Synergy (10 page)

“It’s called change, Draven,” I said as I stood and began to match his pace. “Life is about change - every second we change and we grow and become something else. Is some change hard? Yes. Is it impossible to weather? No.”

He stopped, and his green
eyes pierced into mine. “This isn’t puberty, this isn’t a move across the ocean, this isn’t me deciding not to become a career mu
sician – this is life and death. Y
our death.”

“What’s the purpose of living if all you feel is pain? Because if we let this darkness win, if we let it rip us apart, we’ll both be in agony, and you know that. I know you love me
...
I need you to love yourself.”

“I would rather you
live
in agony than
die.
”
He said under his breath as he glanced away. I could swear the room had turn colder in that instant. He was pushing me away.

My frantic stare rushed over his additive image. I was going to ignore that goodbye in
his
eyes and fight like hell to keep him at my side.
“You
don’t even know if you can do that – you think you can.
” I bit out. “
You have no idea what you’ve become
. N
o one does. Quit selling yourself out.”

“Silas was very clear with me,” he
stated with coldness as his jaw locked and fury immersed him.

“When?”
It was clear now why his self-loathing was amped up to a new level. Silas.
Freaking Silas.

“After you left.”

“What did he say?” I demanded
as I tried to see my answer.

He balled his fist as the room dropped another few degrees
. “We have a deal.”

“What do you mean?”
If those two thought they were going to
bargain
over
my fate – they’d lost their
damn
minds.

“We aren’t going to let you die.”
Was his very emotionless response.

“How is that a news flash?”
He was talking in circles and it was making me dizzy at this point. I mean how many times could you have the same exact argument?!

“Don’t you get it?” he said as his eyes locked with mine. “He’ll always be a breath away, and the moment I even come close to losing control, he’ll kill me. We can never be alone again. We can never rest.”

I was seething with anger. I could feel it pumping th
r
ough my veins.
“I
don’t care where he is – don’t you get that? Am I grateful that he saved my life? Yes. Do I think he knows what’s
going on around us, around T
he R
ealm – that he can help us? Yes. But I swear to you, if he lays one hand on you, I won’t rest until he dies.”

“Let me explain something to you,” he said as he stepped closer to me.
Matching my furious glare.
“This will not be a poetic death. When light leaves you, you will die every death that you’ve ever escaped. It will not be swift; it will take months -
-
and you will live in hell.”

“Who says?”
I made sure my chin was
up;
that
my stare and stance were matching his. If he was trying
to
make
me
fear death he was insane. I only had one fear. And he was pushing me to face it. Losing him was worse than any death.

His
emerald
star
e rained down on me with sympathy
and
a t
inge of regret.
“Silas. It’s happened before; he showed me.”

“Showed you what?”

I could swear I that I felt the air in the room ache with grief as he continued his stare. If he had the power he would turn back time, go back to our beginning and ensure that we never met, and that was agony. Seeing that in his eyes was death.

“After my death in our last life, you ended your life, but you didn’t die instantly...I guess that’s why I’m almost a year older than you. Silas watched you go through that, and he swears he’ll never witness that again.”

“I guess my point about change has been proven.”
I said with a smirk.
  That expression was my only defense. I could not let him see how afraid I was. I kn
ew if I wavered from my resolve
that he
’d
find a way to leave
me
behind while he fought this evil.

“What point?”
he asked with an
ache
in his
velvet voice.

I swallowed trying to hide my nervousness.
“That it happens and it hurts, but when it’s over, you have no regrets, no pain.”

“How was that point made?” he bellowed, looking at me like I was insane.
His
anger and fear only made me love him more. Made me want to fight harder for him to see that I didn’t care. He was mine. I wasn’t walking away from us.
Ever
.

“What bad came out of my death then? Let me think. We were born again, we fell in love again, we stood by each other in innocence, every first, every beautiful life changing experience was shared with you. Eighteen years isn’t long enough for the sacrifice you say I made. If you regret my death, then make it up to me now; love me fearlessly and never let me go.”

With one swift step, he pulled me to him and kissed me passionately. I felt his warm lips encasing mine, his strong hands gripping my sides.  My lips moved across his jaw
, and in his ear I whispered, “I
’ll let you know when your debt is paid, a million years from now.”

His arms tightened around me and swayed me from side to side.
The coldness in the room vanished and his warmth was all I could feel.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“You have no reason to be sorry.”

He leaned back and looked into my eyes as he traced my jaw with his fingertips, which were gently humming with his energy. “I’m sorry I can’t beat this.”

“We’re beating it right now.”

“I love you,” he murmured as his eyes fell into mine. “No matter what happens, never forget that.”

“What’s going to happen? What do we do now?”

He let his hands fall from my face, then walked to the couch and fell into it. “I can’t get to those boys. I tried.”

That statement made m
y
heart jump. I knew who was guarding those boys.
“What did you do? How did you try?”

His soulful eyes gave me a quick glance, assuring me he had stayed on the safe side of that devil.
“I recreated the place that was destroyed in that dimension. I looked everywhere for them. Every time I thought I was close, they’d vanish. It’s like they’re asleep inside a nightmare. I know I’m reaching them because they repeated those lyrics, an angel falling, a devil risen
...
I just can’t get them to wake up. They must think I’m a part of it, that I’m going to hurt them or something.”

“Sounds like you g
ot closer than I did,” I muttered,
letting out a deep breath.
He hadn’t seen the devil I
’d
fought.

“Maybe if I can fin
d their bodies outside of T
he R
ealm, I could see where they were, chase them from their perspective.”

I sat down next to him. “Are you sure it’s Landen? That they took our escape?” I asked, having no idea how we’d find the bodies of people we didn’t even know.

He nodded.

“How? How can you know for sure? We’v
e never seen him. Even in T
he R
ealm, I couldn’t make out their faces.”

He let his head fall back on the couch and reached to lace his fingers through mine. “I can’t figure out how I even knew to go back, how what I saw was in reality. I really thought it was just a game Bianca was playing.”

“We’ve stepped into reality before,” I mumbled.

We’d figured out that when we saw ourselves into a memory, moved to a place with a thought in this world, sometimes the people there could see us, and sometimes they couldn’t. We assumed it was because some peopl
e were more aware than others.
We were always careful when we appeared somewhere. We didn’t want to terrify anyone, and at times, from the fearful expressions of those around us, we understood that we were perceived as ghosts or something like that.

“But never from T
he R
ealm,” Dr
aven countered. “Somehow, T
he Realm
led me to someone else’s reality, and that opens more questions than I have time to weigh.”

“Madison thinks T
he R
ealm is a veil to something bigger. That we’ve barely begun to understand it.”

He nodded to agree.

“You never told me how you know
it
’
s
Landen.”

Draven cleared his throat. “How many people do you think have a soul mate named Willow that would be fighting pure evil?”

“She was there?” I asked as my stomach twisted. I could only imagine the grief she’d be going through if that were true.

Draven nodded once. “She screamed his name.”

“What are you not saying?” I asked in a shaky voice, knowing that absent look in his eyes all too well.

His hand tightened around mine. “The reason I thought it wasn’t real
ity, that it was T
he R
ealm, was
because the p
rince was there. Madison was there.”

“What do you mean?!” I said as I sat up.

“It wasn’t her. Another guy pulled her away, and he called her Willow.”

“Are you serious?” I said as a sick feeling eased up my throat.

“They could be twins,” Draven said as his eyes stared forward. It was clear he was completely mystified.

“Oh
. M
y
.
God,” I said as I let go of his hand and leaned forward and tried to breathe.

“Charlie? Charlie! Look at me. What do you know? What are you not saying?”

I raised my head up slowly and looked into his frantic eyes. “This whole time, through all of this
...
I
...
I should have figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“I don’t even know. She told me that when she dreamed of him that sometimes he was looking at her and sometimes he was looking at someone just like her. She keeps telling me that she won’t be anyone’s second choice. I thought she
was talking about Britain. And
she’s dreaming about some fight with t
his girl. Now he’s been taken?
Now some witch says the Goddess of Mother Nature has called Madison? Draven, what if they’re calling her to be some kind of sacrifice?”

“Charlie, that makes no sense.”

“How does any of this make sense?! Why have we not been able to leave for Chara? I’ve been in that dimension every day, just waiting for a glimpse of th
em – nothing. And now that the p
rince is in danger and Madison is told she’s
called
– we’re walking right into this.” I couldn’t sit still. I stood and began to pace. “And not mention that
de
m
on
– he literally blocked those boys from us. How is one demon connecting us all, and what’s with the dreams? I’m terrified of Madison’s, mine, definitely Monro
e’s. I think that was her dad.
I really do.”

Draven stood and stopped my pace. “Shh,” he said as he cradled my face. “Sit down. We’ll figure this out.” I gave in to his simple request and sat down by him. “Listen, we knew Austin before this happened. I doubt that Landen and Willow have purposely been waiting to use Madison as a sacrifice. Austin would never lead us into something like that. They’re victims just like all of us.”

“Then how do we connect?”

“I think it has to do with our past lives, at least I think I’m connected from a past life.”

“Why?”

“
I don’t know how to explain it. The first time you showed me
the p
rince, I thought I recognized him; I figured he just reminded me of someone. But when the memories from my past life started coming to me, I saw him.”

“Was he bad?” I asked timidly.

Draven tried to smile, but sadness wouldn’t let him. “No. In my memories, I’m a child, then he dies or something, and as I became the evil I was, I hear his voice in my head. I feel like I’m letting him down, but I can’t be sure. I might just be making the connection because the kind of place he lives in is a lot like what I ruled in. But I know one thing: that pe
rson in my memories
fought the evil we’re fighting now. We’re just a younger generation, one that lost where they prevailed.”