Falling From Eternity (A Paranormal Love Story) (15 page)

“
This is where we first
met,” she said, a single tear falling down her cheek. She looked
toward her night stand, and I followed her gaze, my eyes landing on
a box of tissues. Finding that my legs still worked, I strode over
and grabbed them for her. I plucked a tissue from the box, and took
a seat on the bed beside her. There were a thousand words between
us, but not a single word was spoken. I wiped the tear from her
cheek, just soaking in her beauty.

“
Ya know, if you wanted me
in your room again you could have just asked,” I said, returning
her smile and hoping I could hear her laugh again.

“
I thought I did,” she
smirked at me as she tried to sit up. I helped her so we were
closer to eye level.

Several minutes passed by
as I stroked her hand and waited for her to explain what
happened;
if
she
even wanted to. But, I couldn’t be as patient as I wanted to be. I
needed to hear it from her that she really was alright.

“
How are you
feeling?”

“
Better,” her voice was as
sweet as ever, but it didn’t hide the exhaustion that was clearly
evident.

“
I’m sorry I had you out
so late. If I would have known it was too cold for you I wouldn’t
have taken you out. We could have stayed in. Do you forgive me?”
The guilt was tumbling in my gut like a cement truck.

“
There’s nothing to
forgive,” she replied, squeezing my hand. “If anything, I should be
apologizing to you.” I raised my eyebrows at her. “William, there
is something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you a
long time ago.”

“
You can tell me
anything.” I scooted closer, squeezing her hand to reassure my
words. There was nothing she could do or say that would ever change
how I felt about her. She was the living symbol of all the good I
struggled to find within.

“
I hope so,” she whispered
to herself, but unbeknownst to her, I had impeccable hearing. “I
didn’t come here because I missed Hazel. Well, not
just
because.”

“
Is it because of your
parents?” I asked, thinking they must have something to do with it.
The way she refused to talk about them had to have some
meaning.

“
No.” She shook her head.
“I came here because I’m sick, William.”

“
What do you mean
sick?”

“
I have a hole…in my
heart,” she said, completely numb. She unbuttoned the top of her
nightdress, opening it to reveal a long thick scar traveling down
between her breasts. She traced her index finger across it. “It’s
called Marfan Syndrome. Stupid name, huh?” I answered her question
with wide-eyed silence. “I wonder if they call it that so it
doesn’t sound as scary as it really is.”

“
What is it?” I asked,
squeezing her hand. I couldn’t take my eyes away from her scar. The
pain she must have endured broke my heart.

“
The arteries in my heart
are weak, causing them to rupture. That causes blood to travel away
from the heart. I’ve had to have parts of my aorta replaced. My
real problem was when that caused me to have an irregular
heartbeat. The rapid beating of my heart made it more likely to
tear again, and resulted in more surgeries.”

“
Oh, Autumn, I’m so
sorry.”

She sniffled a little, buttoning her
shirt up to hide the scar.

“
I don’t understand. Why
would you come
here
, the city has some of the best doctors?”

A laughed escaped her lips, but there
was no humor in it. “I’m not going back to them,” she said,
sternly. “I’m not going to let them stick me with needles, pump me
full of poisons and cut me up like some thanksgiving turkey
again.”

“
What did they do to you?”
I growled the words, ready to tear out those doctors
throats.

“
They did their job,” she
answered, sadly. I was still utterly confused, but I waited in
silence for her to go on. “I’ve been sick for a long, long time.
That’s how I met Hazel.” At the mention of her name, Autumn’s eyes
lit up.

“
I thought you said you
met her through church?”

“
I did. She helped take
care of me when my parents weren’t around; which was pretty much
all the time. She cooked, and cleaned, and even took me to
appointments. She was more of a parent than my own
were.”

“
She was a wonderful
person.” I missed my friend, and it warmed my heart to hear she
touched someone else’s life as much as she had mine.

“
When my parents were too
busy with their charity events, parties, and traveling the world;
she took care of me. To them I was just a burden; a stain on their
social status. My own mother wouldn’t even be seen with me. She
kept telling me that I was making myself sick, that I just wanted
attention. Sometimes I think I disgusted her; that I wasn’t living
up to the woman she wanted me to be.”

“
You’re perfect,” I said,
opening my heart. Her mother was the one that was disgusting, and I
planned on putting her name on the short list of people I would
kill if I ever turned back to my old ways. Of course I hoped that
would never happen, but one never knows.

“
Stop,” she blushed,
waving me off.

“
So, if you didn’t come
here because of Hazel, then why did you?” I asked, curiosity
getting the best of me.

“
I came here to
die.”

“
What?” I felt my lip
quiver at her words.

“
I’m tired, Will. I
thought if I came here I could spend my last days as close to Hazel
as I could get. She’s the only person that has ever loved me, and I
wanted to feel that again before…before I died.”

“
I…I don’t understand,” I
stammered violently, “you can’t die. You can’t!” I was begging her
as if she could control the very act herself.

“
I was at peace with it,
and I was happy. I was ready to say goodbye to everything, but I
wasn’t ready for you. I had accepted the hand that had been dealt
to me, but now…now I would give anything for more time. I just
wanted to know what it felt like to have a man look at me the way
you do.”

“
Let’s go back to the city
then! I’ll be there for you, Autumn, through everything. I’ll hold
your hand and we’ll get you better. I’ll stay with you for as long
as you’ll have me.”

She shook her head, new
tears spilling from her emerald eyes. “No, Will. Those…those
treatments took away who I was.” She rested her hand on her heart.
“All those medications, and…and the pain. If it’s my time then I
want to go as
me
.
Not as some drug induced, semiconscious lab rat. ”

“
This time is different
Autumn.”

“
There’s no guarantee that
it will even work, and I don’t want to go through that again. I
don’t want to put
you
through that.” The fact that she was trying to protect me
made tears build in my eyes.

“
I don’t care about me!” I
told her.

“
I do!” she shouted back,
and a fit of coughing overtook her. “This wasn’t how I wanted
things to be. I never thought I’d like you so much. I didn’t feel
like I was leaving anything behind when I was gone, but
you…”

“
I’m sorry.” It sounded
foolish to apologize but I didn’t know what else to say. All I
could think about was how I could change her mind. She couldn’t
really know what she was saying; she was just talking out of fear
from what happened at the restaurant. There was no way she was
really throwing in the towel, was she?

“
It’s my fault,” she said,
shrugging. “I kept away from people for a reason. It was easy with
my parents being the way they are.”

“
Autumn, do you really
want to give up? That doesn’t seem like you at all. Please just
try, for me.” I wasn’t ready to give up and I didn’t want her to be
either. We had something special, there was a definite connection;
an electricity between us and I desperately wanted to know where it
would go.

“
I don’t look at it as
giving up. I have been fighting this for years,
William.”

“
Then how do you look at
it?”

“
Giving up would mean
letting this illness rule my life and I don’t want to do that
anymore.” All I could do was shake my head at her. I couldn’t
decide whether I was furious with her or with her illness, but I
was convinced she didn’t really mean what she was
saying.

“
I refuse to accept that.
I’m not going to let you give up. You might think there’s no
guarantee that another surgery will work, but there’s also no
guarantee it won’t. Is there?”

“
Well…no…but…”

“
Alright then. I’m saving
you whether you like it or not, Autumn.” She opened her mouth to
protest, but I held up my hand to silence her. “No, there’s nothing
you can say to stop me.”

“
But, William!” she
pleaded with me as I stood up.

“
Nothing, Autumn,
nothing,” I told her sternly. I wasn’t going to hear any of it. I
had one mission, and right now that’s the only thing that
mattered.

“
Where are you going?” her
voice sounded more afraid than anything else. Fear of what
happened, fear that I knew the truth, or fear that she pulled me in
and I wouldn’t be able to let her go. Little did she know that
meeting me could possibly be the only thing that would save her.
Me! A murderous, blood thirsty, newly reformed, old vampire! The
one good thing about being what I was is that living such a long
life you meet
a lot
of people.
A lot!

As much as I hated it, there was one
individual in particular that had a very close connection with some
of the best doctors, and scientists in the country; if not the
world.

Ming.

He had searched everywhere to find the
best of the best to work in his blood bank. Not only did he have
the connection, but he also had the power and the money. The
question was; would he help me?

“
I’ve got calls to make,”
I winked at her before walking out of the room.

I had a mission, and absolutely no
time to waste. She gave me a teeny smile through her saddened
expression and I hoped she knew I meant every word. I wasn’t going
to give up on her. Everyone else in her life might have, but I
wouldn’t. I wasn’t just fighting for her life, but mine as well. I
knew that if I lost her I’d lose myself and there would be no
turning back from that.

~

10

Deal With The
Devil

Time was of the
essence,
but
trying to gain the devils favor wasn’t easy. Ming had refused
my every request to speak with him. Autumn was growing weaker each
and every day, and I was growing more desperate. The stress level
had increased my appetite ten-fold and with Ming ignoring me I had
no other choice than to find blood someplace else. In a matter of
weeks the wildlife population of Denton had been reduced
significantly.
But
, I did find that I much preferred feeding on animals than
microwaving the contents of refrigerated blood bags. Plus, drinking
live helped subdue my darker side and I hadn’t had a “fang out”
since the night Autumn fell ill, which was three weeks ago. The
more time I spent holding back the monster I was, the easier it was
becoming.

I knew it was time I gave
up on reaching out to Ming. It was time I
forced
him to listen. Autumn’s
health was slowly deteriorating, and I’d tried every other option I
could think of. I just couldn’t come up with the money, or find a
doctor that was willing to perform another risky surgery. It seemed
as though every time they looked at her file they immediately
turned me away. Back in my day doctors cared more about saving
people than worrying about the politics of health care. In as
little as one week I was thrown out of ten hospitals for causing a
scene. I wouldn’t call using every curse word in the book a scene,
or telling the last doctor he looked like the penguin from the
Batman movie, a scene. No, if they wanted a scene I could most
definitely give them one, but there wouldn’t be anything left of
them if I did.

With every doctor within a
nearly four-hundred mile radius either threatening to put a
restraining order against me, or press charges, I knew Ming was our
only chance. And that was why I was driving to his facility. I
would break the door down if I had to; he
would
see me.

Before leaving for the city I stopped
to see Autumn. She was actually more herself than she was most
days. I walked in with an armful of fresh flowers, to find her
sitting by the window painting. Her skin was paler than it ever
was, and her body thinner, but the illness hadn’t tarnished her
beauty. Those emerald eyes sparkled through her frail frame and
sunken cheeks as I stepped into the room. I spent the afternoon
with her as I always did, but today she was particularly
distracted; working on an artwork that she wouldn’t even let me get
a peek at. I pretended to be hurt by her secrecy, but in truth I
was happy to see her painting again. I knew she enjoyed it and if
she felt well enough to paint then maybe she was feeling better. It
was wishful thinking, but positive thoughts have been known to work
wonders. One of the few doctors who hadn’t kicked me out of their
office told me so. Unfortunately, they focused on spiritual
medicine and couldn’t do anything in the way of surgical
procedures, but they did offer a lot of insight on the power of the
mind. I couldn’t help but wonder if his techniques would work on me
as well. I wasn’t exactly sick, but there was a part of me that I
needed to learn to control. Mind over matter…or so they
say.