Wicked Fate (The Wicked Trilogy) (38 page)

He shakes
the loose sand from his long gray robe. His face is familiar to me. It’
s the other man from my nightma
res, the younger twin to Craven. I glare
into his expression
less mirror filled eyes.

Sire’
s the man from my nightmares
?

“It’s
nice of
you to join us, son,” Craven growls
.

“
Leave her alone!” Sire yells
.

Listening to them as they exchange words, I’m completely confused. The only thing I notice is that
Craven
keeps
referring to the
new Sire as Cain. Cain i
s my father’s last name. Could it be that the man who just shape shifted in
front of me, the man named Cain, formerly Sire, i
s my father?

If that’
s so
, then the man who killed Adam is my grandfather. I know this because Cain keeps calling Craven father.
The man that I
want dead is my own flesh and blood. If I could, I’d laugh at it all. Go figure this would happen to me.

A
fter my grandfather died
,
all I wan
ted was some form of
family connection, a
living connection. A
ll that time I had spent day after day with my very own father. So many private
conversations were held with Sire—so many secrets
.

As i
f hearing my thoughts, he turns
his attention to me.

I stare
back in confusion.

“You’re my father?”
I ask
.

“I’m
sorry
,
Mage. I had to protect you. I knew once you turned sixteen and your grandfather died they were going to come for you. I had to make sure that I could protect you. I’m sorry I deceived you.”

“Why? I thought you wanted me dead. My mother told me, you had me just to kill me.”

“Originally, for my father
,
that was the plan, but I failed. I fell in love with your mother. I ran away from her hoping that my father and Eris would never find out about yo
u, but they did somehow. I love
your mother very much. I hope that one day the both of you can forgive me.”

Purple flames explode against Cain’s side. He slides through the sand and lands
at my feet.

This is most definitely ending now. I’
d gained a mother and a father in the last two days, and because of that
,
t
his would all end now. I reach down and help
him up.

“Go to her, tell her these things. She sti
ll loves you. Take care of her, p
lease.”

I look over to see Craven coming
towards us. H
is good arm pointed straight at me
.

“You should run,” I say.

My voice isn’t my own. It’s emotionless and dead. It’s the voice of a cold-hearted killer.

“I can’t leave you, Mage. You’re my daughter. It’s my job to protect you!
”

My hand ignites with purple flames and I hold it to his face.

“Do you see this? I don’t need your protection—my mother does. Go…now!” I scream
.

I
watch as Cain, my father, heads
away from
the ocean.

I’m ending this now. I don’t care if I go
down with the ship as lo
ng as the ship sinks. Maybe that’
s the
real
difference between me, Eris, and Craven. Before Adam’s death, they fought well because
they weren’t afraid to die and I was. Now we are
on an even playing field.

My careless emotions are
s
tronger than Craven’s
rig
ht
now
. I have no reason, no wants—
other than wanting to be with
Adam again. Craven may not have
any r
eason, but he definitely wants
somethi
ng. He wants
more power.

His fire doesn’t even
make it anywhere near me before I deflect
it and send
his fire along with mine crash
ing into his side. His body flies towards the ocean then splashes
into the water.

For a while
, I don’t think he’ll surface. I run
knee deep into the
wild water. He’s not getting away that easily.
Craven’s wet body slam
s into mine and we both fly through the air
.

Purple fire comes
at me
while all three colors combined leave my fingers for him
. He
doesn’t stand a chance. I’m done! I fly at him and slam
my sho
ulder into his side. He
bring
s his fist down hard against my back. It doesn’t hurt. I’m
still numb.

Sand explodes into the wild wind as we land onto the beach. An earthquake begi
n
s to shake the beach as a hurricane continues to thrash
the trees an
d houses around us.

He manages
to get his hands around my throat again an
d he lifts me from the earth once more. I feel the heat of his fingers even though his hand isn’t
actually around my neck.

Oxygen leaves my body and I know this is the end for me. Except I refuse to
die before him.

Suddenly
,
I re
member
the h
uge wave that always interrupts my nightmares.

Where’s the damn wave when I need
it?

I look
over to the ocean trying my har
dest to stay conscious. There’s no wave. I imagine what the wave looked like in my dreams and slowly it starts
to form.
I picture
the wave growing larger and larger an
d it does. I’m the reason behind the wave.

I beg the wave to come to me, to crash onto the shore, crash into Craven. I don’t care if it takes
me with i
t as long as it drowns him. I focus
harder on t
he wave as the dizziness starts
to take me
. The wave is now the size of the one in my nightmares. I watch
out o
f the corner of my eye as it mak
e
s
its way towards us.

This is it, this is the end. I smile at Craven as I’m
about to pass out. Finally
, he notices the huge fifty-
foo
t wave coming for him and I feel
h
is hand ease up a bit. He looks
back at me with shock in his eyes.

“See you in hell, Pops!” I choke
.

I feel
the shadow of the wave cover the side
of my face. The storm continues
all around us. Spray
-off from the huge ocean wave lands on my cheek cooling my hot skin. I let go and wait
for the
wave to take me. It ha
ng
s
ove
r us now, teasing us with death.
Suddenly
, it begins to drop and I close
my eyes from the sight of the water crashing down
on top of me and Craven. I feel
t
he ice coldness
of the ocean w
ater scoop me up before the blackness takes
me away.

Chapter
28

Good Mourning

I wake
up once again in a
hospita
l room. Bernie and Benjamin are
standing over me.

“She’s awake!” I hear
her call
out
.

I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I can barely open my eyes, and the heart monitor beeping aggravates me more this time.

How am I alive? How
did I live through that?  Di
d Craven survive too?
Adam! Adam didn’t survive. All the
memories of the day on the beach rush
in on me
all at once. I start
to cry.

“Adam!” I squeak
.

“There are tons of people searching for him
,
Mage. The Westcott’s are going crazy!”
Bernie’s face looks sad.

I can’t speak. I can’t
put into words that A
dam’s dead. I just lay there and continue
to cry.

I have so many questions. How did I get
here? Who found me and
where did they find me? Where i
s Adam’s body? He must have gotten washed away with the huge wave.

The thought of Adam’s cold lifeless body floating away into the
ocean mak
e
s me nauseated. I choke down the bile that rises in my throat. There’s no way I’m
going
to make it through this.

“You’re
lucky to be alive
,
Mage. Who would have thought it, a tsunami off the coast of North Carolina? I guess it’s a
good thing
the bea
ch wasn’t packed,” she continues
to rambl
e. “Except one man did
die,
s
ome old guy.”

Some t
ension leave
s
my bod
y. Hopefully the old man she’s talking about is Craven.
What about
Cain?
Hopefu
lly, he went back to Trenton
Psych
and confessed his love to my mother. Hopefully,
he’s telling her the truth and making
her day bright
again. I want her to be happy. She’s given so much for me—
her freedom, her life.

I get to leave the hospital and go home two days later. Lesley Lane, Bernie’s mom, promises
to stay with
me until the authorities figure
o
ut what to do with me. I don’t care anymore what happens to me. I’m fully alive. There’s air in my lungs and conscious thoughts in my brain, but I’m a zombie—dead inside.

I see a picture of the man killed on the beach during the tsunami…it’s definitely Craven, so that’s good news. There’s been no luck in the recovery of Adam’s body. I still can’t bring myself to tell people he’s dead. I keep thinking to myself that he’s on a vacation somewhere warm. It helps sometimes…kind of.

I don’t know how long I’ll stay this way, dead inside. Time is irrelevant to me. I spend
my days lying around the ho
use not really talking much
.  Bernie
and her mother practically move in. At least this way I won’t
have to
be put in a home. Not that it matters. Regardless of where I live, I’m no longer
living.

They write love stories about peop
le dying for the one they love. Lots of
people say they would, but the reality of it is
,
most people would never die in the p
lace of another. Some claim they’
r
e madly in love, but they
have no idea what real love is. They throw the L word around like it’s nothing. Adam and I had real love, the kind of love that people dream of, but rarely experience. A love that was stronger than any magic in the world.

He
died for me that day beside
the ocean; he gave the ultimate sacrifice for me. Some would say it’s the most romantic thing they’
ve e
ver heard. People will say it’
s beautiful that he lov
ed me more than himself. But I’
d give anything to have him back. I don’t care about romance
or the beauty of it; to me it’
s a horrible thing. Losing h
im is the hardest thing I’ve ever
experience
d. I wouldn’t wish the pain
I feel for his loss on my worst enemy.

I blame myself for his death. If I had just stayed away from him, he’d still be alive today. I could say that I wish I’d
never met him, but that would be a lie. Call me selfish, but I would never give up the time that we had together for anything in the world. I can’t make myself regret any of it.
I can’t make myself regret the
fact that Adam
was in my life.