Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
I’m no longer looking at the ceiling, images flashing through my mind in quick succession. Like memories, though not mine.
“There’s something I need to do,” Dad tells Mom, and I somehow know I’m in his body. “I must go back to St. Lawrence. It’s life or death.”
“I’m not letting you do whatever it is by yourself.”
“You have to stay here. For Luke.”
And then I see Josh Dobbers and Dad and Mom in the church cellar.
A series of images collide, moving so fast, I can’t keep up. One moment I’m sitting in a room with recliners and IVs, the next I’m walking around an office, and finally, I’m in a car and hear an ominous voice before I snap back to the present with Brad lying over me.
“Luke? Luke?” he asks, panic in his expression.
“What happened?”
“Your eyes went black like you were having a vision.”
Despite only seeing flashes, I have a deep awareness of what took place in the past, as though it downloaded into my brain. As though I’ve known it all my life.
“The cross,” I say. “It stored the memory of what happened to my parents. When I was a kid, Kysar called them to the Rift—my dad and Josh. Something evil had escaped. A monster they knew could tear apart our world. After Dad told Mom the truth about the Sinners, she insisted she go with them. She didn’t want them to fight this on their own. She didn’t know what she was getting into, but while working with them, she discovered her telepathic ability. Once they found the monster, they couldn’t find a way to get it back into the Rift, and knew it would be fatal to fight it, but the Guides told them it was the only way to keep others from dying. Mom used her power to split its consciousness between them, locking it in each of their bodies. They thought they could use their combined powers to keep it at bay, but after Josh got cancer, Mom and Dad knew it was only a matter of time before it broke free and took control of their bodies. When it started to take over Dad, he used his powers to give himself the aneurysm. Stored the memory for Mom to see in the necklace. Then when she felt the same thing happening to her four years later, she drove herself into a wall to keep the creature from driving into oncoming traffic. It was different than the Slasher they killed while in college. This thing could only survive as long as they were alive, so once they were gone, it was too.”
“They sacrificed themselves,” Brad says, wrapping his arms around me. “Just like their son did.”
I nod, tearing up. “They debated what to do. They didn’t want to die because they had me, but they knew if this monster got out, there might not be a world here for me. They died so that I could live.” Tears stream down my cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Luke.”
But there’s a relief in knowing the truth. More than that—a sense of responsibility. My duty.
“This is what I’m supposed to do,” I say, and Brad pulls away.
“What?”
“I always thought the reason I wanted to go to St. Lawrence was because Dad went there, but now I feel like it’s been calling me. Like it’s my destiny to guard the Rift with the Sinners, like my parents did.”
Brad raises his hand to my face, caresses gently. “Is that what you want, though?”
I consider it briefly, maybe too briefly given the weight of the consequences. “I don’t know that I have a choice.”
“You do have a choice. But knowing who you are, and that you want to do the right thing, I know you feel you only have one choice. It’s one of the reasons I’m so in love with you.”
I gaze at Brad’s beautiful face, and fucked up as it is to discover all that’s on our shoulders, there’s comfort in knowing he’s mine. “This is very dangerous,” I warn him.
“You think I’m scared of a little danger?”
“I know you aren’t, and neither am I.” Not now that I grasp just how important this work is.
He takes my mouth again, and I cherish every moment of it, realizing how fragile it is, how quickly it could be taken from me by the looming threats. When we pull away, he presses his forehead against mine. “We’ll figure this out, Luke. Together.”
“Together.”
We seal the promise with another kiss, his words reminding me how lucky I am that I’m not on my own in any of this.
But also vividly aware that, for the Sinners, this is only the beginning.
THE END