Aven's Dream (46 page)

“Aven?” Gen’s voice called nervously from where Tyler had dropped the phone. “Aven, what’s happening?

“Will’s killing him! What do I do?”

Tyler was flat on his back, and Will was … standing with both feet on Tyler’s chest, crouched over him. Like the painting. Like that terrible painting. I froze as Will reached out in a blindingly fast motion and wrenched Tyler’s arm out of its socket. I heard the sickening popping sound, but Tyler’s shriek was barely audible as Will’s weight crushed his chest.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Gen said helplessly.

I shook my head. That wasn’t going to fly. I wasn’t going to watch the person I loved kill someone I didn’t like very much. I refused to let that be the last thing I saw before I died.

“Will!” I shrieked, running toward them.

I stopped short when he looked up, hoping for a brief second that he would be Will again, the Will I loved. Instead, he grinned at me and straightened up, walking quickly—impossibly quickly and gracefully—toward me. When he stopped in front of me, he seemed even taller as he stared down at me. I felt his finger under my chin, lifting it.

“Will …” I whispered pleadingly.

Even knowing I was going to die, I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single second with him. I couldn’t. But looking into his eyes, I recognized the madness there. It was unmistakable. His other hand gripped mine, his fingers biting into the gashes on my palm. He smiled again as his grip on my wrist tightened. I heard the bone snapping before I felt it. Crying out, I tried to pull away.

“Yes!” Will growled, closing his eyes. “It’s so much better when you scream.”

“Will!” James’s voice erupted from the phone. “I … don’t … care if you are out of your mind. If you harm her, I
will
put you in a box at the bottom of the Pacific next to Fidatov.”

I could feel the energy leaking out of me as my legs buckled. Will released my wrist, letting me fall to the ground like a ragdoll before looming over me, a terrible glint in his slate-gray eyes.

“How much longer?” James growled at someone. “
Dammit
!”

Every part of me was becoming numb. I had heard this was what it was like to freeze to death … just like going to sleep. Then Will pressed on my wrist, and a spike of pain flooded me. I screamed, but it came out more like a weak gust of air.

“Aven?” James’s voice said from somewhere far away. “We may not make it in time.”

“My dad,” I gasped. “Tell him I love him. Please.”

“I promise,” James said forcefully.

“And Will,” I whispered.

There was only silence in response as I felt the numbness swallowing me. With my good hand, I reached under the neckline of my dress and felt the ring Will had given me. I tugged until the chain snapped. Then I held it up to him. He flinched as I pressed it against his chest, and then my arm dropped and I heard the ring fall to the floor.

“Will …”

Looking into his eyes, I could only feel a strange sort of relief for whatever time I had left with him. I wanted to tell him that it would be all right, but the words wouldn’t pass my lips. With everything I had left in me, I thought of all the moments with Will, the feeling when his bright blue eyes seared into mine, the way his skin felt against my fingers, the feel of his lips on mine, the way it felt when he said
I love you
. Closing my eyes, I forced all the energy outward, smiling as I imagined Will’s eyes, vivid and blue.

“Aven?”

It was Will’s voice, but I was too tired. All I wanted to do was sleep. Then a tortured howl of pain jolted me awake, and I heard James’s voice from far away.

“If you don’t get her out of there in the next ninety seconds, it will be her ashes you’re weeping over—and I won’t feel an ounce of pity for you.”

Suddenly I felt arms beneath me, lifting me. Forcing my eyes open, I looked up at Will as he lowered me into something. Cold metal pressed against the thin material of my dress. Fear flooded through me, and I thought only one thing:
No one else should pay for my choices
.

“Tyler,” I whispered.

Will disappeared, and a second later he reappeared with Tyler Pitt in a fireman’s carry. He lowered Tyler’s limp body next to mine, and then suddenly Will was over me and I heard the sound of stone grating against stone until all light was blocked out.

“Aven, I love you.”

In the darkness, I smiled at Will’s voice. Then I let myself drift to sleep. I frowned when a muffled crash of thunder shook me into a reluctant state of consciousness. My eyelids were impossibly heavy when I opened them in the blackness.

Am I dead
? I wondered.

Was this what death was? An eternity of blackness?

Then my lungs seized, begging for air. I tried to breathe in, but there was nothing to breathe. Again I heard the sound of stone against stone, and suddenly there was light streaming down on me—moonlight. Arms slid under me, lifting me from the cold surface.

“If you so much as touch her, I will put you back in that box and solder it shut,” a familiar voice hissed.

“
James
!” Gen’s voice chided.

“I will,” he snapped. “He nearly killed her, if he hasn’t already.”

I tried to open my eyes again, but I was just too tired.

“She won’t last much longer,” Gen said. “Set her down.”

I felt cold ground beneath me as large hands gripped each of mine. A jolt of energy surged through me, and with it came pain. Horrible, writhing pain. I screamed.

“Again! She’s going into shock—I can feel it,” Gen whispered.

My stomach heaved, and someone rolled me to the side right before I threw up. Then hands covered mine, jolting me again. Feeling jittery, cold, and sick, I opened my eyes as someone picked me up, cradling me in both arms. Then I felt myself being lowered into a seat. A seatbelt clicked into place. When my head rolled to the side, I saw James’s profile.

He reached over and touched my cheek.

Then I closed my eyes.

I
blinked, slowly focusing on my surroundings. Blue curtains. Beeping. The hospital.

“No …” I whispered.

Not the hospital again. My poor dad would freak, I thought groggily.

Wait—
my dad
!

“
Dad
!” I gasped, trying to sit up.

The second I moved I felt a jolt of sharp pain along my arm and both my hands stung like they were on fire. I looked down and saw a cast on my wrist. Then suddenly someone’s hand touched my shoulder. I looked over and saw James staring down at me.

“I’m sorry, Aven. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t …” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter—I’ve made sure this will never affect you again.” Before I could ask what he was talking about, he began to leave. “I’ll bring your father,” he said over his shoulder.

He disappeared, and a few seconds later I heard a door open.

“Aven? Sweetie?”

When my dad stopped at the side of the bed and put his hand gently on my cheek, I winced at the sight of him. It was like he had aged since the last time I had seen him—and I knew it was my fault. His dark hair was rumpled, like he had pulling at it.

“Dad, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Aven! How can you be asking me that from a hospital bed?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I swear, you’re so much like your mother … and I nearly … I nearly lost—”

When my dad broke down, throwing a hand over his eyes to shield his face, I started crying, too. Seeing him like this hurt more than anything else.

“Dad, I’m okay,” I whispered, reaching out to comfort him despite the flames licking at my hand.

I winced again when the needle in my arm pinched me. My dad looked up and shook his head, his eyes red-rimmed and tortured. Seeing so much pain in his face made it feel like someone had punched me in the gut.

“Aven, honey. I should have been so much more present in your life. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief … I should have questioned things more when that boy showed up in your life. I’m so sorry. I really messed up.”

I shook my head, frowning.

“Dad, you’ve totally lost me. What are you talking about?”

“William Kincaid is with the Marshals Service.”

I frowned, wondering how my dad could joke about something like that when he thought Will was dead. Then I laughed, not able to help myself. Soon I couldn’t stop. I was less likely to believe what my dad had just said than anything else. I would have been more inclined to believe that Will was a leprechaun. When I recovered, I frowned at my dad.

“Do they have me on some
really
heavy painkillers, or did you just say that Will
is
with the
Marshals Service
. Dad … I
saw
Will get blown up with my own eyes—and I know he wasn’t a Federal Marshal.”

“Do you remember what happened Saturday night?”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Hold on. What day is it
now
?”

“Monday afternoon. You’ve been unconscious for nearly two days.”

I bit my lip, trying to keep it together.

“I remember being at the dance with Gen.” I stopped and looked at my dad. “You’re not going to tell me she’s Marshals Service, too, are you?”

When my dad pressed his lips together, I started shaking. Not because of what he had just told me, but because I was suddenly sure that I had gone completely—totally and completely—nuts. Then, with another painful jolt of adrenaline, I saw a flash of Tyler Pitt in the house on Kincaid.

“Oh my god! Tyler!” I gasped.

“
Tyler Pitt
?” my dad asked, clearly stunned by outburst.

“He was with me! Is he still alive?”

A monitor to my left starting going crazy, and a man in mint-green scrubs walked in.

“Sir? I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

My chest started heaving, air coming in sporadic gasps as I scrambled to separate fiction from reality and what I knew for fact from what might have been my imagination. Turning, I watched as the man took a syringe and injected something into my IV. Then my vision blurred. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Gen sitting in a chair next to my hospital bed.

“So what are the lies, and what’s the truth?” I mumbled. “Because you’re not Federal Marshals—unless I hallucinated everything from the time I first saw Will.”

Gen sighed.

“It was James’s doing … and believe me, the paper trail will be immaculate. No one, not even the Marshals Service, will know that we aren’t vetted Marshals.”

I had no doubts they had the resources and connections to pull off something like this, but it didn’t answer one question.

“
Why
?”

“Because there had to be a reason for us bringing an unconscious, badly injured teenage girl in prom attire into the ER in the middle of the night—unless we were simply to have left you here before disappearing by the next morning.”

She made it all sound so simple.
Pretend to be Federal Marshals—hey, why not
? But it wasn’t that simple—it changed everything.

“So … my dad knows Will is still alive, and he thinks Will is
what
?”

“To your father, Will is a twenty-four-year-old Marshal on a taskforce tracking a dangerous fugitive responsible for human trafficking and several unsolved murders. Your father believes Will survived the explosion at the restaurant and has been in hiding ever since. And he believes that we used you as bait in our investigation, prompting Vladimir Fidatov to snatch you from the dance and nearly killing you.”

“
Bait
? Then, my dad hates all of you … and he thinks Will is … a monster. Oh my god. Why would James do that?”

But I already knew the answer to my question. He had done it to protect me. From Will. From all of this. I shook my head, feeling my wrist ache through the layers of painkillers.

“Will?” I whispered. “Is he okay?”

Gen’s copper-colored eyes hardened.

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he is no longer out of his mind, and we have you to thank for that even if it nearly killed you—”

“He’s better, then?” I interrupted with a shred of hope.

“Aven, he remembers everything from that night. He remembers torturing you and nearly killing you—”

I looked down. Then my heart raced—no one had told me what happened to Tyler Pitt.

“Tyler!”

“In a rehab center in Northern California,” Gen said dismissively.

“I don’t get it, though. Why did Fidatov take
him
?”

Gen shrugged.

“He was watching you, following you. There
may
have been some reason for taking that unctuous boy. Now we may never know.”

I swallowed, trying to make sense of my memories from that night.

“What happened? I mean, I remember some of it, but the end is a blur.”

I looked down at my wrist, wincing as I remembered hearing the sound of the bone breaking in Will’s grip.

“At the last possible moment, Will pulled you and Tyler Pitt into the sarcophagus, which Fidatov had reinforced with solid steel. When the explosives detonated, the explosion degraded the house’s integrity enough that we were able to get inside and extract you. We stabilized you. Then we brought you to the hospital. Edmond took Tyler Pitt to a facility in California that wouldn’t ask questions. One of us has been here ever since to make sure that the danger is, in fact, over.”

“And my dad’s okay with you guys being here after everything you told him?”

Gen nodded carefully.

“More or less. He knows that you need protection.”

“What about Vladimir Fidatov and Grace?”

“Gone.”

“What do you mean
gone
?”

“Even if he didn’t reach his original goal—”

I shivered.

“Which was what? To have
Will
kill me?”

She nodded.

“I imagine it was the worst revenge Fidatov could think of in Will’s case, but it’s likely he achieved the next best outcome in his mind.”

“You mean my dad hating Will, and Will hating himself,” I said numbly. “Well,
that
is James’s fault.”

“He did it for your own good, Aven.”

“Ha! Every time people say something’s
for your own good
, they mean it’s for their own good—or they’re just trying to control your life to make themselves feel better,” I fumed.

Gen reached over and touched something behind me, and a few seconds later, I could barely keep my eyes open.

“Will,” I mumbled desperately. “I need to see Will.”

“Sleep,” Gen said softly, touching my hand.

***

My dreams remained dark. I would hear Fidatov’s voice echoing in the darkness … or see the smile on Will’s lips as he snapped my wrist … or watch as he crouched over Tyler Pitt like the incubus from
The Nightmare
.

In the days before I was released from the hospital, Gen and Edmond appeared in my room to coach me on what I was supposed to tell Sean or anyone else who asked what had happened on the night of the dance: a hit-and-run accident in front of the hotel.

To anyone but my dad, Will Kincaid would remain dead. And to my dad, Will had become the enemy—a young federal agent who had crossed the boundaries of decorum and duty and gotten too close to his teenage daughter. My dad reluctantly accepted James, Edmond, and Gen as semi-permanent fixtures in my life for the near future, but seeing—or speaking of—Will was off limits, something my dad and James had agreed upon.

On Thursday afternoon, I was sitting on my bed at home when the doorbell rang and my dad opened the front door. I heard Sean’s voice, and a minute later someone knocked at my door.

“Come in,” I said, watching as the door swung open.

Sean hesitated in the doorway with a miserable expression. I could feel his guilt from across the room.

“Hey,” he said as Darcy trotted over to him.

“Hey.”

He bent over to pat Darcy on the head.

“So, uh … I have all your assignments from the week, and I think your dad talked to your teachers.”

“Thanks.”

Looking at him, I felt a wave of relief that Vladimir Fidatov had taken Tyler Pitt instead of Sean. Everything could have been so much worse, and I was lucky things had turned out the way they did. At least that was what I kept telling myself over and over.

“Sean! I’m not going to bite,” I said in exasperation.

He dragged my desk chair across the room and sat down at the side of my bed, reaching out to pick at a loose thread on my comforter cover.

“Aven, damn. I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t been such a dumbass, then you never would have left the dance, and—”

“Sean! It’s not your fault that I ran out in front of a freaking car.”

“Yeah, but I should have come after you.”

“It was a bad night, no doubt, but worse has happened to me. This is nothing.”

“Really? It looks like a broken wrist.”

“Sean, don’t be a smart ass,” I smiled crookedly. “How was the rest of the dance?”

“Well, let’s see. Scott Adams got wasted, hurled in the hotel lobby, and got suspended for a week.”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“Serious?”

“Yeah,” Sean laughed.

“And … After you took off, Megan ditched Jeff and hooked up with some random guy.”

“What a surprise,” I said sarcastically.

“Oh, and that friend of Will’s—James—was with some freaky chick. One dance and then they disappeared, too—probably to hook up. Later on, we heard all these sirens, and someone said a big old abandoned house on the hill caught fire and burned to the ground. The rumor going around is that it was arson … like the restaurant.” He looked down. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a jerk about … you know.”

I nodded.

“It’s okay,” I said.

“Are you coming back to school on Monday?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“So, Lizzie and Amy wanted to know if it was okay yet to come over.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, definitely.”

My dad appeared in the doorway.

“All right, Sean. Time’s up. Aven needs to get some rest.”

“
Dad
! Seriously?”

“It’s okay,” Sean said. “I should get going.”

“Thanks for bringing Aven’s homework, and say hello to your parents for me,” my dad said as he walked Sean out.