“No!” I started running toward them, feeling the cold side taking over the warmth, creeping closer to Mom and Rina. Every step pushed a ripple of frozen ground into their space, like a loose carpet being pushed back with the force of my feet. But I didn’t care. He had my son.
“Dorian is safe, Alexis!” Mom yelled. “He’s with us. He’s safe. Don’t believe their deception.”
“They lie, too, Alexis,” the man said. “They can’t give you everything you want.”
“We give life and love,” Rina countered.
“We give power and wealth and everything the heart desires,” the man said.
I continued running toward him as Dorian struggled in his clutch. Rina and Mom spoke of love, life and goodness…all those things I believed in so strongly. But I had to ignore them. Something told me that if I went to them, I would lose Dorian forever.
“That’s right,” the man said, as if reading my mind. “Come with us and you can have those most important to you.”
Tristan suddenly appeared on his knees, in front of the man. He struggled, too, as if bound by something unseen.
“No, Alexis! Come back to us,” Mom cried out.
“That’s it, young one, come to us. We’ll take care of you. You’ll have it all,” the man taunted.
Though I kept running, I never reached them. It was like those dreams, where you keep running and running toward a door at the end of a hall, but the hallway grows longer with each step, so you never make it. I glanced over my shoulder. The snow had crept more than half-way to the other mountain. Mom and Rina stood their ground, though, waving their hands, trying to push warmth toward me. I felt just a slight movement of air. Their power was not enough.
“They’re pathetic,” the man said. “They can’t stand up to us. You’re making the right decision. The best decision.”
Dorian and Tristan stopped struggling. In fact, now they suddenly seemed to be perfectly fine, happy even, on that side, smiling and waving me toward them. It can’t be that bad. It’s the best decision. I had no problem believing this to be true. I saw a glorious life with the three of us together, safe, because no one hunted us now. They already had us. Why had that seemed like such a bad thing before? Knowing they had us and what we could do for them, they would treat us like royalty. We wouldn’t be prisoners. They wouldn’t even care about another daughter. We could live life the way we wanted, spending our days together doing whatever we felt like. No more fear. No running from danger. If we were with them, we would have peace. We would be together forever. We would be happy. Everything I ever wanted. It made all the sense in the world. Right?
Then another figure appeared next to the man. This one made my blood turn to ice. For the first time since arriving in the strange field, I felt cold. Freezing. And hateful.
Vanessa. Daemoni, my mind reminded me, as if I’d forgotten. Evil. They are evil!
The urge to kill her overcame me. I envisioned lunging at her, wrapping my hands around her throat, even clawing and biting at it. I imagined tearing her to shreds and her blood spraying me. The taste of it filled my mouth and I liked it. I ran at her, my hands in front of me, already curled like claws in anticipation. I will kill you.
The ground around me suddenly gave way to empty blackness, as if I’d stepped off the edge of the world. Air whipped and roared, spinning into a tornado, but instead of debris, pictures of faces swirled around me. Tristan. Dorian. Mom. Rina. The icy man. Vanessa. Owen. Sheree. Vampires. Werewolves. Other frightening creatures.
“You want to kill!” the man’s voice called. “We’ll let you!”
“No, Alexis! Love!” Rina yelled.
Their words dwindled into chants of “kill” and “love” as visions of fighting, embracing, killing and loving whirled around me. Fire and ice filled my body again. Churning. Swirling. Clashing. Battling.
“Come home,” my own evil voice called above the ruckus. “This is what you want!”
“No!” I said. “I don’t!”
I realized I could no longer hear the others. Their voices were gone and I was left to myself. Images kept flashing in front of me, like the slideshows once again. I saw Tristan’s old memories, but his blood-covered hands in front of me shrunk into my own hands. I saw myself in the midst of battle, people falling, dying at my feet. Then Dorian’s face. Then Tristan’s face. Then me attacking Vanessa. And then she transformed into Tristan.
“No, no, NO!” I yelled. “I love!”
“You hate!” the evil voice said and a flash of Vanessa’s face appeared.
“NO! I refuse! This is not who I am. I am Amadis!”
“You are also Daemoni!”
“Fuck you!”
“See? You’re not them. You’ll never be perfect like them.”
“I don’t have to be perfect. But I am good!”
“No. You cannot deny your evil side.”
“Yes, I can. I’m supposed to choose. I can choose!”
“And?” the voice taunted.
“I choose Amadis. I choose goodness, love…life.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes! I’m sure!” I sucked in a deep breath and yelled at the top of my lungs. “I. AM. AMADIS!”
The voice fell silent.
The bedroom returned.
And so did the physical pain.
I thrashed in the bed against the unseen pressure holding me there, my legs kicking and my arms flailing. My chest felt like it shattered open as the power violently pushed through and up, bursting outward, pulling my back off the bed with its force. Icy-hot energy charged painfully from the tips of my toes and fingers and the top of my head, through my body and up and out of the crater-sized hole in my chest.
One horrified scream ripped through my throat.
An answering roar resonated from somewhere else.
My heart stopped beating.
My lungs stopped breathing.
My body hung in the air.
Then I was falling…falling…falling forever…until darkness overcame me.
Chapter 20
I lay perfectly still with my eyes closed for several minutes as I assessed myself.
No shivers. No burning. The air didn’t feel frozen around me. My body temperature finally felt perfectly comfortable. The luxurious cotton sheets felt satiny against my bare skin and I knew I was naked. I also knew I’d returned to the physical world, my world, not that eerie soul-sucking place. I prayed to never return there again.
My heart beat a normal, steady rhythm. The Amadis mark no longer burned, but the skin felt slightly taut. My chest and lungs felt good as I breathed naturally. I sucked in a deeper breath. No pain, no hole. The feeling of my chest ripping open had been so real, I was almost surprised I now felt no damage.
The scents came clearer than ever before and I determined the people in the house hadn’t changed—Mom, Rina, Owen and Tristan. Strange sound bytes of conversations over the last—last what? I had no idea how long I’d been in that room—hours or days reverberated in my mind, reminding me of Tristan’s absence. But he didn’t leave. He’s still here. I comforted myself with that thought.
My hearing was better, too, but the sounds were not painfully loud. Footsteps paced against hard tile in the kitchen. The two hearts close by beat steadily, while one in the kitchen pounded harder. The other out there raced, as if pushed to its physical limits. What are they doing out there? I could still hear the rumbling train, too, but it sounded deeper and faster now. What is that?
I opened my eyes. The room seemed bright for an instant, but my eyes immediately adjusted. I stared at
