Haunting Shadows (Book 2)

Chapter 3

Light glinted from every angle in the cove, illuminating even the darkest corners. Andreas was resting his back against one wall of crystals, the edges digging into his back. He didn’t care, but instead welcomed the pain, pushing his back deeper into the edges now stained with blood.

His mind was numb now that the anger had subsided. Grief was something far out of his reach, his tears long used up. There was but a strange emptiness left in his soul, a void so dark that now light would ever be able to reach it. Andreas sat there, not even bothering to find his way out of the crystal cove. He felt powerless, believing he should be stripped of his powers. But while he stopped caring about anything and anyone, there was still a small part of him that feared what he would do in a fit of rage if he ever got out to civilization. His anger at the world had only intensified when the universe took yet another person he cared about away.

For the first time in a very long period, he allowed himself to think about his mother before he killed her. His mother, with her kind blue eyes, always trying to save everyone. He resented her at the time for bringing Kalen home because it made him feel neglected, unimportant. But now he understood her motivation. Emilia Grigoli would not have been the mother he knew and loved if she hadn’t saved Kalen from his troubled past. He remembered that first day she brought Kalen home as if it was yesterday.

The scene unfolded in front of him like a play right after the curtains had been opened. A small boy, a couple years younger than himself, was hidden behind his mother as she walked into the front door that evening. They were both wet with the rain he could hear was beating down at the earth outside. Somehow Andreas even believed that perhaps the rain was a physical representation of the sudden burst of anger he felt upon seeing the small green eyed boy.

“Who’s this?” he proceeded to ask, eyeing the boy carefully.

Emilia’s eyes sparkled. “This is Kalen, he will be staying with us for a while. I expect you to be nice to him, Andreas. He hasn’t been as fortunate as you.”

Andreas scoffed. “I’m always nice mother.”

She unlatched the young boy from her and knelt down to put her arms around her soon. “I know you are, my dear. I know you are, and that is why I love you.” She kissed him on the forehead and gave both boys a small smile before leaving the room. Their eyes locked briefly in challenge, but both soon warmed toward each other without too many qualms between them.

He had taken her kindness for granted. Wasted her love like it didn’t mean a thing. The ache in his chest made it difficult for him to breathe and he tried to force the crystals even deeper into his back to provide any relief he could muster. Before he could even stop it, he was bombarded with the next image of his mother.

Her eyes were pulled into faint worry lines. She regarded him with a look of pity mixed in with love. He scorned her for it at the time, thinking she didn’t understand what he was going through. How could she have been anything but disappointed at what he had become since the death of his brother? A death he could have prevented if he had just been on time….

“Andreas, I love you, and I only want what’s best for you,” she had said, stretching her hand out to touch him. He pulled away quickly as if her touch burned him. He was too angry, too upset to even think clearly.

That particular memory was too painful, and he quickly shook himself out of it, knowing he would break down into the million pieces he was left in if he was forced to live through it again. Her death was his fault, and he would never be able to forgive himself for it. Every night he was still haunted by nightmares, seeing her die over and over again.

And then there was Lana. His whole body shook as he merely thought her name. As with Dylan, he had been too late to save her. He made it just in time to witness both of them take their final breaths, powerless to do a thing about it.

He didn’t deserve love. Everything he touched turned to ashes, especially those he cared for. Dylan, his parents, Elliot, Maria, Casian, and now Lana. His family, his friends, and the woman he cared for, all either dead or gone.

Andreas closed his eyes, resigning himself to an eternity in the cove. He knew that only the pure of heart were shown the way out, and that was not him. It was better that he was stripped of his powers, that way he would have a legitimate excuse for the way he was feeling.