Mack (King #4)(24)

My mind fought against it all because it wasn’t possible. Not one single bit of it. Yet, there it was. Proof. Standing right in front of me. Still, I couldn’t quite swallow such a big ugly pill. Because if all this wasn’t a fantasy, then that meant all of the stuff Mack and his brother had told me might be real, too.

“I, uhhh…” I stood from the couch. “I need a moment. Outside. Alone,” I added.

Mack gave me a look, and once again I had to avert my eyes. Seeing a face different from the one I knew made my insides churn like miserable mules tethered to an old flour mill.

“I won’t run,” I told him. “Besides, where would I go?”

“Make it quick. We don’t have much time before they find us.”

“Your brother, you mean,” I said.

“He’s not the only one looking for me.”

“Oh goodie.” I turned for the doorway and pulled the handle. “I’ll be right outside. Please ignore the screaming.”

I stepped onto the dusty old porch that creaked under my weight and then flashed a glance over my shoulder. Once again, I saw nothing inside except for cobwebs, dirt, and rotting wood plank walls.

I shut the door. Walked a few yards away and screamed at the top of my lungs.

~~~

After my initial shock subsided, Mack and I settled in with our meager supplies, and he built a small fire in the fireplace to take the chill from the air. As for me, I had so many questions leapfrogging inside my head that I really didn’t know where to start. There was the part about my being a Seer. Was my mother one, too? Or anyone else in my family? Then there was Mack. He really was three thousand years old.

Crazy.

And people really were looking for him. And I really had been murdered by that King guy, reborn over and over again.

Crazier.

Overnight I’d gone from being a person who lived in a world defined by logic, to a person living in a world where logic was completely useless. The old Teddi—focused and analytical, who was probably smarter than the average bear because her world had once been free of emotional distractions—she was dead. Or more accurately stated, she was buried deep underneath layers and layers of the real me.

But who was I?

Unfortunately, that question would have to wait. Because Mack still believed he had to die, and I wanted him to live. Of that, there was no question.

After snacking on some jerky and chugging a big bottle of water, I settled down on the couch, and Mack took the old-fashioned-looking leather armchair in front of the fire. I couldn’t stop staring at him. That jet black hair falling over his ears, the black eyebrows and whiskers on his sculpted jaw. It was strange how different he looked, less all-American-hotty-slash-special-forces poster boy and more like a man whose beauty was truly from another time. Exotic, I guess I’d call him.

“You’ll have to stop staring,” he said, gazing into the fire. “It’s making me feel self-conscious.” He cracked a sweet little smile, and it was just as infectious as the smile I’d seen earlier.

“I can’t help it. It’s just that…you’re so…” I wanted to say f*cking hot, but instead said, “different.”

“It’s an illusion. A reflection from your memories.”

“So I’m really this óolal person,” I said.

“You still don’t remember?”

I shook my head, and he made a little hmph! sound.

“Did you expect me to?” I asked.

“You usually remember something—sometimes all at once, sometimes in bits and pieces, but you remember eventually.”

“And have you always introduced yourself in such a mysterious manner?” I asked, referring to the dark room at the clinic.

“No. Looking at you is…I was trying to avoid…never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

His response only piqued my curiosity. I had assumed that the dark room was because he didn’t want me to see him, but perhaps it had been the other way around. “Is it because you and I were once…” I swallowed the words I’d meant to say.

“I loved you,” he said.

“And now?”

“It’s complicated,” he replied.

“No kidding.” I held my hands out toward the fire to soak in a little more heat. It was the middle of the day, but it was also still February.

He glanced at me, frowning. “These days, love is something people see in movies or on television, a fantasy concocted by the media they try to mimic. Their version is fleeting and cheap.”

“Not true. My parents love each other. They’ve been together for forty years.”

“Because they likely have a unique connection—a rarity that goes beyond today’s definition of love.”

“What about you and me?” Obviously I didn’t love him. I barely knew the guy. Or…I did and—never mind. I had no f*cking clue what was going on.

“You and I have a connection, too. Only ours was forged in a moment of torment and pain.”

“Care to elaborate?” I said.

“It’s simple. Your father was a powerful man, and he cursed me to roam the earth, living his pain of having to kill you. You are also very powerful and didn’t want that, so your soul won’t rest until you’ve released me from your father’s curse. Which is why you must kill me—you’re the only one who can free my soul.”