Forsaken (3 page)

“
And?” my voice came out
shaky.

“
She’d like to see you.
She has a few things to say I think you should hear.”

I sat up straight, feeling like all my
insides had turned hard. I pressed my lips together tight and shook
my head. “I can’t talk to her. Not after everything that happened.
She was going to have me committed, Dad.”

“
I know,” he said, his
voice sounding tight, as if he was holding back tears again. “But
she wants to see you. You’re still her daughter.”

“
Am I?”

My dad didn’t say anything for a
minute and I almost felt guilty for my harsh words. “You need to
forgive her sometime.”

“
It’s not going to be
today,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. Dad squeezed
my shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“
Well,” he said as he
stood up. “I’d better get going.”

“
Dad,” I said as I rolled
my eyes. “I don’t know why you don’t just stay here. The master
bedroom is empty.”

“
I’ve got to leave really
early in the morning,” he said as we walked back in the house.
“I’ve got to catch the red-eye flight so I’m staying down by the
airport.”

I walked him to the front door.
“Thanks again for coming dad,” I said as I pulled him into a
hug.

Just then Alex walked into the room.
My father extended his hand and Alex shook it. “It was good to see
you again, Alex.”

“
You too, Denis,” Alex
said with a smile.

We said good-bye and my father walked
out to his rental car.

“
Thanks again for all of
this you guys.” I was pulled back into the present by Emily’s
voice. “I’ll see you on Friday, right?” she asked me as she headed
for the front door.

“
Yep, I’ll be in class,” I
answered as I followed her. We said our good-byes and I closed the
door. My eyes froze as I turned, caught by my own reflection in the
mirror that hung next to the door. Swallowing hard, I tore my eyes
away from myself and went to help Alex clean up.

CHAPTER TWO

JESSICA

The rain pounded the pavement, causing
steam to rise from its black surface. It drove in a lot of people
who normally might not have come into the bookstore. The flash
storm had caught everyone by surprise; no one expected it since the
sky had been blue and sunny just a half hour before.

I watched people from the register,
eyeing their movements, watching the way they interacted with
things, other people. They seemed so different from myself now.
They were so normal. They chatted and laughed with their friends.
They picked up books, glanced over them, set them back down. They
went about their everyday lives like there was nothing that existed
outside of the norm. They knew nothing of angels, death, fear. I
felt like a stranger in the human race, like I didn’t belong here
at all.

I envied them.

And yet I could never regret the
events that had happened in my life. They had brought more love and
joy into my existence than I ever would have imagined
possible.

“
Will that be it for you?”
I asked as I took the book from the young woman who came up to the
counter.

“
Yep,” she said as she
smiled kindly at me, her teeth perfectly straight from years of
braces. It unnerved me that I could tell she had had them. I
shouldn’t notice small details like that so easily.

“
I’ve heard great things
about this one,” I tried to make conversation as I swiped her card.
I wanted to feel normal. “The sequel is coming out around
Christmas.”

People bustled around the
store. The crowd was making me uneasy. They were so
loud
. I heard every word
they were saying, every intake of breath they took it seemed. Every
time they swallowed or blinked it sounded like nails scraping
against a chalkboard. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath,
trying to block out the noise I didn’t want to be hearing. The
noise I
shouldn’t
be hearing.

“
Are you alright, dear?”
Rita, my motherly boss asked.

“
Yeah,” I said a little
too quickly, snapping back to the here and now. “I’ve just got a
headache,” I lied. I hadn’t had a headache for four months, since I
was nearly dead in Cole’s basement.

“
Why don’t you go take a
break for a little bit?” Rita said, her face kind and
warm.

“
Okay, thanks,” I said as
I stepped aside and let her take over the register.

People crowded the store, making me
dodge them as I worked my way to the back. I nearly knocked a young
woman over, her husband catching her before she fell. I smiled with
an apology, swallowing the lump that instantly formed in my throat,
and stepped out the back door. I sat on the steps and watched the
rain pour onto the gravel just a few feet in front of me. My
insides felt all twisted up.

A month or so after everything had
happened, I had decided it was time for me to get a job. Alex was
plenty willing to provide everything I could ever need but I needed
to feel some independence. I had taken care of myself since I was
sixteen. Now that I was twenty-one I wasn’t going to revert back. I
could take care of myself.

I supposed pride played a large part
in my decision to find a job as well.

I had also told Alex that I wouldn’t
take any money anymore for house sitting since he now lived there
and so did I. It felt weird to be getting paid for it.

Downtown Books was located exactly
where it said it was, in the heart of downtown Bellingham. I loved
the smell of the place, the feel. I loved my boss and the owner,
Rita Baker. She was a quiet, kind woman with wild red hair and
vibrant green eyes. I had never heard her say a harsh word or treat
someone unfairly. She was as much a mother to me as my own was now.
Maybe more so.

I heard a car pull into the back
parking lot and park next to my GTO. I gave a sigh as I realized
who it was.

“
Hey, Jessica!” Austin
Andrews said with a wide grin as he ran up to the steps to escape
the rain.

“
Hey Austin,” I said,
giving a halfhearted smile back.

“
Rita said it’s pretty
crazy in there. She asked if I could come in and help for a
bit.”

“
It’s not really that bad.
There’s just a lot of people inside ‘cause of the rain. Not too
many people are actually buying anything,” I said, half defending
the reason I was sitting outside when Rita felt swamped.

“
Yeah, she always panics
when there are more than five people in there at a time,” Austin
joked as he walked up the steps. “You coming inside?”

“
I’ll be in in a minute,”
I said as I looked back out into the rain. The door slammed shut
behind him.

Austin Andrews was Rita’s nephew. He
was a nice guy with brown hair and Rita’s same green eyes. He
wasn’t very tall but it was obvious he spent more than a few hours
at the gym. He was easy going and easy to get along
with.

Unfortunately Austin was a
little too overly anxious to be friendly at times. It was plain to
see he was interested. He smiled too much at me, always stood a
little too close. I didn’t think he even realized he was stepping
over the boundary just a little too much. He knew about Alex and
had met him several times. They seemed to get along well enough.
Austin didn’t act like he was trying to steal me away; he just
wasn’t keeping
himself
far enough away.

It was a little annoying but he was
still a friend. I could always use more of those.

The rain started to fade out and
within a few minutes it stopped completely. As it did, I went back
inside. It would be easier to deal with work without so many people
around.

I got back to what I was supposed to
be doing. Rita was best at working the cash register. She was
friendly and really knew what she was talking about when it came to
books. Me, I did a little better keeping the inventory organized
and the shelves stocked.

I brought a box of books out from the
storage room and started putting them on the shelves. I was putting
a few books on the religion shelf when the title caught my eye.
“Angels: Heaven’s Messengers”. Glancing to make sure no one was
watching me, I flipped through the pages.

Less than sixty seconds later I
snapped it shut. No one ever got it right. They all made them out
to be wonderful beings with halos and harps that wanted nothing but
good for people. No one knew what so many of them were really
like.

I rubbed a hand on the back of my neck
without thinking about it as I put the book on the shelf. The X on
the back of my neck had long faded into a white scar but it was
never going to fade away. It was a permanent part of me whether I
liked it or not.

ALEX

The place needed a lot of work; there
was no question about that. The ancient wallpaper was pealing and
torn, the carpet was stained. There was a badly cracked window in
one of the bedrooms. The entire place smelled just a little
off.

“
The seller is motivated,”
the realtor said as we walked back through the kitchen. The man
wasn’t what I had expected when I had talked to him on the phone.
The guy was probably younger than I was. “It’s a heck of a deal if
you’ve got a little extra money to put into fixing up.”

I nodded as my eyes traveled up,
admiring the crown molding. “It’s got potential,” I said as we
walked to the living room.

“
So?” he asked, stuffing
his hands into his pockets.

I nodded again, looking around one
last time. “I’ll take it.”

A huge grin broke onto his face.
“Excellent. I’ll call the owner this afternoon and tell her the
good news!”

“
Thanks Ryan,” I said as I
extended my hand and shook his. His palm was sweaty with nerves. I
wondered how long he had had his real estate license. I heard his
heart hammering with excitement. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow so
we can get all the legal stuff taken care of.”

Ryan thanked me, gave instructions to
lock up when I left, then let himself out the door. I stuffed my
hands in my pockets and looked around the ancient house
again.

My grandfather, Paul Wright, built his
empire dealing in real estate. He’d made his first million before
he turned thirty and that was even back in his day. The man knew
how the market worked, what to invest in and when to get out. He’d
had quite the reputation down in California. He’d left me a wide
open legacy, passing everything down to me. It was time I started
doing something with the knowledge he’d passed on. This house was
the start of that. I’d fix it up and rent it out until the economy
recovered enough to sell it.

The house just seemed to speak to me.
It was nearly one hundred years old. It had so much history to it.
I wondered about all the children who had been raised in it, how
many couples had called this their home. How many lives had been
built here.

My insides knotted up and a lump
formed in my throat.

Pushing those thoughts away, I took
one last look around the house and let myself out, locking the door
behind me.

My step faltered when I
was halfway to my truck as a whispering piqued my ears. The sound
was hurried, chaotic. It wasn’t the sound of a far off conversation
I was overhearing. It was coming from
within
me. The sounds of faraway
chuckling caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end.
The feeling of an ice cold shiver worked its way down my
spine.

As I reached my truck, I braced my
hands on the hood, my head hanging. The feeling of darkness started
creeping from my chest out toward my limbs. The pull into
nothingness was becoming a little stronger every day. My un-beating
heart felt like it was sucking the life out of every part of my
body. My hands started trembling. I’d be angry at myself later for
making a dent in the hood.

And before I could even think to fight
it, my wings burst out of my back, shredding my shirt.

I’d be grateful later for the fact
that this house wasn’t in a high density part of town.

I gasped for air, I didn’t need it,
but it was a natural instinct. My lungs felt squeezed, like they
were caving in. My entire body felt like it was collapsing in on
itself.

“
No,” I hissed. “You won’t
take me.”

The sound of my phone ringing made me
jump. My eyes grew wide in horror as I lost my concentration and my
hands disappeared before my eyes. Shaking my head I dug into my
pocket and pulled my phone out, hands again visible.

“
Hello?” I said through
clenched teeth, my eyes squeezed closed.

“
Hey Alex, its Ted,” my
lawyer’s voice came through on the other end. “Can you meet later
this afternoon?”

“
Yeah,” I said, my voice
tight as I struggled to make it work. “I’ll be there.”

JESSICA

“
Sorry,” Emily said as she
bustled about her small bathroom, prepping her face and hair. “I
don’t have too much time before I have to leave.”