Forsaken (24 page)

I still couldn’t believe what was
happening. Adam, or rather Cormack, the man from my dreams who
never said a word as he transported me to hell, was sitting not
three feet away from me. Now Alex wasn’t the only one getting
open-mouthed stares from everyone. Cormack too was beautiful and
just slightly not right looking. He might have better passed for
human last night with all the dirt and grime on his face from
suddenly reappearing into the world into a garbage can, his hair
wild messy. But with his flawless skin now clean, his thick black
hair now washed and combed it seemed it should have been obvious
what he was.

The three of us said little as the
flight prepared to take off and the attendants bustled around. Once
we were in the air and on our way I couldn’t hold back the
questions anymore.

“
So why were you at the
club last night?” I asked. Even though the noise in the airplane
was loud I didn’t speak any louder than I normally would have. I
knew both Alex and Cormack would be able to hear me, just as I
would be able to hear them.

“
I came to America about
nineteen years ago, unsure of what to do with ma life, just knowin’
I wanted somethin’ different,” Cormack said as he leaned slightly
toward me in his seat. “Seattle seemed like an interestin’ place,
so I settled. I’d been livin’ there about a year when I went out
for a little fun one night. Went into the same club you came out ‘a
and this fellow tries robbin’ me. I wus a complete idiot and tried
to put up a fight and the man shot me. Right in the very place I
exploded back into the world ‘o the living.”

It made sense. You came back wherever
you were taken out of this world. Alex had been dead less than a
full day but his body hadn’t been moved. He had come back into the
same room. The day he went missing he had been getting dressed in
his room. When he came back he exploded into his room and mangled
his bedroom door. I wondered where Cole had died and then come back
to.

“
Now, let me ask you a
question,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “How did ya know what I
was? How did ya seem to know exactly what was goin’ on? How do ya
know who
I
am?”

It hadn’t occurred to me
that while Cormack may have known what Alex was right away, and
more specifically known
who
he was when he saw Alex’s gray eyes, he would
have had no idea that I knew exactly who
he
was and
what
he was. Looking around to make
sure no one else was paying attention to us, I lifted my hair from
my neck and showed him my brand.

“
Holy…” Cormack breathed.
“But you’re not… ya can’t be… I knew there was somethin’ different
about ya but…”

“
She’s not an angel,” Alex
interjected. “Not completely anyway.”

Hearing Alex finally say it made a
rock form in my stomach.

The confusion on Cormack’s face was
obvious. It was difficult to explain everything that I did know and
did understand of their world. It wasn’t something I liked talking
about and it wasn’t pleasant to think about the events that led up
to my partially transforming into one of them. But there was
obviously no other way to answer his questions.

“
I’m not the only one
who’s gone through this,” I said as Cormack’s face continued to be
full of wonder. “I know someone else who went through trials too.
She just had to do it for different reasons. That’s the main reason
we’re going to find Cole. She’s with him.”

“
Es she daft?” he gaped.
“That man es the leader of the condemned for a reason. Does she
know what he’s done? To a dozen different women?”

My blood chilled at his words. “Do
you?”

“
I know every deed every
angel in the afterlife has committed. The deeds of your life may
only be read once but no one ever forgets or lets ya forget what
you’ve done. Cole’s ended a lot ‘o women’s lives. Along with
countless other wicked deeds.”

“
She doesn’t understand
what is really going on. She knows who he is but she…” I faltered
unsure of how to explain the situation. Before long I had divulged
Emily’s whole story, from why she went through the trials, how she
stopped them, and how she had wanted what Alex and I
had.

“
How could she be so
resigned?” Cormack mused. “She believes she’s truly condemned
herself enough that she’s willing ta seek out the king of the
damned and give herself ta him?” He paused for a moment. “There’s
always hope. You should never give up fighting. It’s worth it to
keep fighting.”

With his words my heart swelled. If
Cormack could wonder at the outcome of Emily’s trial than surely
her fate was not as set in stone as she thought it was. “Thank
you,” I said quietly as I reached across the aisle and gave his
hand a little squeeze.

The attendants came around, taking
drink and food orders. I was grateful I didn’t need to eat as often
as most people did. I hadn’t ever heard anything good about
airplane food.

Using the break in conversation, I
turned to Alex, needing to tell him part of this whole thing I
hadn’t had a chance to yet.

“
I found something else
when I went to Cole’s house,” I said quietly, even though I knew
Cormack would be able to hear me. I grabbed my backpack from the
floor and pulled out the rolled up canvas. After all the horrible
things Cole did to me I shouldn’t have felt guilty for cutting the
painting out of the frame, but I did. This was the woman he’d loved
and I’d defiled her portrait by hacking it out of its
frame.

“
Holy…” Alex didn’t finish
his sentence as I unrolled it, revealing the woman who could have
been me. “What…? I…”

“
She was his lover,” I
said as I looked her face over, so similar to my own. “They had a
son together but she was married to another man. She wouldn’t give
him a chance.”

“
I guess now we know why
he came after you,” Alex said as he took the painting from my hands
to look at it closer. “She could be your twin. Or at least your
great-great-great something grandmother.”

At Alex’s words, something in my mind
sparked. “Give me the book,” I said, excitement in my
voice.

Alex dug Cole’s family history book
out of his carry-on bag and handed it to me. I flipped toward the
back, to the page that started with William Anthony’s name. My eyes
again read down the line to the last words.

No Connection

The words that I had overlooked before
suddenly made perfect sense. The whole screwed up situation just
became all the more messed up.

“
Cole was checking to see
if we were family,” I whispered. I pointed to William’s name. “This
was Cole’s illegitimate son he had with that woman,” I said as I
pointed to the painting. “He was checking to see if we were
related.”

“
Oh, that’s jus sick,”
Cormack said. Apparently he had been listening in. Of course he had
been.

“
Tell me about it,” I
said, feeling a little queasy.

ALEX

“
Just look at him, what I
wouldn’t give for a night with that,”
someone four rows back whispered.

“
What is it about
them?”
someone else said in a low
voice.
“There’s something just…
different.”

“
I’m going to try and talk
to her when we land. Maybe I can get her to the bar for drinks
later.”

“
She looks
just…”

The whispers were flying around the
plane. Even though they probably thought no one would be able to
hear them over the airplane noise, I heard every word, and I
suspected Jessica heard most of it too.

They were right. There was something
different about Jessica. Her skin was so flawless, it was all I
could do at times not to reach out and touch it. Her eye color was
just a little too vivid. The way she moved was mesmerizing. I could
only stop and stare at times.

I grabbed Jessica’s hand and tried to
rub reassuring circles into it as I heard someone whisper something
about how Jessica wasn’t good looking enough to be with someone who
looked like me. The urge to go back there and chew her ear off was
hard to fight back.

With Jessica’s revelation of this
other woman, things made bizarre sense. The way Cole was so
immediately obsessed with Jessica. The possessive yet terrifying
way he looked at her. He had come after a girl who looked almost
exactly like the woman he could never have. It had been a game of
conquering for Cole. And perhaps revenge.

I wasn’t sure what I would do when we
found him. The last time I had seen Cole he had killed me and then
I had been tortured by my fellow kind for his location.

I wanted to kill him for all the pain
he had caused us but how do you kill someone who is already
dead?

I knew one thing though; I would do
whatever I had to to keep him away from Jessica.

JESSICA

The flight felt like it took forever.
The air started tasting stale, the scent of human sweat filling the
air. And the noise was driving me mad. The engine noise, the
whispers, the sounds coming from headphones plugged into portable
devices. By the time we landed my legs were stiff and cramped. I
took a gasping breath as we stepped into the terminal. Fresh air
never tasted so sweet after breathing what everyone else had been
breathing in and out for hours on end.

We waited impatiently at the baggage
claim, watching as suitcases slid down the chute. I noticed a
security guard watching us closely. I had to take deep calming
breaths to fight back the panic I was feeling. I suppressed the
urge to bolt when he started towards us.

I knew there was no real
reason why he was going to do what he was going to do. We
weren’t
doing
anything wrong but we just
looked
wrong.

“
May I ask you where
you’re traveling from?” he asked as he approached us. I noticed he
was having a hard time looking either Alex or Cormack in the
face.

“
The US,” Alex said, never
taking his eyes off the man’s face.

“
All of you?” the guard
asked, his voice hinting at the unease he felt.

“
Yes,” I said
shortly.

“
Yes,” Cormack answered. I
noticed how he tried to hide his accent. I didn’t blame him. We
needed to get rid of this guy as quickly as possible; his accent
would probably just bring up more questions.

“
Can I see your passports
please?”

My heart pounded as he finally asked
the question I knew he would. My palms started sweating as I dug
into my carry-on bag.

Alex pulled his out and handed it to
the man. I knew what the man should have seen. A much younger and
much more human looking version of Alex. The man looked it over,
looking between the picture and Alex’s face before handing it
back.

I thought I might throw up as I handed
the guard my “passport”.

What the man held was nothing more
than a blank, plain white piece of paper folded in quarters. The
man looked from it to my face several times, then handed it back.
Cormack handed him the same thing, just a plain, folded piece of
paper.

“
Sorry to have bothered
you,” the man said as he handed Cormack’s paper back. “Enjoy your
visit.”

We each just nodded as he walked away.
We grabbed our bags quickly as they came around the claim belt and
started hurriedly toward the rental car counter.

“
I
really
hope we don’t have to do that
again,” I breathed. Just one more thing for me to feel guilty
about.

“
I didn’t exactly enjoy
doing that either,” Alex said as he shouldered my bag. “It creeps
me out that I
can
do that.”

Alex was the only one out of the three
of us that had an actual passport. There had not been enough time
to get one for me and since Cormack had been dead for eighteen
years it was obviously going to be impossible to get one for him.
Instead we had given the appropriate people something to simply
hold while Alex made them think they were seeing a real passport
with a real picture.

I hated that Alex had to manipulate
someone’s mind again, but I also knew it was necessary. It reminded
me too much of what Cole had made me see and feel. It also kept the
fact that we were going to try and find him front and center in my
mind.

The airport was quiet and we were the
only ones who were at the rental counter. With it being just past
midnight it should have been fairly quiet. I hadn’t slept in what
felt like days, my nerves and emotions shot, and I swayed as Alex
talked to the man and got the papers signed for our car. My legs
felt like they were filled with lead as we walked out to the
car.

The guys loaded our bags into the
trunk and I climbed into the passenger seat and leaned my forehead
against the cool glass.

Alex slid into the driver’s seat and
started up the car. He then turned his attention to the fancy GPS
unit on the dash and started looking up a nearby hotel.