Dark Diary (34 page)

“What? Where are you going?”

“I need to clear my head,” I replied, making the difficult decision to push him away for his own good.

“I’m coming with you.” He followed me, failing to lock the shop door behind us as I left.

If being with Matthaya couldn’t solve my nightmares, then maybe I needed to face them on my own. Maybe, I needed to get away from
him for a little while.

I turned to him and put out a flattened hand to stop his approach.

“Let me go, Matthaya. Please.”

He stopped in his tracks, appalled.

“Please, Kathera.” His gentle eyes implored me to trust him—to let him ease my pain with the rapport between us.

No. Not this time.

“I’m sorry.” I looked off toward the dark and empty, distant streets. “I need a little time to think. Alone.”

My next step was unaccompanied by his. He knew better than to follow me when I had deliberately asked him not to. I was faster than him, and forcing himself on me would only make me push him away even more.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to search for out in the empty city darkness. There were few souls out at this
hour and the few that were had not been the type of company I’d keep. Streetlights dimly lit the barren pavement and only a few signs on the storefronts remained glowing along the road. Neon flashes caught my eye in the distance, but it was the part of town I did not want
to be found in.

I looked both ways at an intersection and considered my options—to the left there was more street, going on
seemingly forever, and to the right was the downtown business strip lined with towering company headquarters
. I thought for only a moment before making my choice.

I craned my neck to look straight up at the massive series of a hundred or more glass-sided stories of the building before me. Like a shattered mirror, the building glistened, each pane of glass flickering with white moonlight. The window frames protruded from the building a few inches on each floor. They appeared to be sturdy and of a rough texture. Surely, I could have climbed up by hand, but a quick glance to the side revealed the fire escape ladder as a decent
alternative. I wasn’t really out to test the limits of my “immortality.”

I took a deep breath, hoping to taste the origins of the breeze. Smooth. Salty. It was quiet on the roof of the skyscraper. The noise of the cars below was drowned out by the whistling wind.

I looked out over the ledge. The streetlights were flashing and the few cars that were out looked like tiny beetles scurrying through a maze of gray and yellow lines.

Everything up here was as I had expected—as if I had
known exactly how it all would look from a thousand feet above. The scene was familiar and it was as if I had done this once before in my life.

Had I?

Wait…

I remembered the second dream—the one I’d had when
I was still human and staying with Derek. In it, I had been staring down off the tallest building in the city and… plotting my death.
I remembered how easy I had thought it would be to just leap and fall. But then I had changed my mind and awoke from the vision with a new fear: myself.

Why did I have to pay for something I had never wanted to do? I struggled for many years of my life with the haunting memories of Kathryn killing herself—of
me
committing suicide.

Why was I
still
fighting it even after Matthaya had chosen me?

Were they connected?

I thought and thought about the two.

And the more I thought about it, the clearer things became. The puzzle pieces started coming together.

In each vision, I had been threatened by death and in only one nightmare had Matthaya actually appeared. I had reached out to him, but he hadn’t reached back. I had called to him, but I had been helpless. Had he been unable to hear me? Or had he just not wanted to listen?

In the second vision, I had changed my mind, even though
I had known what I had wanted to do was to escape who I was—to end it all with death. But, I had hesitated because I had wanted Matthaya to be there. I had needed him to help me. I had wanted him to take my hand and pull me from my watery grave
before
the night passed.

It never happened…

There was a shuffle in the distance. Two hands came up and over the ledge, feeling for a sturdy place to grasp. Then Matthaya vaulted onto the rooftop.

“
How did you get up here so fast?” he asked, shaking the dust
from his jacket and then straightening the wrinkles in his sleeves.

I shrugged. He always made things more difficult than they actually were.

“You followed me,” I said as he neared.

“Kathera.” He looked off into the distance as if distracted by something and fidgeted with the edges of his cuffs.
“I’ve been thinking
a lot
about what’s happened
between us and there’s something I need to say to you. It could put
an end to all of this.”

“What is it?”

“
I’ve been thinking… about what we’ve been through and about what I can do to make you happy.” He came closer and took my hand into his. His gaze locked with mine and his
pupils grew dark and anxious. A faint spark of green light skittered through his irises as he spoke. “Deep down inside, I know there will always be a formality you will long for—something that will truly honor and justify the struggles
we’ve
faced. We need closure. The bond that we have now will never be enough for you, and it wasn’t enough for Kathryn, either.”

I felt his fingers tense up before he dropped to one knee in front of me.

“Matthaya?”

“Marry me,” he said, making it sound more like a command than a request.

“But, how?”

“That isn’t the question
I’m asking you.” His hands cupped mine
and his grip softened with his tone. “Kathera, this may not be the life you’ve imagined, but I want to make the most of what we have. So I ask you this now—for all of the days we have been apart, for all of the nights we have been alone, and for every sunrise we have lost over the years… will you marry me?”

I couldn’t believe my ears, though they were now
hypersensitive and every word was unmistakably clear. I loved him, and my answer wouldn’t be “no,” but something felt out of place.
Saying “yes” couldn’t solve my problems. It wouldn’t be that easy. The nagging feeling in my gut convinced me
that it wouldn’t put an end to the horrible bout of nightmares I continued
to face.

I needed something else from him first. It would take more than a vow of loyalty to keep the terrors at bay. There was one more favor I
had
to ask of him. My soul yearned for closure and I had to silence it.

“I know what they mean—the nightmares,” I said, backing away and sliding my fingers from his grasp.

“What?” Matthaya came to his feet.

“I understand what I have to do to make them stop.” I took another
step back and lifted one foot and then the other until I was standing on the ledge of the rooftop.

“I can’t marry you… until you save me…”

BEFORE I COULD STOP HER,
she lifted her arms out to the sides and fell.

I lunged for her, plummeting straight off the ledge of the
building.

She gazed back as she fell ahead of me, her long ruby hair
w
hipping wildly across her face as gravity dragged her down
. Faster and faster. There was no fear in her eyes, but a silent cry for help echoed through my veins as she stretched her arms out to me.

She knew that I would come after her, even if I fell to my own death in the process. But she also knew me so much better
than that.

Instinct kicked in before I had time to panic. A powerful split-second thrust of my wings sliced shreds of black fabric sheer off my back. The wings flapped open and snapped backward, immediately pressing close together to reduce wind resistance and close the gap between us as I dove after
her. Kathera reached for me and I grabbed her forearms, pulling her in as swiftly and closely as I could before the concrete
came into focus.

With a forceful crack against the air, I spread my wings
out to slow our decent and we swerved off at an angle toward the ground. My wings wrapped tightly around us and then we
crashed with a heavy thud, tumbling and sliding violently across several feet of blacktop before coming to a halt.

Everything went silent.

All I could hear was a dull ringing in my ears.

My head throbbed.

I should have broken every bone in my body from the
impact. My back felt sticky and wet against the concrete street.
My body was heavy, but I mustered the strength to unwrap
my wings and release Kathera from my grasp. She was pressed closely against me still, her cheek against my chest and her
hair plastered across my face like a web. She lifted herself from me and slowly came to her knees. Dizzy and disoriented, she brought a hand up to rub her forehead.

My body was stiff and I imagined the pain I would have experienced if I still had mortal nerves. I tipped my face to one side and then to the other to assess the damage. My left
wing curled inwards slightly; the bony fingers were scratched and bloody, revealing small splashes of cartilage and shreds of peeling grayish skin. My other wing looked just as
bad, but I was in one piece, more or less. Kathera appeared unharmed other than a few nicks along her elbows and forearms. Her hair was a disheveled mess.

I tried to sit up with her, but something stopped me. My right shoulder felt awkward and stagnant and an attempt to roll it back produced no response. It had been dislocated in the fall.

“Oh, Matthaya.” Kathera gazed with widened eyes at my unresponsive limb and stretched her fingers out to touch the ridge of my shoulder. “Is there anything I can do?”

Many years ago, I had had a similar injury. It was no more pleasant then, either, but I had managed.

“I can handle this,” I said, my other hand lifting in response. My badly scathed wings pressed into the concrete and raised me up to a sitting position. Kathera stood and backed away a few feet to give me space.

From there, the wing on my injured side bent back as if
ready to return to its place near my spine, but instead snapped
forward with a swift flap. Kathera cringed. The loud popping
sound indicated that my arm had been set correctly.

My wings had a mind of their own sometimes, and the fluidity
of their connection with the rest of my body amazed even me.

“Are you ok?” she uttered beneath her breath. She came closer and lent her arms to help me to my feet.

I was quite shaken; as my equilibrium reset, our surroundings took a
moment to come into focus.

“Your face,” she said, tracing her fingers across my cheek and
revealing the blood that stained them.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied with assurance, rotating my shoulder inwards and
then back down, testing its condition
. It would take time for everything to heal, but that wasn’t a concern of
mine anymore. “Kathera? Are you…”

She smiled at the sound of her name and brought her hands up to cup my face.

“Yes,” she whispered with a nod. “Thank you.” Her eyes traced the edge of my open wings.

I stretched my arms out behind me, flexed my hands, and felt the forearms of my wings crackle slightly as the fingers and pleats collapsed into each other. The limited mobility caused by my injuries made it difficult to fold my wings back into their place. It was possible I’d have to wait awhile for them to heal. I could handle a lot of trauma, but my body hadn’t really evolved to
withstand reckless dives off high-rise buildings.

I should have been angry, but the truth was, I knew why she had done it—she needed closure, even if it wasn’t the kind I was offering.

And it had worked.

I instantly felt the burden of her fear and pain lifting. The horror that spawned from the doubts she had secretly held about me had been
silenced. I had saved her from the one person she feared most—herself. And with Kathryn’s insecurities put to rest, Kathera would be free.

“I’m sorry it had to happen this way,” she said, smoothing her hand over her hair and down the back of her neck. She pinched a stray lock from across her cheek and brought it behind her ear. “Things will be better from now on.”

“Good,” I said with a faint scoff, “because there is no way I’m
doing that again.” I rubbed my palm over a raw patch of skin on my shoulder.

Thank God I couldn’t feel pain.

She chuckled, her eyes narrowed, and she revealed her teeth with an honest smile.