“What am I seeing right now?” Peter voice, rakes through the hollow halls of his mind. “I don’t recognize what is in this vision.”
“Look,” Now it’s time to put my manipulation to work. “Do you want out of this?”
“Yes, please.”
“Then you will relinquish all your energy to me.”
I can hear the stutter before he continues, “You promise you’ll get me out of this fucking maze?” I give him my word to get him out... of theGarden.
The path gets a little more vivid, and then I am booking it through the tall hedges bursting from the hidden entrance mere feet from where Brennan stands. His head turns at just the right moment. Looking in our direction before he disappears, to reappear even angrier and back on track.
“Now, it is all you.” I tell Peter. “Run!”
A banshee-like jeer breaks from his mouth as he sprints through the driveway of the manor, and just before his fingertips touchthe wrought iron gates, I leap from his body. “I hope you suffer!” were the only words I left him with before he was rewarded with a ‘pretty silver necklace’. Peter goes flying, his gurgling and gasping, frantic as his back slams into the ground. Standing there, I watch as his flailing steadily weakens with his surrender.
Chapter 22
Emory
"Grief is theprice of love, but memory is its reward."
Clutching on to the banister, I am doing my best with what little strength I have. My feet are kicking with desperation, a sense of longing to be on solid ground swelling by the second. Gravity serenades my body, as the pit of my stomach is bathing in fear.
I can’t fall.
I won't be able to walk away from this if I fall.
I must find… a way.
My arms shake as I try to pull myself up and fail. I look around, and the trellis isn’t too far, so I swing my legs, using my toes, as I try tograb hold of it. I miss the first time, so I try again. Determined to make it, I struggle for another five times, until on the last go, my grip slips—what I didn’t want to happen... happened, and now I am falling:
This is it.
I finally find my sister, but before she can see me, before I can tell her that I don’t blame her for anything, I fall to my death.
I won't get to know why she is here.
How did she even get here?
Did the guy bring her here?
Who was he anyway?
If he was the one who brought her here, then why?
I have too many questions that need answers.
I can’t die.
Not now, I just-
The fall feels like forever, like falling through space and time itself. My body is cold as the wind cocoons around me—I don’t detect that I am falling. I start to wonder if I am dreaming, but that thought is short-lived—pulling me from my thoughts is the abrupt stop I make. I am startled when it wasn’t followed by pain splintering through my body from the contact it would have made with the concrete. No, instead it was like falling into bed sheets on a soft bed after a long day of working. You know, the feeling where the mattress swallows you as the comforter wraps you in a soft… warm burrito.
I open my eyes to a face forming before me—it is familiar but disfigured, swollen, and red. I observe a little longer before it clicks. “Peter, what-” I watch as the look in his eye changes, and a stare that I have become accustomed to… makes its presence known. I witness his emerald eye shift to a striking baby blue.
“I already toldlifeyou were mine.” The sorrow conjoined with anger was his specialty. “I will be damned ifdeathtakes you away from me.”
I was right. “Oliver?” Peter is lost to me—there is no indication that he still occupies space in his body. The only thing I can see, and feel, is Oliver—nodding in response. His emotions convey care and worry as my relocation of him surfaces. My eyes glare at him with a grip like super glue.
