Ever After (18 page)

When Cole’s gaze settled on me, every muscle in his body jerked to a lovely halt. His mouth gaped. The moonlight reflected off his eyes, causing them to flash the oddest color of green before they narrowed.

My chest rose and fell with each excruciating second. My heart pounded ripples into the water.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Cole’s low voice broke between raspy-angry and a sound of desperation. He shook his head, causing water to slide down his glorious neck.

Heat, chills, and pure bliss stole my breath and my words. I couldn’t be this close and function.

He was the most magnificent thing ever created.

He trembled and took fast, labored breaths. He hesitated, then sank under the purple-blue liquid. Coming back up inches from my face, water beaded down his chest.

The agony of restraint filled every crevice of my existence.

The whites of his eyes sparkled in the moonlight. He stared down at me, shaking his head slowly. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“I don’t care.” I pushed toward him and took his arm before he could turn toward the water’s edge.

He jerked back. His eyes slid softly over my face, down my neck. “Being here with me will start a war with the devil.”

“I was scared,” I whispered.

Cole hesitated but reached out. His fingers found me and tangled into mine.

The air sizzled between us.

Steam rose off the water in little wisps. The thundering of the waterfall fell into a muffled backdrop. Nothing else existed. Just us.

His hungered look stirred longings I’d never had before.

Or had I?

I’d been here. Before. In the depth of his green gaze.

Somehow, I’d done this very thing with Cole at some other point in my life, as impossible as it sounded.

“Have we met before?” I asked not sure when “before” could have been.

He sucked in a quivering breath. “Do you remember meeting me?”

“I’m not sure. I swear at times we’ve known each other. Before.”

“Not in this lifetime. I would remember that.” Cole’s eyes twinkled.

“No place has ever felt like home till I found you.”

“I’m not that place for you. I can’t be. I’ll never be.” He regarded our hands with thoughtful sadness as his thumb massaged my fingers.

“You can’t stop me from lov—”

Cole dropped his mouth to mine. When our lips met, he took a deep breath and paused.

Don’t pull away. Please. I need you
,
I thought.

He scooped me against him and deepened the kiss.

My small cry of relief flooded his mouth.

He didn’t need the words. That real first kiss showed him the magnitude of my feelings.

Cole wriggled back. He pulled his lips a hair’s width from mine.

I pressed against him.

Cole’s tortured moan filled my mouth again as he gave in. His arms tightened around me, our bodies fitting together hand in glove. Only then did I realize the severity of the situation.

His breathing became harsh. His trembling embrace loosened, and his hands wandered my body. He knew me. His hands knew what would melt me, and his mouth knew how to set me on fire.

Don’t stop. Please
, I thought, afraid to speak, afraid he’d flee.

Cole shoved me back, his fierce glare piercing me. Incensed, he wiped his forehead in frustration.

“Please, stop fighting m—”

With his finger over my lips, anguish echoed in his words. His chest rose and fell inhumanly fast. “I’ll never stop fighting.”

“I don’t care what you say. You’re running from what you want.” I linked hands with him.

Cole pressed back and dropped his gaze to the water. Pulling his hands away from mine, he wagged his head at something I couldn’t see. Cole’s hands crushed his temples. Trembling uncontrollably, he said, “No. Not now. Get away from me, Allie. Go back home. Through the woods.”

Tears stung my eyes.

In more a growl than words, he leaned closer to me with crazed eyes and said, “Do. Not. Take. The. Catacombs.”

I tried to take his hands again, but he thrashed backward through the water.

“Get away from me, now!” His body shook and quaked. The lines and planes of his face blurred.

I backed through the water, stumbling over stones.

The blood vessels in his face bulged. His scream sliced through the night.

“What can I do to help?” I’d never felt so helpless.

“Get the hell away before I kill you!” His body quaked as he thrashed in the water.

Retreating toward the entrance of the cave, I staggered backward. I stepped out of the pond, covering my chest with my arms, angry, furious that he’d ruined what could have been one of the most romantic moments of my life with a fake migraine or some sort of show he was very good at putting on, then finishing off with a death threat.

The June air had been warm and humid, but I shivered as I huffed angry breaths.

Why couldn’t he act normal for five minutes? Five minutes.

“Allie.” His voice sounded more and more inhuman, but I took the catacombs anyway.

I scooped up my nightgown and slippers and broke into a run.

Which way had I come? Tears clouded my vision.

“Allie. Don’t go in there.” Cole yelled from the mouth of the cave more stuff I couldn’t hear.

I tripped over loose stones but regained my footing as I stumbled toward the rose maze. There were two paths. But which one? One smelled like rotten meat and the other wasn’t much better.

The one that smelled the least was the best choice.

Cole’s voice became a distant echo.

I slowed down. My chest hurt from running and holding back tears of rejection. The dirt formed mud around my wet feet. I’d lost my slippers somewhere along the way. Tears streaked my cheeks. I gave them angry swipes.

Cole’s yells crept nearer again.

My flashlight began to flicker. I slapped it against my hand, and it regained life.

I slowed to a walk, sure he wouldn’t find me.

The flashlight acted up again, and the strobing light grew dimmer and dimmer.

Dirt and rocks skittered across the ground behind me. I was wrong. Great.

I turned and waited for Cole, fully ready to whop him. I was so sick of his crap.

The flashlight stayed off for three seconds, and when it flickered again, Cole was not there.

A girl was.

The older sister from the Rollins photo album stood before me, the worm of a long dark tunnel behind her. The flashlight failed. Pitch black.

The light flickered again. Her pretty face leered into an evil smile. The light flickered off. Clammy fingers brushed my cheek and raked through my hair. A million cold needles pricked down my spine to my feet.

“Such pretty curls. They never had to fall out of your head the way mine did when the underwater current changed. When my flesh rotted away, my hair landed in the bottom of the box, one strand at a time.”

In the inky blackness, the girl’s voice suffocated me. My muscles seized.

Her bony fingers clenched into a fist against my cheek. “And that flawless skin. It never had to fall away in mushy clumps.”

The flashlight came back on.

“Like mine.” A putrid, rotting, worm-mangled mess lunged at me.

Spittle sprinkled my face with a dank, bad meat odor. I swung around to run in the opposite direction, but she snatched my elbow and hurled me against the wall of the tunnel. Her invisible grip held me against the dirt wall. I fought air as I struggled against her.

“I will have your body.” Her nose was centimeters from mine. “I will know what it feels like to hold him again.”

I worked against her clutches, but the most I could do was slide down the wall.

The force released me. Using the walls in pitch blackness as a guide, I ran the best I could in the opposite direction of the ghost, her evil laugh echoing behind me. A stench almost as bad as the ghoul’s breath slammed into me.

A sudden, powerful shove from behind threw me off my feet. I should have fallen to the floor, but I didn’t. I slipped, rolling and skidding over jagged rocks until I hit the bottom of a hole. I landed on what had to be the house’s septic system filled with rocks and moss. The odor stifled me.

I searched frantically for something to keep me afloat if I started to sink. Spiny and bony protrusions stabbed into my hands.

It wasn’t sewage.

Oh. My. God.

The leathery, rotting skins of animals gave under my weight. At one point, my hand became wedged between bones, and my fingers infiltrated one of their decaying cavities. The stench sent spasms through my stomach. I gurgled a scream, gorge burning my throat.

“Allie! Allieee.” From the top of the hole, the weak amber glow of a flashlight fell on me.

All around me, different colored furs stretched over partial animal skeletons. The animals’ mouths contorted in life’s last torturous breath, teeth reared, eye sockets empty.

I scrambled up the side of the hole but couldn’t get a good grip. My cuts raged, burning. The odor took my breath. I fluctuated between consciousness and passing out.

Cole clambered down and scooped me into his arms. Like an expert, he knew just where to put his feet to get us out of the hole.

I gasped, sobbed, and broke into splintered screams when we were finally at the top. I shoved Cole away, but his hands kept coming at me. I wouldn’t have been covered in all this, this, this animal gunk had it not been for his rejection. I collapsed away from him onto the dirt floor, a sobbing mess.

“I have to see if you are hurt.” He knelt down.

I screamed and whopped him right in the jaw. He stumbled back, but came toward me with the flashlight shining on my face.

“Look, I’m trying to help you. I need to see you. There are a lot of bacterium down there.”

“You think? It was a hole full of dead animals.” I fell on the floor.

“Let me get you out of here.” Cole’s face turned a sickly green with only the flashlight’s glow to illuminate him. His wild eyes bore into mine.

I sobbed harder.

“I’m going to pick you up and carry you out of here. Don’t fight me. It’ll only hurt you.” He gently yet cautiously took my arm and pulled me toward him with the flashlight.

Pain radiated from my ribs. I must have bruised them during the fall.

The flashlight went out.

Overcoming dread exploded in the pit of my stomach.

“That woman. Oh my God. That woman will come back.” I jumped up.

Cole stood. He wrapped his arms around me, dead animal fragments and juices dripping from my clothes and hair.

“Allie, you’re in shock.” Cole’s tone was infuriatingly even. “Take deep breaths.”

“Deep breaths? You take deep breaths. Do you smell that? It’s all over me.”

Cole began to shudder. “There’s so much…blood.”

The flashlight cast strange shadows that contorted his face.

I froze, unable to stand or talk any longer. I was still conscious, but Cole scooped me up.

It was too much. I couldn’t do it anymore. Though touching him increased my nausea, his chest a comforting pillow. Something hot rolled down my cheeks.

Cole talked softly, maybe whispered to me, but I couldn’t process the words.

I closed my eyes, holding on to the murmur and lull of the tones.

* * * *

A few minutes later, my head buzzed and things around me came into focus. I kept my head on Cole’s shoulder. Inside, I was cold, numb.

With one powerful shove of his foot, fragments of drywall fell away, and an old door lay on the ground behind us. The musty dirt smell changed to a musty basement smell. Cole scaled the stairs to the main floor of the house.

Cole angled my head through the doorway first. The light shined down on long stretches of superficial cuts intersecting all over my body.

From somewhere at the end of a barrel, Thomas yelled at Cole.

When they heard the late night commotion, a few staff members stirred to witness the chaos.

“What can I do?” Dalton fell in behind Cole.

Cole ignored him, brushing past a few other staff members who gawked. He carried me up the stairs to my room and delivered me to the bed.

Shelby and Kaitlyn rushed in behind him.

“All the men, out,” Kaitlyn ordered.

The guys reluctantly backed from the room.

Cole stood firmly beside the bed, pushing my hair back as I stared at the ceiling.

“You too, trouble maker.” Shelby jabbed her hip. She pointed at the door.

“Oh, no. I’m staying right here.” Cole looked back at me.

I rolled over to face away from his bipolar gaze.

“We’ve got this,” Shelby or Kaitlyn said as someone worked on my cuts.

“I stay, and that’s final.” Cole had never been more stubborn.

“Then make yourself useful. She’s ruining the bed. Get her to the bathroom.” Kaitlyn pulled the comforter down to the bottom of the bed and handed it to a maid.

“She’s pretty banged up. You play too rough, Mr. Animal,” Shelby said.

Cole stopped and glared at her.

Shelby smiled and flared her nostrils.

“Enough.” Kaitlyn shoved them apart.

Shelby relented.

Everyone worked together to get me in the shower.

Cole held me, my functionless body draped over his under the spray. His body shook and shuddered as the shower drenched us both. A few times, he called me by a name other than my own, but I was too tired to care. “It’s gonna be okay. I’m so sorry. I tried. I’m so sorry. I should have backed you away sooner. I should have. I should have never let it get this far.”

The scrapes burned and water ran into my eyes, but I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t feel. I couldn’t speak.

Too much had happened today, this week. Flying body parts, a dead body chasing me through tunnels, through my dreams, through waking moments.

Shelby and Kaitlyn got soaked helping me rinse off. They shouldn’t have had to suffer, too.

I shoved Cole away. Forcing my limbs to work, I used my hands to rub my clothes and get what I could of the animal guts off my skin.

Cole stood with his back to me outside the shower, his head bowed, not making eye contact with anyone.

Kaitlyn and Shelby pulled me from the shower, as hairy meat particles floated in the current down the drain.