Envious (33 page)

“Watch the arm, dude,” Todd snapped, pulling from Tom’s grasp. “Back off. My arm’s broken, not my fucking legs.” Tom w
asn’t helping him anymore, but he wasn’t letting him go either. Probably thought Todd was going to start something again.

Eric asked me, “Old boyfriend?”

“My stupid cousin. You can go back to Aurora now, Eric. We’ve got this covered.”

“Eric…?” Todd asked, twisting around in Tom’s hold to look back at us. “Aurora?”

“This is Aurora’s
boyfriend
,” I told Todd, stressing the fact that Aurora did not want him.

Todd smirked, even through the obvious pain in his jaw. “Ah…or boy-toy? Man, no man is a man when he’s with that girl. She fucks with your head.”

“Shut your mouth,” Eric snapped.

“You’d be better off with Sandy,” Todd calmly commented, then added, “even though she’s a bitch!”

“Enough,” I told him, face flush with embarrassment over him, even though I agreed with most of what he said. We reached his car. I unlocked it and they shoved Todd roughly inside.

I drove him to the hospital and Eric followed in his car. He wanted to be sure I had a ride home. Once in a space, I turned off Todd’s car and reached for the door handle, but Todd stopped me. “I don’t need a babysitter,” he told me.

“I just don’t want you dead outside my door in the morning,” I said.

“Sandy, I didn’t drug you. And I wasn’t trying to kill you,” he said, voice deep, looking me straight in the eye, forcing me to meet his steady gaze. “I get why you freaked. I don’t get the beating and insane screaming part, but I get the rest.”

“So you attacked me?!” I accused.

He shrugged through pain and said, “Payback. You smashed
my car
. You made me mad. Besides, are you hurt?” He paused, waiting for an answer. “I didn’t think so. Now that I have you listening to me, I never wanted to hurt you. Aurora-”

“You lied,” I blurt out over him. “You never had sex with her.”

“Wha’ makes you think that? Cuz she’s too good a person to use sex to her advantage? Gimme a fuckin’ break. You know that’s not true. You said it yourself, she’s a bitch.”

“Why bother telling me this? You aren’t going to convince me of anything.” I stepped out of the car and walked over to the passenger door. Eric got out of his car to help. Todd slowly dragged himself out of his seat. I moved to help him, but he pushed me away. That didn’t bother me at all. I didn’t want to help him anymore.

“Sandy, I don’t know why I told you anything. I should have known you would judge,” Todd spoke, barely audible. It was meant for my ears alone.

Eric was almost completely silent as he drove me back to campus, and I was incredibly glad for that. I didn’t feel like talking. I sat in the dark safety of his car, watching the lights of oncoming cars stream by, cursing myself for not trusting him and his warning. Tonight was the worst night of my life. I was almost raped.
I could have been raped tonight.
It was a horrible, sick feeling coursing through me. I slid lower in my seat, hugging my arms tight to my waist. Even though I had escaped it, barely, I still felt so violated. Why wouldn’t I? I
had
been violated. I had been pushed around. My wrists still ached from Mike’s grip.

After Eric and I parted ways with an awkward
goodnight
, I showered, scrubbing my black and blue body in attempt to feel clean again. My skin had already begun to change color, revealing a bruise down the side of my back, leading onto my butt and down the back of my right thigh. And I could tell, even in the dim light of the shower, that my wrists were both turning color. My right was bruised up to the elbow. The fall had taken its toll on my thin frame. And Mike’s hands.
His disgusting hands.

Nausea pulsed through me and I leaned over, vomiting in the shower. I heaved desperately, hoping every ill feeling I had would leave with it. Water washed over me, trickling into my eyes as I watched the water wash the filth away, dragging it down the drain. I rested my hand against the cold, wet tile, attempting to gather my nerves. Detaching my mind and body somehow wasn’t working as it had in the past. I tried to let go, I tried not to feel, but deep sobs came welling up from inside me. I let the water and tears stream down my face. Leaning against the wall for support, I cried and cried. I huddled in that shower for so long, until the tears stopped. Until my eyes went dry and stingy.

I wanted to forget. I wished I could go back in time to warn myself about Mike. I needed the pain to go away so I could forget faster, but I had a feeling this was one of those awful memories I would never forget. Just like that feeling of terror I had when I woke after being drugged and realized just how completely out of control I had been. I had no idea what I was doing. I would have been even more violated if-

If Todd hadn’t helped me. If Todd hadn’t saved me.
That was how he gained my trust. That was what brought us close together.

He kept me safe.

I felt so guilty just thinking about how he had held me in that bathtub, making sure I was alright.

Could he really have wanted to kill me?
The threat of burning as a witch had made me paranoid about him. It had made me fall into trusting Mike, really. That was when my guard went up at Todd and down at everything else.

Could Todd have been telling the truth? All along? Who was I more willing to trust? Todd, or Aurora?
Aurora had pushed me toward Mike, even though everyone else had been trying to push me away from him. If what Todd said about Aurora wanting to hurt me was true, was Mike just another way?

That still didn’t exp
lain why Todd would have slept with her. I knew he was obsessed with talking about sex, but would he stoop that low?

What would make him do that?

1205

I peered intently through the brush and saw a woman’s skirt. She walked swiftly toward the cabin. I saw her dress hem twirl as she said, “Faster. Quickly now. Hold there and bring him.” I wiggled down in the dirt for a better view.

I saw her face. It was Aurora. The king’s daughter. Following her were two men carrying a cloth stretched between the two of them. Laying on that cloth was a man. Not just any man but a warrior. A warrior with battle scars, old and new. It was the man who owned my heart. It was Eric. His arm hung lifeless over the edge. Beads of sweat glistened on his skin in the light.

The men carried him into the cottage and Princess Aurora followed after them. A few moments later, the men emerged from the doorway, bowed low, and left the way they had come. I sneaked over to the cabin’s side. There was a small hole in the wooden wall. I looked through and saw Eric lying in the dark inside of the cabin. Candlelight flickered on his face. Sweat dripped down his forehead and I could barely hear his unsteady breath. His eyes were closed, and his face twisted in pain. Aurora walked over to him, sat on the bed’s edge, and placed a wet cloth on his forehead.

“My darling,” she said, “Soon you will feel better. Very soon.”

He shook slightly as a whisper escaped his lips, “Cassandra…”

Aurora stood. From her body language, I could tell she was angry. “You will not care for that name much longer.” She sprinkled herbs into a bowl and began to grind them. “Very soon, she will be lost to your mind, and I will be all you care for.”

I stayed as still as I could while I watched. She tended to his wounds, a slice across his abdomen and a deep puncture to his arm. I had not seen the wounds at the castle. They had been covered, wrapped, but now, seeing them, the thin thread of hope I had been clinging to broke. His wounds were deep, surrounded in red swollen skin. My heart dropped to the floor and tears burned my eyes. Aurora spread the paste she’d made over the wounds and wrapped cloth to hold it in place. Then she began to toss ingredients into another bowl, humming as she did this. She boiled it over the fire, stirring with care, then filled a mug with the steaming liquid, blowing carefully on it, letting it cool a bit before bringing it to his lips. “Drink.” She poured a stream into his mouth and he weakly choked as it slid down his throat. I heard Eric whisper my name again and I wanted desperately to go to him, but I kept hidden. Aurora reached for a basket on a shelf and walked to the cabin’s door. I shrank back, hoping she wouldn’t see me. She stepped around the opposite side of the cabin, heading toward a patch of weeds and flowers at the far end of the clearing. I slipped inside the cabin door and went to my love.

I sat beside Eric and held his sweating cold hand. “Eric, my love. I am here.”

“Cassandra…” Eric’s breathing came in short, raspy breaths. His eyes opened, just thin slits surrounded by dark red circles and beads of sweat. “Cassandra…how I have longed to see your face…love…” his voice was cracked and raw. I could see his pain with each precious word that came from his lips.

My heart shook with emotion. “Oh, Eric. I was so worried about you. Can you get up?”

“I cannot move. Aurora… she will return. She cannot find you here…”

“I must take you, now.” I stood to move him but realized there was no way I could without injuring him further.

“Cassandra.” He opened his clammy hand and took mine in it. “It is too late. I am dying, Cassandra. Even her herbs and magic cannot stop this outcome. I feel it. I can see the darkness approaching.”

“What are you saying?” Tears brimmed on my lids and spilled over rushing down my cheeks in tiny rivers.

Eric’s face twisted in pain as he struggled to speak, “She has powers, Cassandra. She is dangerous. She has ways to control the mind. I can already feel my mind numbing. Even my death will not stop her. Know that you are the woman I love. I will always love you.”

“Eric…” I heard her footsteps approaching. Eric heard them too. He dropped my hand.

“Go. I could not bare it if she caught you. Go, my love.”

“I will not give up on you. I love you,” I whispered. I left, quickly as I’d come, with tears spilling down my cheeks. I slipped back to my hiding place. Aurora entered the cabin again and I watched her put herbs in th
eir place, emptying her basket.

CHAPTER 27

TIME TO ACT

I walked across the campus, heading back to the dorms. The day was warm, much warmer than I had expected. The snow was melting, and roofs were dripping. It made me want to shed my winter coat. Everyone seemed excited that the cold weather had finally broken, but I couldn’t feel happy. It was only two days after the Mike and Todd problems and my last vision.

Eric was dying. I knew it before. I knew it, but to hear it from Eric was horrible. It felt absolutely terrible to leave him in Aurora’s nasty hands. Eric was certain that his death was coming and that it could not be stopped. I had promised Eric that I would not give up, that I would always keep trying with him. I couldn’t let that promise go. Even though the promise was lives ago, I could not give up now. I still loved Eric, whether he loved me or not. I wondered if he thought he could have kept
his
promise.
“I will always love you,” he had said.

I needed to see Eric, to make sure he was alright, to see that he wasn’t dying in this life, too. But it was more important that I talk to Todd right now. Something made me think that Todd had all the answers. I had a theory, and he was the only one who could prove it.

He wouldn’t still be at the hospital. But where would he be? He hadn’t answered his cell phone and that was the only number I knew to call. I thought about how to reach him, planning when to call, but as I walked through a large group of people hanging out in the quad, the plan escaped my mind. I saw Mike, the sniveling jerk, in the crowd. Seeing him struck me like a slap to the face. I went cold. An icy chill ran up and down my spine. The slimy psychopath. He had been watching me walk. He was waiting for me.

I pushed ahead faster, heart racing, panic setting in. I tried not to let it show. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Mike stepped into stride next to me. “So little bitch…”

I kept going.
Just ignore him. Don’t let him see you sweat. Don’t acknowledge him at all. Just go.

He grabbed my shoulder, and I nearly leapt out of my skin at the sickening feeling of his long fingers pulling me to a stop. Anger seared through me, pushed by adrenaline. I faced him, ready to fight the jerk if I had to. Then I saw something in his hand. My shirt. All of the blood drained from my face.

Purposely loud enough for everyone to hear, Mike said, “Hey Cassie! You left your shirt at my apartment the other night. That
was
a good time, wasn’t it? You are so hot in bed, baby.” The stupid diva girls snickered, watching us intently. My eyes snagged on Eric plowing through the crowd, looking ready to kill.

Mike smiled grandly. I fought the urge to run.
Start running now and that’s all you’ll ever do,
I told myself.
Don’t give him the power.

“Oh, by the way, I think I owe you some money, cuz you were so good. I’m
still
hot. Hey, wanna go at it right here? I’ll pay you an extra twenty?” he asked, waving money in his hand.