Broken (Book 1, The Watcher Chronicles, Paranormal Romance) (25 page)

“Bad things are allowed to happen because it
’s those events in your life that help shape you into the person you are meant to become.  True strength only comes from surviving adversity.”

I laugh harshly. 
“So your God wanted me to become a person who could never see herself having a normal life?  Who never wanted to date and risk falling in love?  Is that what you’re telling me?  Is that the flimsy excuse you’re going to hide behind?  That going through what I did was the only way to make me stronger?”

“
I’m not trying to justify what happened, just find the reason it was allowed to.  Trust me, if I had been allowed to kill him for you, I would have.  I’m a fighter, Jess, and so are you.  It’s only because you are that you were able to go through what you did and still remain sane.  Plus, you and I both know if you hadn’t taken the brunt of his abuse, his attention would have fallen on another innocent.”

It’s only
with Michael’s gentle reminder that I close my eyes and finally let my tears fall.

“I couldn’t let him do that to Faison,” I say.
  “She wouldn’t have survived it.  She isn’t strong enough.”

“I know.  You fight
for and you protect those you love.  That’s who we are, Jess.  And that’s one of the reasons you chose me to come with you here.  You have an inner strength which I don’t even think you realize you have.  It’s that strength that got you through those dark years, and it’s that same strength that will lead us to victory.”

I stand from my seat. 
“I think I’m going to wake up now,” I tell Michael.

Michael stands
and I feel as though he wants to give me a hug.  I don’t feel like I’m ready for such an intimate thing to happen between us so I turn away and walk down the steps of the gazebo to force myself to reawaken back into the real world.

When I open my eyes, I find myself in my bedroom at Mason’s villa.  I sit up and see him standing by the
paned glass doors in the room looking out at a darkening sky.

“Hi,” I say.

Mason turns to look at me.

“How did you sleep?” He asks, strolling to my bed side.

“Fine I guess, if you call having a conversation with an angel inside your head sleeping.”

“Then you talked with Michael again?  Did he have anything important to say?”

Mason sits down beside me and I instantly find a piece of lint to pick at on the quilt.

“Nothing about how to find the others,” I say, not seeing any reason to tell Mason
that Michael and I argued more than talked.

“Do you think you could take me home now?” I ask, lifting my gaze to look at him.  “I would really like to take a shower and change clothes.”

Mason stands up to give me room to do the same.

“Take the crown and sword,” Mason tells me.  “I’m not sure exactly when
or if you’ll need them again, so it might be best if you kept them close to you.”

“Isn’t that going to look a little conspicuous?”

A lop sided grin appears on his face.  “Probably,” he agrees.  “But until we know what purpose they serve, it would probably be better to keep them close.”

“I’ll make a note to ask Michael the next time I see him.”

I grab the silver crown and the sword from the top of the dresser.  With my hands full, Mason places a hand on my shoulder and I instantly find myself standing in my bedroom.

“Are you hungry?” He asks me.

“Yes,” I admit, even though I feel like all I’ve been doing is eat in front of Mason.  “What’s the date anyway?” I ask, having completely lost track of my days.

“December 30.”

“Umm, you wouldn’t happen to have some more of that chicken soup you made yesterday, would you?” I ask, my stomach growling with just the mention of Mason’s specialty.

Mason grins and I can tell he’s pleased I asked.  “I’ll go get it and bring it over.  Would you like some toasted butter garlic bread with that?”

“You know the way to my heart,” I tease, only realizing after I say the words they could be construed in two different ways.

Mason’s grin widens.

“I certainly hope so,” he replies before phasing back to his villa.

I hang my head and shake it.  What a bone headed thing to say.
  I decide I really need to start thinking before I say things to Mason.

While I’m pulling my blouse out of my pants
and walking to my bathroom, I hear a familiar creak of a rocking chair come from my front porch.  I walk to the bay of windows in my room and look out.

Lucifer is sitting in one of my rocking chairs staring out at my neighborhood like he’s waiting for something, most likely me.

I take a deep breath and try to remember the way Lilly and everyone else told me to act around Lucifer to glean the most information out of him.  We need to know what his end game is and the only way to figure that out is to speak with him.

When I walk out onto the porch, Lucifer looks up at me.  A genuine smile graces his handsome face.  I can’t deny that he picked a handsome body to inhabit.  I fe
el sure it’s a prerequisite for any body he takes.

He’s dressed simply in a pair of blue jeans, light blue
T-shirt and blue jean jacket.

“Jess
ica,” he says standing up.  “I’ve been wondering where you were.  Your sister wouldn’t speak with me about you.  I assume you told her not to.”

“You assume right,” I say, walking to the railing opposite the rocking chair he’s still standing by.

Lucifer sits back down and continues to rock as he studies me.

“There’s something different about you today,” he says, looking at me with a cursory
glance.  “What is it?”

I shrug.  “No idea
.”

“You’re lying,” he says confidently.  “
Don’t you know that just makes you more interesting to me?”

Great, the last thing I need to happen.   Becom
e more interesting to Lucifer was not on my list of things to do that day.

“So, where have you been?”
He asks.

“Away.”

Lucifer grins.  “You know I’ll find out eventually.”

“Perhaps. 
At least it’ll give you something to do beside tromp around the globe with your brand new besty.”

Lucifer grins.  “I thought you and Mason w
ould be keeping tabs on us.  Have you figured out what we are doing or who he is yet?”

“
I have no idea what you guys are doing,” I say, not tipping my hat that I know the man is one of the princes of hell he has been looking for.

Lucifer’s grin grows wider.  “Well don’t expect me to just tell you.  What’s the fun in that?  You’ll have to earn the answer for yourselves.
  I’m not going to feed you the information on a shiny silver platter.”

“I didn’t expect you to.  I’ve always worked for what I wanted, and I’ve always gotten
it in the end.”

Lucifer narrows his eyes on me in an appraising way.  “You know for a human you’re rather impressive.  Most would have broken considering what you’ve had to deal with
in your short life.  First you were abandoned by your parents and then abused by your adopted mother’s brother.”

“My parents didn’t abandon me,” I say
, “they were taken against their will.  There’s a big difference.”

Lucifer cocks his head at me.  “Hasn’t Mason told you how people are chosen
to go through the Tear?”

“It’s random,” I say, everyone on the planet knows that.
  Why is he making such a big deal out of it?

Lucifer chuckles
like he’s in on an inside joke.  “I suppose it would be nice to think so, but no, it’s not random.”

I’m silent because I don’t like the look on Lucifer’s face.  I feel as though he’s about to lower the boom on me and I’m not so sure I’ll
be able to survive it.

“How are they
chosen?” I ask, bracing myself for the answer.

“Only people who, for whatever
reason in their lives, want a fresh start somewhere else, go through the Tear.  I suppose it was my father’s way of tempering what I did to make it easier on those who went through.  The ones who return are the ones who eventually decide they want to come back home.”

“You’re lying,” I say, but I know he isn’t.  Deep down
in the inner recesses of my soul I know what he’s saying is true.

“For whatever reason,” Lucifer says
to me, “your parents didn’t want to be a part of your life anymore.” He pauses letting what he just said sink in.  “I’ll never lie to you, Jessica.  You know I’m telling you the truth.  I thought you should know it too.  Don’t waste your time grieving over people who don’t deserve it.”

I push away from the railing.  “I think you should
leave now.”

“If that is what you want.  But I will be back
,” he says with certainty.

I nod, not trusting my voice
to not betray my true emotions in that moment.  Lucifer phases away and I walk back into my house.  I close the front door behind me and lean my back against it.  Before I know it, I’m sitting on the floor, with my legs drawn up, hugging them to me.  I begin to rock back and forth trying to sooth the lost girl inside me.  What Lucifer has just said confirms what the seven year old me feared the most: that my parents didn’t love me enough to want to stay with me.  It’s like having my worst nightmare brought to life.  I try to reason with myself that there has to be another explanation.   But no amount of cajoling or reasoning seems to be enough to stop the lost girl’s heart from shattering into a million pieces.

I feel my world crash in around my heart cracking its armor into so many shards it will never be whole again.  I suddenly feel paralyzed with grief and the first sting of tears tells me I am no longer in control of the next few minutes of my life.  Sorrow and despair completely consume my body taunting the lost girl within me with the information Lucifer has just shared.  Locked away in her self-imposed prison, the child me peeks out and is forced to face the unadulterated truth about her parents.  They never wanted her.  They never loved her.  If they had, they would have never left her alone in a world where people like Uncle Dan could easily use her for his own sick fantasies.  Acts that forced her to build walls so high and thick she never truly let those who loved her breach it completely. 

An endless stream of sobs rack my body so hard,
I end up having trouble taking in a single breath, like an invisible hand is choking me.  I try to force the child within to not forget the good times we shared with my parents, but she asks the same question over and over: why did they abandon us?

I don’t want to believe what Lucifer said is true
but deep in my heart I know he didn’t lie to me.  He is often called the great deceiver but on this one subject I know he has told me the unvarnished truth.  I feel as though I might be the only person Lucifer will never lie to and I know the reason why without having to be told.

The reason Lucifer is drawn to me is simple.  He senses Michael inside me.  He may not know it consciously but some part of him recognize
s his one time best friend standing in front of him.  A part of him will never be able to lie to his best friend even when Michael is hidden inside a human.

I cry even harder knowing th
e truth of this.  I have to make the lost girl inside me face the fact that our parents did abandon us.  What about me was so terrible it would make them both want to leave me?  Did they regret having me?  Was I a mistake?  How was I supposed to recover from this?

I fe
el a presence beside me.  Through the fog of my tears, I look to my right and see Mason’s concerned face inches away from mine.  He is sitting on the floor with his back against the door just as I am.  He doesn’t say a word, just sits there with me, waiting.

I t
ake in a shuddering breath, intent on telling him what Lucifer has revealed to me but the words lodge themselves in my throat to a point where only another sob comes out.  I lean into Mason needing to feel like at least one person in the world cares enough about me to stay, to not abandon me.  I feel him pull me closer into him, offering his strength as my support if I will accept it. 

“Oh, Jess,” he says, holding me close with one arm and tenderly cradling my head with the other as I let my pain practically double me over its so intense.

I feel him try to pull away, but I grab his shirt so tightly I feel him wince under me.  That, more than anything else, causes me to pull away from him and look into his face.

“Did I hurt you?” I ask
, taking a shuddering breath.

“Seeing you like this is the only thing hurt
ing me,” he replies, smoothing wet, wayward strands of hair away from my face and tucking them behind my ear.  He stands up and pulls me to my feet in one swift motion.