Becoming (6 page)

“That’s what Gabe told me,” Michelle
confirmed as they stopped near Amber. She smirked. “He said he
likes that they’re under the same roof so he can have her
whenev—”

She stopped abruptly when Amber’s hand shot
out and paused mere millimeters from her face. The sound Michelle
made was a bit like a duck getting its neck stretched. She jerked
back so hard in surprise that her sunglasses flew off her head.
Cynthia watched this all with her eyebrows several inches higher
than usual and her lips in a round O.

Holding the strike pose as firmly as she
could in light of the vibrations coursing through her, Amber said,
“Don’t ever talk about Gabriel that way again.
Ever
.”

The surge grew stronger as her anger and
stress escalated, and Amber knew she was in trouble. She felt the
snaps of energy starting in her chest, pulsing with the strong
beats of her heart. As her panic grew, the crackle of energy
grew…an unstoppable spiral that she knew would result in something
disastrous.

She had to get out of there. Had to. But she
couldn’t move.

And then Gabriel was at her side. He didn’t
acknowledge Michelle, but instead reached up and lowered her
sunglasses enough to look at her eyes.

“Okay—we’re out of here,” he said, pushing
her sunglasses back up.

Cynthia stumbled back two full steps. “What
the hell is up with her eyes?”

Alicia and Cornelius approached as Gabriel
took Amber’s arm and started for the back gate. Alicia asked with
concern, “Is Amber okay?”

“She’s fine,” Gabriel lied as they hurried
toward the gate. “Just a slight allergic reaction aggravated by
stress. I’ve got her medication in the car. She does better away
from crowds.”

“Gabriel.” Amber hardly recognized her own
voice. It was croaky and panicked. The vibrations shaking her arms
continued to increase in violence. This could
not
be
happening.

“Hang on,” was his response.

They ignored everything and everyone around
them as they burst out the back gate and hurried through the
parking area. Their car was wedged in among other cars in the
Brewers’ makeshift parking arrangement. They’d have to do this on
foot. Fortunately, the only people out front were about twenty
yards away and thus far had their backs turned.

Oh, God. They had to get away. Had to. Had.
To. The pain was starting. God, it hurt.

“Gabriel?”

Her voice was an anguished question now, and
would normally have embarrassed her. Only a few seconds had passed
since they left the backyard, but the tremors now shook her entire
body. Obviously sensing she was reaching a critical point, he bent
over and slung her over his shoulder. Then he started running as
fast as her added weight would allow.

“Hang on,” he instructed again, breathing
harshly and dodging trees as he ran.

She couldn’t breathe. Her body was now
outside of her control. She wanted to scream in agony as the surge
threatened to overtake her. And even as she knew Gabriel was her
only hope, she feared for him. Didn’t want him anywhere near her.
She would kill him.

Just as her entire body started convulsing,
he burst through a clearing leading to a pond. The sight flooded
her with relief even as the pain burst through her chest.

Gabriel!

Her brutalized cry was nothing but a thought,
but she somehow knew that he heard it as though it had ripped from
her throat. Without pause, he plowed straight forward. They plunged
unceremoniously into the pond, and she managed to take hold of her
senses enough to wrap herself around him so that their combined
weight would drag them further under the water as quickly as
possible.

Then the world exploded.

Ailfrid jerked back, away from the bed he had
been leaning over. The movement propelled him into a wooden bureau
and had him staggering to regain his balance and breath.

“What happened?” Ini-herit demanded, hurrying
over to help keep Ailfrid upright.

“Surge—powerful—” Ailfrid gasped, clutching
his head in obvious pain. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose
onto the front of his white garb.

Ini-herit placed his hands on either side of
the other male’s head. A silver glow shimmered around them and then
faded.

“Thank you,
archigos
,” Ailfrid said,
blinking as the pain receded.

Beside them, Knorbis stood with his arms
crossed. “Was that stronger than the one three years ago?” he
asked.

“Significantly so,” Ailfrid responded. He
stood quietly, his eyes flashing dark green. When he again blinked
back to full awareness, he said, “And the others experienced this,
too.”

Knorbis and Ini-herit exchanged a look. This
was a first…as well as a fulfillment of Knorbis’ predictions.

“Can you reconnect with Gabriel?” Ini-herit
asked Ailfrid.

Ailfrid looked again toward the bed. “I shall
try.”

While he advanced on the bed, Knorbis pulled
Ini-herit a step back. “You will have to move up your
timeline.”

“Indeed,” Ini-herit agreed. “I am already
sensing one summons from the other side. Another is sure to
follow.” He looked at the bed, which was now bathed in dark green
light. “It appears you were once again correct.”

Knorbis sighed. “It would certainly appear
so.” Then he caught Ini-herit’s gaze. “However, the reason you must
act quickly is that this was not the surge I predicted. My fellows
and I all believe that this was merely a prelude to what is still
to come.

“The next surge, if we allow it to occur,
will leave no survivors.”

The pond was a murky womb, a sensory
deprivation chamber that left Gabriel floating without thought or
feeling for a suspended moment in time. Only his body’s desperate
need for oxygen finally pulled his consciousness forward.

Amber.

Their limbs were still entwined, but his
sudden movements to push toward the surface provoked no reaction
from her. She wasn’t moving.

Now driven by panic, he grasped her arm and
kicked, propelling them both up. He broke through the surface and
dragged in huge gulps of air, coughing and sputtering when some
water found its way into his lungs. She didn’t move, her body dead
weight. He wasn’t a very practiced or skilled swimmer, but he was
strong and he was determined. Kicking his sport sandals off and
hooking his left arm under her armpits, he used his legs and right
arm to pull them closer to the pond’s edge. Two hard kicks had them
close enough that his feet could touch the bottom.

“Hang on, Am,” he gasped around the water
splashing in his face. “Hang on, girl.”

It became a litany as he hauled her onto the
grass beside the water.

Oh, God…please, please, please help me
remember the lessons from health class
, he thought frantically
as he straightened her prone form and tilted her head with shaking
hands.

After confirming that she wasn’t breathing,
he positioned himself beside her like he remembered learning with
the CPR dummy in class. But this wasn’t a dummy—it was Amber, and
she was pale as milk edging toward blue. His stomach threatened to
revolt. He had never been this frightened in his entire life.

Pinching her nose closed, he leaned down and
began resuscitative breathing. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Come on, Amber,” he demanded hoarsely.

She remained lifeless. He couldn’t bring
himself to check her pulse. He sensed that the impact of finding
her heart unresponsive would send him over an edge that he couldn’t
afford to approach. Instead, he moved almost robotically to her
side and felt for the right spot on her chest to begin
compressions.

This can’t be happening. This isn’t
real.

It felt like hours rather than seconds had
passed when he moved back up and once again began administering
life-giving breaths. This time, she responded. Her chest issued an
odd, almost whooshing sound and then she promptly expelled water.
Quickly rolling her onto her side, he closed his eyes briefly and
drew a shuddering breath. She really was going to be okay.

She coughed and gasped and clutched at the
grass. When she started to push herself up with rubbery arms, he
reached for her instead.

“God, Amber, you scared the hell out of me!”
He couldn’t prevent the tremor in his voice as he sat and pulled
her into his lap, clutching her against him. “You have no
idea…”

She began shaking. Her eyes widened.
“Gabriel, I—”

“You’re fine,” he interrupted, his voice
firm. He held her now-cool amber gaze with conviction.
“Everything’s fine.”

Though Gabriel wanted to take her to the
hospital, Amber steadfastly refused. She couldn’t even begin to
imagine how they would explain the circumstances of her condition
to a healthcare professional. Besides, she knew from prior
experience that her energy would return rather swiftly if she just
allowed herself to rest. Though she was the first to acknowledge
that this was the closest she had come to, well,
dying
, she
simply couldn’t face a host of questions and the possibly lifelong
ramifications of going public, even for the sake of her
well-being.

So she remained in Gabriel’s lap and embrace
until her trembling subsided and she began to feel more like
herself. Although she figured it should have felt strange being
held like this by the guy who had been her best friend since she
was twelve, it didn’t. And she found herself willing to acknowledge
that she had wondered for some time how it would feel.

“Are you okay?” she asked after a few minutes
of silence.

She tensely wondered what he was thinking
about all of this. In the past, this was when her placements—and
thus, her relationships with the people she had attached
to—disrupted. So far, Gabriel had stuck. Would that change now?

“I’m good,” he finally answered. “Though I
could stand to go the rest of my life without going through that
again. Geez, Am…for a minute there, I didn’t think you were coming
back.”

Now she looked at him carefully. His tone had
been light, but his eyes told a different story. She knew then that
he would never abandon her, regardless of the circumstances. He was
upset not because of how freakish this all was, but because she had
nearly died.

She brought her hand up and rested it gently
along the side of his face. Such a gesture was entirely unlike her.
She usually kept a distance between herself and others, but
circumstances being what they were, it seemed like the right thing
to do. For once, she relied on instinct rather than her brain to
guide her. Then she simply said, “Thank you for saving my
life.”

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. She read
a depth of feeling in his gaze…feelings she realized now she had
ignored for a long time.

Funny, she never suspected her first kiss
would occur under such weird circumstances, and though it seemed
intensely fated now, she had never suspected it would be with
Gabriel.

Without another thought, she leaned forward
while using her hand to guide him toward her lips. She sensed his
hesitation, knew she had caught him off-guard and his brain was
trying to catch up, but she didn’t let it deter her. As though they
had practiced it a hundred times, her mouth found his.

His response astounded her. There wasn’t so
much a spark as a lightning strike when they connected. If she had
thought the feeling of his hands on her back earlier that day had
been amazing, the touch of his lips against hers now had rockets
firing in her synapses. He kissed her with such intensity she
wondered how she could stand it.

In that moment, she
knew
all that he
held in his heart for her and wondered how he had kept it from her
all this time. Even more, she understood her own heart in glorious,
almost painful clarity.

They parted, clinging to each other and
catching their breath. She gasped, “I always thought that romantic
stuff in the movies was a load of crap.”

Issuing a choked laugh, he replied, “I know
you did.”

“You should have said—done—I don’t know.
Something
sooner,” she chastised, gripping the back of his
neck tightly. She touched her forehead to his.

“You weren’t ready,” he said. Then he
grinned. “Guess you are now.”

She understood. It was always meant to be her
choice. Realizing just how well he knew her, she kissed him again.
He moved his lips against hers, gently at first, then with more
purpose. She followed his lead, not really knowing what to do. When
he ran the tip of his tongue against her lower lip, she almost
pulled back in surprise. Then she sensed his intent and parted her
lips. His tongue touched hers. She thought her head might spin
right off. Was that her moaning?

It seemed the physical contact did more than
stir passion between them. It created a kind of healing connection.
By the time they broke apart a second time, both of them were back
to their normal color and strength.

“Impossible,” they said at the same time.

Looking at each other, they broke into
laughter. As if
this
should seem impossible after what they
had just gone through.

“This has been a hell of day,” he said. “And
I have to admit at the risk of losing my man card that if we don’t
stand up soon, I’ll probably lose all feeling in my legs.”

Elbowing him, she snickered and then got to
her feet. She reached down to give him a hand up. When he rose, he
didn’t let go of her hand, but pulled her close and anchored her
against him with one hand at the base of her spine.

“You know you can’t pretend like this didn’t
happen, right?” he said.

Wondering if he meant the kissing or the
incident that led them to this pond, she nodded. He was right in
either case.