The Girl With Aquamarine Eyes (33 page)

Now he knew why she’d come to him in his dreams for so many
years. It was a chain reaction. His life was already planned before he’d ever
set foot on his beach that day. Before he’d ever bought the mansion. His sister’s
legacy would live on in Heaven. The restored photo on his desk was living proof
it was meant to be.

There was no other reason they looked almost exactly alike.
The link was forever closed, the connection complete. Her name even made sense
now. Each time he saved her, she’d gone on to save someone else. The boy at the
orphanage, the boy at the hospital. And now, she had to save Bice. Que Sera,
sera.

His hands shook as he ripped his shirt off, and pressed it
against her bleeding palm.

“Take me to Bice. Quickly, I’m out of time…”

“You’re hurt. I can’t move you.” He gazed into her eyes, but
this time she looked different. The bond he’d shared with his sister was alive
in Heaven. He knew he had no choice. He understood now. He wouldn’t let the
connection break again. History would repeat itself over, and over still as he
plucked her from the seas again and again, and she would then go on to save
another soul.

“Take me now…”

He glanced up the hill. Hawk was making his way toward them,
snaking his way down the steep cliff along the canyon. He carefully lifted her,
and began making his way toward the bodyguard.

He burst from the flaming trees and screamed. “Help me get
her to the car. Take her to Bice, run!”

The bodyguard asked no questions. The look on the musician’s
face said all he needed to know. He grabbed Heaven, and raced up the hill to
the waiting car.

* * *

Hawk gently eased Bice’s cold body back onto the seat. He sat
Heaven beside the dead man, and stood back. He had no idea what the hell was
going on, and the way things were going tonight, he didn’t want to know. He
slammed the door shut, and gazed at his haggard reflection in the tinted
windows.

In the distance, Harmon’s car exploded. Flames burst and
mushroomed into the sky. Embers drifted in the ocean winds, while nearby
branches burned and fell into the wreckage. A dull roar drifted up the hill
toward him. In the distance, sirens wailed.

Harmon caught up to him, wild-eyed and gasping for breath. “Let’s
go. Get us back to the estate.”

Hawk leapt into the front seat, and slammed down the
accelerator.

* * *

Bice, I am finally here. I am weak and hurt terribly, but I will
give my all to you. You must help me, my friend, for I am now too weak to do
this alone…

She moved her hands slowly across his broken chest. Her
fingertips quickly found the cold lead, buried deep inside his body. The bullet
had pierced his heart, killing him instantly. She shuddered in horror and fell
back against the seat.

It would take everything she had to save him. If she failed,
she too would be no more.

* * *

Tommy screeched to a stop only inches from the departing Limo.

He leapt from his car and gave chase to the long vehicle. Wheezing
for air, he managed to catch up to it. He pounded on the window. “Stop! What is
going on?”

Hawk slid the window down, and gazed at him. “We have to get
out of here, there is no time to explain.”

“Where is my dad?”

Hawk gazed down the hill at the molten steel smoldering in
the distance. “Down there, Tommy. We couldn’t find him, but help is on the way.
We can’t stay here, Heaven is hurt. “

Tommy staggered backward from the car, trying to wake from
what he knew must be a nightmare. He finally turned away, and stared at the
smoldering remains of what had once been a car.

He plunged down the hill into the burning madness.

* * *

A whippoorwill cried out to her in the distance. It was time.

She inhaled deeply, taking into her lungs the sickening
smell of engine fuel, of burning trees and of gunpowder. She gazed into Bice’s
dead eyes, as she slowly ran her hands from his chest to his head and carefully
pulled him into her lap.

She momentarily thought back over her time at the estate.
She remembered his kindness, and his honest apology after he’d called her a
freak. She in turn had stomped his toe and run away, causing him even more
grief. She’d pulled his hair, and had thrown a large book at him, nearly
knocking him unconscious. A lone tear shimmered across her eye, and fell to his
cheek. She knew there would be only one chance to save the man she cared for so
much, but had never told.

His body lay cold and still in her lap, as she gazed down
upon him sniffing away her tears. She lovingly brushed aside his long dark
hair, and stroked his still cheek. She took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.
She gently placed her palms on each side of his head, and closed her eyes.

The darkness in her mind began to whirl and spin. Soon,
tiny pinpricks of light sparkled through the onyx in brilliant beams of
glittering stars. The tiny stars churned and spun, until her dizzying mind
could no longer keep pace with their rapid movement.

Her hands soon began to warm, gradually glowing into
amber hues and finally into a golden beam. Soon, the stale air in the car
warmed with the scent of flowers and meadows and of the salty seas.

The air churned around them, whispering through the car,
mixing into the scent of blood and death. It soon overtook them, until the
vehicle smelled of a grassy hill dotted with wildflowers in the springtime. The
smell of death was gone. She smiled.

She pressed her hands tightly against his head, urging
his blood to warm. Soon, her mind spiraled downward and fell into the depths of
his soul, a place no man would ever see. She coursed through his cold veins
with silent speed, reaching out with burning stars of light, igniting his
silent blood and bringing cells back to life.

She traveled to his frozen heart, and gasped when she
felt the wreckage it had become.

Tiny pieces of silvered lead were seared into its muscle,
forever entombed in the once life giving organ.

She blinked in confusion. She did not know how to rid his
body of this foreign substance.

There had to be a way. She would not give up.

* * *

Tommy raced down the hill toward Harmon’s smoldering car.

The car he was sick in only a short time before, was now a
twisted mass of molten steel and fiberglass. It was a far cry from the gleaming
racing machine it had once been. He peered through the shattered windshield. To
his amazement, his father was not inside.

The sirens were closer now, red and blue lights flashed
against the canyon walls. He raced to the other side of the car, searching
through the smoldering brush for his father’s body.

* * *

One at a time, she grasped the tiny pieces of lead, gently
willing each away from his heart.

On and on she worked as beads of sweat poured down her.
But she could not feel it, for she was no longer one with her body. She could
sense Bice’s body tremble and quiver, shaking like a puppet on a string.

Soon, each fragment of the lead was dislodged, and began
drifting through his arteries toward his other organs. She must stop them.

Bice, she whispered, you must help me. You must stop the
pieces of lead from reaching your organs, until I can get to them, there are so
many.

She felt him smile at her, as a wave of reassurance
drifted into the starry universe of her mind. The many fragments of lead came
to a sudden halt within his arteries.

Frozen in time, waiting on her magic to find them.

She wept with joy, as she began retrieving them.

* * *

Hawk raced toward the estate, carefully navigating the tricky
curves along the narrow road.

In the horizon, the sun was gently warming the sky as the
remnant of the stars slowly retreated into the breaking dawn. The air in the
car suddenly smelled odd. It was a floral smell, a smell which reminded him of
his mother’s perfume from long ago.

Lavender, or orchids, or maybe both. It was also the scent
of the sun and the sea and the stars, if that was possible. It seemed to churn
around him, moving across his skin and prickling the hair on his arms with its
breeze.

He reached to the dash and flipped the air conditioner off.
But it wasn’t on. Puzzled, he glanced into the rearview mirror.

He gasped in shock at the sight which beheld him. An amber
glow radiated from the backseat of the long car. A gentle, serene glow, one
which reminded him of angels. Angels who’d come to comfort him when his father
had suddenly died. Angels with a glowing sort of peace, as hypnotic as the
ocean waves.

He shook his head clear, struggling to tear his eyes away
from the mirror. He gazed into the distance, down the quiet canyon road in
front of him.

Ahead, he could see the unmistakable flashes of lights
coming toward him. He whipped the car into the nearest driveway, and flipped
the headlights off. His heart beat in anticipation while he waited for the road
to clear again.

He smiled proudly as he checked the rearview mirror once
more. A parade of lights quickly passed, heading in the direction from which he’d
come. He’d be sure to ask for a raise for this, not to mention being out all
hours of the night.

He glanced into the back seat once more. The strange glowing
continued.

* * *

One at a time, again and again, she touched each piece of
suspended bullet fragment with her golden light, enveloping them with searing
heat until they finally vaporized into oblivion.

She coursed back to his heart, and carefully touched the
hole in the muscle, willing it to come back together, willing it to fuse.
Glistening fingers of gold soon spun around it, and swirled across the
scattered tissue. Finally, his heart was whole again.

She felt her body growing weaker, and weaker still. She
must hurry.

With her last ounce of strength, she touched his heart
with an electric jolt of fiery heat. It quivered, hung momentarily in suspended
animation and weakly began to beat once more.

It was time to go.

She opened her eyes, and gazed at him. His skin was
beginning to glow a pale pink, his blue lips were warming into the color of the
rising sun. She leaned across his mouth, and blew silvery wisps of air through
his dried lips. He gasped, caught his breath, and settled into a quiet slumber.

Bice was a good man. He would go on to do great things.
He would not be a doctor, no, nor a president. Instead, he would go on to study
weather patterns, and find a way to annihilate hurricanes, ultimately saving
the lives of millions of people in third world countries and across the globe.

She knew what was coming next. She suddenly felt dizzy,
and as always, collapsed to the floor of the car in exhaustion. One day, maybe
she would learn to heal others and still retain her dignity afterward.

For now, she must rest.

* * *

Harmon gaped in awe, as he witnessed the phenomenon of the girl he’d
plucked from his lonely beach seven years ago. Bice had been dead close to two
hours, his chest ripped into many pieces.

He gently lifted her onto the seat next to him, knowing
already she would be fine, and would only need a few days rest.

He turned his attention to Bice. He lay comfortably on the
seat, sleeping in the darkness of the car. The blood on his tattered chest was
no more, the ugly stench of death which had surrounded him was gone. She’d
filled the entire car with the scent of flowers. The air moved around him,
until he was enveloped within the swirling fragrance.

He watched as her hands began to unbelievably glow from
within. Then she was gone, or at least, she seemed gone. Her body was right in
front of him, but she was no longer one with it. He watched Bice’s body jerk
and twitch, as she desperately worked her gift of magic on the stricken man.

“Bice, you’re going to be all right now.” He grabbed his
friend’s hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

He smiled with joy and tears filled his eyes, for Bice’s
hand was warm again.

* * *

Tommy stumbled through the brushy thicket in search of his father.

Brambles and thorns tore at his skin, leaving behind zigzags
of blood. The sirens were directly behind him. now He stopped and gazed at the
canyon wall. Many paramedics and firefighters were screeching to a stop on top
of the cliff. A dozen or more men were plunging down the hillside toward the
smoldering wreckage.

He was now many yards in front of the burning car, searching
desperately as waves of exhaustion slowly overcame him.

Hell night. The Prom from Hell. Everything had started out
like a fairy tale, so perfect, so beautiful. Now here he was, in the middle of
nowhere, searching for his father’s burned body. To make matters worse, Bice
was dead, and he had a sickening feeling his father was behind it.

He thought of the beautiful girl. His life had turned to
hell the moment he’d met her.

During the short time he knew her, he finally understood why
Harmon and Bice protected her so fiercely. There was something much, much more
about her than either had let on.

His father had told him she could heal people. For his dad
to temporarily loose his mind and steal her away not once, but twice in a single
night, there must be something phenomenal about her. His father was a
level-headed medical professional, and well respected within their community.

Her eyes were like magic whenever he stared into them,
taking him to places he’d never been. As if he could see his own future in the
churning aquamarine waters of her soul.