With a nod, Leah hopped off the bed and agreed. “Deal.” She walked past me and a minute later I heard her end of the conversation with her parents.
When she returned, Leah and I sat on the bed and I told her the whole story, beginning with the accident that revealed my shiny layer of skin and ending with me tackling Grey as she attempted to reap Leah for Fahl.
“I guess I owe you, well, my life then, don’t I?”
“Look at it as a second chance, one that you have to make the best of.” I thought of my father drowning right before my eyes. “Trust me, I don’t think you want to spend eternity in Hell or the Darkness.”
Later that night, as Leah and I sat on the couch watching a Christmas movie, I felt lighter, better for having shared my troubles with someone. I guess misery really does love company and Leah and I were quite the pair. Talk about your odd couples!
The relative tranquility of the evening was short-lived, however, when a young blonde girl appeared in my living room floor. She was walking backward, talking and gesturing to someone I couldn’t see.
I glanced at Leah to see if she had noticed her, but she was still watching television.
“Leah, can you see that?”
Leah looked around curiously. “See what?”
I guess that was my answer.
As I watched, the girl pulled a sweater she was wearing over her head, leaving her in only a camisole, and then she lay back on a bed that suddenly appeared beneath her. That’s when I saw a boy’s dark head come into the picture. He picked up her leg and began kissing at her ankle, working his way up her slim leg and pushing her skirt up as he went. He stopped and paid particular attention to a geometric tattoo that graced the outside of her knee, rubbing it with his thumb then flicking his tongue over it.
When he continued his ascent, I looked away, embarrassed for watching them. My eyes met Leah’s. She was eyeing me suspiciously.
“What are you looking at?”
“There’s a girl right there,” I said, pointing to where the couple lay, but keeping my eyes averted and trained on Leah.
“I don’t see anyone.”
“Obviously,” I said, rolling my eyes in that way that says duh. “I guess this is one of those weird visions,” I explained. Then it hit me. The other two visions had been centered around someone’s death, or imminent death in Leah’s case. If that held true here, maybe if I watched closely enough, I could find out who and where the couple was so that I could intervene, like I did with Leah.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
With heated cheeks, I turned my gaze back to the couple. I squashed the urge to look away and give them privacy as they fooled around.
At one point, the couple was kissing passionately and I thought of Derek, remembering the pleasure we’d shared. Shaking my head as if shaking off the memories, I concentrated on the couple, dissecting them and their surroundings, waiting for some clue as to their location and/or identity.
I watched as the boy slid his hand beneath one of her spaghetti straps. She tore her mouth from his. “Nathan, that’s too far. I told you I’m not ready for that yet,” she said.
Nathan! At least I had that to go on.
Not taking her protest seriously, Nathan responded, “You knew you were playing with fire.” Breathing heavily, he began kissing her neck, his hand trailing down over her breast to the bottom of her shirt. He pushed the thin material up high on the girl’s ribs. She grabbed his wrist to stay his hand.
Even to my eyes, it seemed Nathan’s hands were everywhere. While she was tugging at one, the other found its way to her bare leg, gliding up her thigh to disappear beneath the edge of her skirt.
The girl squirmed uncomfortably beneath his increasing ardor, pushing at his other hand now. She had zero luck. Neither hand budged so she began pushing at his shoulders. “Nathan, I said no,” she cried. I could hear the rising panic in her tone.
Ignoring her, Nathan’s arm jerked as he pulled violently at something I couldn’t see. I heard the ripping sound of seams giving way; I assumed it was her panties.
The girl began to struggle in earnest, realizing what he was attempting. “Nathan!” Her voice trembled. She was about to cry. Cold chills raced down my arms. She just realized she was in serious trouble.
With a growl, Nathan reached between their bodies and I heard the sound of a zipper. I raised my hand to my mouth to smother a gasp. It was horrifying to watch, yet I couldn’t look away.
Despite her thrashing, the girl must’ve heard it, too. She raised a hand and dug her fingernails into the side of his face, dragging them down his neck, leaving long bloody gashes in his skin. With a growl, Nathan clenched his fingers into a fist and hit her in the side of the head.
The girl’s head lolled back and forth for a minute; she seemed addled by the punch. I scooted to the edge of my cushion, every muscle in my body tensed and ready for action, action that could not help her no matter how much I might wish it. Hot tears streamed silently down my face as I willed the girl to do something, anything, to save herself.
Within seconds, I saw the light of alertness come back into the girl’s eyes. I watched as it shifted first to panic. It swelled in her face and my heart broke for her. I felt her fear and her helplessness almost as if they were my own. And then I saw something that I had experienced too many times in the last several months not to recognize. I saw her panic turn to rage.
Nathan’s ardor had only increased by her resistance. He was going to persist, whether she wanted him to or not.
As his mouth skated across her jaw line dropping unwanted kisses toward her mouth, the girl turned her head. She found his nose with her teeth and she bit down. Hard.
Nathan screamed and rolled off the girl, coming to his feet beside the bed. He was holding a hand over his face. Blood was oozing between his fingers. Though his voice was muffled, I could plainly make out what he called her. And she heard it, too.
As he turned to walk across the room, I glimpsed the wall behind him. It looked like the interior of a cabin, with its large exposed beams and whitish chinch fill in between. He stopped at a dresser that sat against the wall opposite the bed. He leaned in to the mirror that hung above it. As I watched his reflection, I caught sight of something else moving in the glass. In the image of the window near the bed, I could see a pale face floating eerily against the black of the night.
It was Grey. Her eyes met mine in the mirror. Anticipation was gleaming in the obsidian depths.
“Look what you did to me!” Nathan yelled, turning back to her, fists clenched at his sides.