Destiny Gift (16 page)

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Shaking his head, he opened my nightstand drawer and, I guessed looking for more important stuff, rifled through it. He pulled out a piece of paper. “Is this important?”

My head pounded. My thoughts slowed. Was the card important? I raked my mind, trying to make my brain work. A hint of memory fluttered.

“Cheryl gave it to me,” I muttered. I watched, mindless, as he threw it, along with other things he took from the drawer, inside my suitcase.

After what seemed like forever, he closed the suitcase, grabbed it, and pulled me up by my arm.

“Let’s go.” He pulled me to the living room.

The front door opened before we reached it. Victor stood in the doorway.

I extricated myself from Micah and ran to him. “Victor,” I whispered his name like a prayer. “Please, help me.”

His sea-green eyes set on Micah, his pose defensive, but he let me approach, and even embraced me when I bumped into him.

“What happened?” he asked, his tone soft and gentle.

The tears came back to my eyes. I needed to get away from Micah, who’d obviously gone crazy, but I needed to get away from the visions more. I needed to get away from everything. “Take me to the hospital, please. I need a psychiatrist. It’s urgent.”

“What?” he asked, frowning.

“God damn it!” Micah cursed, gritting his teeth. “You’re worse than her.” He pointed to Victor. “Two beacons, now three, together.”

“Excuse me?” Victor asked, putting himself between Micah and me.

“All right,” Micah said. “You too, then. We gotta go. Now!”

“What are you talking about?” Victor asked, switching his pose to menacing. “And what are you doing in here?”

“No time to explain, people.” Micah’s tone rose. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Victor grounded himself. “Neither is Nadine.”

Micah raised one eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Tell that to your friends.” He went to the window and pulled the thick beige curtains away. Huge bats hovered around the window, baring their teeth and staring straight at us.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “Is that why you were forcing me to leave?” Micah gave me an inscrutable look. Maybe he’d been trying to help me, not kidnap me. “B-but you can repel them.” I wiped away my tears. Regaining the strength in my legs, I walked a few steps toward Micah. “You can repel them.”

“True, but I’ll bet they’re rethinking their priorities. I would say that killing you two would be at the top.”

“Why?” Victor came to stand beside me. “Why kill us? And how can you repel them?”

“Enough,” Micah shouted. “Come on, pretty boy, we gotta go. Questions come later.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Victor repeated.

Snickering, Micah hurried past us. “Oh no?” He left the apartment.

Instantly, the bats advanced, breaking the windows and chasing after us. I yelled and ran with Victor to the hallway where Micah waited, leaning against the wall.

Victor closed the door behind us, and we ran to the elevator.

Micah followed us, my suitcase in his hand. “Are you done playing?” he asked, entering the elevator with us. “Can we go now?”

I was trembling, and when I spoke, my voice was too. “What are you trying to prove?”

“That we need to leave before they reconsider the fear they feel for me and attack the three of us,” he explained.

“And why do they want to attack us?” Victor asked, as the elevator door opened at the first floor.

“That’s a good question I don’t have an answer for,” Micah said, stepping out of the elevator.

A quick sequence of images rushed in my mind. The bats flying in. The outside door at the garage downstairs. Victor’s car parked on the other side of the street.

On impulse, I pulled Micah back inside the elevator as the front glass broke and the shrieks exploded in the lobby. I pressed the close-doors button and watched as the bats flew in and advanced toward us, my finger already on the garage button.

Micah turned to me. “What was that?”

“Just …” I shook my head, not sure what to tell them. Instead, I glanced at Victor. “Your car is parked around the corner, right?”

“Yes, right beside the garage door. How do you know?”

I lowered my gaze. “I’m not sure.” The elevator doors opened again to the underground garage, and I beckoned for them to follow me. “Victor, do you still have my keys?”

“Here.” He extended them to me as we rushed to the end of the garage.

I grabbed the keys and found the one I wanted. “I’m not sure how it’s going to be, if the bats will know we’re on the other side of the building already, but I think we should run to the car.” My stomach revolted just imagining being out there with the bats.

“Wait.” Micah raised his hand. “I won’t leave my bike out there alone.”

I faced him. “What do you want to do? Run there?”

Micah crossed his arms. “Well, not run, but you could drop me right in front of it. Hopefully, the bats will stay away from me.”

“And then what?” Victor asked, his tone irritated.

“Drive west and drive fast,” Micah said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’ll follow you. Give me your number so we can contact each other.”

“You broke my cell phone,” I said, regaining some of my confidence.

He glanced at me with his trademark smile. “Yeah, sorry about that.” He nodded at Victor. “Give me yours.” They exchanged numbers. “On three,” Micah said as I unlocked the door and we got ready to bolt. “Ready. THREE.”

We left the building and ran together to Victor’s car. We made it inside when winged things rounded the corner, their screams gelling my soul. I shuddered.

Victor started the car and drove to the front of the building, the bats hovering above us.

Micah leaned close to the door. “About fifty miles east of here, there is a big and colorful gas station. Meet me there.”

“There are dozens of gas stations on the road,” I yelled.

“Not that many anymore. Besides, it has giant neon signs and many colored lamps.” He bowed at me. “No way of missing it.”

He opened and closed the car door, and ran to his bike.

A bat closed in on him and I inhaled sharply. Micah turned to face it and, slowly, it retreated.

“How can he do that?” Victor gaped as Micah hopped on his bike.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, equally amazed.

Two bats bumped into the car and Victor sprang into action, taking off and driving to the unknown.

Chapter Seventeen

The silence inside the car was killing me, but I wasn’t going to be the one to crack. As far as I knew, my mind was too messed up for me to say anything coherent.

I kept replaying everything that had happened in the last month. I’d met Micah, found a real-life but different Victor, lost contact with Cheryl, and lost the visions of dream Victor. Freaky gods appeared in my visions, and I’d watched both the destruction of a town in Switzerland and a part of Micah’s past in visions. Plus the shining number eight.

I would give anything to crawl inside a cave and have a vision, a long and permanent vision, where Victor, the dream Victor, and I lived happily ever after. Instead, I was now on the road. My heart squeezed tight, hurting. My hands shook every time I thought about the things that were happening to me, and I didn’t understand. I was scared and alone. I took a deep breath. If only I could go home and forget about it all.

However, I was buried too deep in this mess. I had to find out what was happening. Why bats were coming for me, why there were two guys I could heal with my touch, how I could heal them … and so many other things that made my head throb.

I sent a text message to Raisa and Olivia from Victor’s phone, telling them that bats had entered our building, that they should stay with friends for a while and be careful upon returning there, and that I was going to spend a few days away with Victor. I could already see them imagining I was on a romantic getaway. If only.

After forty minutes of silent driving, he finally spoke. “Do you trust that guy?” He eyed Micah on his bike through the rearview mirror.

I sighed, staring out at the dark exterior. Besides the road and what the car’s headlights illuminated, not much else was discernible. It was like life was nonexistent. Here and there, we would pass another car or see some houses or RVs along the road. He sat in the driver’s seat next to me, but I’d never felt so alone.

“I don’t know who to trust. Can I trust you?”

“Good point,” he said. After a couple of minutes, he tried again, “How did you meet him?”

“Micah saved me from a bat attack two months ago. He appeared and the bats went away.”

“Just like that?”

I turned to him. “Just like that. Didn’t you see how the bats reacted around him back there?”

“I did. But I needed to make sure you saw it too.”

I chuckled, a hollow, sad sound. “I know the feeling, but I don’t know what is happening or why. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. I should face this and do what I should have done a long time ago.” Tears burned my eyes. “See a psychiatrist and ask for help. I don’t know what is real or what isn’t anymore.”

“Oh, this is real, trust me.” He glanced at me; one side of his mouth curled up.

How familiar that half-smile was. I whispered, “You sound like the Victor in my visions. How do I know I’m not hallucinating right now?”

He didn’t answer me. After a while he asked, “How is the Victor in your visions?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Well.” I shifted my weight, turning to face him directly so I could analyze him. “He’s an exact copy of you, physically, I mean. Except the hair. His hair is a little shorter and it’s never messy. You dress more casually than he does too.”

He kept his eyes on the road and I kept my eyes on him. It was still hard to believe they weren’t one and the same. “He’s kind, funny, confident, elegant. He loves to dance, and we can talk for hours about anything.” Oh, I missed him. And that thought made me realize something. “When did you move to New York?”

“About seven weeks ago.”

Almost two months ago. That was when the first non-Victor vision occurred. “You know, since actually having met you, I haven’t had visions about him. Just about other unrelated events.”

“Like what?”

“Like the town in Switzerland that was burned to the ground in seconds. I saw it happening.”

“Did you see how it happened?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“What was it?”

I turned away. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

But I didn’t say anything because I was gawking at the gas station that was coming into sight ahead of us.

“Holy hell,” I whispered.

How bizarre. The gas station had colossal green neon signs with the name of the place, Al’s Corner, spread along the road, plus several tall posts with stadium-type lights around the perimeter. I bet the place didn’t cast a single shadow. The owner must be afraid of the dark.

“This is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen,” Victor muttered, startling me. Once more, he seemed like my Victor by saying what I was thinking.

He brought the car to a stop in a large parking lot alongside a diner that was as bright as the rest of the gas station. Micah parked beside us a few seconds later, revving the engine of his bike before letting it die.

As he circled his car, Victor cursed and kicked the air. “Look at this.” He pointed to the largest and densest scratch on the side of his car, right under a cracked window. He turned to Micah, who stood leaning against his bike with a sly grin. “This is your fault. You’re going to pay for this.”

“It’s not my fault the bats want your blood,” Micah said, shrugging.

“And why do they want his blood?” I asked. I crossed my arms and quickly scanned the place. It was almost empty except for one customer and two attendants inside the diner.

“Not only his,” Micah said. “Yours too. And mine, but for some reason, they prefer not to come too close to me.”

“What else do you know?” I asked.

“Not much more,” he said. “Since my parents died, I’ve been experiencing certain things. Weird things. One of them is the ability to feel when a person has a different and strong aura. And the three of us have strong, unusual auras.”

“Three beacons,” I whispered.

“Yes, our auras together become like beacons, calling the bats and whatever else,” Micah said.

Victor gave him a sidelong look. “Do you expect me to believe this shit?”

“Believe what you want,” Micah snapped. “I’m just telling you what I know.”

“And the pain?” I asked, interrupting them before the bickering increased. “Did it start after your parents’ deaths too?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “It started a few days earlier.”

“Wait.” Victor raised his hand as if he was asking for a time out. “You also have pain?”

Micah’s brow creased. “What do you mean,
also
?”

I answered before Victor could. “You two have pain. And, so far, I’ve been able to take it away with my touch. For both of you.”

Both guys gaped at each other.

Micah stepped closer to Victor. “Back to your question: Do I expect you to believe all that? Hell yeah! If you’re like me, the aches you feel are inexplicable, and yet you won’t believe the bats want to chew on us specifically?” He snickered. “If you didn’t believe, why did you come?”

“You want to know why I’m here?” Victor asked, clenching his fists. “I’m here because she”—he pointed at me—“has visions about me. She knows everything about me and I just met her. I gotta figure that out. Besides, she’s the only one that can lessen the ache.”

Well, that hurt. Deep down, in the darkest corners of my soul, I’d hoped he’d say he came because he wanted to be with me. I was so naïve. Of course he was here for himself. Why else would
this
Victor do anything?

“Visions?” Micah turned to me. “What visions?”

“Like the one I had where I saw when your parents died.” I stared at my feet, afraid of his reaction. “I’ve been having visions of Victor for quite some time. Though, this past month or so, my visions have become more delusional, less … ah … personal.”

With his typical smile, Micah said, “You won’t try to tell me the visions about him”—he nodded toward Victor—“weren’t delusional, will you?”