Second Sight (Sojourner Book 3)

Chapter One

There is a hum to the white noise of dreams, a low resonance that slips down through the cracks, keeping me under the weight of sleep like a drug.  It’s constant, like a florescent light, and just as warm, but I haven’t felt its steadiness flow through me since Lev died.

Lev.

I open my eyes to find him lying next to me, his arms draping my body, his wings furled around me, bathing us in a soft, white glow.  His eyelids are closed, his long, blond lashes touch his cheeks.  The even rise and fall of his bare chest suggests sleep.

This is impossible, I know.  But impossible or not, I’m not willing to destroy whatever form of Lev lies near me.  He’s here for now, and that’s all I care about.

As if sensing my panic, his eyes slowly flutter open, and a lazy smile crosses his face.  “Hey, Elizabeth.”  His hand reaches out and touches the place just above my heart, willing it to slow.  But even that won’t make the fear go away.

“Lev,” I whisper, my tone clipped.  Let this be real, not everything else, I think.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, his voice deep and husky.  He pushes an errant strand of hair from my face.

A million words splinter through me, but none dare be spoken without destroying him.  So I say nothing and bury my head into his chest.  Tears prick my eyes, and I wish I could drive them away, but no matter how often I think I get rid of them, they always come back.  I’ll never be free of them.

“Elizabeth?”

Panic.  I feel my heart thundering in my chest, and it’s hard to breathe.  Then I feel the moisture beneath my hands, and I force myself to pull away.  Blood.  My hands are covered in it.  Lev’s once expressive face is slack-jawed and glassy-eyed.  Wherever the blood comes from, it never runs out.

It is then morning jars me awake, and I jerk upright in my bed.  A scream rips through me, though it takes a moment to realize it.  It’s a wordless wail of torment.  I could ask why, again--just yell it at the top of my lungs, launching it like a missile at the heavens.  But I’d never get an answer.  I wouldn’t get Lev back, either.

“Lizzie?”  Jimmie jerks open the door.  Dark circles underscore  his eyes, telling me he’s not been sleeping any better than I have.  Every night I wake screaming.  Six months out, and I still jerk from unconsciousness as though a knife has been plunged into my chest.  Jimmie lingers in the doorway, his hand on the knob, his eyes unsure.  He’s wearing a white t-shirt and shorts—classic Jimmy—and his hair is rumpled, standing  on end.

“I’m all right.”  My voice is flat, and I won’t look at him, afraid he’ll realize just how far from okay I am.

For a moment, he just watches me, eyebrows furrowed.  The breath he’s been holding slowly slips free, his shoulders sagging.  His lips are pursed but frozen in place; he wants to say something but the words fail him.

“I’m all right,” I mutter again, folding my arms around my body—as if that will contain the anguish that claws at my insides like Constantine wire.

“’Kay.”  He nods and retreats down the hallway, leaving me alone.  I don’t sleep much anymore.  Funny, I used to have nightmares about dying; now I have them about living…alone.  No matter how much I try to forget it, I remember the feel of Lev’s body next to mine, his skin as familiar as my own.  I ball my right hand into a fist, and the bracelet that Lev gave me glitters in the pale sunlight ebbing  around the curtains.