Juliet Immortal (20 page)

“Don’t
run away
,” she says.
“Love.”
My eyes meet hers and once again I sense a hollowness inside her, a feeling that something necessary is missing.

“What do you mean?” I ask, voice shaking. “I can’t love Romeo. I just—”

“Love,”
she repeats, as if she hasn’t heard me, and before I can say another word, they’re gone. Vanished in a blink. My eyes sweep along the rows of vines in every direction, but there is nothing. They’ve disappeared and I’ve lost her again. I’ve lost myself.

I should be glad. According to Romeo, that body is a psychic manifestation sent to consume me. But I’m not glad. A wounded sound tears from my throat as I fall to my knees. I can’t do what she says. I can’t love Romeo. I can’t. I hate him. I will always hate him. My heart squeezes in my chest, trying to collapse into itself and disappear, to escape this strange agony.

Love. Hate. Love
.

I feel as if I’m being torn apart. My stomach lurches and the world tilts unsteadily on its axis, and I find myself wondering if maybe this is all in my head.
All of it
.

What if everything I believe to be real is simply a creation
of my mind? Maybe I was never Juliet. Maybe I never died in a tomb or fought my ex-love through the ages. Maybe I’m just Ariel Dragland, eighteen, a girl who’s suffered a head injury and is now certifiably insane.

“No. I’m not mad, I’m not,” I sob, only realizing that tears are streaming down my face when the words come out more gurgle than shout.

I suck in a breath and choke on it, swiping at my running nose and dripping eyes, angry at the nose for its pert, upturned slope, hating these big blue eyes and the rough scars that mark my stolen skin. I hate this body—not because of the scars, but because it isn’t
mine
. It
isn’t
. I’m not crazy, not yet. I’m simply sick to the bone of having nothing that is
mine
, not my mission, not my choices, not even my own flesh and blood. I
hate
it.

I hate traveling through time, watching the world transform so radically yet stay so much the same. I hate the world for creating monsters like Romeo and the greed and fear and evil that give him and people like him something to kill for. I hate the Mercenaries for stealing my brief flash of happiness. I hate Nurse for not telling me the truth about who and what she is, about what
I
am. I hate the Ambassadors for trapping me with my own compassion, for forcing me to work for the good of humanity even when humanity seems the furthest thing from good. I hate that I’ve spent so many years fighting for love when my own love was stolen away. So brief and then gone, never to have a second chance.

Most of all, I hate the hope that continues to spring to life inside me only to die again and again, as if I haven’t lived through enough misery to know that hope is for fools.

Tears and more tears, enough to fill the world, rush down my face, making it feel like the rain is still falling, though it has
stopped for a moment, leaving the air cold and lonely. I try to pull myself up, but I can’t, can’t find my way through rage and despair to something good enough to get me to my feet.

And then he’s there behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me to him, my back tight to his chest. “It’s okay,” he says, holding me when I try to move away. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” I sob. “It will never be okay.”

“It is. You’re tough, remember?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You stood up to him. You’re strong.”

I shake my head. I’m not. I’m weak and selfish. I hate and I covet and I’m far too aware of Ben’s skin on mine, of the way his arms circle my waist, the way his warmth surrounds me, banishing the chill. I want him to be mine. I want to know that I belong here with him, that the arms I cling to will never let me go.

“You are,” he whispers, propping his chin on my shoulder, as if being close to me is the most natural thing in the world. “It’s one of the things I love the most about you.”

A strained sound—half laugh, half sob—bursts from my throat. My fears have been confirmed, but a part of me wants to weep with relief. He thinks he loves me; he said the words. Even though I know they aren’t true, they are still precious. “You can’t love me.” I do my best to keep the regret from my voice. “You love Gemma.”

“I don’t love Gemma. I
have
never, and
will
never love Gemma,” he says, mimicking the words I said to Romeo less than an hour ago, right down to the stubborn refusal in his tone. “I love you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know you,” he says, with a quiet assurance that threatens to make my tears start all over again. “I know you’re strong and as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside. I know you like to eat and hate Shakespeare—at least the love stories—and would do anything for a friend. I know you’re an artist, and you made a wall of bricks look like it should be hanging in a museum. I know you’ve been through hell, but you didn’t let it eat you up inside.” He pauses, hugs me a little closer. “And I know you make me think the hell I’ve been through was worth it … if it’s what made me recognize heaven when it jumped into my car.”

My throat squeezes so tight I can scarcely breathe. Everything he’s said—almost all of it—is about me, the real me, the soul inside this body. Ben
sees
me. He knows me. Is there even a chance …

No, there isn’t. I’ve had my chance. One soul mate, one chance, and that’s the end of it. I wasn’t summoned into this time for myself. I was summoned because Gemma and Ben are soul mates—the color in their auras confirms it beyond a shadow of doubt.

“No,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “You may think … But you don’t. Not really.”

“I
know
what I feel. But if you don’t feel the same way …” The pain in his voice makes the tears run again. I can’t stand the thought of hurting him any more than I have, but there’s no other choice. He has to forget me.

“I don’t.”

“You’re lying,” he whispers. “Just like you lied yesterday when you kissed that asshole. You didn’t want to touch him; I could tell. You were doing it for Gemma, weren’t you?”

“
She’s
the one you’re supposed to be with.”

“How the hell do you figure that?” he asks, anger creeping into his voice. “She was
never
even my girlfriend. Sure, we made out
one time
at one of her family’s barns near my house, but it didn’t feel right. And it didn’t go any further than kissing. I swear to you. Even before I met you, I knew Gemma and I were going to end up being just friends, and maybe not even friends. She’s a
lunatica
, and she’s definitely not my soul mate or whatever.”

I turn, shifting until I can see his face. The intensity in his eyes makes me forget the argument I was forming, forget everything but how much I want to believe him. Even the deep, nearly auburn glow of his aura—the blush that confirms his love for another—can’t convince me to move away. I’m not sure anything could. Not right now, not when he’s so close, that fire burning in his eyes reminding me so much of myself, of the way I love.

“And I told her when we went for coffee that I wasn’t interested. She knows that. She knew it last night. All we did was talk and feed the horses carrots, because you’re the person I want to be with,” he whispers, pushing my rain-soaked hair away from my face. “I knew that when you started fighting me for the gas pedal. I think I was in love with you by the time I dropped you off at your house.”

“But—”

“I hated that you and Gemma were friends because I knew it would hurt my chances with you,” he says, pushing on, his determination simmering in every word. “And last night, thinking about you being with Dylan … I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stand thinking that you were with him, that he might be touching you, kissing you … I just—I—” He breaks off with a sigh.
“I’m not doing this right, and I know I sound crazy, but … I love you. I could see myself loving you for a long time.”

My breath rushes out. “I wish I could see that too.” The tears flow faster. His words are breaking my heart into jagged pieces that stab away inside of me. Having him so close but so impossibly out of reach feels as if it really might kill me.

“Whatever happened to make you so sad …” Ben’s words trail off as his face drifts closer to mine. Closer, closer, until I can feel his warmth against my lips. “I would do anything to make it better.” Closer, until our exhalations meet and mingle and I pull a piece of him inside me with my next breath. “I want to be the person you come to for … everything.”

So close our lips will touch if either of us moves an inch. “We can’t do this,” I whisper.

“We can.” His hand comes to my cheek, cupping my face with a gentle insistence that sends sparks shivering over my skin. “I love you. I’ll prove it, if you’ll give me a chance.”

And then he kisses me and any thought of protest vanishes with the press of his lips against mine. He is … 
perfect
, as perfect as I knew he would be. His kiss fills me up like sunshine, burning away every bad thing, beating back the darkness that’s weighed so heavy inside me since the day I learned there would be no happy ending. Not for me.

But in this moment, with his arms wrapped around me and his taste on my lips, his breath my breath, I swear I’ve been wrong. There is such a thing as happiness, and he whispers my name and holds me safe.

But who will hold Ben safe if Romeo convinces Gemma she should kill him? Her aura might be red, but she’s not beyond Mercenary reach, not until Ben burns just as brightly for her
.

My blood chills, moves sluggishly in my veins. Romeo can do it. Gemma is vulnerable; she’s angry with me, and likely to get angrier when Ben tells her how he feels about Ariel. And he
will
tell her. He can’t know that she won’t understand, that his confession will put his life in danger. If this shift proceeds like every other, if he and Gemma don’t end up together, they will perish apart.

And I’m not willing to risk Ben’s life on the chance that this time will be different.

I turn my mouth from his, ignoring the howl of protest from my selfish soul. “I can’t.” I stand and stumble away, shivering in the sudden chill.

“Please, Ariel, I—”

“I can’t do this. I don’t love you.”

Hurt flashes in his eyes. “You wouldn’t have kissed me like that if—”

“It was just a kiss. It doesn’t mean I love you, and I
know
you don’t love me.” I jab the words in his direction, doing my best to get through to him. “We barely even know each other, and three days ago you were probably saying you were in love with my best friend.”

“No, I wasn’t. I swear, I told her I wasn’t into her, even before you and I met. She just wouldn’t
listen
to me. Or she would, but then she came up and kissed me like we hadn’t talked about being friends. She’s just crazy, Ariel, I—”

“I don’t care.”

“Please, don’t do this.” He reaches for me, a gesture of such supplication it makes my chest ache. “I know it’s hard to believe me.
I
wouldn’t believe me if I were you. But if you’ll just give me some time, I—”

“I don’t believe you. I never will.” I take another step back. “We should get back to school. We’re going to be in even bigger trouble than—”

“Olvida la escuela,”
he says, anger in his eyes. “This is more important than—”

“Go back to school, Ben.” I cross my arms tight, doing my best to hold myself together. “Find Gemma and tell her you want to work it out. We can pretend this never happened.”

“No.” Ben’s lips press together in a stubborn line I want to trace with my shaking fingers.

“You have to,” I plead. “Do whatever it takes to convince her you’re worth it, or you
will
regret it.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You will. I promise you will.” Overhead, the sky darkens and thunder rumbles, echoing across the valley below. When Ben’s eyes look to the sky, I slip past him and back into the woods. “Love her … or run as far away from both of us as fast as you can.”

“What are you talking about?” He trails me, ignoring the hand I hold in the air, demanding that he stop.

“Love her.” Lightning flashes like a warning to keep my secrets. A warning I ignore. “Or leave Solvang and don’t ever come back.”

“What?”

“You’re in danger if you and Gemma don’t stay together. Just … be careful. Okay?” I see the confusion on his face but push on before he can speak. “I know you don’t understand, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to warn you. I wish someone had warned me.” My voice wavers as my steps grow faster. “I wish I had listened.”

“Ariel. I don’t—”

“Please listen, Ben. Please. We will never be together.
Never
, no matter what. It’s more impossible than you could ever imagine. The best thing you can do is forget we ever met.” Without another word, I turn and walk away, heading in the opposite direction of the school. I can’t go back there. I can’t risk seeing Romeo with the taste of Ben still on my lips.

I
walk home in the rain—again—this time wearing nothing but jeans and a tank top. I’m freezing, shivering until my jaw locks up and my bones ache, every second a painful reminder of how fragile I’ve become.

Finally, I decide to hitch a ride. The scariest people in this town won’t get out of school for another six hours. I should be safe. I’ve had my thumb out for less than five minutes when a car pulls over.

Unfortunately, it’s familiar car. With a very familiar, very
angry
woman in the driver’s seat.

Ariel’s mother leans over to open the passenger’s door. “Ariel Dragland, what are you doing out here?” Her voice rises
to a note so high it makes me wince. “What is wrong with you?”

“Mom, I …” Caught skipping school and hitchhiking. This isn’t going to end well. I can see a vein on Melanie’s forehead beginning to bulge. “I th-thought you were at w-w—”

“I
was
at work. Before the school called and said you’d been in a fight and run off into the woods with some boy.” She snaps her fingers and flutters one impatient hand. “Get in the car! You’re going to freeze to death and the seats are getting wet!”