The Cursed (The Cursed Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Rory,” Layla said, a sigh of relief escaping her. “Yeah, we’re driving over to Chandler’s now. Is that where you are?”

  “No, but I need you and Chris to meet us at the Lake House Hotel in Redford County.”

  “Redford County?” Chris’ voice suddenly asked. “What are you guys doing in Redford?”

  “Something came up,” Rory replied, shooting Chandler a look. Chandler turned away from him and caught the dull lights of a gas station on the side of the road. Rory started pulling in. “Don’t tell anybody else anything. Just get straight to the hotel, got it?”

  “Yeah,” Layla said. “Are you sure you’re all right, Chandler?”

  “He’s fine. Get driving,” Rory ordered. He hung up the phone before Chandler could say anything.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Chandler asked. “Why are you bringing them here?”

  “I just,” Rory paused. “I just need you to see that you’ve got friends and, frankly, we don’t want you going anywhere.”

  Chapter 4 – Attacked

  Chandler was back in the trees, but he knew that he was much closer to what he needed to find. His breathing was heavier, and he could feel the pursuit of the man with the light. It had surrounded him, lighting and darkening his part at the same time. The man was trying to confuse him; turn him away from the path he was trying to take, and there was a chance he was succeeding.

  His eyes widened in surprise as his foot caught on a tree root. His left foot hit the ground, turning the world into a dizzying spin. He landed sprawled some feet away, the light gaining ground and rooting Chandler to the spot. Then it stopped completely, remaining still in the dark forest. He stared at it, breath coming from his lungs in sharp exhales.

  “What do you want from me?” Chandler demanded.

  Then the light was moving. What had once been the brilliance, the enemy chasing him down was suddenly becoming to shift. Shapes formed, taking on the familiar silhouette of a person. Chandler raised himself on his hands and knees, staring at the void that was dark, light and color. Somebody was staring down at him, eyes devoid of pigment, of sight. Yet somehow, Chandler knew that he was being seen.

  “I created the Nephalem to lead Legacy into a new world of peace and equality,” the form said. It was a cast echo as if his voice carried itself to all corners of the Earth and back again. “But my plans were nearly destroyed when I was caught. I spent much time believing that it was I, with my Nephalem, was the one who could change the world. My capture was the key to my realizing that it was not my destiny to rewrite the fate of Legacy and its people

  “Many centuries ago, Drake was born, and he was the switch to turn off the light in a radiant time. He was also the child that made your birth come to be.” The blank-eyed man watched Chandler, surrounded by light. “This is not your first lifetime, and should you fail again, it will not be your last.”

  “This has nothing to do with me,” Chandler replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You will in time. Never will you begin your journey knowing everything you need. It is through life experience that you discover why your battle is important to you. Chandler, you must never come back to this place. It is dangerous for you and for everyone else.”

  “Come back?” Chandler answered. “This is a dream.”

  “For now, it is only a dream, but it will become memories. This place is where one of your previous lives ended. For you to be coming here is a danger. If you cannot stop yourself coming to this place, then do what you must to stay away.”

  Chandler woke with a gasp, snapping upright in the bed and breathing heavily. In the light, his body glistened with a thin sheen of sweat. His eyes wheeled wildly in the room and only stopped when they came to rest on the three people standing at the foot of his bed. Despite his sudden exposure, they looked more concerned than fascinated with Chandler’s wings. He shook his head hard, attempting to shake away the uneasiness he still felt in his mind.

  “Chandler?” Layla said. His eyes moved around the room again in search of the clock. It was four in the morning. Chandler swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, carefully tucking his wings into his back as he passed the three of them. He stepped into the bathroom, pulling down a towel and barely glancing in the mirror at the dark circles he knew would be under his eyes. Closing the door, he shut his eyes. Chandler could just barely remember the tail end of his dream, but he hadn’t ever had reason to remember his strange dreams. Now, it was like they were too important to ignore since he’d found what he was looking for. Breathing heavily through his teeth, Chandler opened his eyes and grimaced. He took the towel and wiped sweat from his skin. Behind him, the door opened as he turned on the shower, and he looked away from the blistering heat of the water.

  Layla stood half in and half out of the door. Now, he could see how her eyes didn’t stop skimming over the gleam of his feathers. Chandler turned to face her completely and waited.

  “Rory said you need our help,” she said.

  “I don’t need anybody’s help.”

  “He thinks you’re going to try to do something bad.”

  “I don’t see why,” Chandler grumbled, turning back to the water. He put my hand back under the shower spray, feeling Layla move farther in the room. He heard the door close.

  “I always knew something was different about you,” Layla said softly. “It felt like something not quite right but good, at the same time. You were always trying to be the best person you could… but sometimes, it didn’t work.” She smiled slightly, and Chandler knew she was thinking about the last day of school the year before when he’d yelled at their trig teacher. It hadn’t stopped there. Of course, the man had tried to give Chandler a detention, and he went ballistic. The rest of the school day, people were tiptoeing around him like he would go off at the slightest pressure. Chandler was sure he would have because that anger in him had nothing to do with them, and everything to do with the strain of the shift taking him over after his seventeenth birthday. He shook his head of the memory and realized Layla was speaking again. “Then, there are your eyes.” She touched his shoulder, slowly trailing around him. Her fingers brushed Chandler’s shoulder blades and came around to caress the ridge of his collarbone. Chandler suppressed a shudder and leaned away until her fingertips against his skin were only a memory. Her head came barely to his shoulder, and he looked down at her. Layla’s hands came up, and Chandler froze as her fingers traced around his eye. “Violet has always been my favorite color. When I met you, I couldn’t help loving your eyes. They’re such a strange thing to have. I always wondered how it could be; how something like that can happen. But while I found them beautiful, dazzling even, I was afraid of them.”

  She sighed, and Chandler closed his eyes. Her fingers brushed over his eyelid and then stopped. They rested there, a still weight. “Why?” he asked.

  “There’s darkness in them. To the rest of the world, you pass yourself off as the quiet, observant type. But I could always see there was something hiding there. I just never wanted to ask because I know people have their demons.”

  “Your brother.”

  “Yeah,” she replied. Chandler opened his eyes, and her hands dropped to her sides. The steam from the shower had settled a glimmer in her chestnut hair. The droplets were like dew and slid along the strands slowly. They stood flush, the tips of Layla’s shoes touching Chandler’s boots, but she took a step back. Chandler released a breath and leaned on the sliding glass door to the shower. “I should go back out,” she said. She turned for the door, but he reached out and gripped her wrist. She didn’t turn around.

  “You and Chris should leave. Rory doesn’t know what he’s asking for, bringing you two here, but I do. If anybody ever suspects I’m not dead, then it’s going to raise questions, and you won’t want to be in the middle of it,” he paused, waiting, but she never spoke. “Go home, Layla,” Chandler added and then released her. She disappeared, and he locked the d
oor.

  When Chandler got out of the shower, Layla and Chris were gone. Rory gave him looks the rest of the morning but, otherwise, didn’t comment on their abrupt departure. As soon as the sky had brightened, they left the hotel for the day to buy essentials. It was Rory’s idea to ditch the phones, but Chandler was glad to be rid of it. He’d never liked the thing anyway.

  By unspoken agreement, they left the hotel that night and got back on the road. This time, Rory slept, and Chandler drove. The light of day vanished and came again. Chandler blew past miles of trees and towns, not noticing when Rory woke to feed himself on the large store of junk they’d bought before leaving. Chandler turned down food and kept busy counting the lines on the road. There was nothing ahead of them; no destination and no home, but Chandler knew when they passed state lines into Oregon. Two and a half days had passed. On a busy road with flashing lights and honking horns, Chandler pulled onto the side of the street and got out. He ducked down to make sure Rory and Dane were still asleep, then he locked the doors and tucked Rory’s keys into his pocket.

  Chandler walked down the street, ignoring the jostling that came from the hurried pedestrians. He wasn’t really heading for anything. Mostly, he was trying to stay awake. So, when he passed the Java shop a couple blocks from the car, he went inside and bought the biggest size. Grimacing at the horrible taste — he’d never been much of a fan — he drank it down, feeling some kind of energy seep into his blood and bones. Still, though, Chandler walked because he knew that falling asleep wasn’t a good idea. The man in his dream had insisted he shouldn’t go back, but he couldn’t control where his dreams took him. His skin felt heated, but he couldn’t remove his jack and shirt, not here where all these people could see him. He shook his head hard, a movement that jostled everything inside and brought the onslaught of a headache. The scarce chill, unhelpful of the heat bombarding his body, nipped at his face. His teeth clenched, body vibrating with the need to close his eyes and let the still uneasiness of sleep consume him.

  “Stay awake,” he muttered. The words echoed in his ears like a thousand drums creating a sound all at the same time. But the words barely came out as sound.

  Sleep, something else commanded him.

  “Stay awake. Stay awake.”

  Sleep.

  Chandler stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Mutters and curses of irritation buzzed around him, exploding in his eyes. He cringed into the sidewalk, eyes falling closed and then snapping back open. He raised his hands and slapped at his cheeks. The sting did nothing but make sleep feel like heaven.

  “Stay awake. Stay awake… stay awake… stay awake,” he hissed. Pedestrians skirted around him as he swayed on his feet. Trying to keep his balance, Chandler stumbled back into a building and fell. He didn’t get up but stayed there, and the brisk movement of the legs in front of him blurred into a wall trapping him there. The street disappeared as his eyelids fell closed.

  Reality began to disappear, and Chandler started to panic. His muscles would listen to him and lift his eyelids. The sounds of the road were disappearing, footsteps becoming nothing but an echo that never ended. He wanted to lift his hands and slap himself back to awareness. His body didn’t move, slumped on the sidewalk outside a nameless shop in a border town of Oregon. Something was reaching for him. It wasn’t sleep, yet it wasn’t reality. Chandler wanted to run, but he was paralyzed.

  “Chandler!” a voice yelled, and his eyes snapped open. Chandler sucked in a ragged breath as his eyes fanned the street and the sidewalk. Rory was stalking toward him, conflicting emotions waging war over the planes of his face. Chandler pushed himself to his feet, swaying back against the building. Rory reached him and put a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  “I have to stay awake,” Chandler slurred.

  “Come on,” Rory said. He wrapped one of his arms around Chandler’s neck and dragged him along the sidewalk. Chandler could hear his shoes scraping the pavement, and his head dropped, his chin pressing against his chest. Chandler’s wings went limp until he couldn’t even feel them pushing against his new jacket. Rory cursed, and then his arm disappeared from around Chandler’s torso. Rory shoved Chandler, and then he was leaning against a car. Chandler didn’t know where they were, but Rory was ignoring it.

  “You need to wake up,” he snapped. “Before you turn into a circus attraction.”

  “What are you talking about?” Chandler mumbled. His eyelids started to fall. A sharp sting ran from his cheek and slithered its way throughout his body. He sucked in a breath, and his eyes opened.

  “Conscious now?” Rory asked grimly.

  “Kind of.”

  “Good. Now, I can kill you.”

  “What?”

  “You locked me in the car and took off. And then I wake up to a cop shining a light in my face and asking me why the hell I’m asleep in a car I have no keys to. He told me to get out and stood there for five minutes while I searched the entire car for something that wasn’t there. Give me my keys.”

  “What is with you?” Chandler snapped back at him. He felt more alert than he’d been before they’d even started driving. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys, holding them just out of reach. Rory grabbed for them, but Chandler snapped his fingers closed and held onto them tightly.

  “I am this close to knocking you out and leaving you right here.” Rory was seething. It had only been days ago that a small difference in their friendship had ended, if only for the briefest amount of time. Even then, Rory had hated him, but he was never angry.

  “Where are you going to go, Rory?” Chandler asked.

  “Home!” he yelled. “I never should have left just to follow you to nowhere. There is no life out here!”

  “What did you think was going to happen? That we were going to leave, and we’d be handed everything we wanted?” Chandler yelled back at him. “I knew exactly what I was stepping into when I went to your house. I knew there was a possibility my entire life would come crumbling down around me just because I wanted to save you. I decided being dead was a good thing because I could finally get away from suffocation in my own house. For years, you’ve known everything that has happened, and I told you I was okay with it; that I was fine with being a victim because she’s my mom and I wanted to protect her. But you don’t know the half of it.” His voice broke, and he didn’t bother to hide it. Rory stood in the middle of the sidewalk, just watching him as pedestrians skirted around him, pretending to ignore Chandler’s voice carrying down the street. “My own dad doesn’t even want to hang around long enough to protect me from her even though he always said he’d be there to make sure she didn’t hurt me. But I got hurt over and over, and I never once complained because I was the good kid.

  “Now, I’m done with it,” he continued, lowering his voice until only Rory could hear him. “And I’m not going back.”

  They stayed looking at each other on the sidewalk. Chandler felt like he was holding his breath, waiting for the answer that might leave him alone. Once, he had wanted solitude, but at this moment, he didn’t want to be alone, especially when everyone else that mattered in his life thought he was dead. When Rory didn’t say anything, Chandler tucked his hands into his pockets. He was walking before he’d made the conscious decision to leave. Dane’s muffled barking followed.

  “Get in the car,” Rory’s voice sighed before he’d taken two steps. A grin flashed over Chandler’s lips, then dropped as he turned back and walked past Rory.

  “I’m driving.”

  Neither of them slept much for the next few hours. Before leaving Oregon, they got more money, bought a map and headed east. Rory mentioned that his grandparents lived in Michigan and thought it was best to go out there. He knew his parents would think they’d be heading in that direction and might even call, but there were a lot of miles between them. When they stopped for gas, Rory asked the cashier where the next hotel was, and they went for it.

  Chandler l
et Rory drive and rested in the passenger seat. The road they were on was dark and dead, bordered by a solid wall of trees. There was no sound but the smooth silence of breath going in and leaving their lungs. Everything about the moment was seen and then just as easily forgotten, but something was calling Chandler, warning him.

  He stayed in his seat, and his eyes started flickering around the car. In the backseat, Chandler knew that Dane was raising his own head, looking from one window to the next. Chandler’s violet eyes met the wall of black trees flying by in the dark, but there was nothing to see; for either of them. His body was on edge, looking for something that was supposed to be there. Rory noticed Chandler’s apprehension and looked over at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked

  “I don’t know,” Chandler answered. Rory’s eyebrows pinched together indecisively, but then the car turned as he jarred the wheel and pulled off onto the side of the road. The car switched off, but the headlight remained on, highlighting the empty road in front of them. “It’s like electricity on my skin,” Chandler explained before Rory could ask. “There are warning signs in my head, whispering, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.” He swallowed thickly, and his eyes turned forward. “I couldn’t explain it.”

  “Couldn’t?” Rory inquired. Chandler raised his hand and pointed out the windshield.

  Rory’s head turned to look at what Chandler had already seen. A boy stood in the road some fifty feet away. He didn’t move, just stood there and watched the two of them as they sat inside the car. From this distance, he looked normal enough, but whatever Chandler had felt about him before had multiplied in the simple act of seeing him standing there. Chandler leaned forward in the passenger seat, feeling his wings twitching against his back as their instinct to stretch was subdued. Rory looked at him and the boy on the street. When he started to open his door, Chandler put a hand on his chest and pressed him back into his seat.