Chapter 2 - Against the Light

Here is chapter 2 from Against the Light! SPOILER...do not read of you have not read Darkness Calls, the first book in the Blood Secret book series!!!

Let me know what you think!!!  Thanks for reading & keep checking back for more teasers & another chapter release before Against the Light comes out in January 2014! 

Chapter 2

Ari

My hands smacked down onto his chest as I fisted his shirt in my hands. “You can't leave me...you...can't.” There was a whooshing sound in my ears, my heartbeat raced threatening to drown me in darkness. “Please, Jesse.” I begged him to come back to me. All my light, my darkness, my life essence that coursed through me was doing nothing to save him.

Arms grabbed me around my waist from behind, dragging me away from Jesse. I kicked, thrashing my body like a wild animal to release myself from the grasp. I had to get back to him, I had to keep trying.

“Ari, you have to stop.” Cam's light cascaded over me, calming me, chasing the shadows into remission. “You can't save him, you've never been able to save him.”

Heartbroken sobs escaped my throat, my body convulsed with the realization of what I did. I let out a scream full of torment and agony, I was sure I released the actual heart and soul that lay broken inside me onto the concrete next to Jesse. I pushed at Cam's hands for release, tried crawling to Jesse's side once again, as pain lanced throughout my body.

“What the,” the heartbeat thrumming in the warm body I used as a pillow vanished from under my cheek. Barely audible words reached my ears over the hell raising scream echoing throughout my room.

I tried to block the inconceivable decible causing my ears to ring, but warm fingers quickly fixed my wrists making them unable to move on command. Chords and veins strained my neck, my voice struggled and strangled out of my burning throat, causing my body to buckle and raise off the bed.  Hands scorched the skin on either side of my stomach attempting to restrain me.

 “What did you do to her?” A woman's voice questioned through the shrill pitch consuming the room.

“Get off of her! You can't hold her down like that,” another unfamiliar shout rang out laced with panic.

“I'll do whatever the hell I think is best for her,” the familiar tone wasn't the one I knew like the back of my hand, the one that made my skin feel like sunshine touched it with every word. The bite apparent there didn't lessen because the horrendous screaming continued. “If you're smart you'll turn around and walk right out and not come back.”

“But,” one of the women started.

“NOW!” The authority pulled me out of my nightmare, and the uncontrollable screeching finally stopped. My eyelids opened lazily, and guarded crystal blue peered back. They weren't the eyes I longed to see. Anger flared deep down in me from being pinned down like an animal trying to be caged. I gathered darkness allowing it to coil inside me like a snake ready to strike.

Get off me, I sent to him with no response, no movement, no change in the weight immobilizing me.

Shadows lurked behind him rising like cigarette smoke. Part of me enjoyed his obliviousness, and a smirk reveled across my lips as the hair on his arms stood up, goosebumps braking out across his flesh.

Instincts kicked in when darkness came calling. Every cell in the body wanted to react by running and never looking back. Flight over fight kept people, and angels, alive. Even strong Guardians knew deep down in their souls darkness wasn't to be taken lightly.

“Ari,” my name rang out as a warning.

Darkness wrapped around Cam's torso ripping him off me with ease. His mouth hung slack, words escaping him, as his back was pinned against the padded white wall. “What?” I snapped. “I told you to get off me,” I reminded him as the strength the shadows left thrummed through my veins.

“You were freaking out!” He gave an exasperated look, eyes moving between the tendrils holding him to the wall and me. I had mere seconds before he used his light to free himself.

“Ugh, fine.” Rolling my eyes I pulled the inky darkness away from him. His glare raked over me tentatively, looking at me like I'd grown two heads. “I don't know why you're looking at me that way. Your eyes look like they're about to bug out of your head.” I shouldn't be snippy. Cam wasn't hurting me he was trying to help, but I honestly wanted to be left alone.

My arm stretched above my head and I felt the soreness in my muscles setting in from tensing against Cam. I fell back to the bed as my body screamed to let it knock back out for another twelve hours.

Then the nightmare I had hit me like a ton of bricks. Panic surged through my body reminding me breathing was a luxury I could not afford to lose. The tingling sensation started in my fingertips, quickly spread to my chest, legs, and lips. It was mid-August and assumably warm out, but shakes wracked me to my core. I might as well have been naked outside in Chicago in the dead of winter. My teeth slammed together repeatedly with no end in the foreseeable future.

Dead. Jesse. Jesse is dead.

Cam flew back to the bed after yanking an extra comforter from the chair in the corner of the room. He fervently wrapped it around me, and climbed back in bed pulling me to his chest. A calm secure sensation draped over me like an affectionate embrace, and gradually I stopped shaking. The feeling returned to the rest of my body leaving me able to take the full breath my lungs begged to be given.

“I'm broken, Cam,” my voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper, and I didn't know if it was from screaming before or the raw emotion of losing someone I loved. The other day I overheard the healers discussing the repercussion of my wailing fits. If I couldn't get them to stop I'd permanently ruin my vocal chords, but I didn't understand how to control it since it primarily happened in my sleep. “There isn't even any point in trying.”

“The hell there isn't. I love you and I'll be damned if I let you or your dad try to tell me I can't or am not allowed to help you.” His tone was low and serious which only lent to somber conversation, and I wasn't in the mood.

“Cam I'm not doing this with you right now.”

“Since when do you give up, huh?” Eyes as blue as the Koro Sea bore into mine searching for answers I didn't have. “We are figuring this out. I'm not going another day with you stuck in this bed leaving me to worry that I'm going to lose you.”

Cam's voice cracked, and he turned his head to hide the tears welling in the pool of emotion there, but I saw them. He raked his unsteady hand through golden hair that had grown longer than normal. He cleared his throat, “I'm not losing you.” Not looking in my direction, he made his way to the bathroom leaving me alone on the bed.

Alone. Again.

I missed Jesse a crazy amount, but Cam was right. I had to pull myself out of this downward spiral to never ending darkness whatever way I could or I was going to end up dead. The latch on the bathroom door clicked and Cam eased his way back across the room. He thought he could be the glue to hold me together. I'd never be whole again, but maybe he would make me as close as I'd get.

“How do you feel?” Standing at the side of the bed, his hands linked up behind his head leaving the skin above his low slung jeans showing. A tug at the center of my heart, that would've made my legs give out had I been standing, startled me. I recognized the feeling, my light wanted Cam, and he was doing everything to coax it out inside me.

I can't. I mentally and physically...just...can't.

“Aside from killing someone,” animosity covered my tone like a bitter sauce. “And sounding like a croaking frog, you mean?”

He let my comment go without a word. After climbing back in bed next to me, Cam put his arm around my shoulders and I instinctively leaned into him even though I tried my damnedest not to give in. “Your dad didn't want to let me in here ya know...said he didn't care what I thought the bond between us could do to help you. He only wants me near you to protect you and nothing else.”

I rolled my eyes. The strain on the relationship between me and my dad increased over the last few years. The intention behind everything he had done was good, but it didn't change the fact that it left me feeling like we wouldn't ever be able to trust the other again. He should have told me I was an angel, should have let me know the blood running through my veins could get me killed.

He left me to believe my mom was dead. Readied me to be able to fight and protect myself, but provided me with no information about who I was, and why angels of darkness, the Watchers, were hunting me after he was abducted by Jesse's uncle, Dal. Luckily Dal was dead, but the real problem was who he got his orders from, and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Azrael came for me.

© Heather Wiginton November 2013