The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (28 page)

             
“Callie?” Alex asked, stepping out of the bedroom with a book in his hand. “Are you alright?” Callie felt some of her rage begin to melt away at the concern in his eyes; but she made herself focus.

             
“Well, let’s see,” she said, folding her arms, “I just got an earful from Serena because you screwed up fifty years ago. She spent the better part of the afternoon dragging me through the particularly gory details of your epic love story with Adeline, and I made myself watch because
you
haven’t told me anything about it. No, I’m not so alright.”

             
Alex’s face grew stormy. “You’ve been checking up on me, I see,” he growled.

             
That threw her. “What?” she asked. “No, not…specifically—“

             
He dropped the book he was holding on the couch. “Well?” he asked, taking several fierce steps towards her. “What do you want? An explanation? I owe you nothing.”

             
“You owe me the
truth
!” Callie argued. “I saw her today. Adeline was in the forest, watching us. Had you bothered to tell me about your psychotic ex-girlfriend, I wouldn’t have needed to go to Shay to find out why.”

             
Alex paled. “Adeline was here?” he asked, his voice shaking.

             
“Wha—yes, but that isn’t the point,” Callie said. “The point is that you should have told me about her!”

             
“Why?” Alex demanded, his shock being visibly forced down by his self-righteous indignation. “My business is my own.”

             
Callie laughed harshly. “Right, okay, so we’re not allowed to share personal details with each other? I’m just a job to you, is that it? You report for duty at the beginning of the day, clock out at the end of the night, and everything outside of that…that’s the stuff that really matters to you?”

             
“It is my duty to protect you,” he bit out. “That is all.”

             
Callie wanted to scream. “No, that’s not all, and you
know
it, Alex!” She took a step closer to him, pushing the sides of her fists into his chest. “Can you get real for just a second, please? God, you’re such a hypocrite!”

             
“How?” he asked furiously.

             
“You tell me I need to spill all this crap from my past—all that stuff about my parents, and my sister—and then, when it comes time for you to do the same, you turn tail and go running for the hills!” she said.

             
“I never made you tell me anything; what you chose to share was your own—“

             
“No, it was not my own,” she spat. “You already knew all about it. Even before I opened my mouth. How fair is that?”

             
“That isn’t my fault!” he retorted. “What would you like, for me to apologize for saving your life time and time again?”

             
“No, I want—“

             
“I know
exactly
what you want,” he said with a bitter laugh. Almost without breath, without pause, he reached out suddenly and roughly took hold of her shoulders. Before she could push him away, before she could react at all, his mouth came down feverishly and covered hers with such anger, such frustration, that it really wasn’t a kiss at all. It was a punishment, a rude excuse for a first kiss.

             
Callie screamed against his lips, and thrust him off of her. She brushed her arm against her mouth, wiping off the remnants of the attack, so livid that she forgot to be heartbroken. “Get off of me!” she cried.

             
“Why?” he flung back. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Isn’t it why you decided to spy on me?”

             
Her eyes were beginning to fill with moisture. “What, so that I could be another one of your whores?” she asked. “No, thanks.”

             
“Well, then get out!” he thundered.

             
“I
will
!” she yelled.

             
And with that, she turned around and stalked to the doorway, almost stepping outside until she realized what that would mean. Her hands shot out, and she caught herself on the doorframe before she fell forward.

             
She caught her breath as she looked at the huge distance between where she stood and where the ground was, knowing that there was no way she could just jump down. But she refused to turn around and humble herself in asking for help, and so she peeled her fingers from the doorframe and set her resolve.

             
Very slowly, she sat down at the door, her legs dangling out over the forest, and she gaged the distance from her legs to the nearest branch. It would be a bit of a jump, but the branch was broad and sturdy-looking. She could make a solid landing.

             
Lowering herself by balancing her weight on her palms, she pushed out over the threshold, and turned her upper body against the doorstep to get a better grip on the wooden planks. She saw Alex, standing in the exact same position, his arms crossed as he watched her with narrowed eyes and a challenging expression. He wasn’t about to stop her. And she didn’t want him to.

             
She swallowed, took a deep breath, and then let go of the floor. She fell, but her aim was good. She landed on the branch a moment later, pitching forwards instantly to double over and catch her balance on her finger tips. Grinning with triumph, she looked up and saw Alex at the doorway, having sprinted over as soon as she’d fallen. Their eyes connected, and she felt herself brimming with satisfaction. Tearing her gaze from his, she looked down, and realized that she would have to scale the trunk if she was going to make it to the next branch. It was too far for her to jump again. But this tree, as were all the trees that the Guardians’ cottages sat in, was lined with vine-like roots that were thin and easy for Callie to grab onto. So she reached out, took hold of one of the roots, and winced. The texture was rough and scaly; she knew that this would tear up her palms. And still, she stepped off of the tree branch, wrapped her other hand around the root, and hung suspended in the air for a moment.

             
Once she was certain that she could hold her weight, she began alternating her hands in a downward crawl. Every time she replaced her palm on the root, she felt the sharp sting of the vine’s skin biting into her flesh a little more. Eventually, she began to leave bloody fingerprints behind on the bark. And then, finally, she was standing on the branch, and she was able to let the vine loose. She examined her battered hands, and saw the little divots left behind in the crooks of her fingers. They weren’t bleeding freely, so Callie wasn’t worried.

             
She looked down again. She had lowered herself about halfway, but the lower half of the tree was riddled with branches. With an ease born of recent practice, Callie maneuvered her way down, skipping between branches in leaps and inches. She got too confident towards the bottom, however, and tripped into the trunk of the tree after her foot stuck on the side of a branch. She hissed and gingerly lifted her elbow away from the bark, and saw the deep, burgundy gash which ran from the outer crease of her elbow down to the middle of her forearm. Sticky yellow puss was lodged into the deepest part of the cut.

             
And then, to her amazement, the gash began to disappear. The mustard colored liquid began to shift, and then fade, and then the deep red blood which was streaming down her arm trickled off. Her eyes widened as the cut, which was hidden beneath the liquid blood, began to solidify into a ruby colored scab, and then as the scab began to shrink.

             
She jerked up the skirt of her dress, and found herself searching for the cut on her leg. She hadn’t even noticed that it hadn’t bothered her today. And soon she knew why: it was gone. She turned her leg each way, looking for something that had vanished.  All that remained was a thick, jagged pink stripe. She looked at her fingers again, and saw no trace of the cuts which had just been there a moment ago. And now, returning her focus to the scrape on her elbow, she wiped away the blood and saw just a small scab remaining.

             
But that was impossible. Injuries didn’t just disappear. She had never experienced this before.

             
She didn’t waste time pondering this new development, however. She knew that the longer she stayed on the floor, the closer Alex would get to burying his pride and coming to find her. And then she would have to talk to him.

             
She leapt to close the final distance between herself and the floor, almost jubilant that she’d accomplished the task by herself, and set off in the direction of Shay’s house. She knew approximately where she was going. If she walked for a few minutes, keeping track of the sun on her right, she knew that she would be on the right course.

             
Still, even though she was assured by a vague sense of direction, the fog which eternally blanketed the forest floor was beginning to make her nervous. It was one thing to see something so foreboding in a memory; in that case, it was like watching a scary movie. The outcome had already been decided. But to wander along the underbelly of a rainforest populated by animals of which Callie knew nothing….That was a different story altogether, especially in the waning light, which cast a grey shadow onto the scene.

             
Callie continued to shuffle through, her heart beginning to speed. She rushed forward when she heard the snap of a branch behind her. In the twilight, noises began to wear the mask of predators, no matter how trivial they were.

             
She kept her eyes on the treetops, waiting until she saw Shay’s cottage pierce through the leaves. But she saw nothing, and she realized in a sudden jolt of clarity that what might have seemed a few minutes by flight could be hours by foot. That was the moment the panic began to take shape.

             
And the next moment was when the panic morphed into fully formed terror. Because that was when Callie, who had broken into a sprint and had trained her eyes on the sky, tripped over something on the ground. Something which began to growl at her.

             
Callie gasped as she fell into a pile of leaves and branches, rolling over onto her back instantly to see what she’d stumbled on. Almost instantly, she wished she hadn’t looked. What stared back at her was a gleaming, hungry pair of midnight eyes belonging to an incredibly large, black dog. The animal had begun to foam at the mouth, and had been clawing through piles of fallen foliage, presumably looking for something to chew on.

             
And then Callie had presented herself so readily.

             
She couldn’t stand up at this distance. Doing so would require her to lean forwards, which would bring her face to face with the rabid creature. And so she shuffled backwards, using her elbows to push her, wincing as rubble and debris dug into her back.

             
The dog turned to face her, and crouched down in a stance which Callie knew preceded his pounce. She flipped over onto her belly and, so quickly that she was a tangle of limbs and leaves, began to run as fast as she could in whatever direction she happened to be facing.

             
She could hear its footprints tearing against the ground as the dog followed her, chasing after her with a sprint much faster than her own. She weaved between tree trunks and leapt over errant roots, running out of breath as her heart beat in her throat. She was barely able to think, knowing only that it was gaining on her with each footfall. With a quick glance thrown over her shoulder, Callie saw that it was right on her heels, snatching at her with its stained, yellow teeth as her heels neared its mouth.

             
She flung her gaze forwards again, desperate to go faster but feeling her energy draining from her. Of all the times she could have died this week—she couldn’t bring herself to believe that this could actually be it for her. She had thought she was done for too many times; maybe the shock of death was wearing off, but despite her fear, she didn’t really believe she was going to die, even as she felt the dagger-like teeth of the beast sink into her calf, even as she fell onto her elbows and heard herself screaming at the pain.

             
Even as, when the agony began to gnaw at her sanity, an angel lifted her from the earth, and carried her to the heavens.