Falling into Forever (20 page)

In her mind's eye, Mr. Frost nodded at her from across a pub table. A soccer match played on a television screen behind his head, and a young waitress placed two tall, foaming pint glasses on the tabletop between them. From a pocket in his jacket, he pulled out photos of Collinsworth and the cemetery behind campus. Mr. Frost spread them across the table.

A hand extended from her body—or rather the body that she imagined. The hand had a dragon ring. The hand pulled the pictures closer and buried them in a briefcase resting on top of the table. The hand extended toward Mr.

Frost and shook his hand. Then Mr. Frost's face evaporated into a thick fog.

Callahan slid his hand from Alexandra's grip.

“Don't go,” Alexandra whispered, her eyelids twitching.

As swiftly as the images had begun, the pictures flickering behind her eyes evaporated. The electric warmth running through her body retreated backward through her legs, chest, and arms, to the tips of her fingers. Rubbing her eyes, Alexandra recognized Callahan's voice.

“Do you understand now?” Callahan asked, grinning.

“No,” she said, struggling to focus on his face. The bright afternoon light burned her eyes as if she had emerged from a deep, dark hole. Rubbing her pulsing temples, Alexandra felt tears pool in her burning eyes. She wiped away the drops running down her cheek with her sleeve.

“Alexandra, look at me,” she heard Callahan say gently.

“Callahan,” she stammered and obeyed.

“Don't be afraid,” he said calmly.

Her wide eyes read the relief on his face. As she stared at the rugged face smiling back at her, Alexandra's fear melted like the fog in her vision.

“You've got to be kidding me,” she croaked. “That was you, wasn't it, with Mr. Frost?” She tried to stand up from the bench. But the sudden, seismic shift in her perception of reality rocked her body. “I don't know if I'm ready for this,” she admitted to Callahan, so he reached to steady her shoulders as she swayed woozily.

“My dear, it is not a matter of whether you are ready for your destiny, but rather that your destiny is ready for you,” he advised.

“How did you do that?” she asked him, faint pieces of the puzzling images shooting through her head.

“I did not,” he said. “You did. I merely helped you see through the fog that has been shrouding your vision— your ability, I mean.”

Staring at him in disbelief, words of protest caught in her throat. She shook her head back and forth. Everything had changed. Her mind struggled to recover a semblance of faith in her understanding of the world swirling around her.

Alexandra stretched her arms out in front of her chest, palms facing the sky. Her palms looked they same as they had that morning and every other day of her life before then. But inside the tissue and bone, her palms still tingled.

She clenched her fists open and shut several times before the tingling finally faded away.

“Do you use it often?” she asked Callahan eagerly.

“Whenever you touch someone?”

“No, I can control it,” he assured her. “And even then, I often see more than I would like.”

“Does it have a name?” Alexandra asked, intrigued with the mystery.

“As a young man traveling through Romania, an old monk in a decaying monastery took confession from me and called it soul reading.”

Her eyes danced quizzically over her his rugged face.

She repeated his words: “Soul reader. Can I put that on my college applications?”

Callahan laughed.

“I'm serious, Callahan; the Ivy League is competitive!

Or have you already seen a vision of my future?” she asked, gasping. “I'm going to wind up at the International School of Skin, aren't I?”

He shook his head no. “I cannot see the future—only the past as others have seen it and experienced it.”

“So it should work the same with me?”

“I can only assume so, Alexandra. I've met only a

handful of others like us—including your beloved Mr.

Frost, by the way.”

“No way!” she exclaimed. She raised her palms to her face, staring at them in disbelief. “This isn't happening.”

“I said that my first time, too,” he consoled.

“Could Mr. Frost see my . . . my aura?” she stuttered.

“Oh yes,” Callahan assured her. “All members of the Order have certain keen abilities that help us with our hunting.”

“What are you hunting here?” Alexandra pressed.

“Has Mr. Frost been living a double life the whole time?”

Her mind swooned with questions.

“Yes,” Callahan said looking into her eyes. “But he became afraid. He has rather sensitive psychic abilities and he saw . . .” Callahan faltered.

“What did he see?” Alexandra insisted.

“He couldn't say for sure, but he knew that the Order needed to send a warrior for whatever was coming,”

Callahan explained.

“And that's you?” she asked him.

“Yep,” he said, puffing out his chest.

“What does all of this have to do with me?” Alexandra insisted.

Callahan brushed his dark hair behind his ears and held Alexandra's gaze. “The Order of the Dragon King works in secret. We hold ourselves responsible for a big task. That task involves locating, studying—and if need be, eradicating—supernatural activity that the modern world refuses to acknowledge.”

“That was a mouthful,” Alexandra agreed. “And you think there's some sort of activity going on here at Collinsworth that you need to eradicate?”

“Yes,” he answered calmly. “I think you are being stalked.”

The growl of the mongrel in the parking lot echoed in Alexandra's dazed mind. “The dog—” she started to say.

“Yes, maybe by him,” Callahan assented.

“I'm leaving,” Alexandra said, fearful, standing up from the bench.

“No,” he insisted and tugged at her hand. “Please.

Hear me out.”

Alexandra gripped the medallion tightly.

He began talking faster. “We call ourselves the Order of the Dragon King because a thousand years ago, a mortal man became immortal by drinking the blood of a dragon.

His people called him King Kraven, the dragon king. The Order is named for this legend.”

“Who's stalking me?” Alexandra demanded.

“That man, King Kraven, has been walking the earth for a thousand years, looking for his lost love,” Callahan whispered. “You may be her, reincarnated.”

Alexandra felt the earth shift beneath her feet. She stared at Callahan in stunned silence. “My dear,” he said, grasping her sweaty palm. “You look like you have seen a ghost.”

“I guess you'd know,” she countered.

In her book bag, Alexandra's cell phone buzzed and vibrated.

“Strange,” she said aloud as she read the word HOME on the screen. “Mom should still be at work.”

“Hello?” she asked and paused for the caller to answer.

“Yes, Mom,” she replied into the phone casually.

Callahan heard a muffled but frantic voice through the receiver.

“Yes, Mom, there was a fire,” Alexandra explained.

“But I'm fine. Why are you calling from home?”

Her head nodded up and down as she listened.

“Don't call a taxi. I'll drive you to the airport. I'm leaving campus now,” she said and glanced at Callahan.

“What's wrong?” Callahan asked with concern.

Shoving the phone back into the bottom of her book bag, her fingers hunted frantically for her car keys.

“There's been an outbreak in Miami,” she told him.

“I'm sorry, Callahan. I don't have time to give you the details,” she said, throwing the bag over her shoulder.

“An outbreak?” he asked, standing up.

She hurried toward the parking lot. “My mom works for the Centers for Disease Control,” she called behind her. “And there's an emergency.” Raising her palm in the air, she winked at him. “I'll show you later,” she called over her shoulder.

Don't look back. He's crazy. Don't look back.
She repeated that mantra in her head, hurrying forward. As she sprinted to the student parking lot, she saw that no dogs were presently lurking there. Finally she crawled safely into her waiting Jeep.

15
Goodbye

Alexandra listened to her mother's thumbs tapping furiously on a Blackberry keypad. They were slowly lurching forward in Alexandra's Jeep through the thick traffic around the bustling Atlanta airport.

Her mother glanced at Alexandra fidgeting behind the steering wheel. “Don't bite your nails,” she lovingly reprimanded.

Rolling her eyes, Alexandra shoved her fingers toward her hair and started twisting the long, auburn strands. She stared ahead through the windshield, her thoughts racing.

“I don't like leaving you like this,” her mother admitted and reached for her purse on the floorboard. “But we just don't get much warning with these things.” She sighed and fumbled through her wallet, looking for cash. Putting her hands on a twenty-dollar bill, she shoved it toward her daughter. “There's a little more in the drawer by the refrigerator. For pizza. Order whatever you want. I'm sorry. I didn't have time to go to the ATM.”

“I'm not a little girl anymore,” Alexandra reminded her mother. Her fingernails tapped the steering wheel impatiently. “Don't worry, Mom. I'll be fine. Just go do your job, and come home safe.”

The sun had sunk to the horizon in front of her, so Alexandra had to squint ahead. She took her foot off the brake to let the Jeep inch forward in the endless line of traffic wrapped around the airport.

“Please do not hit that man's bumper, Alex,” her mother said, glancing up at the Porsche ahead of them in traffic. “We don't have full coverage on this thing.”

“Speaking of that, you should really talk to your boss about a raise. Then I could get a new used car,” Alexandra proposed, holding her breath. “I mean, you're one of the best investigators the CDC has, Mom. That's why they have to send you to Miami to find out what's giving all those housewives in Dade County the squirts.”

“The eloquence with which you describe my job is charming,” her mother conceded. “I just wish I knew how long the CDC is going to need me down there. It's probably only going to be for a few days, but I don't know for sure . . .” Her voice trailed off as a new-message alert chirped from the phone clutched in her palm. “Maybe you could ask Taylor to come stay with you for a couple of nights if you get lonely. Or if you get scared.”

“Taylor would probably like having a good excuse to escape from her stepmother for a little while,” Alexandra mentioned.

“Ask her, then. But no parties, and no boys are allowed. Understood?”

“Since when am I interested in either of those?”

“You're seventeen, Alexandra. I know you think I've been a grown-up my entire life, but I still remember being seventeen.”

Rounding a curve, they saw that the terminal's bustling passenger drop-off zone loomed ahead. Alexandra fought her way over into the far-right lane of traffic. Her mother threw the Blackberry into her handbag and studied her daughter's pensive face. It was the first time she noticed Alexandra's souvenirs from the attack in the parking lot.

“Alex!” she shrieked.

Startled by her mother's cry, Alexandra slammed her foot against the brake pedal, and tires squealed behind them. Her seatbelt flung her back roughly against the seat.

A car horn blared twice sharply.

“Mom,” she objected. “Don't do that while I'm driving.”

“What happened to your face?” asked her mother, her hand gently stroking the side of her daughter's cheek where a purple bruise swelled between Alexandra's temple and jawline.

Angrily shoving the gearshift into park, Alexandra turned to meet her eyes. Pulling her mother's hand from her face, she clasped her mom's palm into her own. Warmth tingled in her fingers as a hot flash seared up her arm and down into her heart. The sight of her mother's face in the harsh setting sun dissolved before her eyes.

In front of her there stood a small child, a little girl no more than three years old, with long, auburn hair blowing wildly in the breeze. She hummed happily to herself on a sandy beach while low waves crashed quietly behind her against the shore.

That's me!
she realized.

Smiling and waving, the child did not see a brown horse racing toward her. The animal's legs splashed in the rising surf as he sprinted along the shoreline. There was a saddle—but no rider—strapped to his strong back.

I'm my mother,
Alexandra realized, watching the galloping horse.

Although she waved frantically, the child didn't notice and kept filling her bucket with sand. Running swiftly, she nearly reached the girl's side. But the girl was dropped to her knees, tossed to the ground by the barreling brown horse.

Beside her, the child lay limp and silent on the sand. She turned the girl over carefully. Cradling the tiny body in her arms, she rubbed blood and sand off the pink, dimpled cheeks. Rocking the child in her arms, she sobbed. Tears fell down her cheeks into the girl's hair.

“What's wrong?” her mother said in the passenger seat.

Alexandra heard her mother's muffled voice. It sounded like her mother was shouting from behind a closed door. Alexandra loosened her grip on her mother's hand. The swelling heat retreated back through her body as the images of the beach faded.

“No parking!” yelled a police officer who was directing the hectic traffic outside the airport terminal. He glared at them through the windshield. Blowing harshly through the whistle hanging around his neck, he motioned for Alexandra to either get her mother out of the car or keep moving.

She turned to her mother, saying hastily, “I fell at school, Mom. No big deal.”