Fate's Return (Twisted Fate, Book 2)

Chapter Forty-Four

I jerked awake with a feeling of dread in my stomach.

My head was foggy, as though what I remembered was an all-too-real dream, though I knew it was real. How could it not be? Everything I felt for David made more sense with the return of my memories. It wasn't just a week. It was a week plus three deaths and a lost friend, not to mention the final death where I lost David.

Given the dreams I now remembered, though, I was beginning to doubt he was gone.

Laughter trickled into the dressing room through the door from the hall, pulling me from my sleep. I sat forward on the couch to rest my elbows on my knees and cupped my face in my hands. David—the dream, and every dream before this one, surfaced. The darkness, the light... the shadow that had incapacitated my mother's cognizance.

I lowered my hands and looked up at a knock at the door. "It's twenty to eight, Aly! Come on! Don't make me come in there and drag you out," Suzie yelled. "You owe me for choosing this place as the venue!" She paused. "Don't think I haven't forgotten, and I-I'm sorry about the last one. I never should have done it."

Sucking in a deep breath, I said, "I'll be right out, Suzie!" At least something penetrated her conscious. Usually getting Suzie to realize she'd done something wrong was as easy as soaking water up with a rock.

Another pause, like a hesitation, and then her heels clicked away. I sighed and let my gaze stray from the unopened door down to the floor. My gaze traveled across the room and paused as it reached the sitting area, and my breath held. Just in front of me on the polished coffee table, was a card with a single name etched on its manila cover: Alyssa.

Slowly exhaling, I leaned forward and grasped it in my palm. Who had been in here? I opened its flap and took out the unfolded card: Wear this and think of the clouds ~ Love Forever. D.

What the? With jerking movements, I tilted the envelope upside down and the clink of its object fell into my palm. Glass beads. A small bracelet with beads of brilliant colours gleamed: gold, blue, green, yellow, and violet. I held it up to the light and saw through its transparency to each bead's center. Tiny, almost indiscernible depictions on stones had been trapped within, but I couldn't make out what they were.

It was beautiful. I fastened it to my wrist and stood to secure the card's safekeeping in my bag next to the vanity. I finally had something tangible of David, even if it seemed impossible.

Five steps, five seconds, and five individual breaths—an unlucky number for me. There was only five minutes to relish my present and wonder how it had arrived, and then I was doubled over in agony. Everything was on fire. From the base of my neck down, I felt paralyzed. I was aware of the limbs of my body, yet somehow disconnected.

I cried out and wrapped my arms around my stomach, squatting to the floor. It was enough to beg for my ignorance as each memory of each death became front and center in my mind. Expanding from what I had remembered during my dream, all the pain and confusion returned. I was beaten and had died for justice. I had died to protect my so-called best friend, and then again for the same cause. A beating, a bullet, a stab in the right spot, just at my nape, had all killed me.

Rather than just seeing it, I felt it all over again.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out and tears burned at my eyes.

Every single death followed by its questionable return replayed in my mind, cauterizing me from the inside-out with agony. The voice and David. David's death. Tina. Mr. Tinsley. Even after deciding I wouldn't die for Tina again after my second death, I didn't regret my third demise. Without it, there wouldn't have been a final chance—no David. As the memories of our time together surfaced, I felt the pain of losing him again, but would never wish it away.