Secrets - [Guardian Trilogy 01] (15 page)

Too much thinking, too early in the morning
. I pulled my heavy legs out of bed and stretched away the stiffness of sleep. Surreal was the only word to describe my life and dreams the past few days. Shuffling towards the kitchen to get a drink, I was met with smell of breakfast and coffee. This was getting ridiculous! People had to stop breaking into my house. I tiptoed towards the kitchen, my heart quickening as I tried to glimpse my most recent intruder. I needed to know whether or not I needed to call the police.

“Olivia!” rang out a voice I knew as well as my own. I found Juliet serving breakfast as I walked into the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, relieved it was her, but my voice still sharp from fear.

“There’s gratitude for you—I knew I skipped work for a reason.”

“Sorry, you scared me.”

“Who else would be in your apartment cooking? I’m the only one with a key.”

 “I don’t know.” I definitely couldn’t tell Jules about all of the stalking. She’d ignore anything I said after hearing that I had two perfect strangers popping up in inappropriate places in my life. The police would be the very first call she made, and I was certain that wasn’t something I was ready for—yet. Right now I needed to keep my options open. “You don’t have babysit me. I'm feeling much better today.”

Juliet gave me an annoyed stare. Speaking slowly, as if picking her words very carefully, she said, “Are you really? For someone feeling better you were talking a
lot
in your sleep. Not to mention that you've simply refused to talk about anything related to Christopher since it happened. Repressing isn't dealing. Don’t lie to me, Liv. You've never gotten over anything in your life.”

I mentally counted to ten rather than let myself get defensive. “Jules, I swear I feel much better. I think my mind worked out a lot of stuff while I was sleeping. Rather than sitting around my apartment feeling sorry for myself, I'm going to the studio.”

She looked even more annoyed, and I remembered that this could be about what she needed, not just me. “How about you. Do
you
need company?”

“I don’t see how it's possible that you’re really okay. I've seen you the last two nights. . . . You were completely distraught even if you were trying to hide it.” She was almost hysterical as she waved the spatula at me. “Don’t argue—I know you try to hide your emotions, though only God knows why. Hell Liv, I was hit hard by this.
I
still feel guilty. There's no way you're over this and I'm not. I don't know why you’re pretending.”

“I'm not pretending.” I thought for a moment about how I felt exactly and tried to find the words to help her understand. “I feel disconnected. Christopher’s death has had a bizarre quality to it from the beginning. The numbness began to slip away last night, but after Holden talked to me, it all made sense. It's back. It feels like a movie or something I read in a book one time, you know? His death isn’t my fault, and it’s not yours. As sad as it is, Christopher made his choice.”

“Holden? What on earth does he have to do with this?” her eyebrows pulled together. “How does he know about Christopher? When did you speak with him?” I could see jealousy forming at the idea that I confided in someone besides her. Jules definitely wasn’t acting like herself.

“No, he was in my dream. He explained everything to me in my dream.”

“So it was like your subconscious working this out.” I could hear skepticism dripping from each word, and she was starting to annoy me. Why couldn’t she just let this go?

“Something like that—but it’s not important. What matters is knowing that there was nothing we could have done. I don’t believe Christopher came looking for help. His behavior suggested otherwise—and you?
You
certainly have no reason to feel guilty. You were protecting me from what promised to be a bad situation. You were being a good friend.”

 “This is quite the role reversal we have going on here.” Juliet stared at her hands.

I smiled. “Everything is clearer to me today.”

“Yes, I can see that.” She bit her lip like she knew she should let it go but couldn’t. “I just don’t see how it can be real.” Her eyes met mine with worry and some other emotion I couldn't identify. “Remember when you and Christopher broke up? Remember how depressed and withdrawn you were? I never believed it was about him; it was about your own perceived failure. You thought you failed and you shut down, leaving me to collect the pieces. As rational and logical as you can be about other people’s problems, you have a horrible track record with your own. Now tell me how all of a sudden you can just brush off something as major as this.”

“I'm not brushing anything off. It just doesn’t feel like it’s my problem. I feel sad for him. I feel the loss of his life, but it’s not my fault.” I grabbed an apple out of the bowl on the counter and rolled it in my hands. “I'm not angry with him. I forgive him whatever his angle was … And more importantly, I forgive myself too.”

Juliet shook her head stubbornly.

“What?” I snapped, finally exasperated. “Do you want me to beat myself up? Do you think I'm to blame?”

“Of course not. I just want to make sure you're not storing this up for some big emotional meltdown later.” She shrugged. “Wow, I guess this is some new Zen leaf you’ve turned over.”

We sat in silence for a while, picking at our food until eventually she sighed and looked less anxious. “I guess I'll go in to work too.”

On her way out the door, she turned back to me. “You know I want you to be happy. I'm just worried about you. It’s great you’ve found a way to deal with this.”

 “Thanks,” I said, but she wasn’t done.

“And I think you should call Holden. You don’t warm up to people very easily, and you definitely seem to have connected with him. He's everywhere all of a sudden.”

If only she knew. “I appreciate that you're concerned. You do know me better than anyone else, but I'm trying to be positive.”

“Well, if it’s Holden who brought this out in you, then I approve.”

I grinned. “Don’t jump the gun on that. I barely know him—and besides, I'm fairly certain whatever Holden and I may have, it will be …” I sighed, “complicated.”

“We can talk about it more tonight. You want to go to dinner? Maybe we can get tickets to the Fox.”

“That'd be great.”

I felt badly for lying, but I didn’t want her to hang around all day. I had no intention of going to the studio, even though work was starting to pile up I had too much on my mind to focus on anything else. I wanted to talk to Holden and Quintus, but somehow I never seemed to remember to get a phone number for either of them. Both knew more than they were telling me, and I was determined to find out what I missing. It was too much of a coincidence that within the same week two random guys started following me, I shared dreams, I could feel something watching me, and my ex-boyfriend killed himself. I was in the center of something and I had to figure out what it was. My current option was to wait for one of them to show up, but my mind was working on another solution.

Patience had never been one of my strengths. After twenty minutes of pacing and the sheer force of my will failed to make them appear, I collected my camera, cell phone, and keys. Surely if they could find me so easily, I could find them. At the park where I first saw Quintus, I sat on the bench where he’d sat. What had brought him here? It was mostly a residential area, so perhaps he lived in the neighborhood. Surely he hadn’t been following me yet. And he'd been reading a newspaper—that meant he was from around here, right? I pictured the day in my head trying to focus in on the details of what I had seen. There was something different about his newspaper. Recalling the memory, I searched the picture of it in my mind. Something was off about it. The writing looked different. The headlines weren’t in English. Spanish, maybe Italian.

So he’s bilingual—that probably doesn’t mean anything.
I chewed on my lip as I glanced around the park one more time. It wasn’t long before I admitted to myself he wasn’t showing up. I drove out to my mother’s church because it was the only other place I knew to look for him. When it came right down to it, I knew nothing about the men who seemed to know so much about me. What could I have possibly done to elicit such attention? The chain of events traced back to Holden; nothing happened before I ran into him. So maybe all of this wasn't about me or Quintus at all—maybe it was him.

But finding Holden would be even trickier. I saw him at the gallery, a nightclub, and my mother’s house. Obviously, the gallery and Mom’s house were solely because he was looking for me. The club could’ve been a different story, but the image of his disgusted face while he was entering the building and the fact that he only stopped by at closing time, made me think it wasn’t his scene either. The only surefire way I knew to speak with him was to fall asleep. But the validity of those conversations was questionable at best. Call me old fashioned, but I wanted to speak with him in person, to see his expressions uninfluenced by my mind. Obviously, his eyes turning red were a figment of my imagination not the reality of the situation. Plus, I seemed to wake up before I could get anywhere. This was definitely the road less travelled by, and I was certain I couldn't continue my journey based on dreams alone. Yes, I had to get to know Holden, but more importantly I needed to find out what he knew about me and why–but first things first. I’d arrived at the church. Hopefully I’d find Quintus and get the ball of knowledge rolling. I parked, got out of my car, and walked up to the church doors quite calmly. Just before I entered, however, I got nervous. I couldn’t say why, as I’d never been particularly religious. But here, standing in front of the doors, I was suddenly scared of what I may find on the other side. Maybe I didn’t want to dig deeper after all. Maybe I should turn around and go home, get a security system, and find a way to suppress dreams. If I did that, I could continue living my normal happy existence. If I didn’t walk through these doors, nothing would have to change. . . .

I shook it off and walked through.

The church was quiet and peaceful. No one was there, but a few candles were lit underneath one of the altars. I sat in a pew looking towards the front. I felt lost, disappointed. I had fully expected to find Quintus sitting in here, waiting for me, though I had no reason to believe that. My instincts had been certain—and they had been wrong. My life had taken a direction that I no longer had control over. It all happened in a matter of days. These two people who could’ve written the book on odd behavior had completely messed up my happy existence.
I need answers
.

“What kind of answers are you looking for?” asked the gentle voice I’d been searching for all morning. I whipped around. Quintus was seated beside me, dimples in full affect.

“I know I didn’t say that out loud.”

“Let’s walk.” He extended his hand and when I took it, a warm tingling sensation spread up my arm and travelled until it warmed my entire body like an electric blanket or flannel pajamas. I pulled my hand away, wanting to focus on getting information and not on the strange tingling. Quintus led me into the cemetery across the street. We walked past the rows of newer graves without saying a word. The further back we went, the older the headstones were and the larger the trees became among them. He stopped next to a large tree on a hill. It was surrounded by tombstones that were all over two hundred-years-old. He sat and patted the ground beside him, urging me to sit as well.

“This is my favorite spot in this city. It's quiet and peaceful. The noise and traffic disappear.”

I didn’t feel the need to reply, instead I listened. Peace was something my mind could use at the moment. It was restful, but then again everyone around us was dead, so that was a little messed up. Not only that, but if I couldn’t hear the outside world here, that meant they couldn’t hear me. Once again, I’d allowed myself to be isolated. It would be a miracle if I managed to survive today, let alone figure out what was going on.