IGMS - Issue 25 by IGMS

Author:IGMS
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Hatrack River Enterprises
Published: 2011-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

"EEEEDIEEEE!"

The yell was followed by maniacal laughter. Was he drunk? She pushed open the door of the musty barn. Edward stood before her, head thrown back, screaming up into the cold downpour like a madman. For once he wore no jacket or tie; his shirt was mussed, filthy, and possibly torn. Were those bloodstains?

"Edward?" She wasn't sure he would hear her over the din of the rain, but he turned his head to her and smiled.

His face was a ruin. One cut split his lip; another bisected the opposite eyebrow. The left side of his face was angry red and slightly swollen -- wounds too fresh toshow any sign of bruising. A smudged shoeprint marred his white linen shirt under one arm. Whoever had attacked him was right-handed, kicked him when he was down, and had hands and feet the size of small anvils. But why?

Before she could ask anything, he took her in his arms and kissed the breath right out of her. She tasted the salt of his sweat, the sweet of the rain, the copper of his blood, and the desire he had for her that made her own blood boil. He kissed every part of her he could reach and she indulged him for a bit, laughing at his vigor. He spun them both back into the barn, out of the rain, and made as if to take her right there in the scratchy hay.

"Edward, wait. Stop!" She pushed at him reluctantly. "What on earth have you gotten yourself into, you fool?"

"I'm going to do it, Edie. I'm going to change the future. Or the past. Both. If not in this lifetime, then the next." He punctuated each sentence with a kiss on her forehead, her lips, her cheek, her neck, her shoulder.

"I swear you make less and less sense every time I see you."

"No!" he cried. "Don't say that. Don't say anything. Don't tell me anything about the future! I don't want to know what I'm up against. And above all" -- he squeezed her so hard she thought her insides might pop out -- "don't ever tell me how we met."

"You can't change the past, love. What's happened has happened."

"Can't I?"

"No, you can't. And what's all this about other lifetimes? And who was it that beat you bloody? You're not exactly fit for receiving a lady, sir."

"You're no lady, Miss Hornby. You're my girl."

It made her giddy to hear him say it. Far less scandalous a thing, too, now that they were both roughly the same age. She was the elder, but only slightly. "Always," she said. "From beginning to end."

He tossed her into the hay at that remark and tickled her until she squealed. She had always adored the smell of hay. It reminded her of him, of this special gift the topsy-turvy world had given them.

"None of that talk now, Edie. Beginnings and endings are both stopping points. I have reason to believe our Siamese universes experience nothing of the sort."

"Really? I'm anxious to hear this new hypothesis.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.