CHAPTER SIXTEEN || ELI #2
Though I knew Eric wasn’t harmless, he had made dozens of empty threats about what he’d do if I ever left him. This was no different. He wasn’t going to follow through—it was just another manipulation tactic. It didn’t really matter.
No, what mattered was the fact that Nicolas had somehow fixed Sam.
It didn’t make any sense, but it was true.
I hadn’t let him tell me what he was. I had ignored everything—all of the strangeness—and now it was impacting the people I cared about. Which meant I didn’t have a choice. I had to confront him and demand an explanation.
Tonight, I decided. When Nicolas picked me up from work, I would ask him for the truth—and I wouldn’t let it go until he gave it to me.
And then what?
I tried not to think about that. I could deal with a lot of things, but I couldn’t tolerate him messing with my sister’s mind. Or mine, for that matter. Had he done the same thing to me? Was that why I had overlooked all the red flags?
Was that why I cared about him in the first place? Was that why I had fallen—
I stopped that thought in its tracks. Because no. Nicolas owed me an explanation. And I owed him the chance to explain himself. He had tried to be honest with me several times, and I had shut him down each time. Now I understood why.
It was one thing to be confronted with evidence of something impossible. It was another thing entirely to have the whole truth—to understand the context.
The truth was, I loved Nicolas. I hadn’t wanted to fear him.
I hadn’t wanted to force him to out himself with me, either.
That was part of why I had shut it down.
And maybe I hadn’t wanted to drive home our differences, either.
The emotions I had for him were raw and new, but they also felt like a continuation somehow.
Like I had always loved him. But those were impossible feelings. And just how fragile were they?
The sudden sound of shattering glass interrupted my thoughts.
Down the hall, from Sam’s bedroom, there was a heavy thud—and then a man grunting in pain.
I shot to my feet, my brain going completely blank with fear.
Someone had just broken into the house.
I ran for the front door and threw the latch to undo the deadbolt. Twisted the lock on the knob. I was about to wrench the door open and run for safety—to Nicolas—when I heard it.
The unmistakable click of a gun hammer being cocked. The sound was like a kick in the gut.
“Turn around,” Eric said tightly from behind me. “Slowly. Hands up.”
Terror lanced through me. I did as he said.
Eric was holding a shiny silver revolver, leveled at my midsection.
He was almost unrecognizable. He had once been lean and muscular, but he was rail-thin now.
His once painstakingly tanned skin was pale, ashen, pockmarked with dozens of scars.
There was an open wound on his cheek, a thumbnail-sized scab that looked recently picked.
His soft, beautiful brown hair was now stringy and plastered to his forehead.
There was a sheen of sweat on his skin, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained, as though they had been slept in for several days in a row.
His eyes were far too wide, pupils blown out like pie plates.
A vein in his forehead pulsed rapidly, which meant his heart was probably jackhammering in his chest. He looked like he’d aged at least fifteen years in five.
He grinned at me, revealing cracked teeth. “You look so good, Eli. Even better than when you left me.”
“Fuck,” I whispered, staring at him in horror. “What happened to you?”
“No! We’re not doing that!” he snapped, pulling his lips back in a snarl. “I’m holding the gun. That means you do what I say!”
“Sure,” I agreed immediately. My stomach sank as I realized he was high out of his mind, probably in the midst of a psychotic episode—whether from the drugs or because he’d never been all that stable to begin with.
Probably both. I was in serious danger. I tried to keep my voice steady. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to say you’re sorry for leaving me.”
I hesitated.
“Say it!”
“I’m sorry I left you behind like this.”
Hurt filled his eyes, but he giggled—high-pitched and sudden. It made my flesh crawl.
“No, you’re not. But you will be.”
“I can help you.”
“Yeah, you can. I want you to call him over here.”
He meant Nicolas. A cold feeling settled in my stomach.
“And then what are you going to do?”
He grinned wildly, his eyes completely empty. “What do you think?”
“Eric—”
“No!” He hissed, waving the gun. “What did I say? I said you belong to me! You’ve always belonged to me. I won’t let him steal you.”
“We’ll get you help.”
“I don’t need anyone’s help. I need you.” He sucked in a breath, the pulse in his forehead pounding. “Everything went to shit when you left me!” Anguish twisted his features. “I need you back. Please take me back.”
I shook my head, holding both hands out—the way you would when confronting a wild animal you’re trying to placate. Or an abusive ex-boyfriend in the middle of a drug-induced psychotic break.
His eyes narrowed, and a chilling smile slid across his lips. “Yes or no, Eli. I told you before: if I can’t have you, no one can.”
“Eric, please, listen to me. I’m a doctor now. I can help you. I can—”
The gunshot was deafening.
For a split second, there was no pain. Just an awful pressure, like I’d been hit impossibly hard in the stomach. Then stunned disbelief.
Eric’s eyes widened for an instant, like he couldn’t believe what he’d done.
“That was the wrong answer,” he whispered, gaze locked on me.
The pain came a moment later. Searing. Wrenching. Dizziness followed fast, dragging me down.
I collapsed to the floor, landing on my back.
When I reached for my stomach, my hands came back smeared with red. And even though it was summertime in Los Angeles, I was suddenly so cold. My body began to tremble.
Eric stepped close, and his face—completely devoid of emotion—filled my field of vision.
“I need a doctor,” I managed, my voice sounding far away. “Call 911. Please, hurry.”
I reached down to put pressure on the wound, but my muscles felt like Jell-O.
Shock was setting in. And I was bleeding to death.
“I was hoping to do you both together,” Eric said coldly, staring down at me. “But don’t worry, Eli. He’s my next stop. You’ll see him soon.”
“No,” I said. My vision went gray at the edges. My voice sounded distant, strange—like it no longer belonged to me. I couldn’t feel my body. I couldn’t even feel the floor.
Eric peered down at me with cold, empty eyes, a slow, triumphant smile twisting his lips. He watched me for several long moments as my body trembled and my vision dimmed.
Then, without warning, pale hands wrapped around his neck.
Eric’s eyes widened.
And I heard the crack of bone.
Then everything went dark.
I sank down into it—slowly at first, then faster, as if the floor had dropped out beneath me. It was endless, fast-moving darkness. I fell backward through it.
It was a long, endless tunnel.
Suddenly, reality shifted and I was no longer falling backward. Instead, I was racing forward—faster and faster—and the tunnel around me began to fill with a soft, golden-white light.
Around me, I heard dozens of voices speaking. Hundreds, perhaps. And they were all my voice, even though none of them really sounded like me at all. I couldn’t make any of it out at first, but I felt certain that some of the voices were speaking in languages I didn’t know.
Surprise filled me as I realized, a moment later, that I did know these other languages, after all. I had spoken them all before, hadn’t I? They were each my tongue, just as much as English was.
Spanish. French. Mandarin. Latin. At least a dozen others. Vague memories filled me, dreamlike, of being in another time and place. Dozens of them, in fact. Hundreds. Countless friends and acquaintances I had spoken those languages with.
Then images resolved into being around me.
It was my face—but a hundred different iterations of it. Most of them resembled me, but some looked nothing like me at all. But they were all still my face. They all belonged to me. They were all me.
I’m dying, I realized.
This was what people always described in their near-death experiences: being in a tunnel, filled with light. Strangely, I didn’t feel any fear. Only a grim resignation. That was part of it, too, wasn’t it? Feeling a perfect and complete state of peace?
“Death isn’t the end,” one of the voices told me, coming from all around, as though the tunnel itself was speaking.
It said the words in Greek, but I understood them perfectly.
It was my voice, after all—or it had been, once.
The voice added, “It’s nothing to fear. It’s simply a chance to start over. ”
“It’s like putting on new clothes,” another of the voices agreed, this one speaking in Dutch.
I realized I was no longer falling. Instead, I found myself suspended in the tunnel, surrounded by other versions of myself. And I felt no fear, no panic at all. Only a deep peace.
Vivid, bright blue eyes whipped across my memory.
“Nicolas,” I whispered. For the first time in what could have been moments or a thousand years, I remembered who I was. I remembered where I was supposed to be—and who I was supposed to come home to.
“Yes,” one of the other voices agreed, speaking in French. He sounded very sad. “Our Nicolas will be alone again. He has been alone for a very long time.”
“No,” I whispered, feeling a ripple of unease roll through me.
Then, abruptly, the tunnel vanished around me.
I wasn’t surrounded by voices and images of other versions of myself anymore. I was lying on my back on a hard, cold floor. And strong arms were wrapped around me.
“Eli,” Nicolas whispered, his voice thick and raw with anguish. “Come back to me. Please don’t leave me. Please, I’m begging.”
I blinked, jolted by the sound of his voice.
The disorientation was sudden and total.
Having a body again felt… heavy.
Cumbersome.
But it was real. It was every bit as real as the tunnel had been. Those voices had been my voice. Those faces had been my face. That was real, too.
I drew in a deep, gasping breath and sat up.
Nicolas let out a sharp, relieved gasp. “Eli?”
I winced, steeling myself against the agonizing pain. I had been shot in the stomach, and I’d probably lost a lot of blood. I shouldn’t have moved. Stupid of me.
I froze an instant later.
Because there was no pain. And my body wasn’t trembling of its own accord anymore. I no longer felt too weak to move. My vision wasn’t gray. In fact, I didn’t feel wounded at all.
Instead, I was sitting in a pool of blood. My torso was cold and sticky, my clothing plastered to my body. And my mouth tasted sweet and metallic. Eric’s body was lying on the ground a few feet away from us. His eyes were sightless and wide, with the ghost of a triumphant smile still on his lips.
He had wanted to watch me die, I realized. He hadn’t wanted me back at all. Instead, he had seen my happiness and tried to destroy me rather than let me experience joy without him. Even after five years. The realization turned my stomach.
And then Nicolas had killed him.
My gaze landed on him—this man I loved.
Nicolas’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his cheeks were wet. He had been crying, I realized. And his lips were stained red. There was a smear of blood on his hand as well. But otherwise, he didn’t look as though he had been injured. Then again, he had moved too quickly for Eric to stop him.
“You’re alive,” Nicolas said, sounding stunned and disbelieving.
“Yeah,” I agreed softly. “I’m still alive. I haven’t gone anywhere.”
His eyes went wide, and his lips parted in surprise. I realized, an instant later, that I had replied to him in perfect French.
His voice came out as a hoarse whisper. “Eli?”
“I should have a gunshot wound,” I said, pressing against my abdomen with my forefingers experimentally.
No pain. I slid my shirt over my head and tossed it to the floor.
I’d need to throw it away, of course. Then I stared down at my perfectly smooth, unbroken skin.
I should have been stunned. Yet somehow, I wasn’t even surprised.
I raised my gaze to meet his. “I don’t anymore. Did you do this?”
He grimaced, and a flash of his earlier horror filled his eyes for an instant. “I thought you were going to die.”
“Nicolas. Tell me. Did you heal my wound somehow?”
“Eli, please don’t do this.”
“What are you?”
Nicolas went still for a very long moment. Then, when he raised his eyes to meet mine, they were filled with resignation. “We should probably talk.”