Being Anna Marie

Being Anna Marie Part 26

My breathing was steady, my nerves calm, the basement soundless as I faced Gabe standing on the mats once again. The daylight trickling in from the surrounding windows made his striking features appear bronzed as if soaked in the sun, his dark waves alit as if heaven’s righteousness lied just beneath his skins surface, and those eyes as they gazed down at me remained forever consumed with forgiveness. They held a kind of mercy within their brown irises that I hadn’t truly seen since that moment in the meadow with my Grandmother.

Calmly he spoke, “so should we try it again?”

My eyes fell from his in shame, “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“If you’re worried about something happening to me then don’t. I think we proved that if push comes to shove you have the power inside of you to revive me.”

I looked down at my hands in wonder, truly puzzled by everything I seemed to be able to do, “it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

A crippling pain erupted at the base of my feet, a persistent throbbing so all-consuming I would have collapsed had I not feared movement would only cause it to worsen. It was as if each bone inside my body was being sadistically snapped off vanishing before my eyes, and helplessly confused by its gradual initiation I watched with tears flooding my gaze as my tortured limbs began to melt away into nothingness. Breathing heavily, my agony-stricken gaze meeting my guardians, I responded, “it’s the fact that everything you wanted to teach me… I already know.”

The last thing I saw was Gabe’s confusion before my lids slid shut as if to block out the ache as it radically intensified into this brutal ardent slicing at my appendages. It felt as if my body was being heartlessly wrenched apart piece by piece then slowly dissolved in a vat of acid. If I could have found the strength to voice my suffering I would have screeched in misery, and yet it happened so quickly that by the time Gabe thought to react I had already disappeared completely.

Gasping, sweat coursing my pain racked form I reappeared mere inches from the bottom of the stairs. My dismayed eyes searching the basement as if for answers watching as Gabe rushed to my side just as I began to meet the distorted ground. Strong arms held me basically dragging my exhausted body to a chair while force feeding me mouthfuls of bottled water. My breathing calmed after what seemed like an eternity of trying to compose my rapid heart beat, my fingers connected to Gabe’s once again feeding off his energy. I watched as his skin paled while mine transformed into rose tinted vigor before fearing the past repeating itself I released him, observing his ability to snap back to his former self with jealous eyes. 

Peering at my stilled form from his kneeling position before me he said, “I guess you are a quick study.”

I grasped the water bottle, letting the cool liquid wash its way down my throat before I retorted, “you never told me of how taxing it would be. Or the pain transporting causes to your body.”

His only reaction to my words was a raised eye brow and a smirk, not a glimmer of guilt before finally he countered simply, “Would you have tried it if I did?”

Glaring at his unwarranted justification, “that’s not the point-.” I halted mid-tirade watching in dismayed amazement as my fingers gripping plastic turned horrifyingly ghostly, my skin gliding through its surface, the cold water actually cooling my finger tips before skin vanished through the bottle completely and the container fell carelessly to the ground.

Picking the spilling bottle up quickly Gabe stared at its normal appearance within his own hands before his shocked gaze met my own, “did you just…”

“What did you do to me… exactly?” I asked breathlessly.

“Marie, I didn’t teach you this.”