Save My Soul (20 page)

Rhyan popped out of sight
again.
"There's nobody here,
Kendra."
I started to say, "Buzz me in,"
but the buzzer sounded.

"Thank you,"
I said.

"No problem, his apartment
is 12A."

All the way to the top, huh? I took
the elevator instead of the stairs. I'd missed my run, but I didn't
have time for exercise right now. It wouldn't do me any good to be
in shape if I was just going to die on Friday.

The doors slid open on the top floor.
Besides the elevator doors, there were only three others on the
floor. Yeah, he definitely spent some money to live in this place.
I turned left and made my way to the end of the hall. I turned the
knob and walked into Adam's apartment. It was extravagant.
Everything was glass, black or stainless, and screamed expensive.
There was a five-foot by two-foot gas fireplace inserted into the
only white wall in the whole apartment.

A huge black, white, and gray painting
was hung high above the fireplace. It looked as though a first
grader could have painted it, but then again, I wasn't big on
contemporary art. I like to be able to see something
real.

The floors were all done in shiny
black marble, with little sparkly silver specks in it that looked
like diamonds; hell, they may have been. He had glass coffee and
end tables with stainless pedestals. I glanced at the kitchen; it
was roomy with more stainless and black. Did the guy have a color
theme going on here or what? I wanted to bring in a red vase and
put it in the center of the room. It was nice, and clearly
expensive, but it needed a little color.

I walked to his bedroom and Rhyan
followed me. The bed was made, which seemed unusual for a man, let
alone one living by himself. There were a few photos of his family
on his nightstand. Something caught my attention beside one of the
photos. It was a magazine opened and folded back to one of the
articles that had featured me. I looked at the photo; I was smiling
back at the camera. I didn't think he had bought the magazine after
he left my house last night, so he must have bought it sometime
before he went to work yesterday. He'd come to my house straight
from work, or I thought he had. I shrugged my shoulders and laid it
back on the nightstand.

"You didn't think I was
going to make it this easy, did you, Kendra?"
I jumped and let out a squeak. Murry was talking in my head,
and by the look on Rhyan's face, he could hear him also.

"Where is he, you son of a
bitch?"
I said back to him.

"Awe, Kendra, how did you
know my mother was a bitch?"

"Because if she hadn't
been, you wouldn't have turned out as rotten as you are. Where is
Adam, Murry?"

"I just knew you would
address me as Mason,"
h
e said, faking a hurt ego.

I was getting nowhere with
him, then I wondered something. Rhyan read my mind, and shrugged
his shoulders with a blank look on his face. He didn't know either.
Great.
"How are you in my head? You aren't
connected to me."

"On the contrary, Kendra, I
am very much connected to you. You are Adam's soulmate, so I have
access to your thoughts, as well as his."

"That's why you were angry
at the restaurant. You knew all along I was trying to make Adam
fall in love with me, and you got angry when he reacted to me. You
were mad at yourself for not having a stronger hold on him. Am I
right?"
I said.

He laughed.
"
You catch on quickly, Kendra."

"Why didn't you just kill
me that night?"

"What, and let you be with
your precious Rhyan in Heaven? I don't think so. If I wait until
Friday to kill you, I will have both of your souls."

"WHERE IS HE?! Give me a
clue, damn you!"
I shouted out
loud.

"Hmm, let's see. You want a
clue? How about...try looking where you would play."

And just like that, he was gone. I
didn't feel the presence in my mind that I sometimes felt when
Rhyan was talking to me through my mind. He was gone, but I had no
doubt that he could still hear me.

Rhyan nodded. "I can't hear him
anymore either."

"He said he could hear me because I
was Adam's soulmate. Why can't you hear Adam?"

He shrugged. "I've never tried to hear
him. I didn't know it was possible. I've only ever been able to
hear your thoughts because you are my charge."

I put my hands on my hips and stared
at him. "Well, can you try now, please?"

He jumped like I had poked him. "All
right, all right, I'll try. Give me a minute." He closed his eyes
for what seemed like an eternity. His mouth moved every so often
like he was silently talking to someone, and then he opened his
eyes and gave me a smile.

"You talked to him?" I said
enthusiastically.

He nodded then his smile
faded.

"What is it, Rhyan?"

"I asked him where he was. I told him
that I was in his mind to help him. He kept asking me who I was. I
finally got out of him where he thought he was located, but he kept
asking me...so I told him. I told him that I was your guardian
angel, and he became very angry. He told me to tell you to just
leave him alone, that he would rather die there than ever see you
again."

My smile faded. "I can't let that stop
me. We knew he would be angry at me."

His eyebrows rose and he scratched his
temple. "Well, you aren't the only one. He had a few choice words
for me as well. I think he really loves you, but he is so hurt
about seeing us…"

"Don't give up, Rhyan."

"I'm not, but I think Adam has," he
said.

"Where is he?" I asked as I left
Adam's room and started for the door.

"He said he was in a cave somewhere.
He didn't know where exactly. He said he was there when he woke
up."

I nodded as we got in the elevator. He
rode down with me this time without popping to my Land Rover.
"Murry gave me the hint to look where I play. I bet he means where
I climb. There are a lot of caves outside of the city where my
friends and I go sometimes, but there are so many of them. We'll
never find him before Friday."

"Call your friends and ask them to
help you. You don't have to tell them what happened, just that
there is a man trapped in one of them, but you don't know which
one."

My face lit up. "You're a genius,
Rhyan. I would kiss you right now if I could."

He smiled. "I know you
would."

I pulled out my phone and started
calling all of my friends. Most of them would be at work, but they
would answer and help me when they got off. My dad would even help
me and call a bunch of his buddies to help as well. A man lost down
in one of the caves was a serious deal around here. I would tell
everyone that he was the surgeon who had saved me, and I'd caught
wind that he'd gone caving last night by himself and hadn't shown
up for work today.

I dreaded calling Aven. He wouldn't
want to help me because he was mad at me, but I thought he would in
the end. I just dreaded the conversation. I decided to call him
first to get it out of the way. He had a lot of friends that were
into extreme hobbies as well.

The phone began to ring as I headed
out of town. I had flashlights and my hiking boots in the back of
my Land Rover, so I didn't have to worry about stopping off at
home. Aven picked up on the fifth ring. "What do you want, Kendra?"
he sounded grumpy. Oh well.

"Aven, I need your help. The surgeon
that saved me went caving last night by himself. I don't know which
cave, but he's missing now."

"He the guy you're seeing?" he
said.

Shit! I couldn't lie to him; he would
see right through it, and he was one of my closest friends. I
didn't want to lie to him, but I didn't want to tell him the truth
either. "Sort of,"

"What kind of dumbass would go caving
alone, Kendra? You sure can pick 'em. I thought you said he was at
your place last night. Did you piss him off, too?"

I huffed. "He was...yes, I mean sort
of I guess...Aven, can you be mad at me later? My, I mean his, life
is at stake here. Can you call your friends and help me or not?" I
was getting flustered, and I hated being flustered.

I heard him sigh. "All right, but I
ain't doing this for you. I just don't want some stupid
motherfucker dying, knowing that I could have done something about
it."

I smiled and closed my eyes briefly.
"Thank you, Aven. You have a good guardian angel."

"Yeah, whatever that means. My group
will take the west caves. Make sure you look somewhere else. I
don't want to see you right now. I'll call you if we find
anything."

I sighed into the phone. I hated that
he was mad at me, but there was hardly anything I could do about
it. "Okay. Aven…I'm truly sorry that I hurt you."

The line went dead, and I looked at my
phone. He'd hung up on me again. I didn't have time to worry about
our friendship falling apart right now; I had a lot of calls to
make.

I really wished I had another phone so
Rhyan could help me, but how would that go if I did, "Uh, hello,
I'm Kendra's guardian angel, and we need help finding her soulmate,
who is being held in a cave by his guardian demon. Will you help us
find him?" Uh, no, that wasn't going to happen.

I saw Rhyan smile out of the corner of
my eye as I dialed Kobhye's number. "Do you think it would
work?"

He shook his head as he laughed. "No,
I don't think it would work."

Kobhye picked up on the second ring.
She wasn't mad at me. "Hey, do you remember the sexy ass surgeon
who saved my life?" She did remember; I had no doubt she would. I
told her what I had told Aven, and she agreed to call everyone she
knew that would help. She didn't have any problem being in the same
cave as me, so I told her I was going to the north caves. She even
said she was leaving work right away, what a friend.

I hung up with Kobhye and called my
dad. He was on board with helping, but it would be after four
before he could get off work. He told me that he would ask all of
his co-workers and friends to help, and that he would call me to
see where I needed them when he got off. I told him that was fine
and we hung up.

I had reached eight other people
before Rhyan and I got to the cave. I put my vehicle in park and
shut off the engine. Some of the people I'd called couldn't make it
until four or five, but several were already on their way to help.
Aven said he was taking the west caves. I was taking the north with
Rhyan and some of my friends. I sent my friends that lived or
worked closer to the south side of town to the south caves, and
there weren't any caves east of town that I knew of. We would
search the cave from top to bottom, and if there was no Adam, we'd
move on to the next.

There were about five caves to the
west, but they were big. The north had about ten mostly small
caves, but one of them was the biggest of all the caves around the
city. There were only three that I knew of to the south. We hardly
ever went south, but Murry may have, so I didn't want to exclude
them.

I had called Kobhye a few minutes
before I arrived at the first cave to tell her which cave we were
searching first. She had figured as much, and was only a few
minutes away. She'd gotten a hold of six people who were meeting
us, including two friends who had been there Saturday when I'd
fallen. Marc was leading his crew through the south
caves.

I hoped Murry wouldn't hurt anyone who
was looking for Adam. It was hard for me to think of him as evil.
He'd been so nice when we'd first met. I guess the old saying,
"don't judge a book by its cover" was true. It's hard to tell who
you can trust in this crazy world. Adam had thought that Mason was
his best friend for the last six years. In a way, I hated to be the
one to break the bad news to him. He'd lost his family, then his
best friend, and now he didn't want a damn thing to do with me;
though his rejection wasn't going to stop me from trying to save
our souls. I had to try.

I saw a cloud of dust billowing up
behind Kobhye's truck as she sped up the gravel road toward us.
There were two other vehicles following a little ways behind her.
She was dusting them out, but they all knew their way.

Rhyan didn't have to ask who it was;
he was picking it right out of my brain.

Kobhye jumped out of her four-wheel
drive Ford. Her family owned a ranch a few miles out of the city,
and fancy cars just weren't her thing. They showed horses, and even
had a couple racing horses. I'd gone on a few trail rides with her,
but it wasn't interesting enough for me. I needed more risk.
Although, I'd rather go trail riding than go up against Murry any
day.

I wasn't looking forward to the look
in Adam's eyes when he saw me. If he had stayed another minute or
two last night, he would've seen the same look in mine. He'd broken
my heart last night, but I had already forgiven him for it.
Considering the circumstances, I wasn't so sure he would be as
forgiving.