Fall From Grace(85)

I had left early for school that snowy morning, before Lea had even woken up. I had been involved in an early morning music program, so she should have never doubted me being there.  Instead of taking the bus to school, I hopped on the train and got off in a remote area that was surrounded by the Jamaica Bay wildlife refuge.  I walked at least two miles into the thick forest. There was about three to four inches of snow covering the ground.  I brushed my footprints over with a large pine needle branch that I yanked off a tree.  Leaning up against a cold tree, I took a razor to my wrists; no tears, no regrets.  I didn’t want Grace Taylor’s life; the life of a teenage girl who had just lost her parents, and needed to learn to walk again after her body was mangled in a car wreck.  No more damage was evident on the outside of her body, but the inside was messed up and I didn’t want to be in there any longer.  I couldn’t be inside the body of a teenager; all the heartache, all the need and hunger was constant.  The worst part was her memories, so vivid and so real, I hated the fact that Grace was gone and I was there.  She would have been something amazing one day. Instead, I was there, searching for someone.

I knew that Grace’s soul was gone, I knew, as always, that day when I got shoved in her body that there was no way I could save her, but I tried.  For the first time, I tried to fight the pull of my spirit.  I wanted her to live.  My God, she was only fourteen years old.  Her parents were driving her to buy a dress for her very first dance. She even had a date with the cutest boy in school, Lucas Fraser.

I fought against her body, but it consumed me; devoured me.  I fought while her body laid in a coma in a hospital bed for a little over six months.  It was then that Gabriel had come to me, the first time in lifetimes.  I had thought I was forgotten, but he held my soul in his arms until I woke up as Grace, calming my spirit.

Gabriel had told Lea where to find me that day.  He woke her up five minutes after I had left, so I wouldn’t have too much time alone.  She followed his instructions exactly, bringing along a first aid kit complete with Steri-strips and surgical dressings.

Lea stared those terrified brown eyes at me in the bathroom, repeating her mantra, “You promised me.”

“I know I did, and I’m not doing anything to put myself in Carl Sumpton’s path.  I don’t even know who he is, but I’m sort of thinking that he’s really not Carl Sumpton.  Like maybe he’s something...else.”

Her eyes widened and she immediately started to hyperventilate.  “What?” she panted, grabbing at my shoulders.

“Come on, Lea.  Carl Sumpton was dying in a hospital last week, and now he’s running around trying to kill me?”  I didn’t want to scare her with the story of my little talk with the dying body of Carl Sumpton.  Lea was too good, too innocent to be involved in this.  “I just think that there’s something else going on and I don’t want you and Conner involved. I just want to get you guys far away from me and whatever or whoever is after me.”

“No. No, no, no,” she was shaking her head so hard I thought she might snap it right off.  “You are coming with us and Conner, Shane, Ethan and even Tucker. They are going to protect us.”  Grasping my shoulders tighter, she pleaded, “Promise me.”

Hesitating for only a second, I sighed heavily, “Sure, I promise.”

Her shoulders relaxed and she exhaled long and slow.  Grabbing me in her arms, she hugged me tight.  “Gabriel would never let anything happen to you. He always gets someone to save your sorry butt anyway.”