The Four Horsemen (The Light Series) (13 page)

I turn away from her
and walk out into the garden. The cold wind is intense, but I think I’m dying
inside so it doesn’t matter. I walk out to the cliffs, like I am Catherine
Earnshaw
on the moors. There is something especially tragic
about cliffs in England. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like I will never
escape the feelings bogging me down.

I slump down onto the
mossy cliff and look up. “Please help me. I don’t know what to do. None of this
is real. I don’t even know if you are real, or if I am in one sick version of
Alice in Wonderland or a coma in a hospital.” The wind gets a bit stronger, and
like a desperate psycho, I take that as a sign. I smile into the wind, “Just
tell me what to do. Please.”

The wind dies down,
and I see that like the people Willow told me about, the ones who will always
look for God when they are desperate, I too have seen a sign that is not there.

My smile fades, as if
the wind washed it away.

I think I am supposed
to feel the hands of God on me, holding me, carrying me the way he is supposed
to when times get hard. But I have never felt more alone.

“When the Lamb opened the
fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come
and see!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was
named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power
over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the
wild beasts of the earth.”

Revelations

“How the hell could
you do that to me?”

I open my eyes,
smiling when I see him. He doesn’t look as happy to see me. Is it a dream? Do I
ask that every time I dream?

Seeing Wyatt looking
like he might strangle me, dripping on the carpet in the room and feeling
nothing in my
chest,
makes me think it isn’t a dream.
I can smell the salt water on him.

His eyes are red and
burning. “Why would you leave me there?”

I scowl, “Are you
really here?”

His nostrils flare and
I leap off of the bed. I whisper into his chest, “You’re here?” I tackle him
into the wall. He doesn’t move. I grab him, climbing his body. My mouth is on
his; he tastes like the sea.

My legs are wrapped
around him, holding him tight to me, before he has a chance to run away. I drag
his soaked shirt from his body, tossing it to the floor.

“Not now, Rayne. I
need a shower.” He walks, holding me in the air and carries me to the bathroom.
His face seems wooden when I press my lips against his cool
lips
,
mine are desperate and angry
. He pulls
back but I tear my shirt from my body as he holds me in the air. He is not
responding the way I’d hoped. He’s pissed. He puts
me down
and steps back
but I step to him. I start to laugh nervously against his
face as I plant kisses on his cheeks, but he growls.

“I got mad, I’m
sorry.” I pull
back,
there is fierceness in his face
still. I run my hands down his cheeks, “I love you.”

He shakes his head,
“You left me behind.”

I want to say that I
didn’t, but I did.

His eyes burn down on
me, “You keep leaving me. You are just never going to trust me, are you? I’ve
backed way off on the controlling thing. I actively work at not bossing you
around and dragging you all over. I let you call the shots, all of them. I let
you bring me here, in some fucking stupid attempt at being with you and helping
you with this.”

“You were texting
Michelle? Why?”

His eyes narrow, “She
texted me and I didn’t think it was a big deal. She’s your friend. I can’t
believe you went through her phone.”

I can’t touch on any
of it. I can’t. I’m guilty as hell of it. My face is red from the guilt of
reading their texts, even if they were totally innocent. I shake my head to rattle
my thoughts a bit. “How did you get here?”

He looks exasperated.
He shoves me back a bit and turns the shower on. I can see more tattoos on his
back. I scowl but he turns around, “I don’t know. Suddenly, I was in Boston. I
was standing outside of some shitty old building; everything is burned out and
ruined. Some guys chased me in a cop car, shooting at me. I ran for the sea and
dove in. Nearly froze my balls off and begged the nixie to bring me back to
you. They didn’t want to—some bullshit covenant that you don’t touch a
claimed man.” His eyes are burning with rage, “But don’t worry, I let them know
that was not the case. I had to prove it, but it worked. The nixie brought me
back.”

“Is Willow pissed?”

He nods, “Yeah, Rayne.
She can’t understand why you would be so hateful to her and Fitz and me. I
explained that to her though, don’t worry about that.”

I can see myself in
his eyes, in the hatred. It makes me hate myself.

He steps back again,
“I can’t do this. I’ll shower in a different room.” He turns and leaves me
there with his salt kiss still on my lips, in only my bra.

Stella comes running
into the room, “Rayne, we have a major issue.”

I look at her, “Can it
wait or is it major? ‘Cause I think my heart just fell into my stomach.”

She sticks her glossy
red lip out, “I’m sorry, it can’t. Your father contacted Michelle. Constantine
has been tracking her messages and she has a single one from Lucifer. She told
him she thinks it’s him, it’s the same number as before when he was contacting
her to betray you.”

“It’s so weird he uses
a cell phone.”

“I
know, that’s weird.
Anyway, the last horseman is here, the pale
rider. We have to find Lucifer, before he finds us. We think he used the
message to her phone to track us down to the castle. Gretel has found the
horsemen again, since they lost them the last time. She says that if you don’t
end Lucifer before the last horseman does his ride, you cannot kill Lucifer.
Whoever kills the horseman has the power.”

I sigh, letting my
face fall into my hands, “Why does this have to be so hard? I seriously got
excited when the devils were so easily killed.”

“Yeah well, apparently
they were only the appetizers. You have to go get Constantine back.”

I nod, “I know.”

She takes my arms in
her hands, “You have to dig around in there and find the girl I once knew. The
one who didn’t let anyone tell her what she had to do.”

I look into her
mesmerizing blue eyes, “I am so sorry about him getting stuck there.”

She shrugs, “It’s
probably not a bad place for him to be.”

I wince, dreading the
words I am about to say, but I have to. “I pulled the dagger from his chest.”

She looks stunned. Her
face starts to turn red, but she doesn’t open her mouth. She points at me,
pausing and pressing her lips together. I back up slowly. She shakes her head,
closes her eyes and pounds her fist against her forehead. I turn and run for
it.

“ELLIE!”

I don’t wait for her
to catch
up,
I leap out a window, smashing the glass,
diving out into the air. My wings burst from my back but she has my foot. I fly
into the air with her climbing me like a tree, dragging her claws into me.

“His humanity, he
traded his humanity for your freedom?”

I lower us to the
ground. She shoves me down, “YOU FIX THIS!”

I shout back, “I
CAN’T! HE MADE ME DO IT!”

She snarls, there is a
flash of white, and she’s gone. I look up and Wyatt has her pinned to the
ground. He snarls almost the same way she does.

She swings at him but
he catches her arm and punches her. I wince, jumping up. “Don’t hit her.”

She hits me from
behind when I get between them. He lashes at her again.

Somehow between the
chaos of it all, I end up behind him with his arms around me. “She is MINE!”

Stella steps back at
the noise he makes. She looks past him, “He has loved you, only you, for
hundreds of years. I told him you weren’t ever worth that kind of devotion, but
he never believed me.” She nods, almost bowing, “Thank you for proving me
right.”

She turns and she’s
gone.

I feel like
I’ve been hit by a truck
. My exhaustion is at a new level.

Wyatt turns to face
me, “You okay?”

I shake my head, “I’m
messing this all up.
All of it.
I’m the biggest
mistake God ever made.”

He laughs, “Let’s go
get you someone to eat.”

I pull back, almost
dizzy with hunger, “I have to go to the garden and free them.
I can’t eat first
,
it makes you sick
.
I can’t risk the garden not letting me in if I do something bad.”

He steps back from me,
“Take me with you, I’ll keep you safe.”

I can see he isn’t
over the conversation in the room; he’s going to be pissed for a while. I nod,
“If the garden will let you in.”

I hold him and fly. It
isn’t easy and I’m starving. When we get to the small stream, I stop
mid-flight. “Look!” The gate is open and completely visible. I land us both on
the bank of the stream. He walks towards it, “Is this it?”

I
nod, scared.

He looks back at me,
“What’s the deal with finding it, if it’s right here? Doesn’t seem so secret.”

I shake my head but
the dead whisper. It changes everything that they are the voices of my past.
Not just the thoughts of the girls I once was,
but
the
whispers of the actual people I was.

None of us like what
we see. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in there.”

Wyatt laughs, “You
really are the biggest chicken shit some times.” My eyes narrow, “You really
are the biggest jerk, all the time.”

He nods, “I know.”

He holds his hand out
for me to take. I do it, even if he’s annoying me. He’s still the strongest
thing I know. And his hand makes me feel safe and warm. We enter the gate, no
issue. That’s not right.

The field inside of
the gates whispers, maybe announcing our arrival. I don’t feel the sense of
sanctuary I did the first time. I don’t feel anything again. Great…

We enter the forest,
and I pull him to the right, off of the path. He shakes his head, “Wait here.
I’ll be right back.”

I grab him, “No. We
stay together.”

“No. I think I saw
something. Wait here. I’ll just be a second.”

I try to argue but he
just walks off. He disappears into the forest.

I sit on a log and
wait for him. I don’t understand why he wanted to leave. I don’t understand why
I feel such a terrible feeling here. It’s different than last time.

The ground in front of
me crunches. I brace myself but it’s Wyatt. He puts a finger to his lips,
“Something is wrong here.” He offers me his hand again. I take it, jolting
almost. I haven’t felt that since we handfasted. He lets me lead, but he never
takes his hand from mine.

Something is off, way
off. I can feel it in the silence. The small village is motionless. Not a
single person moves along the streets or buildings. We enter the palace from
the back, like before. You could hear a pin drop and my skin
is
crawling.

We get up the stairs
to the middle floor, and I see something in the corner of my eye. I turn to see
a daisy float by. My stomach drops. I look back at Wyatt, but he doesn’t seem
to notice the flower, or care. When we get around the corner to the next set of
stairs, I gag. Daisies are everywhere. They float by, filling the air with a
sweet scent.

“Oh God.”

Wyatt looks
distant,
 
“There
is no way this place is this empty.”

I swallow hard, “It’s
not.”

He frowns, “Can you
see people?” He looks like he doesn’t trust me. I look past him to the archway
where the man with the white eyes is standing. He shakes his head, “Don’t come
this way, child. Take the back stairs and run from here. Save yourself.”

I cast a slight
glimpse at Wyatt. He doesn’t see the man. Only I can. I walk to him. He shakes
his
head,
“You bring much trouble to my people.”

I nod, looking down,
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

He looks at Wyatt, “I
see you have chosen your side, sin eater.”

I look back at Wyatt.
It’s true. I have chosen his side. I pulled the dagger from Constantine,
choosing. Even if I didn’t know it at the time, I get it now.

“You betrayed us.”

I look at the man, “I
didn’t.”

Wyatt looks at me,
“You say something?”

I open my mouth, but
the man shakes his head, “Do not tell him I am here. His evil has done enough
to this place. Get your friends and go. They are in the throne room.”

I look back at Wyatt,
“Wait here. I have to run up the stairs and grab them.”

“No. I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t. You have
to stay here; they’re angry I brought you here.”

His eyes flash, “What
did they say?”

“Nothing, just that
they didn’t want you here.”

He lashes at me,
grabbing my hand harshly and shaking me, “WHAT DID THEY SAY?”

I shove him back,
“STOP IT! I HATE THAT! YOU KNOW I DO!”

His jaw is set. I’m
going to kick the shit out of him if he touches me, if I can. I will die
stopping him. He’s never going to get past his anger issues or the way he
treats things like me.

My heart hurts. I’ve
made the wrong choice, and the dead fill the air with their version of ‘I told
you so’.

Constantine never
would have treated me that way. How did I repay him for that loyalty and love?
I broke his heart, and he has killed all of the fae for it. I turn and walk
through
a tumbleweed
of daisies.

The stairs are
littered with them.

Millions
of daisies.

They all died here, in
the throne room. When I get up to the top of the stairs, I make a noise. I
don’t shed the tears filling my eyes. I don’t deserve to cry. I broke him and
left him here.

He sits in the corner,
looking out the window or staring at the corner, punishing himself.

Mona is alone in the
room, kneeling over a pile of daisies. Her hands are filled with the flowers I
assume were the beautiful man. She looks magnificent, dressed in a long white
gown. She lifts her face when she hears my footsteps. The look she gives me
confirms my fears.