Chapter 11
Myssa
When I get to the entrance, I see there are black cubby holes for shoes, with a sign stating “Please put shoes in a holder before stepping onto the dance floor”.
After taking my boots off, I slide off my socks and tuck them into a slot.
Making my way to an open spot near the banister, I settle in, feeling the grass beneath my feet. It's at this moment that “Gravedigger” from MXMS starts to play. Suddenly, the sound of thunder fills the room, and the pipes above burst into a simulated rain storm.
A gentle mist forms upon my skin, dancing along with the music and soaking through my white shirt, revealing my black laced bra underneath.
My hips impulsively sway to the beat, seduced by the familiar melody.
Running my fingers through my hair, I close my eyes and surrender to the warm water as it drops relentlessly, caressing my face and neck.
That's when I let go, allowing the droplets to wash away the chaos I've endured over the last few days. For one brief moment, I’m free.
Lost in the melody, the air shifts around me, my breath quickens, and my heart beat accelerates.
My hands tremble with anticipation, forcing me to grip the banister as wave after wave of familiarity washes over me.
The flashes of lost memories pulse like someone changing the slides in a projector.
One thought screams at me, overpowering the rest.
He's here.
His presence isn’t like Jasper’s, though. I’m neither scared nor intimidated. I feel a sense of protectiveness, and an intimacy that reaches into the depths of my existence.
The heat from his body radiates behind me as he comes closer, and the yearning for him to touch me causes my core to tighten.
My breath hitches as I feel his fingertips lightly trace down my arms. His body presses up against me as he intertwines our fingers around the banister.
His hips match mine, and I can feel his length hard against me.
He doesn’t say a word, he doesn’t have to, he feels like home.
His soft touch against my fingers overpower me with a familiarity that we have done this a thousand times before.
The comfort of his embrace as the water continues to blanket us rips through my entire being.
But it’s too much, it’s overload, and I can feel my feet start to falter.
No, no, no, I mentally chant, trying to calm myself, trying to make it stop, but it’s too late; the pull between this world and the next shifts.
And when I open my eyes, I’m back in the crimson shadows with the taste of ash in the air.
Something is different, though, because this time the arms that were embracing me in the club are still intertwined with mine.
“Myssa,” I hear him whisper softly in my ear.
It’s not a question, it’s a statement. He knows who I am.
I turn slightly to look up at him, but in the shadows, it’s hard to see his face. Faint tattoos, barely visible in the darkness, can be seen trailing from his hands past his forearms before they are hidden from the sleeve of his shirt. Why do they seem so familiar?
“Do I know you?” I ask, confused.
I don’t give him time to answer, as the feeling of dread creeps in.
The pain Jasper inflicted a week ago makes me tremble and I grip my arm.
Panic starts to engulf me, and I close my eyes again, shaking my head as I concentrate on the club.
That pull through the darkness twists me back to my reality.
Feeling the grass beneath my feet again, I sigh in relief.
But the arms that felt so secure around me are gone.
I turn to look around the dance floor, but it's so crowded I don’t see who it could have been, and I’m left with the longing deep within me, as if something has ripped a part of me away.
Stepping off the dance floor, I see warm blowing heaters set up next to shelves full of towels.
As I stand in front of the blowers, I continue to scan the area for my mystery man but quickly become frustrated when I don’t recognize his large presence in the crowd.
I’m left with more questions than answers.
I can’t help but replay the moment I heard his voice, as if my name were a desperate plea, and a delicious flutter spreads through my core at the thought.
It doesn’t make sense, though, because there are only two people I know here: Knox and Vix.
This man, with one simple caress, made me feel like he has worshiped me in another life.
My body is still humming with a need that I’ve never felt before.
Defeated by my search, I reluctantly walk back to the bar by Vix.
Deep in my thoughts, I don’t even realize she’s made her way to where I’m sitting at the bar.
“Hellooo, earth to Myssa?”
I snap back my gaze to Vix.
“Sorry,” I sigh, rubbing my forehead, then a thought hits me. “Hey, Vix, did you see the guy behind me when I was dancing?”
“Ooo, someone was dancing with you? Can’t say I did, but I’ve been pretty busy here at the bar.”
Someone at the other end of the bar motions for her to come down.
“Listen, let's talk later. You're staying till close, right?” Vix asks.
“Yeah, I’ll be here.” I smile.
“Ok, talk then.”
Hoping that maybe I can create another repeat of the stranger coming up behind me, I make my way back onto the dance floor. But when my attempt seems to fail, I join a group that invites me to dance with them. I start to doubt if it happened at all. Maybe it was all some type of fever dream.
Zayne
Walking into the back entrance of my office, I wipe my face with the towel I’d grabbed from downstairs. Still soaked from the dance floor, I slip a dry pair of jeans and a T-shirt from my bag.
Before I can even take a moment to process what just happened, Knox comes storming in through the front entrance to my office.
“Bro, what the fuck was that?” He grasps the top of the chair in front of my desk.
“I-I don’t know,” I say, taken aback myself. I pull off my shirt and dry myself off with the towel.
“I fucking felt that, man. It took everything in me not to shift. I was in the elevator about to come talk to you. When I got my bearings, I saw you and Myssa on the dance floor. She didn’t look the same, she looked…different. I can’t put my finger on it.
“You shouldn’t have exposed her to Aetheriem again. It might have been too much for her,” he adds eyes boring into mine.
“I don’t think you understand, Knox. I didn’t—she pulled me with her.” I button my jeans.
“Wait, what do you mean, she pulled you?” Knox squints.
“Knox, I don’t know how to describe it. I was in my office, then I saw her on the dance floor.
Next thing I knew I was being pulled to her.
This…this overwhelming possessive feeling came over me, and I needed to feel her.
I know she's your friend, but I couldn’t stop.
When I touched her, my emotions poured through me like I’ve felt her so many times before.
And in a blink of an eye, I was in Aetheriem. ”
“But…how?” His voice lowers.
“I don’t fucking know,” I quietly confess, shaking my head and tossing the towel on my desk. I walk over to the mini fridge, offering water to Knox.
He silently declines. I twist the cap off my drink and take a swig as I continue to analyze the situation and what it means. Knox and I have never pulled each other through the frequency.
That splitting separation of your soul is taxing on the physical body. So, the fact that she did it and with ease, proves how resilient she is. How special in the bigger picture she will prove to be. Searching the ground as if the answer lies there, I give him the only truth I know right now.
“She fucking pulled me with her through the frequency. I had no control. I could feel all the emotions she was feeling.” I feel his glare on me, but I don’t confess it all. Especially that she’d awakened all these emotions of my own. It’s best I unpack that myself. I look up at him and continue.
“She panicked when we were there. I felt her trying to protect me, and she pushed us both back here. It was too much, so I backed away before it got worse and headed up here. She never saw me.”
“Well,” he scoffs, then, always the smartass, Knox snickers. “That’s some next-level shit. What do you think that means?”
I stand up, and look over at the camera feed, finding Myssa back out on the dance floor with a group of women.
Folding my arms, I get lost for a moment, watching her smile at what the girl next to her whispers in her ear.
A sudden surge of uneasiness hits me at I realize how dire this could be.
Myssa moving back and forth from our realm to Aetheriem most certainly will get Jasper’s attention, if it hasn’t already. I spin to look back at Knox.
“I don’t know, but we need to figure it out before Jasper realizes she's an original,” I say.
We’ve been searching for other originals but coming up with only a handful. Jasper has managed to take half of them, and when word got out, the rest disappeared, not wanting to get involved in the fight.
With how strong Myssa is, how special she is, there’s no doubt that Jasper will destroy anything in his path to take her soul like he did Jonathan’s.
“The rebellion needs to be told. I need to talk to Jess and Steph in Aetheriem and we will figure it out from there. There’s something different going on here. You said it yourself. You felt the ripple through the frequency, and you weren’t anywhere around us.”
“Ok, but don’t take too much time. I’m going out with her and Vix after were done here, so I’ll try to feel her out and see how much she knows,” he says.
“Keep me posted.”
He nods as he starts to walk towards the door. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. Giving a little shake of his head, he chuckles.
“I still can’t believe she’s a fucking Original, and I never even saw it,” he says in disbelief as he walks out the door.