Watch Over You (16 page)

He kept his eyes on hers and watched in relief as green poured into them once more, filling with life again as she came back to him. She glanced around her then, taking in her surroundings.

“Tell me where we are,” he demanded. He moved out of the way so that she could see exactly where they were. There was a cash register with no drawer. The display cabinets were all empty. Glass-covered shelves lined the walls. No one had been there in a long time, but it was still evident that this place had once been a jewellery store. On the counter, gold and
silver links that would have been used to mend necklaces were scattered. At the side of the cash register, there was a pile of sponges that would house rings of all kinds - wedding rings and engagement rings that promised a new life. Or just rings that said I love you.

“This is the shop, isn’t it?” she asked. Devan nodded. She walked around the counters, the shadow forgotten. She ran her fingertips over the surfaces as she did.

“What is this place?” Unlike Tara, he hadn’t forgotten the shadow. He kept his eye on it, but it seemed to be slowly backing away. As it did, it faded until there was nothing.

“We chose our rings here,” she said. “They were second-hand, but I loved them.” A melancholic smile played over her lips. “As soon as I saw them, I knew they were the ones.” She lifted up her hand to show him the ring she still wore. “You see how the white gold and the silver just knot together?”

He nodded.

“I liked that.”

“Can I see it?” he asked.

She hesitated at first and then she nodded before slipping it off her finger. He held out his hand, and she placed it on his palm. But the moment it made contact, his hand jolted with pain, electricity firing through his wrist. His hand cramped and he dropped the ring. It landed on the wooden floor with a clink and then rolled away. They both scrambled for it but it was Tara who got to it first. She slammed her hand down on it to prevent it from rolling under the counter.

“I’m so sorry,” said Devan, rubbing his hand. “Static shock maybe?”

She didn’t get time to respond. A loud screech had them both spinning around. “The back,” Devan said. “They must have got in the back.” Quickly, he moved. The other door. He lunged for that, pulling Tara with him without a second thought. It was just a bathroom. Small, with only a toilet and sink, but he dragged her in there and latched the door closed.

His heart was beating so fast that he could feel it down his arm. It pumped into the swallow, threatening to bring it to life again. That couldn’t happen. It would be a disaster. It would be a beacon going off and alerting the shadows they were there. “Calm down,” he whispered to Tara. She was staring at the door, terrified, her body trembling like a leaf..

Strange shuffling sounds could be heard on the other side of the door. “They can't get in here,” he said to her. He held his chest; transmitting feelings of calm and bringing their pulses back down. “Breathe.”

“I thought they could only come in the night.”

“The night is just their best ally. They can come any time.”

The door rattled as if the wind had hold of it. Tara yelped, but Devan clapped his hand over her mouth. “Shush,” he said. “They can't get in.”

They listened to the sounds of creaks and grumbles. The floorboards strained and squeaked as the shadow searched for Tara and Devan on the other side.
Tara stood frozen in Devan’s arms, both of them just listening and watching.

The handle started to push downwards. The latch clicked out of place.

“I thought they couldn’t get in,” Tara whimpered.

The door opened wide.

Chapter Eighteen

Didn’t people pass out when they were terrified? Couldn’t people literally be scared to death? That was how Tara felt as the door swung open. Except, she didn’t die or pass out. She stood there, frozen; her stomach dropped, her heart seized in horrific expectation, and her lungs constricted so that she had to gasp for breath. Devan’s arms came around her and pulled her into the safety of his embrace. 

The shadow stared at her. That was, if shadows could stare. But this was more than just a shadow. This was a person - smaller than Tara. The true face of what Devan had earlier called a shadow walker. She hadn’t expected one to look like this. What she had expected was something hideous. Something so grotesque that even grown men would cry, and she would die from fright. Instead, she saw the silhouette of a man. She could see the facial features, but they lacked detail - more like when a person sees another in the dark. As the
shadow came closer, Tara realised that it was not a man at all. It was female, and she was young.

Tara backed herself into Devan even more as the female shadow came forward. She reached out a fuzzy hand and pushed Devan. He had to brace a hand against the wall to catch them and prevent them tumbling over the toilet. He fought to push forward, though, trying to shuffle Tara to the side so that he could get free and stand in front of her.

“No,” Devan demanded from behind Tara as the shadow reached closer. He tried to pull Tara out of the way, but there wasn’t much room. “Leave us alone.”

He pushed against Tara, trying to slide her to the side, but she pulled away from him. She was scared of the shadow, that was for sure, but she was curious too. It tilted its head to the side and observed her, not with malice, but some form of affection. Every hair on Tara’s body stood on end. Her skin felt electrified, and it buzzed and tingled with a mixture of fear and excitement. The shadow lifted her hand to touch Tara’s face. It was featherlike and foggy, but there was warmth to it too.. It
was the lightest of touches, like warm wind against her face. The hand travelled down her neck and down her chest in delicate smoothness. Tara held her breath as the shadow’s hand paused over where her heart was before continuing lower. The shadow watched Tara’s face as it moved, smiling all the while.

Devan struggled to get free from behind Tara, trying to push her to the side and out of harm’s way. But Tara didn’t budge. In that moment, she seemed stronger than Devan even though she was almost half his size. When the shadow girl’s hand reached Tara’s abdomen, her gaze finally followed, settling on where she had stopped. Tara watched as the shadow brought her other hand up to Tara’s face and mimicked a movement of wiping away a tear. The shadow bowed her head and shook it in sadness, making Tara swallow hard with pent-up emotion.

Did the shadow know?

It moved back then, level with the door, its eyes back to watching Tara and Devan. Devan had stopped fighting to get out. He stood behind Tara, perfectly still
as the three of them stared at one another. He was breathing hard, as if he had just run a marathon.

“I don’t think she is going to hurt us,” Tara said to him, but she had the urge to talk to the girl. She didn’t know why. She felt that she knew her. Knew
it
. Was it an
it
? She didn’t know. “You won’t hurt us? We can come out?”

The shadow girl nodded, and then she moved away to give them room. She spread out her arms - a harmless invitation. Tara was cautious at first as she stepped out, slowly taking one step and then another. She scanned the room before emerging fully. Every sense in her was alive and ready to run. But there were no shadow walkers waiting for them, Tara was happy to find. Just the girl. The sun shone brightly through the main glass door and reached the back, where they stood in the doorway. The girl remained in the shadows cast down from shelves and storage units, though.

She couldn’t see how the shadow had got in. There were no doors open, no windows that she could see. Tara walked out into the middle of the back room.

“Were you the one following us?” she asked the shadow. “The one from the beach?” She expected no real response, but the shadow nodded again. “What do you want?” The girl said nothing and Tara wasn’t even sure the shadow could talk. She floated away to the back of the shop and stood by the back exit.

Devan had come to stand beside Tara, quietly assessing the shadow. He appeared to be crying, and Tara blinked in surprise. There were no tears down his face, no big racking sobs, but his eyes glistened with unshed tears. Tara had an overwhelming urge to reach up and touch him. Her profound, desperate need to soothe whatever pain was hurting him shocked her.

A static hiss and an electrical surge filled the air, startling them all. The shadow spread her arms wide and rose up into the air, growing in size as she did so. It reminded Tara of angels in movies - except no wings flew out to the sides of this shadow.

She grew larger, bigger than anything Tara had seen. She let out a sudden loud screech, and Tara watched in awe as the shadows cast from the counters and the shelves peeled up off the floor and merged into the girl. Her form became darker, gaining more substance.  Devan’s arm came around Tara’s waist and they both stepped back. Even with such a frightening sight, though, Tara did not feel alarmed. The shadow didn’t mean them any kind of harm.

Then, suddenly, the shadow advanced upon them like a flaming bullet. With an oath, Devan shoved Tara out of the way - but it wasn’t Tara the shadow was headed towards. It was Devan. Tara looked on helplessly as the shadow came to an abrupt halt in front of Devan. They stood face to face, their eyes level. Tara held her breath as the girl lifted her hands to cup his face. She leant in closer and he closed his eyes. Tara wanted to scream, to pull Devan away, but she stood frozen in place. The girl’s lips hovered over his, and for a moment, Tara thought she would kiss him. Her head bowed down, but it didn’t stop there. Her entire presence fell forward, into him, through him. Devan landed on the floor with a thump. Smokey tendrils floated out like mist before dissolving into nothing. Then she was gone.

Devan and Tara stared at where the last of the mist had just dissolved, and then looked at one another. Their hearts beat together. She could feel him there, and she finally understood what he had meant at the house when he had said their hearts beat together. She could hear it. She could feel it. It took over everything in her mind.

There was a sadness inside her. It peeked around the edges of her thoughts. Thoughts of Eric. Images flashed in her mind that she didn’t want to see or remember anymore. Loss and sorrow permeated her very essence, bigger and deeper than ever. She was filled with so much pain that she couldn’t bear it.

Devan was crying, tears streaming down his face. Tara wept with him, but it was not her tears she was releasing. It was his. She was crying for him. With him. He panted, mouth slightly open, and just stared. She glanced at his hand, the one with the swallow. It was bleeding again. The soft
drip, drip, drip
, echoed loudly in her head. “I didn’t know,” Devan breathed, not seeming to notice his bleeding hand.

“Didn’t know what?” Tara moved back towards him. She didn’t understand what he was saying. Cold fingers of dread gripped her at the expression on his face.  “When you crashed,” he whispered. “You were pregnant.”

A sob tore from her and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Everything collapsed around her.

Tears pouring down her cheeks, she nodded.

She recoiled at his words; at least the truth of them. They left her breathless and weeping inside. They hit her with more impact in one shattering statement than he could have if he had actually hit her. She deserved it, though. She deserved every ounce of pain that ran through her. Not only had she killed her husband with one selfish decision, but she had also ended the promise of the new life they had created. She had killed their baby - before it even got a chance to live. Her womb was empty, desolate. Maybe Eric’s death was punishment for causing the death of something so pure and innocent. Now she would never have a child; she didn’t want one that wasn’t Eric’s. Her chance at motherhood was gone.

Sorrow and sadness built up inside; she turned away from Devan quickly so that he did not see her cry. It was bad enough that he knew what she had done. She didn’t deserve his sympathy. She deserved every last pain-filled tear, but she didn’t deserve to grieve. This was all her doing. She was ashamed that she wasn’t strong enough to accept the consequences of what she had done. Not one life, but two. Gone - gone because of her. How would Devan feel now that he knew that? If he had any sense, he would get the hell out of there and leave her to the mercy of those things - the shadows. It would be the smart choice to make.

She was ashamed too that maybe Devan would think she was foolish. That she should be over this now. It had been three years. She avoided her friends and family because she knew they would think such things. People move on. She was sure there was something abnormal about her and the fact that she just couldn’t let it go. Every time she tried to, guilt soared through her.

The accident felt like yesterday. She could still feel the words she had uttered; their taste had long since spoilt in her mouth. “I want to go home,” she had said to him. “I’m going with or without you.” Then she had sauntered off to the car knowing damn well that he would follow - because that was Eric. He always did. He didn’t like to fight. He didn’t like it if she wanted to leave when she was angry. He refused time and time again to go to sleep on an argument. Tara didn’t know if it was her grief for Eric that kept her stuck with the feelings of yesterday or if it was the guilt of what she had done. Moving on meant another man. It meant trying to love someone else; to be touched by another. She couldn’t do that. The thought of having another man’s hands on her made her stomach twist. Except for Devan. She was confused by her desire to be near him; to touch him. It wasn’t about sex or lust - there was just something. He calmed her, gave her peace where there had been none to find till now. And somehow, she knew that Eric would be okay with it.