The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3) (24 page)

“What?” yelled Nigel.

A murmur burst out among us.

Mrs. Higgins cleared her throat. “Yes, you heard me perfectly well, Nigel. Raphael will not be teaching this class today, I will. If you would be so kind and find your textbook, go to page 344.”

The murmuring was back and Mrs. Higgins had a hard time getting through to any of us.

“Children, children,” she said and clapped her hands.

The murmuring stopped. All eyes were on her.

“There is nothing to be alarmed about. Raphael is a very important Angel and he has to take care of other things than teaching this class from time to time. That is all there is to it. Now if you would just go to page 344 in your textbook.”

Reluctantly we did as we were told, but I couldn’t escape that feeling in my stomach that something was very wrong. I don’t know if it was the way Mrs. Higgins looked at me or the squad of Angels that I felt was following me constantly wherever I went—the same squad that now guarded the classroom entrance and every now and then peeked in through the wall to check on us. Or maybe they were just checking on me? I didn’t know. Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe all the students felt that way.

But it scared me and at lunch I talked to Mick about it. “I feel like I am being watched wherever I go,” I whispered to him, when he sat next to me.

He lifted his head and looked around. The three Angels that had been following me were standing by the wall. They were all looking in my direction.

“You are just being paranoid,” Mick said and smiled at me. “I think we all feel like we are being watched these days.”

“I think they are watching me more than others. It’s like everybody knows something that I don’t. It’s really creepy.”

Mick raised one eyebrow at me. “So what if they are watching you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does it matter?”

“What?” I had a hard time understanding where he was going with this. What was he saying?

“You could choose to just be happy that someone is looking out for you, making sure you are safe. How is that a bad thing? It makes me really happy that you are safe. I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Nothing is going to separate me from you again.”

I looked at him. “But,” I whispered as he stared into my eyes causing me to smile as well. “It makes it kind of impossible for me to be close to you. Like really close.”

Mick smiled. “That is right. I had not thought about it that way.”

I felt his hand touch mine under the table.

“We will just have to find other ways,” he whispered really close to my ear.

I smiled and ate. I still loved the way the food just appeared on my plate, and it was always what I was craving right then. Just as I spoke to Mick, a bowl of chocolate ice cream appeared in front of me. I looked at Mick, knowing he was the one making it appear. How he always knew what I needed, I still didn’t understand, but it was really nice. Mick smiled and I felt a warmth spread inside of me, going through my whole body. I had to find a way to be alone with him later on.

During my Transitions class I realized that maybe I wasn’t so paranoid after all. I wasn’t the only one assuming that I might be the main target of these attacks.

“My money is on one of the elderly women again. They are so easy to scare,” I overheard someone say.

 I peeked to see Acacia, Nigel and the Cornwell twins with their heads together in a deep conversation. The subject was apparently on who would be the next victim.

“Yeah. Or maybe it would be a guy this time,” Alexandra Cornwell said and looked at her brother maliciously. Frederic Cornwell replied by sticking his tongue out.

“I think you might be right,” Acacia said. “The first two victims were women, so now it is probably a guy’s turn.”

“Wouldn’t that be too obvious?” asked Nigel. “That is what you would expect, that now it would be a guy since the others were women, right?”

They all nodded.

“I think I know who is next,” Alexandra said and the four of them gulped while they shot a glance in my direction.

From their expressions I could tell they didn’t know I could hear what they were saying until their eyes met mine and they all looked away quickly.

The silence was almost painful.

C
HAPTER 9

I
WATCHED THE SUN
set over the forest from my window in the dormitory. As the stars became brighter in the sky, I realized I had been thinking about Jason again. I stared at the blank black window and the reflection of myself that wasn’t there. In a cruel way it reminded me why I couldn’t be with Jason. It was very simple really. I sighed and touched the window. It felt cold. It had been snowing again today, and the trees and landscape outside had been beautifully wrapped in the white cover.

I had finished my homework and the books were still on my bed. I was alone, not in the mood for any reading or even listening to music. Everyone else had gone to the theater where the Angels were performing their beautiful singing, except of course the squad of Angels who were guarding me outside my door.

I considered going to bed early, but I wasn’t tired. And frankly I was a little scared that my classmates were right and I would wake up as the next screamer. I don’t know how long I stared out the window while weighing the pros against the cons: doing what my heart desired and sneaking past the guards to go and see Jason, but making Mick furious—not to mention the Angels as well. It was long enough to decide that it would cause me way too much trouble if I went.

I sighed and went back to staring into the black darkness, picturing Jason’s face. I needed to see him: see him look at me again, hear him talk, see him smile and laugh the way he used to when I visited him in his house. I needed to replace that awful last memory of his empty eyes staring into nowhere, dozing off into oblivion.

But I knew it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Someone came to my door. I heard voices outside in the corridor followed by laughter. I couldn’t help smiling. It was Mick. He always knew when I needed him. He stuck his head through the door and oozed into my room. My heart started beating faster when he came close. He put his arm around my waist and pulled me near. Then he whispered.

“We are all alone.”

“What about the guards?”

“They won’t bother us. I talked to them before I went in.”

He breathed heavily in my ear as he spoke.

Then he held me tight for a second before his lips were all over mine. I enjoyed his kisses and his hands caressing me. His hands were on my face, my neck, and my body. While he was still kissing me he pushed all of my books off the bed and then he put me gently on top of it. He leaned over me and I felt his warm kiss on my neck again. I grabbed his head and held it between my hands, and then I pulled him back to my face and drank from his lips again.

I stopped and he looked at me confused. I had messed up his hair. It made him look even more boyish.

“What is wrong?” he asked still breathing heavily.

“How does this even work?” I asked.

Mick sighed and threw himself on his back next to me.

“I mean our bodies are all different from humans. How do spirits … you know?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said with a smile.

“You mean to tell me you haven’t tried it before? You never had sex as a spirit before?”

“Not as a spirit and not as a human.”

Neither had I. So there we were thinking about doing “it” for the first time in our lives. I kind of had a picture of what it was like when you were in a human body. But these new bodies were very different. They looked like the human body, but they were almost weightless (only twenty-one grams) and seemed to be made of a fluid-like material. But then again, if the kissing worked, the rest probably worked as well.

I looked at my clothes. I had been wearing the same ones ever since I came to the castle, ever since I died. I had only taken them off when I took a shower or went to the bathroom. They didn’t seem to get dirty or even smell. In the first year we were told that we would look exactly the way we did when we died until the day we were let into Heaven. Then we would get to choose what we wanted to look like. I was okay with that, but being a girl I would have liked to dress differently every now and then. We had to get rid of all vanity, they said, before we were ready to go through the gates of Heaven. I had this weird dream that my house in Heaven would be filled with all kinds of nice clothes.

I took off my jacket and was now just wearing my top.

Mick smiled a little shyly while staring at my breasts. That was when I realized that with his background he probably had never seen a woman naked before.

“Do you want me to take off my clothes?” I whispered.

Mick’s face froze. Then he got up from the bed in a hurry.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

His breathing was uneven again. He stared at me and then covered his eyes with his hand.

“Please, Meghan. Don’t make me do this. I am a gentleman,” he said.

I got up and floated toward him. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer. His face showed his heart was torn.

“I just want to be close to you,” I whispered, longing for his closeness, for his warmth, longing to hear his breath and feel his lips again. Resisting me like he did made me want him even more.

“Please come back to the bed with me,” I whispered.

I closed my eyes waiting for his rejection. But he hesitated, still breathing heavily, keeping his face close to mine.

“Please?” I whispered again, feeling my heartbeat pick up. I felt like I had knots in my tongue and the words tumbled as they left my lips. “So what if we don’t know how to do this? So what if it doesn’t work out? It is perfectly okay.”

“Don’t make me do this to you,” he said.

“You are not doing anything
to
me,” I scoffed. “I want this. I am in need of you. I need to have you close to me.”

His warm arms tightened around me, and his lips were close to my ear, causing an ice-cold chill to run down my back, making me shiver all over.

“Meghan … ,” He shook his head slowly. But then it was like he gave in to his own desire and his lips moved across my throat. My heart, already racing, felt like it would explode. He lifted me up and carried me to the bed. When we landed on it, his face turned toward mine and I twisted in his arms till my lips met his. His hands were on my shoulders and I was certain he would pull away again, but I was wrong. His breathing became even more agitated and his mouth was no longer gentle. There was a desperation in his kisses. His lips didn’t leave my body. It was like he wanted to devour me, take advantage of this moment as if it would never come back. I pulled his mouth back to mine and he seemed just as eager as I was. Maybe even more than me now. It was like he had been waiting for this all of the hundred years he had spent here. Waiting for me, waiting for permission to let all of his desires out. As he moved around on top of me I felt his muscular arms. They were so strong, so powerful, like he could crush me in one movement. His arm was around my waist pulling me closer to his body. His lips were at my ear again.

“Meghan … Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to refuse you?” he whispered.

“Then don’t,” I whispered back as his lips were on my skin again.

He lifted his head and looked me into my eyes. The icy-blue sparkling eyes that were so cold and so beautiful.

“But I have to,” he said, but still not resisting his own desires. Now his lips were on my wrist. He was kissing my hand.

“Why? Don’t you want me?”

He sighed. “You have no idea how much I want this,” he said and paused for a second before he continued. “There is only one thing I want more than this.”

“What is that? What do you want from me?”

He sighed and narrowed his eyes slightly while looking into mine. His beauty was breathtaking and almost unbearable. “I want you to
love
me,” he said.

“But I do love you.”

He sighed again. This time more deeply. “I want you to love me the way you love Jason.”

My heart stopped beating for an instant. “What do you mean?”

He pulled himself away from me. “I have seen the way you look when you talk about him. I have seen the love in your eyes. Even now, when he is unreachable to you, you still pursue him and love him more than you have ever loved me.”

“That’s not true,” I scoffed, feeling a little insecure.
But he is right
, I thought as my breathing slowed down a little. I knew he was. I just didn’t want him to be.

“I am not sure I can give you that,” I said. “I
do
love you. It is just different with Jason. I don’t think I will ever love anyone as much as I love him. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t be with him. You are right. He belongs to a different world.”