Awaken (Divine Hunter Series) (24 page)

* * *

“I
’ll take a seat out here in the hall.” Alethia said softly.

Lacy nodded her head as she reached down for the door handle and walked quietly into the hospital room. Nina’s head shifted around from her gaze out of the window. Her mouth turned up into a light smile as she looked at Lacy. “Miss Holloway?” Her voice was hoarse.

Lacy smiled at her. “Hi. Please. . . it’s Lacy.”

The head of her bed was raised so that she was nearly in a sitting position propped up on a bulk of pillows. She looked weak and her skin was pale which only accentuated the dark shadows under her eyes. But she was awake and the doctors had said that she was responding
well, which was all Lacy needed to hear.

“I brought you some things.” Lacy said as she held up a sports bag that she’d filled with toiletries and some clean night clothes. “How are you feeling?” She walked over to the large chair beside the bed, eyeing the uneaten food on a tray across the other side before sitting down.

“Thanks. Strange.” Nina said. “I can’t really remember much of what happened. It’s all fuzzy.”

“That’s understandable.”

Nina looked down at her hands as she picked at her nails. “I remember thinking I was dying, but I wasn’t scared. All I could hear were echoes of distant voices all around me and then they began to fade and I could no longer feel my body. I just felt relief. It was like something was telling me that I was going to see my boyfriend, Danny, again and that’s all I was waiting for.

“Then everything went dark and all I remember after that is waking up feeling really groggy in this room.” She closed her eyes and frowned. It was hard to ignore the sorrow in her voice.
The poor girl had been through hell and back.
“The nurses say that you stayed with me.”

Lacy nodded. “I couldn’t let you go through this alone.”

“Thank you,” Nina said, trying her best to smile.

Lacy reached over and placed her hand over Nina’s. “You don’t have to thank me, Nina. You just get yourself better.”

Noticing the sorrow on Nina’s face, Lacy wondered if she should leave her to rest. After all, she hadn’t been conscious that long and the whole situation must be quite overwhelming to say the least. She was just about to say her goodbyes when Nina spoke.

“What do I do now?” she asked in a low whisper. “I have no one left.” Her eyes began to glisten before she turned her head away.

Lacy thought back to when she’d first arrived in America. Being from a little place in England, and never venturing much further than the end of her street, everything had been so different. She hardly really knew her grandparents and didn’t really fit in well at high school, so
alone
was a very familiar feeling for her. After her grandparents died, she had no choice but to deal with the way things were, and she did. But even though she was around people every day at work, there was always a void in her life she could never seem to fill.

Lacy noticed a small box of Kleenex on the cupboard beside her. “Hey,” she
said, taking one from the box and handing it to Nina. “I promise that you won’t be alone.” And somehow, she would make sure of it.

Lacy felt the vibration of her cell phone in her pocket. When she looked at the screen her heart skipped. She read the text message from Michael:

At yours. Where are you? Need to talk.

She quickly typed back:

With Alethia at hospital. Nina doing well x

K. Pick u u
p in 20 mins outside main doors,
he replied.

It wasn’t totally unexpected to hear from him. They’d hardly said two words to each other before Michael had left earlier. But it was the ominous “
Need to talk”
part that unnerved her.

Everything
okay?
she asked.

Yes. See
u then.

She put the cell back in her pocket. Everything wasn’t okay. She knew they would have to talk about what happened
earlier, but for some reason she had a feeling it was more than that.

She said her goodbyes to Nina, promising
to visit again tomorrow evening. She explained to Alethia that Michael was coming to pick her up, and that she could take her car, and then made her way down to the lobby.

T
he ride home from the hospital was a quiet one. Lacy felt a distinct tension in the air and was growing more and more anxious by the minute about what would become of her and Michael’s impending
talk
. Many times she’d gone to say something, but couldn’t seem to find her voice. After Michael had asked her about Nina, and she’d told him what the doctors had said, he’d shut down and neither of them said another word until they pulled up outside her house.

“I’ve told Alethia that I’ll text her when I leave. She’ll stay with you tonight,” Michael said, his voice so void of emotion that Lacy found it hard to even answer him.

“It’s good of her to help us.”

Michael remained silent as they approached the house. She couldn’t bear it much longer. Never before had she felt so nervous over a coming break up. Not that she could call it that. One proper passionate kiss was all they’d shared−hardly relationship of the century−but she knew she would pine after him once he’d
finalized things, nonetheless. Damn, her emotions had been all over the place the last few weeks. She was a mess.

Lacy removed her coat and scarf and hung them on the hook in the hall. Michael left his jacket on and went straight to the sofa in the front room and sat down. He clearly wasn’t planning on staying long and that was probably for the best. She just wished he’d speak and get it over with.

She couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Can I get you coffee?” Jeez, her voice was trembling. What the hell was the matter with her?

Michael didn’t look at her. “No. Thanks.” He scrubbed the short stubble on his chin anxiously and then glanced up at her. “Would you sit? Please.” He motioned to the
chair, clearly not wanting to be too close to her. Lacy did as he asked, pushing her hands between her knees.

“About what happened earlier, I’m sorry for my
behavior. That should never have happened.” His eyes found hers, full of sorrow, guilt, confusion? It was hard to read him. Just as Lacy was about to speak, he continued. “Unfortunately, I let my emotions get the better of me and I shouldn’t have. I’m finding things a little hard to deal with and had a moment of weakness. It won’t be happening again.” It was said so matter-of-factly, it actually made her feel a little annoyed. His face was serious, eyes narrowed as he looked at her, obviously waiting for some kind of reaction from her.

A moment of weakness? Well. . . he was going to get a reaction all right. She was sick and tired of the emotional
roller coaster they were both on. She didn’t appreciate the way he’d made her feel in the car on the way home and even though he’d said the reason they couldn’t be together was to protect her, she couldn’t help thinking it was bullshit. If he didn’t want her, then he just had to man up and tell her.

“You’re right,” she thundered as she got up from the chair and began to pace up and down in front of him. His eyes widened at her sudden outburst. “It won’t be happening again. I’ve had enough of you playing with my emotions. It’s not fair. You tell me you want to be with me but nothing can happen between us. I try to deal with that. Then I wake up with you kissing me and you tell me it was a mistake because you were dreaming, which also tells me how much you want this if you’re dreaming about it. Again, I try and deal with it. Then you kiss me the way you did this afternoon.”
She stopped to face him, her voice lowered to nearly a whisper. “Just. . . stop using me as an excuse.”

She lowered her head and let out an exasperated sigh. It was hard to feel the way she did about him knowing that she wouldn’t be able to have any more.
Why did she let herself fall for this man? She couldn’t bring herself to look at him and kept her gaze to the floor.

It was a few minutes before either of them spoke and then. . .

“It was me.” was all Michael said.

She looked at him, confused. “What?”

He scrubbed his hand through his hair and met her gaze. “The boy who helped you in high school. The one who got beaten up and put in hospital? That was me.”

Whoa
!
So that’s what a ton of bricks landing on your chest felt like. She froze, breath caught, mouth wide open as she repeated his words over in her mind to make sure she’d heard them right.

“What?” she whispered so quietly that
she barely even heard it. She walked over to the sofa in a daze and sat down next to him. They looked at each other without speaking. She couldn’t seem to find her voice or her brain was refusing to function or something. Finally, she managed to force out some words. “You? How. . . ”−she swallowed hard−“how can that be?”

Michael shifted his body so that their knees
were nearly touching. “I was brought up by foster parents in Lawrence County.”

“I can’t believe it,” she gasped. “Jack? That was really you?”

She watched as he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet. He opened it and slid a crumpled picture out from one of the pockets inside, looked at it for a second and then passed it to her.

Oh, God.
A handsome face stared back at her. Dark brown/black hair styled neatly to one side, blue eyes framed with thick dark brows, a strong jaw. . . It was Jack Pearson, just as she remembered him only older. “This was really you?”

He nodded and closed his eyes.

She felt deep sorrow as she looked back at the photo. It was hard to imagine his situation. Having not only your whole life, but your body being suddenly ripped away from you was inconceivable. After she’d processed the news, she thought back to the day he’d saved her. “I thought about you a lot after what you did for me. I hated the fact that I couldn’t say thank you. Your parents−”

“They weren’t my parents, not really. I’m sorry for what they said to you. I never knew you came. They never told me.”

Lacy knew she shouldn’t do what she was about to, but was past caring and did it anyway. She leaned across and softly kissed his cheek. “Thank you for what you did,” she said, quickly resuming her position.

Michael’s eyes widened and for a second he looked tense. After a moment his shoulders relaxed and he smiled at her. “You’re welcome.”

“How did I not know you? I don’t remember seeing you except for that one time.” Clear View High wasn’t very big, so she wondered why she’d never noticed such a good looking guy.

Michael sat back, visibly more relaxed than he had been since he’d picked her up. “I didn’t really mix with the kids in school; never really had the time. Each day I’d leave after last class and go straight to work so I never had any kind of social life. I’d seen you around. Never spoke to you though because what was the point?” He smiled. “Didn’t think I’d be your kind of person.”

She couldn’t help but smile back at him. It was a rare thing lately to see Michael without a permanent crease between his brows. Not that she could blame him. The dangers that she now knew existed, dangers that were after both of them, were enough to undo the strongest of people. Add the fact that he’d been turned against his will into some sort of unknown, inhuman being and it was a surprise that he could smile at all. But he was and it invigorated her.

“And why not?” she asked playfully with an eyebrow raised.

He smirked. “Because I saw the kind of guys you hung out with; the hard working geeky types, the ones who would hang around the library on a Saturday afternoon to get their recreational kicks. I certainly didn’t fit that description.”

“Hey, are you
saying you thought I was a nerd?”

He laughed. “Noooo, I’m. . . just saying you were a hard worker that’s all.”

“Oh! That’s all, huh? Well, maybe you shouldn’t have assumed that I wouldn’t be interested in you.” Lacy grew serious at the same time Michael’s face straightened. His gorgeous blue eyes stared into hers and she was instantly mesmerized by them. Her chest tightened. Why did things have to be so difficult?

She sensed the door had just slammed shut on his emotions again and Lacy knew that their playful moment was over. She looked back at his photo before giving it back to him.

After putting it back in his wallet he stood up and walked over to the window. She watched his shoulders rise, then fall before he spoke. “Lacy. We can’t be near each other anymore.”

There they were,
the words that she knew he would say. Her heart sank in her chest and she honestly didn’t know what to do. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe Michael having to battle with his feelings was no good for any of them. She knew it was a huge distraction for him and the last thing she wanted was for him to be vulnerable when it came to fighting Varesh. Because that was what he intended. She knew that much.

But how could she just let him go? Knowing what they both felt for each other, how could she let him walk away from her?

“I don’t want to stay away from you,” she said before she could stop herself. He turned around to look at her, a deep frown on his face.

“We have no choice.”

Lacy got up and walked over to him. “Why?”

“How can you want to be with me knowing what I am? I’m not even alive, Lacy. And who knows how long I’ll even stay this way. What if I just stop existing?” He took her hands in his. “I don’t want you to get hurt and that’s the reason I came over tonight. I had to see you, to clear things up before I leave. There’s something I have to do and I don’t know if I’ll even survive it.”

“What. . . What is it?”

He took a deep breath and she braced herself for what she was about to hear. “I’m going back into the pit. . . into Hell.”

Lacy broke contact from him and backed up a couple of steps. “What the. . . Why? Are you crazy?”

“No. It’s the only plan I have. I know that Varesh has a very powerful enemy, Lucifer, and I want to make him an offer.”

Holy Sh. . . No!
Panic took over. Lacy felt light headed all of a sudden and began to lose the feeling in her legs. She practically floated over to the sofa and sat down before she fell down. It took her a moment to catch her breath. This was a different kind of panic than what she was normally used to. This was caused by sheer terror. Michael was throwing himself into the fire−literally. She didn’t even know how that was possible; didn’t feel the desire to ask.

“Evo knows a ritual that will get us there.” Michael answered as if he’d heard her thoughts.

Her head snapped up to look at him. “Us?”

“Me and Evo. He’s insisting he comes with me. I couldn’t talk him out of it.”

Her legs tingled as the feeling began to return. “Then he’s as crazy as you are,” she said before dropping her head into her hands.

“Lacy, listen to me. Lacy.” she felt the sofa dip under the weight of his body as he sat down next to her. Then he was turning her to him and pulling her hands from her face. “Look at me.” He ducked his head to look into her eyes. “Varesh is dangerous and for whatever reason he wants me dea. . . gone. He clearly doesn’t care who he uses to get to me and I’m not about to sit aroun
d and do nothing. Not when yours and Evo’s lives are at risk because of it.”

She bit down to stop the tears that were threatening to form. “Then we’ll run.”

Michael looked momentarily stunned. “And where would we go? You can’t just run from a power hungry demon. He’ll always find you.” He reached up and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “You would really run away with me?” he asked, his voice broken.

She didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Yes. I would.”

He stroked her cheek and she nestled into his hand, closing her eyes and
savoring the soft touch of his fingers. She let out a long drawn breath and wished that she’d known him before, when they were younger, when he was Jack Pearson and she was just a girl in high school and the only demons she had to deal with were the seniors who never thought her face fit.

When she opened them again Michael was burning her with h
is sapphire stare, his brows drawn low. She could tell he was battling with himself. He wanted her, but was refusing to allow himself to have her.

“
Michael, I don’t know why, but I can just feel that there’s a reason why we found each other again after all this time. You are the one who speaks about destiny and fate. What if we’re just meant to be together?” She reached up and swiped at her left eye before the tear fell. “There’s something between us I just feel it, and I know you do too.”

He sighed as h
e closed his eyes. “I can’t—”

“Then stay with me, here, tonight.” There she goes again, speaking before she has time to think. She couldn’t believe the words had just left her
mouth, but she held his gaze, wanting him to see how serious she was, and to understand her meaning. What the hell did she have to lose anyway?

She guessed she’d shocked the hell out of Michael
too as he hadn’t said a word. She could tell he was having some sort of internal battle with himself and expected the rational part of his brain to win. She was mentally preparing herself for the knock back when. . .

“Ok
ay.”

What?
He said yes! Her heart began to sing as he smiled at her tenderly but her elation was short lived as she soon realized this could very well be the last time she saw him, the only time they would get to spend with each other before he committed suicide, or the already dead version of it.