Gifted (Awakening Book 2) by Jacqueline Brown

Author:Jacqueline Brown [Brown, Jacqueline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-11T22:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Luca turned the key in the ignition. The jeep followed his commands as we quickly spun out of the gravel parking lot.

Luca held his forehead, his breathing shallow. He was in pain. After a mile or two his breathing relaxed and he removed his hand from his head, placing it carefully on the steering wheel.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice frail from the headache that was leaving him.

Was I okay? “Yes,” I answered meekly.

“You didn’t ask me what I was doing when I forced us to leave,” he said, trying to steady his breathing.

“No,” I said—the thought of remaining for even a moment longer in that place engulfed me in a blanket of darkness.

“Why not?” he asked, as if afraid of my answer. As if my awareness of all that had been in that place was even more dangerous than the place.

“You were right,” I said, clearing my throat, my voice becoming stronger. “We needed to leave.”

“How did you know?” he said, his voice trembling.

Yes, he was more afraid of my awareness of the danger than the danger itself.

I turned my head away from him, watching the trees blur past as the jeep’s headlights illuminated them. “I saw something. When I touched a beam of wood I saw ….” I couldn’t go on with the truth. “I saw something.”

He was silent for a moment, his expression still as stone, and then he said, “Like what happened at the inn?”

Was it like the inn? That seemed so long ago, though it was yesterday when I saw the blood dripping from Thomas’s arm, down his thin fingers.

“Yes,” I said. If the question came from anyone else, I would have left it at that or, in truth, never mentioned any of it, but he wasn’t anyone else—he was Luca. Luca, who felt evil and saw holy souls. Luca, who for some reason, knew to find me.

I continued. “But it was … more intense. Like it was happening now.”

I watched him. Even in the darkness of the jeep, I could tell his dark face had turned pale.

“You’re afraid,” I said, voice trembling. If he was afraid, how much more afraid should I be?

His eyes flitted to mine and then back to the road. “Yes.”

My voice shaking, I said, “Why?”

Why was he afraid of the haunted children? He hadn’t seen them—he hadn’t felt their fear. Yet his voice trembled. My body shivered. The cold was seeping into the very essence of my soul. I doubted I’d ever be warm again.

The trees blurred past us. Luca held the steering wheel tight, unwilling or unable to take his eyes from the road.

“You aren’t the first person I’ve known who saw the memories of places.” His voice sounded timid and young, nothing like his normal voice.

Even in the darkness I could sense he was near tears. His world, the world he created for himself, was collapsing in front of me. Why should the images of the past two days matter so much to him? The metallic taste of fear rose to the back of my throat.

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