Beyond Wild Imaginings (4 page)

“Shut up, Chad.” She turned and looked down at the dumpster again. A warm breeze blew across her, tugging her hair in the way it had earlier that morning. She closed her eyes and saw the five girls dancing in a circle. She frowned and let the words leave her lips. “Sing the song of Guardians who live beyond the skies, who fly to fight beside us and help us when we cry. Come to us, great Guardians. Your friendship is a must. We are your kindred spirit sisters. You have our promise and our trust.” A strange sensation washed over her, a tingling that resembled what she’d felt when she’d first touched the feather.

“
I’m not scared. Garren will always protect me.”

She didn’t think. It just happened. She held her arms out and let herself fall toward the ground. She heard Chad shout her name, but it didn’t really register. Her eyes were still closed, and she was flying, freefalling.

She wouldn’t get hurt. She wasn’t scared.

Chapter Three

It was strange that, as Kelly fell toward the ground for the second time that day, she didn’t feel afraid like she had before. She just let it happen, let her body go where it would. She knew she should be terrified. She should be screaming and flailing her limbs, but she wasn’t. She was just…falling. She thought it was odd, definitely not like her.

All of a sudden, something strong looped around her waist, and she gasped as her body was pulled up against something warm and solid. She stopped falling, but her feet still hovered. A tremor went through her and she opened her eyes. Someone was holding her against him, keeping her safe, protecting her.

“What, are you some kind of crazy woman?”

The voice was harsh, angry, and she snapped back to reality with blinding speed. Her heart lurched in her chest as she realized just exactly what had happened. Her fingers clutched and curled into the man’s shirt, and she looked down at the ground. She gasped as she saw that she was continuing to hover in the air. She shot her gaze up to the face of the man, thing, whatever he was, that was holding her and her breath caught in her throat. The same kind of calm that had come over her when she’d jumped washed over her again in comforting waves the second the man’s violet eyes touched her.

He was devastatingly handsome, even more so than in her dreams. Midnight black hair waved around a face of strong, masculine features. He was scowling at her presently, but the gentleness behind his eyes was unmistakable. Her heart made a peculiar flip, as if it recognized him.

“Garren?” The name left her lips in a soft murmur. In the deepest part of her mind and heart, she knew that she knew this man. She didn’t know how, but she knew it was true. Something buried deep within her knew him very well.

His expression morphed from a scowl into a look of surprised jubilation. His eyes lit up, and his full lips split into a gorgeous grin. “You know me?” he breathed in wonder.

She swallowed. “Well, sort of.” She frowned, her mind trying desperately to wrap itself around what was going on. His arm tightened around her, and he lifted his wings. Yes, he most certainly had wings. Great, wondrous black ones that carried them effortlessly back up to the rooftop.

Chad stared with eyes bulging and mouth gaping as Kelly was placed back on solid ground. Any other time, she would have been amused by her friend’s expression, but she was too preoccupied with trying to figure out whether or not she was dreaming.

She felt her feet plant on the ground, but she was reluctant to move out of Garren’s embrace. He felt safe and strong, despite the fact that he was a complete stranger…A complete stranger with wings who had apparently come out of her subconscious. It boggled her mind, and it made absolutely no sense, but his arms felt like home.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, stroking a hand down her back. “You’re safe now.”

She stared up at him and tried to find her voice, but all she could bring herself to do was continue to stare. Her heart was beating in a peculiar rhythm. He was so familiar to her. Familiar in a way that went deeper than what you felt when you saw an aunt or cousin that you hadn’t seen since you’d been two and they’d pinched your cheek. This was different. It wasn’t like she was recalling a memory of a person she had once seen. It was like she felt him living inside her own soul. It was the only way she could describe it. She could feel his spirit, his essence, directly in the deepest folds of her heart.

“I do know you, don’t I?” she whispered. She sounded small and fragile even to herself.

He smiled his stunning grin again and reached up to tuck back a flyaway strand of her hair. “Yes. You do.” His beautiful eyes clouded over sadly for a moment. “It has been a long time.”

“A-Are you real?” she stammered. She reached her hand up as if to touch him, to see for herself, but she stopped. Her mind was buzzing with questions.

“Do I feel real to you?”

She swallowed hard. He felt more real than anything in her life.

“Holy cow,” Chad finally murmured. Staring in complete baffled wonder, he took a few tentative steps toward them. “This is amazing. I can’t believe this.”

Garren stepped back, breaking the physical connection with Kelly. She immediately wrapped her arms around herself, feeling cold and bereft. The spell she’d been under shattered, and she started to tremble. What in the world was going on? Had she honestly just fallen off a building without a care in the world only to be rescued by a gorgeous, winged man? That was insane. It was impossible.

She glanced over at Garren as he stood to face Chad. What was he? Was he human? Was he an angel? Did angels exist? If they did, she certainly had never imagined one to have black wings and be dressed in all black with a studded belt. It was in complete contrast to any kind of thought or idea of a heavenly being.

“My race,” Garren supplied. “We are called Lucienus.” He averted his gaze. “At least…we were.” He turned and looked directly at Kelly. “I am the last of my kind.”

Something about his words, or the sad way in which he said them, made her feel sick. She placed her hand over her stomach and started to tremble worse, but hated that she couldn’t figure out why. Her mind was screaming at her, trying to communicate something very important, but she couldn’t decipher it.

“A Lucienus?” Chad repeated.

Garren looked back to Chad and nodded. “And you must be something special if you are able to see me right now. Do you have a name?”

“Uh, C-Chad,” he stammered. He shook his head and extended a hand. “My name is Chad.”

Garren stepped forward in an elegant move of his body and shook Chad’s hand. “It is a great honor,” he said quietly, bowing his head.

Chad swallowed and frowned. “Um,” he started, his voice wavering just a little. “Not to seem rude or anything, but…” He cleared his throat. “Look, maybe I’m crazy, but I swear I can see through you.”

Kelly’s attention instantly went to Garren, and her breath caught in her throat as Chad’s observation hit home. It was subtle, but true. He didn’t look exactly solid. He was more translucent than anything, but he had felt solid when she’d been in his arms. When he’d touched her, she had felt it as if he had been any other human being.

Garren lowered his head in that sad way again. “No, it is true. I am not as I once was.”

Kelly was shaking so much now that she thought she might fall right out of her own body. All of this seemed both so amazingly out there and so real at the same time that her mind couldn’t handle it. She kept hearing that blasted rhyme and kept seeing the ring of dancing girls from her dream. “
Sing the song of Guardians who live beyond the skies.” “I’m not scared. Garren will always protect me.”
She put her hands to her temples
as strange images flashed through her mind. She saw the ivy-covered gate again and
heard children’s laughter. “
Rachel, where are you going?”
She blinked. Rachel? A vivid
scene took over her memory.

“
Rachel, where are you going?”

Rachel turned and rolled her eyes. She was twelve and her long blonde hair was shining in immaculate waves down her back. “I told you, I’m going to the mall with my friends.”

“
But what about Garren and Eamon? We’re supposed to—”

Rachel held her hand up and snorted. “Kelly, I don’t have time to play these childish games with you anymore. I have real friends now. I don’t need made-up ones. If you want to be a little kid forever, fine, but don’t keep me there with you.” She turned, tossed her golden mane of hair, and sauntered away.

Kelly stared after her for a long time, her heart beating dully in her chest. Rachel was the last one to leave. Kelly was the only one left now. The only one left who believed.

Tears filled her eyes and spilled down onto her cheeks. She sat down in the grass of her backyard and cried, her strawberry blonde hair in wild tangles around her shoulders. On her head sat a poorly made chain of daisies that were half wilted. “Sing the song of Guardians, who live beyond the skies,” she whispered to herself. “Who fly to fight beside us and help us when we cry. Fly to us, great Guardians. Your friendship is a must. We—” She choked a little on the word, and more tears rolled down her cheeks. “
I
am your kindred spirit sister. You have my promise and my trust.” She pulled her knees to her chest and rocked herself, crying harder.

Just beyond where she sat was a gate overgrown with ivy, and Garren suddenly appeared walking through it. He was tall, strong, and proud, his shoulders broad and his presence powerful. He strode with purpose to Kelly and knelt behind her, his great, black wings encompassing her, protecting her.

Kelly gasped softly at his sudden appearance and she spun to fling herself into his arms. “Garren.” She sobbed. “Garren, I’m sorry. She left. They all just left.” She cried harder.

Garren enfolded Kelly in his embrace and sighed. “I know, little one.”

“
You’re all I have left,” she murmured. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

He held her closer and rested his cheek on top of her head. “Never,” he murmured. “I will never leave you. I am with you always, by your side, protecting you. All you need to do is call me. I will always be here.”

“
I won’t abandon you like they did.” She continued to cry. “I’ll never turn my back on you.”

Kelly’s head swam in a nauseating way, and she looked up in horror, or wonder, she wasn’t sure which, at Chad and Garren. “It was me,” she rasped.

Chad frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“And Rachel…” She shook her head. “We were little.” She directed her attention at Garren and pointed a shaking finger at him. “I remember you. Y-You were real. You
are
real.” She put her hand over her heart, which was fluttering like a bird trying to escape its cage. “I remember. The rhyme, the girls…It was us. It was me. It was…” Colors and shapes whirled into one and swam before her eyes. Her mind couldn’t comprehend the revelation she was having. It brought up too many emotions she didn’t know how to deal with. She tried to focus on Garren again, but her vision was going hazy. “You,” she croaked. “Oh my gosh. You’re real.” As if to emphasize her point, Kelly promptly fainted.

Chapter Four

It took Kelly a little while to realize where she was when consciousness finally returned. For a second, she thought she was in her bed, waking up from an outlandish dream. Once she regained her bearings, however, she wished she
were
in her bed, but she wasn’t. She was on Chad’s couch. She knew it before she even opened her eyes because it smelled like the fabric deodorizer that he doused it in every day.

A shiver went through her body as her memory recalled the events she’d experienced before passing out. Garren. She knew him. She knew him because she’d created him.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, knowing he was there. She could feel him. She sensed his presence beside her. She blinked a few times before her gaze settled on the powerful man watching her as she slept. He was sitting on the arm of the couch at her feet, hunched over just enough so that his enormous wings were curled slightly around his body. Several locks of his ebony hair fell carelessly across his forehead. She swallowed hard. He looked very menacing and very beautiful all at the same time. “W-Where’s Chad?” she croaked.

Garren gestured toward the back of the apartment with a nod of his head. “In his bedroom. He panicked a little when you fainted. I think he’s looking for smelling salts.”

Kelly frowned, wondering what in the world her friend had smelling salts for, but she brushed it away. It really didn’t matter. She stole another look up at Garren and pushed herself into a sitting position, her head still spinning like she’d gone on the world’s worst carnival ride. “Y-You don’t look the same,” she whispered.

She closed her eyes and tried to grasp at the shreds of memory. “In the memories I have, your hair is lighter.” She swallowed again. Her throat was so dry, and it felt like she’d gulped down a whole watermelon. “At least, I think they’re memories.” Her brows drew together in a deep frown. She cleared her throat, pulled her knees to her chest, and looked over at him again. He was just sitting there in unnerving silence. And his wings, no matter how beautiful they happened to be, were really freaking her out at the moment. “Can you…do something with those?” she asked, pointing.