The Reaping of Norah Bentley (35 page)

I found my footing. Hands pressed over my ears, and one of them lifted just enough to let in a tired voice:

“It’s all in your head—you know that, right? There’s nothing to hear except for my voice. Norah? Come on, Norah…”

The bells got a little quieter. I lifted my shaking hands and put them on top of his, trying to block out more sound. It didn’t make any difference, though. The noise was coming from inside. It was all in my head. All in my head.

So I could make it go away, right?

I could make this go away.

I opened my eyes and pulled away from Eli’s chest, dropped down to my knees. My hands fell to my lap, and his fell tiredly to his sides; I could feel him watching me, feel his anxiety for me. I didn’t look at him though, turned instead to the town behind us. It
looked
peaceful. Quiet. It was quiet. The bells stopped ringing. I lowered my head and just sat there, breathing the damp air and staring at my hands.

“What just happened?” I asked, still not looking at Eli. “I thought I was done with these stupid omens.” When he didn’t answer, I finally looked up and met his worried eyes. “This is a new one,” I said. And then, because I needed to understand at least
something
that was going on tonight, I asked: “This is something you can’t keep away?”

“I wish it was just that one,” he said. He tilted his head toward the water, and even though I was sure I didn’t want to know what he was talking about, I followed his gaze anyway.

I gasped. At first, it was the only noise I could get out; there were flames out on the dark water, at least a half-dozen balls of ghostly, flickering fire. They looked very familiar.

“This again...”

“You’ve seen them before?”

I nodded, unable to take my eyes off them. “I saw these when I…I mean, they were out over the water that day. The day we met.” I took a step forward, squinting, wanting to get a better look. “They were beautiful then, they’re beautiful now, just like they—”

“Don’t.”

“…What?”

“Don’t take another step.”

I looked down at my feet and instantly froze, terrified to find myself almost at the edge of the dock again.

“God, what are those things?” I asked, taking a hasty step back. I kept my eyes downcast, but I could still see the lights dancing in the corner of my vision.

“
Ignis fatuus,
” Eli said. “Ghost lights that lure people to their death.”

The word death didn’t even make me flinch. Not anymore. And Eli’s explanation, strangely enough, brought more relief with it than anything.

“…So I wasn’t imagining them that day.”

“No.”

But that still didn’t explain why I was seeing them now, and my relief was gone as quickly is it came. “You stopped them then, though,” I said. “Right? They disappeared once I was in the water. And I haven’t seen them since, I haven’t seen
any
of all that strange stuff since—not as long as you’re nearby, you keep them away, you…” I took a deep breath, collected myself. “Why now? What’s going on?”

Eli hesitated, his hand absently reaching for the mark on his arm. “Sam is… very angry,” he said. “And he knows I’m too weak to keep these things away from you now. I’m not an especially commanding force, considering I’m barely here myself.”

“Doesn’t he have better things to do then terrorize me? It’s not like he’s going to be able to lure me to my death anyway, not as long as you’re around me. He knows that.”

“I don’t think he’s really all that concerned with luring
you
anywhere.”

“Then what is he doing?”

He didn’t say anything, just rolled the sleeve of his shirt up and stared at his mark with glazed eyes. But suddenly I understood.

“You. He’s using me to get to you.”

Eli didn’t look at me as he quietly said, “What better way to get me to come back? I may not be able to drive these things away—” He motioned toward the water, the flames. I didn’t trust myself to look at them again. “But I’m guessing that when I go, they go.”

“You don’t need to go anywhere.”

“I have to—”

“If you go to Sam now, he’s not going to let you come back.”

“We’ve been through this, Norah. Listen to—”

“No,
you
listen! I just got scared for a minute there. But these things, these stupid omens— I could learn to live with them. I mean, I could learn to ignore them. I’m really good at ignoring things, at getting away from things I don’t want to deal with—” I cut myself off with a bitter laugh “—I’m practically a pro at it.”

“You can’t get away from this. You can’t run from it forever.”

I knew he was right. I knew any argument I could come up with would be full of holes. But that didn’t make me any less angry at him. Or at myself, for thinking there was any way this could turn out any different. It was always the same.

“I should have known you were going to leave,” I said. I tried to force a smile as I spoke, mostly to trick myself into thinking there was no reason to cry. “I should have been prepared for this I guess, I just—”

“Do you really think this is how I meant for things to turn out?”

“I—”

“I shouldn’t have done this. I
know.
I probably should have been prepared for this night too—I knew there would be consequences from the beginning.” He stepped closer to me, and in a gentler voice he said, “but don’t think for a second that I didn’t try to stop them from coming.” My hands found his and I squeezed, my touch trying to take the place of all the words I couldn’t find. He squeezed back, tighter, and pulled me up into a kiss.

He was all passion, his lips and hands trembling against mine; but for the first time I couldn’t return that passion—because I knew what he was doing. I knew what this was. It was almost the same kiss from before, just like the one we’d shared back at his house. Only this time, it was worse. Gut-wrenchingly worse.

I wrung my hands from his and placed them on his chest, pushed him away. “Stop kissing me goodbye,” I said.

He only leaned in and kissed me harder. I had to fight, to force myself not to give in to his touch, his familiar taste. I would have loved to get lost in him right about then. But there wasn’t time for that.

“I said stop,” I said. My arms shook when I tried to push him away again. “Please.” If he’d been less of a gentleman, I had a feeling he would have kept kissing me until he faded completely, or Sam showed up with an entire army of reapers to help drag him away. But he did stop. Then he collected himself and said,

“I want to stay. I would do
anything
to stay.” He took a step back, like he needed space between us to help him keep his head. “But I couldn’t let anything happen to you in the ocean that day. And nothing’s changed. If it’s a question of keeping only one of us safe, I’m going to pick you every time.”

“Don’t I get a say?” I asked angrily, staring at the groove between the wood planks under my feet. “What if I’d rather you kept yourself safe?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not being stupid,” my voice was rising, echoing eerily across the open air. I spun away from him and stalked my way to the end of the dock, keeping my eyes lowered. I could still feel the flames, almost like they had eyes themselves—eyes that were staring intently at me and waiting for me to look back.

I focused on the dark ripples of water just under the lip of the dock. “This isn’t fair,” I shouted at them. “You can’t just expect me to be okay with this—to just let you go. You saved my life that day, and now I’m just supposed to stand here while you hand yourself over?” I kicked at a loose splinter, ripped it up from the dock and watched it fly into the water. “And then I’m just supposed to move on, and act like none of this ever happened? Forget about you? Yeah. And
I’m
the one being stupid?”

Eli moved silently, as always, but I could feel the vibrations from his steps traveling up through my body. And then he was right behind me, his arms circling my waist, his cold lips pressing against my cheek.

God, he was so cold.

If there’d been anywhere to go besides jumping in the water in front of me, I might have left. I didn’t know if I could face this. I didn’t want to face this. And maybe if I ran away and pretended it wasn’t happening, somehow that would
keep
it from happening.

Three weeks ago, I could have presented that stupid argument to myself, and I wouldn’t have questioned it at all. And I probably would have already jumped into the water. Now, even as I thought it, I wasn’t so sure what to do. I wasn’t sure of anything, couldn’t even decide if I was supposed to be angry, or afraid, or just amazed and impossibly grateful at how much Eli loved me. So much that he was willing to run straight into the fire for me.

And what was even more amazing was that, the more I thought about it, the more I began to think I would be willing to do the same thing for him. No matter what it meant I had to face.

He took a sudden, sharp breath. It sounded painful. His body tensed and he pulled me closer, sinking the chill that surrounded him even deeper into my skin. I couldn’t help but shiver, and the second my body trembled underneath his, he pulled his lips away. His touch became light, almost phantom-like. At first I wasn’t sure if he was even still there, until I heard his gentle voice, less than an inch from my ear:

“I love you.”

I closed my eyes and let the words warm me for a minute. I wanted to tell him I loved him back, and I wanted to keep it to myself at the same time; the words were there like always, filling my chest and trying to shove their way out. But the thought of telling him, of putting myself out there like that—only to have to watch him leave—it was terrifying. It would only make things worse. So I just said,

“Then stay.”

He didn’t say anything to that. The light wind picked up and grew colder; it sliced right through me, sent fresh chill bumps up my arms, my neck, all the way to the base of my skull. I folded my arms across my chest and hugged them against me.

I opened my eyes and looked up without really meaning to, vaguely thinking of the flames on the water, of the possibility of their warmth. But they were gone.

A strange, uneasy feeling crept over me. And the only thing I could think about at first was his words, and how much I really did love him back. How stupid I was being, arguing with myself about whether or not I should tell him. Of course I should tell him. Who cared if he was just going to leave? Whether I told him or not, I’d still feel it. It didn’t make a difference. Besides, maybe if I told him— maybe if I could make him understand how much I loved him—maybe then he’d stay. I took a deep breath and turned around.

Too late.

Those three simple words died silently on my lips and sank back into my chest, heavy and suffocating. Everything was quiet, except the water slapping against the dock, the boats.

He was gone.

The road out of Edenton forks, not long after you cross the bridge. North on 45 toward Ahoskie, south to Sutton Springs.

It would’ve been so easy to just keep going North. Out of Sam’s region, out of his way. And maybe I’d be safe then. I had a favorite aunt who lived in Virginia, and I could have stayed with her for a week or two—waited until this all blew over. Hell, I could even have tracked down my mom. She was somewhere up there. It would take some explaining if I showed up at her doorstep, but when you’d run away from things as much as I had, coming up with excuses and stupid justifications was easy enough.

Besides, Eli had probably made it to Sam by now. What was left for me to do? It was crazy to even think I could save him now.

The sign for 45 North loomed ahead, the thin metal buckling from side to side in the wind, the reflective letters flashing. I could follow it, and I could be at my aunt’s in less than three hours. And she’d probably know where Mom was.

Eli had said it himself, though—that there were some things you just couldn’t run from, and death was one of them. But what I don’t think even he realized was that there was another, infinitely more important one.

Love. I was in love with Elijah James Emerson. He’d saved my life three weeks ago, and he’d been doing it every day since. And that’s the real reason I turned south, and stomped the gas pedal down as far as it would go.

#

I made it to Sutton Memorial Hospital without encountering Sam, or anyone else for that matter. I guess I should have been thankful, but all I could think about was what it might have meant. Was Sam too busy to bother with me, even now that I was alone? Did he really not care about my life anymore, like Eli had said?

I had a hard time believing that, after the way Sam acted in the park. I’d seen the wickedness in his eyes, heard it in his voice when he promised he could find me wherever I went. And I could only think of one reason he wouldn’t have made good on that promise yet.

Eli.

There was no doubt in my mind that Eli had gone to Sam straight away, was doing whatever he could to distract him and give me time to escape. Which meant I had to move fast.