Protect Her: Part 10 (5 page)

“Paige…”

I stopped him. The sky above us began to darken. It was the perfect reflection of what I felt inside of me. “It doesn’t matter. The details don’t matter. My parents managed to hide from all the bad things hunting us for fourteen years. Now I understand what changed. The dead can’t hide their secrets from you. It was George Franklin who gave us away, wasn’t it?” Riley looked stunned. “I knew what my father did. That was the reason we left the last commune. George Franklin wanted to accelerate the possession cycle. He was in the process of gathering supporters to take me into custody, away from my parents, and call on Eva. I found that out from a friend of my father’s who helped me after their murders. I always wondered if my parents killed him to stop him from talking. They did, didn’t they?”

Riley looked away from me, but he gave a short nod. I felt a ripple across my chest. For my entire life, the people around me killed to protect me. My parents, Riley, and even I had killed to protect myself. Too many people had lost their lives for me. That had to stop, and it had to stop right now.

“I guess I should say thank you, Riley.”

That got his attention. “For what?”

“For making it very clear what I have to do next.”

CHAPTER FIVE –
RILEY

A part of me was grateful that Paige didn’t want any further details. It was clear that she had an idea of what her parents had done in the name of keeping her safe, but I didn’t think she knew the extent of it. There was a part of me that wanted her to be able to hold onto those idealized versions of her parents in her memories. Because in truth, now that I knew who her parents were, I knew they were far from innocent.

I wasn’t sure how she might have responded to that truth. The only reason I had been able to track her parents at all was because they left a path of dead bodies across the entire Midwest. It had been the first investigation of my new career as a PI. Hell, that job was the reason that I decided to go into business for myself to begin with, and the fee I received was the seed money for my new venture.

It was surprising that the dead souls I spoke to on my search for Peter Davis never mentioned that he had a daughter. It was proof of how clumsy and unskilled I was in my questioning back then. They had all been pissed off that they let their guard down and never suspected that Peter had a murderous bone in his body. They talked about his pretty wife, Frannie, and how she had been at his side as they drew their last breaths. They happily told me everything I wanted to know about how to track Peter and Frannie because the two had been exceedingly sloppy about talking to each other about their plans even as they buried the bodies. Perhaps if I had known the right questions to ask, I would have found out about the existence of Eva long before the tattoo appeared on my back and marked me as the future Protector. I would have known that the demon official’s real target was Peter and Frannie’s daughter.

The irony of how intertwined my life was with Paige’s long before I ever met her wasn’t lost on me. I could tell her what I learned from the ghosts of those her parents killed to protect her, but what would be the point? It would only serve to tarnish the memories of those long gone. It also wouldn’t absolve me of my part in their deaths. It hadn’t been hard for someone like me to follow their trail. The demons had marked their informants. I just needed to find out the description of the ones who had done the dirty deed and buried their bodies in unmarked graves.

I wondered if Paige’s parents understood that dead didn’t mean gone. Not by a long shot. They probably figured that because they took out humans they were safe. Back then, I hadn’t ever determined what motivated them to kill. That wasn’t what I was paid to find out anyway. I just had to find them. I just figured they liked killing and kept doing it to keep themselves off the grid. Turns out, Paige’s parents had done what was necessary to protect their daughter.

It was a grudging admiration I felt building inside of me for these people now. I wished that our location wasn’t just a memory inside of Paige’s head. Maybe someday we could visit her parents’ graves for real. Then I could do something far more powerful for her.

“Paige, come back with me. We’ll go to your parents’ graves together, and I can call them up for you. You can finally say goodbye.”

Her face lit up for a moment before it fell again. “You don’t even know if you are a necromancer anymore.”

I hadn’t thought about that. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about my new state of being, but I thought it wouldn’t make sense for me to lose something I had before in my lower being state. “I’ll try it before we leave so we know for sure,” I said. “I think it’s still there. All you have to do is come back with me and wake up. This doesn’t change anything between us.” Her words about solidifying her next move scared the shit out of me. I hadn’t failed to notice the shifting of the clouds in the sky above our heads. A storm appeared to be brewing. She was severely agitated. I needed her calm and level-headed.

“I can’t come back with you, even if I wanted to,” she said. Her face held no emotion. “This might not change anything for you, Riley, but I can’t just forget about this and what you did. How could you think that I would? I know you were hoping to persuade me that I was making the wrong decision, but it isn’t even a decision. I need you to understand that. Even if I thought it was, I don’t know how I feel about what you just told me. It makes me feel…dirty.”

“I was a stupid kid. We didn’t know each other then,” I argued. “Of course if I had, I would have done things differently. I’m sorry I didn’t say that when you asked me before.”

“You were confused, hurt, afraid, alone, and angry,” she said. Her face turned toward me, but it was as if she was looking through me. That scared me even more than the words she was saying. It was as if she had checked out and wasn’t fully present with me anymore. “How many more excuses can you throw at me trying to justify actions that you knew were inherently wrong? There is nothing you can say or do that is going to make it okay in my head for you to have given my parents over to a demon official. Nothing. You might as well save your breath.”

I was losing her. This was even worse than when I found her comatose on the bed in the back of Slinky Pete’s. In this instance, she was present with me but telling me to go fly a kite. “You don’t want to make any rash decisions. You need to slow down and think about what you are saying.”

“I can’t make a rash decision anymore,” she replied. She turned her face up toward the sky. I hadn’t failed to notice that the sky had turned a deep shade of red. It was as if I were looking at a sea of blood. “I made my decision three years ago or weren’t you listening? It’s your job to listen, right? Everything about you always comes back to your job.” She was angry. There was a flicker of lightning in the sky.

“I could have done things differently, that’s true,” I said, putting up my hands in defeat. “I own those mistakes, and I’m sorry for my part in them.”

“Of course, you are. You act as if you didn’t have any choice in what you did,” Paige said. She laughed, but it was an ugly sound. “Just go ahead and unfurl those wings on your back, and take a look in the mirror. That’s the result of what you brought upon yourself, Riley. You are a dark angel because of what you did to people like my parents.”

Her words were meant to hurt, and they did. I had looked at myself in the mirror not more than a few hours before, but Paige’s tune had been a lot different then. She was the one who pulled me back from the brink of uncertainty and darkness. She convinced me there was a part of me worth saving. Now, listening to her tirade, I wasn’t so sure.

“A dark angel. How curious.” The unexpected voice caused me to whirl around. Eva stood there plain as day. She wore a carbon copy of the dress that Paige wore. That was the last similar thing about them. Where Paige was tall, Eva was slight and petite. Paige had long, blond locks that flowed down her back. Eva’s hair was the color of the darkest night. Paige’s skin tone aligned itself with frequent sunbathing. Eva was pale and looked as if she had been inside a cave for decades. In truth, it had been much longer than that.

“You stay away from her.” I moved to block Paige from Eva’s view.

Eva laughed. The sound bristled the hair on the back of my neck. “You are funny. Paige told me you were funny. We are inside of Paige’s mind. It’s quite difficult to stay away from her in that case, don’t you think?” Her words carried a stiff kind of formality and an unfamiliar lilt to it which made it difficult to understand her. Still, I caught enough of the gist to understand. That she had come out of hiding told me she was ready to throw down to get what she wanted, and what she wanted was Paige.

But I was there to show her nobody was giving up without one hell of a fight. Eva had been an angel far longer than me, but I wasn’t afraid to play dirty.

“Paige isn’t giving her permission or anything else to you. You’re a damn liar trying to convince her that she gave you permission for possession the last time.” I bared my teeth at her and let my wings unfurl behind me. There was no way I was going to let her intimidate me.

She looked thoroughly unimpressed, which pissed me off and scared me all at the same time. “You act as if I manipulated the situation. If you question what happened, then see it for yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Paige was there.” She twirled her hands around in the air around her. “Are we not in Paige’s memories? If you have a question about what happened and if Paige agreed of her own free will, let’s go there and see.”

CHAPTER SIX –
PAIGE

I felt stupid for not thinking about what she said sooner. We were in my head. Of course, I could go back to that memory and check out if she was lying to me. But surely she knew that, so what would be the point in lying in the first place?

That was when I realized there was a part of me that hoped I was going to wake up, and all of this had been a nightmare. Eva confronting me in my happy dreams and telling me my life was over and then finding out that Riley had been involved in my parents’ murder was surely the definition of a nightmare. I felt a sense of wallowing self-pity roll through me. There was nothing fair about my life. It had been a mere blip on the radar. I never had a chance. I was nothing more than a means to end, and that end was Eva’s rebirth.

“We’ll go see for certain,” Riley agreed. He was doing what he had always done. Protect me. But in the end, he couldn’t protect me from myself, and I was growing more uncertain by the minute if I was even worthy of it. There had already been enough death and destruction because of me. I wanted it all to end. I was tired.

“Enough,” I said. I didn’t want to listen to any more arguing. Riley needed to let me go. That was the sad reality. Even worse, there was a part of me that had already disentangled itself from him. I couldn’t process how hurt and betrayed I was by his actions. He had acted in his own self-interests back then. So had I. Our similarities continued to be shown to me, but I wasn’t so certain that was a good thing. What we had in common were the bad things.

On the surface, I understood what he had done was years ago. It wasn’t wrong of him to ask to be exempt from something like that in his past. But it told me there were probably far worse things he hadn’t shared with me, and probably never would. His black wings, which I thought were so beautiful, were nothing more than a further testament to that darkest part of him. It was a darkness that would always be there, no matter what he did. I was beginning to understand that now.

Riley wasn’t going to step aside. He never would. I brushed around him trying not to touch even a feather on his wings. I knew he wanted to pull me back behind him, but he hesitated. That was good. I didn’t want him to touch me. I couldn’t handle that because if he did, I thought I would lash out at him everything I had. Magic or otherwise. He was the target of all of the anger and guilt I held inside of myself.

“Let’s go there,” I agreed. I snapped my fingers, not really because I needed to but because the action gave the appropriate dramatic effect that I was looking for. I was an actress after all. “The last memory I have of that night is being on a boat.”

Then we were there. The boat was larger than I remembered. There were crates everywhere which told me it was probably a cargo boat of some kind bringing in freight to the towns on the shore surrounding Calamata Island. The air was chilled, and I saw that we were further out at sea than I would have expected. When I was dumped into the water, I thought for sure we were in Calamata Bay proper. I could see the faint lights of the mainland from here, but it wasn’t what I would call close.

I heard the harsh breathing of a struggle, and when I turned, I saw myself in the clutches of two ugly demons. There was a gargoyle perched on the railing behind us supervising the action along with Bruno Proctor. It seemed whenever I thought the demon official was out of my life, there was another reminder of the part he played in everything that happened to me.

Riley’s shoulders twitched. He was ready to jump into the fray.

“This is all a memory,” I reminded him. “You can’t save me here.”
You can’t save me anywhere
. I left those words unspoken. It was as if the childhood rhyme began to play over and over in my head.

“How are we supposed to tell what happened to you when you went into the water?” Riley’s voice carried the heavy notes of anger. “This deal supposedly happened while you were in the box.”

As if the words made it real, I saw the gargoyle push a heavy pine box forward across the deck. I tried to keep my thoughts calm as I watched the demons hoist my body upward to put me in the box. My other self struggled with all her might, and then she began to scream. The back of my throat suddenly felt raw. I was reliving the moment but separate from it at the same time, and it caused a strange, surreal sense of déjà vu. I wasn’t sure I could keep past and present straight.

“I can help with that,” Eva said.

“I’m sure you can,” Riley snorted. “Then conveniently you’ll show the events the way that you want us to see them.”

Eva held up her hands. “Fine. Paige can show you.”

“Paige can’t show us anything that isn’t a memory of hers,” Riley said.

“She can show us without taking us there.” Eva saw my questioning glance. “Instead of showing us what happened by making us present in the moment with you, project it into our minds.”

“How?” I asked. I was genuinely curious. If the goddess wasn’t on the verge of possessing my body, I would have had so many questions for her. My life had been intertwined with hers since the beginning. I did feel a strange sort of affinity for her.

“Touch here.” She placed her fingertips on her temple. She motioned at Riley. “Project it into our minds as you see it happening. I warn you though, the event was extremely traumatic for you. It might be uncomfortable.”

“Because watching demons make off with her parents wasn’t,” Riley said sarcastically.

It was as if he wrenched a knife in my gut. I spun around and grabbed the rail of the boat. I cast a look back to my right. I knew what was about to happen next. I wasn’t going to go into the box without a fight. Back then, I had been incredibly claustrophobic. There was nothing I could think of that would be worse than being closed into a small, confined space. I hadn’t quite realized yet that it was their plan to toss the box into the bay. The demons struggled with me for another few moments, and then one of them drew out a long billy club from his belt.

I noticed that Bruno had turned away from the scene to take a phone call. The other demon nodded at the first demon, and then came the blow. Watching it was one thing, but it felt as if I had been struck in the head all over again. I cried out and fell to my knees. Riley was beside me in an instant. The second and third blows should have knocked me out. As my body went limp, they easily maneuvered me inside the box.

I wasn’t even sure I knew how I was doing it, but I reached up to press my fingers against the side of his head even as I felt the dark spots grow over my mind. Riley’s gasp was the only answer I needed to know he was there in the darkness with me.

Somehow, I clung to consciousness as the nails started to pound the lid onto the box. I was being sealed into my coffin, and there was nothing I could do about it.

My heart beat so fast I thought that it might explode right out of my chest. I blacked out for another long moment, and as I came slowly back to awareness, I felt the feeling of weightlessness.

“No,” I whimpered.

I felt a hand wrap around the back of my neck. Riley pulled his forehead to mine, and my fingers fell away, but the connection remained. My eyes were closed, but I could still see and feel everything. It was happening all over again.

“It’s okay, babe. I’m here.” The words crawled across my mind. I wasn’t sure if Riley had spoken them out loud or not. I took no comfort in them though. Riley wasn’t who I thought he was. He couldn’t protect me here.

Then my body flew up toward the ceiling of the box, and I felt the careening downward sensation that told me I was no longer on the ship. It was the same feeling when a car crested a steep hill, or when a large roller coaster began its sharp descent, except this time I was plummeting to my death.

My thoughts were so groggy from the blows to my head that my fingers couldn’t find their way to the crevices of the edge of the box soon enough. I felt defeat even before I started, especially once the first cold tendril of water reached my skin.

“Oh my god,” I groaned. Here? Now? Then? It all fused together into one jumbled piece. “I’m going to die.” It was final. There was no more escape for me.

This was something no one could possibly describe as that realization sets in. This is it. I could feel the contrasting warmth of blood streaking down my face. I wasn’t sure how hard the demon hit me with his billy club, but the result was bad. The headache and blurred vision were proof enough of that. I should have gone peacefully into the afterlife, but that wasn’t the way for me. It never was.

“Please.” The tears joined the blood then. The seams of the box were letting the water in at an alarming rate. “I don’t want to die.”

Then a flash of light took me over. That was always the last thing I remembered. The light. But now I saw the light carried someone with it. A vision appeared in front of me. Damn it if it wasn’t a glowing white bridge, just like Eva told me. I knew I had seen it before, and I remembered all the other times just like I always did when the bridge appeared.

My mind’s eye ran toward it. Eva waited for me halfway across it, just as she always did. This time she looked sad, sadder than I ever remembered seeing her. Most of the time she greeted me with a smile or even a hug.

“This will be the last time we speak,” she called out to me before I even reached her. “I’m surprised that you were able to make the connection at all. The wounds to your head are fatal.”

I was surprised that she knew so much about my present circumstances, but then again, she always did. Eva was my pseudo guardian angel.

“Help me!” I said. “Please. You can help me. I’m going to die.”

“Yes,” she said with a short nod. “This situation requires magic to fix, Paige. You have none of that of your own. I’m sorry.”

Again, I felt the unfairness of a situation I never wanted or asked for. “There must be a way.” Even as I said the words, I spit up a burst of water. The box was filling quickly. I would soon be overcome.

“Well.” She wrung her hands and looked away.

“Tell me!” I demanded.

She sighed. “You know what you would have to do. I didn’t want to bring it up because it has to be your choice, of course. But it’s the only way.”

I had to accept her. I had to agree to let her possess me. “If I accept you, I might as well go ahead and die. It’s not any different. The result is the same.”

“It’s your decision, Paige.” She took a step backward. “The decision can’t be coerced. You know that. You know what is best for you.”

“What is best is that I live!” I wanted to shriek at her, but I began to cough. The harsh taste of salt water filled my mouth. “Three years!”

She paused her retreat. “What?”

“Give me three years!” How the words got out of my mouth and were recognizable I had no idea. My lungs burned from the water filling them.

Her eyes narrowed. “Three years, and then you will accept me fully without a fight?”

I nodded. I couldn’t answer because I could barely breathe. It was almost over.

“You have to say it,” she said. “Now. You will have your three years, and then I will have my life back.”

The blackness crept over my eyes even as I whispered the single word that sealed my fate. “Yes.”

I broke contact with Riley’s skin and let the memory slip away. There was nothing but blackness after that, but it didn’t matter. I pushed away from him and stood up. The world around me turned gray, and the objects around us slowly disappeared. It was as if we had stepped onto a dim, blank canvas in my mind.

“That’s that then,” I said.

Riley stood up next to me. He glared in Eva’s direction. “That was coercion. You know it, and I know it.”

“I told Paige it was her decision,” Eva said with a small shrug, but her eyes gleamed in the darkened space. She didn’t look like the friendly, warm person who always greeted me any longer. “She agreed. We had a deal.”

“A deal based on her living or dying,” Riley spat.

“It wasn’t a situation I put Paige in.” Eva brought her hand to her chest as if she were offended by Riley’s words. “That was all Bruno Proctor’s doing. If Paige hadn’t been struck on the head, perhaps she could have found a way to escape the box before she drowned. We’ll never know. But she had to make a decision. For three years, it was an acceptable bargain.”

“You are full of shit,” Riley said. “That was one hell of a lopsided bargain, and the only one who benefitted from it is you.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “I got to live for three more years. I was already living on borrowed time. We all know that. Sooner or later, even if I had lived, someone would have caught up with me, and we’d be right back here.”

“Paige, that’s crazy talk.” Riley grabbed my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “This has all taken a toll on you. Don’t you see that she has manipulated you to trust her since the beginning? You were going to fight all of this, and in the span of less than an hour she has you convinced that this is the only way. This isn’t what you wanted. You wanted to live. You have a future with me, remember?”

My heart shattered into a million pieces. Everything I thought I knew had been blown apart. Nothing was as it seemed. I didn’t think I had any fight left in me to go on. If I did decide to try to change my willingness to agree, there would be consequences. A situation that would require Riley to step in for me. Again. I couldn’t have that. More than that, I didn’t want it.