See How She Awakens (The Chronicles of Izzy #4)(18)

I reached for the door handle, and the minute my fingers connected, I felt I was exactly where I belonged. Tingly warmth spread throughout my extremities. The whole thing seemed utterly bizarre. Ultimately, I brushed it off as the endorphins created by the change in my regularly scheduled programming. I opened the door and stepped inside.

The pub was unassuming. There were several booths along the far wall by the door. Down toward the end of the building was a stage where live bands played on weekends. Then there were a smattering of tables and the bar. There weren’t very many patrons sitting around, but I hadn’t expected there to be many on a Wednesday night. I started to move toward the bar and felt as if I were being watched.

I looked up to find a pair of brilliant blue eyes trained in my direction. A sudden wave of déjà vu rushed over me as I took in the man belonging to the eyes. He was unreasonably tall and broad. He was built like an old-timey Irish boxer with a barrel chest and narrow waist. I took him all in, and I knew I had never seen him before. A man that imposing would have stuck. However, he did leave a strange tickling sensation in the back of my brain.

I brushed it off as a reaction to the man’s undeniable hotness. I broke eye contact and made my way to a bar stool just to have him come back into view. He walked up and stood in front of me, and I realized he was the bartender. I supposed if I hadn’t been gawking, I would have noticed him behind the bar. Operation socialize Izzy was going spectacularly. Sheesh, I needed to pull it together.

“What can I get for you there, Red?” He asked with a hint of laughter in his voice. I looked up into his eyes and was astonished with what I found. The man was just inhumanly gorgeous. So not what I needed right now, I was here for friends.

Our meeting led to me remembering how we’d become roommates, then best friends. All of it led up to the moment everything changed; the moment I found out I was something more than I’d ever known.

“What are you?" I asked simply. The most complex question that came to my mind was ‘what are you?’ Like he was going to tell me he was a werewolf or vampire. I needed to cut down on my novel intake, it would seem.

“What I am is the same as you, just a little different. I’m a Guardian, a sworn protector of the Seers. More precisely, I’m your Guardian. I have sworn a vow to keep you safe from those that would do you harm. Hence, I kidnapped you to a cabin in the middle of the Olympic National Park wilderness. I thought we were safe in Chicago. I honestly did, and then he found you. He’s been looking for so long. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Are you following me so far?"

I nodded in encouragement. I was afraid if he stopped I wouldn’t be able to get him talking again.

“Your mom is a Seer as well. She can predict the future outcome of events. She can even predict various outcomes of a situation based on the different choices that can be made. She’s amazing. She can pick out when a natural disaster will happen within the second. She can even predict winning Lotto numbers if she really wants to focus her attention that way. I’ve never seen anything like her before. She’s the best of all of the Seers throughout history, and you are predicted to surpass even her." He said this with a look of awe, like it was a good thing.

“You keep saying she is, Kennan. What she is, is dead. She has been for a long time," I said with an obvious air of confusion around me.

“No, she’s not.”

With those four little words, he’d successfully flipped my world on its ear.

Then the dreaded night, the night when I’d thought I’d lost him. So many times the memory had played out in my mind. So many times I wished I could go back and be stronger, to stop Xavier from ever hurting him.

I turned my focus back to Xavier, only to find he had been waiting for me to awaken.

In his hand was a gun pointed straight at Kennan. Before I could even scream, Xavier smiled in my direction and pulled the trigger. It hit Kennan in the throat and then he fired again hitting him in the chest. There was so much blood.

I was drowned in it, a whole new horror replacing all of the nightmares Xavier had induced. He had just brought them to reality, and I was overtaken by a haze of red. I was numb to the pain. No longer could I hurt; he had just taken away the one person that was my entire world.

So many times, I’d almost lost Kennan. And now, he was truly gone. But not without leaving his mark on my soul. My very existence echoed with hundreds of memories of him. The first moment we’d kissed; the life we’d planned to live out in our quiet house in Alabama. The way he made everything in me feel perfectly at peace. I wanted to spend a millennia wrapped up in those memories—the good, the ugly, the fantastic, and the awful—each one as precious as the last.





“Izzy, the time has come. What do you wish to speak into the flames?” Aberto said, pulling me from the memories parading through my mind.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I walked toward the fire, getting as close as the flames would allow me. I whispered into the flames to Kennan.

“Kennan, I don’t know how to breathe without you. Your laughter will never again be heard, your smile never again seen. I won’t get to feel the brush of your skin against mine. Though I miss you more than my words can possibly speak, I am blessed. I would live a thousand lives for the chance to live those moments again with you. To see your face as I walked into the bar for the first time, to rediscover what you were to me all along, to know you loved me—I would do it all again to have one more moment. Aberto says you sacrificed yourself so I could live. I would have stayed with you in the void forever. Never to hear you again, to know that my future will never be yours—the pain is unbearable. I don’t know if I can go on, I don’t know if I want to go on.” Sobs wracked my body, causing my words to come out in choked cries.