They whipped around me, becoming frenzied as more of them became aware of my presence. I felt them fighting and pushing to get closer to me until eventually I could no longer move, their combined pressure creating a prison that trapped me.
I threw my head back, stared at the stars above and started the process of emptying myself. Just as Phoenix had told me, I pushed away my family, my friends. I cleared my mind of my joys, my passions, my sorrows, my hopes and my many regrets. I pushed away the exiles, the scars I carried from the wars I’d fought and those that were yet to come. I pushed away the angel guides, my maker. And finally I pushed away Phoenix so that all that was left was Lincoln.
I felt my body start to shudder under the sheer pressure of the lost souls as they tried to break me or, more accurately, to take my life force, as if they could somehow absorb it and claim back some of their own. I wanted to panic, but I pushed that away too.
Then I saw it.
It didn’t come from the sides, or push through the masses. It came hesitantly from above, almost as if it had been hiding up there, behind a star. A small cry fell from my lips.
I knew it was Lincoln’s reflection – his soul. My body ached to reach out to him.
It shone brightly as it floated down to me from above. I waited patiently, concentrating on keeping my focus on him and nothing else, making sure I continued to act as a homing beacon for him. And he came for me, sure and straight.
My falling star.
Eventually, he hovered right above me. My face tilted up towards his reflection – a mere disturbance in the air – and I closed my eyes briefly to draw in his presence. I felt it … the sun. Even in the darkness, the nothingness, he was still the sun.
He waited, moving around the edges of my face as if trying to caress me, as if worried for me.
I could barely take it. I had to bring him into me. I let go of everything that held me together. I cut the last thin ties that guarded what was left of my heart and I gave it to him.
As I screamed in agony, Lincoln’s soul poured into me.
The moment I had him, I was falling again.
The next thing I knew, I was in Spence’s arms. He was carrying me through the woods.
‘You okay?’ he asked as I blinked.
No. I wasn’t.
‘Vi?’
He shifted me in his hold and I heard a beep. We were at the car.
I swallowed through a dry throat. ‘How long?’
‘You’ve been out of it for about twenty minutes. I made it down the mountain and you were already there, where you told me to go. Fell with a thump, too.’
He opened the passenger door and sat me in the car, then grabbed a bottle of water from the back seat and twisted the top, passing it to me.
I took a sip. ‘We need to go,’ I said.
‘Where?’ Spence was looking around, no idea what to expect.
‘Back to Lincoln’s.’ I turned to the front and dropped my face in my hands. Gradually, all the things I’d pushed aside were coming back and it hurt. Overwhelmed, I let out a moan.
‘Jesus, Vi, what the hell happened to you out there?’
I shook my head, bracing a hand on the dashboard. ‘We have to go,’ I gritted out.
But Spence wasn’t having it. ‘Come on, Vi, you gotta give me more than that. Griff’s gonna have my ass on a platter for this. What happened?’
I shook my head again. ‘Please, Spence,’ I begged, because every word – every second – hurt, and would for the rest of my life, but I had to put this one thing right. And having Lincoln’s soul so close to me – in me – where it had once belonged … I could barely hold myself together.
Spence shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Okay, Eden, we’re going, we’re going.’ He jumped into the driver’s seat and we took off while he mumbled something very imaginative about exactly what he suspected Griffin was going to do to his ass.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
‘What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’
Mark 8:37
when Spence and I walked back into Lincoln’s apartment, everyone was there. Even Onyx.
They watched me, barely breathing as I made my way to Lincoln’s room. When I didn’t close the door behind me they seemed to take it as an invitation and followed. I didn’t mind. I had no idea what was about to happen and I might need them.
Griffin pulled Spence into the corner of the room and started demanding answers. Spence stuttered a series of defences that began with, ‘Don’t blame me,’ and finished with ‘I don’t know.’
Onyx and Dapper stayed at the back of the room with Zoe and Salvatore. Steph came up behind me. ‘We’re here for you, Vi. Whatever you need. We’re here,’ she said.
They thought I had come back to finish things. They were wrong, but I suppose in other ways … they were right.
I turned to face Steph and she gasped.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Your eyes; they’re green!’
I just stared at her, unwilling to fully contemplate what she was saying.
‘They’re not mine,’ I said, eventually, turning back to the bed where Lincoln lay.