Forsaken (13 page)

My stomach rolled as I sat on my bed
and clutched the envelopes in my hand. I hated Cole more than I
thought it was possible for me to hate someone but I couldn’t help
but be curious to learn how he had come to be the way he was. How
did one come to be the leader of the condemned?

The letters that followed the ones I
had read earlier that day were rather embarrassing to read. They
depicted two days in which Cole hid out in this woman’s barn and
her many long visits to such barn. The woman’s recollection of the
events was rather descriptive.

But the difference between the letter
on June 14, 1779 to the letter on July 2nd was night and day. The
former being full of desire, longing, and begging for another day,
the latter was short and cold.

I fear father has begun to
suspect you again. I cannot risk what my family has worked so hard
to establish. This is the end, Cole. Good-bye.

I didn’t get it. Why was Cole leaving
these letters for me? Letters from and to another woman? It made no
sense and if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t sure if I really
wanted to know the reason why. It was looking like there was more
involved with Cole’s obsession with me than I had first realized.
That thought scared the crap out of me. As if the whole messed up
situation with Cole hadn’t been bad enough, now it seemed there was
more to it than met the eye.

There was still no sign of
Alex the next day. And he was still missing the day after that. I
was a mess, a wreck. I knew I wasn’t giving a good impression to
Amber after having not seen me for years and years. I didn’t care
though. She could think I was crazy. I
was
going crazy.

In an effort to distract myself from
the constant urge to throw up and break into tears, I pulled out
Cole’s letters again. I had found another dozen in my car the day
after I had found the four in my bedroom.

Just as I was about to open a letter,
my ears piqued at a sound and horrifyingly, the brand on the back
of my neck prickled. I wasn’t even sure what the sound was, almost
like a choked off cry or a scream. I strained my ears to pick up on
the sound again, rubbing a hand on the back of my neck.

I was all too familiar with that
sensation.

“
Amber?” I called,
severely hoping for an answer from her. I heard only
silence.

A familiar feeling of fear settled
itself into the pit of my stomach as I climbed off my bed and
walked into the living room. The apartment appeared to be empty, as
I found the rest of the basement to be. An inspection of the
upstairs revealed it too was empty, Rod’s car gone and with it I
had assumed Amber.

I didn’t even register as I walked
back down the stairs that I had already counted to
ninety-seven.

Even though I had been denying and
fighting it, I knew what the prickling on the back of my neck
meant. Those feelings didn’t come from this world and I had heard
voices from the other side before. It was my body’s response to the
call from the dead.

Jessica.

I whipped around as I stood in the
basement family room, searching for whoever had whispered my
name.

The house was still empty
though.

I fought panic as I quickly walked
back into my bedroom and closed the door and the drapes. My
breathing picked up and my hands started trembling. My brand
prickled again.

Jessica.

The voice was a little louder now,
sounding panicked and distressed.

“
No,” I whispered as a
tear rolled down my cheek. I shook my head as I leaned against the
wall and slid to the floor. “No.”

Jessica!

And I knew why I was suddenly consumed
by a fully-fledged panic attack. I knew the voice I was hearing. It
was Alex.

Jessica!
the voice screamed, this time full of pain and
agony.

I suddenly knew exactly where Alex
was.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALEX

My fingers lightly trailed across her
cheek, ever amazed at how perfectly smooth it was. Her nose
twitched as I did but she still didn’t wake up.

The sun started creeping up in the
sky, casting a golden glow through the window. The metallic glint
reflected off of Jessica’s shoulder, the wings exposed under the
small straps of her tank top. They were the most terrifying and
beautiful things I had ever seen, all at the same time. I recalled
how my stomach had quivered the first time I had seen them. A sure
and unarguable conformation that everything she had told me was
true.

A small smile crossed my lips as I
briefly pressed them to her forehead and climbed out of her bed. My
silent feet led me out of the apartment and into the
shower.

As the scalding water poured over me I
felt happy, content. I hadn’t had that feeling the last few weeks.
I hoped that maybe things were finally settling down, like we could
move past this unsolvable problem and just be us again.

When I had gotten the call
while I was in Kenya, I never would have guessed how my life was
going to change. While I had lost the only two family members I had
left, for I now really
felt
like an orphan, my world was finally going to be
made complete. I’d found everything ever worth living for. And
dying for.

I shut off the water, toweled off, and
walked into my room. I opened a drawer and scrounged around for a
shirt. Not really thinking about it, I grabbed a red one. It was
Jessica’s favorite color on me.

Before I even started putting it on, a
sickening feeling sprouted in the pit of my stomach. The feeling as
if a hole was forming in it and the rest of me was going to fall
in. The pull of the darkness had never been so strong. A feeling of
dread punched me in the chest followed by the sensation that all my
insides were being sucked into nothingness. Like I was collapsing
in on myself.

“
No,” I gasped.

The next second I burst onto a narrow
path of stone and into the world of the dead.

There I was again, standing before the
ten dead beautiful creatures that would send millions to hell or
paradise.

My wings ripped out of my skin as I
caught my balance, my eyes growing wide as I stared down into the
depths of the cylinder as I nearly fell. I looked up and my
emotions crashed. My entire body shook with fear, terrified to be
standing in this horrifying place again. At the same time, I was
livid. Apparently they had decided my time on Earth was up and were
going to finish up my trial.

“
Alex Wright,” the
glorious man with blue eyes spoke. “We have called you back to ask
you some questions about our brother who has escaped and failed to
return.”

“
You mean Cole?” I asked.
It felt like I had a huge rock in my throat as I tried to swallow.
At the same time I felt a little hope. Maybe they weren’t going to
keep me here forever.

“
Yes,” the man said,
sitting still as stone, his eyes boring into me. “Unlike you, he
has no reason to be in the world of the living. He needs to return
and hasn’t.”

Maybe this wasn’t about me. But I
sensed where this was going and had my heart still been beating in
my chest, my blood might have run cold. I didn’t have any answers
for them and I sensed they weren’t going to like that.

“
Do you know where he is?”
the glorious man asked, confirming my fears.

I shook my head and tried again to
swallow. “No, I haven’t seen him since he broke my neck and killed
me.”

“
He lies,” one of the
beings with eyes black as the night sky interjected. “This man is
with the object of the escaped one’s obsession. He
must
know where he
is.”

“
I don’t,” I insisted,
panic forming in my system. I was very aware of the fact that there
were ten of them and only one of me. And for every one of them,
there were thousands more of them on their side.

“
You have no idea where he
has gone?” a woman with brilliant blue eyes asked.

“
No,” I said, my voice
sounded hoarse. My mouth felt very dry suddenly.

“
He is not to be
believed,” a condemned angel hissed at me.

“
I swear!” I
shouted.

“
Liar!” two of them
hissed.

Before I could do anything, four
angels had ascended to the catwalk and each took hold of my wrists
and ankles. A moment later I was being dragged down into the fiery
depths of the cylinder. Horrified, I looked pleadingly into the
blue eyes of the ones above us. They only watched over the edges of
their seats.

The heat engulfed us and threatened to
choke me. Hands reached out from everywhere as we descended. I felt
my feathers being pulled out, yanking my body in different
directions as we fell. To my terror, I saw the five condemned
council members following us as we plunged into sheer
hell.

I was roughly shoved onto a landing
that sprouted off the wall of the cylinder. I tumbled to the
ground, fighting to regain my footing. Before I could even stand, I
was shoved back down by another angel.

“
I’ve told you the truth!”
I yelled as I backed up against the wall. “I don’t know where he
is!”

“
That may be so,” a man
said as he took a step closer to me. “But it couldn’t hurt to make
extra sure you aren’t holding anything back.” My eyes widened as he
drew a coiled whip. Two other angels grabbed me roughly and
strapped coarse metal bands around my wrists before attaching the
chain welded to them to the floor. I wasn’t going to be going
anywhere.

“
Please, no!” I started to
beg, pinned on my hands and knees to the floor. Just as the words
escaped my mouth, the whip came down on my exposed
flesh.

The beatings were unlike anything I
could describe. I was whipped mercilessly for hours on end. But
just as bad as the beatings themselves, were all the angels that
watched and simply laughed and smirked. I was in more pain than I
could even comprehend and they were enjoying every second of
it.

“
Just tell us where he is
and you will be released,” a black-eyed being bellowed as he
brought the whip down on my back again.

“
I don’t know!” I screamed
for the thousandth time. “I don’t know!”

“
Liar!” the man screamed
as he coiled his hand back to strike me again.

They came and went. After a few hours
of my stifled screams they would tire of the game and leave for a
while. I waited, broken and defeated on the narrow ledge only to
have them come back. They would ask the same question every time
before the whipping started again. “Where is he?” My reply was
always the same and always the truth. And they didn’t
care.

I waited alone on the ledge, my wrists
still chained to the ground. I knelt on the stones below me, my
forehead resting on its cool surface. No matter how I tried to
block it out, I heard every word that was spoken above
me.

“
Down,” a glorious female
voice said.

“
Down,” another male
sentenced.

All ten of them sentenced Nathanial
Groves to a branding.

I heard it as his flesh seared and
singed under the metal rod. I felt sick, thinking of Jessica having
to endure this, over and over again. No wonder she went days on end
without sleeping.

“
Nathanial Groves,
judgment has been placed.”

I heard his screams. When the heckling
and demented laughter started I couldn’t help but look up. As I
did, I saw a mass of condemned angels grabbing their new brother
and watched as they fell past the landing and into the darkness of
the cylinder.

Countless hours later, I was released
from my bonds and dragged back before the council.

“
Are you sure you do not
know where our brother is?” the leader of the blue-eyed ones asked
me.

“
No,” I said as I shook my
head, barely able to hold it up. “Please…” I tried to beg
them.

“
He needs to return,” the
man spoke again. “He has a duty here to perform.”

“
I think he is lying,” a
woman with black eyes said, her voice a hiss. It was disturbing
that it was still beautiful. “He is hiding him.”

“
I’m not,” I said
breathlessly. I just wanted to collapse, to crawl into a hole and
be left alone. “Please, let me go back.”

The man who had taken so much pleasure
in whipping me suddenly joined me on the catwalk, standing too
close to me for comfort.

“
The woman you came to us
for. She is the object of our brother’s obsession. She may know
where he is. Perhaps we shall bring her here and question
her.”

“
No,” I said, panic
burning in my system instantly. “No, she doesn’t know where he is
either. You know he can’t touch her, you promised!”

The man standing next to me gave a
sick little smile, enjoying the new and much worse torment he was
putting me through.