Enflame (Insight #6)(3)

“Landen, this is not you,” I said as tears encased my eyes and the rain began again.

I felt his body tense next to mine, then slowly ease into a calmer state. His grip loosened as he turned me to face him and cupped my face with his hand. As his eyes cascaded over me, I saw everything; not just the last few months, but his life before that. I saw him struggle with who he was—how he hated that he didn’t know what fate had called him to do. I saw his disdain for what the world had become, the helplessness he felt when souls suffered. I saw the urge to lash out, to make a stand, an urge that had been suppressed for far too long.

“It is me, baby. This is the person I don’t want you to see. The one that is lethal when pushed.”

“What if he hurts you?” I asked, reaching for his face, feeling the hum of his energy rush through my skin.

He smirked, turning his head slightly to kiss my hand. “I doubt it.”

“How do you even know where he is?” It was a foolish question, but I would ask him a thousand more if it would keep him here long enough for the others to catch up with us.

“I feel him.”

“I don’t.”

“More proof you need to stay here,” he said, stepping away from me, causing me to lose my hold on him.

“That is not proof. It’s a clear sign that right now you are only acting on your emotions—the bad ones.”

“Willow, I didn’t act on my emotions for almost nineteen years, and because I didn’t, you were tormented with nightmares and Donalt pulled more and more souls into his web. Not acting on these emotions has done nothing but bring agony. I’m acting on them this time.”

“What happened in The Realm, Landen? What did they do to you?”

“They made a mistake. They let me live,” he said as he knocked on the door.

I knew I’d felt someone inside this home. Sleeping, I assumed. Their emotions were in balance, but the rap on the door had given them alarm.

“You’re not leaving me here,” I argued once more.

“I am.”

“Landen, you’re out of control. How do you know Silas didn’t save them?”

“I saw his intent. This was not an act of salvation. He acted like a solider carrying out orders.”

“Whose?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

“What if they were ours? Perodine saw ‘Witness’ on the scroll.”

“She would have said if it was our family.”

He wasn’t even trying to argue with me. He was on autopilot, answering the questions without thought. He wasn’t here anymore. He was working out how he would end Silas, avenge his sister’s death.

“Would she?” I countered as lights in the home turned on and Landen knocked again.

“My point exactly. Why would you want to go back for people who’ve been hiding stuff from us from day one?”

“I wasn’t going back for her. I was going back for your brother—your cousin.”

His gaze shifted from the closed door to me as an ironic smile echoed on his lips. “Trust me, those two can find me anywhere. They have before, when I was far more furious than this.”

“What would have made you more furious than this?”

His eyes fell into my soul as his jaw stiffened. I knew the answer to my question: me. It was not being able to search for me, being banned from this dimension by his father. It was his father’s silence when Landen asked questions. That was the catalyst for what I was witnessing now.

Chrispin had told me before that at one time Landen was hard to control, almost too daring; that finding me had slowed him down and made him think first.

Right now, he was stowing me safely away so he could act on this rage that had been locked within him for far too long and with all my insights, I couldn’t think of a way to stop him.

The front porch light turned on, and the clicking of locks broke the tense silence between us. When the door finally opened, an older woman with silver hair and gray eyes was standing there, dressed in dark jeans and a black sweater.

Landen looked right out at her. “Chambers—from Chara.”

She nodded once as she pushed the door open wider.

“Have you seen other travelers? Clarissa, Dane?” Landen asked her.

The woman’s instant grief told us she had.

“Keep her here. I’ll be back,” Landen flatly stated to the woman before reaching to kiss my temple and turning to leave.

“Landen!” I yelled after him.

He raised his hand to tell me to halt in place. Then the door was slammed shut by the unseen force of his energy.

I fell forward, bracing myself on my knees. I was trapped by my insights. If I followed him, fought this out, my raging emotions would bring destruction to this city. I’d destroyed a city in Esterious days ago. The grief of that action had yet to catch up with me, and even if it did, I doubt I would feel as badly as I would if destruction were brought to this dimension, the one I was born and raised in. The only one that seemed normal at this moment.

“That was Guardian,” the woman said. It was more of a question than a statement.

Taking in deep, slow breaths, I nodded to answer. I then stood up, trying to catch a numb emotion I could hide behind. “Landen in this life.”

She stared at the closed door for a second, then briskly walked past me into another room that was off to the side. The house had a lingering burning odor to it, but seconds after she left me I smelled rosemary, along with other scents that were nothing less than Earthly.