Breathless (7 page)

That’s what happens when a mother obviously favors one child over another.

I love my brother.

I do.

But there’s always a breaking point.

We’ve reached ours.

“Yes you are! I know you are.” I stand because I can’t handle sitting anymore. The stupid panic attack has taken me over, making me feel really vulnerable, really irritated, and really ready to either run or kick a wall… or both.

“When would we have made this big plan? You’ve been with us the entire time!”

“No!” Why didn’t I think of it before? “No, I haven’t. When I had the meltdown and went in the pantry…” I’ve had lots of breakdowns today. Somehow I expected my human self to handle things better than this.

To that, Lucien just stands there, tapping his foot. “You never believe anything I have to say.”

Oh for the love of… “I’m talking about
now
, Lucien. I’m talking about how you are working with Seth.”

“You have trust issues, anyone ever told you that?” His eyes flash, and I know why. He knows exactly who told me I had trust issues. Colleen.

My stomach feels like it’s been punched. I want to double over, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. As for Lucien, for a split second, and I mean a very split second, he looks like he feels really bad about what he said. Like he wishes he could take it back. His eyes soften, and he takes a deep breath before his expression hardens again.

“We don’t need to talk about that.”

“I think we should!” Lucien screams. “I think we should because we’ve been avoiding it for what, decades? You shot me because of it!”

“I did not!” It’s my turn to yell. My voice is shaking just like my hands, and I can’t control either. “I did not shoot you because I have trust issues. I shot you because you shot me!”

“Because you
thought
I shot you.”

“Yes.”

“Because someone whispered it in your ear.”

My bubble bursts. “Yes.”

“So, you have no trouble trusting people, except when it comes to me.” He’s breathing heavily, and I think any minute he’s going to cry. He’s probably mad enough to cry. I know I am. Except for today, I can’t remember the last time I cried in front of him. That’s a lie. I do remember. But it had nothing to do with anger. It had everything to do with sadness and grief and loss and everything else, every bit of guilt I’ve had to carry around on my shoulders all these years.

“That’s not true.” Stupid voice in my head, the one that likes to betray me at the most inopportune moments. I hate it. I hate myself.

BABY!

“Oh really. Because it looks pretty true to me. Think about your greatest hits,
Jessup.
Not believing Colleen when she told you there was nothing between us and we were over. Going all crazy because of it. Not believing me when I told you the same damn thing. And when you
do
trust someone, when you do decide, hey, I’m going to rely on what this person has to say as gospel, that person is insane! You’ve been working with Seth since the beginning, since we died. You did everything he asked you to do because you trusted him!”

“Because he said he’d help me get you.”

“And how did that work out for ya?”

“Well… I got you, didn’t I?” My fire is dying down. Having to relive all my greatest hits—I’m not handling it well. I fall back in the chair and slump down. I’m so tired. My brain is starting to fog over, and if I could sleep for a year, I’d totally be okay about it. “Look, Lucien. I get it. You are pissed at me. I deserve it. I deserve it all and more. You can hate me all you want when this is over with, but if we don’t work together, it will be sooner rather than later. I swear that much to you. You know it too. You know there’s no way we can stop Gracen without working together.”

I look up at him for what seems like forever, pleading with him to understand. I need him to understand.

“Yes, we can’t stop Gracen without teamwork.” His voice is low. His features are neutral. Like all the fire has burned out in them.

That’s progress at least. He’s not yelling at me or throwing things. I was expecting him to be throwing things. I would’ve thrown things.

And I’d deserve it if he did.

But that’s for another time.

We’ll have that conversation. I know we will. Just not now. Not when Gracen needs me.

“We need to find her,” I say as calmly as I can. My insides feel anything but. “We have to keep her from doing anything she’ll regret.”

“Or the world regrets.” Lucien adds ever so helpfully.

“That too.” I sit up in my chair and lean on my knees. When I do, the world starts spinning. This is new and interesting and… not pleasant. I rub my eyes to try to wipe the cobwebs away. Can I just sleep? “Help me, Lucien. Help me find her. If I can talk to her, I know we can figure out a way to stop it.”

“You really think you can stop her… by talking to her?” He raises a brow very high on his forehead and shakes his head. “He was right about you.” He adds under his breath.

That most certainly catches my attention. I would sit up straighter, but it’s sort of impossible with the room turning on its side. “What did you say?”

He blinks a few times at me. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

“Don’t lie to me,” I say as I try to stand. I’m wobbling toward him when the phone rings. Not like a house phone, but like a cellphone. Except neither of us should have a cellphone.

Except it’s coming from Lucien’s direction.

Except that should be impossible.

Wait…

When I was in the shower earlier, I remember the phone ringing and hearing Lucien’s voice.

So either he’s been talking to someone or…

My foggy eyes meet his.

His meet mine.

I stalk toward Lucien. At least he has the good sense to back away from me.

“What did you do?”

My insides feel like they’re going to fall apart. My heart is either beating really fast or really slow. I can’t tell. The fog engulfing my brain is getting thicker, more dense. It takes everything I have to move my limbs.

I’d think it was a side effect of the climbing out of my grave if Lucien was having the same side effects. He seems fine. I seem like death warmed over.

Or a person drugged.

Or… a person… drugged.

I look at the table and notice for the first time that Lucien had two plates of sausage, two plates of bacon…. two plates of everything. One closest to him. One closest to me…

A person drugged.

“You…” My legs give way, and I catch myself on the back of the kitchen chair. It creaks under my weight and scoots a bit, making me lose my balance and fall to my knees on the floor, right in front of Lucien.

He isn’t smiling. He isn’t frowning. He’s just looking at me. Or at least it seems so in my foggy vision. “It was my idea, Hart.” He squats in front of me. “I knew you wouldn’t let us do what needs to be done to save the world. I knew you’d try to stop us, and Seth is the only one of us who has powers. So, I told him I’d keep you busy, keep you out of his way, if—”

“If he took care of Gracen.” I’ve never felt more betrayed in my life, and that’s saying a lot. My words sound funny in my own ears. Like I’m heading down a deep, dark tunnel. “Do you know what he’ll do to her?”

“Whatever needs to be done.”

The floor tilts to the side. I go with it until my back is on the floor, and I’m staring up at my big brother. “What did he promise you to be his babysitter, huh? What price is so important that you’d betray me like this?”

He bites his lip. “He promised to let me back into Heaven.”

Well then. I can’t argue with that. If I were Lucien, hell I might have made the same deal. But I’m not Lucien. And I have a vested interest in Gracen not being destroyed.

“That might happen sooner than you think, brother.” I try to get up, but I can’t. I want to punch him in the nose. My arm won’t cooperate.

“It won’t hurt you, brother. It’ll only make you sleep for a while.” Lucien’s words are so far away. Like I’m falling down a deep, dark tunnel. I don’t know how he got the drugs, I don’t know what they are, but I pray to God they don’t knock me out too long. I have to fight it.

I have to stay awake and get away from Lucien.

I have to find Seth.

I have to save Gracen.

My eyes are so heavy, and the world is spinning like I’m on a carnival ride.

Lucien set me up.

My eyelids win, and my body shuts down. Despite everything I will to happen, the darkness takes me over.

I can’t help her.

I have to help her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Gracen

I
’M COLD.

And I’m wet again.

And my head hurts.

And I think I’m lying on concrete.

I can’t be sure, though.

I don’t even think I can really get my eyes to open fully.

I keep trying.

With all the screams going on around me, I’m not sure I want to open my eyes. I don’t want to see. Not really. A big part of me needs to see. A big part of me has no intentions of seeing the world die around me. I know what’s causing it. I know what’s killing all those people.

I am.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hart

I
’M COLD.

And I’m wet again.

And my head hurts.

And I think I’m lying on concrete.

I can’t be sure.

I don’t even think I can really get my eyes to open fully.

I keep trying.

I will them as hard as my brain, which doesn’t like me at the moment, can, and I beg and plead with it to make my eyes open, make my legs move, make my body react on command. Because that’s what normal bodies do. They react on command.

I can hear, though. Well, some. I hear Lucien’s voice somewhere really far away. I think he’s talking to someone. Probably Seth. Probably giving him the play by play of what he did to me. They’re probably discussing what they’re going to do with Gracen.

I hate to tell them, but they aren’t doing anything with Gracen.

Whatever the big plan is, Seth must not have done it yet. When my eyes flutter open I can see purple lightning outside the really small, really high window on the other wall. I think I’m in a basement.

Awesome.

A basement.

My eyes roll around a few times, trying to focus on something. Anything. I’d take a freakin’ rat if it helped me see what’s going on. If there’s something around me that can help, not that I think there will be. I don’t have that kind of luck.

No, with my luck, this basement is in Hell, and when I finally focus on something, Amelia will jump out at me with that sledgehammer she loved so well and say, “Surprise!”

A light flickers on a few feet from me.

It’s so bright I cover my abused eyes and scurry up until I’m sitting as straight as I can, my back against the wall, my knees drawn to my chest.

I feel like a cornered animal.

I don’t like feeling like a cornered animal.

I pull at the chains, trying to break them and get away. It’s no use… since they are chains and all. And I’m human now. I hate my life.

“Calm down. It’s just me.”

I don’t have to see him to know it’s my brother. Of course it’s my brother. Who else would have me chained in the basement while the world is ending?

How messed up are we that this is our life?

How messed up that I killed him because an angel whispered in my ear that he shot me?

How messed up…

Shit.

“You drugged me.” I don’t sound as mean or as intimidating as I want to sound. I sound tired. Really tired. My voice is scratchy like an old man that has smoked for fifty years. Not sexy at all. Good thing I’m not going for sexy. I’m going for… Hell, I don’t know what I’m going for. I’m mad that he drugged me, obviously. I’m scared that Gracen will kill the world. I miss her. I want to save her. I have no idea how something like me, a nobody, can save her. I can’t even save myself. I pull at the chains to remind me of that.

Stop… stop I have to focus. One task at a time.

One: See.

Two: Talk some damn sense into Lucien.

Three: Get out of the basement.

Four: Find Gracen.

Five: Save the world.

Easy.

Though at the moment, seeing seems to be as difficult as saving the world.

“Can you cut off the light? It’s sort of burning a hole in my incredibly old retinas.”

He does. I’m thankful.

I blink a few times, and my eyes adjust slightly.

Even though it’s dark outside, when the purple lightning flashes, I can see things. Shapes mostly.
Shapes
is a kind word. Blob is a better word for it. I see blobs. A blob in the shape of my brother—actually, I’m assuming it’s my brother—stares at the far left side of the room, and the room, from what I can tell, is sorta big. Well, bigger than I expected a basement would be in this house. Course it could just be black on black on black makes it look universe big. Funny, I suppose it should make everything feel smaller, more claustrophobic.

I don’t have time for claustrophobic.

Truthfully, I don’t have time for whatever game or plan or brilliant excuse for a moral compass my brother thinks he’s doing right now. I take a very long, very deep breath and cough up a big spitball that is probably filled with hundreds-of-years-old dirt and worm carcasses. Eww… I spit it on the floor. Thankful, for once, that I can’t actually see.

There are some other big black blobs in the room. I think whoever owns the house uses this room for like a garage or something. There are some things hanging from the ceiling on chains. I guess they are chains. I guess they are tools. I guess this dude is a carpenter or mechanic or tinkering scientist and not a psycho serial killer. They’d all have chains on their ceiling.

And on walls…

To chain people up.

The cold of the steel against my wrists is very evident right at this moment. “Uh, Lucien.”

“Yeah?”

“What kind of a house is this?” I pull on my chains, making them rattle, making my point very clear.

“Relax. I put the chains on the walls. It’s just like a gardening basement or something.”