Reclaiming Souls (5 page)

“Yeah, but it’s not something you should have to really know about. You’re dead. I’m dead. Our deaths have come and gone. This is who we are now. Why don’t we head back and go sit on the porch like the other day and watch the earth?”

“That sounds like a great plan,” I smiled a crooked grin. He hopped to his feet, grabbed my hand and we jumped amongst the stars all the back to the edge and ran to his house to make it in time to watch the sun set on earth.

We sat on his swing, out of breath from running so fast, and relaxed in the presence of each other. Kale was fading from my mind as the worries of the day slipped away with the setting sun. Just as quickly as it set on one side of earth, it rose on the other.

It was a remarkable sight from up there. One of the most beautiful things I could remember ever seeing...which wasn’t a lot since I still couldn’t really remember who I use to be. Piece by piece the puzzle was falling into place.

Maybe Kale was right. Maybe I was over thinking it and maybe that man in the cabin was not the one who killed me.

At that point, I decided what Kellin has said was right. I was already dead so what was the point of trying to figure it out? Nothing would change. I would never be alive again. Never feel heat and cold. Never feel my heart skip a beat every time the person I loved walked into the room. Never feel my heart stop when I received bad news. I was just there. Floating around; reclaiming souls. For eternity. Talk about the shit end of a deal.

Chapter Four

“Wake up, sleepy head,” a voice whispered as hands gently shook me.

I groan in response, “Get out. I don’t want to wake up yet.” I rolled over and pulled the blanket over my head. The blanket was just a comfort item. There was no need for it since it couldn’t keep me warm.

“Come on, I planned something for us! Get your ass up!” Lexie pulled the cover off of me and threw it on the floor.

I sat up with my hair in a mess and a twitchy eye from not wanting to wake up just let. “What...do...you....want!?” I huffed out.

“We’re going to earth today. No reclaiming- just hanging out, being normal dead people walking amongst the living. Creeping out some psychics sounds like fun, don’t you think!?” she laughed.

I couldn’t help but catch her enthusiasm. “Does the Creator know about this? He’s really going to let us just go down there and ‘hang out’ as you put it?” I asked her, excitedly as I jumped out of bed and got dressed.

“He doesn’t care. You know, he really is a great being. He’s worried about you, you know. He never wants to see a Collector take the rap for a human who couldn’t control their monsters. You’re one of the best ones we’ve had in a long time.”

“I know. I’m just...torn. Not so much about damning my own soul but about everything in general.”

“I know, I know. That’s why we’re getting out of this place for a little bit and going to have some fun. If we don’t get away every now and then, we go crazy and start doing stupid shit. I’ve seen it happen many times. They let their crazy show a little too much, if you ask me,” she laughed.

“So where on earth are we going?”  I was finishing up brushing my hair and decided to leave it down that day.

“Any and everywhere. We can just fall into a destination and not even know where we are or pick places. Your choice.”

We walked out the front door and headed to the portal. “I say we just be sporadic. Wherever the portal sends us, that’s where we go!” I beamed.

“Great!” She grabbed my hand and someone grabbed my other. I spun my head around to see who was holding on to me.

“Mind if I tag along? I need a break...or is this a girlie type thing? Because if it is, I don’t want any part of that,” Kellin laughed and winked at me.

“I think it’s up to Lexie.” We both looked at her.

She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, it’s fine, you freakin third wheel,” she teased. We locked hands with each other as we passed through the portal. When we landed, we were somewhere cool and busy. They weren’t speaking English...Spanish maybe? I wasn’t good with foreign languages.

“Where are we?” I looked around at all the beautiful women dancing through the streets and the children laughing and playing outside. There were little outdoor shops everywhere and itty bitty little cars zoomed past on the streets.

“Barcelona would be my guess. Only been once before and it wasn’t to this area so I’m not really sure right now. Who cares where we are, come on,” Lexie grabbed my arms and linked hers with mine while Kellin walked beside us; his hands in his pockets.

I smiled at him and felt my body just melt. He winked at me. I reached over with my other arm and linked up with him. He leaned down and whispered into my ear, “Too bad we couldn’t have come alone,” then kissed my cheek.

I bit my lower lip as I imagined the things that could have happened if it were just the two of us. Bad, bad thoughts. Must focus on something else. “Hey, let’s go dancing in there!” I nodded my head in the direction of a little cantina playing music with people dancing around like crazy inside.

“Sounds good,” Lexie responded as she ran ahead inside.

Kellin pulled me back and to the side of the entrance where Lexie couldn’t see us. He wrapped his hands in my hair and pulled me in for a kiss. A Deep. Passionate. Kiss. Holy. Shit. I couldn’t breathe. I grabbed hold of his face with my hands and held on tightly. Finally he pulled away and rested his forehead against mine. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist anymore. I needed to know.”

“Needed to know what?” I asked him.

“What your lips felt like. I have been hypnotized by them and I had to give in.”

I smiled, “It’s okay. I really liked it.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s go inside before Lexie comes looking for us.”

“Too late,” he whispered and turned his head towards the doorway, his hand still touching mine

I closed my eyes then looked. She was staring with her eyes wide with a shit eating grin on her gaping mouth. Her arms were hung down by her side. “Hey, so let’s go dancing now!” I rushed past her and inside to watch everyone. Their moves were so calculated and perfect. I could never do that. I would hurt everyone around me when I tripped and fell over my own two feet.

“You wanna dance with me?” Lexie yelled in my ear above the loud music.

“Of course! This place is so amazing! Wish I could’ve seen it while I was alive!” I yelled back.

We went to the center and followed the peoples’ moves. When they clapped, we clapped. When they spun around and dipped their partners, we did it too. It was the most fun I had had since...well sometime when I was alive. After a few songs Lexie went to sit down and Kellin came up in time for a slow song.

“May I have this dance, senorita?” He held a hand out for mine.

“Umm, si,” I laughed, “That’s about all I know so don’t go off saying some really sweet stuff because I won’t have a clue.”

He took my hand and spun me in a single circle to his chest before whispering, “I would want you to understand every word I have to say.” His hand around my waist tightened, pulling me as close to him as I could get while his fingers on his other hand slipped between mine and linked; clamping shut around it.

“Oh, is that so,” I smiled.

“I would want you to know I think you’re incredible. I think you’re beautiful. You’re a rose amongst the weeds; the sunshine penetrating through the clouds on a cloudy day. You are warmth and everything a woman should be. You are inspiration.” He stopped and stared into my watering eyes. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“Oh. Wow. I’m speechless, really. I wasn’t expecting you to be so...forward with what you feel,” I responded, shocked.

“Was it too much? Did I go overboard?” His worried eyes searched mine; searched for the answer he wanted to hear.

“No, not too much at all,” I lifted up on the tips of my toes and brought my lips to his. His arms wrapped tight around me. When the rest of the world came back to me, I looked over and Lexie was chatting with Jackson. I felt bad for kind of abandoning her but if it would have been just the two of us and he showed up, I’d be sitting alone in the corner, waiting for a chance to leave. Kellin made my night so much more bearable.

“I want to show you something,” he spoke as he took my hand and we ran outside. We ran out to the edge of the sea and stared at the moonlight sparkling across the waves.

“This is so beautiful.”

“Now look up.”

I tilted my head up at the sky and the view was amazing. It was a clear night; no clouds to block the shine from all the stars and moon. “Wow. It looks so different from down here.”

“Yeah it’s a change of view and it’s nice to see it from a different angle instead of always being amongst them.”

We laid down on the sand and stared up at the sky and even got to see a few shooting stars. “This was so very much needed.”

There was a loud squeal of laughter as Lexie and Jackson joined us on the sand. “Hey, what are you two doing out here?” she laughed.

I rolled my eyes. “Just sitting around and talking. What have you guys been up to?”

“Just dancing and stuff. How about we portal hop to the next location!?” Her eyes were bright with excitement.

“Sure! We stood up and all locked hands as we waited for the portal to randomly drop us in another location.

We landed in the middle of a road. There were some woods all around us and lights in the far off distance. “Well, this blows. There’s nothing here,” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, this one is a dud. Maybe we should pick the next destination and not do a drop again,” said Jackson.

“Wait. Why does it have to exotic...why not a normal place with normal people?”

“Where’s the fun in that? This is a mini vacation for us so why not enjoy it?” he laughed.

“Well, you guys can go ahead and leave but I’m going to explore around here some. Maybe get some hiking in.”

They looked back and forth at each before smiling back at me. “No, we came here together, we’ll stay together,” Lexie hugged my neck.

“Thanks!” I beamed. We started walking down the road when the painful sensation hit again. I grabbed onto my head and squeezed tightly as I screamed out from the mounting pain in my head.

“Dev, calm down. You’ll get through this, okay?” Kellin was rubbing my back. “I need you to slow down and take deep breaths. It only lasts for a minute or two,” he said in a smooth straight voice.

I bit down on my tongue as I tried to force myself to slow down and stop screaming. I took deep breaths that brought on tears. “This...hurts...so...damn bad!” I gritted out.

“I know. Just another week or so and then you’ll be completely done with the flashbacks and the memory surges,” he replied as he knelt down beside me.

My vision hollowed out as the memory came. I was on the phone talking to someone while I drove. He warned me to be safe. I was headed to meet him and some others at a bar. I hit a nail strip laid out by someone else.

That guy drug me out of the car and eventually killed me. My whole murder was pieced together, for the most part. I closed my eyes as the tears began to trickle down my face. When I looked up, things started to make more sense. The bend in the road, the skid marks on the asphalt...the tree I hit. “Oh my God, Lexie,” I gasped out and quickly brought my hands to my mouth.

“What? What did you see!?”  They all gathered around me.

“This is it. This is where it happened.” I glanced over the road and the tree that was bent with large scrapes of bark missing.

“Where what happened?”

“My murder.”

“Dev, you can't dwell on that anymore. Seriously, you're getting out of control with it. It's over. You're dead. What are you planning on doing when you find out? You can't hurt him. You can't even get a message out to him. Look, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Let's just go.” She grabbed my hand to pull me away.

I stood still and didn't budge. “No. What if he has another woman? What if he's killed again? I need to know and you can either come with me and support me or you can go back and be assholes.”

They stood there quietly and looked back and forth at each other. “Fine, we'll go with you. We do support you but you need to know nothing good can come out of this.”

“Well, after I bring back Kale it'll all be gone anyways. Can't I just know for a day what really happened?” Tears filled my eyes again. I still didn't understand how I was able to cry down there and not up at the In-Between.

Kellin took my hand. “Well, let's go.”

I smiled up at him. “Thanks.”

The four of us headed off into the woods and just walked around for hours it seemed. I inhaled smoke from a fire. “We must be getting close to that cabin.” We kept going in the direction of the smell until the soft glow from a cabin was in front of us. There was nothing special about it. It was a medium sized cabin with a small front porch and rotting rocking chair on it. The windows were covered so we couldn't see inside. As we got closer, I could hear the muffled cries of a woman inside. “Holy shit, he does have someone in there!” I bolted through the door and ran inside. Although he couldn't see us, I could move objects and make him aware of our presence.