Jivaja (Soul Cavern Series Book 1) Page 27

  “If I am a monster, then we are sisters.”

  A gunshot tore through the night air, and Emilia staggered, a fine red spray jetting from her thigh. Her right leg folded beneath her, and she went down, an enraged shriek on her lips. Mecca searched the forest beyond the path but saw nothing. She didn't even know which direction the shot came from.

  A gun can’t kill her. Can it?

  But it didn’t matter. Mecca pulled herself over to where Emilia lay and pounced on the woman. Her leg screamed in her head, but she ignored it. She had to.

  Grabbing the downed Visci by the bare foot, Mecca again found her way to Emilia’s Cavern. With the vines holding the soul down weakened, with Emilia herself on the ground and bleeding, Mecca surrounded the ball of light with her own life force again and heaved. The tendrils stretched this time, extending.

  Emilia kicked out and clawed around her, searching for a weapon. The side of Emilia’s foot connected with Mecca’s right shoulder, another bloom of torture erupting from her body.

  She lost her grip with that hand, but not before a single grey vine snapped. Mecca’s hope surged anew. The struggle lessened only a little bit as another tendril popped and after several moments, the rest gave way slowly, one by one.

  Emilia screeched. In the Cavern, the shriek echoed and deafened Mecca. When it hit her, Emilia's energy threw Mecca just as hard as Emilia’s physical push had. Again, Mecca flew through the air, both in reality and in the Cavern. In the real world, she came down on the same leg. Bright red and blue fireworks burst in her head.

  The sound of fire roared in her ears, popping and crackling. Suddenly, a vision overlaid the forest, like when she looked at the Cavern with her eyes still open. A burning village, thatch roofs engulfed with flame, people fleeing, screams filling the air, the smell of burning meat. Rice fields eaten by fire.

  She sees this through the eyes of a child. Tastes the acid terror in the back of her throat. A woman burning, the child's mother. Strong hands sweeping her up onto a horse. Brown eyes in a pale, young man's face. Wind in her hair, but the smell of smoke and death does not — cannot — leave her nose.

  Mecca felt nothing but the wind and the roaring grief and fear. Then the light dimmed, the vision faded, and everything went black.

  The searing, enveloping pain woke her, a scream on her lips.

  “I’m sorry. I know it hurts.” Will’s soft voice filtered through the haze.

  Mecca opened her eyes. Will’s face wavered, and she blinked hard, nausea gripping her belly. Behind him stood her dad and… Claude. Another tall figure stood farther back, nearer the trees. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she bet it was Claude’s big man.

  “I’m going to use one of the tranquilizer darts. That should help.”

  Mecca waved the idea away and pulled herself up onto her elbows. An agonizing flood threatened to bring on the blackness again. “Where is she?”

  Will tilted his head to Mecca’s left but said nothing. She saw hurt in his eyes.

  Five feet away, a desiccated corpse lay, engulfed by a dirty, silver sequined gown. Nothing recognizable was left of the beautiful Asian woman. It could have been a mummy from a museum.

  “I’ve got to try to set your leg,” Will said. “It’s going to hurt, but I’m hoping the tranquilizer will help. Then I need to look at your shoulder. I think it may be dislocated.”

  Mecca heard his words, but they were like a garbled radio message. She looked at her father. Even in the darkness, she could see the startling blue of his eyes. No matter what he’d done in the past, she would still always love him. But she didn't know if she'd ever be able to look at him again.

  A sharp sting got her attention. The bottom half of her pant leg had been cut off and Will now removed the needle he’d just stuck into her calf.

  It suddenly came to her that the white and red bit sticking out of her leg was her own bone. Bile burned the back of her throat, and she turned her head just in time. Only liquid came, but it stung every cell as it gushed out, soaking the leaves and pine needles.

  Will threw the used dart back into a canvas bag at his side and then reached toward her head. The tenderness in his touch as he brushed her hair back startled her.

  “You should probably lie down,” he whispered to her, resting a hand on her good shoulder. “I’m not going to do anything drastic, but this is going to hurt.”

  “He better not make it worse.” Her father’s words filtered through Mecca’s cloudy brain.

  “He’s very well-trained,” Claude said. “Let him work.”

  Mecca lay back with Will’s gentle, insistent pressure on her shoulder. The other shoulder throbbed. She closed her eyes. The tranquilizer dart, her second of the evening, left her floaty. She felt his hands on her leg, touching gently, putting things on either side of her calf.

  “Are you okay so far?” he asked.

  “Mmm,” Mecca said. Colored lights flashed behind her eyelids.

  Tight pressure around her leg just below her knee made her pop her eyes open. Will hovered over her. A little wrinkle gathered over his eyebrows as he concentrated. It surprised Mecca that he would be so intent on helping her, the one who killed his — what? Mistress? His focus seemed unbreakable as he tied something else around her leg at the ankle.

  The aching pain became sharp again, thrumming through her torso and into her head. Her belly clenched with a sudden wave of nausea. She gagged.

  Her dad cursed and Claude said something to him that she couldn’t made out.

  “Turn, here, turn.” Will slid a warm arm under her shoulders and carefully tilted her up and to the side.

  Mecca retched, all of the muscles in her abdomen contracting together. Bile stung the back of her throat, but nothing came up this time.

  “Deep breath, Mecca. Come on. It’ll pass. Don’t worry.”

  Her vision went fuzzy as Will continued to give her encouraging words. She closed her eyes and trusted him.

  Chapter Thirty: Mecca

  The world returned to her through voices.

  “You are not taking her back to that house!” Her father’s, in a hushed but very firm tone.

  “She’ll be safe there with Emilia gone. Or do you want to drag her through the woods?” Claude.

  “I’m glad you’re awake.” Will’s voice, quiet, not far from her ear.

  “I don't really want to open my eyes,” she replied.

  She felt him chuckle behind her, his body supporting hers in a reclined position. In her darkness, his scent surrounded her.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “They’ve been like this since I finally got you settled.”

  “How did you know I was awake?” Could everyone read her mind?

  “Your breathing pattern changed, and you tensed when you heard them.” She heard a smile in his voice. “I spent quite a while learning how you sleep and wake.”

  “Oh.” Heat rushed her cheeks. From anyone else, that would have been creepy. But it wasn’t from him. “How long was I out?”

  “Just long enough. I was able to get your shoulder back in its socket and I did what I could for your leg. We need to get you to a hospital. There’s a high risk of infection with that sort of break. And we’re not exactly in a sterile environment.”

  “She’s awake?” Her dad’s voice came closer, along with the rustle of pine needles.

  She opened her eyes to see him kneeling beside her. “Hi Dad.”

  “Hi, honey.” He smiled and the light touch of his fingertips on her arm tickled. She didn’t know if that meant he’d used his Gift or not. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not the greatest, but I think I’ll live.”

  He smiled. “You did great back there.”

  “Thanks, I guess. How did you get here?” The groggy feeling from the drugs seemed to be wearing off a little bit. It made thinking easier, but pain thrummed a steady beat in time with her heart.

  “I came to find you.”

  “You found me.”

>   “Yes, though not as soon as I wish.”

  “Well, it’s done now.” She looked back over her shoulder at Will and smiled, then she pulled herself forward, away from him. God, her shoulder hurt. “Thanks for playing furniture, Will. I think I can sit on my own.”

  He scrambled from behind her and stood. “All right. I’ll give you two some privacy.”

  Her father gave her a tender look and said, “We’re going to get you out of here. Do you think you can walk with help?”

  “Yes. In a minute.” She really had no idea whether she could or not, but she wanted out of these woods. Mecca's heart pounded even harder in her chest and before she spoke, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. But it came out anyway. “Did you kill your wives?”

  His eyes widened, but then he looked down for a moment and swallowed. When he met her gaze again, he asked in a voice barely audible, “How do you know about my former wives?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He regarded her. “No, I guess not.”

  The soft murmur of conversation floated on the night air. Will and Claude had been joined by Claude’s guard, the tall figure Mecca had seen earlier but not recognized. She looked back at her father.

  “Did you?”

  He gazed out at the trees. Mecca didn't ask again, only watched him. He’d aged at least ten years since they’d been at the cabin. His shoulders slumped and the lines on his face, which had looked distinguished before, now just looked like a roadmap. His eyebrows had just begun to grow back.

  He took a deep breath, his chest expanding as his lungs filled. He looked back to her and then hesitated again. When he finally answered, his voice was quiet.

  “Yes.”

  Her soul shattered. All along, she’d seen the evidence, weighed it intellectually and come away with the idea that he had to have killed them. The photos, the way they all died: nothing left much doubt.

  But in her heart, in her soul, she hadn’t believed it, couldn’t believe that her father — the good man, the good husband — committed those murders.

  She pulled her arm from under his hand. “How? I mean, I know how” —she stared at him pointedly— “What I want to know is how could you? All those women…”

  “I don’t know. I was different then.”

  That was his excuse? He was different? Mecca’s anger kindled. “You’re a murderer.”

  He bowed his head but didn’t respond.

  “And Mom? Did you murder her too?” Numbness stole over her.

  He jerked his gaze up, agony in his eyes. “That was different.”

  What the fuck did that mean? “Did you kill her?” Her voice scaled up with each word. Old guilt welled in her, warring with the new revelation that maybe she hadn’t been the one. “Did you?”

  “We had talked about it before she ever got bad enough to go into the hospital.”

  Still not an answer. “She knew you had the Gift? She knew about the women?”

  “No! She knew about the Gift, but she didn’t know anything about my past.”

  He reached out again, but Mecca slapped his hand away.

  “Please understand, Mec. When I met your mom, she changed something in me. I wanted to be a better person for her, a better man.”

  Her skin felt hot and tight and a little buzzing pain had started behind her eyes. The possibility that she hadn't killed her mother felt foreign, but she couldn't deny the relief it brought. Her eyes burned with a need to rage, to cry, but she wouldn't. Not here.

  “Drinking less is becoming a better man! Picking up your dirty underwear is becoming a better man. Not murdering women — that’s just… I can’t even.” She jerked her gaze away. She couldn’t look at him anymore.

  “The cancer had gotten really bad,” her dad continued, as if she hadn’t even spoken. “I know you remember the hospital, but you never knew just how much pain she was in.”

  She did remember the hospital: the smell of clean and sick all mixed together, the white sheets, the tubes and beeping monitors, the cold coil of fear in her belly every time she went to visit. She hated that place.

  “When your mom first started going through the chemo and was sick all the time, she told me that if it ever got so bad that she couldn’t come home, she wanted me to —” He choked on the words. He looked down, his face hidden from her and resumed, voice thick with tears. “She wanted me to help her go peacefully. She wanted me to let her go.”

  Grief overpowered her, and tears burned from her eyes. Sorrow stabbed her as strong and sharp as when she had been only twelve. The hole in her heart echoed her loss like the biggest, emptiest cavern.

  “I didn’t want to,” he said, now looking into her eyes. His own cheeks glistened in the moonlight, soaked with his grief. “I wanted her to fight and win. I wanted her to be there for your prom and your high school graduation and the tenth grade science fair you won. I wanted her to see the woman you’ve grown into.”

  “I don’t want to hear any more.” The buzzing behind her eyes had become a hammering. She felt her grasp on her own self-control slipping.

  “Please, Mecca, you’ve got to understand.”

  She pushed him. “No, I don’t! Do you know how long I’ve lived with the belief that I killed her?” Her voice sounded screechy. When Claude and Will looked over, she lowered her tone. “That because I couldn’t control it, she died?”

  “What?” His surprise and shock looked genuine. “Oh, no. Honey, it wasn’t your fault. The cancer made her sick and it’s what killed her. Your Gift didn’t.”

  Mecca tried to swallow a sob, but couldn’t. It rattled through her ribcage and her lungs, from the deepest parts of her. The tears came down and she couldn’t fight him when her father encircled her with his arms.

  Chapter Thirty-One: Mecca

  In some ways, she found the room similar to the one she'd had in Emilia’s house. Only not locked. When they’d arrived at the Emergency Room, they’d taken her right away and admitted her. They’d taken her to surgery not long after.

  Now she lay in another hospital bed with a cast up to her knee. They gave her a sling for her arm also and told her to use it to give her shoulder time to heal.

  Her dad hadn’t left the room since she’d been admitted except to go to the bathroom and get coffee. Usually not at the same time.

  She had trouble looking at him. She kept seeing the grainy newspaper photo of Susan Harrington. Sara’s grandmother, she realized. She wondered if Sara understood his role in her grandmother’s death.

  Probably not. It was best to leave her with her ignorance, Mecca decided.

  “The people from the maze that you brought out are all okay,” her father said. “Well, the jury’s still out on the one girl. But I guess with some therapy, she should come around.” He must have meant Alicia.

  “Okay.” She was glad they were okay, but none of it really mattered anymore.

  “I ended up having to tell Sara everything. I don’t know whether she believed it all, but I told her.”

  “You told her everything, huh?” She just stared at him, blankly. After a moment, he got it.

  “No. Not everything. But everything about your ordeal.”

  Mecca shrugged. “You probably should have told her before it was all over. Then she may not have wandered onto the grounds. It could have been a lot worse for her.”

  “Yes, it could have. But I don’t think knowing would have stopped her.”

  “Did you tell her about the Gift?”

  A faint flush settled on his cheeks. It looked strange there. He shook his head. “I thought it best not to mention that.”

  “I suppose so. Tell her thank you for me, for showing up when she did.”

  “I will. She's asked about you several times and sends her best wishes. She wanted to get you one of those big balloon arrangements, but I talked her out of it.”

  He smiled, but the sparkle in his eyes was missing. Mecca didn’t feel like smiling back, so she didn’t.

 
“I have to go by her place later and return a couple things. I'll give her your thanks then.”

  He’d been babbling for the last hour. She really just wanted him to leave. She needed time to process everything that happened.

  How had things changed with Emilia gone? Would Claude step in? And why would Claude leave her and her dad alone when Emilia wouldn’t?

  A name her dad said caught her attention. “Will told me he would stop by a little later. I guess he’s clearing some things out of Emilia’s place.”

  The mention of his name made her smile for the first time since she’d woken up.

  “He’s going to stay at the house for a week or two until he can figure out what he’ll do now.”

  Mecca wondered that too. She didn’t know whether her dad knew about Will’s tie to Emilia. But the way Mecca understood it was that once Emilia’s blood in him faded or was used up, he would age to his natural life span. And Emilia said he’d far exceeded that time and would die. There had to be a way to keep that from happening.

  “You’re very quiet,” he said.

  She looked straight at him for the first time since he’d admitted to killing his previous wives. “I’m waiting for you to tell me whatever you’re beating around the bush telling me.” She was tired of the small talk.

  He brushed a hand over his buzz cut. “Okay. I’m going to be going away for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got some work to do.”

  “What kind of work?” She shifted in the bed to sit up more. He was hiding something specific. She wanted to scream.

  “Just some stuff I need to take care of.”

  “More secrets?”

  “Some secrets are better kept.” He didn’t shift his gaze away from her.

  How could he be keeping more secrets? What the hell else could there be?

  She didn’t know whether she would ever be able to trust him again.

  A tentative rap interrupted them. Will’s face appeared in the partially open doorway.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “Not at all,” Mecca said. She couldn’t keep the anger from her voice. “Dad’s just leaving.”