Broken Visions

Chapter 39

A loud bang rocks the house and wakes me up from a dead sleep. There’s an orange glow coming from outside my window and my bedroom door is wide open, the hallway suffocated by darkness. I’m not sure how long I’ve been asleep, but I am guessing for an entire day and well into the next night.

As another bang echoes through the house, I quickly get out of bed, noting the separate heart beat is still haunting me. As I peer out into the hallway, I notice the door to where my mom is staying and the window is open, the curtain flapping in the wind.

I rush into the room, then trip back at the sight of the empty chains on the wall. “No, how did she…” She escaped, somehow, and got out of the window.

I’m about to go peer out when I get whiff of the scent of flowers and freshly fallen rain. I slowly turn around and step back, folding my arm across my stomach.

“You’re dead,” I say, backing away from Nicholas.

Nicholas leans causally against the doorframe, raising his eyebrows “Am I?” He matches my movements, taking two steps for every one I take, and closes the space between us quickly. When my back hits the wall, he stops in front of me, looks down at his arms and body and says, “Wow, I look really good for a dead guy.”

I shake my head as my pulse races wildly while the other heart beat inside me calm. “This can’t be happening.”

Nicholas rolls his eyes. “I think you always kind of knew I wasn’t dead. You saw me for God sakes.” He knocks his fist on the side of his head. ”Come on Gemma, think.”

“But that was a nightmare,” I say in an uneven voice as I inch sideways toward the window.

“Was it?”

“It was in my book.”

He rolls his eyes again, his playfulness draining from him. “I guess technically I shouldn’t be here, being dead and all.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Yet here I am.”

“So you’re dead?” I brace a hand on the bedpost to keep from collapsing to the floor as my stomach starts to burn. “How can I still see you then?”

His grins. “Just another amazing thing about you, I guess.”

“This is the last thing I need right now. An annoying faerie ghost haunting me,” I snap through gritted teeth, the burn becoming almost unbearable. “Why the hell are you here?”

“Because you changed the vision,” he says, stuffing his hands into the pockets. “And that brought me back.”

“But I changed it back to what it was supposed to be to begin with.”

He narrows the space between us and I start to stand up and move back, but he takes my arm and makes me sit down on the bed, not roughly like I expect. “Not thatvision. The other one where I was supposed to take you to Stephan. I’m sure you’ve been noticing that things have been a little off and out of order right?”

“But I…” I seal my lips together, feeling as though I am going to throw up. “I didn’t mean to mess things up… I just didn’t want Alex dead…. And I thought I was helping the world by changing the other vision.”

“Doesn’t matter—you still did it. And now you’re responsible for my death. If it wasn’t for you changing events, I would never have been in that car to begin with. And now you’re stuck with me.”

My eyes widen in terror as I hunch over, gasping for air. “This can’t be happening.”

“Don’t worry.” Nicholas crouches in front of me so we’re at eyelevel. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”

“You left the note on my bed, didn’t you?” I ask. “And you were that annoying talk-show-host voice too?”

He nods. “It was the only way I could communicate with you.”

“But why? Why help me now?”

“That’s another story for another time.”

I let a breath ease from my lips. “Why can I see you now? And when you’re dead?”

“Because you’re wearing this.” He touches the ring on my finger and I flinch. “It’s the orbis of silent or ring of the dead. It gives you the power of seeing the dead.”

Why would my father give this to me? How is seeing the dead my loophole?

Nicholas sits down beside me and I cringe from his closeness. “You have such a bumpy road ahead, and you don’t even know it,” he says, his gaze flickering to my stomach and then to the chains on the wall.

“Do you know where my mother went?” I ask.

“Perhaps.” He motions at the window. “You can look out there, though, and find out for yourself.” When I hesitate, he urges me by giving me a gentle push on the back. “Go ahead and look for yourself. Go see the damage you’ve caused, Gemma Lucas, the girl who destroys everything.”

Taking a deep inhale, I get up and go over to the window, my knees wobbly and my palms covered with sweat while vomit burns at the back of my throat as I peer out.

Garbage cans burn in the streets and fires light up the sky. At the next house over, a vampire is drinking from a woman’s neck in the front yard, right out in the open, as if it didn’t matter, as if all the rules have changed.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Nicholas asks as I back away, putting my hand over my mouth because I’m fairly sure I’m about to puke. “That you could change events and everything would be okay? That you could mess around with visions and everything would be fine?”

You need to prepare yourself. The brief vision I saw was a warning.

“Why would this happen just from me changing one event of my life?” I motion at the window where fires blaze and screams flood the streets. “How could it lead to all this destruction?”

“Don’t you remember the butterfly effect?” he asks. “This all happened because I never handed you over to Stephan that day; therefore he had to work harder to try and capture you. He started igniting the Mark of Malefiscus on the followers of Malefiscus, something he was going to do when the portal opened, but he did it sooner so they can help him capture you. And thanks to Stephan and his memory tampering abilities, they think they’ve been born with the mark.” He nods his head at the window where outside in the street a witch is attacking a helpless man with sparks of fire flying from her hands. “They think this is the way things are supposed to be.”

“Can we fix it?” I brace my hand on the wall to stop from falling over. “Can we make all the madness stop… make things better?”

“Perhaps.” He looks at the ring on my finger. “But right now every single creature marked with the Mark of Malefiscus is roaming the streets.” He grazes his finger across the mark on his forearm. “My mark is useless, though, since I’m dead.”

“I’m going to fix it,” I say in a trembling voice. “No matter what it takes... even if I have to die sooner.”

The corners of his lips quirk as he eyes my stomach. “You sure you’re strong enough to take that risk, even in your condition.”

I put my hand on my stomach and I swear to God the heart beat grows louder, stronger. “What condition?”

“Oh you don’t know yet.” He’s enjoying himself way too much. He steps toward me and reaches for my stomach, but I jerk back, which makes his eyes flash with anger. “You’re choices aren’t just your own anymore,” he says.

I look down at my stomach as what he’s saying clicks. “No… it can’t be… it’s not…” I shake my head in denial, the room swaying as reality slaps me across the face hard. “I can’t be pregnant.”

He laughs, but it’s rough and raw. “I guess I should be saying congratulations.”

Tears pour out of my eyes as my legs give out on me and I buckle to the floor. I press my hand to my stomach and listen to the heart beat and the fires and screams just outside, wishing desperately that Alex was here.