Dying to Return (The Station #3) Read online

  “You said you were sad, but I don’t agree. You look beautiful.” He’s still leaning against the curtain, but somehow he feels closer.

  “Oh. No. I meant the rain.” My wavering voice has betrayed me. Rush is standing in my room with his shirt open half-way down his torso. It’s all there for me to see and I can’t help but stare.

  “What’s sad about the rain?” He smiles, knowing there’s more to the story. He doesn’t move his hand from the curtain, just strokes the fabric with one finger, creating more ripples of golden shades.

  The water continues to dump down on me, but I ignore it, instead raising my hands to fully accept it. “I used to do this when I was a child but stopped a few years ago. I don’t know why…and that’s sad.”

  He nods. “Indeed.”

  Finally he moves away from the curtain and immediately the shimmer is gone. As he steps onto the balcony, he copies my pose and lets the rain soak into his hair and through his clothes. The weight of the water pulls on his thin shirt, stretching the opening downward so that his belly button is exposed. That small body part is suddenly so human to me.

  Though I know what’s going to happen before it does, I do nothing to prevent it. For some reason, I just can’t. Rush turns his face away from the rain and stares down at me with an expression of boyish happiness, and longing. His mouth finds mine in an instant and brushes against my lips, releasing an electrical current between us. Then it’s over. He steps back, watching me closely with his pale eyes, as the rain drips off his long bangs.

  Delicately, as if he thinks speaking any louder might break the moment between us like stressed glass, he says, “Goodnight, Piper Willow. Sleep well.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Of course it’s impossible to sleep after Rush kissed me. I toss and turn in the large bed like I’ve done most of the previous nights; my mind wandering off to places unknown until finally slipping into a fitful sleep at the first sign of dawn. And it was only a whisper of a kiss. The sunshine is bright and hot when I finally do open my eyes. After rolling over onto my back, I see a tray of food beside me. I slept through breakfast time.

  At the foot of the bed is a simple cream-colored shirt with a slightly see-through lace trim around the neck, and a matching pair of loose slacks just a shade lighter than the top. Even though the outfit is designed to look clean and understated, the fabric is intricately woven and feels like satin. I have no doubt it belongs to Della or her sister. The slip-on shoes on the floor have the same lace trim but instead of cream, they are a dusty turquoise color. Like the matte finish of an uncut gem.

  When I’m dressed and looking into the mirror I almost feel like royalty – like I belong in Lurriah with Andurush’s family. It’s not my home, though. Even if I wanted to stay, it would never truly feel like home.

  Today I’ll wear my hair down, long and wild. Using the bowl of hair pins that Della left in my room, I pull thin strands of hair away from my face and fasten them in a loose twist with the pins, letting my natural waves flow around my shoulders. There’s a rosy color to my cheeks, which could be the warmness of the day, or the memory of the kiss in the rain. Either way, my face looks back at me flushed with life. I wish Sloan could see me like this – happy and alive and simply me.

  I understand from my training with Rush that things will be different between me and Sloan. I will have to teach him to block me out of his mind; teach him to protect himself from me. Absurd as that sounds, it’s necessary if I want to have any sort of honest friendship with him, not to mention anything beyond that. Humans are used to hiding feelings from one another. It’s our nature to keep some things private. When I return to the Station, I will be the only human there that can access all those private thoughts. It will be a violation unlike any other.

  Rush is taking me away from his home planet today to visit another Station where I’ll be able to practice tuning people out in a place that isn’t full of friends. He thinks it will be the best preparation for the return to my own Station. I ran the plans Rush made for me through my mind for hours during the night, in between moments of wondering about Rush and why he kissed me. Honestly, I’m exhausted.

  Being a Seer is supposed to be a gift. So far, it feels more like a curse.

  ***

  Andulen and Della stand in the courtyard with us as the sunrays beat down from above. It is a perfectly beautiful day. The skies are clear, which means I can see the sliver of a moon on one horizon, and the pale outline of stars on the other. The city is teeming with life just beyond the gates of the royal home, but inside is quiet.

  Andulen reaches forward with his hand, and I extend mine so his palm can hover briefly in the air as he says his goodbyes. And then he hugs me. The gesture seems to shock even Rush and Della.

  “The stars are not finished with you, Piper Willow. I can sense it. If there is anything I wish for you to take away from my home, it is this – we all have a purpose, be it person or animal or the bark of a tree. What our purpose is, we only find out when we are ready. You are almost there, my child. Accept who and what you are, and happiness will follow you forever.”

  He releases me and steps to the side with his hand extended toward Rush. “Be strong, Andurush. And come home when you are ready.”

  He backs away to allow Della to consume me in her long and slender arms. Pieces of her near-black hair threaten to strangle me, but I don’t move away. Della has become like a sister. Though we have spent little time together and are very different in personalities, we have bonded in a way I never knew possible.

  “Dearest girl, I will miss you!” She pauses and her breath hitches. She is trying to keep from crying on my shoulder when she speaks again. “It has been a pleasure meeting you, Piper. You are forever welcome here.” I nod, feeling tears of my own welling up in the corner of my eyes as Della takes my left hand in hers.

  Something cool slides onto my skin, and I look down to see her wrapping a bracelet around my wrist. The golden threads, no thicker than strings of silk, settle along my skin and she pinches the ends together, sealing the bracelet around me.

  “I can’t,” I protest, but she shushes me with her finger to her mouth.

  “My Mother gave these to me the week I finished my Perception training. They are strands of the finest metal taken from her Royal wristlet. They are a gift, so don’t say you can’t accept them.”

  I shut my mouth with a snap, because that’s exactly what I was going to say. Della touches the strands tenderly, running her fingertips around the length of the threads and stops at the inside of my wrist. She presses down firmly with one finger, carefully and yet firmly embedding the jewelry into my skin and a warm sensation starts to throb up my arm. When she releases her grip the jewelry cools, and slides down my wrist.

  “When you feel sad or empty or just want to remember us, hold onto the bracelet as I did just now. It will respond with what you need.” She smiles and hugs me tightly once more and my tears fall. I blink them out of my sight before saying my goodbyes, hoping they aren’t truly as final as they feel before Rush leads me out of the courtyard and into the bustling streets of Lurriah.

  ***

  We pass by the shops slowly, Rush seeming to know that I want to take it all in before our departure. A baker is waving what looks like a baguette at a younger woman as he tells a story. On the next corner, an older woman with silver hair sits on a stool, weaving the pattern of a smiling child into a shimmering fabric. She smiles up at us as we pass, and shares a hand greeting with Rush. They speak silently to each other before the woman grins warmly at me and returns to her weaving. Two young boys run by with a hairless four-legged animal in tow – the Lurrian equivalent of a dog, perhaps. Every window is open, every person is happy. I wonder how a place has lasted this long without war and greed consuming and destroying the community. If only the people of Earth could visit here. Things would be different. Life would be different.

  “Well, I have no doubt you will miss this place almost as much as I do w
hen I travel,” Rush says. He has one arm carefully holding mine, but he’s taken considerable care not to walk too close to me.

  “I’m sure I will. I already do, actually.”

  “My sister wished for you to stay longer.”

  I nod in agreement, waiting for the invitation to return. He hasn’t offered it yet, and I won’t ask. The stubborn Irish in me forbids it.

  “So, the Station you are taking me to, does it have a name?” He looks down, surprised by the question, I’m sure.

  “Of course. It’s called a Station.” He shrugs, as if this is a sufficient answer.

  “No, I mean, what do you call it so that you don’t confuse it with my Station?”

  “Well, we have ancient Lurriah script that we have used over time to name things. It’s not pronounceable in your language. But they are not titled. We simply remember which bridge they belong to.”

  I glare at him. He’s being facetious on purpose. “That’s not helpful at all. Are the Stations regional? Maybe we could figure out a name for them based on their locations?”

  He shakes his head and laughs. “No, Piper, they are not based off of an Earthly location. People end up at the Station they are meant to go to.”

  My arm slips out of his as I jerk to a stop. “Now I’m confused again.”

  Rush sighs and points to an empty bench. I’ve not realized we are on the outskirts of town where only the tips of the buildings can be seen through the trees, until now. The lake must be close, but this is a different trail than the one he took me on with his sister.

  “The design of the Station might seem rather complicated to you, but for my people it’s a really simple set of algorithms pulled from time and space. It is not a Science I can just explain to you in our short time together. We study these ways for centuries and often still have questions. The idea behind the Station started as a dream. It is now your reality.”

  “You could have just said I’m not smart enough to get it,” I joke.

  Instead of laughing, Rush quickly reaches up and snags my chin. He holds it firmly and pulls my face upward and for a panicked moment I wonder what the last thing I ate was, and if my breath smells.

  “Don’t ever tease about your intelligence. You are a rare find amongst humans. Your mind is a magnificent one, Piper.” He breathes hot air in puffs against my cheek, and I wait for him to kiss me. His thumb strokes against my jaw slowly and my stomach flips again. Traitor. “I would not have chosen to share any of this with you, had you been just an ordinary human. Never doubt yourself.”

  “Okay,” I breathe.

  “Promise me.”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  His hand leaves my chin and he stands, pulling me to my feet. The kiss I thought was coming slips away on the breeze like a lost leaf in the fall. “But you are right, I think. Perhaps we should have names for you to use. Any suggestions?”

  I feel him stare at me when I’ve been quiet for a few minutes. We have begun to walk along a narrow trail among the grassy hills and my hope is that he thinks I’m lost in thought about names to properly represent the Stations. But that’s not it. I’m more than a little bothered by the fact that I wanted him to kiss me again so badly, and when he didn’t, my heart hurt. It actually hurt.

  “I have no idea,” I finally say. The steps of our feet on the ground are the only sounds until a flutter of wings erupt nearby and several birds take flight out of a tall conifer. They soar high up into the air and then abruptly dip to the side and out of view, riding the wind to the east.

  “We’re close to the coast,” Rush says, gently brushing his arm against my shoulder. The contact zaps us both with an almost painful current and I freeze beside him.

  His face shows a flurry of emotions. With every twitch of his mouth and subtle move of his eyebrows the fleeting expressions give him away; sadness, hope, pain, desire. I think it is love. And it’s hurting him.

  “Piper,” he steps closer, so close that our chests are almost touching. “I know you feel our connection. We’ve had it since the beginning. I’m pulled toward you, no matter how much I know it’s not want you want.” His voice is quiet, soothing and admittedly, sexy.

  “I don’t know what I want,” I squeak, timid like a mouse. But I don’t care how pathetic and tiny my voice sounds, because it’s true. I don’t know what the hell I want when he looks at me. This is a problem.

  One of his fingers touches my cheek briefly – too briefly. Something inside me wants to explode. What is this? What have I let happen between us?

  As his face comes down to meet mine, I stop breathing. But at the last moment, he falters and kisses my forehead, deeply inhaling the scent of my hair. With his voice strained and his hands now resting on my shoulders, he pulls away and peers down at me. “You would never choose me over him, would you?”

  It’s like a slap across the face. And not a puny one – it’s like the kind that in the movies would leave the whole cheek blotchy and bruised. I want to rub my jaw, as if he really did strike me. His hands slide off the wide straps of my top and down my exposed arms until he reaches my wrists and lets go. The gesture makes my skin crawl with need. But inside I’m screaming. That’s when I explode.

  It’s not a nuclear reaction kind of explosion. It’s not even noticeable to Rush at all. It’s my heart – blasted into a million pieces inside my chest; piercing my lungs, surely, because the pain is so intense I have to catch my breath.

  “We should go.” It’s all I can say to him now. It’s all he needs to hear.

  ***

  The rest of the walk to the coast is spent in awkward silence. Rush hasn’t said anything to me and even if he did speak, I’m not sure if I want to hear what he has to say. Once we reach the top of the last hill, the familiar place of my arrival stretches out before us, and just beyond it is the coast of Lurriah. The jagged cliff faces drop down toward the crystal ocean. It’s just as I remember it. The only difference about today is that the clouds hang over the horizon in tight, puffy bunches like cotton balls.

  Rush descends the hillside ahead of me, taking the small slope in long strides. I watch him walk and no longer wonder why his interest with bringing me here and helping me has become such a fascination for him. When we first met I found him to be arrogant and pompous and rude and unpleasant. He obviously didn’t feel the same way or he would never have taken me to his home to meet his people and his family. He would never have trained me and opened his own thoughts to me had he not known from the start what he wanted, and that was me.

  But I’m not for sale. Not even for borrow.

  The transference taught me more than how to become a Seer. It answered questions about me that I didn’t know how to ask. It showed me what I had the potential to be for the others at the Station. It reminded me of how I got to this hill that I’m standing on now in royal dress; of what I threw away so carelessly – my life.

  I also learned how this made Rush feel. He doesn’t understand it – not completely. His people don’t commit suicide. It’s not an option. Life is to be treasured and valued on Dhara. I suppose that’s the way it should be on Earth, but the difference is the pain of our people; humans have a LOT of it.

  With a heavy sigh I begin to follow Rush and notice that even with flats on, the grass below my feet feels soft and cushiony like memory foam. The crisp air of the sea fingers my skin and leaves a salty taste on my lips, like the wind has kissed me goodbye.

  Rush is staring off into the sky at a moon so close I can’t see the lower half of the rocky sphere, and I wonder if he’s been there. I wonder if it’s possible. I suppose nothing is impossible anymore.

  “After you take me back, are you coming home?” I ask, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt. The fabric blows against my stomach from the breeze and though I’m more covered up now than I was when we met, I feel stripped and exposed.

  “Hmmm. I don’t know the answer to that,” he says quietly. Clearing his throat, he turns away from the expansive sky with the m
oons and stars and suns and reaches for me.

  “It’s time?”

  He nods, so I give him my hands. We stand facing each other, our fingers interlocked together, sharing jolts of our energy. “You know what to expect this time, just don’t let go of me.”

  “Oh, I won’t. Don’t you let go of me,” I laugh.

  “Never.”

  Rush closes his eyes and I miss the blue of them instantly. With his brow furrowed in concentration, a gust of wind strikes us from the side and the air literally rips open. A tunnel of sorts with nothing but blackness sucks at us and I release Rush’s hand, throwing my arms around his neck instead. He pulls me to him, resting one of his cheeks on my temple as the twirling air transforms our hair into a mixture of blonde and black ribbons and I squeeze my eyes shut against him. I don’t want to see. I can’t.

  The next sensation I feel is of floating and then hurtling out into the openness. Rush is with me, and then he’s not. We mold into one mass of frenzied molecules and there’s the conscious thought of wanting to gasp for air, yet my lungs don’t exist. Just before the pain threatens to kill me, I feel the familiar pressure of Rush’s arms on my back, holding my waist to his as hair spins around our touching faces.

  My feet find something hard beneath them, and even as my hair settles calmly down on my shoulders, I refuse to open my eyes or let go of Rush. I have no concept of time; of how long it took us to hurtle through space from his planet back to mine and part of me is terrified that when I do look around, I’ll be suspended in the darkness, trapped there in pieces forever.

  When I muster the courage to peek up at him, we stare back at each other in shock. Rush blinks down at me and lifts only the corners of his mouth into a smile as if he instantly understands what’s happened. I’m still not sure what I’m seeing. Instead of the familiar pair of Rush’s piercing steel-blue eyes, only one remains. Its partner has been replaced by a stormy-blue eye the color of the Pacific Ocean. It’s a blue I’ve seen before every day of my life - a blue just like my own.