See How She Falls (The Chronicles of Izzy #3)(12)
“Breathe, Izzy. You know that half of what he does, he doesn’t realize is completely messed up.” Kennan becoming the voice of reason was seriously throwing my world off of its axis.
“Um, when did you get on team Aberto? Aren’t you supposed to be as pissed off that he was thought-intruding again? Aren’t you supposed to be righteously angry about the whole Aberto intruding in our lives bit?”
“I know that we need his help if we are going to make it through this. It doesn’t mean I like it, it doesn’t mean I like him, it just means that I don’t want this to be something that causes more of a rift between us. I need us to be okay, and I know that he has to be a part of our lives now. So, take a deep breath, and go in there with a calm and level head.”
Calm and level head, my arse. I wanted to give Aberto the what for, but instead I did as Kennan asked and inhaled slowly, trying to erase the anger. In with the good air, out with the anger, or some nonsense.
“Fine, I’m calm now," I mumbled through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, that’s completely believable.” Conall’s disbelief did nothing to help contain my fury. I eyed him evilly as I slowly opened the door.
“You, I will see in a bit.” I eyed Kennan steadily as I slipped through the door.
“Get me when you’re done," Kennan answered before turning to talk to Conall.
I entered the office, shutting the door just to lean against it. I glanced across the office to where Aberto stood gazing into the fire. Emotions bombarded me as the memories all scrambled to the surface once more. Joy and anger warred with one another as I looked that the man standing before me.
“Why?” I whispered as tears brimmed in my eyes. The last of the memories surfaced, bringing with them the sting of betrayal. In the lab, he’d done nothing to help me. It was unforgiveable.
Aberto moved towards me more quickly than any human could. He stopped just short of me and raised a hand to brush my cheek, something he’d been doing since I was a child. I pulled away from him, using that same speed to put myself across the room. Well, that was new. Awesome. Just call me Speedy Gonzales.
“Don’t.” I choked back more tears as they threatened to pull me under. I needed to keep myself together. I needed to know. “You owe me answers, and not just some bullshit this time, Aberto. What in the hell is going on? Why am I remembering you from when I was a child? How in the heck did I get into the dreaming as a kid in the first place? And isn’t all of this stuff you think that I should’ve known? Would you have ever told me if I hadn’t started to remember?” I paused looking at the man in front of me. His beauty, even masked by years of loss and sadness, made the betrayal feel all the more fresh. “Why didn’t you help me? You were there.”
“Because you wouldn’t let me!” Aberto yelled, as he rushed forward, crowding me, backing me against the wall. He lifted his hand to my face and everything came rushing back. Every last nightmarish scene played out in my mind as the truth came, sweeping me back into the dreaming to witness them all over again.
The house was burning around me. The flames licked up my legs slowly melting my skin away and as I looked over I saw him standing there, shouting.
“Izzy, let me in," Aberto pleaded from just outside the nightmare.
“I don’t know you. You aren’t real," I shouted back. “Leave me alone. You’re just another form of torture. A promise of help that will never come.”
“No, Izzy. You can stop this. You are in control, even here. Be strong.”
“GO AWAY!” I shouted, as the flames fully engulfed me. As the vision faded I saw Aberto fall to his knees, pleading with me to let him in.
When I finally came back to the present, I was on my knees struggling to catch my breath. The smell of my charred skin still dusted my nostrils, causing the contents of my stomach to roil. Aberto lowered himself to squat in front of me. He reached up to brush my tangled hair from my face.
“I don’t understand.” I hoped that for once, Aberto might be able to tell me some answers.
“Izzy,” his voice came out part promise, part plea, “you are more powerful than you could possibly know. Even before you began changing, you had the ability to block people out. Just as you blocked your Guardian from the dreaming, you were able to shield yourself from me. I would have gone through hell to drag you out of that torture. There is nothing on heaven or earth that would keep me from protecting you, except you, yourself. Only you have the power to stop me, Izzy. So please, don’t believe that I would ever let you suffer if I could end it. I would have taken that burden from you and protected you, my directive be damned. I was under the impression that you understood, where you are concerned, nothing is off-limits.”
I stared up into his face, the impossibly tall figure that he was, and I realized that he was right. He would move the heavens for me, and he had. He had changed my fate and turned me into something, something that has never been before or will be again. Tears streamed down my cheeks as the charred smell finally dissipated.
“But what about before, why did you make me forget? How was I there, Aberto? I don’t understand any of this. Why would you want me to forget, why not tell me the truth when I first saw you at the ceremony?” I paused, trying to gain my bearings before asking the question that had been on my mind the most. “Would you’ve ever told me had I not remembered?”