2. Adella

2

ADELLA

I stare open mouthed and wide eyed as my heart thunders and breath catches in my chest.

“Jax?” I ask, my voice cracking.

He looks exactly the same. As if he hasn’t aged a single day. His prematurely white hair flows down to his shoulders. His angular face and sharp nose are exactly the same. There is not a single new line on the face that I knew so well. What is new, though, is the way his eyes flash with something that is either anger or fear. He looks over his shoulder as he barrels towards me at a full sprint, arms and legs pumping furiously.

“Run,” he says, sounding breathless.

The word doesn’t make sense. I haven’t seen him in ten years. Ten long, lonely years since the night he promised he’d return. Now he shows up, looking disheveled and scared and he yells run? Run where? From what?

Before I can figure out what he means or why he’s yelling he scoops me up and tosses me over his shoulder. I always knew he was strong, but this is almost freakish. He’s lean, like he always was, with a swimmers body. He was not a buff firefighter calendar type, but no matter that he carries me as if I’m nothing, which I am far from. I’ve put on quite a bit of weight since he abandoned me.

Instinctively I grab onto the belt of his pants as I bounce up and down with every pounding step he takes. He makes a misstep and I am throw up, landing hard. His shoulder drives into my solar plexus, knocking my wind out as I land hard. Tears fill my eyes as my lungs struggle to figure out how to reinflate. When air does come back it’s in a rush that relieves the burning. I cough, gasp, then cough again.

“What?” I manage to say.

“No time,” Jax says.

He’s running freakishly fast. The world around us is a blur. We pass the library and hit the street. He weaves around families as if they are nothing but motionless obstacles. I raise my head to look around and we’re moving so fast I could swear none of them even see us.

That’s when I notice that the back of his shirt is wet and sticky. A dark stain that is spreading. He stumbles and I bounce off his back hard. My head is hits causing stars to dance in my eyes but I also don’t miss his pained groan.

“You’re hurt,” I say.

“Yes, no time,” he says, breathless.

“Where are we going?”

“Away,” he says, stumbling again and this time he falls forward, barely catching himself before he drops to his knees. He’s running slower now too.

“Jax, put me down,” I demand. “You’re hurt. Let me help.”

He stumbles to a stop then lowers me to my feet. He’s breathing heavily and he is pale. I cup my hands on his sweat covered face and he’s feverish.

“No time,” he mutters, looking over his shoulder. “Keep moving. Not safe.”

“What do you mean not safe?” I ask, looking over his shoulder.

The street behind us is empty. Which is strange. There were just trick or treaters everywhere, where did they go? The streetlight at the far end of the street blinks off. That’s odd. I stare down the street trying to see what might have caused it, but he grabs my arm.

“Run,” he says. His eyes are so wide they are almost all white and his mouth is curled into a snarl. “I’ll try to stop it. Run Ads. I can’t let them get you.”

“Who? Me? Why? What is happening Jax?”

He pauses, one hand hooking behind my neck and he looks deep into my eyes. The old, familiar connection we had before is there as if he never left. It’s as if the two of us click on some level that goes beyond anything I’ve ever felt. The connection and feeling that I looked for in all those other guys but none of them had it. Not with me.

“Go,” he commands and the word echoes in my head. “I’ll explain soon. Right now, run. And know this, Adella, I love you. Always.”

The single syllable echoes in my head as if its reverberating off of the inside of my skull. Go. Over and over, doubling itself, and then I’m running. I don’t make a decision to run, I just act.

The hair on the back of my neck is on end and despite the terror rising I force myself to look over my shoulder. Jax stands in the middle of the street and there is, incongruosly, a sword in his hand. Where did that come from? The sword crackles as blue lightning moves up and down it’s length. He holds it to his right side, standing tall. A breeze blows, tossing his white hair as down the road another streetlight flickers off. I know, on some deeply primal level, that something is coming.

The darkness is too dark. Scary dark. The kind of dark that pools under your bed or in the partially open closet when you’re a kid and you know, deep in your heart, that there is something more in there. Something that means you harm.

My stomach clenches, cold sweat forms, and I run faster. Fear is escalating. I never knew there were degrees of fear. Not like this, but now, staring into that dark that is too dark, I know there are many levels of fear. I know because even the word terror doesn’t begin to encompass what I’m feeling.

And Jax is standing in the middle of the street. Standing between whatever is coming and me.

My feet pound the pavement. I know that I can’t stop. Not now.

A strange sucking kind of sound comes from behind me then I hear Jax roar a defiant shout of rage. I glance back just long enough to see him swinging his sword and hear it crackle as it connects with the darkness.