Bride of Alvar (Redemption Saga, Book 1) Chapter 36

I am so lost. Alvar has sent me away so I won’t suffer and yet, I’m suffering so much without him. To think of what is happening to him right now kills me. Doesn’t he know how much pain this is causing me? His embrace is such a near memory and now it’s a world away. This can’t actually be happening, I tell myself, and if it is I’m sure years of therapy won’t fix me.

“Lucy, you’re scaring me,” Mike shouts, his face is twisted in real fear too.

“I’m sorry, Mike, I really am,” I apologize, and I want to cry more, but I can’t, I have to think of how to get back. “But I don’t know how I can explain this so you’ll understand.”

“I liked you, Lucy,” Mike exclaims, “I liked you a lot. I was going to marry you I liked you that much!”

I noticed how he didn’t say “love” in that sentence and wondered.

“I know, Mike,” I say, my voice monotone and soft.

“How can you be treating me like this?” Mike is incredulous and I feel terrible, I do, but I still can’t stop thinking of my last moments with Alvar. I should have known something was up, but we’d become so somber I hadn’t read in between the lines. The way he’d kissed me so tenderly as if he’d never get to kiss me again. I close my eyes.

I’m growing dizzy, I can’t imagine life without Alvar. I’d been preparing myself to die, not live on without him.

A door opens from outside.

“Mike, I got your call!” A female voice shouts. “What’s going on? Are you okay? ”

A woman enters the room. She’s a cute, short brunette wearing a coat covered in snow.

It’s snowing? Huh.

“Angie, I’m so glad you’re here,” Mike says, looking at me in the way I’d seen people look at my mother. The way one looks at a crazy person they are not sure if they should be afraid of.

“Oh my gosh, you weren’t kidding.” the brunette freezes as she catches a glimpse of me. Her brown eyes get buggy. “You’re dead fiancé isn’t actually dead.”

“Who is this?” I ask, but my vision is turning to a haze.

“Lucy, this is Angie, my kinda girlfriend,” Mike states.

“Kinda, huh?” Angie says dryly, shooting him a look that makes me wonder how such a small person can appear so threatening.

I blink. The world won’t stop spinning.

“I need to get back to Axus.” I walk to the door his girlfriend had just come through.

Mike grabs my hand. “Lucy, you need help. Something happened to you, obviously.”

Yes, something has happened to me, Alvar happened to me. I’m not the same person I’d been before stepping through the looking-glass and entering wonderland. Alice has gone mad.

“Lucy, look at me,” Mike says. “Look at me and try to remember what happened. Breathe.”

“Have you seen Emily?” I suddenly think of Emily and how she’d returned.

“Emily is dead, Lucy, that’s why we thought you were dead too because you went missing at the same time. Her body was found about a week ago.”

Oh, Em. Why couldn’t you have seen sense! Why couldn’t you have listened? This is all my fault. Everything is my fault. I try to breathe but my lungs are tightening inside my rib cage.

Mike catches me as I fall and my world blacks for a moment. I’m so defenseless.

“What is this?” Angie asks the question but it doesn’t make sense and her words are fuzzy to my ears as I fight for my sanity.

“It looks like some kind of necklace,” Mike states, “she was wearing it when I found her but I took it off her because she was clutching it so tightly… I was afraid…”

This is the first hint of good news I’ve heard since arriving, the necklace I knew held Arlite.

“What happened to Emily, do they know why she died?” I ask, it hurt to know, but I need to. I want to hear if it was painless. Please, let it be painless how she died.

“She was found beaten in a basement. She died of internal bleeding. She wrote something addressed to you in blood on the wall.”

“What did the note say?” I swallowed hard and my body starts trembling.

“She’d wrote it in her own blood, it said, ‘Lucy, your blood is the key.'” Mike’s face was somber and my own heart wrenched from my chest, to know she’d died in that way.

“Give me the necklace,” I say. Emily’s death wasn’t going to be for nothing. None of what had happened was going to be for nothing. The note she’d left behind was cryptic but I suddenly understood. I needed to test my theory. “Turn on your stove, Mike.”
“Shit, Lucy, what is wrong with you?” Mike shook his head at me and his hand went to his scalp, stroking his hair back. He really thought I’d gone bonkers. “What have they done to you? Did they torture you too?”

“No, the man who killed Emily hasn’t gotten a chance to even meet me… yet,” I murmur, my fist closing over the necklace as I snatch it from Angie. “But it won’t be long until I send him to hell.”

“What are you talking about?” Mike shouts, “Will you just hear yourself! My Lucy never talked like this.”

I see Angie cringe at the reference, but I ignore it. I wasn’t his Lucy anymore. The Lucy who let people tell her what to do. Doormat Lucy with the crazy mother.

“Turn a damn stove burner on!” I command, my eyes blazing as I glare at him. I feel a little guilty for cursing at Mike like that, but it gets me a result because he stomps to the kitchen.

“Fine!” Mike yells back and stomps to his kitchen and flicks the burner. The tiny flames leap from the grate.

I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Before Mike can stop me, I force my left hand into the heat. It’s hot, but it doesn’t burn me. In fact, it’s not even painful.