I shook my head no as more tears fell. “I won’t let that happen! Never! Do you hear me? Never!”
Silas’ eyes moved across the field we were standing in. “This light, this glow on the wings of these beautiful creatures…that is the mere breath of your light. Do you see how alluring it is? How mesmerizing your power is? If I could take it all way, turn back time and try harder to convince you to change your mind, I would.”
“Monroe said these were my guide…she said they’d lead me to where I wanted to go.”
The anger in his expression seemed to fade. “Monroe’s soul is wise…she knows that your power is your leading light…it will guide you to where you need to be.”
An unthinkable clarity came to me as I uttered the words, “They lead me to you.” My eyes moved across the pond. Grief absorbed every part of me. This was all my fault…I’d placed Draven in an unthinkable danger, and I would do anything – anything – to release him from that.
“If I leave with you now…will you leave them alone? Will you spare them from the fate you promise is theirs?”
Silas stepped closer to me and moved one arm carefully around my waist as the other reached for the center of my chest. My eyes moved to his as I felt the peace his skin was pushing through my body. “I cannot,” his voice trembled. “I cannot set you free from the prison of this body…not in this world….there’s only one way out, and I’d rather end my existence than be the one that takes your last breath in this life.”
The calm that his touch was bringing to me couldn’t hinder my fiercely beating heart. As he felt it pound against his hand, sadness filled his expression.
“I will find a way to save them all…to be the person I was meant to be,” I promised in a whisper.
“Your light…your power is growing stronger with each moment. The more aware you are of who you were – are – the more addicting it becomes to those around you…it won’t be long now,” he said just before he leaned into my lips. As his lips moved across mine, I felt life seeping through me. I felt the courage and power build in my soul. My hands slowly moved up his chest, around his neck, wanting only to feel that power; it wasn’t his touch, it was the way he made me feel that was so addicting. Just as I pulled him closer to me, the warmth and calm of his existence vanished, and he was gone.
I opened my eyes slowly to find that the field I was in had dimmed. I could still see a few butterflies here and there, but the beauty of their mass had left with Silas. In their absence, the fear, anger, and indescribable loss I felt absorbed me once again. It was as if the existence of Silas was nothing more than a dream…fleeting and untouchable. The range of emotions that had coursed through my body today had left me exhausted, and the worst part was knowing that the roller coaster my heart was on was far from over…there was no telling who was waiting for me at my house…what words Draven and I would use as daggers tonight.
Chapter Twelve
In a haze, I walked back to my car. When I got in, Monroe quietly said. “You came back.”
I nodded. “It seems the only way out of hell is to run right through it,” I said as I put my car in reverse and turned to leave the vacant, dark park. The few minutes between there and my home were silent. As I turned on my street, my heart began to beat faster. I glanced down at my phone to see over thirty missed calls. I felt my stomach tying in knots. A half-mile before I reached my house, Draven’s Hummer flew past me. I glanced in my rearview mirror to see him slam on his breaks, and I sped up, trying to reach my driveway. I didn’t want Monroe to hear the fight that was sure to erupt between us; I had no idea what the anger I’d caused him would create. I pulled in my driveway and passed over the bridge.
“I’m stopping here. Take my car to the house. I’m sure you have homework or something you need to do,” I said as I pulled my phone loose from the cord that was charging it and grabbed my bag. Monroe didn’t bother to argue; she slid across the seat and had the car in drive before I had a chance to close the door. I waved for her to go and step out of the path of driveway, unsure that Draven would be calm enough to see me in the darkness.
As he turned into my driveway, I heard his wheels squeal in protest. I slid my phone in my bag and waited for him to come closer. He slammed on his brakes once he passed the bridge, leaving me in the glow of his headlights. As he pushed his door open and climbed out, my heart began to beat violently in my chest. Part of me wanted to run away from him, and the other part of me wanted to run to him. My memory was cruel to me; I kept seeing him and Bianca - the way she seduced him…the way he let her.
Draven walked slowly to me with his hands slightly raised as if to tell me he meant no harm. It was an absurd gesture; I knew he’d never hurt me.
“Baby, why did you scare me like that? I didn’t know what to do or where to go,” he whispered.
I shook my head from side to side. “How could you?” I mumbled as a sick feeling came to the back of my throat. “How could you be with her – hide that from me?!” I managed to yell.
The look on his face was full of bewilderment. He swiftly came to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “What?” he said as he leaned his head against mine. “What are you talking about? There is no one else. You are my heart and soul.”
It took everything I had, but I raised my eyes to meet his – and the worry and fear there broke my heart. I let the wall I always hid behind fall and remembered every agonizing detail of what I saw when I stepped into Bianca’s mind – the way he looked at her, the way she touched him. Then I stepped slowly away from him.
“You betrayed me,” I said in a trembling voice.
With no hesitation, he reached to pull me back to him. “That’s not true.” His lips met mine, but I refused to kiss him back. I couldn’t; all I could see was her holding him. “Look at me...Charlie, look at me...if you want to see what really happened, look at me,” he said as his strong hands cradled my face and raised my eyes to meet his.
“No,” I said as I tried to look away.
“Charlie, if you love me at all, you have to look...you have to see that she’s lying to you – that she’s trying to drive us apart!”
The sound of his hypnotic voice broke my heart. I held my breath and looked into his eyes and asked the simple question: When was the last time you saw Bianca? Where? How many times?
Within that thought, I was back in that realm. I wasn’t far away like before, though; I was right beside them. Draven looked coldly at her and said, “Go to hell.” She smirked and placed her hands on his chest. I could see him fighting with a sensation that her touch must have given him.
“We can go wherever you want,” she said as her hands moved up his chest. He gripped her wrists and pulled them away from him. “You’re pathetic,” he said as he glared down at her.
As she leaned closer and whispered something to him that I couldn’t hear, Draven’s eyes moved beyond her and smiled. It was the same smile I’d seen before, the one that told me he was enjoying being seduced by her. I was instantly furious, but then something caught my gaze: a light. I followed his stare and saw millions of breathtaking butterflies glowing in that dark place, and standing in the center of them was an image of me. I looked back to the image of Draven and saw his smile through new eyes; this smile carried love and devotion and enough passion to fill a universe. My doubt plagued me as I asked again in my thoughts to see every moment that he was ever alone with her. The visions Bianca had shown me played out before me, but this time I saw that it was me he was looking at; the look I took as passion or seduction had nothing to do with her – he was staring at me. He was innocent – and I’d been fooled.
A horrible guilt that was so sickening that it took my breath away pulled me from the memories Draven was showing me.
I tried to pull away from him, but he held me tighter. “Why are you mad at me?” he asked. “I showed you I’m innocent. You’re the only one in my life, now and forever.”
I shook my head from side to side as I fought a sea of emotions and tears.
“I’m not, though.” As I said those words, the strength in his arms faded and I was able to pull away. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear the sight of the pain I was sure was there.
I wanted to confess about knowing Silas, about our day together - but I had this fear that if I did, he wouldn’t listen to me. He’d do something foolish and irrational, and for all I knew, that was exactly what that world wanted to happen. I had no way to know who to trust.
“Show me,” he said firmly.
I held my breath and fought the nausea that was struggling to come to the surface, then let my eyes rise to meet his. Every single time in our lives that I’d hidden something from him, everything went wrong. The last time I kept him in the dark, it nearly tore us apart forever – and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I told myself I had to trust that even if we fought about this, it was better to get over it now, before it destroyed us - before Silas destroyed us. He stared back at me with a growing expression of utter defeat in his flawless image. Slowly, I let my shield fall and showed him every single moment of my day.
Every part of him tensed in anger as he stepped back away from me.
“I don’t know who to trust anymore,” I said in a trembling voice.
As he fell to his knees, his emerald green eyes turned black. Panic came over me as I rushed to his side.
“Draven! Draven!” I screamed, but he didn’t respond. I put my hands on either side of his face and screamed, “Where are you?!” over and over again.
Out of nowhere, a fierce pull of energy jolted me out of the reality I was in. I found myself standing in the middle of destruction. It looked like a city that had been shattered by a heartless war. Thunder was crashing in the sky, and lightning strikes gave an eerie glow to the vacant place I was in. I screamed Draven’s name, and all at once the destruction I was surrounded by vanished - and I was in a field. The rumbling thunder began to echo a demented voice that said, “Take her...take her now.”
My eyes raced across the field, finally finding Draven. I could barely see him in the darkness that was all around him. I ran to him, and as I got closer I realized that the darkness wasn’t surrounding him - it was pouring into him. The expression on his face was pure agony. It was as if he were trying to block himself, but the darkness was too strong and starting to invade his soul. When I reached him, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, trying with every ounce of my strength to get him to look at me.
“Charlie, get out! It’s not safe!” he yelled, refusing to look at me.
The scene around us changed again, back to the broken city, then to a desert, finally shifting to a dark forest.
“Look at me!” I said as I pulled his face down to mine.
“Go, Charlie, I can’t! I can’t!” he screamed.
“Look at me! I love you, Draven! Please look at me!”
He surrendered to my plea, and his eyes feel into mine. The thunder exploded in outrage, but I refused to let it scare me – to take him.
“I love you – do you hear me?!” I said as I held his stare.
“Love you,” he said breathlessly. At that moment, millions upon millions of glowing white butterflies came from everywhere and surrounded us, bringing a warm hum with them; I could hear the light singing in the darkness that was trying to invade his soul.
“I love you,” he said again as he sighed in relief. As the words left his lips, I watched as the light surrounding us pulled the darkness that had managed to fall into him out. His lips met mine, and I kissed him back with as much passion and love as my soul could provide. His arms tightened around me; he held me so tight, I had to fight to breathe - but I didn’t care. He was safe.
Silence came as I slowly opened my eyes to find us on our knees in my driveway.
“Oh my God - is that where you go? Is that where you anger takes you?” I asked as I frantically stared into his eyes, which were now full of pain and sorrow.
“Yeah,” he said as he let out a breath of relief. “I don’t want you there…I have no idea how you did that, but that evil won’t let you do it again.”
“You’re never going there again. I won’t let you leave my sight. I won’t let you get angry.”
He leaned slightly away from me. “I will not be your curse.”
“You aren’t,” I argued.
“What did Silas mean? What did he mean when he said that he loved you before? That you followed me here?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know is this life...all I know is you.”
Agony filled his emerald green eyes. “I can’t give you that…I can’t give you the…calm…and it’s all I want you to have.”
I reached my arms around his shoulders and pulled him to me. “Hold me…that keeps me calm.”
His arms moved around me, and he pulled me against him. In the nape of his neck, I whispered. “I want to be alone with you…I don’t want to be here…I don’t want to be at your house. Take me away – somewhere that we can forget…figure this out.”
He stood with me in his arms and carried me to the open door of his truck. As he climbed in, I slid to the middle. I then laid my head on his shoulder, closed my eyes, and tried to sort through every agonizing memory that was chasing my thoughts. I wanted to believe that that was a victory, that I had saved him from the darkness – that Silas was just a dream. That both Draven and Britain would be safe from the tragic ending that I’d bring to them - but I was no fool. I knew if anything, I had just thrown a weak slap at the power I was fighting.