Eternal (29 page)

My lashes fluttered shut as my spirit melted into his. Gravity no longer existed. The attic disappeared. My body ceased to be. Jeremiah and I simply
were
.

This time, no memories of his life surfaced, no rolling images inundated me. Instead, there was only
love
.

It enveloped me like a warm, soft blanket.

“Do you feel me?” His voice whispered in my thoughts.

“Yes.”

“What do you feel?”

“You.”

My body floated on gently undulating waves of Jeremiah’s energy.

“I feel your heart beating,” he echoed. “I feel you breathing.”

“What is it like?” I wondered aloud to him.

His thoughts answered mine. “Like being alive.”

I couldn’t compare the sensation to anything I’d previously known. I could only experience it. No light blinded me. No darkness smothered me. There existed only being. Only this wonderful infinite mingling that had no end and no beginning.

I’d felt this once before but only briefly—the time I’d died and gone to the Other Side.

Jeremiah and I had created our own little piece of paradise caught somewhere between heaven and earth.

In that moment, I realized how his love had healed me and I felt how my love had brought him back to life. Any doubt that I’d done the right thing in making a commitment to him died in the bliss of melding with his spirit.

The reason he felt alive inside me stemmed from the fact that, after everything that had happened to me, his presence had given me a reason to live again. Rather than looking back in regret, I now looked forward to the future—my future with Jeremiah.

And then abruptly, I twisted from the inside out.

Pain permeated every aspect of my being.

Everything in my body contracted and where I hadn’t been aware of anything but my soul, now I was wrecked with indescribable torture.

The sound of my own screams echoed in the attic as Jeremiah’s soul was forcibly sucked out of my body.

What happened?
Drained and tired, I could hardly move. An acrid, pithy stench filled my nostrils. Was that smoke?

“Jeremiah?” I moaned.

Tremendous pain fired through every limb, every muscle, every organ. I cried out and rolled into a ball, unable to be still. My teeth clenched. My eyes clamped shut. What was happening?

I struggled to open my eyes.

Cold terror gripped me as my gaze focused on a horribly familiar face.

Sixteen

Briar loomed over me. Her dark lips twisted into a sinister snarl.

I fought to get up but a hard kick to my shoulder drove me back down on the rug. I yelped. Pain fired through my collarbone.

“Leave her alone!” Jeremiah’s voice sounded weak, far away.

My head swam as I turned in the direction of his voice. Dangerously faded, he slumped on his hands and knees on the floor. His head sagged. One of Briar’s toadies stood over him holding a smoldering bundle of sage. Despite the sharp sting radiating through my body, I made another attempt to get up.

At once, Briar squatted beside me. She seized my hair and yanked my head back so hard my neck cracked. I cried out.

“No!” Jeremiah’s voice sounded as if he was in a tunnel.

“You’re hurting him,” I appealed to Briar with no consideration for my own discomfort.

Briar’s wicked laugh filled the attic. “I can’t hurt him. You told me so yourself, this morning. Don’t you remember?”

My breaths came in short gasps and I fought to keep from succumbing to a panic attack. My scalp burned as I twisted to see Jeremiah. Although he looked wiped out from melding with me, he didn’t appear to be in pain. I remembered that he’d been that way after he’d come into my body before. It had been hours before his spirit had recovered enough for me to feel his touch again.

Again I’d been foolish. Selfish. I’d wanted more than physical love from him. I’d wanted
him
. And now, I had the terrifying feeling my self-centeredness was about to cost me everything.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Briar.

“What I should have done months ago,” she hissed before she flipped me onto my stomach. “What I should have done the first time you brought that haint to school.”

My face hit the rug and I sputtered as the musty taste of dust filled my mouth, chasing away the sweetness Jeremiah’s kisses had left there. Briar’s knee dug into my spine. I grunted. Her cold hands gripped one of my wrists and then the other. I struggled as she wound a cord around my them but I was so weak from channeling Jeremiah, I was no match for her strength.

Once she had me tied, she stood. My back burned where her knee had been. I thrashed, trying to free myself while Briar and her two hench-chicks laughed.

Pain quickly transformed into anger. “Why does it matter to you?” I demanded.

Briar scoffed. “Why doesn’t it matter to you?” she mocked.

“What Jeremiah and I do is none of your business.” My voice cracked as I spoke.

“Your spook made it my business when he came to my house and threatened me.”

My neck snapped as I flipped my head around to look at Jeremiah. I could barely make out his faded features. His gaze dropped in remorse.

My head pounded. “What did you do, Jeremiah?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I told her to leave you alone.”

I’d known he’d had some sort of encounter with Briar but I hadn’t wanted to think about it. He’d assured me he intended to stay with me and that everything would be all right.

Briar walked around me so that she stood between us.

Nausea roiled. I swallowed to keep from heaving up my lunch on Briar’s scuffed black boots.

“You tell her the whole story, demon,” Briar demanded. She squatted again to get a better view of my stricken face.

As much as it hurt me, I kept my gaze locked with Jeremiah’s.

Briar cocked her head in an aggressive attempt to get me to look at her. “Tell her how you looked me in the eye and lied to me.”

I refused to submit to her.

Jeremiah sighed. He seemed so weary, as if he struggled to work himself back into the solid mass of energy I knew so well.

Angered when Jeremiah didn’t immediately confess, Briar grabbed my fingers and pulled one so far back I thought she was going to snap it off. Searing pain shot up my arm. I screamed.

“Stop!” Jeremiah cried, panting. “I went to her, Wren. I promised to let her send me over after Christmas if she would just leave you alone.”

Oh God, I knew it.
Why hadn’t I listened to my intuition? “Why?” I sobbed.

Briar sat back on her haunches, taking obvious pleasure in the inner torment she inflicted on me. Her hatred wounded me far greater than any physical torture she’d inflicted on me.

“I…I was afraid to stay with you,” he admitted. “Afraid of myself, of losing you to someone else…afraid of being alone again. I convinced her that because of what happened to you, I needed to make certain you were safe before I crossed.”

Briar seized my hair and jerked my head up. “In other words, he lied.”

I winced and coughed against the acrid smoke from the sage smudge stick.

“No, I did not,” Jeremiah defended, his gaze sliding to Briar’s. “I fully intended to go.”

“So you say,” Briar said, releasing my hair. Her dark lips snaked into a dubious, dreadful smile.

Jeremiah’s image flickered with the wavering candlelight.

Panic crested like a wave inside me. I struggled against my bonds to no avail. All my instincts screamed that I had to protect him.

But why?

I was the vulnerable one. I was the one Briar could harm.

She couldn’t do anything to Jeremiah without his consent.

Unless…he gave his consent…

Something black and cold stole over me and I stilled, refusing to even think he would agree to any of her requests.

Briar folded her arms over her chest. “Tell her what you did yesterday.”

Jeremiah hesitated, his gaze flickering from Briar’s to mine and then back again. “I changed my mind.”

His resolve wavered.

No. Jeremiah, don’t…

This couldn’t be happening. Only minutes ago we’d declared our love. Our spirits bonded. Everything had been perfect.

But now, this.

“But that’s not all.” Her eyes narrowed as she reached for my bruised fingers once more.

I tensed with the expectation of more excruciating pain.

“No!” Jeremiah wailed.

Briar’s gaze darted from one of her friends to the other. Although they lurked in the shadows with their faces hidden in the darkness, their silhouettes flickered in the glow of the fuming smudge stick.

“I told you he had a weakness,” Briar reminded me with smug self-satisfaction.

My gaze slammed into Jeremiah’s. My gut twisted. She intended to use me to get him to do her bidding. I thrashed and shook my head. My hair sprawled across my face and Briar yanked a handful of it so hard my chin came off the floor. I tried to not cry out—not to reveal my pain to Jeremiah—but it proved impossible.

“Surprised?” Briar leaned down so I could see her face.

Somehow, I had to trick her. “My mom will be home any minute.”

She laughed and gave my hair another hard tug. “Liar. Your stupid little friend blabbed all over school that you’d be here all alone tonight.”

My heart sank.

Briar’s mouth twisted in a sideways grin. “In fact, I heard her telling the little redheaded slut your folks would be gone for two days.”

Tears streamed down my cheeks.

Jeremiah struggled to stand. “Leave her alone!” His voice crackled like a bad cell phone connection. “Do you what like with me, just leave her be.”

“Finally,” Briar said. She straightened and put her hands on her hips. “You really are a southern gentleman, aren’t you?”

“No!” I called to him. “Jeremiah, don’t!”

A flash of silver glinted in the light and then a cold steel blade flattened against my cheek. “If you come any closer, I’ll give her a scar on this side to match her other one,” Briar warned.

Jeremiah gaped in helpless horror.

I fought against the rope on my wrists and kicked and thrashed but Briar held me and pressed the blade into my skin. Struggling proved futile. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get away from her.

“Stop!” Jeremiah yelled. “I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt her.”

“Kill me!” I screamed. “I won’t let you take him.”

“How sweet,” Briar cooed maliciously as she withdrew the blade. She gave my hair a tug, twisting my head and forcing me to look at her through my tears. “You see, Wren? It’s far easier than you think to get a ghost to do what you want.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, trying to comprehend.

“I told you before you can’t keep a ghost like a pet,” Briar said. “They don’t belong here.”

I stared but my eyes saw through her, past her to a time before Briar dressed in black and identified with Goths. Laura was right. Briar had been pretty. Really pretty with light brown hair and honey brown eyes. The images intensified and I saw her maybe a year or two years earlier. She kneeled beside a tree to place flowers at the base of the trunk. I viewed the scene as if I hovered above her and then I turned my attention to the young man who appeared beside her. His chin length blond hair swirled around his wicked face. His clothes were decidedly those of an earlier century. I knew he was Zeke Jackson—a ghost.

Without having to witness any more, I perceived something else. Something far more terrifying. Zeke Jackson’s ghost had melded with Briar’s physical body the way Jeremiah had merged with me.

But Zeke Jackson’s spirit still had control of her.

I shook the images out of my head. “Just because Zeke hurt you, doesn’t mean all spirits are bad.”

Briar glared with such hatred I feared she’d murder me on the spot.

“Jeremiah and I have nothing to do with what happened to you,” I added.

Quaking, Briar dropped to one knee. Winding my hair around her fist with one hand, her other hand tightened around the knife as she raised it, intent on plunging it into me.

My breath froze.

“Leave her out of this.” Jeremiah’s voice carried an air of command I’d never heard from him before.

Briar turned and, for the first time, I noticed the tears rimming her eyes. Part of me wanted to reach out to that wounded part of her. A bigger part of me wanted to punish her for trying to come between Jeremiah and me.

“I’ve agreed to do what you asked,” he told her, taking a step toward her. Expertly, he held her attention, diverting her rage at having her secrets exposed.

But I was beyond caring what she intended to do to me. Anger burned through my veins, overriding any pain she’d inflicted on me. “Jeremiah, don’t do this. She’ll send you over.”

He refused to look at me. Instead, he calmly leveled his gray gaze on Briar. “I have one request.”

His method was effective. Briar stood, facing him although her hand was still knotted in my hair. Her caustic laugh chilled me to the bone. “Ah, yes. The famous last request.”

“Not here,” Jeremiah said. “I want to know that if I go, Wren is safe.”

“What?” Briar asked, dropping my head to the floor. She crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t trust me?”

My teeth bit into my bottom lip and I tasted the metallic tang of my own blood. I twisted onto my side, begging Jeremiah with my eyes but still, he would not look at me.

“I want it done in a church. In the church my family attended,” Jeremiah said.

God, no. This wasn’t happening…

The recurring nightmare I’d had rose up in my memory like a rogue wave. It all made perfect, horrific sense. The dream. The near panic attack at school yesterday.

Why hadn’t I paid attention to my intuition? Why had I been so fixated on being alone with Jeremiah that I couldn’t see what transpired right in front of me?

My eyes closed and the tower of St. John’s Church loomed in my mind. I should have recognized it. I should have known.

And now I was going to lose Jeremiah just like I lost Kira. It was my fault all over again.

“Jeremiah, don’t do this,” I sobbed. “If you do, I’ll—”