Witness: See Series (Volume 1)(34)

I moved my head from side to side. “I’ve been doing this all wrong. I think I’ve just been trying to look at someone and see it all, everything that brought them to that point.”

“What point they’re at is an opinion; the way you see them, others see them – the way they see themselves – are all going to have different points of view. When you see the living, you’re trying to do one of two things: either protect yourself, or help them.”

“And the dead?” I asked as I raised one eyebrow.

“With the dead, to do one...you must do the other.”

“Ask, though? How can I ask them to show me when they felt love – when they’re obviously oblivious to that moment?”

He reached his arm around me so he could reach the neck of the guitar. “If you ask that question, at least they won’t show the most horrid memories they have; they’ll take you closer, help you get the answer faster so you can move on to the next.”

A sinking dread seeped into me as the reality dawned on me that Draven always saw the darkest point in the souls of the dead…this emotion brought forth countless memories that were under the surface of him, having struggled with these images when we were just children. “I’m sorry for what you see…I want to take it away - but I’m scared it’s going to take you away.”

“I told you, nothing is going to take you away from me,” he promised again.

“Show me where you’re going. Teach me that song,” I said as I glanced down at the guitar across us.

“Not yet. Let’s work on teaching you to move to a place you’ve seen,” he said as he began to play a familiar song from our past – the first one he wrote for me.

I felt shut out, and that terrified me. What was there that he didn’t want me to see yet? My body tensed, then my deepest fear surfaced in my thoughts. “Draven…is she there? Is…is Bianca there?”

His jaw tightened, and his hands fell from the guitar as his arms wrapped around me. “What you fear has already happened.”

My heart began to hammer against my chest and my ears burned as a sick feeling absorbed me. I stood abruptly – Draven barely managed to keep the guitar from crashing to the floor.

“What do you mean?!” I yelled. “She came on to you? You’ve been with her?”

I couldn’t say another word. I thought I was going to be sick. I held my hand over my mouth as I turned away from him. I wasn’t going to let him see me cry. Before the first tear fell, I felt his arms go around my waist and his lips against my ear. “You are the only soul I will ever love – I told her that.”

I shook my head as I tried to step forward, but his arms tightened around me and refused to let me run away from him. “I don’t want to know...I don’t want to know...she’s the devil! I’ve seen what she can do to couples – she’s the reason you’re changing!”

“No…” he said in a firm, quiet breath. “She cannot have me – and she knows that. Every temptation, every word she knows has been said – and I’m still yours. You made me too powerful for her to touch.”

The tension in my body began to subside. I turned in his arms and stared into his alluring green eyes. “How did I make you powerful? How do you know that this isn’t just part of some big elaborate plan?”

His eyes moved slowly across my face as if he were looking at me for the first time. The wonder and devotion I saw there was too much to bear; my head was spinning, and my knees were weak. Then he began to explain. “Escorts…they exist…but because we are who we are, because we’re wide awake - they can’t work on us.”

“It worked on me – I lost my memory,” I argued.

“That was a clever mind game, one that would never last long on anyone - let alone you. Our souls will never completely forget our memories – you know that. How many dark souls have you saved based on that theory?”

I shook my head from side to side as I gazed into his eyes. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t; Bianca was nothing to toy with.

“If they’re not escorts meant to blind us from our purpose, then what are they? Why are they tormenting us?”

“They are escorts, escorts that have been around for a long time - and now they’re seeking a higher power.”

“What are you talking about?”

Draven smiled slightly. “I mean that they’re tired of playing in reality, and they want to control this world that lies in dreams – or at least, that’s where I think it lies.”

“How can they control that?”

“They can’t – not alone.”

“They want to control it together?”

He reached to cradle my face as he smiled slightly at me. I couldn’t comprehend why the way he was looking at me felt so differently. I mean, I’d always seen love in his eyes, but the level of devotion I saw there was beyond anything I’d seen in anyone’s eyes - dead or alive.

“No, I don’t think they care for each other. I think they’re both playing each other for a fool,” he finally said.

“Tell me why...how do you know that they aren’t playing you for a fool by making you think that?”

He let his hand fall from my face. “Because it’s obvious that at one time, Bianca wanted to be with Britain, rule with him – but he refused her, told her that she wasn’t powerful enough for him. ‘Cut from the wrong cloth’ are the words I believe he used.”