CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Angelique:
The dart shot poison through my system. My flesh burned. A virus rushed through my veins, my blood turned into blistering, smoldering magma. I felt like I would melt, my skin was wax and it was peeling off my bones in layers. I fell on the floor of the elevator and I was on fire.
I lost consciousness.
I woke up for a brief moment. Chaz was holding me. I felt safe then. For one instant, I felt safe.
Then I slipped away again. And the nightmares began.
It felt like I was going mad, my life became one long lucid dream and I couldna€?t break free. Sometimes I was aware of what was going on around me, sometimes I was sure that I was dreaming, but at other times reality seemed to take on a new meaning.
I was in a hospital and Chaz was with me. I couldna€?t see him, but I could sense his thoughts, pushing through the membrane of my mind.
I was falling in love with him.
But I couldna€?t.
I was standing in the hills of Scotland, beside William, his dark hair laced with silver, the lines on his face deeper than when we first married. He laughed, a thick, rich, boisterous sound, and he took me in his arms. We danced in the long grass while our herd of sheep watched. He kissed me and I leaned against him, hungry for his touch.
a€?Ita€?s been so long, Will,a€? I said.
a€?Long, my love?a€? He laughed again. a€?Have you already forgotten this morning?a€?
I couldna€?t remember anything but this moment on this hill, this now. I wanted to stay with him forever, then I remembered. The dark cloud. My rebellion.
I had taken the Fresh Start chip.
He pulled away from me then, his touch cold, as if he had just remembered it too.
a€?You shouldna€?t have done that,a€? he said. a€?Youa€?ve damned yourself now.a€?
a€?Thata€?s not true,a€? I argued. a€?The Pope saida€”a€?
a€?And now, Miss High And Mighty herself believes everything the Pope says.a€?
a€?No, thata€?s not what I meant.a€?
a€?It isna€?t too late,a€? he whispered, now from a distant mountaintop. He was growing smaller and smaller, traveling farther away by the second.
a€?Too late for what?a€?
a€?To pay a penance for your sin.a€?
Dona€?t go, dona€?t leave me alone, I dona€?t want to be damned. But he faded away and I was alone in the dark, in this horrid unending hallucination.
And I knew there would be a reckoning soon.