Break Away (Away, Book 1) (28 page)

I closed my eyes once more and concentrated
on my slow and steady breaths, feeling how my body started
loosening up gradually.

“Focus on your head—the crown, the middle of
your forehead, the center,” he said with a soothing voice. “Now
find that special spot in the back, where head and neck join. Feel
how you start drifting into that dark, secret place.”

Like the time when we’d been watching the
movie of the Phantom of the Opera, a vaporous tunnel formed in the
back of my head and those same misty ribbons emerged from it,
stretching out and coiling themselves around my arms and legs.

I must’ve twitched or done something because
Comus said, “There is nothing to fear. Smooch will be waiting for
you. Just believe and let go. Believe Chimera will be there on the
other side of that veil.”

Not waiting for me to decide if I believed or
not, the ribbons started pulling me back toward the tunnel, that
same symphony of angelic voices brushing past through me like a
breeze. The moisture in the air got denser, as if suffused with
midnight mist, and faster than I expected, the vapory walls of the
tunnel were encircling me, my long hair and body floating in the
air.

The voices started humming a soft welcoming
tune and, suddenly, bright light exploded from within the tunnel,
swallowing me in its blinding glow and dropping me on firm ground a
few seconds later.

In front of a guy.

I
n the midst of the
confusion and perplexity, I felt my mouth fall wide open as I
looked up and found his shocked face. Because this face was far too
perfect to be real. Handsome didn’t quite fit him, but beautiful.
He had the face of a fallen angel and looked about twenty-three
years old. His blonde hair, tied up in a short pony tail at the
back of his neck, shone like new gold. The chiseled features that
graced his contours looked as if they’d been meticulously carved
with a sharp knife. Glowing skin covered those delicious angles, as
if muted light was shining underneath. His eyes, a warm chocolate
color, invited mine to get lost in their sweet gaze, and the spot
beneath his lips held a sculpted chin that stirred in me a wild
desire to press a kiss on the sexy dimple denting its middle.

This had to be a dream. I’d fallen asleep and
my hormones—still crazed from the kissing session with Ian—had
created the most perfect male specimen for me to enjoy and continue
kissing. That had to be it, right? I brought my eyes down and
scanned his body. Yep, that certainly had to be it. His tall frame
encased the right amount and size of hard muscle all over.

When he crossed his arms over his chest,
biceps curling under his skin with the movement, I felt myself on
the verge of swooning. But then, I looked up and found his face was
no longer shocked at seeing me but angry. Really angry.

“Can you explain this?” he said through
clenched teeth, glaring at me.

“I…I…aren’t you supposed to kiss me or
something?” I spurted out nervously, puzzled at his severe stare
and posture. Something in this scene didn't look right. “This is my
dream, after all. You should be telling me you’ve been waiting for
this moment your whole life and then take me in your arms and kiss
me—or something along those lines.”

The ghost of a smile appeared in his lips,
but melted away almost immediately as soon as he remembered the
reason behind his anger. “If this was a dream, you wouldn’t be
standing here in the middle of the woods between us. You would be
meandering in the Garden of Wandering Souls minding your own
dreaming business.”

“The Gar—” I paused and frowned. “Don’t tell
me I’m in Chimera,” I said, with an incredulous tone. “And wait,
why did you say ‘between us’? Who else is here?”

“I was in the middle of a conversation with
Smooch when you came out of nowhere and rudely planted your feet
between us.”

“Smooch?”

“If you turn around you’ll see what I’m
talking about.”

I hesitated for a moment, thinking about how
crazy all this sounded, and decided to spin around. I gasped. The
small creature standing there barely reached my hip in height. Its
face was all wrinkled and swollen, like a human newborn on its
first day out of his mother’s womb, only its eyes were big and
rounded instead of shut and tight. Flat and wide ears, like an
elephant's, fell down to his narrow shoulders, almost touching its
tapered, even narrower naked chest. A protuberant belly stretched
above a flimsy khaki pant that showed toothpick-thin legs
underneath, turning the creature into a mismatched ensemble of body
parts.

More than scary, it looked funny. And
astonished, definitely astonished. It had his bony hands pressed
together over his mouth, as if it couldn't believe what its eyes
were seeing in that moment.

“What is this?” I heard the hot blond say
behind me.

The small creature that was apparently
Smooch, and now looked terrified, shook his head with his hands
still pressed over his mouth without a word. His wide ears flapped
in the air with each movement.

“Smooch,” he said insistently, with a warning
tone in his voice, demanding an answer.

“Is it true?” I asked the creature. “Are you
the
Smooch?”

Its scared eyes widened more if possible.

“
Smooch!
” the blond pressed, as if
what I'd said had flipped a switch of understanding in him. “You
didn't. Tell me you didn't.”

Seeing he had no way out of this, Smooch
finally pulled down his bony hands and displayed his very thin
mouth. “I—I—I not believed this possible,” he said in a weird way
of speaking, waving his hands to me.

“So you
know
what this human is doing
here,” Tall, Blond and Sexy said, furious.

“Young Andras,” Smooch said pleadingly,
looking up above my head. “Comus told I a human girl was coming but
I not believed because that not possible.”

“Yet you were here,” Andras said, “Waiting
for her. That's why I found you here, in the middle of the
woods—next to the portal nonetheless.”

“I—I just wanted see if possible, just if
possible.” Smooch raised his bony hands as if in surrender.

“What did you tell that man?” Andras asked
and realized almost instantly something else. “And I told you not
to go and see him again! If they find out about this, they won't
hesitate to send you to Tacca this time.”

At the sound of that name, he folded his
hands together in supplication. “Mercy, young Andras, mercy. I
promise not go again.”

“Your word has no worth, apparently. Just
look at what you've done.” I could feel his hard stare on me once
more.

Smooch ran past me, his rounded belly
bouncing in the air freely, and stopped somewhere behind me. I
turned and found him glued to Andras, his thin, flabby arms wrapped
around one of the blonde's legs.

That's when I noticed what Andras was
wearing. He had on what looked like white linen pants, but its
texture seemed softer, silkier. A rather tight, lavender shirt
covered his upper body, which made him look even manlier somehow,
and a small pale yellow messenger bag was swung over his shoulder
and across his chest.

“Mercy, young Andras, mercy,” Smooch
repeated, his cheek pressed tight against the hottie's thigh.

Andras sighed. “Just tell me what you told
that man you like to visit so much and I'll let this pass.”

Smooch took a step back with a sniff and
looked up at him adoringly. “Thank you, young Andras. Thank you,”
he said, bending his head.

“Yeah, yeah…just get it over with and tell
me. Don't make me change my mind.”

“Comus said a human girl would be coming,”
Smooch rushed to say, not willing to risk Andras' benevolence.
“That she needed bring her sister back.”

“Bring her sister back?” Andras glanced at me
curiously.

“From Garden of Wandering Souls,” Smooch
pointed somewhere behind him, up north.

“Ah,” Andras arched his dark gold eyebrows.
“I see…she's amid the group of humans that arrived recently.”

Smooch nodded. “Yes. I told Comus show her
meditation, but I always thought she not able.”

“This human girl
shouldn't
be able to
come through that portal,” Andras shot a look at the place where I
was standing. “Unless…”

“Hey!” I called him, cutting short his
pensive state. “Stop talking about me in third person, okay? This
is
my
dream, therefore address me as for what I am: your
creator.”

Andras looked at me for a moment, and then,
cracked a loud laugh.

“That's not what I was expecting,” I
muttered, knitting my brows together above the bridge of my
nose.

Andras paused to take a deep breath. “My
creator?” He started laughing once more and it took him about
another minute to end. “Kastor is right. Humans are egotistical and
crazy,” he said. “This isn't a dream, human girl. You are in
Chimera. The whys of it are a complete mystery to me, and something
I don't have time to ponder on if I want to save Smooch from
punishment.”

“Thank you, young Andras. Thank you,” Smooch
started expressing gratitude again.

“Stop the ass-licking and help me,” I told
Smooch suddenly annoyed. “Comus said you were the one who was going
to help me to get into the Garden of Wandering Souls. If this isn't
a dream, then I'm wasting priceless time.”

“You might search forever and never find
her,” Andras said, crossing his arms over his hard chest. “Do you
have any idea how many souls are roaming in there right now? While
half of your race stays awake for its everyday routine, the other
half drifts into the garden while sleeping. Add to that the recent
ones that seem to have plans of permanent residence—among them your
sister.” He leaned forward, shrinking the distance between us. “In
a nutshell, we're talking about billions and billions of souls,
human girl.”

“My name is Dafne,” I narrowed my eyes. “And
I don't care if I have to look for her amid a sea of souls. I
will
go, with or without your help.” I looked down at Smooch
and an idea lit up in my mind. “But if someone else finds me in the
way, that punishment you want to save Smooch from will certainly
come.”

The warm chocolate color in his eyes turned
into incandescent rock. “Are you threatening me?” Andras asked in a
mixture of anger and amazement, his strong jaw clenched.

“No, I'm offering you a solution. The more
time I spend here the worse, right? Help me to get into the garden
so I can leave Chimera faster.”

“Young Andras,” Smooch said, poking the
blond's leg. “Girl is right. Nobody enters garden. She will be
better there than here in woods. And maybe she will find her sister
quick, just like she did with mediation.”

Andras looked at me and paused, mulling over
the nuts and bolts of this idea.

“Please,” I told him. “My sister is in pain.
I had a dream about her where she asked me to help her. She was
desperate to leave.”

“Impossible,” Andras said, with a sharp shake
of his head. “Those human souls who stayed have only done so
because they've chosen to, not the other way around. How do you
know it wasn't your own fears you were projecting into that
dream?”

“I
know
my sister is trapped in there.
I can feel it,” I said, tapping my chest. “You can't know for sure
if all those human souls are still keen to being there. Maybe they
were at the beginning, but maybe they want to go back now and they
can't because something is shutting them in. Besides, Smooch told
Comus this wasn't normal—that seeing the garden so full of energy
wasn't normal.”

Andras shot Smooch a murderous look, making
the small creature to recoil in fear, and locked his eyes with
mine. “Your world is a hard and hostile place to live in. Each day
things get worse and each day more humans wish to break away from
the turmoil. All these human souls taking residence in the garden
is a result of that yearning. Wars, conflicts, injustice,
poverty—this is what keeps them here, away from all of that.”

I sighed with a sense of emptiness. “I
understand what you're saying, Andras, I really do. But these
things aren't new to human history. There have always been wars and
injustice and poverty, and this is the first time human souls have
remained in the garden—and more seem to be on their way. Why? Why
now
? Have you thought about it?”

Andras kept silence, staring at me with
intense brown eyes that reminded me of dangerous mountains. I felt
as if I was an Alpinist, trying to climb those two mountains until
reaching their top, until reaching a peak of sympathy and
consideration.

Then his eyes took on a studious look,
narrowing until only suspicion dancing around them. He tilted his
head to the side, as if thinking over something he'd just realized
about me and said, “I'll help you. Just promise to leave as soon as
you find your sister—
if
you find her.” He took a step back
and looked down at Smooch. “Gives us a moment to talk,” he told me
and walked a few yards away from me with Smooch to make sure his
words wouldn't reach my ears.

I shrugged and, for the first time, took the
time to look at my surroundings. Light seeped through the lush
emerald canopy above with a pinkish glow, suffusing everything
underneath with dim, ethereal brightness. The trees weren't that
tall, which gave the impression of being below a vast green
blanket, as if sheltered. Bushes of every possible color dotted the
silvery ground, and rocks had, too, the same silver specks blended
into them. Several feet away, near a dome-shaped rock, a shy beam
of light on the ground caught my eye. I moved toward it, listening
to Andras asking me what I was doing as I closed the distance with
that spot.

The beam turned to be a small pool of
silver-white. It was rounded on the edges, like a jellyfish's head,
and didn't merge with the sparkly earth underneath. I tried to poke
it with the tip of my Converse, but the liquid was pretty elusive
and scurried away. I remembered a chemistry experiment at school
with a drop of liquid mercury where I'd tried to do the same thing,
only with a toothpick, and the liquid metal had acted the same
way.