Forsaken (30 page)

“
It was also from this
tree that my father had me hung.”

I felt all the color drain from my
face.

“
It took them a long time
to figure out what was happening. Beautiful women would come home
with me but they never left. I was careful not to let anyone but
perhaps a servant see them come in. They were too afraid of me to
say anything. But eventually my father saw some things he was never
meant to see. To say he was enraged would be a grave
understatement.

“
He came at me with an
iron rod. He must have broken half the bones in my face. After he
beat me unconscious, he had a few of his men carry me to this tree.
They synched a noose around my neck and sat me up on a horse. They
waited until I woke up.

“
The old man looked into
my face and said ‘Congratulations, you’ve killed the Emerson
legacy. You are no son of mine.’ He then slapped the horse, leaving
me dangling in the air.

“
I was twenty-seven the
day I died.”

I wasn’t sure what to feel as I
followed Cole around to the back side of the barn. Cole had met a
terrible end, but I wasn’t sure if I felt he deserved what happened
to him.

Another field stretched out behind the
barn. Cole walked to a place only about ten feet away from the west
wall.

“
He buried me in a three
foot deep hole here,” Cole said disgustedly as he looked at a
nondescript spot on the ground. “He didn’t even have the decency to
put a marker on his only son’s grave.”

Without saying anything else, Cole
leaned his back against the barn wall and slid to the ground. His
head hung low, his forearms resting on his knees, his hands
dangling between them. For once, I felt like I was seeing something
different in Cole than I had ever seen before. Not the monster, not
the man who thought he could have anything he wanted. But the man
who was beaten down, the man nobody loved.

I started searching through the grass.
I grabbed every rock that was of any significant size, piling it up
in one certain spot, roughly where Cole said his body had been
buried. With each stone I placed, I felt Cole’s mood shift. Lighten
wasn’t the right word but it was the closest I could think
of.

He watched me without saying a word. I
felt his eyes burn with intensity as he did. It was different from
all the other looks I had gotten from Cole before. They had always
been full of craving, lust, desire. This look was curiosity and
perhaps, admiration? Whatever it was, it confused me.

After I had the grave marker made, I
placed a few wild flowers on top of it. It felt weird. Placing
flowers on the grave of the being that was watching me.

Slowly, I walked to Cole’s side and
sat on the ground beside him. Neither of us spoke for several long
minutes, just stared out across the open field at nothing. The warm
summer breeze picked up, sending Cole’s unidentifiable scent my
way. So similar yet so different from Alex’s. I heard the grass
rustle as the air blew across it. It smelled like earth and
decaying wood, here so close to the ground. It was
comforting.

“
I’m dying Jessica,” Cole
finally spoke as he stared out over what should have been his.
“Well, not dying. I can’t exactly die since I’m already dead.
Decaying I guess you could say. Fading.”

I hadn’t really thought of it that way
but it made sense. Cole didn’t exactly look his best.

“
I’m not human anymore
Jessica. I don’t belong in this world. I’m fighting to stay in the
world of the living with every fiber of my being. I’m slowly being
pulled back though. I can’t fight what I am. I can’t even hide the
damn wings anymore.”

Cole leaned forward, his head sinking
low. As he did so, his hair fell away from his neck, revealing his
shadowed brand. I had seen it once before, one light, barely
visible X and another more defined one with it. It was like he had
jerked away then they branded him, as if he had fought with them.
It had been a nearly white color before. It was now almost a blood
red and almost looked infected.

Without thinking, I raised a hand to
it and very lightly touched a finger to it. I had forgotten what
contact between the two of us did until there was a decaying mark
of my finger on the back of his neck to match the handprints on his
chest. Cole didn’t even flinch away, even though I knew the pain it
must have caused him.

“
This is what’s going to
happen to Alex, isn’t it?” I asked. It felt as if there was a large
lump in my throat and a huge rock in the pit of my
stomach.

“
Yes,” Cole said softly as
he turned his black eyes to meet mine. I was surprised to see no
anger in them as I mentioned Alex. No jealously. “He won’t be able
to fight it much longer. Eventually he’s going to be pulled
back.”

“
But the council agreed to
let him come back,” I started to argue, feeling desperate. Even as
I tried to ration, I knew the truth, I knew what was going on. I
understood now.

“
He’s not of this world
Jessica. Yes, they agreed to let him come back to you, they never
said for how long. Eventually it’s going to become too much for
him. Even as we speak now,
I
can hardly fight the pull.”

I struggled to keep my breathing
steady. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the barn wall.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I should have known a thing that was
too good to be true when I saw it. Of course Alex couldn’t stay. He
wasn’t human, he wasn’t alive.

But how much time did he
have left?

“
Please tell me you didn’t
kill Alex’s mother,” I said through my silent tears, trying to
distract myself.

“
I didn’t kill Alex’s
mother,” Cole said as he looked back out over the field.
“
I
didn’t do
anything to her. She did it to herself. I just found her,
recognized that if someone didn’t help her soon, she was going to
be dead.”

A few more stray tears rolled down my
face as I closed my eyes for a moment. Apparently Caroline hadn’t
changed at all. Alex wasn’t going to be finding a woman who was fit
to be called a mother. She was still the same drug addicted woman
that had abandoned him twenty-three years ago.

As I shifted on the ground, I heard
the sound of paper crinkling. I pulled the paper from my back
pocket and unfolded it. It was Cole’s letter to me.

“
What did you mean by
this?” I asked. As I did, my eyes scanned his words
again.

Good-bye, Jessica.
Eventually we all have to face our demons. I’ve gone to face mine.
Perhaps someday I can help you face yours.

Cole stood in one invisible movement.
He glanced down and started to extend his hand to me, then realized
what that would do to him and withdrew it to his side. “Come with
me.”

I stood on shaky legs and followed
Cole around to the front of the barn again. The entire building
rattled as he swung a door open. For a moment he watched it,
gauging as I was to see if it was going to come down. When it
finally stopped moaning and creaking he motioned for me to follow
him in.

The smell of rotting wood intensified
as we stepped inside. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim
light. This appeared to be some kind of maintenance shed, filled
with ancient looking tools and pieces of equipment I could barely
identify. It seemed strange that the estate had just been
abandoned, everything left basically untouched.

We walked to the center of the
building and Cole stopped. He turned to look at me, his eyes
probing, searching. He didn’t say anything for a moment as he
looked for something within me that I didn’t know the answer
to.

“
Do you trust me?” he
asked, never breaking his stare.

“
No,” I said without
hesitation.

That half smile crept back onto his
face. “I guess that is warranted,” he chuckled slightly. He took a
step closer to me, his face growing serious. “Will you do something
I ask, if I promise no harm will come to you because of
it?”

I didn’t answer him right away,
carefully considering his words. I didn’t trust Cole but I believed
he would keep his word. I saw it in his eyes. “You promise?” I
asked, my tone doubtful.

“
I promise,” he said as he
looked intensely at me.

“
What?” I asked him, now
having his word.

“
Just close your eyes.
Don’t look. And don’t move.”

His request frightened me. I didn’t
want to comply with what he asked of me. But I had agreed. I closed
my eyes.

Cole didn’t make any sound but I
sensed him as he moved to the north wall of the barn. My palms
started sweating and I wiped them on my pants nervously.

Four seconds later, a pain like I had
never known pierced me in the right side of my chest.

My eyes flashed open, going
immediately to the source of the unbearable pain. Sticking out of
my chest was the handle of a very large, very rusty blade. My mind
couldn’t even process the fact that no blood was seeping from my
damaged body.

I looked up at Cole as he moved toward
me and I dropped to my knees. I waited for my vision to blur, to
start feeling lightheaded as I should have felt. Instead, the only
thing I felt was the pain.

Cole’s face was intent as
he slowly knelt before me. I was surprised to see that his face
also looked pained, as if what he had just done to me caused
him
pain. He locked eyes
with me, a million other emotions rolling through his. “This is
going to hurt,” he said, his voice sounding regretful.

Cole was right. A blood curdling
scream ripped from my throat as Cole yanked the blade out of my
chest. There wasn’t even any blood on the knife as he dropped it at
his side. His eyes never left the gaping hole in my torso. My eyes
fell back on my chest and grew wide. There was a long, slender hole
there, the edges rough and torn from being slashed open. But it was
shrinking. Fast. My skin netted itself back together, the wound
healing on its own. The pain ebbed away, until I couldn’t even
remember what it had felt like, having a knife embedded in my body.
Within ten seconds, the hole had completely closed and I felt
perfectly normal again.

Except for being totally freaked
out.

“
What…?” I gasped in
terror. I couldn’t take my eyes from the small white scar on my
skin.

“
That should have killed
you,” Cole said softly, traces of awe in his tone.

Anger boiled in my blood
as I looked back up at Cole, his face only two feet away from my
own. Before I even thought about what I was doing, I slapped my
hand across his face, leaving another decayed looking gray mark.
“What is
wrong
with you?!”

“
I’m sorry,” Cole said,
his expression looking shocked, though I didn’t think it was from
me slapping him. “I had to test my theory.”

“
What theory?” I growled.
To say I was livid at what Cole had just done was a massive
understatement. “You promised me you would do nothing that would
hurt me.”

“
I promised no harm would
come to you,” Cole said softly. “Are you harmed?”

I was about to scream back at Cole but
had to think about his question. He was right, I wasn’t harmed.
Horrified, but not harmed, despite the hole that had been ripped in
my shirt and the thin white line on my skin.

“
What theory?” I asked
again through clenched teeth.

“
Don’t you feel any
different than you did six months ago?” Cole asked, his tone
sounding slightly excited.

“
Of course I do,” I spat.
“I was two inches from death five months ago! No thanks to
you!”

“
You were less than two
inches,” Cole said as he stood up. He motioned for me to follow
him. He started walking back toward the mansion. “You were at
death. You couldn’t have come any closer to death and still come
back.”

“
What are you talking
about?” I called after him, trying to keep up with his swift pace.
“What does this have to do with you lobbing a knife into my
chest?”

We entered the house through a back
door. Cole didn’t answer my question as he walked down a hall and
entered a room. He stopped just inside and placed me before a floor
to ceiling mirror, being careful to only touch me through my
clothes.

“
Don’t you notice how you
don’t look a day older than you did the day I killed Alex?” Cole
said quietly, his lips too close to my ear for comfort.

“
It’s only been six
months,” I said lamely. “I’m not likely to notice any difference in
that short of time.”

Cole’s shoulders fell
slightly and his face looked a little frustrated. “I suppose even
your eyes can’t see that much detail. Don’t you
feel
different? Or perhaps the
better question is don’t you feel
exactly
the same?”

“
What are you trying to
get at, Cole?” I asked, feeling my insides start to quiver. I
didn’t think I really wanted to hear the answer to that
question.