The earth shook as one tree after the other fell. Sparks danced all around them until the burning fireflies surrounded them. The air surged and rolled, rubbing her skin raw.
She cradled Dylan’s face closer against her as she tried not to think about the possibility of losing him. When Mike came up against a dead end and turned back to her, his eyes were bloodshot, his face florid, and sweat and ashes coated him.
He rested his hand on her elbow as he turned her around to head back the way they’d come, or at least she believed they were backtracking. She couldn’t tell one direction from the other anymore.
“Mom,” Dylan whimpered.
She had to get him out of here!
A branch landed two feet in front of her, pushing her back. Mike pulled her away from the limb, and they turned to face more fire.
Jack. His name was a sob of loss in her head.
“I am not going to let Jack, you, your son, or my mate die because I do!” Mike shouted as he drew her closer. “I will get us out of this!”
Charlie tried to find some reassurance in his words, but it was impossible when walls of fire surrounded them. She had no idea which way led to the cliffs anymore. For all she knew, they were heading further inland. If they weren’t out of here soon, it would only be a matter of time before the fire completely took over and roasted them.
Then, through the flames, she saw a figure emerging. Charlie bit her lip when she recognized the graceful flow of the body coming toward them. No!
She opened her mouth to scream at Jack to go back, but he was too deep into the fire to turn back now. The ominous groan of another tree collapsing filled the air. Charlie looked frantically around to discover it coming down in front of Jack—or was it on top of him?
“Jack!” she screamed though her smoke-choked voice was barely more than a whisper.
Sparks and flames shot outward when the tree slammed into the ground, blocking Jack from view. “No!” Charlie lunged forward, but Mike held her back.
Dylan whimpered and buried himself closer against her as another tree hit the ground fifteen feet to the right of them. Charlie’s heart remained lodged in her throat while she gazed at the place where Jack had been.
Please don’t leave me, she pleaded.
“Mom?” Dylan croaked in her ear.
“It’s okay, baby,” she lied, but she didn’t know what else to say to him.
And then, from around the fallen tree, Jack emerged. Charlie staggered toward him and nearly went down, but he caught her and held her up. She threw her arm around him, crushing Dylan between them as she hugged him.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she croaked.
“There’s no place I’d rather be,” Jack said as he ran his hand over her sweat-soaked hair before ruffling Dylan’s hair.
“Liar,” she said.
He kissed her temple before stepping back and yanking his shirt off. Her eyes widened on the bullet hole in his shoulder. “Who shot you?” she demanded.
“I ran across a couple of hunters.”
She rested her fingers against his shoulder. The wound no longer bled, but it looked sore and raw.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Let me have Dylan.”
Charlie didn’t want to give up her son, but even with a bullet in him, Jack looked a lot stronger than she felt. She clamped her mouth closed and switched Dylan into Jack’s arms.
Jack refused to acknowledge the weakness in the boy’s body as he draped his shirt over Dylan’s head. “Can you keep this on?” Jack asked him.
Dylan’s chapped lips quivered as he replied, “Yes.”
“Good,” Jack said, “because we have no choice but to go through the fire.”
“Which way are we going?” Mike asked.
“That way,” Jack said, pointing to their left.
Charlie would have sworn going to the right was the way out of here, but she couldn’t be more lost if someone stuck her in the center of a labyrinth, blindfolded her, and told her to find her way out.
“Stay close to me,” Jack commanded.
“I will,” Charlie said.
“I’ll make sure she gets through it,” Mike assured him.
“Let’s go,” Jack said.
She recoiled at the idea of plunging into those flames, but there was no other choice. Fire licked at her flesh and clothes as she followed Jack into the inferno.
Chapter Forty-Two
The fire snapped at Jack’s sides as he held Dylan against him, but he moved so fast the flames didn’t catch on him. Overhead, the fire rolled like a cresting wave. He knew the blaze wasn’t a living, breathing thing, but he couldn’t help feeling it was as it pulsed around him like a heart pumping blood.
Blisters puckered his exposed flesh as sweat poured from him. His shirt and body kept Dylan protected from the worst of it, but the oppressive heat of the fire was sapping the boy’s energy, and some of the flames were getting through. Dylan whimpered, but he didn’t protest as he clung to Jack.
The trust Dylan put in him to get him through this and the frailty of his small body caused love to swell in Jack’s chest. Only a child, there was still so much of Dylan’s life left to live, and Jack would make sure his son got to experience it all.
Plunging straight ahead, Jack hoped he was going the right way as he ran. He’d been sure of the direction when he started into the fire, but it was impossible to tell now that a wall of flames surrounded him.
Before coming in here for Charlie, he told the others to return to the boats. Now he wished he’d let Brian come with him. Brian could have found his way out of this mess, but Jack refused Brian’s help. He couldn’t risk something happening to Brian and, therefore, Abby. He would die for Charlie and Dylan, but he couldn’t have others dying for him.
Then, through the flames, he glimpsed the colors of a sunset sky before the fire rolled over to block it out. Pouring on the speed, Jack reached back and squeezed Charlie’s hand before releasing it. Mike stayed close on his heels as Jack raced for the sky.
They were so close to freedom; it was right there…
Breaking free of the fire, relief flooded Jack as cool air caressed his burnt skin and entered his tortured lungs. Dylan’s breath panted heavily in and out against Jack’s neck. And then the wind buffeted him as they fell.
Jack’s relief vanished when he realized they’d run out of the fire and straight off a cliff. He pressed Dylan’s head into his shoulder as he shouted over the wind. Beneath him, he glimpsed the rolling waves of the ocean.
“No matter what, keep your head down and hold on to me!” Jack shouted at Dylan.
Charlie’s scream caught in her singed throat as her burnt hair whipped against her face and her tattered clothes buffeted her. Plumes of white sprayed the air as waves crashed against the cliffs with a roaring echo that rivaled the cacophony of the fire.
They weren’t as high up as they’d been the last time they’d gone over the cliffs. The impact with the ocean wouldn’t hurt as bad, but she hated the frothing waves beneath her.
Dylan! Below her, and a little in front, she watched Jack and her son fall. Jack had run further out over the edge than her; he was a good ten feet ahead of her and a few feet below. A scream lodged in her throat when he hit the water and the ocean swallowed him like a shark enclosing its jaws around a seal.
Charlie had less than a second to panic before the impact of the icy water knocked the air from her lungs and pummeled her raw skin. As bubbles of air burst from her lips, she waved her arms and kicked her legs to propel herself toward the surface, but a wave rolled over her and spun her away.
When the wave finally released her, she didn’t know which way was up and which was down as water churned around her. She figured out which way to go when another wave caught her and propelled her backward. She fought against it, but her vampire strength was no match for the power of the sea, and the wave smashed her against the cliffs.
An involuntary cry tore from her when the blow cracked
one of her ribs, but that rib was the least of her troubles as water flooded her mouth. Charlie tried to spit it out, but it was too late; the ocean would not be denied.
Water clogged her windpipe until she couldn’t take it anymore and inhaled. A vise squeezed her chest as her lungs protested the entrance of anything other than the oxygen they craved. She heaved as she tried to expel the water, but all she got was more water inside her. It felt like someone was piercing her lungs with foot-long needles.
You won’t die. You won’t die.
The words became a mantra in her head as she tried to control her terror. However, as the blackness of the ocean swirled around her and the waves continued to roll over her, her panic started to spiral out of control. She may not die, but she would suffer, and if she didn’t get out of here, she would drown for an eternity.
The only thing that kept her from completely losing her mind was knowing Dylan was with Jack. Jack wouldn’t let go of him; he would keep him safe and get him out of this.
She kicked against the water, or at least she thought she did. Were her legs moving? She had no idea anymore.
Looking down, or maybe she was looking up at her legs, she willed them to kick, but they flapped uselessly in the water as another wave lifted her and spun her around. Maybe she wouldn’t die, but she’d lost control of her body.
Light burst before her eyes as neurons misfired in her brain. The light grew until she was standing before the sun with her palms out to absorb the warmth she craved. Feeling like a plant, she lifted her face to the sun, but no matter how much of her body she exposed to its heat, ice continued to creep through her veins. That ice encased all her extremities until they were nothing more than concrete blocks dragging her down.
Then reality returned as she found herself back beneath the rolling waves. The light was gone, but the pain and cold remained. Hallucinating. I’m hallucinating.
She still had enough of her senses left to realize that even with the water in her lungs, her body was healing, dying, and healing itself again. As the realization came, the bursts of light returned as she started dying once more.
Jack! His name was a cry of hope in her head. He had to get Dylan out of here, get him to safety, and make sure he stayed alive before he came back for her. But what if he couldn’t find her?
She had no idea where she was anymore or what was happening to her as she found herself standing at the gates of Heaven. But would they open? Would they let her in? Would she be deemed worthy now that she was an immortal? She’d killed. They may have been Savages she took down, but she stole their lives from them.
Then the gates started cracking open, and the light grew brighter until she had to turn away before her eyes burned out of her head.
No one looks on the face of God.
She almost laughed at the crazy thought, but laughter would have allowed more water in, and as the light faded away, her knowledge of what was happening to her returned. She was healing again.
Had it been a hallucination, or had she really been standing at the gates of Heaven? Was she about to be judged when her healing ability saved her from death and possible damnation?
She’d never know the answer, and as another wave battered her against the cliffs, she realized death and damnation were better than an eternity of drowning beneath the ocean waves.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Charlie! Mike!” Jack shouted while he spun to search the tumultuous sea. The waves crashing around him and the water spraying his face made seeing anything almost impossible, but he didn’t hear any shouts from either of them. “Charlie! Mike!”
“Charlie!” he blasted her name into her mind, but though he could still feel her, he received no response.
Dylan lifted his head from Jack’s shoulder and pulled the shirt off before dropping his head again. When the waves caught the shirt and pulled it away from them, Jack couldn’t tear his eyes from it until it vanished. These waves could have taken Charlie and Mike anywhere.
“Where’s my mom?” Dylan murmured.
“I don’t know,” Jack said as he ran his hand reassuringly over Dylan’s back.
“We have to… we have… to… find… her,” Dylan stammered out between his chattering teeth.
Jack rubbed his back faster to put some heat back in Dylan’s cold body. He had to get the boy to land so he could ascertain the extent of his injuries and warm him up, but he couldn’t leave Charlie behind.
Then her words drifted back through his mind. “You have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” he’d said.
“If it ever comes between Dylan and me, you will pick Dylan and protect him no matter what.”
Everything in Jack rebelled against the idea of leaving his mate out here. If he could find Mike, he could give him Dylan, but he’d promised to choose Dylan over her. To do what she asked of him, Jack had to abandon his mate to a horrific fate.
He was meant to share his life with Charlie. She was the woman he loved more than he’d ever loved another, and she was his future. If he left her out here, he could lose her forever. Maybe drowning wouldn’t kill her, but he had no idea where she’d end up if the sea swept her away. And then there was the possibility something within the sea might kill her, or she would get caught up on something and trapped beneath the water forever.
If she survived and washed up on shore tomorrow, or a month from now, leaving her here would be condemning her to an excruciating existence for that amount of time. The idea of allowing his mate to endure such torture caused his fangs to lengthen. His hands tightened on Dylan when his teeth chattered in Jack’s ear.
He had to get Dylan out of here.
Another wave rolled in, shoving them toward the cliffs. Jack kicked against the current to keep away from the lethal rocks and spotted a head bobbing in the water fifty feet away from him.
“Mike!” he bellowed. “Are you okay?”
“Yes!” Mike shouted back.
“Do you see Charlie? I can’t find her!” He heard the frantic edge in his tone.
Mike twisted in the water as he searched the waves before turning to look helplessly back at Jack. “No!”
“Mom,” Dylan moaned.
Jack squinted against the blinding light the setting sun cast across the cresting waves. “I have to get you to shore,” Jack said to Dylan through his gritted teeth.
“No,” Dylan whimpered, and a shiver racked his tiny body. “Wait a minute more. We can’t leave her out here.”
Jack couldn’t argue with him when he wanted one more minute too.
And then, near the cliffs, he spotted what looked like a hand breaking the surface.
“There!” he shouted, but whatever he’d seen was already gone. “Hold on to me, Dylan.”
The boy clung to his shoulders as his legs remained locked around Jack’s waist. Jack kept one arm around Dylan’s waist while he used the other to propel him toward the cliffs. He saw a flash of something else, but it vanished too fast for him to tell what it was.
“Hold your breath,” he said to Dylan. “And if you have to return to the surface for any reason, pinch me.”
“I will.”
Dylan took a deep breath before Jack dove beneath the waves. This close to the cliffs, the current was tougher to fight as it sucked at him and attempted to batter them against the rocks. Holding on to Dylan made things harder, but Jack resisted the pull of the ocean as he searched the gloomy depths for Charlie. All he saw was the bubbles of the water as it churned toward the cliffs.
He could stay under longer, and Dylan hadn’t pinched him yet, but he suspected Dylan would wait until the last second and then it might be too late. Jack’s instincts screamed at him to find his mate, but he had to keep Dylan safe.
He propelled them back to the surface and burst free of the sea as the sun vanished behind the horizon. When Dylan’s wheezing breath sounded in his ears, Jack knew he’d made the right choice.
“I didn’t… pinch you!” Dylan prot
ested as he coughed out mouthfuls of water.
“I needed to come back up,” Jack lied.
“Go back under.”
Jack almost chuckled at Dylan’s commanding tone; it was so like his mother’s. “Get some more air.”
Dylan frowned at him, but his blue-tinted lips trembled, and the blue veins in his face were visible beneath his pale skin. The stubborn look in his eyes said that if Jack didn’t call an end to the search, Dylan would stay and search for his mom until hypothermia took him over.
“We’ll go under once more, and then we’re heading for shore,” Jack told him.
“But—”
“No buts. I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you, and if we stay out here, you will die. Your mother won’t die. Drowning can’t kill a vampire, but when she gets out of this, she’ll kill me if something happens to you. We’ll go under once more, and then we’re done.”
“She won’t die.” Dylan repeated the words a few more times as if he were trying to convince himself of them.
Before Jack went under again, he spotted Mike coming toward them on a cresting wave. “I think she’s near the cliffs!” Jack yelled at him.
Mike dove beneath the water
“Go back under,” Dylan ordered again.
“Hold your breath,” Jack said.
Dylan took a deep breath and gave Jack a small nod before he plunged under the water. A wave crashed over them, threatening to roll them, but he managed to keep himself upright as the tide pushed them closer to the cliffs. With the sun down, the water was murkier, but he made out the shapes of rocks as fish darted by him.
Then he spotted something floating near the rocks, but he couldn’t make out what it was. If it wasn’t Charlie, he would be going too close to the boulders with Dylan and risking his life for nothing. He hovered in the water, uncertain what to do, and then Dylan pointed a finger toward the rocks.
Trying to drag herself to the surface, Charlie clawed uselessly at the water as her hallucinations ebbed away and she was once again free to absorb the agony of her repeated drowning. She was beginning to make out the rocks around her when something sliced through the water toward her.
Unforeseen: The Vampire Awakenings, Book 9 Page 25
