Inception (The Reaping Chronicles, 1) (10 page)

“No.”

And that seemed strange.

She’d expected the morning to be like the last two had—with him arriving early like her and having a few moments together before school started.

“And we have our first sighting.” Phalen pointed.

Gabrielle followed the direction of her finger and eyes toward the gym. She thought she’d stopped breathing, knowing that was where Lucas would be. With a relieved exhale, she began to breathe again.

“That’s Mara.”

“Pretty little demon, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is,” Gabrielle agreed with a biting tone.

“Don’t worry, you’re much prettier. Lucas would be a fool if he ever got the choice and didn’t pick you. And that’s, of course, based on looks alone. Sometimes, your mood is worse than a demon’s. If that info is thrown in, it might be more of a toss-up.” Phalen laughed at herself, slapping her leg as she enjoyed the moment.

“You’re really feeling full of yourself today, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, well, someone has to lighten things up around here.”

Gabrielle looked back at Mara. She was standing near the back of the building where a walkway led to the rest of the school, talking to someone who was shielded by the corner of the main building. More like flirting heavily. Mara tossed her head back in laughter, her long dark hair easing further down her back when she did. She brought her head forward again and stood on her tip-toes, moving forward slightly so that her head was mostly out of view. Whomever she was talking to remained completely out of sight, but Gabrielle saw two masculine hands settle on her shoulders.

Definitely flirting.

“She’s not very powerful, Gabrielle. Not really. And I’m not seeing a lot of other activity. I’m not sure what’s making you feel so out of whack here.”

Gabrielle started scanning for Lucas again. She saw Nonie pull into the lot, and Nate came rolling in right after his sister. She watched as Nonie got out of her car and walked toward where Nate was still inside his.

Maybe Lucas rode with him.

Gabrielle waited, but the only person who exited was Nate. Gabrielle let out a frustrated sigh.

“What is it?” Phalen asked.

“Nothing. I was hoping Lucas rode with Nonie or Nate since I hadn’t seen him yet, but he’s not with them.”

“Who are Nonie and Nate?”

“Close friends that live across the street from Lucas. They’re right there.”

Gabrielle pointed to the twins as they walked through the parking lot. Phalen followed her gaze and began to scowl.

“Hmm … that one’s interesting.”

“Who?”

“I guess it’s Nate if he’s the one with the pretty blond who’s not so unpretty himself.” Phalen pointed to make sure she was looking at the right teens.

“Yeah, that’s Nate. What’s so interesting about him?”

“Something’s not right about his energy. It’s …
fuzzy
. Wavy.”

“Wavy? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know how to explain it better than that. I’ve never seen energy like it. Very weird. It’s like looking at something with the heat waves from Hell between you and whatever it is you’re looking at.” Phalen continued to scrutinize Nate as he began to take the steps two at a time to get to the front doors of the school. “Oh, wait a minute … no, he’s looking fine, now. Maybe my discernment was just protesting all this activity before I’ve had a proper breakfast.”

“You could have eaten at my house if you wanted to.”

“I
did
want to. No offense, sister, but you need a little variety and more abundance in your cart next time you go to the grocery.”

“Whatever,” Gabrielle said through laughter as the first bell rang.

“Wait a second,” Phalen said, “what’s with the heaviness? It’s like the heavens just settled a little lower, right on top of me.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been talking about. Do you see anything different?”

Phalen scanned the area again slowly. When her attention was back on the gym, she stopped.

“Nothing but another weird fuzziness over the gym and that flock of crows staring at us. I don’t care for crows … creepy little black-feathered things bringing dark omens and superstitions.”

“Where?” Gabrielle asked as she looked. Phalen was right. The crows perched on the roof of the gym seemed to be looking right at them.

Like the ones I saw the first day of school … maybe the same ones.
Gabrielle thought. “Yeah … but there’s one superstition about them that’s correct.”

A chill shot through Gabrielle.

As she was about to say something to Phalen, movement caught her eye. Mara had thrown her arms around whomever she was talking to. This time, Gabrielle could see the face that belonged to the mystery guy along with the rest of him as he moved toward the gym doors. His arm was around Mara’s waist, her arms draped around him, and her head rested on his shoulder.

Lucas.

Chapter Twelve

Lucas ~ Lover

Lucas didn’t have time to deal with Mara. But she had cornered him on his way to gym first thing in the morning, on a day when he didn’t have enough fight in him to be the jerk he needed to be to get rid of her.

He hadn’t slept at all the night before. All he could do was think about how, prior to yesterday morning in the car, everything he was experiencing with Gabby had felt so
right
, and now he felt like she’d drawn a line a mile wide between them that he had no hope of crossing. The most frustrating part of it was that he didn’t know what he’d done to spook her. He’d run the conversation over in his head so many times it made his brain hurt. Her entire mood changed when he understood some of the words she was saying.

It just doesn’t make sense.

Now he was tired, late, felt like a jerk because he’d parked on the other side of school so he could avoid Gabby, and he couldn’t get away from Mara. He wanted to yell in her face and shove past her. But then he’d look like a real charmer to the students around him. They would have his brute theatrics spread through the entire school by second period.

He closed his eyes and took a breath for what must have been the tenth time since she stepped in front of him, trying to keep calm. He put his hands on her shoulders, hoping to make her listen to him more clearly.

“Look, Mara, I have to go. Sorry you don’t like how things have turned out, but it is what it is.”

No sooner had the words passed his lips when she threw her arms around him and seemed to almost melt into him, like she’d just been through something so incredibly emotional and physical that she had no energy left to support her own weight—and maybe not the will to, either.

“Lucas …
help me
,” Mara said in a frail whisper.

Mara sounding so fragile and feeling so limp in his arms worried Lucas, regardless of what he felt about how she’d acted lately. There was a time he had thought she was fun to be around, when she was kind and happy. That girl didn’t stay around long, though. Mara turned into someone who was manipulative and dark. Now he felt that the girl he once enjoyed spending time with had just crashed back into his arms.

“Hey, let’s get inside and sit down.” Lucas said, walking her toward the gym doors. Mara placed her head on his shoulder. When her arms draped around his waist, he felt her body shudder. She was cold to the touch even after being in the warm morning sun.

He opened the door to the gym with his free hand and continued to escort Mara to the bleachers at the far end, away from as many eyes as possible, and they sat down. Luckily, most everyone was still in the locker rooms changing. He turned her toward him and raised her face so he could look at her.

His breath left him.

Mara looked as though she hadn’t slept in weeks. Dark circles and blood-shot eyes told the tale, and her skin wasn’t only cold, it was sallow. It was like he was looking at a completely different person than the one who flirted with him moments before.

A shiver rocked his own body.

“Mara …” Lucas looked into the hazel eyes he’d not seen since she began to act so strange, so aggressive. He could swear they had been that weird yellow-green shade when they were outside. “Mara, what’s going on?”

She looked into his eyes, worry etched in her face.

“I … I don’t know,” she said, her brows furrowed. “I don’t remember how I even
got
here!”

Panic slipped into her tone, and she looked around the gym frantically, then back at Lucas. Tears filled her eyes.

“Lucas … what’s going on? What’s
happening
to me?”

She flung her arms around him again and held him tightly like she thought if she didn’t, she would slip away somewhere—like he was her only lifeline.

Lucas slowly stroked the back of her hair while he tried to speak words that might help, though he wasn’t sure exactly what would. What do you say when someone seemed to be two different people and one side, the softer one, was desperately trying to break free of the other?

“Shh … take a breath.”

Lucas said those words over and over to Mara as he stroked her hair. Slowly, she seemed to relax in his arms, and her breathing calmed. He didn’t think she was crying anymore, either.

“Okay,” he began, once he thought she could talk to him again. “What’s the last thing you
do
remember?”

He felt her slowly drop one arm, bringing it up to wipe her face. She seemed to snuggle into him a little more, and he thought he saw the side of her face push into a smile.

Good
,
she’s feeling better
.

“Well, the last thing I remember that I actually
enjoyed
was the way it felt to have your tongue in my mouth and your hands searching my body in all the right …
spots
. How ‘bout you give me an even better memory to hold onto …
lover
?”

Lucas’s body went rigid, and he forced her face up so he could look at her. He shot to his feet and reeled back from her so fast that he stumbled and ended up on the gym’s shiny wood floor.

Mara’s complexion was back to normal, and her expression showed nothing of her worried, frantic state from moments before. But her eyes—they weren’t hazel; they weren’t even that crazy cat-yellow anymore. They were black—solid, shiny black.

“
What the hell?
”

Lucas blinked hard.

When he focused, Mara’s eyes were back to the shade they’d been the last several weeks. The hazel and black ones were gone, and the eerie yellow ones had returned. Lucas stared, wondering if it had been his imagination. What he wasn’t imagining was that the old, sweet Mara was gone again. The bitch was back. And he wanted nothing to do with her.

“What’s wrong, Lucas?” Mara said with a smirk as she stood and sauntered over to him.

Lucas stood and met her halfway. He didn’t care how freaky Mara was or how much of an ass he may look like to anyone watching. This time, she was going to get the message loud and clear.

He was inches from her. He lowered his face to hers in what could have looked like a kiss in the making, then stopped and glared into those evil, yellow eyes.

“Keep. Away. From. Me.
Got it
?”

Mara smiled like he’d invited her to dinner. “Why, Lucas, whatever did I do?” She batted her lashes at him.

He hated her at that moment. He hated himself, too, for allowing himself to get roped into her games again. He wanted a shower after having her hanging on him. He felt …

Unclean.

Unclean in a dark, evil way that Lucas had never experienced before. He could feel a darkness coming to life in him, clawing from his depths in an attempt to gain freedom. The feeling troubled him. He’d always felt he had to take the high road, be the nice guy, do the right thing—until now.

He moved even closer to Mara once he felt he regained control. “You haven’t seen hostile, but you’ve deserved to. Just stay away from me and anyone that has to do with me. You and I have
nothing
left to talk about. Understand?”

Mara just held the same shit-eating grin. “You’re breaking my heart, lover.”

Lucas chose to walk away before she had him going down another path to Weirdsville. He didn’t look back. Not while students looked back-and-forth between him and her. Not when he was approaching the locker room door. Not even when he put his hand out to open it and he heard her begin to cackle like some possessed witch—a cackle that replayed in his head all day.

Chapter Thirteen

Gabrielle ~ Love Lost

A
fter Phalen left, Gabrielle went through the rest of her day at school in a daze that was occasionally interrupted by dueling feelings of sadness and anger. The competing emotions arose any time she recalled Lucas and Mara with their arms wrapped around each other. She told Nonie that she wouldn’t be joining them for lunch, using an errand as an excuse, and managed to squeak into the class she shared with Lucas just as the last bell rang. Luckily, he was already there and seated on the far side, and there was an empty seat right by the door that would allow an easy and rapid exit.

She didn’t want to talk to Lucas. Not today. Not tomorrow.

Possibly never.

She wanted to put the ridiculous feelings she thought she was developing for him behind her and focus on her task.

That’s all I want.

Even as she thought it, she knew she wasn’t being honest with herself, but she was going to keep saying it until she began to believe the words. Driving home from school, she gladly allowed her angelic ability take over. She was lost in repeating her new mantra until the car suddenly came to an abrupt halt, tires squealing in protest.

Gabrielle’s hands gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white.

What just happened?

She looked up to see if she’d hit something. Inside a black Mercedes, with side and rear windows tinted almost as dark as the paint, was a female demon. The car faced her own, blocking it almost head on.

Mara.

And she wasn’t alone.

Gabrielle hadn’t wrecked. She hadn’t hit anyone. But she had a problem in her way.

A big one.

Sitting next to her was a face Gabrielle had never seen but knew immediately. Even with the Veil, there could be no mistaking the energy coming from the human form was Javan’s. Javan and Gabrielle stared at each other for what seemed like a very long time but was only moments. The smile across his face was not an inviting one, and there was a look in his eyes Gabrielle wasn’t accustomed to seeing. The love he once had for her seemed absent. She had often wondered if he still loved her or if there was even a remnant of what they once had shared. She felt she had her answer, and she felt the crushing realization that he was truly, thoroughly, lost to Light—and her. She didn’t hold on to any ideas that he’d ever be able to be forgiven by Yahuwah, but she wasn’t present when Javan was cast out; there had been no closure for her because she had never seen him again.

Until now.

She realized, at that moment, that she had been holding onto a small bit of hope that they could be together again, somehow. That foolish hope was now completely squashed—along with her heart.

What was I thinking? We could never be Reyahs again. I have to let him go … completely.

Before either had a chance to do anything, the car sped off.

Gabrielle didn’t attempt to move her own car for several more moments. Why had Javan appeared to her here—now? And who was Mara to him? How did she fit in to any of this? How did Lucas fit into any of this?

Gabrielle shuddered, shaken again by the knowledge that Lucas was, on some level, involved with Mara—possibly Javan. She was still going to have to find out more about what had happened to make Lucas so angry at Mara even though she’d made the decision there could be nothing between her and Lucas now—she had stopped kidding herself. The best-case scenario: her heart would be shattered. Again. The worst case: she’d become one of the Fallen.

A car horn jolted her out of her thoughts. She raised a hand in apology and drove the two blocks to her home. It made her uneasy that Javan must know exactly where she lived.

What could he want with me now?

She rushed in the house as fast as she could in front of the human eyes that might see her, not wanting to raise suspicion, dropped her things in the floor of her entry, and called to Amaziah.

It took much longer for him to arrive than Gabrielle had hoped. She spent the time waiting running through scenarios and possibilities. How deeply involved was Lucas with Javan and Mara? Ideas and images swam in different directions in her mind. They tossed and dove deep, then would resurface like a drowning victim. It left her mentally exhausted and confused—nothing made sense. When Amaziah finally did arrive, she felt like she had been trying to keep her head above water as those thoughts pulled at her legs, trying to drag her under, trying to kill some part of her she didn’t want to let die. She fell into his arms when he manifested in her living room.

“I know, Gabrielle.” Amaziah wrapped his arms around her as she wept. She tried to tell him what happened through her tears. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I’ve been in tune with your thoughts from the moment I heard you. I am also surprised he showed himself to you. Especially in that manner. You have no idea who Mara is?”

Gabrielle shook her head. “I don’t understand what he’s doing, Amaziah … what he wants. The choice to rebel against Yahuwah was his and his alone. What could make him want to contact me in any way? I don’t believe it’s because he still loves me.”

Gabrielle let go of Amaziah and frantically paced the room.

“That was
not
love in his eyes for me, Amaziah. It was more like contempt—maybe even loathing. What have I done to make him feel that for me? He knew when he chose the path he did that there would be nothing for us. Nothing at all. He abandoned and betrayed me at the same time he did Yahuwah. Is that not enough for him? Is he going to haunt me forever, making me always wonder when he’s going to show up again, never letting me forget? Is that what he wants? To punish me? For
what
?” Gabrielle fell into the large, overstuffed leather chair and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. Her tears had stopped and were replaced with deep deliberation. She would have to protect her heart from Javan in the future. She cared too much for him, and that was dangerous. Her love for him could cause her to make the wrong decisions or worse.

It could make me want to join him.

Javan was a weakness. Something that could be used against her. She hadn’t been truthful with herself about that until now. She hadn’t counted on it being an issue for her here on Earth. The thoughts haunted Gabrielle. Amaziah made his way to her, knelt beside the chair she was sitting in, and placed his hands around one of hers.

“Gabrielle, Javan will strike out at anything, and anyone, who is still in Yahuwah’s fold. You know that. You were together for a very long time, but a dark seed settled in his soul, and when it grew, it choked out any goodness or love he held within.”

Gabrielle shut her eyes tightly in hopes that it would somehow make what she felt disappear—as if it never happened.

“Trust me,” Amaziah continued, “in time, his intentions will be revealed to us. Either through his own desire to make it known to you or by an act of treason by one close to him. It may be something we can learn through our own contacts, but it isn’t anything we can be enlightened to right now. I know seeing him was deeply unsettling, but don’t allow it to distract you from your goal here. Be patient. And always remember, Gabrielle, a tortured soul can ultimately do no better than torture yours. He has embraced hate, Darkness. Nothing can break through a closed mind, not even love. If he doesn’t accept love, he cannot give it.”

Gabrielle pressed her fists to her eyes, trying to push away her thoughts. After failing to do so, she looked at her friend. His bright blue eyes searched hers to see if she was feeling better. She wasn’t. Her heartache was not going to be pushed away so easily, but she needed to move forward regardless. She didn’t have time to dwell on his betrayal.

Too much depends on what I do to let this get to me.

“Thank you, Amaziah, for being here.” She smiled although it was listless.

“And I always will be. Now, go take one of those hot showers you always speak so favorably about. Sleep. Your work can wait for you to be better rested … and focused.”

Sheridan’s face flashed through her mind. Before she could say anything, Amaziah spoke.

“I’ll deal with Sheridan. Go. Do as I’ve advised. I will wait here with Sheridan until you wake. Karma isn’t going anywhere, either. Would you like me to Ease your thoughts so you can rest?”

“Please.”

Amaziah placed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. It only took as long as a breath, and she felt her muscles relax. Amaziah smiled his familiar, reassuring smile and disappeared into the kitchen where Sheridan was waiting. Gabrielle closed her eyes and tried, once again, to push thoughts of Javan from her mind without success. Amaziah’s use of Ease helped, but unfortunately, it didn’t take the thoughts completely away.

After a longer than normal shower, she crawled into bed and pulled the down comforter over her. The mental and emotional exhaustion seemed to settle into her human body’s bones, weighing her down so much that it pulled her into a deep sleep. Lucas’s face, as had become customary the last couple of days, was the last thing her mind saw as she gladly let dreams take her away into a world she hoped would be more peaceful than her day had been. But her dreams didn’t allow her the rest she and Amaziah had hoped for. Instead, she woke more unsettled than when she lay down to begin with.