Witness (23 page)

Draven put his arm around me and drove in silence. I didn’t bother to ask him where we were going. I didn’t care; I didn’t want to see another soul tonight.

I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until I felt the Hummer stop. I sat up slowly to see the old high school in front of us. There were no other cars there; just construction equipment. It was easy to see that they had done a lot of work in just a short time. The old sign was down, sod was laid, and a new sidewalk had been poured and was drying.

Draven opened his door and climbed out, then held his hand out for me to take his. I took his hand as I looked around at what most people might call an eerie place, but the only thing eerie about it to me was how silent it was.

When we reached the entrance, he unlocked the deadbolt. Once he stepped in, he locked the door behind us.  I took in the energy of the open hall in front of us. I could feel the energy of countless pasts there…in a way, I loved how old buildings felt, the signature of energy that they represented; what they once were was so commanding.

“I would give you a tour, but I only know how to work the power in one room,” Draven said as he took my hand and led me to the row of doorways on the other side of the hall.

When he opened the doors to the left, I saw a large auditorium, one that could hold well over two thousand people. The stage was full of amps, drums, and guitars.

“Dad isn’t sure if he wants to take these seats out. They’re still in good condition – I guess he’s waiting to see what kind of concerts we have first. There’s another one that’s smaller on the other side of the school we could use for plays and such, if we do remove them…he just wants all arts to have the largest stage possible,” Draven said with a hint of pride in what they had turned this abandoned building into.

I smiled slightly as I squeezed his hand. He pulled me forward down the aisle. There were a few stage lights that were left on, just enough to give a warm glow to the silent moment we found ourselves in.

When we reached the stage, he unfolded the white sheets he used to move his equipment in and threw them across the dark blue velvet stage curtains that had been taken down and piled off to the side.

He nodded, telling me to have a seat, but I ignored his request and walked over to the guitar stand.

“I want to play, at least for a moment,” I mumbled.

He smiled slightly, as if that was exactly what he wanted me to do. As I pulled the strap of his guitar around me, he adjusted the power to the amps.

“I want to hear that song you’ve been working on,” I said as he walked slowly to me.

His eyes cascaded across every inch of me as he circled behind me, then pulled me against him. He carefully reached to take control of the guitar. I felt my heart pound as I felt the heat of his body against mine and the hum of the guitar as he played through a few chords.

“I don’t want to play it right now…I don’t want to open that doorway - not after what we just went through.” His fingers began to dance across the strings. I recognized the song that was coming to life; it was the one he had given me a few days ago. It was beautiful, slow, yet commanding; I could feel the raw emotion behind every chord.

As he began to sing softly against the skin of my neck, I could just barely hear the words:

‘
I
know that time will only make me question everything

My mind is a battlefield

where the winner is my enemy…

So in my disposition I find myself missing the person I wish to be

But as long as there's hope left in this hole that's in my chest

I will continue to bleed’

The haunting sound of his velvet voice encircled me. I felt the battle within his soul…the promise to fight the demon that was calling him away from me.

“I love it,” I whispered.

“It’s your birthday present….still trying to make it as perfect as I can.”

“It’s perfect because you wrote it,” I promised.

I took control over the guitar and began to play one of the songs I was working on by myself. It wasn’t as sweet or moving as what he’d written, though; It was more like a call to battle, a sound that would fill you with energy and make you want to make an impact on whatever was around you. Halfway through the second riff, he stopped my hands.

“You don’t like it?” I asked, slightly embarrassed.

“It’s perfect…it’s what the other song is missing.”

My body tensed against his. “Show me.”

He backed away from me listlessly “I’m not going back there tonight - I’m still sore,” he mumbled as he walked over to the pile of curtains and sheets and collapsed in the center of them.

I stood stunned for a moment, then pulled the strap of the guitar off me and placed it in the stand. I turned the amp off as I walked by, knowing that playing was making the tension between us worse, not better, like it had in the past.

His eyes followed me as I knelt down at the edge of the pile, then crawled closer to him.

“You’re in pain?” I whispered, remembering the shadows pouring into him – the light pulling it out of him.

“Not too bad…just feel weak – tired.”

“How often has that happened? How many times have those shadows poured into you?”

His eyes slowly moved across my face. “A few.”

My hand slowly moved across his chest. “Is there still darkness inside you?” I asked in a shaky voice.

His hand met mine, and I felt the hum his skin always seemed to provide. “According to Silas, it is.”

A sickening guilt absorbed me as I fought back tears. “I can’t conceive that to be real – another life – some kind of battle between light and dark. We’re just kids – fighting to have a normal life…together.”

His eyes held my gaze and reflected the guilt and grief that I felt. “Silas told us more today than anyone has told us in our entire life…it all makes sense now – why I’m so different from all of you. Why you feel an odd desire to protect me. I think he’s right: I’ll destroy you if we don’t say goodbye.”

Every part of me froze. I couldn’t comprehend the last words he said. He couldn’t have said that we had to break up, that we had to live a life without each other. When his words began to echo in my mind, I had to run. As I rose to my knees, his hand reached for mine.

“Let me go – you don’t wanna be with me,” I said as I choked back tears. Before I could pull away, he’d pulled me to him and I was lying in the center of the pile of curtains and sheets, with him above me.

“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded as his hand cradled my face.

“You just said -” Before I could say another word, his lips were on mine. As mine moved against his, I felt a pull of raw power and emotion – one that told me that if this were our last kiss, I wanted it to be my last breath. I know I’m not one of those mushy girls who say how they feel or repeat the word ‘love’ as if it has no meaning - but right now, I wanted to be that girl. I wanted to tell him how undeniably in love I was with every part of him...I just couldn’t find the words.

His lips slowed against mine. “Without you, there is no point to my existence,” he whispered. “You are the reason I fight this urge to become a demon.”

“You’re not a demon,” I said as my eyes fell into his. “You’re an imperfect soul who fights demons – just like me.”

He rolled to my side and studied every feature of my face with his alluring emerald green eyes.

“I don’t like being the bad guy…I liked it better when I was saving you from Britain – what they are...to find out that I’m one of them is almost too much to bear.”

“You’re not a bad guy. If you want to give any credit to what Silas told me, then see the positive to it; see that in some distant past, I saved you from this - and I know that I’d do it again.”

His eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m not trying to be self-loathing, but you have to see that you were trying to save the lost souls, not me. I was ending them...you wanted to stop the source, not help me.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t remember it anymore clearly than I can. If any of that is true, I doubt you were just a source. If anything, you and I proved then that everything and everyone can change; all they have to do is make the decision to do so.”

His eyes became even more pained. “I don’t know how to change. I don’t know at what point I’m deciding to be good and at what point I’m taking the light of your power.”

“You’re not taking it - I’m giving it to you. I don’t know how I did what I did tonight, but it stopped the shadows from pouring into you and pulled what was there out of you.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, enhancing his alluring eyes. “How do you know that wasn’t what it wanted? That it wanted you to display your power there? I thought by focusing on you that I was saving myself, but now I’m afraid I was leading you into that evil.”

“How?”

His fingertips began to move across my jawline. The look in his eyes told me he was fighting a battle inside of him that I’d barely begun to understand.

“Before, I’d be in a situation where I either needed to focus on you or chase after an image of you; it was like it was training me to see you as a life force. Tonight was the first time it commanded me to ‘take you’, like it knew that I wouldn’t think clearly enough to refuse that command...that I’d see it as a relief...it knew you were there.”

“I want to be your relief. I wanted to give you whatever you needed to stay the person I know that you are.”

Pain echoed in his expression. “There’s a fine line between me taking it and you giving it. Tonight was the first time you were really there, the first time I could have hurt you. It could have gone wrong – very wrong.”

“But it didn’t. Obviously, I had a natural instinct I fell back on – one that’ll save you from this.”

“Perhaps,” he mumbled. “I just don’t know which direction to take now. We were gonna have this concert to help as many lost souls as we could – but now it’s silent...it’s silent because they’ve been pulled into that world...they’ve followed me and the others there.”

“We’re still gonna have this concert, this song – and when we do, they’ll be pulled out of that world. Then we’ll figure out how to redeem them,” I promised him.

“You have no idea how many are there, how badly this could all go. Some of the souls there don’t deserve to be saved; they’re the definition of evil.”

“Everyone deserves to be saved. Underneath all that, there had to be a pure beginning. Maybe we should just forget this – just go to Chara. From what I know of that place, it has to be hard to become angry there.”

“I don’t want to live like that – have you walk on eggshells around me. I want to have control over my life and keep my sanity.”

“We’ll figure out how to do that,” I promised, reaching to trace his strong jawline.

“I talked to Britain tonight,” he said as he pulled me closer to him.

“What? When?” I asked as my body tensed. Honestly, I didn’t know how to feel about him anymore. He didn’t seem to be one of the big issues that were plaguing me any longer.

“I thought you were with him – so I went there.”

I had to tell myself to hide behind my shield and not think of who I was with, the calm that Silas gave me.

“What did you guys talk about?” I asked as I focused on him.

“Silas…Bianca….Madison.”

I rose up and leaned over him, wanting to know every word that was said. I asked the question in my mind, but I couldn’t ‘see’ him; he was blocking me.

“I’m not letting you see; I don’t want to have a way into that world.”

“I was there, and I can go back on my own if I want to. Show me.”

His jaw clenched. “I’ll tell you, but I’m not letting you see what I’ve fought; I’m not going to watch the fear in your eyes.”

I wanted to be angry at him, but right now I just needed to know what Britain said to him. I needed to figure a way out of this – a solid direction I could follow.

“Fine…what did he say?”

“Most of it you already know. He said that Bianca is power hungry, that she’s stepped deeper into whatever kind we are. That she’s set on revenge and will play the part of the devil’s advocate until we all perish. At one time, she thought that she and he would have enough power together to control that world – but he refused her, and now she sees him, you, and me as a threat. She will do everything in her power to end us so she can have control. Apparently, we’re the oldest, most powerful Escorts in this reality.”

Anger engulfed every part of me as thoughts of Bianca came to me. “I think she only has the power that we give her. We don’t have to listen to her.”

“She fooled you tonight – and has found a way to fool me in the past. She’s the reason I was dead set on hating Britain. She showed me countless images of you in his arms.”

“That never happened!” I swore.

“I know. He showed me; I wouldn’t listen to him until he did.”

“How does she fool us so easily?”

“Britain said that if you have a memory and understand the worst fear of the person who created that memory, you can manipulate it…apparently, that’s one the ways that Escorts fool the ones they tame in this world: they show them illusions that create doubt and cause you to hate – to turn away from the light.”