The Saving Angels Series: Books 1-3 (20 page)

“My mom wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t get a person fired from their job, no matter how angry she was,” I said to Sam in a distressed voice.

“I think she would, and I think she did. You didn’t see her face after you left the kitchen. She looked like a lioness protecting her cub. She thinks you’re in danger, so she’s protecting you.”

“She can’t do this. I can’t be away from him,” I said as the despair welled up in me. I felt the waves rolling in.

“I know, but you have to fight back the emotions,” Sam said, from what sounded like a long way off. “Krista, you have to fight it.

I heard her in the distance, Sam was right. I needed to calm myself.

Everything felt like it was spinning. I held my breath and closed my eyes. “Go away,” I thought as I fought to smother the waves.

Finally they receded. “I did it,” I said, still a little shaky.

“Good job, I thought you were a goner there. I’m so proud of you. How do you feel?”

“Not bad, just a little weak, but I’ve had much worse,” I said, looking at my watch. “We better hurry.”

It seemed crazy to be rushing off to class when so much was going on. I couldn’t wait until I was done with the whole school charade.

Sam and I slid into our chairs just as the bell rang. Neither of us missed how everyone went silent when we walked in the room. So, I was the new gossip material. “Twice in two weeks, that had to be a record,” I thought, sarcastically.

The rest of the day passed at a snail’s pace. Eventually, as the day progressed, the comments of the other students began to reach me. Surprisingly, the gossip didn’t bother
me. I had been the outsider so often, it no longer fazed me. All I cared about was what was going on with Mark. I was anxious to get to fifth period to see if he was there yet.

When the bell rang for fifth period, my heart began to race. When we walked through the classroom door though, my heart dropped like a stone.

He wasn’t there. Only the teacher was there, and he was busy writing notes on the chalkboard. The rumors were true.

The class started to buzz.

They fired him, how could my mom do that to him? This was not the way she acted; usually, she was so even tempered and willing to talk things over. I felt betrayed. The rest of the class passed in a blur. I never opened my book and I didn’t take a single note. I no longer cared.

The rest of the day passed much the same way. Every once in awhile, Sam would look at me with a look of sympathy mixed with worry. I appreciated her concern, but I could say nothing to reassure her. Though I learned to control the sickness, it didn’t lessen the emotions that would try to race through me. By the end of the day, I was exhausted from fighting them back.

Feeling lethargic, I gathered my books. I missed Mark so much that my body ached, adding to the feeling of tiredness. Sam walked quietly by my side as we headed out the door.

I felt Sam’s excitement as we exited the school.

I followed her eyes, Shawn was here. I scanned the area looking for Mark. My eyes filled with angry tears. He wasn’t here. “Damn my mom for acting so irrational,” I thought to myself.

Sam hurried to Shawn’s side and threw herself in his arms. My heart ached and my insides seemed to clench inwards as I watched them.

Sam beckoned me over. “Shawn has a message from Mark.”

“Mark said not to worry, he doesn’t blame your mom she was just trying to protect you. He said that you two would find a solution. This works anyway because he and I are going to take a short road trip.”

Sam was shocked. “You’re leaving?” she asked anxiously.

He pulled her into his arms. “Only for a few days, we found out where one of the others was dropped off.”

In my current dilemma, I had completely forgotten about the others.
“Where?”
I asked.

“New Mexico. We think it will only take three or four days for us to find out what happened to her.”

“A girl?”
I asked. “You found one of the cities where one of the girls had been left?” Even in my current frame of mind, I couldn’t help feeling excited.

“Mark wants you to continue to practice with Sam and to be careful.”

“Why, did you find something else?” Sam asked.

“No, we just want you to be safe while we’re gone.”

             I had always been in tune with other people’s emotions and could always sense when someone was lying. I could tell Shawn was hiding something. I looked at Sam and could tell she knew he was lying also.

I was just about to confront him when I heard a car horn beep. Everyone on the front lawn turned to look. Parents normally didn’t honk.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered, “She is literally killing me.”

Sam stifled a laugh.

“You have to go; Mark said he will call you later.”

“He can’t, my mom confiscated my phone,” I said desperately.

“He’ll call you on Sam’s phone. I have to go now anyway, our plane leaves in a couple of hours, I love you,” he said to Sam as he pulled her into his arms for one last kiss.

I walked away to give them a chance to say goodbye and climbed into the car without a word to my mom. Sam caught up to me and slid in the backseat beside me. My mom didn’t question my silent treatment. Sam, feeling uncomfortable, was unusually silent.

After dinner, Shawn called Sam on her cell. I sat on my bed and let Sam use the sitting room so she could have a little privacy. After a while, she brought me the phone and quietly walked out of the room.

The moment I heard his voice, I began to cry. “It’s going to be okay, we will work it out,” Mark told me, trying to calm my tears.

“I know. I just miss you so much. I don’t like being separated from you for twenty four minutes, let alone twenty four hours. My heart feels so empty with you gone,” I told him.

“I know
,
it’s the same for me. The separation is messing with me also. We’ve discovered it affects our bodies’ quite strangely.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“I’ll explain when I get home.”

“I’m not going to let my mom keep us apart,” I told him. “I can’t handle the separation. Either she lets me see you, or I’m going to tell her I’m moving out. My birthday is in a few weeks and I will be eighteen.”

“I don’t want to cause friction between you and your mom.”

“The friction is already there. I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive her for getting you fired. I love her and would miss her if it came down to that, but I can live without her. I don’t think I could ever live without you.”

“We’ll work it out, try not to worry okay? Remember how much I love you.”

We talked for a few more minutes and then said good night. He promised to call again the next day at the same time.

After the call, I was exhausted and fell right to sleep.

I woke up the next morning confused. I sat up and looked at Sam who was rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

Finally, Sam focused on my face.

“What’s the matter?” She asked.

“He wasn’t there last night, I didn’t dream about the Boardwalk at all,” I said panic stricken.

Sam looked alarmed. “You didn’t dream about him?”

I shook my head no and lay back down. I felt light headed like I was sick or something.

“You look peaked, are your emotions getting out of hand?” Sam asked.

I shook my head no, it wasn’t like that. I’d gone to bed with my heart aching from missing Mark, and awoke to find that the ache had spread throughout my whole body.

This wasn’t emotional sickness, this was something else. Something I had never experienced before.

“Will you tell my mom that I’m too sick to go to school?” I asked Sam.

My mom came up to verify that I was truly sick. If I wasn’t so sick, I would have dwelled on how much our relationship had changed over the course of thirty six hours.

My mom took one look at me and knew that I was sick. Sam wanted to stay with me, but my mom wouldn’t let her skip school. Mom closed the blinds and turned off my bedroom lights after Sam left for school. I rolled over in a ball and sunk into an uneasy sleep.

Every few hours or so, my mom would creep in to check on me, and by the time Sam came home, she was as sick as me. It was obvious she had a case of what I had, or so my mom thought. We couldn’t tell my mom that we were just suffering from separation sickness. She called Sam’s foster parents and told them that Sam and I had picked up a bug. She assured them that Sam would be fine where she was. “I’m here anyway,” I heard her say.

Sam and I dozed for the rest of the afternoon, and by the time the guys called, I didn’t even have the energy to talk, I just wanted to sleep. Sam was feeling a little better than I was, so she talked to Shawn, but she kept it simple.

“I think you guys need to come home. We need you.” Shawn didn’t need any explanations, he told her that they found what they needed and would be on the first plane home in the morning.

Sam hung up the phone and told me. I heard her from far away. All I wanted to do was sleep.

I woke the next morning with my mom kneeling at my side.

“Honey you look so sick. I think I need to take you to the hospital.”

“I just need Mark,” I whispered as I drifted back to sleep.

I woke later to raised voices. Too weak to move, I laid there as the voices got louder. “You just have to trust me, but one way or another, I’m going in there.”

I was too weak to even move as Shawn and Mark charged into the room. Shawn hurried to Sam’s side and pulled her into his arms.

I could hear my mom trying to protest. My eyes drifted closed before Mark even reached my side.

I woke a few seconds later to Mark’s hands on my face. I was in his arms and was finally able to open my eyes and keep them open.

“I don’t think I can live without you,” I said in a weak voice.

“I know that I can’t live without you,” he answered back.

He leaned over and kissed me. I felt the ache that was gripping my body begin to loosen its death grip on me. I deepened the kiss, and the familiar warmth spread though me. His touch was the nourishment I needed.

I could hear Sam and Shawn talking quietly. Sam had recovered quicker than me, probably because she hadn’t been separated from Shawn as long.

Mark continued to rain light kisses across my face and soon I began to regain my strength. I could feel my heart began to find its normal rhythm again.

I was surprised when I finally looked up and saw my mom was still standing uncertainly in the doorway.

“We have to tell my mom something,” I said in a whisper.

We could skim over the sketchier parts, but we had to give her something. I had wanted to keep her in the dark as much as I could and spare her all the details, but she had just witnessed my friend and I miraculously recover from a terrible illness by a few kisses from a couple of guys. She wasn’t stupid and she would want answers.

Mark nodded his head.

“Mom, I know you’re confused. We were too at first, but if you let us explain, you will start to understand,” I said in a still weakened voice.

She nodded her consent, and the five of us headed down to the living room to talk. Sam and I were still weak, so the guys helped us down the stairs and got us settled on the couch.

My mom sat on one of the recliners in the living room and Mark perched on the edge of the other recliner. Shawn chose to lean against the wall.

I started from the beginning. I told her about having the dreams every night, not just every once in awhile, like I had led her to believe. I explained my first meeting with Mark, and the familiarity I felt the first time I met him. I then told her how he stepped out of the shadows of my dreams that first night. I explained that I feel like I had known him my whole life because he had always been in my dreams. I didn’t mention any connections with Shawn and Sam except that they had similar dreams as ours. I knew there were numerous holes in my story, but I only wanted to give her the facts.

She listened quietly the whole time, and finally when I was done talking, she finally said something.

“You expect me to believe all that?” She asked incredulously.

“Come on mom think about it, do you have a better explanation for all of this?” “You saw how sick I was. Do you think I was faking that or what about all those times my emotions got out of control?” I said in a hurt voice.

“Of course not, it’s just that all of this seems pretty farfetched; dreams about each other and getting sick because you were apart? How come you were fine away from him In Montana, but now you seem to have issues?”

“We don’t know, Mrs. Miller. Believe me, we wish we did,” Mark finally interjected.

“I don’t like any of this,” she said to him. “My daughter is only seventeen and you’re already acting like she’s yours.”

“I realize we’re young, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the dreams. We just want to get to the bottom of those first. Everything else we can take slowly, one day at a time. I’m not trying to steal her from you,” he said, finally zeroing in on what was really bothering my mom. She had just lost my dad less than a year ago, and now she thought she was on the verge of losing me.