Requiem (15 page)

“
Oh,” I said, deflated.
“I’m five-feet-four, Jared. How is it even possible I could have
even an ounce of giant blood in me?”

Jared chuckled. “You’re Irish, too. Makes me
wonder how you’re Merovingian. They were leaders of the
Franks…early German and French.”

“
Well, now I know Jack was
wrong. I couldn’t be French. The language is lost on
me.”

Jared’s face turned grave. “We should take
this seriously, Nina. We’re in the middle of a war. If I could
leave you, that would be one thing, but I can’t.”

My mouth flew open. “Why would you even say
that?”

“
Because it's the right
thing to do...disappear from your life to keep you safe. As long as
we're together, you're in danger.”

“
I won't let you,” I said,
grabbing his shirt,. The thought of being without him terrified me.
“If I can't be with you, I don't care what happens to
me.”

Jared grabbed my hands. “I know. That's why
I won't leave you. And now that we know what you are, we need to
find out who it’s a threat to. And as frightening as it
is…threatening Hell is the better option.”

Chapter Eight

Valediction

An unexpected knock on the door revealed Bex
standing on the landing, holding a half-eaten apple. A backpack
hung from his shoulder, signaling that he would be staying the
night.

“
You called him, didn’t
you?” I accused Jared, crossing my arms.

Jared slipped on his jacket, preparing to
leave. “You’ve had a long forty-eight hours. You need sleep.” He
hugged me then, squeezing a bit too tight.

Bex shifted his weight nervously, holding
the door open with one hand, holding his apple with the other.

“
C’mon, Nina. You’re going
to give me a complex,” Bex said. “I brought doves to put in the
oven.” A sweet, hopeful smile lit his face, and I
relaxed.

“
Okay,” I said with a
half-grin.

Jared patted Bex's arm as he passed, but
just as he stepped out onto the landing, I grabbed his jacket.
“Wait. What if it’s different? What if he needs to tell me
something?”

“
Who?” Jared asked, his
attention focused.

“
Gabe. Or Jack. We’ve
learned a lot today, maybe the dream will change.”

Jared and Bex traded glances, and then Jared
sighed. “Tomorrow.”

“
I didn’t think we have
time to spare,” I countered.

“
We don’t,
but….”

“
I’m right. You know I'm
right. So stay,” I said, pulling him into the loft.

Jared pointed at his brother. “Don’t go
anywhere.”

Bex shook his head, and then shut the door
behind us. “No way…I wanna see this.”

“
Great, now I’m a circus
freak,” I said, making my way to the table. Jared pulled out my
chair and I sat, taking his hand and kissing his palm in
appreciation. We had spent the last two days together, yet I felt I
hadn’t seen him at all.

Jared sat across from me with a smile. “You
are far from a circus freak. You’re amazing. Big difference.”

“
Watching me float and
scream is not amazing,” I grumbled.

“
You only floated once,”
Bex pointed out, unwrapping the dove and seasoning it before
shoving the baking dish into the oven.

We discussed the possibilities for over an
hour: how I could do things in my sleep that I couldn't do in a
conscious state.

“
It doesn't matter how.
What is important is why,” Jared said.

“
It matters to me,” Bex
said.

“
You're going to overcook
your birds,” Jared said, nodding to the oven.

Bex jumped up, tending to dinner. He placed
our plates of tender, steaming dove and mixed vegetables in front
of us, and then returned quickly with his own. “I’ve got to figure
out how to do that. If she can do it, we have to be able to do it,
right?” he said to Jared, shoveling meat into his mouth.

“
She’s not doing it, Bex,”
Jared said. His eyes darted from me to Bex in warning. It was clear
he didn’t want to dwell on the subject during dinner.

“
Oh. Right,” Bex said,
chewing.

After I finished the diner dishes, I
retreated to the downstairs tub, lingering long enough to let my
fingers transform to dried raisins, and then I wrapped myself in my
favorite terry cloth robe, making my way to the bed. Jared was
waiting for me, his hair still wet from the shower. I crawled under
the sheet next to him, relaxing my cheek against his bare
chest.

I breathed him in, focusing on the moment we
were in, bathing in the gift of peace and stillness. No one spoke
of Others or giants. Just us, in our quiet space in time. It was in
those moments that I found Heaven, and he was there with me, I
could tell, as he pulled me in closer.

“
I’m right here,” he
breathed. “Nothing bad will happen to you, I swear it.”

“
Don’t swear,” I grinned,
my eyes growing heavy. That heaviness rested over my entire body,
warm and inviting. Jared’s skin felt like a silky electric blanket
against mine, and I let myself sink into it. Any light that seeped
through my eyelids extinguished, letting the darkness take me
deeper into oblivion.

“
Nina,” a voice said
somewhere in the shadows.

“
I’m here,” I said
sleepily.

“
You’ve really done it this
time.”

“
Daddy?” I said, sitting
up. I was in my old bedroom. Jack sat at the foot of my bed. He was
as I remembered him, his salt and pepper hair perfectly in place,
his dark, no-nonsense eyes looking softly upon me, clean-shaven and
in his favorite gray suit.

He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I’m sorry
I failed you. You’ll have to save yourself, now.”

My lower lip quivered. “Why didn’t you tell
me?”

Jack placed his thick hand on my ankle, his
expression pained. “I tried, many times. I couldn’t bear to see
those sweet eyes sad. I wanted you to have everything, Nina; most
of all a normal life.”

I smiled. “I hope it’s nice where you are,”
I said, my eyes burning from the salty tears lining my lower
lashes.

“
The only thing missing is
you.”

I laughed once, and looked down to my hands.
“I wish you were really here. I need you.”

“
Find the book, Nina,” Jack
said. The change of his voice made me look up. His chin was
lowered, and he looked at me from under his brow—the way he always
had when he wanted me to listen.

“
Daddy?” I said, seeing
movement behind him, slowly approaching us from the
darkness.

Shax strolled into the light. His black eyes
hadn’t changed.

“
It’s time to wake up,
Nina,” Jack said with an apologetic expression.

I glowered at Shax. “No,” I said, anger
bursting from every pore in my skin.

Shax’s head cocked to the side like an
animal. “What is she to us, Jack? Why do you protect her so?”

“
Because she’s my
daughter,” Jack said firmly, standing. He walked to the bedroom
door, and then turned to face Shax, his hand on the knob. “You’ve
underestimated my family many times, Beast. This time may be your
last.”

Shax waved him away, and a loud noise forced
me to cover my ears. Misshapen arms exploded through the door,
throwing splintered wood onto the floor and my covers. Before I
could recover from the noise, Jack was pulled through the door.
Only traces of his blood on the door jamb and carpet had been left
behind.

“
No!” I screamed, reaching
out from my bed.

Shax took a step closer, and I recoiled.

“
Stay away from me,” I
said, looking around the room for something to use to defend
myself.

Shax lurched forward, his wild, black eyes
and sharp features inches from my face. I scampered back, first
against the head of my bead. Panicked, I continued to crawl
backward away from him, and found myself half- way up the wall.

Shax stood, looking up at me. He smiled with
his crooked mouth and perfectly white teeth. “Running will get you
nowhere, Precious. We know what you are.”

He jumped, landing on all fours on the wall.
My arms and legs couldn’t move fast enough as I climbed backward up
the remainder of the wall. Shax's arms and legs made quick, jerking
movements as he moved slowly toward me. His body looked twisted and
unnatural.

When I realized I was on the ceiling,
looking down at my bed, I closed my eyes.

“
Wake me up, Jared! Wake
me
up
!”

I opened my eyes, and I was back at the
loft. Jared, Bex, and the bed were all twelve feet below me.

“
Agh
!” I screamed as I fell face-down onto the bed.

“
I’ve gotta learn how to do
that!” Bex said, jumping once with excitement.

Jared immediately turned me onto my back.
“Nina?” he said, brushing my hair from my face.

“
I’m fine,” I said,
angry.

“
That…was creepy,” Jared
said, scanning me with his dark-blue eyes.

“
She was like Spiderman!
That was freakin’ incredible!” Bex said. “I bet I can do that. I’m
going to try.”

“
We can’t float or climb
walls,” Jared said through his teeth. The skin around his eyes was
tight with worry.

“
But she’s human! Even if
she’s influenced, if she can do it, we must be able to!”

Jared’s brows pulled in. “What
happened?”

I took a breath. “Jack was there.”

“
And Gabe?”

“
No, but Shax came. He said
he knew what I was. Jack said that Shax had underestimated our
family before. He said to get the book.”

Jared nodded. “That’s the plan.”

“
I think he meant now,” I
said, feeling a sense of urgency.

Jared looked to Bex, who was looking around
the loft, listening.

“
Bex?” Jared
said.

Bex nodded.

“
We all need to pack a few
things,” Jared said. “We’re going to be gone for a couple of days.
I want to be in the car and ready to go in five
minutes.”

Jared's and Bex's forms turned obscure as
they raced around the room at impossible speed, and I immediately
pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, and then shoved my bare
feet into sneakers. Jared held the door open for me as I pulled my
hair back into a ponytail. The iron steps knocked and echoed with
my footsteps alone, although Bex was in front of me, with Jared
following behind.

Bex threw our bags into the back of the
Escalade, and then froze. He looked into the air, waiting for
something.

“
Are they coming?” I
whispered.

Jared paused, and then took a step toward
the loft. “No,” he whispered.

Bex shook his head. “They’re here.”

Jared left me, then. My eyes barely kept up
with his blurry form sprinting into the loft.

“
What…?” I said. Bex moved
in front of me in a protective stance, and then gasped.

The building exploded. Multiple balls of
fire rolled into the sky. Debris shot toward Bex and me, and he
turned his back to the explosion, shielding my body from the blast.
I crawled out from under him, seeing the bright orange glow of heat
and smoke that used to be our home.

“
No!” I wailed, reaching
over Bex. I knew trying to escape from him grip was futile, but the
explosion had happened less than a second after Jared had reached
the stairs, and I was desperate to get to him.

I looked up to Jared’s little brother. His
eyes were wide. He clearly didn’t know what to think. We waited
there, and even though the fire roared before us, everything was
silent.

I waited for Jared to emerge from the
rubble. Every second that passed seemed like an eternity, and panic
began to overwhelm any rational thought I tried to have.

“
Come on, Jared,” Bex said,
his grip on my arms a bit tighter.

“
Go get him,” I demanded,
my voice broken and shaking.

“
I have to stay here with
you,” Bex said. He seemed confused and in shock.

I pushed at Bex. “He’s in
there somewhere! Go
get
him!” I screamed.

Bex grabbed each side of my
face, looking deep into my eyes. “They are
here
, Nina. They’re all around us. I
can’t leave you.”

“
Good kid,” Jared said from
behind us. His hair and clothes were singed, his face covered in
soot, and the skin on his cheek bone was scraped and bleeding, but
he was alive.

He held up two dusty picture frames; one
with the black and white picture of me he took the day he fell in
love with me, the other of us playing at the beach in Little
Corn.

“
Don’t do that to me ever
again!” I yelled, balling up my fists, and landing them straight
into Jared’s chest.

He wrapped his arms around me tightly. “I’m
sorry. I realized what was about to happen, and I had to go. These
pictures were the only things in the loft I couldn’t lose.”

We turned to watch at our home fall in
defeat to the fire. The beams creaked as they gave way, and glowing
ash was thrown into the sky, floating all around us. My eyes poured
out rivers of tears. I’d never realized how much I loved the loft
until I witnessed it dying in front of me. Memories of our first
date, listening to our song for the first time, cooking together,
laughing, watching Claire and Bex grow a little more each time they
entered the front door. It was all gone; reduced to cinders.