Original Sin
by
Samantha Towle
Copyright 2012 Samantha Towle
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.
First edition
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Your journey never ends. Life has a way of changing things in incredible ways.
Alexander Volkov
Chapter 1: Six Months Later
“Nathan?”
“Hey.” His deep voice comes from behind me like a warm breeze in the cold darkness.
Coming up close, his fingers ever so lightly skim down my bare arms. He’s hardly touching me, but it feels electric, intense. He slides his hands into mine, entwining our fingers, and brings both our arms to wrap around my chest. Shivering with goose-bumps of absolute delight, I never want to let him go again.
Closing my eyes, I rest my head back against his shoulder and just breathe him in. I can smell him so clearly I can literally taste him on my tongue.
“I missed you,” I say.
The longing is so completely evident in my voice it’s almost palpable. I want him to know how hard it’s been without him. I’m never going to let him go again. Ever.
“I missed you too.” His voice comes in my ear, just a whisper; raspy, warm, doing inexplicable things to me. I’ve never felt as relieved and happy as I do now, here in his arms.
He brushes his lips over my neck. Heat burns under my skin. When I feel the hint of his tongue on me, I all but combust. Freeing a hand from mine, Nathan slides his hand down.
Inching up my vest with his fingers, he smoothes his palm across my stomach. I feel a shudder deep within. Then fingers moving downwards, he hooks a couple into the elastic of my knickers, tugging on them he turns me around to face him.
Looking up at him, I feel like I haven’t seen him in forever. He still looks as beautiful as I remember. His bright green eyes are smouldering down at me like there’s a fire burning behind them, lighting them to such extremities they’re almost glowing.
I run my hands up his firm chest, nails scratching over the fabric of his T-shirt. More than anything, I just need to feel him.
Nathan draws me closer to him by the fingers firmly hooked in the elastic of my knickers. He leans down and puts his mouth on mine.
I am melting into nothing.
His kiss is gentle, soft. He’s kissing me the exact same way he did the first time he kissed me in Dalby Forest and it’s making my legs so very weak, it’s taking all my strength just to keep vertical.
I wrap my arms around his neck. He runs his tongue between my lips, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth. Murmuring a warm delicious sound that vibrates through me, pulsing down … down. I can feel myself slipping further and further into him, and I love the feeling.
Beep ... beep ...
“Nathan?” Startled, breathless, I break our kiss.
“Time to go,” he whispers, releasing me, he steps back.
Panic seers through me, gripping me, covering all other feelings. “No, I’m not ready! You can’t go!” I reach for him, but he’s moved too far from my grasp and he’s slipping further and further away.
I want to run to him but my feet are fixed to the floor, like someone glued them there while I wasn’t looking.
I spin my head wildly, looking for something, anything to help me move. I can’t lose him. Not again. And then something catches my attention, coming from my right. A glow. Shimmering, sparkling, and it’s moving toward me.
“Sol?” I gasp, as he materialises before my eyes.
“Hey Alex.” His voice. I thought I’d never hear it again. Yet here he is talking to me.
My heart breaks. I can’t believe he’s here. He looks exactly as I remember. No blood. No death. Just Sol, stood here smiling at me, with his trademark cheeky glint sparkling in his eyes.
Pain aches through my chest. There are so many things I want to say to him. I need to tell him I’m sorry.
How so very sorry I am.
Something breaks inside me. I feel hot wet tears on my cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” says Sol. “I hate to see you cry.”
In an instant he’s standing before me.
I want to grab him, hug him, hold him tight to me and never let him go.
He reaches a hand to my face and dries the tears from my cheeks. His touch is golden on my skin.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke. “I didn’t know Jin was there and …”
“Ssh, it wasn’t your fault. I want to talk to you, about everything, but I can’t. I haven’t got long.” His voice suddenly sounds reedy. “It’s taken me a really long time to get through to you and I don’t know if and when I can get back, so you have to listen to me carefully.”
He sounds so serious. My heart starts to pump hard against my chest.
Beep … beep …
I can hear the sound again.
Tearing my eyes from Sol, I glance back to where Nathan was, but he’s gone. Like he was never there. Just a darkness where he once stood. A really big part of me wants to follow Nathan into the darkness, to find him. But I’m torn. I don’t want to leave Sol, not now I have him here with me, and so very real.
“Alex.” Sol takes hold of my chin forcing my eyes to his. “You’re waking up. I just need you to hang on for a bit longer. I have to tell you something.” Pausing, he shakes his head. “There are so many things I want to tell you,” he breathes. “But there’s no time, and this is important.”
I’m trying to stay, trying to keep my focus on him. I can sense his importance, his urgency, but there’s a strong lure of something pulling me away from him. My eyes start to drift again.
“Alex.” He hardens my name, grabbing my focus. “Listen to me. You need to pay attention today. Keep your eyes wide open. Everything’s not as it first seems. I know he’s coming for you, and he’s not–”
His head snaps to his left like he hears something. Something I don’t hear.
“Sol?”
He looks quickly back to me.
In his green eyes I can see him contemplating something, like he’s making the most important decision of his life.
Then taking my face in his hands, he leans close, and kisses me hard on the lips.
I open my eyes to the sound of my beeping alarm, alone in my bedroom. With a sigh, I reach over and slam my hand on it, hearing the crack as I break yet another alarm clock. I roll onto my back, sighing. Putting my hand to my face, I feel my cheeks are wet.
This isn’t unusual. I cry a lot in my sleep. I won’t let myself cry while I’m awake so I think it’s my body’s way of coping, you know, its natural way of dealing.
Pulling the duvet over my head, I close my eyes and rake up an old picture of Nathan in my mind. Just as I do every morning, and have done for the last six months.
Nathan is a constant in my mind, alongside everyone else I’ve lost. But thinking of him … them, is the only thing that keeps me going, gets me through this lonely bleak existence I have the pleasure of calling a life.
I spend all my time inanely fighting against my feelings of mourning the person I used to be. Mourning the life and people I’ve lost … Carrie. Sol. Jack. Erin … Nathan.
I miss Nathan so much it’s hard to breathe at times. Like there’s a physical ache in my chest that will never ever go away.
I’m trying really hard to move on. Move on from the life that used to belong to me. Move on from Nathan. Honestly I am.
>
It’s just not going so well.
Mostly, I feel like I’m floating face side up in the ocean, heading to nowhere in particular, but knowing I never can reach the shore. Because if I do, then it’s all over for me.
I spend all my time in my head, living in the past, dreaming of a future that can never be mine. So far, it’s the only way I’ve found that has come anywhere close to helping combat some of the loneliness which threatens to strip me to pieces.
Every day, I wake, and paper over the cracks with floating memories, knowing it’s not a permanent fix, but all I’ve got for now, until I somehow find a way to fill those holes permanently.
Throwing the duvet back off my head I flip myself over and growl the anger and frustration out into my pillow.
Eventually, I drag myself out of bed, go into the living room and switch on the TV. It comes to life with the early morning news.
The news reader is gabbling away in Italian. I understand little of what she’s talking about, I just like the background noise. Silence and me do not go well together. The people in that little box over there are the closest to company that I have in my life now.
Trudging into the kitchen I empty dark roast local blend into the coffee machine, fill it with water from the jug, and set it going. I’m going to need a strong coffee to get me through my full day of serving it. Because that’s my life now; well for the moment it is anyway, until it’s time for me to move on again.
But for now, I’m living in Italy, working in a little café called Piaz, as a Barista.
It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the alternative offered to me. I could be with the Originals.
Chapter 2: Barista
“Barista, un cappuccino, per favore.”
I brush the stray tendrils of my hair back off my clammy forehead, heated by the steam pouring out of the coffee machine I’m standing in front of, and turn my head slightly to acknowledge the deep male voice coming from behind me.
“Sì, certo,” I reply, not really taking notice of him.
“Grazie.”
Out of my peripheral I can see he’s still lingering at the counter.
I press the button on the coffee machine, setting it going, dry my damp and sweaty hands on my apron, and turn to him to see what else he wants.
He blindsides me a little. Mainly, because he’s so striking.
Seriously good looking. And when I say seriously good looking I don’t mean he’s pretty. I mean this guy is incredibly good looking in the sculpted sense.
I know the general thinking is that all Italian men are beautiful, and I’m sure there are many beautiful men out there somewhere in Italy, I just haven’t happened to come across them yet. Well, not until now that is.
Mostly, it’s fat, greasy balding men, I have to serve coffee to all day long. Not that it matters either way to me. Nothing is of interest to me anymore. Especially not men.
But I do have to say this guy here is something altogether different. He is silver screen material. And he screams money and taste. All clean lines and crisp white shirt rolled up at the sleeves showing dark tanned forearms. Designer hangs off his clothes.
His hair is as black as the coffee I pour all day long and he eyes are inky to match. I’d say he’s about thirty. And boy, he is tall. I’d give him six and a half feet. And I just know for a fact that he’s all rock hard pecs underneath that white business shirt of his. He looks like a movie star or one of those aftershave models you see on the billboards. You know the type that cause you to rubberneck as you drive past. I wonder if he is a model? Or maybe even an actor?
He’s the complete and utter contrast of Nathan. Nathan’s all dirty blonde hair, piercing green eyes and ripped jeans. He’s rough, ready, and very very edgy. My perfect.
I used to think I liked the clean shaven smooth type, like Mr Movie Star here. Eddie was the same. But that was until I met Nathan. He changed my world.
The thought brings a sad smile to my lips which I very quickly remove, plastering on a fake one.
“C'è qualcos'altro che posso ottenere?” I finally ask, realising I’ve been stood staring at him for what would be considered an unreasonable amount of time.
He’s probably used to women staring at him, but still, I feel a blush start to rise in my cheeks.
A grin edges his lips, lifting his eyes. “No, solo il cappuccino.”
“Prendete posto, io porterò sopra,” I say, adding my best serving smile.
His black eyes linger on me for a moment, then he nods and heads over to an empty table by the window.
I told Mr Handsome, ‘To take a seat, I’ll bring it over.’
I’m not fluent in Italian. That’s near on about the extent of my Italian vocabulary. I bought a phrase book and have been teaching myself the basics since my arrival.
I did the same when I was in France and Switzerland. It helps me get around, helps me get jobs like this one. I’m becoming bilingual, with a severe lack of fluency in any language.
I’ll just be a collection of polite quotes in all languages soon enough. I don’t stay in any particular town for long. I just wander the country, living and working in different towns until I reach the end, then I move to a different country. It’s what I’ve done since I left Nathan, just work in an endless stream of cafés and bars, moving across Europe, heading to nowhere in particular.
It’s hard to believe it’s been six months since I left him sleeping in that hotel room.
I miss him.
A lot.
I thought this ache for him would have dulled by now. But it hasn’t. Not an iota.
And it’s not that I want to forget about Nathan, or any of them for that matter, because I don’t, I just want to reach a functioning non-torture level. Which I thought I would have by now. But I haven’t. It’s all still as raw and painful as it was the day I left.
It’s like I have this deep gaping void in my chest and no way to fill it.
But this is just life for me now. I know this. And no, I’m not throwing myself a pity party, even though sometimes I might want to. I want to become positive and move on.
And I’m sure it will happen, real soon.
I’ve just got to keep trying, and I will at some point figure out a way to stop pining for a future that will never be mine.
But for right now, I’ll focus on keeping myself alive. I only have me to rely on. And for my own safety, as well as the worlds, I have to keep my identity hidden. I can’t drop the ball.
That’s why I don’t stop moving. Ever.
The night I left Nathan sleeping in that hotel room in Scotland, I managed to hitch a ride with a woman who was heading home from work late. She dropped me in the town centre.
I wandered around all night, thinking about Nathan, wondering if he’d woken yet and knew I was gone. Then when dawn broke I got the first train heading to London. I didn’t want to take the ferry over to France, Nathan would probably expect I would and that would be the first place he’d go looking, so I took the Eurostar.
I was nervous using the passport Craig procured for me, but there was no problem whatsoever, and the next thing I knew I was seated on the Eurostar heading to France, with absolutely no idea of what I would do when I got there.
When I arrived in Paris a few hours later, I checked into a cheap hotel near the station. Once I was safely in my room, I put my bag down, sat down on the edge of the bed, and cried. For what seemed like hours and hours.
When the tears ran out, I forced myself to think logically about my situation. The two things I knew I needed over everything else, was money and blood.
Just not necessarily in that order.
And I needed to move regularly, to not stay in the same place for too long, just like Nathan had said, but most importantly I needed to be aware of who and what was around me at all times. Risking discovery by another of my kind isn’t an option.
So the next morning I paid for a few more nights stay at the hotel and went looking for a job. Any
job. After two days I got one working as a waitress in a coffee shop. I stayed for two weeks, earning enough money to move me on to another town.
I moved through France for a couple of months, working in an endless streams of cafés and bars, places which paid cash in hand with no questions asked.
I got myself supplies to make hunting easier; plastic bottles and a draining tube. I hunted at night in forests, stocking up on enough blood to last me a week.
After two months I moved from France to Switzerland, and continued on doing the same. After two and a half months in Switzerland, I moved to Italy.
I’ve been here for about six weeks. I’ve stayed in a couple of places so far, but now I find myself in Sassano in Western Italy, working here in Piaz.
It pays okay and the owner Joe Fonzarelli is nice. I’ve had the urge to call him The Fonz a few times, but he looks nothing like Fonzie and more like one of those fat balding types I mentioned.
But Joe’s a nice guy, and the one bed apartment I’m currently renting belongs to him. Joe and his wife Carol own a few apartments which they rent out. I have it on a two month lease, which isn’t ideal but is the best I could get, plus it’s just down the road from the café.
I like it here. It’s quiet. And it’s a big enough place so that people don’t ask questions, but not big enough to pose any risk of bumping into anything unwanted. I get to keep myself to myself and that suits me just fine.
The coffee machine starts to beep at me, breaking my reverie.
I make handsome’s cappuccino, put it onto a tray, and carry it over to his table.