Sapphires and Desires (The Gem Fairy Series Book 1) (3 page)

“Hello?” I say shakily, I’m shivering from the cold.

No answer.

I reach for my cell phone in my pocket just to realize that it’s gone. All I’m wearing is a skimpy nightgown or dress. No pockets. What the hell.

I can see a dim light a ways away and I begin walking towards it. Am I still in the hospital? If so, why is it so dark and cold? I remember the morgue and my heart skips a beat.

“Hello?!” I call out louder this time.

No answer. Oh crap. I debate walking towards the light. Am I dead? Is it
the
light? I muffle a corrupted laugh. Who am I kidding? I don’t believe in heaven. Do I?

I make my way towards the light as fast as my sore legs can handle. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a year.

When I finally make it to the source of the light it reveals itself as a doorway. Sort of. It’s an opening. An opening that looks out over what looks like a forest. I am above a forest some sort of cave. How in the hell did I end up here? I lose the fright that wracks my body and replace it with confusion. I’m wearing a hospital gown.

What’d they do, air transfer me to another hospital and the plane crashed in this dumb forest? It
would
be my luck but I somehow very highly doubt that that’s what’s happened seeing as the last thing I remember is being put into the morgue. Is this heaven?

I try to think of a forest even near the city or one between Philly and my hometown, nothing like this forest which more than anything resembles a rain forest and surely I’m not suddenly in South America. I must be dreaming, I figure. I look down at my attire to see the hospital gown flapping in the wind and sigh.

“
She’s gone.”
A man’s voice invades my memory. The doctor. Could I be…
dead
? Could this be afterlife?

No. How ridiculous. I’ve never believed in the afterlife. I believe that we die and go into the dirt. Don’t I? Suddenly I’m questioning everything I’ve ever believed.

I feel a tear escape my eye. Even up high on this cliff I cannot see a single building or road, just trees, trees and more trees...

I look down the cliff I’m on top of and into the forest below. It’s a big drop. How am I going to get down?

I inspect all of the ledges carefully and find one that might just work. I mean I might just be able to climb to the bottom without killing myself. I wonder, if I go back into the cave, if there’s another entrance out. But then again, it’s dark in there, pitch black and who knows what’s in there. Bears? Not to mention, I’m terrified of the dark. I’d rather just take my chances.

I kneel on the ground and push my legs out and off the cliff feeling for a ledge to rest one of my feet on.

After a bit of feeling around and testing, I find a ledge, put my foot on it and then repeat the process with my other foot.

It takes a significant amount of time but I eventually make it to the bottom alive. I look at my palms to assess the damage I’ve caused, expecting them to be raw and bloody from clutching the sharp rock.

They’re bloody alright. I spit on my gown and rub one of my hands on it to clean it. 

I turn around to face the forest. It’s tall. I mean I’ve never seen such tall trees in my life. It’s almost scary.

I grab a large stick from underneath a tree and begin my trek into the forest. The stick is for in case I run into any large animals that I need to bop on the head. I’m not much of a nature fanatic. I mean I did girl scouts growing up but that wasn’t much. I playfully swing the stick around like a ninja as I walk through the brush. Like I said earlier, I’d rather laugh than cry. Making the best out of bad situations is the best way to live. I mean I have to smile a little or things will just get worse, right? Even if the cause of my smile is pretending to be a ninja, good thing no one else is around…that I know of...

I find it eerily quiet. There are no birds singing, or chipmunks squeaking, nothing. It is nearly completely silent except for the sounds of my footfalls.

I wish I had a phone to call for help, then again, I doubt I’d have service.

I eventually come to a small creek and take a seat to wash off. I’m sweating like nuts. It’s not cold like it was in the cave. The sun is hot and it’s muggy like a greenhouse under the canopy of the trees. I take off my hospital gown and soak it in water before putting it back on. The water is chilly and refreshing. I next soak my tangled hair in it.

I long to drink it but don’t want to get some sort of parasite or something. I soon carry on and skip across the small creek.

After a good part of the day passes without any progress I decide that it’s time to stop walking before it gets dark. I need to build some kind of camp. I gather some long branches and lean them up against a tree sort of like a teepee. Then I throw in a bunch of leaves hoping to make it a little comfy. By the time I’m finished, I’m starving. Thing is, I walked all day and didn’t see a single animal of any sort so hunting is out of the picture, not that I’d be able to hunt anything anyway. All I have is this dumb stick for a weapon. Luckily I have seen quite a few berry bushes. Of course, who’s to know which ones are deadly poisonous and which ones aren’t but I can’t help but to take a chance, it’s better than starving.

After about five minutes of walking I find one and pull as many berries as I can off the tree and shove them into my mouth. They taste like cherry sort of but they don’t have a pit.

I throw a few extra into a giant leaf from one of the trees and wrap them up in it for later before turning around to find my camp. I left a trail of sticks stuck in the ground to find my way back but they’re hard to find when everything is green and brown and it’s getting dark. I eventually find it and curl up in my little fort. Thankfully it’s still hot and I don’t need to attempt to build a fire. That’d be interesting, me rubbing sticks or stones together, I wonder if that even really works.

As I lay here it gets dark and becomes impossible to see. God I hate the dark. I wish I had some sort night light or something. Eventually I drift off into a deep, exhausted sleep.

It’s what feels like hours later, but could quite possibly only be minutes, I’m so tired it’s impossible to tell, when I wake up to a rustle in the trees and my heart nearly stops. I hold my breath attempting to be as quiet as possible. I pray that whatever it is can’t see in the dark.

I’m sure that my eyes are big as saucers as I scan the darkness hoping to make something out.

The rustling gets closer and my hand grips my stick weapon tightly.

“What’re you gonna do, whack me with that?” A rough, British male voice mocks.

Everything goes black…again. Oh, for Christ sakes.

Chapter 3

I wake up freezing again. I better not be in the morgue or in that stupid cave again though I’m not sure which would be worse. I mouth a cuss and realize that I can move, that’s a good sign, I’m probably not in the hospital. I close my eyes and focus on any sound I can pick up. Am I alone? When my feet hit the ground I recognize the feeling of the cold stone floor of the cave. I start towards the light again.

Who was that man in the woods? What did he do to me? Is he the one that brought me here in the first place?

I just can’t seem to understand how I got from the hospital, to a cave in a forest. It makes absolutely no sense.

There goes an entire day of walking for nothing. As much as I hate to have to climb down the cliff again, I’d rather not risk running into that man again. He could either be my savior or my kidnapper and I’m about to wait to find out the latter.

This time as I rush out into the sunlight and sit on same ledge I did yesterday about to push myself off and begin climbing down, I hear the shuffle of feet on the rock cave floor behind me.

“Stop! You could kill yourself climbing down that!”

It’s the man. I debate heaving myself over the edge but decide against it. He’s obviously not about to kill me, I realize. If he was, why would I still be alive? He could’ve killed me last night. Of course I’m still skeptical. Is he a rapist? A psycho? What does he want? Or is he really just trying to help me?

“Who are you?” I demand remaining on the edge ready to push myself over it at any moment. I mentally try to remember where I put my foot the last time in case I need to hurry down. I mean, like he was going to be stupid and risk his own life to follow me down the cliff. Surely, there was a better way of getting down to the forest only hopefully it would take longer and by then, I would be long gone.

“Stand up and I’ll tell you,” he offers.

I debate it but shake my head.

“No,” I answer. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Oh, now you want me to answer two questions? Quite the gal you are,” he mocks.

I steal a look behind me. I should probably know what my captor looks like so I know who I’m running from. I meet eyes hidden by sunglasses. He is a man give or take about my age of 22. He has light blonde hair that blows slightly in the light breeze. He’s dressed rather fashionably for running around in the forest. He wears a leather jacket and dark jeans. I gawk awkwardly. He’s
sexy
. Like drop dead gorgeous.

He laughs slightly. “Fine. My name is Damon.”

“Who are you?” I ask again.

“I just told you, silly girl.”

“What do you want?” I try again.

Nothing, he just stares at me blankly.

“Why am I in a forest?” I try. He has to tell me
something
helpful.

“You are here in this forest because you decided to drive your automobile off a bridge and into a river.” He says almost sounding irritated. He pulls a hand from his jacket pocket and pulls out a silver chain with a very large blue pendant and twiddles it between his fingers. I’m no jewelry expert but to me it looks like a gigantic sapphire.

“What does driving my car into a river have to do with being in a forest?” I ask confused.

He raises an eyebrow. “Everything of course. Maybe if you stand up and step away from that ledge, I’ll tell you more. Obviously if I were the murderer you seem to think I am, I would’ve killed you by now.”

“Maybe you’re not a murderer, but maybe you’re something else. What do you want?” I feel my body shaking.

“Like what? What could I possible want from you, little girl?” He asks.

“First off, I’m not
little
, I’m 22. You could want money,” I say looking at the necklace in his hand, maybe he’s a thief. “Which I don’t have. I’m actually dirt poor…or maybe you’re some kind of psycho who likes to keep girls in caves for his own creepy amusement OR maybe you’re a rapist.” I throw in there gaging his reaction carefully.

To my surprise he starts laughing. Not like a subtle little laugh, he bursts out in loud insane laughter.

I roll my eyes, angrier than scared now. “Whatever, I’m out of here.”

“No, stop.” He says and immediately stops his laughter.

“Come with me. I want to show you something in the cave,” he turns and points.

“Right, because I’m going to follow some random creepy guy into a dark cave in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, right. I’m not stupid.”

He sighs and reaches into his other pocket. To my surprise he pulls out a gun. My heart leaps. Shit. Just as I’m about to escape over the edge, he raises his hands in surrender and gently places the gun onto the ground and then kicks the firearm to me.

“Take it and follow me,” he says returning his hands to his pockets. “It’s loaded, you can check. Be careful, the safety is off.”

I take the gun. I have no idea how to check and see if it’s loaded so I point the gun just left of the guy and pull the trigger. Sure enough a bullet springs through the barrel and smashes some of the rock beside the entrance to the cave. Why the hell would he give me a gun? Is he nuts? The noise scares me, I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be loaded.

“Jesus Christ, I said be careful!”

I get up slowly not letting my eyes leave him and nod towards the cave. “If I follow you, will you let me go?” I ask him.

“You know you could just shoot me and get away.”

I debate it but shake my head, “I need your help getting out of here.”

“So you could hold the gun to my head and make me tell you the way home.”

I sigh, he’s right. Why would he tell me that?

“Yeah, I could,” I threaten.

He just laughs again.

Is he psychotic?

“You wouldn’t be able to kill me. I think we both know that.”

I shrug. “If I had to save my own life, sure I could.”

“But your life isn’t in danger.”

I don’t know what to say. Why am I wasting my time with this guy? I mean I could kill him and get out of here but what has he really done to me? What if he’s just a guy that stumbled upon me and is helping me? Can I kill a man, not sure if he’s innocent or not? No, I can’t. Thanks, conscience.