Fierce Dawn (5 page)

"Promise me one thing." He must be insane. However, Lyric nodded solemnly and the noose around their options closed. "Leave her be until I decide."

Holly's shoulders sagged a notch. Relief hushed from her every pore. As far as Elijah was concerned, she should feel the opposite.

Even if they changed Sadie, what would become of her? What would her life be like after, not born to the second realm
,
but no longer part of her own? He thought of Orena, of how much she suffered because of the stigma of her birth. How was this different?

"Swear to me you’ll wait," he said and faced the building’s ledge. He didn't wait for a reply. The last sliver of sunlight vanished under the horizon as Elijah spread his wings and stepped off the rooftop.

~ ~ ~

Chapter Three

Sadie’s sandal thunking the waiting room chair filled the silence like a broken wind chime. Heather, her sister and “advocate,” glanced up from the Redbook and poked Sadie. “Stop squirming.”

Feeling all of twelve instead of twenty-two, Sadie planted her feet on the thin carpet. The stillness in her body sent her mind into activity. The cart catastrophe with Elijah replayed in her mind a millionth time. Her face flashed hot. What a disastrous first impression. She had to get a second chance somehow. But if he never came back like Ben said….
d
amn it.

Sadie gave into her foot’s urge to wiggle just the tiniest bit. She’d have to die of embarrassment later. Time to focus on appearing functional. She had to give good, long answers. And keep her mouth shut about the dreams. Especially about the dreams.

If only their mother’s death hadn’t upturned her world so drastically. She’d never have had to go through all this therapy crap.

“
Sadie, please?” Heather gritted out.

Sadie stilled her foot. Who cared if she fidgeted? The vacant
-
eyed receptionist sure wouldn’t. Besides, Sadie couldn’t help it. She had about as much talent for waiting as for keeping secrets.

Two years ago, Heather would have been the first person to know all about Elijah. The crush, today’s wreck, even the dreams. Sadie missed that. “I hate this,” she mumbled.

“
Hmm?” Heather said.

Much as she would like to face Dr. Meyers alone, she couldn’t leave Heather out of the sessions. They’d made a deal. Heather got to sit in, Sadie got to move out. “Nothing.”

Not showing
up
at all, and the thought crossed her mind every single day, would worsen matters. Matters had gotten good. Sadie was making progress. She had her job. Better yet, she actually liked her job and felt somewhat respectable doing it. The minor detail that Jen got her the job no longer bothered her. Neither did
not
getting paid for it. After all, their mom’s su
r
prise trust fund took care of the bills.

“
I have to drop something off for Remy so I can give you a ride home,” Heather said, flipping another glossy page.

“
Um, no thanks.”

“
Don’t tell me you’d rather ride the bus.”

Sadie shrugged.

“
Don’t
be silly. In this heat?”

“
It’s only eighty
-
eight today.”

“
I swear, if it were anyone else offering, you’d say yes.”

“
That’s not true.” Sadie loved her sister and disliked confrontation, but the bus ride home shed the ick dissecting her life troweled upon her. She would fight for it. “I like taking the bus.”

“
That’s bizarre, Sadie.” Heather tossed the magazine aside. “And I don’t believe you.”

Sadie glared at Heather who was scowling into space instead of at the magazine. Some bangs would do wonders to hide all those forehead wrinkles. Twenty-one going on forty.

Sadie crossed her ankles around each chair leg and fingered a lock of hair forward. Winding the length again and again into a coil, she asked, “How’s Remy?” She liked her brother-in-law, Remy. He kept Heather’s smothering in check.

“
Fine,” Heather said, eyeballing her watch.

The receptionist’s phone beeped. Sadie’s stomach clutched. It was time.

Taking a breath, she rose. Focus on work. On getting more shifts. Ask about lowering her dosages again, omitting the fact that she already had. Nothing about Elijah or secret messages. Or any of the canvases three paintings deep in the garage, to be safe, because that would scare Heather and might then lead to
who
she’d been painting. Sadie’s heart palpitated just thinking of losing her job, her room at Jen’s, her garage studio.

Her normal.

She was normal again. A fleck of ultramarine paint under her forefinger nail snagged her attention. Crap. The disaster with Elijah had made her forget to scrub them again.

Had Heather noticed?

“
Good afternoon, ladies.” A fish tank bubbled quietly from the right. A brass and rock fountain gurgled to the left. Dr. Meyers, center, settled her slender fingers onto the pad on her lap. Her elegant eyebrows rose with her smile, as always.

Sadie took her usual position on the sofa. Heather took the chair. The scented plug-in job had been refilled. Clean linen? Dr. Meyers remained silent. Heather followed suit. Sadie deplored these silences most. They gonged at her brain. Who would talk first? She would. She always caved first. And Dr. Meyers would lull her and charm the secrets from Sadie’s lips, no matter how hard she pressed them together.

She stared at the fountain, blocking out memories of ultramarine eyes and gossamer wings. His mouth grazing her neck, her pulse beating so hard, two gauzy blue wings creating a canopy over their naked entwined bodies
—
no! Back to reality. She ignored the shiver in her belly threatening to travel too far below. Reality was the water, the fountain, Heather’s impatient foot. At least Elijah hadn’t had wings in real life.

She’d come in half expecting him to. They’d been that real.

“
Sadie?”

She sat up straighter. “Yes?”

“
You painted today?” Dr. Meyers asked.

“
Painted?” Sadie hid her nails. A sane, functional person did not go about unkempt, unwashed, or with gobs of oil paint under her fingernails, artist or not.

Dr. Meyers gestured a finger down her cheek. Automatically, Sadie followed suit. A rough and flaky texture met her fingertips. “Oh, that.”

“
Oh, that, Sadie?” Heather said. “You’re painting again and you know we have reason to be concerned over it. Acting like it’s nothing will not take away the truth of the matter—“

Dr. Meyers held up a quieting hand. “Yes, Sadie. That.” She smiled patiently. “It’s blue.”

The light over the tank glared like a spotlight, too close, exposing her. Sadie scooted over a little. “I’m not manic.”

Heather shook her head, rolling her eyes.

“
I’m not. I painted a little before work.” The wings had given her trouble. She couldn’t get the sheer gauzy texture right. The impossibly thinned paint simply failed to capture his wings’ wispy feel. So light and thin, yet a solid shield. “Not obsessively at all.”

Sadie would not be perceived as some crazy, eccentric artist. No severed ears, so help her. “Totally normal painting.”

“
Alright.” Dr. Meyers’ eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “How’ve you been sleeping?”

Oh no. These weren’t the usual questions. “Eight or nine hours, I suppose,” Sadie said. Painting? Sleep? How did she change the subject without alarming them?

“
That’s sounds like an adequate amount.” Dr. Meyers set her chin to her hand, her lips remained a soft near-smile. Like a parent with a child. Knowing. “How would you describe the quality of the sleep itself?”

Did she look tired? Had Heather been calling in, reporting on her? Jen certainly wouldn’t. Jen treated her as normal as anyone ever had. In the hospital, Jen had brought gossip magazines and Starbucks. No eggshells, no tip-toes.

“
Average?” Sadie hedged, hating how clearly it rang like a guess.

“
This isn’t a test, Sadie,” Heather said, her fear thinly veiled.

Guilt slid down
to
the pit of her stomach. She’d let her little sister down two years ago, succumbing to a bizarre certainty that something was inside of her, trying to get out.

Or maybe she’d just decided to check out.

“
A restful sleep is vital to managing stress,” Dr. Meyers said. “If you are not getting sufficient rest, we need to know so we can help.”

Sadie merely nodded in response, afraid to speak. Sleep…dreams. The desire to tell Dr. Meyers everything, up to and including today’s cart incident, itched up her throat. She craved telling someone. Anyone. Even with Heather right there to hear it all and panic for Sadie all over again. Elijah. Another shiver raced inside her, the image of his eyes boring into hers. If only she could tell. But they would assume the worst.

Biting her lips, she averted her eyes. The encouragement shining from Dr. Meyers’ gaze tempted her too much. She fought through her thoughts for something else to grasp onto, to wrangle her attention away from shivers and glorious wings. “Heather wants me to move back in with her and Remy.”

Dr. Meyers gave a slight aha nod. Like, aha, so that’s what’s causing all this evasiveness and squirming. Sadie smoothed her hair, wishing she’d brought a pony
tail
holder. She’d been rushing; her time always vanished when she painted. “How do you feel about that?”

Sadie scratched at her cheek. The paint was not coming off. “What do you mean by feel?”

“
Do you want to move back in with your sister and brother-in-law, Sadie?”

What if Jen had seen her painting and had told Heather and then Heather had called the office and told Dr Meyers and this was all a trap? “She thinks my painting is like with our mom’s. Except it’s not.”

“
But it has been.”

“
Once. Only once.” She leveled her gaze at her shrink. “I only paint canvas.”

“
Mom painted canvas.”

“
Yeah. And the walls, and the ceiling and the carpet. The inside of the oven.”

“
We were discussing moving back in with Heather,” Dr. Meyers said, a hand up toward Heather. “And if you wanted to.”

“
God, no. I don’t want to.” She didn’t have to look to know it hurt Heather. She could feel it in a wave emanating off of her sister’s slight frame. “I like living with Jen.” She loved it. Jen gave her space, acres of it. Jen cooked. Jen stayed up late and sat around in pajamas all day and didn’t look at her with anxious eyes if Sadie sat around in pajamas, too.

Maybe she could tell Jen about Elijah. Would Jen get it?

“
I see.” Dr. Meyers motioned to stay Heather’s protest. She always had a pen, always a pad of paper
,
but never any notes. Props. Have paper, will document. Take care with what we say. “Can you think of any reason Heather would be prompted to ask you to come back?”

Heather could want her to come back for a gazillion different reasons. “Most likely, it’s the usual. I want to get off the medication. She doesn’t.” Aside from a lengthy analysis of the mothering role her sister took on and the importance of weaning and balancing and setting goals. They’d all been over and over it. “It’s like she needs me to be sick.”

“
Sadie knows that’s not true and she knows why,” Heather said. “And my reasons haven’t changed. They are the same reasons I didn’t want her to move out. I want what’s best for Sadie.”

“
I can’t paint at Heather’s.” Painting. Elijah. His ruddy sienna eyes, unforgettable from the first moment across the re-shelving counter, in dreams became a fathomless azure, amid a slew of impossible blues. A dance of dusky kisses. He had a secret to entrust. She couldn’t tell a soul.

Sadie could feel the dream still. So vivid.

Her throat ached even now. She had to steer the conversation elsewhere. “Heather should have a baby,” Sadie blurted out. “If she had a child to fuss over, she would worry less about me.”

She saw the sting in her sister’s hazel eyes. Regret punched through her. Too close to the truth, she knew, but if she revealed the truth, what would they do?

Dr. Meyers tilted her head, her pen suspended mid tap. “Has Heather discussed wanting children?”

Sadie winced. “Yes.”

Heather crossed her arms. She’d confided the very private business to Sadie today under sworn secrecy. She sent Heather an apologetic glance, wishing she could understand. Heather wasn’t having it. Hot anger burned in her stare.

“
Do you feel like her child?” Dr. Meyers asked.

Yes. “Sometimes.”

“
I’m not mothering. I’m her sister.”

“
She forgets that I was once every bit as independent and capable as her. More so, even.” That fact rankled her most. Sadie was older by almost two years yet, suddenly, in the wake of one night two years ago, Heather’s maturity had grown overblown. She already wanted children!