Kian ran.
He ran from his
memories. Blindly, he turned down one twisting street, seeing her on the
corner. His brother joined her and then there was only blood. He chose another street,
swiftly turning left to avoid the picture before him. His brother sat on one of
the broken steps. She was there, too, draped over his brother's lap like a limp
rag doll. Blood flowed like a river around him. Down an alley now. Here she lay
in the scarlet mud, blood soaking into the earth around her. His brother
smiled. Kian kept running.
He ran from his
past. Bodies, bloody and broken, found their way into his path and tripped him.
Children cried out his name, grasping at his shirt and bemoaning their fate.
Mothers sobbed their grief to the world at random, clutching at their
children's graves. Fathers, tears
running down their faces like sorrowful, silver trails, screamed out their
anger and brandished guns in his direction. They could not hurt him, but still
Kian ran.
He ran from his
future. Again, Aeshli lay dying on the street before him, like so many times
before. Her blood mocked him, whispering how futile it was to fight, murmuring
that he would not win this game, and foretelling that Aeshli would always die.
His conscience ate at him, laughing through its acid bite. You started this, it whispered. You
were the one who condemned her to death… He saw her pleading with him,
desperate. Kian, please, if you love me,
you will do this for me… Please, Kian. Dying in every lifetime, drowning in
the pain that was her life, she begged him to end it. He saw her against stark
white sheets where she writhed in agony. Make it stop.
And Kian ran from
that, too.
He ran from the
present. Kieran stood in front of him, always smiling, always triumphant. I killed her, Kian. She thought it was you. He
watched Aeshli die slowly in front of him. He had not seen her death, but he
knew Kieran well enough to know that she died in pain. He would have made sure
of that. Tears streamed down his face.
His life would never change. Always him, killing, maiming, running…
Always running.
When he could run
no more, he stopped, resting his hands on his knees. His breath came fast and
broken and his muscles burned. His eyes slid shut, drawing on his inner
strength, then he stood straight and glanced around.
God, I missed this, he thought, staring at the bright lights
and colors. People milled aimlessly, completely involved in their own world and
ignoring everything on the fringes. Buildings reached gracefully for the sky,
stretching in clean lines with mirrored glass. Trees lined the broad streets,
straight and proud against the filthy sidewalks.
It was beautiful.
Kian smiled,
enchanted with the world he'd long forsaken in order to wallow in
self-pity. No more. He wasn't going to
go to Jez, hoping he would find her. Hoping he would get lucky. He would find Aeshli in her next life. He
would stop Kieran from destroying her. He would find a way. All he had to do
was search, following one step behind his brother, while being one step ahead.
So what if he'd missed her in this one? He always had the next and the one
after that.
Happier after
coming to that decision, he ambled lazily down the sidewalk. People passed him
by, talking on their cell phones or walking their dogs. One animal smiled
wolfishly, as if to say, Hey, I recognize
you!
Werewolf, Kian snorted. She was obviously playing
some kind of game, one he didn't want to know anything about. Werewolves could
be strange. He continued down the street, taking everything in.
Maybe it happened
because he wasn't expecting it. Maybe he had just picked the right time or
maybe he was paying just enough attention to what was going on around him.
Whatever the reason, a glint of fading sunlight suddenly played on dark as
midnight hair, catching his eyes.
She moved like
one of them. Gracefully, as if she was stalking her prey. She drifted towards
him like a dream and brushed past him. He felt the graze of her skirt against
his leg. Every hair on his body
prickled. Without stopping to think, he turned to follow her.
He reached out,
his fingers sliding against slick fabric, and stopped her. "Aeshli?"
he asked hopefully, fearing it and wanting it at the same time.
She turned, sighing
as though she didn't want to be bothered. "Do I know you?" she asked
coolly, then she saw who he was. She had to stop the flare of recognition from
jumping to her eyes.
Kian's heart
leapt into his throat. It wasn't possible.
Kieran said he'd killed her… But why should he believe Kieran anyway?
Kieran made lying seem like a contact sport.
She looked just
like Giacinta, almost exactly like she'd looked in every lifetime, except for
her eyes. He knew her by those eyes. Clear blue, like crystals, with the
deepest dark blue ring around them, sucking him in. No one but Aeshli had those
eyes.
"Your
name," he repeated hesitantly, "is it Aeshli?"
She sighed again.
"Look, if this is some kind of new pick-up line, I'm kind of busy. Now if
you'll excuse me…"
Leaving that
sentence trailing in the air, she turned to go. He jumped forward, reaching out
to grab her wrist. "Wait," he pleaded, just before he touched her,
and then everything turned vaguely pink.
She wrenched
back, gasping, "What did you do? Who are
you?"
"My name is
Kian," he answered quietly. He gave her all the space she needed.
"I've been searching for you forever."
She moved back
another step, the vampire she was stalking long gone, and let her eyes sweep
over him, just once. He wore his khakis
slung low on his hips and a dark green cable-knit sweater from Ralph Lauren.
At first, she
thought she was looking at Christian Redfern.
He had the same
clear violet eyes lined with the same sky-blue flecks, burning like the core of
a flame. Not blue, not violet, but
somewhere in between. The same burgundy hair, some strands so dark they were
almost black and some so pure a gold they glistened in the almost nonexistent
light. The same high cheekbones and the same sensual bottom lip. He even had
the same devastating touch, but he wasn't Christian.
She knew that as
surely as she knew she would kill him. He may be the walking, breathing image
of the Christian she remembered, but it wasn't him. His eyes didn't glint with
the cold cruelty she remembered Christian's eyes holding. His hair wasn't neat or perfect; it lay
tousled across his forehead like his hands had run through it a million times
in agony or thought. His cheeks didn't have the same harshly drawn look and his
mouth lacked the mocking twist. But…
How she'd felt
when he touched her was the same.
She shook those
thoughts away. "My name isn't Aeshli," she said flatly. "I'm not
whoever you're searching for. Please leave me alone."
His face fell and
his shoulders slumped. She didn't remember him. She didn't want to know him.
All this time fighting to find her and now another fight lay before him.
"Aeshli, please," he implored.
"Will you
stop calling me that?" she snapped. She sighed yet a third time. "If you have to call me something, call
me by my name. It's Cameron."
"Is that
what you're calling yourself in this life?" he asked absently.
Her pale eyes
glinted. "Cameron is my name. It has always been and always will be."
With that said, she turned to go.
"For this
lifetime," he conceded, following her.
She stopped dead
and whirled to face him. "Stop that," she commanded. "And don't
follow me. You can go wherever you like -- preferably to hell -- but I'm going
home. You're not invited."
The last was said
flatly and brooked no argument. He shrugged and continued to trail a few steps
behind her. "That's not going to work, you know," he informed her
idly, "telling me I'm not invited. I'm coming anyway. I've looked for you
for too…"
"Fine,
come," she interrupted icily, refusing to look back, "but don't
expect to get any farther than the door."
He smiled. The
door? Oh, he'd get inside. He had no worries about that. He hummed softly to himself, suddenly
without a care in the world.
****
He insisted on
calling her Aeshli.
She wasn't sure
why, but it bothered her. Tickling at the back of her brain, calling to her,
the name invoked images she knew were not hers. Or were they? She was in them.
Laughing, smiling, dying… And always -- always -- this boy with hair the color
of blood managed to make an appearance. She didn't understand. She had met this
boy only once before, going by a different name.
He had called
himself Christian. Not Kian, although the names were similar and the faces
identical. But there had been something different about him then. This version
lacked the cruelty so sharply etched across his features and the grim resolve.
And this one -- this mirror of the boy she loved in spite of herself -- seemed
happy to see her in this life. Not sad, not purposeful, but hopeful.
Something was
different…
And as she
walked, she slipped back into that memory, as clear and sharp as a motion
picture.
He sat at the
edge of her bed, that gorgeous boy with hair the color of mulberries and eyes like
flame. The predatory edge had been there even at the beginning. He leaned
languidly against the ugly hospital chair, ignoring the ripped plastic clawing
at his thighs and the uneven limp to one side.
She clutched her
teddy bear closer to her chest and simply watched him. She was not a timid
child, but this boy -- this man
sitting so close to her -- would send any human into a faint.
She understood
well that he was not human.
"You'll die
soon," he was telling her confidently, "and if not, we'll meet
again."
"Why?"
she whispered. Wasn't it enough that she was scared and alone in this big
hospital by herself? Why did he have to make it worse?
He eyed at her
thoughtfully. "Because that's simply how it is," he responded with a
careless shrug. "You always die."
Then, with all
her eleven-year-old wisdom, she'd told him scornfully, "Don't be silly.
You can't die more than once."
He laughed then,
she remembered. Delight lit up his eyes and brought a pretty flush to his
marble-like cheeks.
Handsome, she
corrected herself. Boys weren't pretty.
"You
can," he insisted. That was when she decided he was crazy. "You've
lived a thousand times, over and over. All this," he gestured around the
hospital room vaguely, "has happened to you before, in all those thousands
of lifetimes." He sat up straight and leaned forward to stare into her
eyes. "Except for in the first."
She had the
nagging sensation that everything he was saying was true. She didn't like it.
Torn between belief and disbelief, she whispered, "What happened in my
first lifetime?"
He'd caught her.
Satisfied, he slumped back in the chair again. "My brother killed
you," he shrugged, his voice still casual. "That's why you have the
problems with your heart. It's his fault."
Definitely crazy,
she thought, but she wouldn't let him know she thought that. "I don't
believe you," she stated clearly and calmly. She set her teddy bear down
on the bed and looked at him solemnly out of those clear blue eyes.
He paused,
blinking, then he recovered. "You should."
"Well, I
don't," she answered defiantly.
A flash of that
charming smile, quickly gone. "It doesn't matter. You'll die soon enough.
As you're dying you'll know that I was right."
Her eyes flared.
"I'm not going to die," she snapped. "I won't."
He leaned in
again. "You will," he taunted. "Don't say I didn't warn
you." A half-dreamy smile played across his lips. "I can tell you how
it happened. He was drinking your blood, playing with you… You thought he would
stop, you see -- but he didn't. He drank and drank and drank. All that rich,
coppery blood sliding down his throat…" He sighed, his voice trailing off.
And then, catching himself, he continued, "And you were a smart little
thing. You stabbed him with a branch. I was quite impressed. But, still, you
missed his heart. He wasn't very happy about the bleeding -- Kian never has
been much for the sight of blood, which is a pity, since he's a vampire."
He ignored her gasp and continued talking over her. "So he took that
branch and stabbed it into your heart. But he didn't kill you. Not right then.
He just scratched or bruised it or something.
I'm not really big on technicalities."
"And that's
why my heart bleeds in every life," she concluded quietly. She was wise
for her eleven years.
"Yes,"
he nodded. "So you see, you really don't have a chance."
He stood, having
finished what he had come for. He reached out and patted her gently on the
head. She gasped, but he must not have felt the world quiver, because he turned
around to walk out the door. He paused at the entrance, turning back to deliver
his parting shot. "Remember, if your heart doesn't fail you for some
reason in this lifetime, I'll be back to finish the job." Another flash of
that devastating smile and he was gone.
And the worst had
been that he was right.
She had died.
Only for a few
seconds, but in those seconds she had remembered his words. You will die… As
the surgeon had placed her new heart into her chest, somewhere those words had
played in the stream of her consciousness. The consciousness she wasn't
supposed to have.
She remembered
those words, carried them with her through her whole life. Looking around every
corner for him, waiting for the moment when she would die. He had
promised. She had every confidence that
he would keep his word.
She had thought
Kian was the boy who had visited her in the hospital, but she knew now he
couldn't be. He wouldn't be calling her Aeshli. The other boy -- Christian --
had called her by nothing but her name. Cameron. And again, Kian seemed happy
to see her, not resigned or even cruel.
Christian had
said something about a brother… This must be him. But that would also make him
the one who had killed her.
Fear whispered
down her spine.
Ignoring the boy
who was following like a faithful puppy, she marched quickly to her apartment.
She wondered how she was going to be able to make him leave her alone.
Or if there was
any way at all.
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