Hereafter (7 page)

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, not wanting Val to hear the conversation we were about to have. “You shouldn’t be here with me right now. I should’ve told you to stay behind.”

The corner of his lip twisted into a genuine smile, but it didn’t erase any of the sadness that played in his features. “I wouldn’t have listened.”

I pursed my lips together, smothering the smile that his coy comment had created. “I know, but still.”

We continued down the stairs in silence for a while with Val leading the way. I kept waiting for the scenery to change, the monotonous backdrop to shift, but it never did. Glancing over my shoulder to judge our distance once more, I realized that I would never be able to tell due to the fog clinging to the stairs and blocking out the crater’s ledge.

“How far do you think these stairs go?” Jet asked, his voice echoing off the walls, reminding me of how narrow the stairway was.

“Not too much farther,” Val insisted.

“I can’t see an end or a beginning. How can you be so sure?” I wondered. Panic that we were going the wrong way, even though there was no other way to go, spread throughout my mind. I did not want to get lost down here.

Val paused and turned to face me, her violet eyes flashing brightly in a slow and steady rhythm. “I just know.”

I blinked, taken aback by the pulsating color of her eyes. I’d never seen anything like it before, but refused to question her knowledge of Purgatory anymore. No one spoke again as we resumed our descent down the gray stone stairs, until finally a stone door with a chiseled out handle came into view.

“This is it—the true entrance into Purgatory,” Val said, her hand automatically reaching out to grip the handle.

Jet turned to me and gripped both of my hands within his. “Are you ready for this?”

“I have to be,” I answered without hesitation, because it was the truth. There was no way I could turn back now.

“I know,” he whispered, understanding swirling within his eyes. Resignation tainted my lips, and I couldn’t be sure which one of us it was coming from.

Jet released one hand of mine to stand by my side so that we could walk through the stone door at the exact same moment. At some point while passing through the door, I closed my eyes. Unwilling to open them the second we’d passed through, I kept them closed, unsure of what I expected to see once I opened them. Nothingness filled my ears and sparked my imagination. I had expected to hear horrific cries, screams of agony, or at least crackling fires of some sort. Instead, I heard nothing.

Purgatory was soundless.

I opened my eyes and was taken aback by what I saw before me—a lush green field with rolling hills, large trees that reached up into a deep blue sky, and various colors of every flower imaginable. It was nothing like I’d expected it to be and it was everything like the Crossover Portal. My insides tingled with excitement, and I thought of the age-old saying ‘looks can be deceiving.’

“Wow,
this
is Purgatory?” I asked, unbelieving.

No one spoke. Neither Val nor Jet seemed to be as in awe of the place as I was. I looked to Jet. He was gazing around, but there was no emotion on his face. Val stood immobile just a few feet away. It was as though she were listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear.

“Don’t let it fool you. I’ve already said things here are not as they appear to be,” Val reminded me once more, this time with more conviction in her voice than before.

I glanced around, wondering how this could not be as it appeared. Bending down, I reached out to touch the creamy white petals of the nearest daisy and felt like something shocked my fingertips as I did. As soon as I jerked away, the petals darkened and withered as the flower died before my eyes from my touch.

“What’s happening?” Jet asked, reaching out to me and pulling me close.

I watched as the darkness I had released upon the beautiful flower spread rapidly in a ripple effect. Each flower lost its color as their petals wilted and withered away. The lush green grass grew brown and brittle, and the leaves on the trees changed colors before they fell to the ground, leaving the branches twisted and bare. The sky was next. Gray and blue swirled to create a marble effect until eventually nothing was left besides gray.

In mere seconds, the scenery had changed from paradise into something from an Edgar Allen Poe poem.

“Like I said, nothing is as it appears,” Val said, a cockiness to her tone.

“What do we do now?” Jet asked, his grip on me releasing, but only slightly.

Val smiled, her violet eyes appearing brighter as they continued to pulsate. “We choose which way to go…left or right.”

I couldn’t help feeling like Alice about to go down the rabbit hole at her words. Everything I had just witnessed was completely insane, and now I was supposed to choose which way to go? In a place like this, how were you supposed to decide?

“Left,” Val decided for me, making me wonder if the question had been directed at me at all or if she simply had been thinking out loud. She began walking and Jet and I followed.

An intense wave of terror crashed over me after only a few steps. I paused and out of instinct attempted to catch the breath that I knew I no longer needed. Panic crystallized my veins with its icy harshness… This was how I felt even though I knew it was not possible. I no longer had veins to crystallize. Instantly, my mind began spinning with reasons for this sudden onslaught of fear as the iciness rushed through my limbs, seemingly congregating where my heart used to lie.

Jet’s hands found their way to me in the midst of my meltdown. His face blurred and then refocused in front of me. Fear tainted my lips, and from the look in his eyes, I couldn’t be sure which one of us it emanated from most.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, concern twisting his features and mingling flawlessly with the terror I saw reflected in his eyes.

I shook my head as though that were all it would take to shake this odd feeling of fear away and latched onto him as tightly as he had me. “I don’t know… I’m just scared, like petrified, all of a sudden.”

“Me too,” Jet said. “I haven’t felt anything this strong in a longtime. What’s happening?” he asked Val.

“Interesting,” Val said. Her violet eyes, filled with excitement, skimmed over us.

Jet’s firm grip loosened to a gentler hold. “There…it’s going away now. Feel it?”

I shook my head no, because I didn’t feel it. My terror hadn’t diminished any. In fact, it had intensified. Its acidic scent filled my nose as its bitterness slid across my tongue. I gripped on to Jet tighter, grateful he was here with me.

“Purgatory knows now that it’s just you who’s searching. It was getting into your minds, trying to figure out what brought you here,” Val said, and I felt her words strengthen what I had been feeling, taking it up to another level, because she’d spoken about Purgatory as though it were alive, something that coincided with the thoughts I’d had upon first entering.

“What does that mean? Is it going to try to scare her enough to drive her away or something?” Jet asked exactly what I had been thinking, but couldn’t find the words to say because my voice seemed clamped off at the moment by fear. “And why would it be searching inside of me?”

Val glanced around as though she could sense something we couldn’t. “Not to scare her away, no. She’s come too far to turn back now. Emotions are what Purgatory feeds off of. Sort of like a power source.”

Val’s answer fueled the flame of terror already burning within me even more. Purgatory was
feeding
off me now? I brought my eyes up to her and noticed hers were literally flashing, going from bright to dull in a quick rhythm. Was this how she tracked souls? Did it mean the soul she was searching for was close?

Val’s vibrantly colored eyes snapped directly to Jet. “And as for why it was searching inside you…well, one can only assume it’s because the soul you seek is here, too.”

Jet’s brows furrowed together as his eyes narrowed. “The soul I seek?”

“Mmmhmm…” Val muttered, that distant gleam coming back into her eyes.

“But I’m not searching for any soul. I came here for Rowan,” he insisted, and I wondered if that was the truth or if he was simply trying to convince himself by saying the words out loud.

Had he come here with the hope that what I was about to do could be done for him as well, just like I had?

Val’s lips twisted into a wicked grin. “Sometimes our subconscious searches for things without telling us.”

Jet released me as his eyes dropped to the whiteness we stood on. His lips pinched together and his expression hardened. It was true. He had come here with some sort of hope that everything I had said could be done for him as well. Even if he was just now realizing it, it was true. The fear I had felt was nudged to the side by sadness for him—for us. If everything happened the way that I intended and I was given my life back, not only would I be losing Jet, but I would also be forcing him to resent me forever.

“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing that those two words didn’t even begin to scratch the surface in describing how I felt about the situation.

Jet’s stance stiffened. “Don’t be. I’m doing this for you because this is
torture
.”

His emphasis on his last word stabbed at me like tiny daggers. “What is?”

“Us. The way we are. I’ve questioned myself a million times on what I prefer most, the way we are now or the way that we were before, when you were still alive. At least then I could spend more time with you. Fate had yet to interfere and keep you away from me every chance it could.” He turned to face me. His eyes glistened, becoming the brightest thing I could see. “I know I couldn’t feel you back then.” He took me into his arms and I leaned against him, relishing in the feel of his touch. How could I go through with this? How could I be selfish enough to allow him to see me through this? Doubts latched onto the panic flooding my soul, making me second-guess everything. “Not really, but at least I could be around you,” he continued.

“But, what if I don’t remember you? What if I can’t see you again because I won’t be a Reaper? I won’t be a Link… I won’t be anything.”

“We’ll figure it out. Promise.”

I opened my mouth to say how horrible I still felt about dragging him with me, but before I could, our surroundings shifted.

“Purgatory knows who you’re searching for…and now the fun begins,” Val muttered, and I could hear the smile etched into her words without having to see it.

I watched as everything around us changed to a solid white. We were standing in the middle of a blank canvas, and I began to worry about what would be painted upon it, what horribleness Purgatory would create.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As the whiteness washed away, the inside of a bedroom grew up around us, encasing us in the very center. It was an old room with rustic wood flooring and dingy white walls. A rickety dresser, its top covered with a thick layer of dust, stood just beside a dinged up, closed door. An old-fashioned bronze medal bed rested along the wall behind me, and one single wooden chair sat beside the only window to the right of the bed.

“What is this place?” I asked, my voice sounding nearly frantic as Purgatory continued to pump the adrenaline I would have expected to feel had I been alive through my soul.

“You tell me,” Val said calmly. “This room has some sort of significance to your mother.”

I glanced around once more, looking for some sort of clue as to where I was. Nothing jumped out at me. “How? I don’t even know this place.”

Val traced her index finger along the edge of the dresser. “The fear you felt back there was Purgatory weaving its way into your mind. It found who you were searching for and now it’s connecting you to the darkest parts of your mother’s soul, her experiences in life that made her afraid of what she was. This room must’ve been one of them. It’s part of her sequence, part of her Purgatory somehow.”

Jet moved from my side to the window. “So what are we supposed to do, go through each little scene until we meet up with her?”

“Something like that.” Val flopped down across the dusty bed and began playing with her hair. “This moment was pivotal—a moment that led up to her suicide. There were a series of moments like this in her life that occurred and led her to the point of suicide. It’s those moments that make up her personal cycle, her very own Purgatory.”

“She’s here somewhere, in this room?” I shifted my eyes around the room, looking past the poignant gloominess and focusing solely this time on searching for my mother. She wasn’t here. We were the only ones in this dust-filled room.

“No, we’ll catch up to her eventually. We’ve just entered her loop and have to make the right choices in order to catch up—which is why you have me, a Tracker, to make the right ones for you.”

I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t understand. If I’m waiting for you to make a choice and tell me which way we need to go next, then why are you sitting on the bed doing nothing?”

I couldn’t be sure if it was my own fear of not catching up with my mother in time before she Crossed Over that caused the iciness of anxiety to twist my mind and panic to beat steadily inside of me, or if it was simply Purgatory messing with me again. Either way, I felt as if I had to get out of this room. Now.