The Lost Girl (29 page)

When I felt the release of pressure around me, I knew we had arrived.

Vigil lurched forward and snapped his eyes open, gasping for air, trying to recover from his dizziness.

He looked around and then he realized where we were. He passed his hands softly over the grass, cherishing the feel of it beneath his fingers.

“I don’t understand,” he said, looking to me. “Why are we here?”

I smiled and grazed both of my hands over the grass, tenderly, just like he had.

I missed home. I missed the security and love I had here. I wanted my old life back, a life without rattling chains constantly in my mind, a life of creation, not destruction. I missed the love I felt from my friends and family. A life without my Lost Boys would have no purpose. It would be meaningless.

And Tristan … I missed the boy with silver eyes the most. How could I ever have thought it possible to live without him?

Vigil’s challenge had shocked me into realizing everything I was about to lose, finally empowering me to slip through the grasp of those destructive voices that pulled at me, and kick my way back to the surface. Now that I had drowned out the voices inside my head and I couldn’t hear any more angry whispers, I was able to hear myself again. The real Joey, my real voice, not the voice of that person who craved power, but the one who loved her friends. And loved Tristan. I loved him. He was real and made mistakes, but that was what made him human.

And so was I, full of flaws and mistakes, but still human.

I could never live for power. I could never kill another living being. No amount of power was worth that sacrifice. Not now, not ever.

“The key is to do exactly what we did the first time,” I instructed. “We missed a lot of important parts to make it work right. It is quite silly, if you think about it …”

Vigil’s eyes widened, a look of surprise on his pale face. Then deep relief. I leaned closer to him and held his face. “Are you going to be okay, Vigil? I mean, once you get your powers back … after everything you’ve been through, will you be okay handling your powers again? I know how tiresome it is to keep holding back … to block everything out all the time. Will you be all right?” I asked, worried. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

He smiled and a stray tear slipped down his face. “I’ll be all right,” he whispered softly. “And so will you.”

I nodded and stood up, surveying the backyard. I could still feel the flames burning on my skin, the heat coursing through my veins. But I held back once more and, for the last time, fought the urge to let it lash it out. The soft yellow
glow from the flames cast a warm light in the garden, but the rest of the house remained dark.

I waved a hand and the wind started to pick up speed as clouds gathered in the sky. We needed a storm now; we needed rain to make the glass ball work. Vigil stood up, still clutching his wounded arm, and glanced at the sky. The wind whirled, making our hair dance.

I slid my hand inside my pocket, took out a small marble of brilliant light and made it float towards Vigil. “Nick’s in there. Safe and sound,” I said.

He nodded and tucked the marble safely back inside his pocket. Rain started to fall then, but it didn’t extinguish the flames on my skin. The fire still burned softly – wavering, but never-ending.

Soon it will all be over. There will be no more dark whispers and rattling chains, no more snarling urges or cravings for destruction. It would all soon be washed away by the rain. As I let the flames slowly fade, I could still hear a lingering howl.
Let it burn.
But it was far too weak, and I was stronger now. I knew better than to listen. I now knew what was important. Vigil had helped me to see that.

I raised my hands, palms up, and let the rain fall through my fingers. There was no fire on me any more. Only the night, the wind, the rain, the grass under my feet and the cold water pouring down my face.

I waved another hand and a circle of light flashed next to us, just like the spotlights that had been there last time. Then I made a movement and slashed at my hand, making a deep cut which oozed momentarily before healing up before our eyes. Now we had the blood.

All that remained was the last piece of the puzzle. I took the glass ball out of my pocket and watched as its dark orb
swirled with tiny specks of white stardust floating inside. I extended the glass ball towards Vigil and gave him one last smile. When his fingers wrapped around the ball, a fierce blast of piercing light shot out, making the specks of light inside the glass burst and take over the entire sphere. My whole body was enveloped by this implacable light and an excruciating pain washed over me. It was unbearable and, just like the first time, the intense agony made me black out completely.

When I woke again, the first thing I noticed was how much I hurt. It felt like I had been hit by a bus or something. My head, my arms, legs, stomach, even my hair felt like it was hurting. And I was exhausted, completely and utterly drained. Even moving my head was painstakingly hard.

“Are you okay?” I heard Vigil’s soft voice calling out to me.

I blinked a few times and focused on his face, which loomed over me. He was holding me gently in his arms. I tried to answer but only a low whimper came out; pain shot through all my nerve endings whenever I tried to move.

“Do not try to speak … or move. Just rest for a while and you will be fine. I will carry you inside and dry you off, okay?”

I managed a small nod. Only then did I notice that I was cold and completely drenched. It wasn’t raining any more; I could even catch a glimpse of the moon right above our heads.

He carried me inside the living room and laid me down on the couch. He gently smoothed some wet locks of hair from my face. All the lights were off and there was no one else in the house. For a moment I wondered where
everybody could be, but the thought quickly vanished as I was taken over by pain.

“You did good, Joe Gray,” Vigil said softly, adjusting a cushion under my head.

I nodded again and sighed deeply, closing my eyes in exhaustion. I wanted so badly to sleep.

“I will get you a towel and a blanket,” he told me, but stayed seated by my side. My eyes were still closed when I felt something brushing against my lips, warm and soft. It was Vigil kissing me, a gentle, chaste kiss of gratitude.

I wanted to say how sorry I was about everything I had done, about all the suffering I had caused him; I wanted to thank him for not giving up on me, for saving me from myself.

But I was so tired I couldn’t even open my eyes. I felt his fingers brush my cheek and then he stood up and left. The all too familiar stabbing pain shot through my wrist.

At least now I knew everything really was back to normal – even my weird, painful wrist connection with Vigil.

I must have dozed off for a minute because I was suddenly jerked awake. My hair was now dry and a warm blanket covered me.

“Joey, I have to go. Will you be all right?” he asked. “I have to take care of this now,” he said, holding the small white marble that imprisoned Nick. “But I will return as soon as I have finished.”

I mumbled something and closed my eyes, already drifting back to sleep.

“Joe! Joey!”

Someone was calling my name, but I couldn’t open my eyes. Or move. I was too tired. My body had given up and
I just lay there, lifeless. There was someone talking to me, asking questions. The annoying voice insisted on calling my name over and over, but I couldn’t reply. I was almost comatose.

I felt someone holding me by the arms and then I was carried somewhere. It was probably one of the boys carrying me upstairs to bed. My body shook and slumped against something. I was lying down, half-asleep still. It felt like I was in a car – a moving car. Everything was pitch black, or was it that I couldn’t open my eyes? I could hear a motor running.

Maybe it was one of the boys taking me to a hospital, scared that I wasn’t waking up. That was probably it. I was too tired to think of anything else.

The motion of the car lulled me back to sleep. My head rolled to the left and brushed over something soft and velvety, like the petals of a flower. Before I slipped out of consciousness completely, the thought came to me that it smelled a lot like lilies …

In the hazy mist of my slumber I recognized car horns and the muffled sound of rushing traffic. The air was stuffy and hot, and the smell of lilies was strong and putrid, suffocating me.

At some point my sluggish brain tried to get my attention, warning me of something, but I was too drowsy to focus my thoughts.

I tried to open my eyes but realized it was dark anyway. Wherever I was, it was too dark to see anything. When I tried to move, I couldn’t; something tugged and was constricting my wrists. Something was holding me down, binding my hands and legs.

That’s when I realized I should be paying attention to what my brain was so urgently trying to warn me.
Something was wrong
.

I moved my head and realized there was something around my mouth too, gagging me. I knew I should be panicking, but my mind was still slipping as if in mud. I heard the sound of a door opening and it dawned on me that I was in the trunk of a car. Light flared, blinding me.

“Oh, you’re waking up. Good,” I heard a man’s voice say, and I blinked dizzily at his dark silhouette. Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared, and I was left there, alone, tied up and helpless. I glanced around, confused, as bits of information started to hammer into my aching brain. I was tied. Hands, feet and mouth bound. There were squashed lilies next to my head. White lilies with a black lacy ribbon.

A red alarm blasted inside my mind.
Move! You have to get out! You’re in danger!

My body still felt stiff and heavy, like I had been drugged, but I knew it was the after-effects of my power switch with Vigil. I remembered how worn out and exhausted he had been when our powers switched the first time. My brain fought hard against the lethargy that gripped me, but it was a useless battle. Nothing was responding like it should.

I saw the outline of someone approaching again. “Come on, let’s get you out. I have everything prepared for you.” Jarvis’s face came into focus and he leaned in and lifted me out of the truck.

Jarvis.

I blinked furiously and tried to break free, but I couldn’t even hold my head up. Jarvis – our bodyguard Jarvis, silent and observant security guard Jarvis – carried me bridal
style in his arms. Where the hell was he taking me? And what the hell was he trying to do?

“I’m sorry for tying you up like this, Joey, but I had to be careful. No need to draw attention,” he said, putting me down on the ground and walking away, still shouting to me. “I have to say, it was such a stroke of luck to find you passed out on your couch like that. First I thought you’d overdosed, but then I checked your pulse and breathing. You probably took a few too many sleeping pills there, huh? I knew then that this was the opportunity I’d been waiting for.”

The ground was cold and hard but with my feet tied together, I couldn’t stand up. I looked around wildly, trying to figure out how to escape. I was in a sort of old warehouse, or an abandoned hangar, with high metal walls and a few piles of crates lying around. Fluorescent lights blinked at me from the ceiling.

“And now here we are! You and me, alone at last.” He walked back, holding some ropes. He knelt by my side and pulled my bound hands upwards, tying them above my head to a metal structure behind us. I searched his face, trying to make some sense out of this madness.

“And the best part is, your boys left me alone in the house to wait for you, can you believe that? They were practically begging me to take you!” He cackled loudly. “All I had to do was leave a few lilies at your front door again and they all went into hysterics. You had to see the panic on their faces …

“Okay, I have to admit, the knife I put between the flowers could have been the reason they freaked out so much. But I was so happy when they called me and my idiot cousin. They all went to the police station and sent me
alone to the house to protect you if you returned. I mean, talk about perfect timing!”

I listened to him, panic rising in my chest. No one knew I had been back in the house and that I didn’t have Vigil’s powers to protect me any more. No one knew Jarvis had taken me.

Where the hell was this place?

“You should have seen my stupid, ugly-mutt cousin, all worried about you. Haha! Big Johnson thinks he’s so clever, the brainless git. He went running for the main house to check the security cameras to see if he could catch who put those lilies at your door. But I’d disabled the security system – I was the one who installed it in the first place!” he confessed, smiling wickedly at me.

Then he leaned in close and whispered, sickeningly sweet, in my ear, “They won’t ever know it was me.”

I was too horrified to do anything other than stare at him in complete terror. Then he stepped back and watched me, curiously.

“So, Joey, did you like the flowers and notes?” Madness swirled dangerously in his eyes. But unlike that crazy boy from the bookstore, whose thoughts ran in a jumbled chaotic mess, Jarvis’s eyes reflected a focused kind of madness. I saw a sharpness that made me think of a predator: piercing, dangerous and deadly. My empathy-sight was back, I realized.

“You read all the notes I sent you? I’ve been writing them since the first day my eyes landed on you when I took this job as your security guard. I knew in that minute that you should be mine. I know everybody wants you, but I want you more!” As he stared at me, his eyes gleamed with excitement. “You know I’ll do anything to have you, don’t
you, my sexy thing? I’ve been wanting for so long to have you, and now I have the courage to finally reach out and take it.” He pressed his sick hands over my face, making me cringe in disgust.

Oh God.
This was really bad. I looked around, trying to find help. This guy was completely out of his mind! And without Vigil’s powers I was in serious danger. I was helpless: a useless rag doll all tied up and at his mercy.