Bleeding Ink

Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Adeena stared down at the soft green grass below her bare feet, toes squishing into the ground. She wasn't seeing it, though, but rather her sister's face as she held hers between her hands, screaming for her not to leave her. She didn't want to, of course, not when they were finally together again, but she'd been right. Death didn't hold her...but even sometimes when she was there in the in-between, she wanted to just let it all go.

Her white leather jacket was gone, though she was still in her bloodied tunic. She brushed her fingers along the gash in the fabric, pulling it apart to see the wound right over her heart. Even though she still felt the echoes of the sharp, fiery pain from the venom-laced dagger, here in the in-between it was nothing. The gray lines that ran across her sun-tanned skin were receding, the wound itself closing before it appeared as if nothing had happened at all. The only thing left was the two inch white line she knew would be there in the physical world also, just like the one along her neck from an assassination attempt all those years ago.

"What happened?" a voice choked out from in front of her.

Adeena looked up to see Destan staring at her bloodied tunic, russet eyes wide with panic.

Her lips curled up into a small, sad smile. "I saved my sister."

Destan reached his hand out, intent on touching the thin white line before he realized what he was doing, snatching his hand back. His eyes lifted to her face. "You did the same thing I did."

She nodded, feeling that draw toward him that began the last time she was there in the in-between.

Destan took a step closer to her just as she did the same, his fingers lifting to brush along her cheek. "Are you all right?"

Adeena swallowed hard, staring at him as his gentle touches left trails of fire in their wake. "Death cannot hold me...until I say so, that is."

"And when do you say so?" he asked, brows furrowed.

She didn't say a word as the world around them became brighter, glittering with a bright light she hadn't seen since she was four years old.

The music was what found her first.

Then the laughter.

The overwhelming feeling of pure love she so desperately wanted after over a century of nothing but death and darkness.

The land of light and shadows beckoned to her.

Destan stared at the archway of light, wide-eyed and transfixed on it as he shifted in its direction. "I've never been able to see it before. I've only ever seen...this in-between, as you call it." He looked back at her, turning back to her. "How?"

Adeena stepped closer, toe to toe, bodies aligned. "I...don't exactly know," she told him then. "Somehow, we're tied together. Maybe...that's why you were never able to find peace in death, why you were stuck here with me. And I'm...I'm sorry if I was the cause of your pain."

He leaned down to her, bringing their faces so close his warm breath brushed along her skin. She closed her eyes just as his arm wrapped around her waist and leaned her forehead against his.

"Will you go with me?" she asked him in a whisper as her fingers gripped his tunic. "You've been trapped here long enough, Destan, and you deserve to rest, too. And after having you with me here...well, I don't want to let you go just yet. Because you're...my friend."

Destan loosed the breath he'd been holding. "What about your family?"

Cleo, her grandparents, the family she hadn't met yet in Dalcaine...