Fall (Roam Series, Book Two) (19 page)

“I’m trying,” he fumbled with the towels, blood covering both of his hands and making them slippery.

West began breathing into her mouth. “Hold her wrists up,” he said between breaths. “She…,”

“It’s stopping,” Logan dropped her wrists to her sides, and I pressed my hands over my mouth, watching the deep, serrated slashes on her wrists slowly heal themselves. West rolled back on his heels, watching her in disbelief.

The silence made me want to scream.

Violet gasped, the color returning to her cheeks in a warm flood of life. West gathered her into his arms, his bloodied hand leaving prints on her face as he crushed her to his chest. “What
in the
hell
were you
thinking
?”

She lifted her wrists, her blue eyes unblinking. “I… you can kill him,” she said, her voice wavering as she looked at West. “You can snap his neck. We’re still immortal.”

West stared at her as though she were a disobedient child. “You can clean this up,” he snapped, releasing her and moving to the bedroom. Violet shifted her eyes to me, and I knelt next to her.

“I’ll do this. Logan, help her,” I began sopping up the blood with the tourniquet towels. Logan lifted her to her feet, walking her toward the bathroom. West met them in the doorway with wet towels, looking at her squarely.

“I understand why you did this. But we’re working together. No surprises.”

“Okay,” she nodded, her chin quivering.

“Logan, please help her clean up.”

“I am.” Logan brushed his fingers over her blonde curls, pressing his lips to her head. I watched her
lean into his arms, breaking into tears.

West knelt next to me, pressing the towels to the bloodied floor. “Roam?”

“He told me not to take her.” I lifted my shaking hands, staring at the blood. “Troy said, ‘don’t take her to 2012.’ Did he mean Violet? Or Eva?”

“
Don’t speak to him. Why would he help us anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

Eva began to cry. I climbed to my feet, still shaking. West sat back, staring at the pool of blood. He draped his hands over his knees.

“We go tonight.”

I nodded.

The next hours were spent readying ourselves for the drive back to Ohio. West took Violet and Logan across first with Troy, well after midnight, after snapping his neck once more. I slipped into a constant sickened state, barely able to form words except to comfort Eva as we moved through the night.

Once we were on the road, I stared at the moonlit sound, unsure if I ever wanted to see the cottage again.

The return trip was stoic, and we moved in automated patterns, barely speaking.
I fed and changed Eva; West and Logan drove; Violet argued with the radio dial of the 1955 Chevrolet conversion van.

West regularly killed Troy.

Near southern Ohio, Violet turned
Ain’t That a Shame
down and looked at West, who sat next to her in the driver’s seat. “When do we try these inclined planes?”

I knew the question had been burning in her mind since we left. He kept his eyes focused on the windshield. “When we have Troy secured, and Roam healthy enough to take care of Eva.”

“What if you stay, and I take her through.” Logan’s voice surprised me; I watched him lean forward. “Roam will never be able to explain Eva.”

“And if Troy is
in 2012 and secure, there isn’t much danger if we try to cross over,” Violet agreed. West turned to her.

“It sounds like the two of you have discussed this.”

“Yep.” Logan crossed his arms over his chest, staring out the window.

“And I will find a way to explain Eva,” I added defensively. “My dad and Morgan will know her.”

“When I marry you, we can explain that she is my child.” West said, quiet. “It will work out.”

The ice that crept over the van radiated from Logan’s general direction. “Married, huh?” He turned to me, and I was thankful for his stranger’s face at that moment. “Probably won’t be the big deal my parents were planning for us, right?”

“Logan,” I protested softly, staring at Eva.

He turned and looked back out the window.

It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon when we got to Cleveland, and snow blanketed the grass. In the daylight, holiday shoppers crowded the streets downtown, and Violet found a station that played only Christmas music.

Warmed by Bing Crosby and
Gene Autry’s timeless carols, I fed Eva as West parked in the secluded back lot of a department store. Logan sat in the driver’s seat, talking quietly with Violet, while West and I took turns cradling Eva between us.

“She has perfect features.
Annie’s features are so cute… my eyes are too big, and my chin is too long…,”

“I miss your eyes and your chin like you wouldn’t believe,” West teased, meeting my lips in a loving kiss. “I told you… no one compares to you, Roam. Not in any
life.”

“She smiled! West, look at her lips,” I laughed softly, watching her mouth curl into a dreamy smile as she slept in West’s arms.

“She’s happy,” he traced her face with his finger. “I’ll make sure that she always is.”

We shared sandwiches and fruit that we’d packed for the trip, and as the sun disappeared, we took turns using the department store bathrooms. Logan and Violet changed back into
their clothes, now cleaned, and I stared at my stained sweater dress, loathing the idea of having to put it back on. As midnight approached, the streets cleared, and the emptiness of downtown shadowed over the streets and sidewalks. As I slipped the dress over my head, I watched Eva wistfully.

“I’ll miss feeding her,” I realized out loud. West gathered me into his arms.

“I know, baby. But I’ll get to feed her, and I’m looking forward to that,” he admitted.

“We should go,” Logan pulled along the curb next to the Hanna Fountains. The snow lay in the emptied fountain.

We’d go back the same way that we came.

“I hate to put her in the snow,” I gazed at Eva, pressing my warm lips to her forehead. She smelled like powder and
her
, a smell I would know for the rest of my life.

“It’ll only be for a few seconds,” he promised, shouldering Troy’s weight with Logan. I nodded.

“Hold hands. Logan, hold Violet, or she won’t go through. Roam, don’t let go of my hand.”

I lowered my arm, entwined with West’s, and gently placed Eva’s arm in the snow.

I should have been prepared for the pain; the moment we traveled, my throat constricted, and the cramping returned to my abdomen. Gasping, I held my hands over my stomach, doubling over.

“We’re through… There’s the Pilot. Logan, put him in… Roam?” West turned to me, lowering Troy
’s body to the snow. “Roam, where’s Eva?
Roam!
”

I lifted my empty arms, catching my breath.
The fiery pain in my arm brought me to my knees as the numbers began to reappear, coordinates embroidered by burning needles. As I gritted through the new pain, I comprehended West’s words.

Time stopped.

I felt the blood trickling down my leg, but turned back to the fountain, registering that Eva was gone. Thrusting my arm back into the snow, I waited, my chest rising and falling in painful, broken breaths.

Nothing happened.

“Take her through! Her numbers aren’t working,” Logan shouted as he and Violet watched in horror. West grabbed my arm, holding it under the snow.

I watched him fade away before me, but I remained, leaning against the edge of the War Memorial Fountain, bleeding.

He returned in seconds, staring at me, not understanding.

Seconds turned to minutes; the misery in my
hollow chest took over logical thought or any hope for understanding. The empty space in my mind was cloaked with shadows and monsters, dark haired, ice-blue eyed demons who trailed with knives and searing branding irons. West’s calming voice, his hands, his lips were there, and then gone, and then back to dank leaves in bloody forests, with insects on dripping dungeon walls while rats scurried at my feet.

“He told me not to take her through… he knew…
magic brought her to me, magic took her away,
” I held my hands over my ears, screaming, floating. West carried me to the Pilot, shouting instructions to Logan and Violet.

In our last life, we’d have a chance to go back.

But not to come home.

I closed my eyes.

Gone… as if she never existed.

I woke with a start, focused on the silver rails of a hospital bed. “… mild laryngeal damage. Her voice will be hoarse for a while.”

“Dad?” I turned slightly, and my father moved to my side.

“Don’t try to talk sweetheart. Everything is okay,” he reached for my hand, gently squeezing it. “You have an IV in your arm.”

“
Logan
,” I tried to sit up, but he leaned over to hug me.

“He’s here. He’s in the waiting room with Morgan. I’ll bring him in soon.”

Modern technology surrounded me; I watched my blood pressure reading blink as an automatic cuff began to close around my upper arm.

“Do you remember what happened?” My dad looked tired; I could read the wrinkles below his eyes and the lines at his lids.

“Yes,” I blinked at the bright lights above the bed in confusion. “No,” I realized, sitting up in alarm.

“Mr. Camden?” Logan’s face appeared at the doorway of my triage room, and I moaned. I felt as though someone held my head down to the bed, pouring the horrific memories into my ear.

We traveled to 1955; I gave birth to Eva.

And we came back without her.

“Logan,” I cried, my throat constricted. “What’s wrong with me?”

“The doctor will be in soon
…,” my dad looked at Logan expectantly; Logan put his hand on my father’s shoulder, meeting his eyes.

“I’ll talk to her. Why don’t you go out with Morgan.”

My dad turned to me. “Is that what you want, Roam?”

I nodded, tears brimming.

Logan waited until my father walked out before squatting next to my bed, taking my hand. “Everything is okay, Cam. West and Violet secured Troy in his basement. He won’t hurt you.”

“Eva?” I twisted the knitted blanket in my fingers, feeling t
he blood pressure cuff tighten at my grip.

Logan kept his steady, watery brown gaze. “She’s gone. Annie is gone. West went back; you never existed… Eva… never existed…,”

“She existed!” I shouted, coughing and crying into his shoulder. He held me as I tried to catch my breath.

“We don’t know… what happened. We know you can’t go back twice… and
you can’t carry the baby through.”

I spread my hand over my stomach, through the blanket and hospital gown. “And my baby? Here?”

Logan cupped his hand behind my neck, his eyes shifting down.

I knew. It was all over.

Eva was gone, and so was my other baby.

“Get me out of here,” I reached for my inner elbow, yanking at the IV needle in my arm. It detached, sending blood and water splashing across my arm. I welcomed the pain; Logan held my arm, calling for a nurse. “Get me out of here!
I want to leave!
”

I marked that moment as the end.

Words were ineffective; I stopped speaking. I turned inward, sleeping most of my day and night. I moved in and out of nightmares, some new, some old, but all muted through whatever drug the doctor had ordered for me to help with the anxiety.

The more medication he gave me, the easier it was to escape, and I finally understood how West lost control in 1977.

I succumbed to the hum in my brain, screaming when the world around me became too vivid or real. At some point, Morgan’s voice penetrated the shield in my mind. I recognized that it was snowing, and slowly the world came into focus around me. “…to fill out. Now, these applications are exhausting, and they all have these fees, and you have them all color-coded, but I have no idea what your system is. I think the one for Yale has subtypes or something… were you thinking a dual major? That’s the only thing I can think of, and-…,”

“Morgan?” I watched her face. She lifted her eyes to mine, raising her eyebrows. I watched them as
they jumped near her forehead. “You got your eyebrows done?”

“No, I did them myself. There isn’t much to do in here, waiting for you to come back to life.”

“I died?”

“
No, you… gave up.” She glanced at the hospital room door nonchalantly. “Before I alert the guards… are you really here? Do you fully comprehend what’s happened, and you’re ready to join the living again?”

“What is today?”

“December first.”

More than a week
has passed?

I turned my face away from her, toward the window of the hospital room. Beautiful poinsettias lined the shelf near the wall, next to a bowl. Narrowing my eyes, I stared at the bowl. “What is all of that?”