Ravens (20 page)

Kendra groaned. “So no one goes back,
huh?” she asked to get him to shut up about his feelings.

“I’ve heard random stories of a few
making it back, but no one knows for sure, never heard of witnesses to it. They
could’ve been disappearances with other explanations.”

“I wish I could just make it known that
I want to go home and the portal opened, granting me my one desire. Maybe I’m
special.”

The ground trembled beneath them. Kendra
pushed her hands into the grass and looked around, as did Liam. He raised his
chin, sniffed the air to find a familiar scent. He jumped onto his haunches and
scanned the horizon.

Kendra crawled to her feet. Her heart
raced. She didn’t possess Liam’s uncanny sense of smell, but she recognized the
odd tremors. Her breathing increased as the possibility of going home flashed
through her thoughts.

The skies darkened, and the winds
increased. Liam went after Kendra who backed into the tree, huddled over in the
sudden tempest. Liam grabbed her by the waist, covering her beneath his massive
arms.

“We gotta get outta here!” he yelled to
her above the wind.

“No!” She pulled back.

“What are you doing?”

“The portal will open up!”

“You don’t know where this one will
lead!”

“I’m taking my chances!”

Her hair slashed through the air in a
fierce dance as several strands cut across her face.

“Please, Kendra, it’s too dangerous!”

“I’m willing to risk it!”

Liam searched the area, but the portal
had yet to open. Kendra frantically searched for the opening to what she hoped
was her world.

“You don’t even know where it’s
forming!”

“No one ever looks up!” she yelled.

They hyper-extended their necks, and
observed the sky directly above them. A dozen feet above the ground in the
tangled mess of limbs, a small, blazing white gap in the space-time continuum
formed.

Liam maintained a firm hold on Kendra.
She pushed against his chest and squirmed to free herself.

“What are you doing? Let me go!” She hit
him.

“I’m not letting you go! You don’t know
what’s on the other side!”

Liam grabbed her hands, yanked them down
and around to her back. He held both of her wrists in his left hand behind her
while his right arm held onto her torso in a tight hug.

“You can’t keep me here. I’m not your
prisoner!” Her eyes flickered with sparks.

Liam’s expression clouded over with
pain. He leaned toward her ear and asked above the noise, “Is that what you
feel like with me, a prisoner?”

He pulled away. Kendra froze, staring
into his pain and guilt riddled features. Before Kendra could stutter out a
response, he released her. He loomed over her, merely inches away in the midst
of the storm.

An ache crossed her chest.

Liam shook his head. Pleading with his
expression, he didn’t say anything more to her. He lifted his hands to cup her
face as tingles attacked her body, assaulting her senses. Kendra clasped his
wrists but didn’t push him, nor did she pull away. She felt dizzy, but she
fought it. Liam leaned in, lowering his attention to her mouth as she lowered
her focus to his lips.

He asked in a gruff tone, a rueful
whisper under the circumstances, “Can I at least kiss you one last time,
darling?”

She followed his lips and tilted her
head, inching closer to him. She paused a few centimeters from him, almost
brushing his lips with her own and spoke, “Goodbye, Liam.”

Liam swallowed. She watched him. Kendra
pulled his hands down and away, and stepped back.

“Bye, love,” he said, his face heavy
with sorrow.

Kendra knew she had to act now.
Otherwise, she might never make it back home. So why did she stall? Why did she
doubt herself? An hour ago, she begged for a way to get home, and now she
didn’t want to leave him? This made no sense. This wasn’t her world or her
life.

She swallowed, and spun around to face
the tree, running up the side, jumping onto the first limb, and pushing up with
her foot as she swung onto another branch. She ran up and into the portal. The
light burst around her, sizzling and humming with a pink swirl. The brightness
intensified as the portal sucked in Kendra’s body in long, stretchy particles.
Pure white invaded her senses.

****

Liam drew his hands up to shield his
face. He moved back to avoid being sucked in himself, though he didn’t find the
idea miserable if he could be with Kendra. Seeing her portal back was like
watching a myth unfurl before him. He heard of some who traveled back, but had
never seen it. He only hoped Kendra propelled back into the other world instead
of a different universe where her life might be worse than what he made it
here.

His heart thumped in his chest like
angry drums, and his adrenaline throbbed in his veins. His chest ached and the
pain radiated into his throat, creating a dry soreness.

The sudden outburst of energy and wind
from the portal pushed Liam to the ground. The tempest died, the light
vanished, and the ground stood still. Liam’s heavy breathing simmered as he
dropped his hand. He lay on the grass on one elbow with one knee bent,
partially twisted. He slammed his hand down. The portal disappeared and along
with it, Kendra.

His chest heaved. She vanished into the
light! At least this time, she wasn’t manipulated, coerced, or pushed, but left
to her own free will. He regretted not going with her. How could he possibly
leave Julie, but how could he live without Kendra? If he went with her, maybe
Kendra would love him in the other world because she made it clear that she
didn’t care for the man he’d become in this dimension. The truth was that he
couldn’t change himself here, and he couldn’t survive the mundane life of the
other world.

Liam lay motionless for several minutes
before he snapped back into reality. He needed to get out of here. No doubt
hunters and spectators would fly down to the park any minute.

He jumped to his feet and ran back to
town. He had to release his pain before it consumed him. When the pain subsided
even a little, a wave of anger surged through him, sparking his eyes and
fingertips. He refused to go home and sob to Julie or fritter away in
depression. He’d rather do something constructive.

He knew the city and the parts where
Ravens shouldn’t venture, parts that crawled with hunters, and places Ravens
steered clear of if they valued their lives. Liam headed to the most dangerous
spot known to Ravens. He needed to vent his anger and his energy, and he might
as well take out enemies while doing it.

As the onslaught of curious humans
gathered, they moved toward the park. Liam ran past them in a blaze of white.
The humans jumped out of his way, gasping and screaming at the sight of him.
Liam ignored the humans. He pulled back his lips in a snarl. He had little care
right now and lusted for a dangerous fight.

He wanted to hurt someone, and he wanted
to get hurt to take his mind off emotional woes. This path led to
self-destruction, but he didn’t care one bit.

Chapter Nineteen

Traveling back through the portal was as
strange, terrifying, and blurry as the first time. At least this second go
around Kendra knew what happened and what to expect. In the span of a few
seconds, she didn’t have time to panic, to consider how many parallel
dimensions the universe had.

The portal opened through the
floorboards and spat out the young woman like rotten food. Kendra hit the
ceiling at an angle, and fell on the wooden floor near the rolled up mats. She
grunted and lay motionless, her breathing nearly absent.

Moments later, she opened her eyes,
blinking away tears, and flinched from the light that splintered through the
loft window. She groaned as she scanned the area. She stared at the familiar
ceiling fan, still and gathering dust.

Pushing herself up with her elbows,
Kendra massaged her temples with one hand, and searched the room. Things were
as she left them. She wondered how long she’d been gone. She assumed the time
lapse would have been the same in both worlds.

Crawling to her feet, she kicked the mat
over so that it unrolled over the floorboards. She never wanted to see the
portal again. She succeeded in coming back to the world she knew and the world
she wanted, a world without Ravens, hunters, and most importantly, without
Liam. She could hope he respected her enough to stay out of her head from now
on. She completed her mission by helping to rescue Julie. Liam had no reason to
crawl back to her through illusions.

Kendra went to the bathroom, nursing
bruises on her back and what felt like a cracked rib. She hobbled to the mirror
and leaned in, widening her eyes and examining them. What a relief! No more
weird and disturbing features. Kendra begrudgingly smiled at herself.

She cleaned up and headed to the house,
hoping her parents hadn’t gone mad. Her heart skipped a few beats and pumped
again with a hard vengeance. This wasn’t an easy discussion. 

When she entered, the door creaked on
its hinges. She went around the corner to the living room and entered the
kitchen in the abnormal silence of midday, but very glad to see her parents.
They glanced up, did a double take, jumped to their feet, and ran to Kendra
hugging their daughter in a tight embrace. They wept for joy, their tears
dampening her hair.

“Where did you go?” her mother demanded,
pulling away to wipe Kendra’s bangs from her face.

“We thought the worst of things. Are you
hurt?” her dad mumbled as he examined his daughter for signs of trouble.

“No, I’m okay. I, well, it’s a long
story.” Kendra couldn’t find the right words to explain. She stood awkwardly
beneath their scorching stares.

“You’ve been gone for days. We tried
calling, but we found your phone in your room. We called Randal and he flipped
a lid! We thought you left with him like other years, but he said that you
insisted on staying here alone. We searched all over for you. You left your car
and wallet here. Where on Earth did you go?” her mother cried.

“It’s a long story,” Kendra repeated
herself.

“Well, tell us. You worried us to death.
You can’t just leave for days on end and not notify us.” Mr. Pierce pulled out
a chair for his daughter.

“Are you emotionally ready for this?” Kendra
asked.

“We’re never going to be emotionally
ready for anything. Tell us where you ran off too,” her dad coaxed.

It wasn’t enough to know Kendra was safe
and home. Her parents had to know where she disappeared to and why she left
without a word. Didn’t Kendra know what this would do to them? Didn’t she have
the common sense to realize how this would grab her parents by the throat and
violently slam them back ten years to when Julie and Liam disappeared? This
would bring back all the repressed memories and unleash the controlled fears
like a flood.

While Kendra prepared herself for the
revelation of her odyssey in another world, her parents attentively watched
her, throwing casual glances at one another.

“Um.” Kendra cleared her throat. She
knew the truth sounded crazy, but her parents deserved the truth. She blinked
and dragged in a long breath before beginning, “I know what happened to Julie
and Liam.”

“What?” Her mother trembled. She placed
a hand over her heart.

“It’s a crazy story, but it’s true. You
have to believe me on this.”

“Go on,” her father said skeptically.

Kendra dragged in another breath. “I
know what—”

All three jerked their heads toward the
front door when the doorbell chimed.

“Who could that be?” Mr. Pierce went to
the entry room. He opened the door.

“Hello, sir, I wanted to drop by and see
how you’re doing, if you’ve heard from Kendra,” Randal spoke in a low, strained
voice.

“Randal?” Kendra ran to the door the
instant she heard his voice.

Kendra bombarded Randal. The
apprehension and worry faded from his face once he saw her and heard her voice.
Temporarily forgetting that her parents stood in the same room, Kendra leapt
into Randal’s widening arms. He hugged her tighter than ever, and buried his
face against her neck. She gasped and exhaled with a shiver. She never
anticipated traveling back to his arms or feeling the same way about him after
her encounter with the parallel Randal.

Kendra’s father cleared his throat.

“Where have you been? Are you okay?”
Randal pulled away, keeping his hands on her waist. “Are you hurt?”

He tucked her hair behind her ears, and
turned her chin, examining her for any signs of past danger. Her lack of
visible cuts, bruises, and dark eye circles seemed to calm his fears. 

While Randal held her, Kendra welcomed
his warm and normal touch. It was real, of this world, and safe.

“She was just about to explain what
happened, weren’t you dear?” Her father interrupted their intimate embrace.