Enflame
By
Jamie Magee
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to any real people or event is purely coincidental.
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Jamie Magee
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express consent of the publisher and author, except where permitted by law.
“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”
Ferdinand Foch
For all those that fan the flame of my writing passion...
Other Books by Jamie Magee
Insight (Book 1)
Embody (Book 2)
Image (Book 3)
Image (Book 3)
Vital (Book 4)
Vindicate (Book 5)
Enflame (Book 6)
New Series
See (Book 1)
Witness (Book 2)
Synergy (Book 3)
Redefined (Book 4)
Where To Find Jamie Online:
http://authorjamiemagee.blogspot.com
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter One
Fear. That is the worst emotion. Some might think it’s trepidation, grief, or even heartbreak. They’re wrong. I’m not talking about the fear of insignificant things, phobias. I’m talking about that feeling that grips your core and turns slowly, the agonizing feeling that tells you that something is coming, something that you can’t see, only feel, and it’s going to rip you into shreds. It’s almost as if an echo from the future has reached back to warn you, to prepare you, but you wish with everything in your soul that you just didn’t know, that you could live in the peace you were in for a while longer.
The last time I felt like this was the night before Olivia’s parents died. If the emotion of fear were taken away, it would have been a blissful memory. My mom had taken us shopping, to a movie, the ice cream shop, then we’d listened to music, sketched, and did everything that young girls do to pass the night. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in trouble—that something horrible was about to happen.
I felt it before they ever crashed their car. It was a sick feeling that settled in my stomach, one that vibrated my soul. I remember frantically waiting for my father to come home from the hospital that night, thinking that my gut warning was about him. Even after he came home and said goodnight to us, I still felt it. The feeling grew and grew. Then, what had just been a lingering idea of dread lashed out at me without warning. I held in the gasp of air that I’d sucked into my lungs for an eternity.
I saw a flash in my mind, the cars colliding, the ambulances, the stretchers, and the Emergency Room.
When I saw her parents standing near the beds where the doctors were working, I assumed that it wasn’t them—that it was Olivia’s aunt and uncle that had been hurt. However, when a nurse rushed through the image of Olivia’s mom, I knew I was wrong. They were gone.
In this vision, their stare captured mine. I felt them ask me to be there for Olivia. I felt them tell me they would always be with her, a guardian. The image stopped abruptly when Olivia’s aunt reached the Emergency Room door and screamed out in agony as they called the time of death. The sight of her falling to her knees in her husband’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably, was more than my twelve-year-old mind could take.
I rose from my bed in a cold sweat. I was breathing so hard that it hurt. I thought about running to my parents’ room, waking them and telling them, but I was afraid they would think I was insane. Just two days before that, I could have sworn my mother had caught me helping an image, that she’d heard my whispers of peace to them just as I returned from wherever they’d taken me.
My mom had locked eyes with her ten-year-old daughter but only smiled nervously as her gaze returned to her garden. A moment later, she rose from her work, called Dane’s mom to come and watch me, then went to my dad’s office. I don’t know what happened there. I just knew that it’d been tense between them since that day. They were blissfully in love but clearly not agreeing on anything that had to do with me.
Instead, I rocked myself back and forth and cried, thought of how I would feel if I were my best friend. Then foolish, childlike thoughts came to me. A part of her parents were still there. I saw them. I was going to find them, bring them back.
As my tears poured down, I tried to call an image of them to me, thinking I could save them, fix this before Olivia ever woke up to find out she was an orphan. It must have been hours, but it felt like minutes. Olivia heard me cry, and she rose thinking it’d been a nightmare of mine. I tried to croak out the words that would tell her that it wasn’t me I was crying for, it was her, but before the words found me, her aunt opened my bedroom door and Olivia’s life was forever changed.
I felt fear right now. Gripping the hum of Landen’s hand as he all but pulled me down the street, trying to reach the home Austin had here, wanting to see his sister with his own eyes.
I kept replaying what I’d seen as a child, that veil that Olivia’s parents were in, comparing it to how I saw Dane and Clarissa before. It wasn’t the same. Reasons and excuses raced through my mind. I thought maybe it was because I was older now, or maybe it was because it was in the string and not a solid dimension. Then crazy ideas came to me. If they were back, or not gone, who else could come back?
Tears threatened to surface, and rain began to fall as I thought of Monica, Livingston, Olivia’s parents...my best friend Dane.
When the rain became a downpour, Landen leaned me against an aged stonewall that surrounded a historic home. His lips fiercely found mine, and in that instant a distraction was given to me. As my lips moved with his, as I felt this newfound hum in his touch, my heart raced and I could think of nothing but him. Wanting to get closer, to protect him from the savage pain grief left in its wake. I didn’t really want to know that Clarissa and Dane were gone, or at the very least forever changed.
His strong arms caged me as I moved my hands up his chest, trying to smooth the pain away.
The rain stopped just before the sun rose in the dead of night. He tenderly pulled away, bringing the atmosphere to an eerie balance.
“Don’t grieve yet. Don’t make this real for us,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine and squeezing his eyes closed.
“I’m just afraid.” My voice trembled as they met his blazing blue eyes, which were now open.
“I know,” he whispered, caressing the side of my face, trying to mask the stern expression that was hiding the raging emotions I felt inside of him.
He wasn’t afraid. He was furious. He had the intent to rip Silas into small pieces with his bare hands and I couldn’t understand why. I didn’t know what he knew or how he even knew it.
I wanted help. I’d never seen him like this. As the intent to go back for Marc, Brady, and even my dad came, he pushed away from me.
“They’re not going to feel this until I know
they have a reason to,” he stated flatly.
“Landen, hours ago you were in The Realm, in a dark and twisted place, and now this...we need help.”
“No.” His voice failed to hide his fury. Seeing my body tremble, knowing it wasn’t the late night November rain that was causing it, he let out a gasp. He then moved closer, gripping my hips and pulling them against him. “Me and you. That’s all we need. I don’t want to hear anyone else in my thoughts, anyone telling me to calm down or to focus on something else. I don’t want to look at a scroll, a birth chart. I don’t want to hear the endless discussion about what should or should not happen next. I’m fixing this.”
“They have a right to know. It’s their family, too.”
My argument was weak. My body was focused on this hum that was vibrating my soul. If I closed my eyes, I would swear it wasn’t him holding me and that terrified me.
“Well,” he said as his hands slowly moved up my waist, clearly taking advantage of the addictive power of his touch. “If you’re right, then that little girl will tell them, too. They will race down this street at any moment. If you’re wrong, if this is my problem to solve, they won’t.”
I glanced away from his piercing stare, knowing that the way we left Chara would have caused more than a small alarm. Our family would have demanded that Monroe tell them what she showed us, and Charlie would tell them that we’d seen Clarissa and Dane, that they said they were in the French Quarter. Instead of arguing who was right or wrong, I nodded nervously, knowing that help was coming whether Landen liked it or not.
Feeling my resolve, his hand found mine and we walked forward.
The streets were drying now, and the cold, yet humid air gave birth to a lingering fog that would brush away as we passed down a street that had felt more emotions than my soul could imagine. The echoes of a past marked in misery and fleeting moments of bliss seemed to reach out for me, begging for attention. I could swear thousands of eyes were firmly on me, and that sensation sent a chill down my spine. Tiny flakes of snow began to dance with the fog.
Landen glanced back at me with an aching stare. “When we get to this house, I want you to go in, start a fire, and wait for me to come back.”
“You’re not leaving me.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. He pointed to the sky. “I have to keep you safe, this dimension safe. This is not The Realm, or even Esterious. This city cannot handle this weather, or the threat of it.”
“What if they are there?” I pleaded. “Why would you still leave? I feel your intent.”
“I have no doubt that you do,” he stated evenly, not apologizing for the execution he had planned for Silas. “They’re not there.”
“How do you know?”
“We’re here,” he said, stopping and nodding to a two-story home set behind an iron fence. Every light in the home was out, and the detailed framework that marked an era of time that would never be completely forgotten added to the haunted, dark image that this town possessed once the sun fell into the horizon.
“I’m not staying here without you,” I murmured, edging back toward the street.
“Willow, there is nothing here that will hurt you. I wouldn’t tell you to stay if I thought there was.”
“Fine. But I’m still going with you.”
“No, you’re not.” There was no emotion in his solemn tone.
“You can’t make me stay,” I bit out.
“I can. Willow please don’t fight with me now. I have to do this. I have no choice. ”
His words sent an icy chill down my spine. “What has gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” he said, glancing away.
“That is a lie...I feel you. You’re not a lethal soul.”
“I am when I have to be. I can’t let you come.” His intent to not only confront Silas but also make me stay here was firmly in place.
“You can’t hurt him.” My timid statement was pleading to the peaceful, sensitive boy I’d fallen in love with, the one that these dangerous emotions didn’t belong to.
“I’ll find a way,” he coldly promised. I knew then that all my previous statement had done was ignite an untamable spark of male testosterone.
“I’m not saying he’s more powerful...you just can’t.”
“Why, Willow? Why would I not stop a man that let my sister die, rose her from the dead only to be in his army? Why? Give me one reason.”
His harsh words had given me an insight into what was fueling his rage, but I knew there was a reason why Silas did that. There had to be.
“Charlie loves him,” I finally uttered when his stare forced me to say something, anything.
Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say.
Landen put his hand on the small of my back, then pushed the iron gate open and briskly guided me down the stone walkway that led to the porch. “Then I’m doing nothing more than repaying Draven for saving my life. Now he won’t have to stand in a triangle.”
“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 smi
le 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.