The Swarm Trilogy (38 page)

If anything, it proved love could thrive in the worst situations, grow without sunlight, be nurtured without rain. A seed sprouted in my heart, growing quickly until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I couldn’t deny it. Bryden was the only one for me. Not because he was willing to give up his life for me, but because he showed me, in that moment, exactly how to love in uncertain times. Wholly. Completely. Without reservation.

“I want you to leave,” I said to Bryden. I tried to read his expression, but I couldn’t. He didn’t let one drop of emotion pass through the wall he’d erected since I told him I needed time. He’d reverted into that awkward, secretive boy I’d grown up with after his accident. Everything we’d shared, everything we’d given to each other was no longer open to me. He’d cut me off. Again.

I chose to love him. Not by default, but because I knew deep down, that was what I wanted. I didn’t care that our love blossomed too fast. We lived in an uncertain world where anyone could die at any moment. Why not grasp for the few things that made us feel alive and worthy? But if Chase was right and Bryden would die saving me, then I would take the future into my own hands. Sending Bryden away would ensure his safety. I’d rather have him alive and hating me, then dead because he loved me.

“Why?” he asked. He stood up and made his way across the room toward me.

My heart thumped in my chest, threatening to break through my ribs and throw itself at his feet. Instead, I grabbed Chase’s hand in mine. At first, his grip was reluctant, then he squeezed my hand back so hard I worried my bones might crack along with my resolve.

Bryden’s eyes trailed down my arm to my hand, my fingers entwined with Chase’s.

“Nevermind. I don’t even want to know.”

He stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him without even a backward glance.

I broke his heart again. I’d done it so many times, I knew he’d never forgive me. But this time I’d done it for him. Living without me was better than dying for me. I’d just saved him, but doomed myself to a life of loneliness. No one could ever measure up to Bryden.

I ripped my hand from Chase’s grasp and ran over to Sebrina. Pulling her into a hug, I buried my face in her hair. “I love you, sister. Please don’t tell our mother any of the things we discussed. I’ve averted everything by rejecting Bryden. There’s nothing to worry about now.”

She nodded her head. Her curls fell over her shoulders, just like mine did. We were twins, but not exact replicas of each other. I was okay with that. The world did not need two of me. Her innocence, her willingness to trust people she loved so fiercely and easily, was a trait I deeply wished I could develop.

“We need to leave, but we’ll be back soon. Before the invasion.” My promise was sincere, even though I wasn’t sure I could keep it. “Chase and I have some work to do.”

Sebrina nodded again, then a tentative smile graced her face. At that moment, she looked like a totally different person. The first time we’d met, her wide, adventurous smile matched mine. But today, this trusting smile couldn’t have marked us any more differently than if I’d had black hair and amber eyes.

I slipped my hand back into Chase’s. I wouldn’t look him in the eye. Not yet. He tugged me into the hallway. With Bryden gone, Sebrina behind a closed door, and the two of us finally alone, I collapsed into his waiting arms. Chase rested his chin on my head.

“You still love him, don’t you?” he asked.

“Of course I do. I rejected him so that he’d go away. He’ll be safe now.”

“Do you really believe that?”

The tears sliding from my eyes told the truth. I’d pushed Bryden away. I could only hope, against all hope, that it was enough.

Chapter Twenty

We arrived back at the tree house community as twilight tucked the world into bed. I stumbled into Chase’s cottage, exhausted and drained.

Chase stood in the doorway. I waved him in, but he shook his head. “I think I should sleep outside. Keep watch over you.”

“They don’t know we’re back here. Besides, if they do come looking for me again, and see you sleeping outside, they’ll know exactly where I am. If you’re inside with me, and the lights are out, they may not even know we’re back.”

Chase walked in and closed the door behind him. He slouched on the corner chair. For such a large man, he seemed to deflate before my eyes. Everything about him was worn and weary. He rubbed his temples while his legs stretched out into the tiny room.

“You can have the bed.” I gestured behind me. I kicked around the idea of just curling up on the floor with a heavy blanket. After what I’d done to Bryden, I felt I didn’t deserve better than that.

“Do you really think I’d sleep there with you on the floor? Did you just meet me? I would never agree to it.” He took off his boots, tossing them closer to the door. They clattered next to the chest that contained his drawings. I hadn’t seen the scene he and Bryden talked about. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

“Fine. Then we can both sleep on the floor.” I pulled a blanket from a small cabinet in the corner of the room. I rested on half of it, wrapping the other half around my body. I felt like a caterpillar entering a cocoon, except I didn’t think I’d emerge a butterfly the next morning.

Chase rustled around in the room, but neither of us spoke. There were too many questions, too many problems, just too much to deal with in one night. I hoped the morning would bring a new perspective.

He laid down a blanket on the floor next to mine. Making his bed the same way I’d constructed mine, Chase then hunkered down for the night. We stared at each other in the dark. Moonlight streamed through the upper windows, illuminating our prone bodies. I couldn’t put anything into words – I didn’t want to. I held out my hand to him. He took it in his and we fell asleep.

The next morning, birds heralded the start of the day. I groaned, pulling the blanket over my eyes. Surprised, I noticed my other hand was still firmly encased in Chase’s. Neither of us had moved all night. I slipped my hand out of his, hoping not to wake him.

His eyelids opened, his eyes boring into me just as they had the night before. His hand stayed where it was, even though I half-expected him to reach for mine.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Chase said. “I know that wasn’t an invitation of any kind. My promise stands. I won’t ever take advantage.”

“I know,” I said. “I trust you now.” It was mostly true.

“You trust me about as much as you trust anyone else,” Chase said. “It’s okay. I get that. I wouldn’t trust anyone either, if I’d been raised like you. I was lucky to have my parents and their friends. They cared for me very much.”

“Except that time you spent as a prisoner in the Malborn home world.” I sat up and rubbed my lower back. Sleeping on a wood floor wasn’t exactly my idea of comfort. I glanced at the bed, still made, not regretting my decision one bit. I forced my mind to focus on Chase instead of worrying about Bryden. I had to let him go if he was to live.

“The worst four years of my life,” he said. Chase rolled on his back, crossed his arms behind his head, and stared at the ceiling.

“How old were you?”

“I was ten when they lured me away.” His eyes clouded over. “I was playing in the forest, alone, of course, because I’d run off on my own, just like I wasn’t supposed to. I still didn’t know much about how to use my gift yet. I saw this thing jumping through the trees. Like any kid, I followed it. Unlike every other kid, I’d never been warned not to be alone or interact with anything I didn’t already trust. We thought we were safe. My mother didn’t want me to grow up afraid of everything like she did.”

He sat up. His legs crossed in front of him and he rested his hands on his knees. “I trusted everyone. I thought my parents were paranoid when they doled out warnings.” His bitter laugh echoed in the small room. “Everyone tells me not to blame myself, that I was just a kid. I still do, though. If I’d just listened…”

I placed my hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not like they didn’t warn me a hundred times a day.” He rolled his eyes, obviously still irritated with his younger self. “I followed that thing, a kalli like you saw, through the forest. A woman waited in the clearing. She was beyond beautiful, so I ran to her. She held out her hand, I took it, and that’s when she whisked me through the portal to the Malborn home world. She turned back into a kalli on the other side. I’d been tricked so easily.”

He shrugged my hand off his shoulder and stood up. Chase smoothed his pants, then ran his fingers through his hair. I could tell he was uncomfortable, but I was glad he was finally sharing with me. Our lives, our stories, were interconnected. I had to know more.

Chase’s eyes locked on mine. “I would lie in the bed, in the pitch blackness in that strange place, shivering from fear. I’d never been away from my parents or their friends for more than a few minutes my whole life. One tiny slice of adventure had propelled me into something I wasn’t ready for.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“That was the first night I had a vision about you,” he continued. “It’s like you came to me just when I needed you. The first picture was of you playing in a field. Your arms flung out to the side and your hair dancing through the air as you spun in circles. For a long time, you were the only thing that put a smile on my face.”

“I’m glad I could be there for you,” I said. I realized immediately how stupid it sounded. I had nothing do with it, really.

“Gee, thanks,” Chase said. “Maybe next time you could give me less paper cuts. Sometimes I reached for the parchment so quickly, it would slice right through my fingers. I just couldn’t wait to get my thoughts about you on paper.”

I laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. Next time I’ll be more considerate.”

Chase’s laughter mingled with mine. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Under different circumstances, in a different life, I would have fallen hard for him. I just couldn’t shake my feelings for Bryden and I didn’t expect to any time soon. Chase had never really known me, just the snippets his visions had given him. He was in love with a girl he partially knew. Once he got to know me better, he’d probably realize his vision was far more perfect than I really was.

I stuck my tongue out at him and crossed my eyes. He only laughed harder.

“Okay, so we need to figure out where to go from here,” I said, bringing our conversation back to reality. A war was marching upon us. We didn’t have time to be silly.

Chase tossed the lid of the trunk open. I wasn’t so sure now was the time to go through his pictures. He reached in, pulling out a folio, far more wrinkled and overused than the others. His thumbprints had left their mark on the exterior leather binding.

“The answers might be in here.” He tossed the folio to me. “I know you think you’ve held off the inevitable by pushing Bryden away, but the future doesn’t like to bend to the whims of a single person.”

I flipped the pages open. Charcoal sketches of me dotted every page. I was fighting in some. In others I stood, staring at a horde of soldiers in the distance, and still others showed me sitting under a tree, peacefully twirling my hair with one finger. Hundreds of pages flitted through my fingers. Sweat beaded on my palms. No wonder he’d fallen for me. He’d either have to love me or despise me to deal with all of these visions.

“I never knew what order they should be in.” Chase cleared his voice. I glanced up at him. His hands fidgeted with his shirt. “The first vision I had of you was the one in the grove. The second one was the picture you found your first day here. That’s how I knew I was going to meet you someday. In the picture, you were looking at yourself in one of my pictures. It was all the hope, and proof, I needed.”

“Chase…” I grabbed another folio from the chest that had a big X on the cover. “What’s this one?”

He snatched it out of my fingers. “Don’t look at that one.”

“Why not? What’s in it? My death? Something you think I can’t handle seeing?” I jumped at him, but he was too tall and his arm stretched far too high for my reach.

“Don’t forget, these are my visions. It’s my decision who sees what.”

I didn’t agree with him, so I ground his toes with my heel, while giving him an elbow to the gut. Chase grunted and dropped the folio. I snatched it up, but not before he grabbed me around the waist.

“Drop it,” he snarled in my ear.

“No. You can’t make me.”

Chase released his grip. “I could, but dominating women to get my way isn’t high on my list of fun things to do.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. Look at it. But I won’t stand here and watch.”

After he left, I settled down on the bed. I took a deep breath before opening the folio. I had to prepare to see myself dead … or something equally awful. I opened the cover to the first page. I gasped, tracing the charcoal drawing with the tip of my finger hovering just above the lines. I was afraid to smudge it.

“Unbelievable.”

I flipped page after page, finding the same theme. Me. Drawn from the front, the side, meditating, sleeping. A smile on my face, a frown, that stupid wrinkling of my nose when Chase walked into a room. He’d captured all of my emotions – love, anger, despair – they were all there. One page featured just my eyes. I couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to pour so much meaning and emotion into them. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he was obsessed. But none of the pictures showed anger from him. They were all drawn with an obvious affection for the subject.