Chapter Eleven
A warm breeze fluttered the curtains as I blinked awake. My head tingled from the inside out. It’d been that way for days. Tage had already told me what happened – a large tumor formed in my brain. It distorted everything.
When I died, he brought me here.
I left behind a son, our son. But he’s grown, Tage said. He’s carving his own paths, bringing light to a dark world.
And my sister and Roman? They were happy, with a little family of their own.
My dad? He was old, but still cantankerous.
Saul and Seth. The two were taking on the world together. Tage said they took my death hard. I hated to hear that. When they hurt, so did I. Because when you loved someone, there was a tether that formed from one heart to the next.
For some reason, I felt a tug from time to time from Seth, but never from Saul. My heart nearly tore apart, but it made me wonder if he’d found someone new and severed our bond. Maybe he didn’t love me anymore.
I shook my head and those thoughts away.
Tage brought me here so I could rest. It’s heaven, I’m sure of it. The sand. The sun. The dark cloak of night, studded with diamonds and thick as wool.
“You’re awake,” he said, the deep timbre of his voice giving me goose flesh.
“I am.”
My fangs raked across my bottom lip as I stretched my arms overhead. I couldn’t remember why I still had them. Tage said it was because I liked having them.
He likes them.
He stares at them often enough.
There was a strange feeling here in The Sand. I wonder if I’ve died and this is the version of heaven my mind created for me?
There’s something missing.
Yet, everything is right.
Or at least Tage says it is.
“Would you like to swim?” he asked.
“Yes.”
When I threw my covers back, I found my body already wrapped in a bathing suit of crisscrossing black fabric. Tage’s eyes raked over me.
He had barely spoken in weeks, but every day, we spent dawn to dusk together. Side by side. In silence.
Sometimes, we walked. Sometimes, we sat. Today, we would swim.
I took his hand and let him lead me outside. Today, I needed answers. I would do my own fishing while we swam. A lake of crystal-clear water stretched as far as the eyes could see, replacing the sea of dunes that normally stretched out in every direction.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Why am I here?”
He smiled. “Because you’re happy here.”
“Do you like it that I’m happy?”
“Of course,” he said simply.
“I dreamed of Saul last night. A horrible nightmare.”
Tage tensed. “What about?”
“Sekhmet killed him. Right here where I stand. She drained him and left his body here. Just tossed him out like a piece of trash.”
My toes curled against the offending sand. I could still see his body lying there. Lifeless. Limp. Dead.
“Saul is fine. He’s with Seth...”
“You keep telling me that, but I can’t feel him, Tage. Why can’t I feel him? I feel Seth, but I don’t feel Saul.”
Tage waded into the water and then sank to his shoulders. “Are you coming?”
A knot formed in my stomach. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“No, he isn’t,” Tage argued.
“Yes, he is. That’s why I keep seeing it. And I have fangs because I drank from you... and then hunted Sekhmet down. I killed her, and then you banished her. You and Seth.” The scene played in my mind like a horrible movie reel. Again. Again. Again.
I could almost see Saul lying at my feet. I fell to my knees.
“He was here,” I whispered, brushing the sand with my hands.
Tage stared at me from the water.
“I told him this was a bad idea,” he finally said.
“Who did you tell, Tage?”
“Seth. He wanted me to alter your memory because he wanted you to be happy. But you aren’t. You aren’t you. The experiences you had and everything you went through in life, makes you Porschia. You aren’t whole without your memories.”
“Then give them to me. All of them.”
I felt numb. I could see flashes of scenes, but there was no emotion tied to them. There were only images. Hard as they were to see, they seemed muddied and fake.
“Swim with me and then I will give you anything you ask for.”
“How long will we swim?” I asked.
Tage smiled. “Just to the island.”
There was an island? I looked into the distance, shielding my eyes with my hand. Sure enough, in the distance, I saw trees sprouting from somewhere in the center of the water.
“I want to feel like me again, Tage.”
He nodded. “Come on.”
I left the spot I’d smoothed and joined him in the water, our arms slicing through the surface’s tension, our feet propelling us forward.
We swam.
Steady.
Strong.
Until the water’s depth became shallow and the island rose beneath our feet. I fell into the wet sand, spent. I looked at him as he sat beside me.
“Just know I’m with you. Through all of this, please don’t push me away,” he asked.
“I’ll try.” That was all I could promise.
The tingling in my head went away as a flood of true memories washed over me, a tsunami of sadness forming in my heart, squeezing out any room for breath.
I cried while Tage sat beside me.
I cried until I had no tears left, until my body and muscles were sore from sobbing so hard.
“Why are you still here?” I yelled when he tried to pull me into his shoulder.
“Because I love you.”
“You lied to me.”
“Seth asked me to. He thought it was best, and at first I did, too.”
“Lies! It’s what you’re best at.”
“No.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Truth is what I’m best at.
Our son told me to give you happy, to focus on the truth, but I couldn’t do both.
I couldn’t make you happy that your husband was dead and you were bound here.
But my truth is that I love you. I have loved you from the moment you looked at me, a frightened young girl in the pavilion, brave enough to hunt alongside and feed monsters just to survive. ”
“You made me think this was heaven, but it’s really some sort of punishment. It’s hell, and I want out of here.”
“Where would you go, Porschia? You’re a vampire.
You made the choice knowing the consequences, and this isn’t hell.
If you want to know what hell looks like, watch another man raise your child, sleep with your wife, love her, and spend every day with her, while you are stuck here, unable to be with any of them.
Watch that for a day and then tell me what hell is.
Then watch it every day for sixteen years. That is hell, Porschia.”
“You died!”
“You asked me to!” he roared. “I died for you. I died for you every day and I would do it again, but don’t punish me for trying to help you cope.” He pushed himself up and stared out at the water. “Don’t punish me for loving you.”
I didn’t want to hear this. I only wanted to see my son.
Splashing into the tide, I sank until I couldn’t touch anymore and then swam back toward the tent. Angry as hell. Torn into shreds of a woman.
At the tent, I tugged on the tether I felt between me and Seth. Hard.
And when my son stepped through the doorway he’d made in the palms, I ran to him and hugged him tight.
“You know,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have kept it from me.”