Forgotten (15 page)

“
I want to open your eyes
to a world you’ve forgotten, my dear Chronicler,” Jace whispered
and vigilantly wiped the damp hair away from my face.

Love poured from his words but hinted
of remorse too. A warning of what once was, as well as the unknown
future, was woven throughout his adoration. Mingling with Jace and
his friends, ensured my protection, but prophesied suffering. If my
visions were any hint of the future at all, my life was only going
to go downhill from here.

My cheeks burned from his touch. He
awakened a lost reminiscence, hiding within me. Watching his body
ignite for me, awakened a passion I couldn’t deny.

“
What are you?” I panted
when a red haze clouded my vision. Dark tears, blood, leaked from
my eyes.

“
A Healer,” he replied
softly and wiped the tears from my cheek. He inspected the liquid.
Something about it pleased him. Rubbing the dark liquid between his
thumb and forefinger, he turned his focus on me.

“
And you think I’m your
Chronicler?”

“
If not, you’re still one
of us,” he said. The ringing that blocked out everything except
from his voice escalated so loudly and quickly, it took every fiber
of my being not to scream. “And if I’m to do what I promised Deino,
you
must
willingly
give yourself to me.”

My eardrums crackled. He silenced the
ringing after caressing my ear and drew back blood. Placing his
palms over my ears, he recited a verse in his strange language. His
deep, methodical voice promised that he’d keep me safe even though
I was to endure suffering. His words caressed my soul just as they
tortured my body. The flickers of colorless fire intensified,
consuming us as he embraced me.

“
I’m not anybody important,
Jace,” I admitted.

“
I believe your sisters
would disagree with you.”

My body blistered apart like I was
being burned alive, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, and
couldn’t inhale. Jace held me. I was his prisoner. I was unable to
do anything while gawking at his daunting, yet beautifully
unattainable, sight. I looked where his eyes should have been –
utter colorlessness beckoned me.

“
Forgive me for all the
lost years,” he said, as I let go of consciousness.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

I awakened to the unmistakable scent
of chloroform. Charlie grunted in approval when I slapped his hand
away from my face. Why did I pass out? What happened? Then the
memory of Jace’s colorless fire devouring me, leaving my body cold,
surfaced I was immediately mentally and physically
exhausted.

Charlie kept asking if I was all
right, and if the punk kid I was with had hurt me. My replies were
barely audible, but I managed to tell him I’d simply overworked
myself. I don’t know if he believed me, but he left me alone once I
made my way to the girls’ locker room. Once inside, I stumbled out
of my clothes and turned on the shower faucet. I cherished the warm
water, as it dripped down my frozen body. I leaned against the
shower wall and pretended not to notice that the soapy water no
longer burned against the scrapes on my palms. When I fell on the
sidewalk after seeing the vision of the fallen angel, my palms were
covered in thick scrapes. Now they were nonexistent. Checking my
ears and eyes, I detected no blood residue. What kind of a sadistic
Healer was Jace?

After drying off, I changed into my
post-workout attire consisting of mesh shorts, a baggy sweat shirt,
and a light jacket. A cold breeze blew my hair out of my face as I
pushed through the gyms outside glass door. My cell rang. The
volume must have been reset, because I was pretty sure people in
China had heard it.

“
Where are you at?” Bree
demanded. Her voice carried absurdly loud. Maybe Jace had messed
with the settings while I’d passed out. “I’ve called like half a
million times! You were supposed to call me as soon as you were
done at KnockOuts.”

“
I didn’t mean literally,”
I mumbled and pulled my jacket tighter around me. A cold wind
penetrated through my mesh clothes. I couldn’t get warm!

“
You were hitting the bags
for five hours? It’s already a quarter to nine,” she said in an
accusative tone, that I was lying. “Ryker and his friends will be
ready to celebrate their big win.”

Staring intensely at the westward sun,
I assessed the usual brightness with what it normally looked like
at sunset. All the shapes, shadows, and light filtered like it
normally did at the end of the day, not when it was already
nightfall. My hearing was acting like it was on steroids, and now I
was seeing things more plainly. My anxiety peaked. I didn’t have to
say a word – Bree knew me well enough to know that something was
wrong.

“
I’ll be there in a shake,
Winnie.”

Sitting along the park bench, I
impatiently waited for my mind to piece back the last few hours of
my life: Library, Marco, KnockOuts, Jace. That couldn’t have taken
more than a couple hours total. I checked my voicemail; I had four
missed calls from Bree, one from Martha, and one from Hector. One
of Bree’s messages was a hang-up; another was an urgent message of
her demanding me to return her call, and the last was a two-minute
lecture about the hazards of ignoring her. Martha’s message was
time stamped at 4:10, asking me to make sure Elsie got home safe
since she had several errands to run. The last was from Hector,
apologizing for not being able to make it today because his
district manager dropped by for an unplanned visit to assess
quality.

I was half panicked and freezing cold
when Bree honked her horn twice, signaling her arrival. The horn,
along with the rumbling of the engine, made me want to plug my
ears. The sound of her shoes slapping against the pavement was
magnified tenfold.

She grabbed my hand and gasped.
“Winnie, you’re ice cold!”

My mouth dropped, as did my walking
stick. Her shadowy figure held definition. It was brief. Her thin
but perfectly shaped lips moved like she was speaking, but I heard
nothing. Bree’s curly, long hair, framed her oval face. Her slender
nose and high cheekbones led up to her full, bright eyes. Her
confused expression somewhat took away from the softness in her
face, but I saw the black and white version of my best friend! Just
as quickly as it came, the definition left me looking at her
mudded, dark shadow. I couldn’t believe it.

“
Winnie, are you okay?”
Bree asked loudly, like she’d been repeating herself.

I tried to tell her what I thought I
saw until my frontal lobes started working properly again. What was
I supposed to tell her? So, you know how I shouldn’t be able to see
white from black, well I sort of do. And after I let Jace improve
my tolerance – yeah, I don’t know what that means either –I just
saw your face.

“
I’m just a little dizzy,”
I replied, taking her hand, instead of opting for my fallen walking
stick. “The after game party is a no-go. Can you please take me
home?”

Bree nodded but didn’t say anything.
She didn’t believe me. Why would she? I didn’t believe me. We
walked to her noisy pick-up. I stared out the window, taking in the
way I saw the shapes of the people and buildings that flew by as
Bree sped to my place. Before I could ask if she could help me to
my room, Bree had her door open and was already walking around the
vehicle to help me inside. She might give me grief day in and day
out, but she was there when I needed her to be.

“
Hello, Bree,” Martha said,
when she saw us walking into the house. Max came running at my feet
and then sniffed me like I’d just rolled around in doggy
bones.

“
Winnie, I just wanted to
thank you for watching Elsie for a few hours today. I know you were
planning on going to the gym after school, but appreciate you not
leaving until Elsie made it home safe.”

Elsie peeked over the stair rail and
said that she’d cleaned up the dishes from our cookie-dough, after
school snack, before Martha got home. I stopped in my tracks. Had
Elsie just covered for me, or had I seriously lost a few hours of
my afternoon?

Bree handed me off to Elsie when I
reached the stairs. I saw the faint outline of her face when she
took my hand. Three tiny moles speckled her face, just next to her
mouth. She smiled nervously; she had the biggest lips I’d ever
imagined that would belong on a young girl. Bree distracted Martha
while I stared dumbfounded at the girl holding my hand.

“
You covered for
me?”

She nodded.

“
I totally owe you,” I
whispered. “Sorry about not getting the message and leaving you
hang here alone.”

She double squeezed my hand. Not
wanting to freak her out, I loosely held her hand until I tripped
on the third step. From that point on we held on tight. She stopped
at my door. We stood there in silence while Bree talked loudly
enough to Martha saying that we both had gotten burgers at the
concession stand at the football game, so we weren’t
hungry.

“
Bed?” I asked, welcoming
her into my room.

Elsie led me to my bed and didn’t
leave until I sat down. “I thought you might have left for good,”
she said.

I smiled. “This is my home.
I’ll
always
come
back. Thanks for covering for me. I had an emergency come up and
didn’t check my voice mails till after it was too late.”

Bree walked in. “You’re Elsie,
right?”

She nodded.

“
You’re all right in my
book, kiddo,” Bree said. “Thanks for the cover. Martha had been on
‘red-alert’ even before you got here.”

Elsie flinched, like she wanted to
comment but couldn’t bring herself to utter a word. She whispered
good-night to me before she left. Bree sat along the edge of the
bed and waited for me to explain what the hell was going on.
Drumming her fingers on her knee, she coughed silently.

“
Quiet kid,” Bree
commented.

Like I used to be, I thought. “She’ll
come around.”

“
You’re not her
keeper.”

I scoffed, “Apparently she’s
mine.”

“
Hope you’re not
hungry.”

“
I’d puke if I ate
anything.”

Bree stared at me. “You’re not going
to tell me, are you?”

“
When I can figure out
what’s going on, I will tell you, Bree. It’s just I’ve been a
little under the weather and something’s going on with my sight
that I can’t explain.”

“
If it’s getting worse, go
to the doctor,” she said.

“
My foster parents will
freak if I ask them to schedule a doctor’s appointment right now,”
I said. I couldn’t tell her the whole truth because I didn’t even
understand it. “Martha flipped a lid when she picked me up from the
nurse’s office, and John isn’t exactly happy with me.” I didn’t add
that it was because of the HomFree bill he’d gotten in the mail
because I requested a check-up.

Bree’s cell vibrated, keeping her from
giving me a longwinded lecture. After shooting off a text, she set
her phone down beside her. It vibrated again shortly after. She
answered the call.

“
Sorry, Ryker, Winnie
cancelled, so I’m stuck home too. I’m sorry, but you know what my
ma said last time she found out Winnie wasn’t with us... I’ll see
what I can do about tomorrow,” Bree said and waited a moment.
“
He’s
with you? I
didn’t think Jace was big on football games.”

A moment later she giggled into the
phone. She nodded her head while the person on the other line
talked. “Of course you can talk to her.”

Bree handed me her cell. I frowned but
took it. His deep voice came over the speaker.

“
Feeling okay,
dearest?”Jace asked.

I wanted to demand what he did to me.
I wanted to know if he’d leave me alone now that I’d let him have
his fun. Judging from the phone call, I still had a stalker. I
should have known better than to trust that he’d leave me alone.
Instead of screaming questions, I said nothing. If anything, Bree
would take it entirely the wrong way when I asked a few things. She
might think that he’d hurt me… Okay, a small part of me was tempted
but she’d never let it go. I wasn’t ready to mention anything about
him being able to torture me without even laying a hand on me.
Otherwise, she’d think that I’d seriously lost it.

“
I’ll stop by your place
later tonight –”

“
In your
dreams.”

He laughed and then the call ended. If
someone could bottle up his laugh and sell it, they’d make
millions. I handed the cell back to Bree. She waited patiently,
expecting me to tell her what we’d discussed. A silent minute
passed before Bree got up, walked to the door, and yelled down the
stairs. “Martha, would it be cool if I treat Winnie to a breakfast
of champions, Monday morning?”

“
If
you two behave this weekend,” she called back up.

“
Guess we have to cancel
our big plans of getting drunk, doing some drugs, and meeting up
with some guys later –”

“
Breanne Jackson!” she
yelled. “Don’t joke about those things. People don’t always know
you’re kidding.”