The Lariat (Finding Justus Series) (15 page)

“Are you sure? I don’t remember that,” I asked warily. “How do you even know that? You weren’t there. You were with Daisy the whole time.”

He smoothed the hair back from my face calming me further. He smiled that familiar suave smile, “Oh, I know things. It’s a small town.”

“That’s it? You want me to trust you based on that?”

“You’ve trusted me with less.” He smiled.

Orrin had me there. He drew near and kissed me one more time. “It was my instinct that brought us here- and it is what is going to keep you safest. You need to work on listening to yours.”

“I guess I don’t know how. I thought I was.”

“It gets easier. I didn’t even have to think about it. There’s a part of my brain that just takes over and does whatever needs to be done. Providence is Neutral territory. Samael can’t touch you here.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said before about Lillith.” I muttered.

“And you weren’t hurt, were you?”

I shuddered, “But you were. I don’t want to go through that again.”

“Let’s get out of here.” He pulled my hand. “Sam won’t risk coming here. He fears a judgement more than any other daemon.”

“
Sam?
” I scoffed, “You have a pet name for the ruler of Hell?”

“We used to be…close.” He cringed and shook free of the memory.

“Do I want to know what that means?”

“Not really.”

I knew he had a past, everyone did. He had not always made the best choices, but his past shaped who he was. I had forgiven him all of it when he tied his soul to mine. I loved the man he chose to be from that point on and I always would.

I looked back at the tall white lighthouse glowing in the moonlight. It stood on a large pile of rocks in the middle the Providence River. There were no tourists leaning over the metal railing watching the water flow by or taking pictures of the historic building. There were only interloping stars shining like flashlights spying on our world through the night sky.

Orrin helped build Pomham Rocks lighthouse centuries ago when he and another man, Reverend Williams, came together in the spirit of peace to build a city on this Neutral Territory. Providence was built on seven hills and it was to be the first place in the new world for angels, daemons, and humans to live together peacefully, without fear of retribution from one another. That’s why my father brought me to Providence years ago. As long as I stayed inside the city limits, within the protective boundaries of the seven hills I was safe. I was supposed to spend years here, learning about my birthright and prophecy within the safety of the city.

The midnight sun dimmed into a black water-color madness as I felt another tug in my stomach, as Orrin jumped with me yet again. It went like this- tugging, ripping, blackness, spinning, and finally breathing again. When the world quit spinning I smelled dust and stale air, just as I did in the
Montrose.
I looked around madly, only to discover I had been here before, and here I was safe.

Orrin’s house.

We stood in the middle of his foyer. The sparse furniture had been covered with large cloths. The lights were off, but we could see each other perfectly in the dark.

“You brought me to your house?”

“I couldn’t exactly take you to yours. You are mine, after all. This is as much your house as it is mine.”

“I don’t think so,” I shook my head.

“The day I gave you my soul, I pledged my life to you. And you did the same to me. I am yours, Layla. And you are mine. This place will always be open to you, even if you wish it were otherwise.”

I made an unladylike noise and stepped away from him, “Can you call my father please? Damn, I hate not having my phone.”

He pulled it out and made quick work of dialing.

“You should have never left this city. I remember telling you that while you were still in high school. I told you to stay
here
. Your father even told you that as well. None of this would have ever occurred if you had just stayed here.”

I felt like he had just slapped me in the face. The words barely leaked out of my mouth, “I had to leave. There was the judgement. And I had to come find you.”

“You should never have left.” Orrin stomped up the stairs away from me. “I would have been okay. You are more important than you will ever know.”

“God, you have always been such an ass. Can’t you just say thank you?” I stomped after him. I followed him into his bedroom. It looked lived in as if he had spent time here recently. The bed was slightly rumpled, his leather jacket was thrown over the back of a chair and there were clothes hanging in the closet.

He slapped the phone closed, “There was no answer. He’ll call back.”

“Have you been living here?” I asked, not giving voice to what I really wanted to know.

“I couldn’t stay in Balmorhea.” He sat methodically on the side of the bed, like an old man afraid to injure himself.

I was afraid to hear the answer. I was afraid not to, so I said, “Tell me why.”

He shook his head, “I do not want you to think badly of me.”

“Since when have you ever cared what anyone has thought of you? Tell me. Tell me why you aren’t in Balmorhea with your wife. Why aren’t you with Daisy, riding your tractor behind a white picket fence?”

He looked up at me and there was so much pain in his eyes. His shoulders sagged from a great weight he had been forced to carry. A burden he had been carrying by himself, “You are the only person whose opinion matters to me. I love you, Layla.”

“Orrin, I love you. You know that. But tell me why you’re hurting.” I moved to sit beside him. He quickly pulled me down and we laid together our legs tangled easily and my head rested on his shoulder. I listened to his breaths, his heartbeat. He rubbed circles onto my back. My daemon pressed against my skin to feel him too.

“Do you still want me? Do you want to be tied to me anymore?” He wasn’t asking simple questions, and I did not want to answer, but then he hadn’t answered my questions either.

“Yes,” I whispered, but it was only a half-truth.

“If we weren’t tied together, would you still choose me?”

“Would you?” I fired back quickly and he looked away.

“I don’t know what I want,” I admitted. “But right now I want you to talk to me. I think it’s time we talked. Tell me what’s going on with you.” I sat up to look in his eyes, “Why haven’t you been able to stay in Balmorhea? I thought you would be married by now. Has Daisy not gotten any better?”

Orrin said nothing, but continued to stare back into my eyes. If I didn’t know him better I would have thought he was going to cry. His body began to shake, his eyes glowed bright blue. I wondered if I really knew this man at all. The emotions rolled over his features- anger, agony, guilt, lust. Three years ago I left him to deal with all of this on his own. Seeing him now so broken down at that moment, I began to regret my decision to leave. Orrin loved me, he loved her and he was torn apart by it as well.

And after three years I finally knew exactly how he felt. The irony was not lost on either of us.

“Daisy’s dead, Layla,” he finally admitted. “She died two months after you left.”

21

I am a snake.

Less than a snake, but no other thoughts were forming. I had slithered away, leaving only my track marks on Orrin’s heart as proof of my existence. I never should have gone after him. Every selfish decision I made left him hurting.

I left him. During a time in his life when he was burying Daisy, I left him to fend for himself- to feel time slowly strip away his life and love. I can see him now in my mind’s eye, as if his touch had sent the image directly. It wasn’t the fierce daemon-warrior, but the lost young man I left to care for an innocent. I pulled them both free from Hell and left them there to clean up the mess. Too overwhelmed by my own pain, I was blinded to his. I needed to leave, but he needed me to stay.

I sat up breaking my contact with his skin, feeling unworthy.

“She…She’s gone?” I stammered, my mouth hung open uselessly, although there were not words that could free themselves from my mind. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t you come find me?”

“Why didn’t you?” His eyes narrowed, “You left, Layla. I understand why, believe me. I know what an ass I was most days. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but leaving Daisy was not a choice I was free to make. She needed me. You came all that way to Balmorhea to restore me to my true self, and what did I do? I stayed with Daisy. But I still needed you. I will always need you.”

He shook his head and slung his arm over his eyes and kept going, “We’ve already said everything we needed to three years ago about this topic. I had to stay. Daisy would have been even more lost without me. Even though it was all a lie- my judgement, my life as Heath, the memories implanted in her head and mine, it was all real somehow. As real as you and me. Our feelings for one another ran so deep, they are a part of who we were- of who I am.”

“I understand now. I do.” I conceded, praying he would stop, his pain was my penitence.

I took his hand in mine, “We seem to wrong each other often. That’s like our thing.”

He smiled squeezing back, “So it seems. I never meant to hurt you. I would trade all my days to take your pain away. What can I do?”

My lips quivered and my face tightened. It was unfair of him to ask now- now that someone else had come and done what he hadn’t, or rather what he couldn’t. What could he do? I didn’t have an answer. It was impossible for either of us to turn back to clock and fix the wrongs we had done each other. We could only go forward. I wasn’t ready to move forward. I just wanted to hide in his strong and familiar arms for a bit longer. I needed to keep the world at bay.

“You’re here now. And you are what I need right now.”

Orrin seemed secure in that, “We have never been able to spend time together, just you and me. I want to spend more time with you now. Go on walks, hold your hand, work, live a normal human life with you. I want there to be an
Us.
”

“Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try.”

“Well, why did you stay away? Why didn’t you come for me after Daisy…” I didn’t want to say it.

“
Died
? You can say it. It’s okay. Would you have wanted to see me? Be honest.”

I thought about lying, he would know my words for what they were, “I was angry at her, and at you. I felt like everyone had just abandoned me. My mother, my father. I even tried talking to Orias.”

I thought about it for a few moments. I thought back to those first torturous days, weeks, and months of sheer loneliness. I spent days in a livid nightmare. Eventually I simmered to a dull boil, but nothing was the same. I had no purpose, no focus and only drinking kept me sane. If Orrin had shown up, my daemon might have completely gone off the deep end taking me and the world with it.

“I guess you’re right. I don’t know if I would have wanted you to show up. I thought of myself as your second choice. You’d come find me just because you were finally free. At least, that’s what I always thought.”

He pulled me down beside him and began to weave his heart-wrenching tale, “I wouldn’t have told you how I took care of Daisy, how I read to her, bathed her, tried to keep the hellish nightmares from taking her remaining light. I wouldn’t have gone down on my knees and begged you to hear how I stayed with Kevin as his daughter would tear at her face because she said she could feel glass digging beneath her skin while she would vomit black bile.”

He kissed the bridge in my nose, worshipping my skin like only he knew how to do, he peered down into my eyes, wrapped his hand around my neck. His fingers grazed my tattoo intentionally bringing all my attention to his solid body pressed to mine.

“You would have been blinded by rage when I admitted it took two months to watch her fully deteriorate into complete madness. In the end she quit eating, she quit blinking, and finally she quit breathing. Her father almost did too.”

That took me by surprise, “He did?”

“We buried her in the middle of summer. The whole town came, but Kevin asked me, and my father,
Heath’s father
, to stand beside him. I couldn’t bring myself to leave him. Kevin wouldn’t leave the house, I cooked and cleaned for him. The ladies from the church brought so many meals, I had to throw out half of them. He quit preaching the week after Daisy was kidnapped. He quit the ministry altogether. This has been the first time I’ve seen him, well, normal.”

“I guess he found a purpose again,”

“Something like that. All it took was one phone call from Cyrus. I never even knew they were friends.”

My body was growing warmer despite the conversation. I wanted to listen to him, it was important, but my mind was wandering in the same direction as Orrin’s hands.

“Being a part of their family, I’ve never felt that before. Not even with you and me. I had never felt needed like that. My daemon in me raged to leave. I needed you. But every time I looked at Kevin, I knew he needed me more. And after a while, so much time had passed I was scared- to come see you. I was scared of what you would say. So I moved to Providence. I figured you would call me if you needed me, but you never did. So I’ve just been waiting here. Waiting for you to want me again. Every day that went by after losing Daisy, I just knew I had lost you too.”

“You can never lose me, you’ve said it yourself. Our souls are bound together.”

“Exactly,” he said, kissing my eyelids, my cheeks, “It’s the ones we miss the most that will never grant us peace. I was plagued by you- your smile, your sarcastic mouth, and those beautiful wings. I can’t deny my feelings for Daisy and I don’t regret loving her, but you are the love of my life.”

He crushed his lips to mine, a kiss meant to brand me his for all eternity. Minutes later when we surfaced for air I said, “Why can you be so angry with me when I was only trying to find a piece of happiness with Cyrus? You know what it’s like to love two different women at the same time.”

“Oh, we’re going to talk about the angel now, are we?” He frowned.

“There’s something between us, I won’t lie to you. Cyrus and I have some kind of connection, just like you and I do. I love him too.”

Orrin pulled away and sat up. He rubbed his face with his hands taking a few moments with his words, “Cyrus and I have…history, Layla.”

I scoffed, “Why am I not surprised? No one would tell me, but I could feel it. So what, you think he’s just making a play for your girlfriend, or something? I’m not that shallow, Orrin.”

“And you’re not my girlfriend. This is just another piece of who you are. Your soul is divided into three parts. I knew this might happen. It would make sense that you would have more than one soulmate. But it also figures that he would ruin this too. Why did it have to be him, Layla?”

He stood up, cursing. His eyes were blazing, his skin contorting. “I will
not
share you. You are mine.
Mine.
” Orrin was shaking, his gaze going farther and farther away, his humanity getting closer and closer to the edge.

“I am yours,” I moved to the edge of his bed on my knees, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. I’ll always be yours.” I tried to soothe him. We were never more volatile than when we were together. Still he brought me a peace that I had never felt until Cyrus’ arrival.

Orrin broke free from me, “Let me finish before you make me lose all control.”

I gave him a frustrated sigh and kept my hands linked with his.

“I am so sorry for all of it. If I had never attacked Lillith, none off this would have happened. I would never had been judged, I would never have met Daisy. I would never have had to make that choice. My life as Heath is still inside me. I have a lifetime of memories with a human father and a girl that I loved for what feels like forever. I cannot apologize for loving her, but I will apologize for hurting you.”

His words were all I needed to hear. My anger was gone. My soul soothed. Even my daemon was at peace. Orrin was mine once again.

“What does he look like to you? Samael, I mean. Cy…” I stopped. “I know he looks different to everyone. What does he look like to you?”

“It’s different for us than others. I have always seen him in his true form, but then again his appearance is always a reflection of one’s sin, so they are all technically his true form.”

“You know what I mean. What do you see when you look at him?”

“I have always seen him as tall, wiry and ghostly white. He has large back empty sockets and he wears a long dark cloak.

“That’s what I saw. Good. I was trying to figure it out. His image, I mean. I didn’t know who or what he was supposed to represent.”

I could tell there was something else Orrin wanted to say, “What is it? Is there more? You can tell me.”

He pursed his lips together struggling whether or not to share. “He looked different this time. But I knew it was him. I knew where you were. I knew that your father and Kevin and Cyrus would take you to a sanctuary. I heard you first. And when I heard everyone screaming I jumped here as quickly as I could.”

“Where were you?” I needed to know.

“Layla, remember, I still am the Porter. That job never rests. I was taking souls through a portal when I felt something move back through the veil.”

“Move back through? Meaning something came through the portal? Like from Hell and onto Earth?”

“It didn’t come through the portal. I have the power to keep that from occurring, but as the borders between the worlds becomes thinner and if a daemon is powerful enough it can cross over and there is nothing I can do about it. It happens every now and again, but there is nothing I can do to change that.”

“So, you were sending some poor daemons back to Hell and you heard me?”

“Yes, I jumped there as quickly as I could. You father threw his sword to me and I attacked Samael with it. Only he didn’t look like he had in the past. But it was unmistakably him.”

“You could sense him?”

“Of course. But also it was obvious because the person who stood opposite you was wearing my face.”

“Really?” My mind spun with questions, all of which Orrin was probably asking himself too.

“I saw you talking to me. I knew it was a lie. It could only be Samael and I attacked. I knew it wouldn’t keep him gone for long so I took you with me. Here. It was my only thought.”

I didn’t know what his vision meant and neither did Orrin. We buried that new worry with all others in a shallow grave where we could dig them up when we were ready. We spent the night in each other’s arms, talking, laughing, kissing, and taking each other to pinnacles never before experienced. The sun came up just as our eyes closed. We said goodnight to the dark, our souls lighter for the first time in three years. We needed that time together, I wish I would have known it was the last time we would hold each other. Our time as soulmates in this life had come to an end.