I pushed away the somber thoughts of college, high school, my dad and Morgan. He saw the cloud pass over my expression and sighed. “Let’s go. I’m going to start talking, and I just want you to listen- please- and I’ll answer your questions after,” he squeezed my hand.

  “Yes, Mr. Perry.”

  He gave me a reproving look before beginning.

  “Your mother was from the UK, and her job had something to do with the journalism for the 1957 Nigerian Constitutional Conference. While she was there, you were born two months premature.”

  “1957… only two years after I died in 1955?”

  “Yes- the closest it’s ever been.” He backed out of the driveway, rolling the windows down. Sun poured through the glass, the temperature in the low eighties. “When the numbers appeared, I tracked you to Nigeria. You were back in the UK, and then moved to the US when I finally found you in Atlanta. You were almost twenty years old.”

  The restaurant he chose was minutes from the cottage, in the same plaza as the pizza restaurant the night before. We stepped along a planked boardwalk quietly, hand in hand. I wanted him to keep talking, but I knew he was waiting until we were seated. The waiter showed us to a secluded booth in the back.

  After we ordered two iced teas, he glanced at the menu. “Are you good with steak?”

  “Sure,” I answered, closing my menu. “Please keep going.”

  He nodded, placing our order with the waiter before continuing. “We met on New Year’s Day. You were a young journalist, aspiring to be like your mother. You were covering the opening of a new restaurant called Atlas. I watched you get out of a taxi, and you stepped in a slushy snow-rain puddle just inside the curb. I walked over to ask if I could help, and we ended up having dinner together at Atlas.”

  “I didn’t have the money, or the education, that I do now. You were beautiful- long blonde hair, those green eyes…,”

  “And a happening figure, I know, keep going,” I pushed the ice cubes around in my glass, and he chuckled, seizing my hands.

  “Stop it. You- Julie- couldn’t spell, and her knowledge of history was based on Gone with the Wind.” He tucked my hair over my ear, winking. “But I’ll bet you could tell me at least two historical facts about 1976 in under two minutes.”

  “Well, the death penalty was ruled constitutional… and Jimmy Carter was elected president…and… Star Wars came out in theaters.”

  “Star Wars was 1977, but good job, baby.”

  “So, she was pretty- but stupid.”

  “You were beautiful… and adventurous. You had this wild streak that was… insatiable.” Our meals were served, and I began to push my food around on the plate. “Eat it, Roam. I don’t know the next decent meal we’ll have.”

  I sighed, cutting the steak and taking a bite. “A wild streak? What kinds of things did she- I- do?”

  “You went dancing with me the first night we met, got incredibly drunk, and slept with me.”

  I shook my head disgustedly. “Hussy.”

  He laughed, his shoulders shaking. “No, that’s just what it was back then. You see what you like, you do it. You do what feels good at the time.”

  Do what feels right… the words that he spoke as he made love to me surfaced, and I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat. Just his voice and sitting so close to him… I should be worrying about going to Russia and seeing Logan tomorrow, not imagining West inside of me in the middle of a restaurant.

  “Oh.”

  “The first night, when I touched you, the numbers came while you were drunk. The next morning, I explained everything to you. You didn’t believe at first, but the dreams convinced you. You were pregnant within weeks, and we spent five days planning our wedding in New York.”

  “January 29,” I murmured, remembering my dream.

  “Yes. And that’s all I want to talk about here. I’ll tell you the rest back at the cottage. For now, I want the rest of the evening to be a date. You deserve that. Tell me something about your life that I couldn’t research.”

  I looked skeptical. “Well, I’ve only ever dated Logan, and he knows everything about me. What do you want to know that you don’t know already?”

  “What is your favorite movie?”

  I rolled my eyes at his clichéd question. I knew he was trying, so I indulged him. “Oh, West, that’s a hard one. I love movies. If I had to pick one… It’s a tie between Das Boot and- no, that’s my winner.”

  Amusement tugged at his lips, and before I could say something defensive, he spoke quickly.

  “What’s your favorite song?” he asked, waiting patiently.

  “It’s an old song by a group called The Association. It was my parent’s wedding song.”

  He set his fork down, meeting my eyes. “An old song,” his eyes were wistful, and I realized that, for him, the song probably seemed like only a few years ago.

  “Yes,” I pushed my plate away. “I can’t eat anymore. I’m just not hungry.” He watched me intently. “Everything that has happened in the past few days… I just can’t sit here and act like everything is just… normal.”

  “I’ve been down the road where I wallow in misery and self pity. Wrong path, trust me,” he said, sipping his iced tea. “This may be our last chance to have a normal date. Take advantage of it.”

  I gathered my hair and pulled it over my left shoulder, sitting back against the booth. Considering his words, I thought about where the rest of his story would lead us. I knew I was strangled in 1977; he’d already told me that much. Rolling the straw wrapper in my fingers, I took a deep breath. “You didn’t ask me my favorite book.”

  “We don’t have enough lifetimes for that question, I’m sure,” he teased. Scowling playfully, I tied the wrapper into a knot.

  “My mother gave me a book of fairy tales when I was a baby. The illustrations are haunting and beautiful, and the stories are original, not doctored up by Disney. Some are scary, and some make very little sense… but I feel like as life goes on, I relate to those ones the most.”

  He covered my hand with his own, and I lifted my eyes to his haunting gaze. “Because they are true. Most of them are true.”

  “Your turn,” I brushed the back of my hand against my cheek, chasing away a wayward tear. “Movie, song, book. Go.”

  Smiling, he leaned back, his long legs stretching out to touch mine under the table. “Movie- too many to list. Song- I will tell you another time. And book- Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

  Goaded, I scoffed. “I answered all of your questions, and you’re going to give me answers like those?”

  “They were true answers.”

  The waiter arrived with our bill, and West took care of it. As we walked out of the restaurant, he gripped my hand, pulling me toward him. “Will you tell me the rest now?”

  “At the cottage. After I do what I’ve been thinking about for the past two hours,” he murmured, lowering a kiss to my neck. I blushed, looking around at the crowded plaza.

  “Okay,” I agreed, pinching his fingers in mine. “Drive fast.”

  He laughed at that, opening the car door for me.

  An hour later, we sat by the ocean together. I curled into his protective arms, replaying his touch, the ardor of his lovemaking, only moments before. His hands covered mine, and I traced the lines. I’m falling in love with him.

  “After we got married…,”

  “Please- refer to Julie
as “her.” I’m afraid of how the story ends and this makes it easier.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “When I married Julie, our relationship was difficult. We argued more than I’d ever argued with anyone in my entire existence. She knew that the Alter was close; the numbers had changed again by March, and he was somewhere in Alabama.”

  “Julie was involved with some friends who did drugs- a lot of drugs. She persuaded me to try some new drugs, and the promise of escape- even just for a few hours- was tempting. Finally I gave in.” I could feel the heat radiating from his chest; this was hard for him to talk about, and I was glad we were facing the ocean and that he didn’t have to look at me. “We got high at first, pot only. She was sure it wouldn’t affect the baby. After a while some other drugs made their way into our apartment. I began to depend on them to get through the day. I would spend entire days on the couch, fucked up, unable to process time and glad for it.”

  “I lost my job, and so did she. I stole money and we lived in motel rooms for a while. You had a dream about that,” he commented. I nodded, snuggling closer to him. I couldn’t imagine West that out of control.

  “You- she- was almost four months pregnant. We had a terrible argument. She hit me, and I hit her back. I was so messed up,” the disgust in his voice was evident. “She came back to the hotel room one night, a shaking and bleeding mess. I…,” he stopped talking, holding me so tightly that I squirmed, uncomfortable.

  “What happened?” I asked gently.

  “She had an abortion. She paid some backyard surgeon to abort the baby. She didn’t want anything to do with the prophecy and wanted a divorce.”

  I winced, turning to him. When I met his eyes, I was shocked to find them watery as he looked down at me. “Oh West. I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t answer. Looking out over the ocean, he took a steadying breath. “I took a lot of pills and blacked out. When I woke up, she was dead. Strangled. I still don’t know if it was Troy or the Alter. I imagine it was Troy.”

  Silence roared in my ears over the crashing of the waves. A dog barked in the distance; I pressed my fingers into the sand, playing with a white shell. “That is all so- awful. And then you ran,” I remembered the news piece I’d read at the kitchen counter, in the cold-case article.