Sorrows of Adoration (77 page)

“I thought I’d never
find anyone like me either,” he said.

She held her own palm
beside his, once more her eyes darting back and forth. Then she
looked at him, and a single tear fell down her cheek. “I don’t know
what to do now.”

“That’s simple,” Trish
said. “We leave. Let’s go.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t
find you sooner,” Jason said as both relief and sadness began to
pour out of him. “I would have come if I’d known.”

“Right, great, you two
will have plenty of time to talk in the car,” Trish said. “But
seriously, they’re going to realize there’s a security system
problem soon. Let’s go.”

“She’s right,” Jason
said, struggling to maintain his composure. “Please, let’s get you
out of here.”

Anna let go of his
hand. He reached to help her up, but she rose from her knees to
standing in one smooth, elegant motion, revealing more strength
than he could have imagined in someone so pale and wan. He instead
pointed to the door, gesturing for her to go first. She did, eyeing
both of them all the while.

When she got to the
outer room, she looked around as if it were completely unfamiliar.
She saw Steve on the ground and frowned. “Is he dead?”

“No,” Jason replied.
“Merely unconscious for the next few hours.”

“What did you do to
him?”

Trish and Jason
exchanged a look of concern, but Jason said, “I drained him. It’s
something I can do.”

Anna narrowed her eyes
at him again.

“I can’t make things
grow as you can, but I can touch people and sort of steal their
energy. We don’t know how it works except that there is a minor
electrical field—”

“Can you kill with
it?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“But you didn’t kill
him.”

“
No, I try to avoid killing,” Jason replied, followed by the
thought,
These days, at least.

“Can you kill me?”

His first instinct was
to reassure her he had no intention of trying, but then his stomach
knotted as he realized by her desperate tone and newly hopeful
expression that she meant it not as a concern but as a request.

“No,” he said. “I don’t
think so, and I wouldn’t even if I could.”

She turned away, and
his heart broke anew. “Very well then,” she said sadly. “I want to
go now.”

Trish pushed the
elevator button, and the doors opened. They both nodded at Anna to
indicate she should go in first, but she stood fast until Trish
rolled her eyes again and went in ahead of her.

As the elevator began
to rise, Jason looked down at Anna’s socked feet. “We have shoes
and clothes for you at the next car, but I’ve just realized we
forgot to bring shoes with—”

Anna gasped and threw
her head back, eyes wide. She lifted her hands, palms upward and
called out, “I feel them again!”

Trish backed into the
corner, staring at Anna in horror as the latter changed before
their eyes. Loose skin draped on bony arms filled out with strong,
feminine muscle lines. Her face rounded out, softening out the
pointed chin and cheekbones. Even her hair seemed to lift up and
regain a healthy bounce as she groaned in a way that might have
been pain, delight, or both.

When the elevator
stopped, Anna looked forward once more and grinned with both
pleasure and malice. As the doors opened and she strode forth,
Trish hissed, “Jason! Do something!”

But he didn’t want to.
He didn’t dare. Only when Anna knocked aside the plastic curtain
ribbons and was out of sight did he find his feet enough to go
after her. He looked through the checkpoint to see her at the door,
rattling the handle hard enough that he could see the metal
discolour from flexing.

“Did the building just
shake?” Trish asked in an uncharacteristically high voice as she
hurriedly put her shoes back on.

Jason grabbed his shoes
and said, “Anna, wait, please!”

“I want out now!” she
demanded.

“Trish, unlock the
door.”

“I don’t think that’s
such a good—”

“Trish, please!” he
insisted.

Trish only approached
the door when Anna stepped obligingly away. As she unlocked it, she
said, “We really do have to proceed with caution out there—” but
Anna darted beyond her, flung the door open, and ran out to the
main offices.

“No, wait!” Jason
pleaded again, rushing after her. But Anna had gone only a few
steps into the hall around the corner.

He looked around, saw
Trish step out warily behind him, and also saw that the office
workers were all clustered around the windows, frantically pointing
and exclaiming about something outside and thus paying him no
heed.

“Hurry while they are
distracted,” Anna said in a low growl before taking off once
more.

“No, this way!” Jason
hissed.

Anna turned, regarded
him warily for a moment, and then went the way he was pointing.

Jason took Trish’s hand
so he would not lose track of her as they ran out of the building.
Anna rushed out the back door ahead of them, but as they exited,
Jason stopped fast and Trish crashed into him.

Anna was already in the
rear parking lot, which was now covered with thick, swirling,
rapidly growing cables of grass and creeping ground cover. She had
resumed her pose from the elevator, turning slowly around with her
face turned up to the sky. Another dramatic change occurred: her
skin took on a healthy colour, as if she were instantly soaking up
the sunshine.

“Oh my god,” Trish
said, pointing to the writhing tendrils of green climbing up the
building’s walls. The sea of growth extended to the tree lines of
the property on all sides, and possibly beyond.

Anna turned to them
again as she stood amongst her handiwork, arms still outstretched.
“If only Dr. Steele was here, what a gift I’d have for her!” she
intoned, the malicious grin returning. “Shall I show them all what
it’s like to suffer and beg for death?”

“No!” Jason cried,
leaping off the little landing and running toward Anna. But as fast
as he was, he didn’t get to her before she crouched to touch the
ground. The green beneath him rose and encircled his legs, making
him stumble forward, just out of reach of her.

“Oh god!” Trish cried
again, gripping the doorframe as the entire building lurched.
Screams echoed from within.

Anna closed her eyes
and the growth increased, wrapping the building entirely, making it
groan and causing several windows to shatter out of their frames.
Her smile shifted from malice to ecstasy.

Jason tried to step out
of the entanglement, but it grew faster than he could overcome even
with his unnatural strength. “Please, Anna, don’t!” he shouted
above the uncanny creaks and hisses of plant growth all around
them.

“Why shouldn’t I have
my vengeance?” Anna called out. “Those who harm others have no
right to mercy!” Her eyes flew open, and she grimaced as she thrust
her hands forward. A sickening cracking sound erupted from the
center of the building.

Then,
silence: not even the sound of wind or a bird. The growth had
stopped.
Every opening into the building was so stuffed with
vegetation that any sounds inside were contained.

Jason pulled his legs
free but stayed where he was. Anna stood with arms limp by her
sides, regarding her handiwork.

“Because I am not what
they think I am,” she said softly. “That is why.”

Jason could feel that
there were people alive inside the building; their combined terror
shone like a beacon in his mind. He glanced back to see Trish on
the stairs, outside the growth but clinging to it and the stair
rail to keep from falling.

Anna noticed as well.
She flicked her hand, and the green beneath Trish’s feet turned
brown and crumbled away, clearing the stairs for her but keeping
the door behind her plugged.

“Dr. Steele said I had
to be kept locked up for everyone’s safety,” Anna said flatly. “She
begged me to understand that. But she was wrong. I’m not a
monster.”

I
am,
was
Jason’s automatic thought, but he shook it off and said, “I believe
you.”

“I could kill them all,
you know. I could bring this building crashing down upon them and
drag it under the ground. I could suffocate them, crush them,
destroy them.”

“I do not doubt
it.”

Anna held her palms out
in the sunlight and waved them lightly as if she were trying to
catch the beams. “I feel so strong again now, I could probably do
so for miles and miles.”

Jason didn’t know how
to reply.

“
But instead I shall leave it like this. Let them dig
themselves out. Let them at least know a few hours of panic and
terror and helplessness as I have for
 
…
”
She let out a single wry chuckle and said, “For I don’t even know
how long.”

“That seems fair
enough,” he said carefully. He turned to Trish as she approached,
white-faced and trembling. He held out his hand for her. “It’ll
give us time to get away unseen.”

Trish took his hand and
gripped it hard.

“I do not know where to
go,” Anna said.

“With us,” Jason
replied. “We’ll keep you safe, I swear it. We’ll get you far away
from here, and hopefully they won’t even know where to start
looking for you.”

Anna pointed to the
green at her feet. “Perhaps they’ll henceforth know better than to
try.”

Finding Gaia
is
available at all leading ebook stores listed at
http://findinggaia.com
along with a 3D rendering of the Truitt mansion
with screen shots, Trish's blog, a recommended list of songs to
match major scenes, plus other extras.

Kimberly Chapman has
been making things up and writing them down for as long as she can
remember. She holds a double major degree in Journalism and
Anthropology and worked for a few years as a technology reporter,
but she soon found that it was more fun to interact with the fake
people who live in her head than interview real-life people about
network hardware.

She left her native
Canada in 2000 to marry an Australian and live in the United States
with him, because love does that sort of thing to a person. They
have a young daughter who keeps asking to Mum’s books and has been
told not until she’s twenty-five.

When Kimberly’s
not obsessively transcribing the lives of the fake people in her
head or busy with Mum duties, she can usually be found engaged in
experimental cake decorating (which she blogs at
http://eat-the-evidence.com
), nerdy knitting, volunteering for
creative community organizations like Capital Confectioners and The
Biscuit Brothers, discussing topics both profound and trivial on
Google+, or playing computer games.

Discover this and other titles by Kimberly Chapman at
Smashwords.com:

Gaia Series

Finding Gaia
–
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/180554

The Power of a Blush
-
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254043

Finding Gaia

Jason Truitt has wealth and power but for over a
century hasn’t been able to locate the one woman he believes shares
his immortality. Unsure of her real name, he thinks of her as Gaia
because of her ability to grow plants by thought alone. Finding
her, however, is only the beginning: decades of loss, isolation,
abduction, and unspeakable torture have left her unsure of who,
what, or when she is.

The Power of a Blush

Last night, Jason and Anna—two immortals trying to
survive the modern world—finally succumbed to their desires and
made love in a way befitting Anna's unique mastery over all plant
life. Today, they will feign interest in other things, but as
everyone knows, nothing burns as hot as the lusty fires of newly
declared love. This free e-book is a bonus extended scene to the
novel
Finding Gaia
.

Sorrows of Adoration

The barmaid Aenna overhears a plot to kill the heir
to the throne and decides to leave her life behind to warn him.
Aenna and the Prince fall in love, but this is not a fairy tale
romance. Endless problems threaten to destroy the couple, including
the love that grows between Aenna and her Champion, the Prince’s
cousin.

Flexible, Edible Stained Glass

This book will take you through the basics of making
your own gummy candy, complete with three different recipes that
give decorators literal and figurative flexibility in their
designs. Next, it shows you how to turn those basics into fantastic
results that will have everyone asking, “How on Earth did you do
that?” Step-by-step photos and instructions illustrate just how
easy it is to be creative and have fun with the newest medium in
the sugar arts world.

Cute and Easy Turkey Cakes

This is a perfect cake for those who have always
wanted to try fondant or only have limited experience with it and
want to go beyond simply covering a cake. The techniques are
explained on the beginner level, but more advanced decorators can
still pick up some tips and tricks for making this adorable little
cake.