Forgotten (32 page)

That alone was impossible, vanishing
in thin air. But at this point I didn’t care.

“
I can’t do this anymore,”
I said. I was about to tell him to heal me, but he pressed his
finger against my lips, begging me not to say it – not
yet.

“
Just a little longer,
dearest, and I’ll find the person who murdered your family. It’s
always been important to you, even if we didn’t understand why,”
Jace muttered. “Even though you didn’t remember why, your instincts
guide you to the truth. If the murderer is the Butcher, one of the
most noxious Hunters, you’ll want him dead, as badly as I
do.”

“
Why would I possibly
care?”

“
Because he’s the reason
you died in the first place.”

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

Sleep avoided me. Lily was dead; it
was my fault. The guilt boiled in my soul. I hadn’t even bothered
to open my eyes when the floor creaked by my dresser. I was being
watched – monitored. His smoky figure came into view. I simply
waited for Jace to rescue me away from reality. He didn’t utter a
word as he brushed my hair away from my face. My body warmed as he
hummed the tune he had in my dreams. Captivated by his beauty, I
almost didn’t see the shimmer of silver behind him. Marco rested
his hand on Jace’s shoulder.

“
You’ve come to liberate me
in my dreams,” I said, reaching for Jace’s face. His coarse facial
stubble scratched my palm. Neither he nor Marco moved – it was like
they hadn’t expected me to still be awake. Jace tentatively
intertwined his fingers around mine.

I wanted him in ways I wasn’t worthy
of asking for. I needed him in ways I couldn’t imagine.

“
I can’t fall for you,” I
said as tears filled my eyes.

Jace shrugged Marco off his shoulder.
He spoke soundlessly and then out loud I heard him say I was
finally ready to listen. Marco lifted his hand from Jace’s
shoulder, and then vanished.

Jace cupped my face. “Why can’t we
have a future together?”

“
Because, if I’m not her
–”

My lungs tightened, but it wasn’t from
me. Jace was holding his breath, stopping me midsentence like he
couldn’t bear to hear what I had to say. If he refused to hear me,
he could interpret my actions. Our past was a lie – it was
nonexistent – it ruined any chance for us to have a future. I
pushed him away.

“
Gwyneth, look at me.” His
body went rigid. “You need to stop running from the past and from
who you are. Embrace it.”

I wanted to scream that we had no
past, but the words refused to jump from my tongue. Tears streamed
down my face. I was so utterly defeated. He let go of my face and
walked away. I shoved my head into the pillow. I begged not to cry
out until I could no longer hear his footsteps. My soul erupted; I
deserved loneliness and a life of torment. My voice was raw from
wailing into the pillow. The bed shifted. I stifled my tears only
long enough to realize my foster parents could hear me screaming,
but it wasn’t Martha or John in the bed beside me.

Jace slid his legs next to mine and
then pulled me close next to him. Holding the covers tightly around
me, he rocked me. He hummed the melody I’d grown to love – the one
from my dreams. Just as quickly as the tune relaxed me, it enraged
me. He shouldn’t be singing this song for me. I wasn’t the
Chronicler. I wasn’t Deino. I was a fraud and a murderer! His
ethereal voice echoed in the room and in my heart. I wasn’t worthy
of anyone’s love. I squirmed, trying to put distance between us. It
didn’t work. I kicked him, wishing it would distract him. I beat my
fists into his chest. I refused to stop until my arms
ached.

“
Leave! Leave me, Jace. I
don’t want you in my life.”

“
Liar,” Jace said, wrapping
his arms around me so I couldn’t slam my fists against him. “You
want me in your life, and I want you in mine. You’ve already made
me scream your name to the heavens, begging for forgiveness and
another chance to avenge your death. Don’t make me do it
again.”

“
What name would you scream
this time? Deino or Gwyneth? What about the Chronic –”

“
My beloved,” he whispered,
silencing my insults.

Adoration radiated from his voice as
he spoke those two small, yet powerful words.

“
I screamed for my beloved
to join me again when her body was no longer frail. I’d begged her
to heal my broken soul along with hers. I’ve longed for the taste
of her heart-stopping kiss after she was reborn. I crave the
eternal passion of the goddess I fell in love with years ago – the
very same goddess who now screams into the night, longing for an
alternate ending to her tragic life; the night she died, I screamed
one request to the heavens.” He paused before he whispered the
plea. “I prayed that she’d never forget my love.”

***

Waking up for school couldn’t have
been any more mundane. Monday. School. Kill me now. After
everything I’d just found out, spending eight hours at McKesson
High was a catastrophic waste of time. If Martha’s to-do list
wasn’t so long, I might have faked an illness. Compared to cleaning
all day long or attending school, the latter seemed like the lesser
of two evils. After throwing on my school uniform, I trudged to the
brick building. Students poured around me. Stella kept them from
getting too close, giving me a wide berth. I reached my locker just
in time to hear Ryker tell Bree that “the train-wreck is
approaching.”

The energy to put up with him wasn’t
something I could reasonably do today, so I kept quiet. Besides, he
and Bree were getting inappropriately reacquainted, so even if I
had an amazing come-back, it’d fall on deaf ears. I rubbed the
sleep from my eyes and dumped my backpack in front of my locker. I
clasped the cold metal lock keeping all my valuables safe inside. I
needed a break. Monday had come too fast. I rested my head against
the door and took a deep breath. I could do this. I could live
normally. I could pretend I wasn’t a murderer – pretend I wasn’t
clairvoyant. I’d become an actress in my own life. My life was the
stage – my sight, my happiness, my entire existence could be
faked.

Bree picked up my backpack and then
grabbed my arm. “BFF duties - I need you in the bathroom
stat.”

I groaned. Another problem? I followed
her down the hall. Students piled into the classrooms. I was going
to be late for history and Bree decided this was the opportune time
to have an emergency? She led me into the handicap stall and locked
the door behind us.

“
Spill,” she
demanded.

I stood silent. What was she talking
about? She was the one who called the impromptu meeting – she was
the one with the emergency that couldn’t wait till
lunch.

“
You’re strung out,” she
stated, and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve played the part
of the good friend and decided that you’d tell me whatever was
bothering in good time, but you’ve gone to epic lengths to keep me
in the dark.”

“
I’m fine.”

“
You couldn’t look more
like those pictures of drug junkies the health nurse showed us,”
she said defensively. “I might not know the difference between
crack and coke, but I know you, Winnie. You’re strung out. What are
you taking?”

“
You’ve been watching too
many episodes of
Intervention
,” I said, and reached
for the door.

She slapped my hand away. The flood of
sadness I’d buried deep in order to even come to school, threatened
to trickle out from my eyes; but, I wasn’t going to back down. I
reached for the door again. She pushed me. My back hit the bathroom
wall. The bell sounded. We were officially late for
class.

“
I’m not on drugs!” My
frustration poured out. I barely managed on auto-pilot. Going to
get a tardy slip from the principal was like having to scale a
mountain, and I lost my climbing gear.

“
Then, what is it? You’re
all secretive. You’ve been ill a lot, or are you faking all these
sick leaves? You say your fine but your temper is snapping more
than usual. You bail on hanging out with me, and then when I call
your house, Elsie answers and says that you told your fosters you’d
gone to my place. So unless you’ve grown a ‘Bree Clone’ you’ve got
some exp –”

“
They’re all dead, Bree! My
entire family is dead. My parents! My sister! I’m the only
survivor!”

I couldn’t finish. I couldn’t say that
it was my fault. In my heart I knew it was the truth. Their lives
were cut short because a horde of mentally deranged people were
after me. I slid down the wall and crumbled into a sobbing mess on
the dirty, cold floor.

“
Oh, girlie,” Bree
whispered, and then sat down beside me. She hugged me; I held on
with sheer desperation. She didn’t know the whole truth – not even
close. “The guy who broke into your house that night was a complete
psycho. You were just a kid.”

“
Everything okay in here?”
A hall-monitor.

I wiped my eyes and prepared for the
infamous tardy slip to slide under the door. Bree shifted and dug a
thin piece of paper out of her pocket. She pushed it under the
door. The hall-monitor picked it up.

“
You’ve got ten minutes,”
she said, and started to walk out of the bathroom.

“
Ten? We both know a twenty
buys double that,” Bree said.

“
There are two of you – ten
minutes each.”

“
Two?” Bree gasped as if
she couldn’t believe the accusation. “I’m hanging out with my
mannequin in here.”

“
Whatever, you two better
be gone when I finish rounds.”

The bathroom door shut, cutting us off
from the rest of the school. Bree shifted beside me. “Pinky-swear
you’re not on anything, and I’ll believe you one-hundred
percent.”

My little finger slipped through hers.
And as silly as it sounded, I felt better. “Cross my heart and hope
to die.”

“
Okay, then let’s get you
cleaned up because you look like someone sneezed on your face and
you didn’t bother to wipe it off,” Bree said, and then reached for
her backpack. Her supply of make-up, bobby-pins, and perfume, would
always take priority over school books. She wasn’t going to make
valedictorian. I wasn’t either, but it’d be over her dead body when
I walked around looking like a fool. She cared about me, even when
I knew I was being difficult. But we were friends – through thick
and thin. And that’s what mattered.

“
I swear to all that is
holy, if you make a big deal about mascara today you’ll be sporting
a black-eye. A little bit of
Maybelline
isn’t going to kill you,”
she said, opening up her make-up kit. She dabbed the foundation on
my skin. And then blew on my cheeks. “Dry those pretty
eyes.”

My reflection shone off
the blade’s reflection. Wrinkles creased themselves around my eyes.
Even as he kneeled before me, the red -haired man was still at
chest height. I pressed my lips together and breathed through my
mouth as the stench of rot and decay filled the air.

His skin peeled away from
his face as if it couldn’t stand it. Yellow puss and orange
infected blood seeped from his tissue. It slopped to the ground.
The liquid flesh sprayed my legs. The rotting man vanished and
stood behind me a second later. His decaying hand held the knife in
my hand. It was now pressed up against my throat.

“–
and we’ll grab some much
needed dessert after school
.
I’ll make sure we get the
calorie free
, extra-large, double
scooped chocolate landslide brownie batter.”

“
Only if we can stop at the
library,” I said. “If you thought I was cracked-out, Hector is
probably worried too, and might be tempted to call John or
Martha.”

***

Old books and paper greeted us when we
walked into the library. Hector’s dark shadow came into view at the
sound of the door closing behind us. I whispered to Bree that it
might not be a bad idea to make herself scarce. She took the hint
and wandered to the young adult section.

“
Listen Hector, I’m the
biggest butthead for blowing you off,” I said.

He crossed his arms like that comment
wasn’t going to cut it for an apology. “And?”

“
I’ll let you have first
swing at KnockOuts if you can find it in your heart to forgive me
for being overly hormonal these last few days,” I said.

“
Weeks,” he
corrected.

“
I don’t think I’ll be able
to convince Bree to come with me. I know you’d love to get in the
rink with her but what if I give you an hour with me and then turn
you loose on Elsie. You could show her a few moves,” I said, hoping
to win him over with a bribe.

“
Is Elsie anything like
you?” he asked. The tone of playfulness carried in his
question.

I smiled; she was an exact younger
version of me. “Shy but has some fight in her.”

“
A lot like you,” he
commented. “Are you two getting close?”

“
Something like that,” I
responded, thinking of how she led me around everywhere. My
keeper.