Vindicated (25 page)

"Cole told me that he couldn't keep his hidden, those last few days.
 
His entire body started looking like this," I said as I traced my fingers along the veins that were starting to bulge on his forearms.
 
The skin was already looking tighter.
 
"The skin around his eyes started turning black, almost like he was diseased.
 
His veins rose up.
 
And he was losing a lot of feathers."

"I lost a few this morning while you were in the shower.
 
I had to let them out, just for a bit.
 
Three of them fell to the ground."

"See," I said against the skin of his chest.
 
"We can't afford to wait any longer.
 
It could just get to be too much at any time and I could lose you."

Alex didn't say anything for a minute and I could almost feel the war he was fighting in his head.
 
He knew how dangerous this was going to be.
 
I
knew how dangerous this was going to be.
 
Things could go so horribly, terribly wrong.
 
Who knew what they might do to me if I got caught.

"You gave up everything to keep me alive" I said quietly.
 
"Now it’s my turn."

"Okay," he finally breathed.
 
He gave me a tight squeeze, kissing the top of my head.

I lifted my lips to his, running my hands under his shirt and over his chest, feeling every bump and valley of his body.
 
I let my fingers trace down his stomach.
 
Shifting my weight on top of him, I let my lips move with his.
 
Alex's hands fisted in my mane of hair.
 

"I refuse to let them take this away from me," I growled as I moved my lips down his jawline, to his throat.
 
"I intend to enjoy you, my husband, for a very, very long time."
 
My lips continued to move down to Alex's chest.

Alex gave a little moan, tilting his head back.
 
"I refuse to go!" he half shouted, half growled toward the ceiling.

Later that evening, I sat alone in the hammock, the soft breeze pulling my hair away from my face.
 
Alex was inside, enjoying a long shower.
 
The warm air felt good on my almost completely bare skin, the only thing I wore a breezy, lacy nightgown.
 

I lay back in the hammock, my eyes staring up at the palm leaves that partially blocked out the perfectly pink evening sky.
 
I felt strange inside.
 
A very big part of me was on the verge of a panic attack.
 
Going back to the afterlife to do what I was going to do was petrifying.
 
I had lived in terror of the afterlife all my life.
 
My world had been ripped apart because of it all.
 
Yet I felt an odd sense of anticipation.
 
I was finally going to be able to fight back.
 
I was not going to let them take him.
 
I was going to take back what was mine.
 
I had earned Alex after all they had done to me.
 
And I was taking a huge step toward saving Alex.

If they decided to keep and punish me, it would be no worse than having Alex ripped away from me anyway.

I thought back to all those trials I had stood, all the names that I had been called.
 
All the times Cole had branded me for someone else.

I had experienced the death of others, over and over again in trade for evading my own.

Something in my stomach hardened.
 
Alex was right.
 
Those people owed me everything for bearing what I had for them.
 
They owed it to me to do what I would ask them.

The sun started to drop below the horizon, the sky turning from pink to a deep purple.
 
I rose from the hammock, my stomach filled with nervous butterflies.
 
Just as I stood, I saw Alex leaning in the doorway, watching me.
 
His face looked almost sad, and yet his eyes were filled with nothing but love, the kind of love that came around only once every hundred lifetimes.
 

I closed the gap between us, stopping just in front of him, and wrapping my fingers around his lightly.

"I'm scared, Jessica," he whispered.

"Don't be," I breathed.
 
"I'm ready for this."

His eyes searched mine for a long while, the fear so obvious in them.
 
I finally looked away from him.
 
If I thought about Alex’s fear for too long I would scare myself out of this.

And I couldn’t back out now.
 
I wasn't lying when I had said that I was ready for this.

Stepping away from Alex, I walked back into the house. Finding the book of names on the coffee table, I grabbed it and slowly walked back into the bedroom.
 
I faintly heard the sound of Alex following behind me.
 

I stood at the foot of the bed for a long while, simply staring at it.
 
I ran over everything in my mind again, pictured the hell that I was about to put myself into.
 

And I recalled the way Alex looked when he said the binding words of "I do" in front of everyone who mattered to me.

Taking a hard swallow, I climbed into the bed and under the thin sheet.
 
Alex slipped into the bed next to me.
 
Clutching the book to my chest, I curled into Alex's side.
 
He wrapped his arms around me protectively, his chin resting on the top of my head.

"Don't let go of me until I wake up," I said, my voice shaking more than I would have liked it to.

"I won't," he breathed, squeezing me all the tighter.
 

Letting the names flow through my head, I closed my eyes, and started willing myself back into the world of the dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Letting myself slip under was a bit like willing myself into death.
 
I suppose for me it really was.
 
It was as close to death as I could ever come.
 
I willed my heart to slow, to almost stopping.
 
I focused on my blood slowing, on my organs slowing down.
 
I focused my brain on not being active anymore.
 

And then I was in the world of the dead.

I appeared on the staircase, in a shadowed area, facing the wall opposite of the stone council chairs.
 
As soon as I arrived, everything inside of me felt like it was being shredded to pieces.
 
Everything within me shifted, faded away, wanted to transform, needed to be dead, to be changed.
 
But it couldn't settle on whether it was human or angel.

Because I wasn't quite either.

There was no one around me when I arrived, but as I looked down at the catwalk below me, I understood why.
 
A man led a figure out onto the catwalk.
 
As far as I could tell it was a woman.
 
Her head was covered in the white bag mine had always been, her body sheathed in the same white robes, her hands bound in front of her body.
 
I could see her hands shaking even from my lofty position.
 
The man whom I could only assume was Cormack's replacement turned and walked back into the stone tunnel.

And I then heard the rustle of wings.
 
Voices talked quietly, and one by one, the council members landed in their appointed chairs.

I watched them from the shadows as they started the trial.
 
They were all so beautiful.
 
There were three exalted women, each with a face that would make a normal man sell his soul just for a few hours with her.
 
The exalted men were equally beautiful, their faces and bodies flawless.

The unfair thing was that the condemned were just as beautiful.
 
They were just as perfect looking, just as breathtakingly flawless.
 
The two women looked like goddesses, and the three men, including Cole and Jeremiah, were just as incredible.

"You're actions must be made know," the leader of the exalted said, his voice ever sad as he looked at the faceless woman before him.

My barely beating heart hammered in my chest as I heard the mass rush of wings.
 
Numberless angels ascended from the fiery depths and swooped down from the blue skies above.
 
And suddenly I was surrounded by blue and black-eyed alike.
 
I pressed my back against the cylinder, trying to hide the fact that I myself did not have a pair of wings.

A few eyes turned to me, but they did not linger before they moved onto their fellow comrades in exaltation or damnation.
 
I may as well have been one of them.
 
That, or they simply didn’t care that I was there.
 
But I seriously doubted that.

The air came in and out of my lungs in gasping breaths as my eyes turned back to the woman on trial.
 
Black spots formed on the edge of my vision. Everything inside of me hurt.
 
It felt like my organs kept being burned away and then re-growing in my ribcage.

The deeds of this woman's life started to be read and I felt real panic.

I didn't have endless time to do this.
 
I couldn't waste my time being terrified and hiding in the corner so to speak.

"Excuse me," I said hoarsely to the woman next to me.
 
She didn't even turn her head in my direction.
 
"Excuse me," I said again, raising my voice just slightly.
 
She turned her brilliant blue eyes on me.
 
I sighed a little breath of relief.
 
"I am looking for someone.
 
I wondered if you could help me?"

She gave me a confused look for a moment, and I worried for a second that she might not answer me at all.
 
"Are you alright, child?" she asked, her face concerned looking.
 
"You don't look well."

"I'm... I'm fine," I stuttered.
 
"I'm looking for Rose Roberts.
 
Do you know where I could find her?"

As soon as I said her name, my eyes were drawn to a place on the staircase about fifteen yards away.
 
As I saw the red haired woman, her eyes instantly locked with mine.

"Looks like you don't need my help anymore," the first woman said, her eyes still concerned looking.
 
I shook my head once.
 
Slowly, I started making my way toward the red-haired woman, being careful to keep along the wall and my back pressed against the stone.

No other angels seemed to notice our odd behavior as I approached her.
 
Their eyes were firmly locked on the woman on trial.
 
As I came to her side neither of us said anything for a long time, we simply stared at each other.

"You're her," she finally said quietly.
 
“The proxy.”

I could only nod.

"I am so thankful," she said, her head shaking just slightly.
 
"I’ve see the trials, how terrifying they are.
 
I didn’t have to endure that, because of you.
 
And I am so sorry.
 
It wasn’t fair."

I stared back into her beautiful blue eyes, trying hard to swallow the hard lump in my throat.
 
"No, it isn’t."

She continued to look at me for a long moment, and it was a bit before I realized I needed to say something.
 
"I need your help."

Knowing my time was running out, I rushed through an explanation.
 
Everything that was happening to Alex, everything we had been through.
 
All the struggles we were going through to be together.