A Matter of Time (The Angel Sight Series) (12 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Rayna

My back ached like I’d been asleep for days instead of hours. I got up, padded to the door, and slid the bolt lock. I took my time changing, throwing on jean shorts and a tank top that were probably due for a wash by now, and then slid into my flip-flops by the door. Once outside, I grabbed my floppy sunhat off the coat rack resting on the narrow front porch and plopped into my worn chair, already hot from the sun.

“You look rested. Did you sleep well?” Cam asked from around the side of the cabin.

I kicked back in my chair, wondering what I’d done to deserve such a wonderful, quiet, and simple life. “Like the dead.”

“Good. I could use a hand, if you have some time.”

“I’m made of time. What’s up?”

“The berry bushes near the stream are ripe. It could be harvest time.”

“Awesome.” I dusted off the buckets stacked beside me and hopped to my feet. “Race you there.”

“I have to finish this first … ”

His voice faded away as I took my head start, bolting for the trees to the left of the cabin. Cam had been bringing a handful of wild berries back every day for the last few weeks. They were ten times better than anything he tried to grow. Even though I had no idea exactly where the bushes were, not having been there myself yet, I kept moving through the trees, listening for the stream. The density of the forest all but canceled out the sun and cooled the air a good five degrees. A gust of wind blew my sunhat off my head. I didn’t go after it. Instead the steady sound of rushing water pulled me forward. I stumbled a few times in my flip-flops, but never slowed my pace, determined to beat Cam, to prove I wasn’t as useless as he thought I was. This was the first time he’d asked for a hand. He wouldn’t let me help with the veggies, or even water the fruit. Gathering berries would be my saving grace.

Bushes of thorny goodness wrapped low in a partially shaded area around several trees close to the stream. I dropped the buckets, knelt beside the first bush, and went to work, plucking only the darkest fruit with semi-firm skin. As I rounded the bush, a thorn scratched the back of my arm. Several droplets formed perfect circles of welling blood.

Strange … it reminded me of something. A shard, something sharp. A single drop of blood. A boy with dark hair and even darker eyes, taking my finger, kissing the blood away. And my heart, beating a mile a minute.

I shook the memory away to find Cam standing beside me with a bucket in his hand. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He didn’t blink. “Like what?”

“Like you know what’s going on in my head.”

“Because I think I do. You’re putting something together. Memories?”

Fear of the unknown made me nod.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to deal with that.”

“What? My memories? I should be dealing with them. I need to know what happened to me.” It was strange that, before this, I remembered nothing, not who I was or where I’d been.

Cam blinked, and when he reopened his eyes, a bluish-white light swirled in the slate gray of his irises.

I turned away. “Why does that look so familiar?” I asked through the quaking in my voice.

“I’m sorry,” was all he said.

“Don’t do that. Don’t look at me, Cam. I’m warning you.”

Something was wrong. Those eyes, that light. I’d seen it before. It had taken something from me, stripped me of … I couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t I remember?

A churning wound deep in my stomach. It clicked into place then. I couldn’t remember because that light had taken it.

He didn’t move. “You think I want to be the bad guy? I don’t want to keep anything from you.”

“Then don’t!” Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

“I made a promise.”

“To who?”

The silence that passed between us spoke volumes. “It wasn’t to me, was it?”

“Rayna, you begged me to make it stop the first time you started to remember. You told me that, no matter what you may say in the future, never to let you remember.”

There was something else he wasn’t saying, a truth I could feel. “But that’s not the first promise you made. Not to me.”

“You’re right.”

I didn’t dare turn and risk looking into those eyes. “Then who, Cam? Who thought it was such a good idea that you take away my past? Because I know it wasn’t me,” I shouted.

He didn’t answer.

“Fine. Keep your secrets. But, just … leave me this. Let me keep it. I’m fine. I’m not … breaking down, or whatever it is you’re worried about.”

The trickle of the stream was all I heard for a long time.

“Let’s just pick berries,” I tried again when my breathing had almost returned to normal. “We’ll talk about something else.”

“I’m not sure I can do that, Rayna.”

“You can. I swear I’m fine.”

I lied through my teeth, through the shaking in my entire body, through the foggy memories trying to break through.

“Was I like this before? This calm?” God I hoped I was being calm.

“No.”

“Then that means I’m okay, or at least better able to deal. We’ll call it a trial run.”

“A trial run.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Please, Cam. How am I ever going to function if I can’t be who I’m supposed to be?”

He strolled past me, and tossed a few berries into his bucket. “A trial run,” he repeated.

Still shaking, I made myself move, grab a bucket, and went to work on another bush, one farther away just in case he changed his mind.

“Just so you know, this was never my idea. I want to share the truth with you, when you were ready. The only thing I ask is you let me know when it gets to be too much. Don’t strain yourself.”

“If,” I corrected him. “
If
it gets to be too much, I’ll let you know.”

I worked my way around the bush in silence, afraid anything I might say from here on out would change his mind. Just in case, I drove a thorn into the index finger of my right hand. I’d make a new memory. Proof that this happened today, and a warning that if the memories got to be too much, I’d have to shoulder the pain and muffle my screams.

Chapter Eighteen

Rayna

I snapped the seven rubber bands around my wrist, stinging my skin. The multi-colored bands were a symbol of the memories I’d already gotten back in my one day as an almost free-to-remember woman. They were also my latest reminders that no matter how scary the dark got, how real the memories became, I had to keep quiet.

The springs on the musty couch along the opposite wall groaned in protest as Cam turned. Which meant he could be awake.

I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing. Behind my eyes an old leathery set of bat-like wings uncurled. They were attached to something scarier than the green-skinned demon I saw before this. The man with the bat wings sat on a throne made of ice. Men stood beside him. These men had wings more like Cam’s, but black as pitch in color.

The man on the throne leaned forward and said, “You’ll never be truly free of me. I own you,
girl
.” Contempt rolled off his tongue and filled the air with a reddish smoke that nearly choked me.

From behind me another black-winged man drove something hard and cold through my stomach. I looked down and gaped at the blood-covered steel.

I gasped, opening my eyes and sitting up in bed.

“Rayna, what is it?” Cam sprung up from the couch, his silhouette casting a shadow over me, sealing away the hint of moonlight. “Are you okay?”

“Fine, I’m fine.” I gripped the sheet beside me. “Just had a weird dream about running water. And now I have to pee.”

Despite being soaked in sweat and trembling like a Chihuahua, I inched to the edge of the bed and padded around Cam to the bathroom.

I flicked the light switch, closed the door, and leaned against the back wall of the miniscule wood-paneled space. In the mirror above the sink my reflection stared back at me, lightly freckled and still pink from the sun. I looked closer, not recognizing myself. The longer I stared, a pale creature with small gray wings appeared. That creature was me beneath the layers of my reflection. The dreams were more than just nightmares; they were real. My brain was communicating small moments of the hell I’d been through without overloading me.

The hell I’d been through.

I shoved off the wall and gripped the sink with one hand. The hell I’d been through
was
Hell.

“You okay in there?” Cam asked. I could picture him at attention right outside the door.

“Fine,” I called again, and turned the cold-water tap on.

I’d been through Hell.

I pressed my fingertips to the mirror over my face. Through the glass I felt the pieces of who I was—who I had been.

I’d been through Hell.

And back.

If I had successfully escaped Hell, I could live through the memory of it, and lie to an angel in the process.

I turned off the tap, wiped my face and hands on my towel, and opened the door. As predicted, Cam waited on the other side. “Geez, lurk much?” I said. “If you needed it, you could have just said so.”

I left the light on and door open and slid back into bed. Wrapping my fingers around the rubber bands on my wrist, I grounded myself and waited for another horrible dream to come, this time ready for it. Ready for anything.

Chapter Nineteen

Rayna

The second day of picking berries went better than the first. I tapped the bucket against my side, pressing the latest memory reminders in my pocket into my thigh.

The old bottle cap I found by the river helped me to remember that root beer floats used to be my favorite dessert. Dad only made them with root beer from amber bottles with old-fashioned bottle tops.

A tall blade of grass I picked reminded me of the way Cam smelled. I still wasn’t sure why it seemed so important, considering he was always around, but no way I’d let anything deter the memories from coming.

The last reminder was a wildflower I found at the outside edge of the forest. When I knelt to dig it out of the ground, something felt right about the way the dirt caked beneath my nails. Another memory I didn’t fully understand.

My new trinkets, plus the rubber bands around my wrist, were all I had to hold on to. The thorn cut that triggered the first memory had already healed. Come to think of it, it had healed before Cam and I returned with our full buckets yesterday.

I knelt in the stream and tipped the bucket into the oncoming water, trying not to lose too many berries in the washing process.

A tree in the distance caught my eye. Its trunk contorted differently than the others. I squinted to get a better look. Two trees twisted together, not just growing, but thriving.

It was beautiful.

But more than that, it meant something.

The two tree trunks resembled lovers tangled in an embrace.

A layer of fog drifted from my memory. I righted my bucket and went to the tree, placing my hand on the rough bark.

Feelings came first, followed by voices.

“Kade, I never got a chance to tell you how I felt about you coming down here with me,” I whispered into his collarbone.

“You don’t have to thank me. I did what I had to.” Even at a whisper the bass in his voice vibrated my eardrum.

“Thank you? I was going to tell you what a stupid move that was.”

Kade’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “Stupid? You don’t think it was chivalrous?”

“Please.” I readjusted my head on his shoulder. “You don’t have a chivalrous bone in your body.”

“Not even in my wings?”

“Especially not in your wings.”

“Ray.” The tone radiating through his voice made me look at him. Even with only a weak sliver of light slipping in from beneath the door, I noticed a change in his features. His normally tense jaw was relaxed. As were his eyes.

“Don’t ruin it,” I warned, returning my stare to the pronounced muscles around his collarbone and opposite shoulder. “This is the only time we get together.”

He caught my chin with his finger and tilted my head up. Our eyes met. “These moments are worth a thousand days down here.”

“Cheeseball.” I batted his hand away. “Hell really is turning you into—”

He rolled over, pushing me onto my back and sliding over me in one
very
hot move. The flush in my cheeks heated my body almost instantly. “Maybe, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

The spiced chocolate of his eyes melted me, and suddenly my gusto was gone and I was the clumsy girl from the diner all over again. “You do strange things to me,” I said, purely by accident. No way would I divulge such truth to him under normal circumstances.

“You have no idea,” he said, lips brushing my earlobe. The scruff along his jaw scraped my cheek, causing me to clench all my muscles to keep a shiver from racking my entire body.

He slid off me while I was still somewhere else, completely lost in the beginning of a fantasy I knew we could never have.

There on the tiny bed we lay side by side, both on our backs, barely fitting on the small twin-sized mattress. I swallowed as he touched the back of his hand to mine. With a breath laced with courage, I wound my fingers through his, almost gasping when he tightened our grip.

That was the moment I knew I loved Kade. A Fallen. The man who had once thought he loved my mother. The one who ruined me for every other man on the Earth, below the Earth, and in the clouds.

Chapter Twenty

Rayna

I tripped over the entwined trees’ roots and landed on my knees. The bucket fell from my grip, sloshing water and berries over the forest floor.

Kade.

Oh, God. Kade.

Tears coursed down my cheeks.