Chapter 8
DAVID
Pain was David Berkeley’s oldest friend. His earliest memories all dealt in pain—beatings, bleeding, broken bones—not always his own, but present nonetheless.
Pain was everywhere.
This though? He’d rather die than be subjected to the shearing agony in his chest any longer.
He wanted to die.
Please, let me die.
All night it had worsened, but David’s resolve to withstand it had withered with the sunrise.
Hours of unexplainable, knee-weakening pain, like a fist punched through his chest, gripped on his heart, tugging.
With each labored, excruciating second, the invisible pull crescendoed, sharpening to a diamond point.
Find the mist.
He didn’t understand.
Find the mist.
Why was this happening?
Find the mist.
When would it end?
Find the mist.
Where was the closest gun? He wanted out of this misery. From the cold tiles of his ensuite bathroom, he staggered to his feet. His hands and legs shook, but he managed to gather enough strength to stumble into his study.
His gaze bypassed the overstuffed bookshelves and zeroed in on the small desk.
With a few grunts, he extracted the pistol he kept buried in a drawer beneath tomes on psychology and memoirs of survival, but as soon as the thought of merciful death formed, his hand spasmed.
The weapon fell to the floor, same as it had the handful of other times he’d grown this desperate for freedom.
He fell to his knees, digging his fingers into his damp hair.
Why. Why? Why!
How was it possible to live through such pain? His heart was being excised from his body one vicious yank at a time.
With deep breaths and eyes closed, David fought to will the pain away with determination alone, but concentrating only sharpened it, cutting fine-edged incisions into his nerves, tugging, tugging, tugging.
Find the mist.
Two heartbeats passed.
Fuck it.
David leapt to his feet and darted from his bedroom. If the pain wanted to pull, then he’d let it. It could take him wherever it wanted.
He stumbled gracelessly down the ridiculous main staircase. His father had erected his residence in the middle of nowhere, the better to hide himself from prying eyes. His business stayed in the cities—Sacramento, San Francisco—while his home was a fake ranch far outside of civilization.
Bursting through the front door, David ignored the bright morning sunshine and security cameras and ran. The claws inside raked deep, wrenching on his ribs. He tripped in his effort to keep up, flying down the long asphalt driveway at a full sprint. Sweat soaked the collar of his T-shirt.
The pain blunted as he answered the tug.
Find the mist.
The guard at the compound’s exit saw him coming, and David slipped through the iron gates swinging open. Asphalt gave way to grass as he launched into the forest surrounding the estate. His feet snatched up distance and threw it behind him. The forest darkened.
David dared not slow lest the agony return.
Eventually a wall of mist rose, wringing anxiety from his psyche like a sponge, but the adamant pain forbade him to stop. David dove in without caring what existed on the other side. It couldn’t be worse than the pain. Even hell was better than this.
Lungs afire, legs wobbling, mind on the verge of insanity from the sheer amount of torture, he ran.
It could have been seconds or hours before the mist thinned. From one step to the next, the shroud opened, and David fell to his hands and knees on the other side.
The pain evaporated.
Oxygen sawed through his lungs. Sweat dripped from his face to christen the forest floor. He succumbed to the urge to collapse. His clammy cheek stuck to the organic detritus, and he closed his eyes, savoring the pain-free moments before what came next.
Because something was definitely coming. This wasn’t normal, whatever was happening, but he was too relieved to worry. Torture did that to a man—made him indifferent. David had learned that from experience.
“Are you okay?” asked a deep voice in a language David had never heard but somehow understood.
Refusing to open his eyes, he ignored him.
“Do you need help?” came another, feminine and uncertain.
After a deep breath scented of cedar and something earthy, he asked, “Where am I?”
“This is the Border Watch,” said the girl. “Did you—did you come through the mist?”
David peeled one eye open.
Only years of hiding any emotion that might betray weakness kept him from startling.
The girl peering down at him had blond hair that fell to her hips, all messy waves and hidden braids.
She had a plaited leather band around her forehead and gold symbols near her eyes.
A gauzy material that could barely be called fabric floated against her body, glistening in silver and diamond white, allowing him full perusal of the shimmery skin beneath.
She was like a star, glowing from within, and sunlight struck dust in the air, sparking rainbows around her.
“Did I die?” he asked, because it was the only thing that made sense.
“I don’t know.” A smile played at the angel’s lips. “Did you?”
“Come on, gent,” said the man behind her, chuckling. “Up you get.”
He offered a hand, but David merely stared. The man’s brown skin glinted like gold where the sun touched it, and every line of his body was edged in light.
David pushed himself to all fours without help, brushing bits of dirt from his clothes as he stood. Echoes of the mysterious pain tightened his chest, but it faded with every second, easy to ignore.
Fully upright, David searched his surroundings for potential threats.
He spotted a few strangers among the trees, none with visible weapons.
Other details filtered in—glitter in the air, colors too vivid, a scent that, if hard-pressed, he could only describe as cedar mixed with stardust—but those elements could be catalogued later.
He’d been in worse situations than this celestial world beyond the mist, but his skin prickled, a warning of danger nearby. He turned toward his two Good Samaritans and pushed the hair off his sweaty forehead.
A gasp tore from the girl’s mouth. She stumbled away from him.
Accustomed to that reaction, David merely tilted his head, probing the wild fear that darkened her emotional tapestry. The mosaic inside her had been bright with happiness, frilled with intrigue. In an instant, it fell into shadow. He could almost smell the change—fresh cut flowers singed with ash.
Had she heard of him? Surely his notoriety hadn’t spread all the way to heaven itself.
The man’s eyes widened in his narrow face. He was better at hiding his terror, but it pulsed brighter than everything else, right beside a strand of consummate foreboding.
“Something wrong?” David asked. Stupid question when the answer was obvious. Their terror was a palpable, breathing thing, oppressing the oxygen in his vicinity.
Something was definitely wrong. Dread uncovered a chasm in David’s thoughts, and he sensed himself slipping into it.
But he couldn’t.
Not when he was so vulnerable.
He glanced around once more, hoping to find an answer, but nothing sprung forth. Instead, glittery trees and too-bright sunlight besieged him, mythical yet disturbingly real at the same time.
Neither of his new friends spoke, so he injected a bit of silk into his voice, facing the woman. “Tell me why you’re afraid.”
“You were rumored to be dead,” she said at once, complying the same as everyone else.
His insides churned, but David froze it all, making certain his face remained calm. Blank. His voice, however, sweetened in that way he’d taught himself, the way he’d mastered out of sheer self-preservation, the way that extracted obedience no matter what he asked. “Tell me why you’re scared.”
“You have Morgan’s magic,” she whispered.
Magic.
The word itself didn’t frighten him, though it generated a wave of uncomfortable tingles.
He’d known from a young age that his gifts were strange.
People couldn’t convince men twice their size to turn a knife on themselves with words alone.
It wasn’t normal to feel the emotions inside someone the same way one saw or smelled a flower.
David had known he was different, had researched the phenomenon without much success, but his suppositions never quite leapt into the magical.
His heart had only begun to slow from the mad dash into the mist, but it doubled its pace now.
Magic.
A world beyond the mist.
And these people, who feared him by sight alone.
Frost crept down his spine, raising the hairs on his neck. David perused his surroundings once again. He recognized this place. The unexplained images in his head gushed with the same subtle glitter, the dazzling light.
This forest was part of him—whether his past or future, he didn’t know, but he needed to find out.
David eyed the couple, both still gawking like he was a monster. He laced the silk with a thread of needle-sharp pressure. “Take me to someone who can explain.”
They obliged without argument.